Extra Kill

EIGHT

"Every other country in the world," said Alison, clutching Mendoza's arm, "puts decent lights in night clubs and bars. People go to such places to read newspapers and hold philosophical discussions over their drinks. Or at least so I'm given to understand. Why are Americans condemned to these caves of darkness, like moles?"

"It's the Puritan background," said Mendoza, stumbling over a pair of outstretched legs and apologizing. "We still suffer from the influence of all those high-minded, earnest people who had the idea that anything a little bit enjoyable, from a glass of wine to a hand of cards-anything that makes life a bit more amusing-is necessarily sinful. It's a holdover-ah, haven," as the waiter's dim figure stopped and hovered in the gloom ahead, indicating a table or booth, impossible to tell which. On cautious investigation it proved to be a booth, and he slid into it beside the vague slender figure that was Alison-at least, it smelled of the spiced-carnation and faintly aphrodisiac scent that said Alison. "-A holdover from the days when those righteous old colonists felt seven kinds of devil if they let the cider get hard, you know… Straight rye," he added to the waiter, "and I think a glass of sherry for the lady."

"Yes. It's a great pity, all I can say," said Alison. "I expect you're right, and how silly."

"On the contrary," said Mendoza, "very good business. You make people feel there's something a little devilish about a thing, they'll fall over themselves to buy it. Human nature. Prohibition created more drinkers than we'd ever had before. Same principle as banning a novel-everybody reads it to find out why."

"It's still silly. I can't find my cigarettes, have you got one?"

"Only," said Mendoza, groping in his pocket, offering her the pack and lighting one for her, "because you and I were born at par. I got this from Sergeant Farquhar-it's a Scottish proverb, haven't you heard it, and you half Scots? ‘Some people are born two drinks under. They need the drinks to get up to normal?"

"Certainly I've heard it, and my father used to say that redheads-oh, well, never mind, it wasn't very genteel now I come to think."

"If it was about redheads," said Mendoza as the waiter brought their drinks, "I might guess what it was."

"I wouldn't put it past you. Well, in polite language it was to the effect that they're born two drinks over. And he was, certainly. Did I ever tell you about the time he challenged the governor of Coahuila to a duel? It was over a dam up in the Sierra Mojadas-the governor kept saying if Providence had intended people to have the water, the dam would have been created in the first six days, you know, but as it was the whole thing was immoral and contrary to God's wishes-I've never seen Dad madder-but in the end the governor backed down and they never did get to the duel. I think myself somebody told the governor the pedazo rojo norteamericano was a crack shot."

"These effeminate Latins, all cowards," said Mendoza. “ Salud y pesetas! " He tasted the rye. "You and I are the unconventional ones, we don't need this to enjoy life… And another thing about these places," he added over a roll of snare drums, "if they can persuade you to drink enough they can save a lot of money on what they call entertainment-anything goes if you're sufficiently high."

A blue spotlight circled a painfully thin girl in silver lame, on the little low platform at one end of the room, above what was revealed as a five- or six-piece band. On the edges of the light, white blurs of faces, tables crowded close. A tenor sax spoke mournfully, and the girl clasped her hands at her breast and began to moo nasally about missing her naughty baby.

"Oh dear," said Alison. The spotlight, moving with the singer, dimly showed them the Voodoo Club: fake handdrums and shrunken heads for wall-decor, zebra-patterned plastic on chairs and banquettes, and the waiters all Negroes in loincloths. There was also a postage-stamp dance floor.

"Yes," said Mendoza. "Hardly combining business with pleasure. We'll get to the business as soon as the waiter shows up again." Which he did as the girl stopped mooing and the spotlight blinked out. The band went into a soft blues and a few couples groped their way onto the dance floor.

"Re-peat, suh?"

"No, thanks. Tell me,"-Mendoza flicked his lighter over the blown-up print of Twelvetrees-"have you ever seen this man in here?" The waiter bent closer and looked at the print. In the little circle of unsteady light, he was very black, very Negroid; out of the dark his hand came up to finger his jaw, a long, slender hand with oddly intellectual-looking narrow fingers. "Well, I jus' couldn't say offhand, suh. An' we ain' supposed to gossip about customahs, y' know."

"Just take another look, and be sure."

"Don' know nuthin' 'bout him, suh. Anythin' else I can do for you, suh?"

