Extra Kill

THREE

He looked, in the places indicated to look, and found nothing. If there was anything funny anywhere, it didn't show in any way. He saw the kids again, the insolent, sullen kids who didn't clearly understand that they'd done anything wrong, just resented the cops for putting them in jail. Who said sullenly, insolently, that the cops were making scapegoats of them (though they didn't use that word) on the Bartlett thing-probably had some reason to put Bartlett away themselves and were covering for the real killer.

He even thought about that, but not for very long, because while all cops in uniform and out, who carried guns at all, carried. 38's, they weren't smooth bores and Ballistics would have spotted it right away. He looked back in the records over Joe Bartlett's career, and at the family, and it was all one big blank.

Hackett went to see everybody again, and it all sounded just the way it had before. Hackett said, "I told you so. Walsh, he hadn't had the experience, that's all, and it shook him-only natural."

Mendoza began to agree. You just didn't run into the kind of thing it would be if it wasn't those juveniles-the fiction-plot thing, the obscure complexity.

Walsh had come to see him on Tuesday, and by Thursday, having taken his closer look at it, Mendoza stopped looking. He saw Walsh again on Friday, and told him it looked like a mare's nest. And after Walsh had thanked him for listening anyway, and gone, he sat there with a couple of days' work in front of him and felt uneasy about it. He didn't know why. It wasn't a hunch; it wasn't the kids' stubborn denial, although there was a little something there, all right: it had made them feel like big-time pros to have shot that cashier; that one they hadn't tried to deny-of course they couldn't, there were witnesses. And the cashier hadn't died after all: the homicide charge depended entirely on Bartlett.

It wasn't anything he could put a finger on-that made him wonder if he hadn't missed something…

After a while he put it forcibly out of his mind and went back to the several cases on hand when Walsh had first come in.

The day after that he happened to drop in at the same restaurant for lunch that Woods and Goldberg had picked. Federico's, where a good many of the headquarters officers habitually went, was closed for redecoration, and this was a hole-in-the-wall place which opened out unexpectedly into several large dining rooms. It wasn't fancy, but the food was good and not too expensive, and there were no jukeboxes or piped-in-music: you could eat in peace. Consequently it was crowded, and he wandered through the first two rooms into the third looking for a table. There, at the back, he ran into Goldberg and Woods just sitting down, and joined them principally because the only empty chair was at their table.

Lieutenant Goldberg of Burglary and Theft he knew, but Sergeant Woods he didn't. Woods was young for a sergeant, not more than twenty-eight; he looked more like an earnest postgraduate student of something like anthropology. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with a pale face under already thinning dark hair, a rich bass voice, and a very quiet manner.

Goldberg asked how life was treating Mendoza these days, and Mendoza said he couldn't complain. The waiter took their orders and went away, cigarettes were lit, and after a little desultory conversation Goldberg asked suddenly, "Say, what should you do for a cat that has fleas? Is the stuff for dogs too strong?"

"Fleas? Cats that are properly cared for don't have fleas. Where does she sleep-or he?"

"She, we've still got a kitten we couldn't find a home for. In the garage, at least I fixed a box with an old blanket, but half the time- ”

“ Entendido, there's your trouble, leaving her outside at night to roam all over. Keep her in-I know people think they're nocturnal animals, but when they live with us they keep our hours, you know."

"Well, I suppose I could bring the box into the service porch."

"You can, not that it'll do much good," said Mendoza. "She'll pick her own bed, and quite likely it'll be yours or one of the kids'. Let her. If you've been feeding her things out of cans, stop it, and get her fresh liver and beef. Wheatgerm oil twice a week, and lots of brushing with a good stiff brush."

"Look," said Goldberg, "I've got a living to earn, I can't spend all the time waiting on a cat, and my wife's got the house and the kids-neither can she. Do you know what beef liver's gone to now? Of course it's an academic question with you. All I asked was about flea powder."

"And I told you what to do. Let a vet de-flea her now. Fresh meat only, horsemeat'll do, and meanwhile brush half a can of talcum into her every day."

"Look," said Goldberg, "she's only a cat.”

Mendoza put out his cigarette as the waiter came up and said, "You shouldn't have a cat, Goldberg, you've got the wrong attitude entirely. Cat people say, ‘We're only human beings.' "

Woods uttered the deep rumbling laugh that sounded so surprising coming from his weedy-looking frame and said, "Reason I don't like cats around much-like a lot of people, I think-not that I don't like them exactly, but they make me feel so damned inferior."

"Isn't it the truth," agreed Mendoza. "Yes, if they'd only admit it, I'm convinced that's the reason some people say they can't stand cats. Now I'm an egotist myself, I admit it, but it certainly hasn't cured me. Right now I've got a cat that's crazy-in a devilish sort of way-and even he makes me feel inferior.”

