Extra Kill

TWO

He happened to have a date that night with his redhead, Alison Weir. It was a little different thing, with Alison-he hadn't troubled to figure why-just, maybe, because she was Alison: he could be more himself with her than with any other woman. So over dinner he told her they'd take a little ride out toward Long Beach-something he wanted to look at-and without much prodding added the whole funny little story. "This boy," said Alison thoughtfully, “he's not just trying to build up something, get into the limelight?"

"I don't read him that way," said Mendoza. "And these days rookies aren't always as young as that-he's twenty-five, twenty-six, old enough to have some judgment. No, I don't know that there's anything in it, and to tell you the truth I've got no idea where to start looking to find out."

"But- Well, say for a minute it's so, Luis, though it sounds perfectly fantastic-if it was someone who wanted to kill this Bartlett specifically, surely something would show up in his private life, if you looked?"

Mendoza lit cigarettes for both of them and looked consideringly at his coffee. "Not necessarily. You take a policeman, now-he gets around, and in a lot of places and among a lot of people the ordinary person doesn't. You might say, if you're looking for motives for murder, a cop has a little better chance of creating one than most people. The difficulty is-" He broke off, took a drag on his cigarette, laid it down, drank coffee, and stared at the sugar bowl intently.

" Siga adelante! " said Alison encouragingly.

"Well, the difficulty is that if it was anything like that-something he'd heard or seen on his job-big enough to constitute a reason for killing him, he'd have known about it himself and made some report on it. And if it was something that had happened just on that tour of duty-which, if we accept the whole fantasy, I think it may have been-young Walsh would know about it too. Because, although some people still cling to the idea that most cops aren't overburdened with brains, we are trained to notice things, you know. And while I've never met a motive for murder that was what you might call really adequate, still nobody would think it necessary to kill the man because he'd seen or heard something so-apparently-meaningless to him that he hadn't mentioned it to anybody. But this is theorizing without data… "

An hour later he pulled up on the shoulder of that stretch of San Dominguez, just up from Cameron. He switched off the engine and the headlights, switched on the parking lights, and gave her a cigarette, lit one himself.

"And what do you expect to find out here?"

"I don't expect anything. I don't know what there is to find out. You've got to start a cast somewhere."

"Like fox hunting. You just turn the hounds loose where you think there might be a fox? I thought crime detection was a lot more scientific than that these days."

" Segun y como, sometimes yes, sometimes no." He was a motionless shadow, only the little red spark of his cigarette end moving there; he stared out at the thinnish passing traffic. "I'll tell you something funny, chica, with all the laboratories and the chemical tests and the gadgets we've got to help us-Prints and Ballistics and the rest of it-like everything else in life it always comes back to individual people. To people's feelings and what the feelings make them do or not do. Quite often the gadgets can give you an idea where to look, but once in a while you've got to find out about the people first-then the gadgets can help you prove it." He went on staring out the window.

Alison slid down comfortably against his shoulder and said, "Oh, I well, at least there's a heater to keep my feet warm. Pity I don't knit, I could be accomplishing something… I have a theory about policemen. Just like musicians, they come in two types-the ones who learn the hard way, by lessons and practice, and the ones who do it by ear, just naturally. You play it by ear. You do it in jumps, a flash of inspiration here, a lucky guess there. What you're doing now is waiting for your muse to visit you, no es verdad?"

He laughed. "You know too much about me. A ranking headquarters officer, he's supposed to work by sober routine and cold scientific fact, not by ear."

"Never mind, I'll keep the dark secret," she said sleepily. "Then when your hunches pay off and everybody says, ‘The man's a genius,' you can look modest and say, ‘Just routine, just routine'."

Mendoza went on staring at the boulevard. No place within twenty miles of downtown L.A. was thinly populated, but there were stretches here and there, and this was one of them, where the contractors hadn't got round to planting blocks of new little houses or new big apartments, or rows of shops and office buildings. Half a mile up, half a mile down, half a mile away to each side were close communities, blocks of residence and business, and the port of Los Angeles; here, only an occasional grove of live oaks at the roadside, and empty weed-grown fields beyond. The arc lights on the boulevard were high but adequate; the effect of darkness came from the lack of other lights to supplement them, the neon lights of shop fronts along built-up sections. And from the shadow of the trees, along here.

He wondered if Walsh and Bartlett had been parked under these trees.