Mendoza shook his head. "So, we'll have to get at it official," he said when the man had gone, leaving the check behind as a gentle hint. "See the manager. I don't suppose there's anything in it, or not much, but you never know-he must have had acquaintances in other circles than the Temple. By the little we've got on him so far, I think he looked on that just the way the Kingmans do, as a soft racket, and he'd hardly find the sect members to his social taste. Except for Mona Ferne-and that was for other reasons. I could wish his landlady had been the prying, suspicious kind who took more notice of his callers. Oh, well. Are you finished with that? Let's go."

They groped their way out to the better-lighted foyer, and Mendoza reclaimed his hat and Alison's coat from the check girl, paid the cashier. As he held out the coat for her, the slab door in the opposite wall opened and there emerged a slender little man who looked exactly like a film gang-boss, from his navy shirt and white tie to his fancy gray punched-pigskin shoes. He had black hair slicked back into a drake's tail, cold black eyes, and a cigarette dangling out of one corner of his mouth. Behind him was a big black Negro wrapped in a white terry robe like a boxer between rounds.

"This them?" snapped the gang-boss.

"Yes, sir," said the Negro.

"O.K.," said the gang-boss, walking up to Mendoza, "what you asking questions for, buddy? Who are you? Got any identification on you? What's this all about?"

"I told you, Luis," said Alison, sliding behind him. "Every time I go out with you in new stockings-why you drag me to these dens of iniquity-"

"Hey," said the gang-boss angrily, "what you talking about, lady, den of iniquity? We don't pay a grand a year for a liquor license to go foolin' around with that kind of stuff! Just what the hell-"

"You're the manager-good, just the man I want to see," and Mendoza brought out his credentials.

"Oh, police," said the gang-boss, and his toughness fell away from him like a cloak. "Gee, I'm sure sorry, Lieutenant, but I didn't know! Anything at all I can do for you-"

"This man." Mendoza gave him the print. "Regular in here? Or a casual?"

"Yeah, well-" The manager rubbed his ear and exchanged a glance with the Negro. "It's him all right, isn't it?"

"I thought so," said the Negro tranquilly in an accentless, rather amused tone. "I didn't know you were police either, Lieutenant. Sorry, but one way and another I thought Mr. Stuart ought to hear about it."

"You better come into my office," said Stuart abruptly. "You too, Johnny." He led them into a little square room furnished in excellent modern taste. "Sit down. Offer you anything to drink?"

"No, thanks." Mendoza glanced from him to the Negro quizzically.

"I'll apologize," said the latter, "for the-er-costume, sir. In the dark in there, it's one thing, but you feel a little naked out here, you know."

"Customers, they go for the damndest things," said Stuart. "Not that that was my idea-I only manage the place. Excuse me, this is Johnny Laidlaw, your waiter."

"You know how it is," said the big Negro apologetically, "we're sort of expected to stay in character on a job like this-"

"Matter of fact," said Stuart, "unless the bomb falls or something, this time next year it'll be Dr. Laidlaw. Right now he's got more schooling than I ever had, which don't necessarily say he's any smarter, but anyway I guess his evidence is as good as mine."

"A medical degree runs into money these days," said Laidlaw amiably, "and you'd be surprised at the size of some of the tips. But this isn't getting to what you want to know. Mr. Stuart, I guess your part of it ought to come first."

"There's your scientific-trained mind," said Stuart. "Well, it's like this, Lieutenant. I just took over here about six months ago, see. The guy who'd been managing the joint, Whalen his name was, Andy Whalen, well, Mr. Goldstein-he's the owner-he found he wasn't leveling, there was rebates to wholesalers and that kind of thing. So Whalen got the heave-ho and I came in. O.K. Well, I hadn't been here very long-some time in September, wasn't it, Johnny?"

"September the twelfth," said Laidlaw.

"Yeah, well, Johnny comes in one night and says a customer's kicking up a row-it was about midnight I remember-and so I go out front to settle it. And here's this guy here,” he tapped the print, "raising hell over his check. He's just leaving, see, he's got this blonde dame with him-Johnny says he'd seen them in here before-and when he gets the check he don't like it. I say, what's the beef, and he says can he talk to me private. Now that I don't like so good, because it usually means the guy's caught short on cash and wants to leave his watch or something-but what can you do, I say O.K. and bring him in here. And first thing he says is, ‘What's with Whalen?' When he hears Whalen's out, he gets mad all over again. He says Whalen's a pal of his, always made him a cut price, see. I says that's one of the reasons Whalen's out, and I pointed out to him that I'm no pal, and it's a shame he's stuck for more than he expected, but just one of those things, and what about the thirty-four something he owes? Same time, if you get me, I did think it was kind of funny. I didn't know Whalen, but what the boys here've said, he wasn't no good-time Charlie who'd let his friends in for free."