"Is that so?" said Woods. "A crazy cat?"

"Possessed of the devil. I intended to keep one of the kittens, but I ended up with this El Se n or as well because nobody else would put up with him. He's got no sense at all except for planning deliberate mischief, and that he's very damned smart at. I call him El Se n or for convenience-sometimes it's Se n or Estupido, and sometimes Se n or Malicioso, and other things. I believe he must have been a witch's familiar in another incarnation. But even when he's being stupid, he can look down his nose at me as superior as the other two."

"Madame Cara," said Sergeant Woods, regarding his Beef Stroganov thoughtfully, "says that the highest point of animal reincarnation is represented by cats, and they're all of them superior human souls on the way-er-up the ladder again."

"And who in hell is Madame Cara?" Goldberg wanted to know. Woods grinned. "This thing I'm on now. That embezzlement. I suppose I should say ‘alleged,' like the papers-I've got no proof he did it, and as far as I can see I never will unless I catch up to him-and it looks as if maybe he borrowed one of their spells and made himself invisible.”

"Oh, that Temple of Mystic Truth thing," said Goldberg.

"What is mystic about the truth?" asked Mendoza.

"There you've got me, Lieutenant," said Woods. "All I know is what it says on the sign out front. Myself, I thought at first it ought to have been handed over to somebody in Rackets, but of course however the Kingmans came by the money it did belong to them-that is, to the-er-church, which is officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization-"

"Now there's what they call labored humor,” said Goldberg.

"-And this Twelvetrees hadn't any title to it just as their treasurer. Yes, I thought," said Woods, looking intellectually amused, "that I'd learned pretty thoroughly what damned fools people can be, but Madame Cara Kingman and her husband've given me another lesson. Twenty-three hundred bucks, if you'll believe me-one month's take."

"Good God," said Goldberg, "I'm in the wrong business. Just for telling fortunes?"

"Well, it's dressed up some. Quite fancy, in fact-fancy enough to attract people with money and-er-more sophistication than the kind who patronize the gypsy fortune teller at the amusement pier. But nine out of ten people are interested in that sort of thing, you know, it's just a matter of degrees of intelligence."

"Twelvetrees," said Mendoza meditatively. "He absconded with the take?"

"That he did, at least he's gone and the money's gone, and at the same time. Where I couldn't say. I've been looking for six days, and not a smell. Mr. Brooke Twelvetrees has pulled the slickest vanishing act since vaudeville died."

Mendoza laid down his fork. "Mr. Brooke Twelvetrees. Elegant-sounding name. Did it really belong to him, I wonder?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? And sort of gratifying in a way-you know, the biter bit and all that-the Kingmans seem to have trusted him absolutely. Yes, he's done a very nice flit, overnight-left a note for his landlady and not so much as a bag of dirty laundry to provide a clue, and disappeared into the blue."

“I suppose you've looked at his recent quarters, then-as well as elsewhere. Out on 267th Street."

Woods stared at him, also laid down his fork, and said, "How d'you come to know that, Lieutenant? I didn't know Homicide was interested in Twelvetrees. What-"

It ran a small finger up between Mendoza's shoulder blades, the feeling he'd waited for before in vain. "Woods-when did he go?" he asked softly.

The sergeant cocked his head at him curiously, and then, as if divining his urgency, answered, terse as an official report. "A week ago last night. Last seen four in the afternoon by the Kingmans. They came in Monday to lay a charge."

Mendoza said, " Donde menos se piensa solta le liebre -isn't it the truth, things happen unexpectedly… Indulge me a minute, Sergeant-he's just vanished, no sign at all of his leaving for anywhere, even in disguise?"

"Not a smell. We've been working our tails off looking. His car was found abandoned down near the Union Station-nothing in it. None of the personnel there could identify his photograph, and he's a man you'd remember if you'd seen him-especially a woman. Nobody remembered him at an airport or a bus station either. Or any of the places he might have gone to buy a disguise-false whiskers or something. If he dyed his hair, he didn't do it with anything he bought at a drugstore near where he lived or near this-er-Temple. Oh, yes, we've looked in all the indicated places, but maybe he's been too smart for us. And now, why?"

" Aqui esta, wait for it-wait. Now what is this, what could it-? What kind of a car-did it have long tailfins that curved up at the ends?"

Woods opened his mouth, shut it, and said, "Well, no. It's a two-year-old Porsche, an open roadster."