Five minutes later a black-and-white squad car came ambling along, hesitated, and drew in ahead of the Facel-Vega. One of the patrolmen got out and came back to Mendoza's window, and he rolled it down all the way.

"Not a very good place to park, sir," said the patrolman tactfully.

"Unless you're having trouble with your car, I'll ask you to move on."

"It's O.K.," said Mendoza, "not what your nasty low mind tells you. I can think of at least three better places to make love than the front seat of a car. I'm more or less on legitimate business," and he passed over his credentials.

"Oh-excuse me, sir." The man in uniform shoved back his cap and leaned on the window sill. "Anything we can do for you?"

"I don't know. This is about where Bartlett got it, isn't it?"

"Auggh, yes, sir." The voice was grim. "By what Frank Walsh says. That was the hell of a thing, wasn't it? A damn good man, Joe was. I'm Gonzales, sir, Farber and I were in on the arrest, maybe you'll know. There when Walsh come up with Joe. I tell you, it was all we could do, keep our hands off those goddamned smart-aleck kids, when we heard

… The hell of a thing."

"Yes, it was. Walsh much shaken up? He hasn't been in uniform long, has he?"

"No, sir, but he's a good kid. Sure, he was shook, but he'd kept his head-he acted O.K. I tell you, Lieutenant, I guess I was the one was shook-and I've been in uniform seven years this month and that wasn't the first time I'd picked up some pretty tough customers who happened to be Mexican-but I tell you, with those kids, it was the first time I ever felt ashamed of my name."

"Vaya, amigo, we come all shapes and sizes like other people-good, bad, and indifferent."

"Sure," said Gonzales bitterly, "sure we do, Lieutenant, but a lot of people don't remember it when the names get in the paper on a thing like this."

Alison sat up and said that it was a pity, while all this research was going on about a cure for cancer and the common cold, that nobody was looking for a cure for stupidity: it was needed much more. Gonzales grinned and said it sure was, hesitated, and added, "Excuse me, Lieutenant, but-the inquest was yesterday, I mean I was wondering if there was anything-"

"More?" said Mendoza. "Like maybe have I heard a little something from Frank Walsh?"

"Oh, he did see you? I didn't want to stick my neck out if he'd got cold feet." At which point Farber up ahead got impatient and came back to see what was going on.

When he heard, he said, "Walsh is O.K., but he's really reaching on this one, Lieutenant. Overconscientious." He was an older man than Gonzales, compact and tough-looking in the brief flare of the match as he lit a cigarette.

"Well, boys," said Mendoza, "they say better safe than sorry. It won't do any harm to take another look. But there's no need to-mmh-worry Bill Slaney about it unless it appears there's something to tell him. I don't want him breathing fire at me for encouraging one of his rookies in a lot of nonsense, and I don't want him coming down on Walsh for going over his head. I'll square him when the time comes, if it's necessary. Meanwhile, could one of you do me a little favor? You're on night tour, I see-Walsh is on days right now. Could one of you get a copy from him of his record book of last Friday night, and bring it to me tomorrow morning? I'll meet you somewhere near the station, or anywhere convenient."

Farber was silent; Gonzales said, "Sure, I'll do that, Lieutenant. If you think there's anything to be looked into. Frank talked to us about it, but it sounds-"

"Crazy, I know. I'm not saying yes or no yet. Just looking. Where and what time?"

"Corner of Avalon and Cole, say about ten-thirty?"

"O.K. Thanks very much. I'll see you then, Gonzales." As the two men walked back to the squad car, Farber was seen to raise his shoulders in an expressive shrug. Mendoza murmured, "Overconscientious

… I wonder," and switched on the ignition. Then he said, "Better places, yes, but just to be going on with, as long as we're here-" and postponed reaching for the hand brake a minute to kiss her.

At ten forty-five the next morning he sat in his car at one end of that cruise Walsh and Bartlett had been riding on Friday night, and read over the terse history of what jobs they had done between four-thirty and nine. It hadn't been a very exciting tour up to then. On Friday night, he remembered, it had been raining: gray and threatening all day, and the rain starting about three, not a real California storm until later, but one of those dispirited steady thin drizzles. Californians were like cats about rain, and that would have been enough to keep a lot of people home that night.