"That he wasn't," said Laidlaw thoughtfully.

"But that wasn't any of my business. The guy didn't like it, but he paid up. I didn't need a blueprint to figure he'd been a regular here on account of the deal with Whalen, and the blonde didn't have a glimmer of that, thought he was just free with his money, and naturally he didn't want to look cheap in front of her. Anyway, he paid up and out he goes, and that was the only time I ever laid eyes on him. And can't say I'm sorry. But I was kind of curious, and so I got Bob Trimming-that's our regular cashier-in and asked him about it. I didn't get an awful lot out of him, to make sense. You see, the boys, well, they'd got kind of used to the manager acting nasty with them, and catching 'em out for little things all the time, see, and besides-well, now you tell the gent what you know, Johnny."

"Now just as it happened," said Laidlaw leisurely-he sat with arms folded across his chest, at magnificent ease, and spoke serenely-"I'd seen that fellow in here, but I'd never waited on him until that night. When he started to kick up the row, Bob called me in on it because I could back up the check, you see. And later on Mr. Stuart asked me to sound Bob out, see if he knew any more about it, as he might talk more openly to me. And I might say I was curious about it too, and I did. Bob's pretty close-mouthed anyway, he doesn't tell all he knows just to be talking, and he'd kept quiet on this, for one reason, because Mr. Whalen isn't a man you'd want to get across. But he knows I don't go talking much either, and he told me the whole thing. I realize, Lieutenant, that all this is hearsay and won't do you any good as evidence, but maybe you'll be interested anyway. What Bob said was this. This fellow came in here quite a bit, once a week at least and sometimes a lot oftener, and he never paid out anything but the tips-and he wasn't a very good tipper. The customer doesn't pay the waiters, as you know, but the cashier out there in the lobby. Bob's on duty, eight to closing time, six nights a week, so he was in a position to see what happened every time this customer came in. The first time he saw the fellow, there was a check for eighteen something, and Mr. Whalen's name signed across it. The customer just tossed it onto the desk and said, ‘That's O.K.,' or something like that. Well, Bob wasn't going to take a chance that way, and he called Mr. Whalen. I might add that the fellow had a blonde with him that night too, whether the same one or not I couldn't say, but she'd stepped into the powder room. Mr. Whalen said to Bob, ‘Oh, yes, that's 0. K. on the house'-but he didn't look as if he liked saying it, so Bob says. And later on that night, after we closed, Bob asked him how to cancel out that check for the accounts, and Mr. Whalen made up the cash out of his own pocket. Well, I don't want to drag this out too long-"

"You're not boring me," Mendoza told him.

"-But the point was, every time this customer came in the same thing happened, and it ran into quite a little money Mr. Whalen was paying out to make up the tabs for the accounts. Now, about six weeks before Mr. Whalen was fired, one night Bob wanted to make a phone call on his break, and he slipped into the phone booth in the lobby, as there wasn't a customer in it at the time. You notice where it is?-well, it's down a little corridor toward the men's room, past the check stand-and as he was standing there in the booth, out of sight, you know, sorting out a dime for the call, he heard Mr. Whalen talking to this customer. The customer had just come out of the men's room, and maybe Mr. Whalen was waiting for him. Anyway, Mr. Whalen was mad, and told him he'd got to stop coming in here so often, fun was fun but he couldn't afford it. And the customer just laughed and said Mr. Whalen surely didn't mind standing a few drinks to an old pal now and then, it was cheap at the price when it meant Mr. Whalen's job, because he didn't figure Mr. Whalen would like his boss to know about that taxi he'd done back in Pennsy."

Mendoza uttered a little exclamation. "Are you quoting this Bob, or were those the actual words?"

“That's what Bob heard, Lieutenant. Neither of us knew exactly what the fellow might have meant, but it sounded like a threat, which is why it stayed in Bob's mind. In fact, several things that were said sounded like double talk to both of us, and thinking it over I came to the conclusion they must be criminal or professional slang of some sort. The customer told Mr. Whalen not to be such a ringtail, for one thing. And Mr. Whalen said back at him that two could fill in that game, maybe the customer wouldn't like his boss to know he'd done a sleep as a cadet-”

"Ah," said Mendoza pleasedly. "Which doesn't surprise me. Yes, go on."