"You don't tell me," said Mendoza slowly. "You don't tell me. Now, I wonder… A two-year-old Porsche. And twenty-three hundred dollars. That cancels out in a way, doesn't it? Not like a battered ten-year-old heap not worth fifty bucks on a turn-in. And he couldn't retire on twenty-three hundred. Not a very big job, was it?-‘worth all the trouble of a disguise, covering his tracks so thoroughly-leaving the car-? I mean, surely he could have accumulated a bigger take than that if he'd planned to steal any money at all… " What was it in his mind, struggling up to the surface? He sat very still, letting it find its own way out. "Woods-when and how did you take a look at that place Twelvetrees lived?"

The half-untouched food congealed on their plates. Goldberg went on eating, watching and listening interestedly. "Mix-up about that," said Woods. "We couldn't get the address for a while-the one the Kingmans had was three years old, the place he'd lived when he hooked up with them nearly four years ago. They knew he'd moved, they thought they had the address somewhere but couldn't find it. There'd evidently been no occasion to contact him at home. Thought they had the phone number too, but couldn't find that. That kind of peop1e-or making out they are-unworldly, you know. In the end we got it from one of the-er-members of the sect, phone number that is, and that was Wednesday morning. When I got the address from the phone company, I went out there, of course-Wednesday afternoon-and I looked it over. Well, I didn't take the floors up, but-"

"You didn't take the floors up," said Mendoza. "Maybe you should have done just that, Sergeant. Maybe. That-that perpetual talking machine Mrs. Bragg-she didn't follow you around pointing out all the amenities, I take it."

"I don't," said Woods, "encourage people to watch me work, no. I shut the door on her. And just how do you know about Mrs. Bragg and 267th Street? What's your interest in Twelvetrees?"

"I don't know that I've got any-yet. But I think you and I and my Sergeant Hackett will go out there right away and take a closer look at a couple of things. I'l1 explain it to you on the way, it's a funny little story-and I may be seeing ghosts, but it just occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, Mr. Twelvetrees is being slandered… All that blacktop, so inconvenient. And a trowel. Of all things, a trowel… Vaya, I must be seeing ghosts-it's even more far-fetched than what Walsh- But no I have to make sure."

They stood in the middle of the little living room, the three of them, at two o'clock that afternoon, and Hackett said, "You haven't got much to make this add up, Luis." They had got rid of Mrs. Bragg by sheer weight of numbers and official supremacy, but she might well be lurking outside, suspicious of their intentions toward her good furniture and rugs. "If you're just relying on a hunch, and the damnedest far-fetched one I ever knew you to have, at that-"

"Not at all," said Mendoza. "Sober deduction from sober fact, it's just that I happened to have a couple of facts Woods didn't have. I admit to you I've had a little funny feeling that something's fishy-it's been growing on me-but the facts are there to be looked at, and very suggestive too. Anybody could add them up. I don't say it's impossible Twelvetrees didn't decide to decamp with a month's take when he could have made it the whole bank account, and we all know from experience that people can disappear without trace. But it's odd he should go to so much trouble for a relatively small amount, when it involved abandoning an expensive car and the promise of more opportunity to come-after all, he'd been with this racket for four years, didn't you say, Woods? Evidently it paid off. Why should he walk out on it just for twenty-three hundred he wasn't entitled to? It isn't reasonable-I know crimes get committed for peanuts, but not by people of this kind."

"Which," said Woods, "did occur to me, Lieutenant, but there's a couple of ways it could have happened. Maybe some skirt was making things hot for him and he had to get out. Maybe he was afraid the Kingmans were going to fire him, or somebody was threatening to tell them the tale on him, and he'd be out anyway-and he figured he might as well take a little something along. Maybe it was just impulse. People aren't always reasonable, in fact I'd say very seldom."

"I know, I know," said Mendoza. "But look at a couple of other things to add up. Why a note to tell Mrs. Bragg he was leaving? All he had to do was go six steps from his own front door and tell her in person. She was home that Friday night, we know. He didn't leave in that much of a hurry, not when he took time to pack up all his personal belongings. Why in hell should he thumbtack that note to his front door instead of ringing her doorbell? And if he was in such a hurry, why did he take time out from his packing to do a little desultory gardening on that anemic-looking Tree of Heaven out there? She says she had her nice new trowel about noon that day, she knows, because she used it to pry open a can of paint."

"A trowel," said Hackett in exasperation. "A trowel, for God's sake."