In the four and a half hours Walsh and Bartlett were on duty, up to the murder of Bartlett, they had responded to four radio calls and handed out seven tickets. At four-fifty they had been sent to an accident on Vineyard; evidently it had been quite a mess, with three cars called in and an ambulance, one D.O.A. and two injured, and they hadn't got away from there until five thirty-five. At six-three they'd been sent to another accident, a minor one, and spent a few minutes getting traffic unsnarled there. At six-forty they'd rescued a drunk who'd strayed onto the freeway, and taken him into the station for transferral to the tank downtown overnight. At seven thirty-five they'd been sent to an apartment on 267th Street, a drunk-and-disorderly. Apparently the drunks hadn't been very disorderly, for they were back on their route again by eight o'clock. At eight-twenty they'd stopped at a coffee shop on Vineyard, and were on their way again at eight thirty-five.

The tickets had all been for speeding, except two for illegal left turns. Mendoza started out to follow their route. He went to the scene of the first accident, and parked, and looked at it. It said nothing to him at all, of course: just a fairly busy intersection, with nothing to show that four nights ago it had been a shambles of death and destruction. He went on to the place of the second accident, and that said even less, eloquently. Again, of course… What the hell did he think he was doing? Waiting for his muse, Alison said. Waiting for that cold sure tingle between the shoulder blades that told him the man across the table was bluffing hard, or really did hold a full house. Or for that similar, vaguer sensation that for want of a better word was called a hunch.

Nothing said anything to him. An hour later he had got as far as the place where they'd subdued the D.-and-D., and had reached the conclusion that he was wasting time. It wasn't an apartment building, this, but a one-story court built in U-shape around a big black-topped parking area. There were four semidetached apartments on each side, in two buildings, and across the end a fifth building also with two apartments; at the street side of the first two buildings were double carports, and a single one at each end of the fifth. All the buildings were painted bright pink, with white door-frames and imitation shutters; they looked curiously naked standing there in the open, not a tree anywhere around, or any grass: only the blacktop and in the middle of it a large wooden tub in which was planted some anonymous shrub, which obviously wasn't doing very well-thin and anemic-looking. Six television aerials stretched importunate arms heavenward; presumably the other tenants possessed newer sets of the portable type.

In his exasperation with himself, Mendoza thought he'd never seen a more depressing place to live. Even a slum tenement gave out a warmer sense of life than this sterile, cheap modernity.

There was no parking lane along here, and he turned up onto the blacktop to make a U-turn, start back downtown, and quit wasting time. As he swung around by the twin front doors of the building across the end of the court, the left one opened and a woman bounced out in front of the car; so he had to stop.

"Was it about the apartment? You're lucky to catch me, I was just goin' to market. You're welcome to see over it, won't take a minute to it get the key-" She might have been sixty; she was an inch or so short of live feet and very nearly as wide, but every bit of her looked as firm and brisk and bouncy as a brand-new rubber ball. She had pug-dog features under a good deal of wild gray hair, and her cotton housedress was a blinding Prussian blue with a pink-and-white print superimposed.

"Not about the apartment, no," said Mendoza. Oh, well, as long as he was here… He got out of the car and introduced himself. "You, or someone here, put in a call to the police last Friday night complaining about a drunk-"

"Mrs. Bragg, that's me, how-do. Mex, hey? Well, I don't mind that, you're mostly awful polite folk, I will say, nor I don't mind the police part either-matter of fact it might be sort of handy sometimes, with them Johnstones. Now there, if I haven't got the key, musta picked up the wrong bunch-it's this apartment right here, what'd-you-say-the-name-is, and a bargain if I do say so-"

"I'm not interested in the apartment? But he had to follow her to the door to say it, and she prodded him inside before he got it across.

"This call you put in-it was you?-"

"And what about it?" said Mrs. Bragg. "Got a right to call the police, I hope, I pay taxes, and not the first time either since them Johnstones've been in Number Three. I don't mind folk taking a drink now and then, and it's none of my business are they really married or not, which I don't think they are, but when it comes to getting roaring drunk three nights a week average, and taking 'em both as it does, him trying to beat her up and her yelling blue murder, well, l've got my other tenants to think of, I hope you can understand that-"

"Yes, of course, why don't you get rid of them?"

"0h, well, she's a nice woman when she isn't drunk, quite the lady, and the rent on the dot first of every month. Funny thing is, it never lasts long, you see-half an hour and they quiet down. Beats me what fun they get out of it, but there it is, it takes all sorts. Thing is, it went on a bit longer Friday night, and I thought it might kind of bring them to their senses if I called the police, which it did as it has before-they quieted down soon as they come and the older one, he gave 'em a good talking-to, and never a peep out of them afterwards? She eyed him speculatively. "Might be real handy, have one of you here all the time.