"-And the customer laughed again and said he didn't give a damn, it'd make no difference to him. There was a little more argument, and finally Mr. Whalen got to sounding really desperate, so Bob said, and he said to the customer he'd better not play so deep-meaning, I take it, not to drop in so often for a free ride-if he wasn't looking for a South Gate discharge."

" Lindo, muy linda, oh, very pretty," said Mendoza. "This I like. And?"

"That's about all, Lieutenant. Reason Bob remembered it, you see, was that it sounded a little nasty, threats and so on. Nobody liked Mr. Whalen much, and it didn't come as a surprise when he got fired. And so, as you've heard, the next time the customer dropped in, Bob was going to make him pay, and there was this row. Well, when I'd heard all this, I thought Mr. Stuart ought to know it-"

"And as you can see," said Stuart, "what the hell, it was water under the bridge, and I knew damn well the guy'd never come back again-which he didn't. None of my business what he had on Whalen. But just now, when you come in asking questions, Johnny thought I'd better hear about it, because by all this, both Whalen and this other guy, whoever he is, might be mixed up with some funny characters-if you see what I mean. No offense, Lieutenant, I hope-"

"No offense," said Mendoza. He was looking rather amused. "I suppose neither of you would know Whalen's whereabouts now?… No, I couldn't expect it. But you've been very helpful, thanks. I may want formal statements from both of you and this Bob."

"Any time, sir," said Laidlaw. "Glad to oblige you."

"Oh, sure," said Stuart, "not that I'd like to have to testify or anything, don't look so good in this business, snitching on a customer, whatever kind, but I guess it's up to all of us to help the law when we can. I suppose you can't tell us what this is all about."

"I'm not just a hundred percent sure myself yet,” said Mendoza. They left Mr. Stuart brooding over the possibility of occupying the witness stand, and Laidlaw gazing serenely at the office ceiling.

In the car, before he switched on lights or ignition, Mendoza suddenly pulled Alison into his arms and spent several minutes kissing her thoroughly. "Well, and what prompted that?" she asked breathlessly. "You always say a car, of all places-"

"Just general exuberance. I got so much more than I expected, and I think there's more to come yet."

"I see. You seemed to know what those two had been talking about-was it criminal slang? And is a translation fit for my ladylike ears?"

Mendoza laughed. "Yes to both questions. Twelvetrees said to this Whalen that he didn't think Whalen's boss would like hearing that Whalen had done a five-to-fifteen stretch-that's a taxi-back in Pennsylvania. To which Whalen retorted that maybe Twelvetrees wouldn't like it known he'd done one year-that's a sleep-for enticing minors to enter houses of prostitution-that's what a cadet does. And later on Twelvetrees told him not to be such an old grouch, that's a ringtail. But one of the interesting things is that last reported remark of Whalen's, when he said Twelvetrees had better take it easy unless he was looking for a South Gate discharge. That's what the cons call it when a man dies, in or out of jail."

"Oh, I see. So maybe this Whalen is the one."

"Maybe, maybe. No, it doesn't surprise me that Twelvetrees had done time-not much, and he wasn't deep in yet-it's on the cards he was smart enough, after one experience, to intend staying inside the law, in one of the rackets that isn't illegal. But a man's past has a way of catching him up sometimes… " He let that trail off, and Alison, knowing his silences, forbore to interrupt his thoughts.

It was two in the morning when he eased the Facel-Vega into the curb just past the entrance to the Voodoo Club's parking lot. The lot was emptying rapidly, the last customer just chased out. He locked the car and walked up through the lot to the narrow space directly behind li the buildings which would be reserved for employees' parking.

There were eight cars nosed in there. He peered in the drivers' windows, one by one, with his pencil flash; the fifth one down, a six-year-old Ford two-door, had its registration card wrapped around the steering post, old style, and the name on it was John S. Laidlaw. Mendoza leaned on the fender and lit a cigarette.

He had smoked that and another one-retreating to cover half a dozen times as men came out to their cars-before the rear door, thirty feet away, opened to silhouette briefly a big broad figure he thought was his quarry. The man came down toward the Ford jingling his keys and whistling The St. Louis Blues under his breath.

Mendoza had no desire for any violent exercise, and when the man was ten feet off he stepped out of the shadow of the car to show himself. Laidlaw checked for one moment and then laughed very softly.

"You had me scared there a minute, Lieutenant, thinking I'd slipped up on something," he said just above a whisper. "So I didn't put it across you."

"For a few minutes," said Mendoza. "Who belongs to the Buick?" It was the only other car left in the lot.