"All right, all right, it won't take long to look!” Mendoza turned and went out to the kitchen. "I couldn't help remembering it, we get in the habit of noticing things automatically, that's all. Damn it, look-the man had lived here for nearly three years, and if he didn't cook his own meals he made coffee in the morning anyway, he used this table for something sometimes." He laid a hand on it; it was steady, but when he moved it to any other angle it rocked at a touch. “How does a table get shoved around out of its usual place? In the process of cleaning the floor, something like that. I doubt if Twelvetrees was that good a housewife. A bachelor living alone, mostly if he doesn't hire it done it doesn't get done-what the hell? But the table was in the wrong place on Wednesday morning-before you got here, Woods-and Mrs. Bragg said she hadn't got round to cleaning here yet. And that trowel was over there by the kitchen door. Why?" He shoved the table clear away from the trap door in the iioor at this end of the kitchen. It was about two feet by two and a half, the trap, and covered with linoleum like the rest of the floor; only a little dark line round it, and the small flat hinges, betrayed its presence. One of the makeshift arrangements to be found in such jerry-built new rental units, in a climate where jerry-building wasn't always detectable at once. Mendoza reached down and pulled up the trap by its dime-store bolt, which slid back and forth easily. "Who's going down?"

"Not you, obviously," said Hackett, "in that suit. I'll go."

"You've been gaining weight, I don't think you could make it. All right, it's my idea, I'll do the dirty work." Mendoza sat down and slid his legs through the opening.

"That's a lie, a hundred and ninety on the nose ever since I left college. Be careful, for God's sake, don't go breaking a leg-hell of a place to haul you out of."

"Hell of a place to get anything into," added Woods to that, gloomily.

"He gets these brainstorms," said Hackett, squatting beside the trap resignedly. "About once in a hundred times he's right, just by the law of averages, you know, and that convinces him all over again to follow his hunches. Well?" he bellowed down the hole, where Mendoza had now vanished.

" No me empuje -don't push me! I've just got here." Mendoza's voice was muffled. "I need a flashlight, hand one down… Valgame Dios y un millen demonios! " That came out as he straightened too abruptly and hit his head on the floor joists. Like most California houses, this sat only a little above a shallow foundation; the space undemeath the floor was scarcely four feet high.

Hackett laughed unfeelingly. "He wants a flashlight-why didn't he think of that before? You got a flashlight, Woods?"

"I seldom carry one in the daytime," said Woods.

“That's funny, neither do I. Use your lighter!" he advised Mendoza heartlessly.

There followed a period of silence but for the muffled sounds of Mendoza moving around cautiously down there; then another curse and a longer silence. Suddenly Mendoza straightened up through the trap and demanded an implement of some kind. "Failing the trowel, a soup ladle or something-look in the drawers. The place is furnished, there ought to be tablespoons, a cake server-"

Hackett rummaged and offered him a tablespoon, a hand can opener, and a long wooden fork. "Nada mds? A big help you are," and Mendoza vanished again with the spoon and fork.

"Does it come on him often?" asked Woods sympathetically, offering Hackett a cigarette.

"Thanks. Five days out of seven he's as sensible as you please. I've thought tranquilizers might help, but on the other hand, just once in a while he does hit pay dirt. I got it figured that it's because essentially he's a gambler-he's in the wrong line, he ought to have been a cardsharp. He calls himself an agnostic, but that's a lie-he's superstitious as hell about his hunches, whether he'd admit it or not."

"Well, we all have foibles," said Woods. "I knew a fellow once who collected paper bags, had a closet full of them. Card player, is he? I kind of fancy myself at bridge, does he go in for it?"

"I think that's a little genteel for Luis, he likes poker. But he won't play for the kind of stakes you and I could stand."

Mendoza's upper half appeared through the trap; he rested an elbow on the ledge and laid the fork and spoon tidily on the floor. His shoulders had collected a good deal of dust and his tie was crooked, but he looked pleased with himself.

"If you've finished slandering my character, and the phone's still working, chico, you can go and call the rest of the boys."

"Hell and damnation," said Hackett incredulously. "You don't mean he is down there?"

"Didn't you hear me fall over the suitcases? Give me a hand." Mendoza hauled himself out of the hole up into the kitchen, and began to brush down his clothes fastidiously. "You can stop looking for your embezzler, Woods, and hand over what you've got on him to us."

"Holy angels in heaven," said Woods mildly. "No wonder I couldn't find him. How, when, and where exactly, Lieutenant?"

"Not being a doctor and having only the lighter, I'll pass that one. He's not very deep, only six inches or so on top of him, and I just dug away enough to be sure. The hell of a job it must have been to get him there-and of course I'm premature in saying it is Mr. Twelvetrees, but it's somebody, and in male clothing, I think. And, at a guess, he's been there just about the time Mr. Twelvetrees has been missing. About four feet from the trap, say under the door to the living room. And three suitcases alongside him, not buried."

"I will be damned," said Hackett. "This one you really got by radar, boy. And I suppose from now on you'll quote it every time anybody laughs at your hunches." He looked at the gaping black hole of the trap- "And how the boys are goin' to love that job." He went to call headquarters for a homicide detail.