You're sure you don't want to move? It's a real nice apartment-now you're here you might's well see over it, just on the chance. Three and a half rooms, all utilities, and furnished real nice if I do say so-just take a look around-and only ninety a month. The gentleman I've just lost out of it, he was a real gentleman, if he did have a funny name-Twelvetrees it was, Mr. Brooke Twelvetrees, kind of elegant-sounding at that when you say it, isn't it?-and he took real good care of everything, I was sorry to see him go. You can see he left everything in apple-pie order, to tell the truth I haven't got round to cleaning it up myself since, except for emptying the wastebasket and so on. Which, however, would be done before you moved in, even to windows washed. Handy to everything, market two blocks away, and thirty minutes to downtown. Now you can see-"

Submerged in the flood, Mendoza was swept ruthlessly across the tiny living room (pink Bowers in the rug, Prussian blue mohair davenport, blond step-table beside a maroon-upholstered chair) into an even tinier bedroom, in which there was just room for a double bed of blond finished pine, a bureau enameled cream, and a straight chair. The bed bore a pink chenille spread with fringe, and there was a small bedside table with a lamp about nine inches high which wore a madly ruffled shade very much askew. The rug here had maroon flowers.

Mrs. Bragg pounded the bed vigorously. "Good mattress, good as new, you can see. Oh, I tell you, I was sorry to see Mr. Twelvetrees go-a real gentleman he was, and finicky as a lady, you can see by the way he left everything so neat. Here's the bathroom, shower and tub if they are all together so to speak, and real tile, not that plastic stuff." It was mauve, and the shower curtain was embellished with improbably blue fish.

"I'm really not interested-"

"Plenty of closet space, even for a man like Mr. Twelvetrees and he had as many clothes as a woman, you shoulda seen-a real snappy dresser he was. And the kitchen, if I do say, is all nice and modern as anybody'd want-” Mendoza was prodded back across the living room to the kitchen, to admire a very small table with chromium-tube legs and a rose-colored plastic top, chairs to match, real blue tile on the drainboard, a practically new refrigerator and stove. Mrs. Bragg pounded the table to illustrate its sturdiness, and it rocked violently.

"There now, he's got it over the trap-you don't need to worry about that, it's just what they call access for the plumber, case they have to get at the line underneath, and it don't hardly show a bit, you can see, it covered with the same linoleum. You see, it's steady as a rock, you get it in the right place. Everything handy. I don't deny it's small, but arranged very convenient, as you can see-" She made a sudden dart at the narrow kitchen door and snatched up an object from the threshold: I a shiny new trowel. "So that's where my trowel got to-he musta been at that Tree of Heaven again. Real helpful he was, and quite the gardener, I often said to him, ‘You ought have a place of your own.' He even got me some special plant food for the blamed thing, but it didn't seem to do no good. Well, now, you can see what a bargain the place is at ninety-"

"But really I'm not interested in another apartment-”

"-And I'm not one of those fussy landladies, either. Men will be men, single ones, that is, and some of the others, and women I don't mind, none of my business and live and let live I always say, as long as everything's quiet and no rowdy parties. The only thing I do draw the line at-just in the interests of my investment here, as you can understand-is pets and children, that I can't have-"

Mendoza, between fascination and the feeling that he might willy-nilly find himself signing a lease on the spot, perceived that Providence was rescuing him. He said in that case the apartment would never do, as he had some cats. "Cats!" exclaimed Mrs. Bragg, recoiling a step.

"Three cats," said Mendoza. "That is, a cat and two kittens."

"Cats I will not have. I'm afraid if you want the apartment you'll have to get rid of them." She looked at him disapprovingly, he had disappointed her. Something peculiar about a man who kept cats, and three at that.

"I'm only curious," said Mendoza, recovering his equilibrium, "but do you say that to prospective tenants with children?"

"Tenants with children or pets I don't take. I'm sorry, but you should have explained that to start with and I needn't have wasted time showing you over the place. I'm very sorry, but I can't make any exception." She all but pushed him out the door. "I'm sure you can understand that it's ruination on a furnished place."

Mendoza got back into his car as she banged her own front door.

" Quid! " he said to himself. "And my grandmother asks me why I don't marry a wife! A ningun precio -not at any price, take such a chance!"