"Stuart. He won't be out for a while, he's working on the books."

" Muy bien, then we can talk here." They got into the car; in the little flare of the match Laidlaw lit for their cigarettes they looked at each other. "Fox knows fox," said Mendoza dryly. "Though you put up a nice front. But aren't you getting on a bit for a medical student?"

"Yes, that one won't do much longer. Just second cover anyway."

"I liked the artistic way this nice honest well-brought-up young fellow puzzled over that talk and finally made it out pro slang. It was about then I pinned you down in my own mind-if we stick to the slang-as a gazer, no es verdad? I suppose you figured to do me a good turn-having spotted me-by handing it to me on a platter. Many thanks."

"Tell you the truth, I'd be just as happy not to have you city boys sniffing around here too long or too close, which was the main reason. And I've got no credentials on me, on this job."

"Never mind. I've had enough to do with you Feds that I know lamb from wolf. What is it, dope or illegal liquor?"

"Some of both. I've been sitting on it for a year waiting for the real big boy-this is a drop, and a good safe one. We've left it that way."

"Whalen in it?"

"As a very minor errand boy. He did that stretch for armed robbery with violence-that's his style-a small timer."

"Well, your business doesn't come into mine, I don't think, so I won't ask you any questions about that-"

"Which is just as well," said Laidlaw imperturbably, "because I wouldn't answer them."

"Naturally. The customer who was getting his tabs picked up by Whalen is now dead, and I am, you can appreciate, interested in the fact that Whalen threatened him with a South Gate discharge."

"Is that a fact?" said Laidlaw. "Interesting. I see that. Now I'll open up enough to say this, Lieutenant. Obviously the customer didn't know what was going on here-in the way of my business-or that Whalen was in it, or he wouldn't have thought telling the tale about Whalen's past could get him fired. But it could have, indeed. Without giving you details, the owner is innocent as day, and so is Stuart. It's quite possible that Whalen was afraid his real bosses wouldn't like it much that someone knew about him, and also there's this aspect: he had a pretty good job a little higher in the organization than he'd been before, and that was largely due to his ostensible job as manager here. He wanted to protect that. It annoyed the boys operating the drop, just a little when he got fired. They've sized up Stuart since, and prudently refrained from sounding him out."

"Yes, I saw some of that-if Whalen's nominal boss wouldn't have cared, Whalen would never have picked up those tabs. Nice genteel way to blackmail somebody, wasn't it? No vulgar cash changing hands."

"So it was," agreed Laidlaw. "You understand that we weren't more than casually interested in Whalen as one of the boys, there wasn't any reason to follow up his private troubles with this fellow, as it was pretty clear that one was outside this particular racket. So you probably know more about your corpse than I do."

"Not as much as I'd like. What I came back for principally was to ask if you know where Whalen is."

"Sure I know where he is," said Laidlaw. "I read in the papers the other day, Lieutenant, that you L.A. boys got a pat on the back from some Washington office for being tops among the ten most efficient city forces in the country-but outside that category, we sort of fancy ourselves as pretty hot, you know. We're not much interested in Andy Whalen, but we looked to see where he went. He's driving a truck for Orange State Trucking, on the San Diego-L.A. run, and he lives in room number 312 at the Chester Hotel on Fourth."

"Thanks very much. Would it discommode you at all if I took him in for questioning?"

"I don't think so," said Laidlaw. "His bosses don't rate him any bigger-time than we do."

"What about the trucking outfit? Can I take it he's still on the payroll of the gang in another capacity?"

"Well, now, I don't think we'll go into that, if you don't mind. I'll just say, it's possible."

"You boys with your secrets," said Mendoza. "Well, I may and I may not, right away. All that rigmarole-your quotes from the cashier-gospel truth?"

"And nothing but."

"Mmh. Yes, a couple of little things that occur to me aside from Whalen. But I want to look at him closer, of course. Thanks very much, Laidlaw, and good luck on your business."

"Same to you-happy to oblige, Lieutenant. We like to cooperate with the locals where we can," said Laidlaw blandly.

"I might," said Mendoza, sliding out of the car, "like the polite tone of that better if you didn't somehow sound like a professional race driver assuring his little boy he'll teach him to ride his new bicycle."

"Why, Loo-tenant, suh, I nevah meant no such thing, suh," said Laidlaw. Mendoza laughed, shut the door, and dodged back to the shadow of the wall as the building door opened up there. Laidlaw slid the Ford out to the street; Mendoza waited until Stuart had driven out in the Buick before going back to his own car.