Mark of Murder

SEVENTEEN

The man who wanted to kill was seething with hate and anger, where he lay hidden in the place he had found for himself. He had thought of killing, more killing, to pay them all back, but his slow mind had told him that they would come hunting him, they would hunt him out-a place like that room. He needed a secret, safe place to be when they came hunting. So he had come here.

But for the rest of it, it had all gone wrong. He had only caught one of them to use the knife on, make the blood come. A man more than half drunk, who came lurching up the street toward him in the dark, and was easily pulled into that alley.

And people looked at him queerly, even more than usual, almost as if they knew what was in his mind. That woman at the place he'd bought food, last night…

He'd gone into a bar and heard some men talking. They were talking about him-him, the big important one, the Slasher, and what they said did not fill him with panic but with rage. How they knew what he looked like now, there'd been an artist's drawing in the paper, they said, and how they were telling everyone not to go walking alone at night, to be careful.

There hadn't been people out, near as many as usual -he'd noticed that. He'd drifted, a dark shadow, in the shelter of buildings around many streets, and when they came past him it was in groups, two or three together and walking fast. On account of him. Dim pride rose in his mind; but it was no good, it spoiled everything, if it stopped him killing any more of them. He wanted in sudden furious rage to kill and kill-pay them back. They mustn't hunt him down, to stop him.

He had almost reached out for the nearest of those two women who had come along, hurrying, not talking-he could take her, let the other one scream and run, he could be gone before… But he was some way off from his safe, secret place, and he didn't.

Instead, he had taken out his knife and looked at it: not really looked, there in the dark, but felt it. He liked to use it to make the blood come, and it came quiet and easy. But you had to be near, to kill with the knife…

He'd had a gun of his own, once. Back the first place he'd worked after the orphanage, old man Haskell's farm outside of Younker, back in Georgia. You went out shooting birds, come fall, everybody did, and he got to be a pretty good shot on an old gun Haskell let him use, and he saved up and bought himself a new gun. It was a. zz rifle, and he'd been pretty good with it. That was a long time back. He didn't remember how long, he'd been a lot of places since, and he didn't remember what had happened to that rifle.

You could kill from a ways oft with a gun. With guns. It wouldn't be as good, there wouldn't be as much blood, but you could kill more of them and still keep safe… He'd laughed and laughed excitedly, thinking about it, how it would be, do it like that. Slip out at night, and he could be maybe half a block away, and get them maybe two, three at a time, and then while they were running around like a flock of scared chickens, hunting him, all the time he'd be back in his secret place-waiting for the dark and to go out again. It would be like that.

And he knew where he could get the guns. There was a place not far away, guns in the window.

Vague memory stirred in his mind, about guns… He'd been a lot of places, but mostly country places, because he couldn't do many city jobs. Country places, where people hunted things. Rabbits and birds. Going out rabbit hunting, a man would say, passing along the fence by where you were. That's a nice stand of corn-and you with a day's work ahead… Going out people hunting, he thought to himself, and shook with laughter again. So he'd started up through his secret place, to go there and get the guns. This was a big, dark, strange place, with him the only one in it. He came out from where he'd made a kind of bed from an old broken-down sofa left there, and he was in a vast empty underground room cement-floored and walled. There were shapes against the walls, a big square furnace, pipes disconnected and rusty, a row of ancient refuse barrels, and empty shelves all along one wall. At the far end of the big room were stairs.

He'd drifted up them silently, though he knew there was none to hear anywhere around. At the top he was on a little square landing and there was a door, but it was half off its hinges, hung drunkenly open so he could see beyond. He stepped past the door, onto bare dusty flooring, to an irregularly shaped wide corridor. There was another door to the right there: it had something painted on it but a couple of letters were partly worn away and he didn't know what it meant-it said L D ES. Down at the middle of the corridor it widened out and there was something like a bar standing there.

He didn't go that way. He turned to the left and went through an open arch into another vast dark place: but he knew the way. He felt along carefully by the wall, until his feet told him he was nearing the door. The door was very heavy and had an iron bar across it inside; he pushed against that hard, and reluctantly the door creaked open and he came out into the night.

There was no moon, but he knew where he was. He was standing at the side, almost at the very end, of a big brick building, and ahead of him was a steep cement ramp leading to the street. He went up it.

It was late; he'd lain a long while thinking about all this, before deciding. There wasn't anybody around at all, streets dark and empty, and he walked quickly. After he'd got the stuff, he thought, he'd like to do one tonight, but it was too late-nobody around, nobody at all…

And he'd had a little job, to get it all back to the safe place. Because he was going to kill, and kill, and kill…

They'd never find him, and he'd need lots to kill so many… But he had it all there at last, and he was satisfied. Only, too late to go out and hunt any of them tonight. Have to wait for the dark again…

All day he had lain here, waiting for the dark. Now he was hungry, and what he'd got at that store last night was gone. He sat up, thinking about that slowly. For the dozenth time he picked up the newspaper and carried it to a place under the ventilation grill in the ceiling where light came in. He'd spelled out the words under the picture. Artist's sketch of the Slasher from his description. Have you seen this man?

It didn't look an awful lot like him, he thought. Except there was the mark-the terrible red mark-right across the face… They'd laughed at him, they'd called him – And there had been a pretty girl named Ellen, who had screamed and run. In sudden red fury, he crumpled up the paper and flung it away into a corner.

It wasn't dark yet. It wouldn't be dark for a while. But he was hungry. But they mustn't hunt him down. He was going to After hesitation, he started up through the dark, for his door to the outside. He had his hat pulled low over his eyes, and he thought he could pretend to have a cold, keep his handkerchief up.

There was a hamburger joint a block up where you could take it away with you, didn't have to eat there. He walked up to it fast. There were some other people there, eating or waiting for their hamburgers. He asked for two; when they were shoved across the counter at him he put down a silver dollar.

"Buck an' ten cents, mister."

He found the extra dime. He walked back quickly, carrying the food. Down in his safe place he ate slowly, enjoying the greasy hot flavor of beef and onions and pickle… Now he was lying here hungry for something else. For the dark. For the dark to come down, so he would know it was time. The right time to go out and start his night's hunting.

He held a gun on his lap, and now and then he touched it almost lovingly. The knife was good, but the gun would be good too. Better, now. Better for him. I'm a people hunter, he thought, and laughed. Most important guy in the whole Goddamned town. In all the papers. Everybody talking about him. The Slasher. Be the hell of a lot more important before he was done…

Laughing at him. Not wanting to look at him. Stupid, they said. The girls, the pretty girls looking at him and-He was on his feet, pacing excitedly, cradling the gun. A pretty girl named Ellen, screaming when he tried to kiss her…

Suddenly he yelled in a high savage voice, " What d'you think of me now, you bastards? All you Goddamned bastards-show you-show all of you- "

Nobody heard him at all, and after a while he stopped. Jesus God, wouldn't it ever get dark tonight?

Dwyer and Scarne came in while Palliser was still talking. Nothing had shown up, of course. Palliser had been a little excited to find a button missing from Cliff Elger's topcoat. "But it was a bigger button, and a different color, and who'd be wearing a topcoat in July?" And as for asking whether anybody had given away any clothes for salvage lately, you couldn't expect anything on that. If X had belatedly realized he'd left that button behind, and couldn't replace it on the jacket or cardigan, and gave it away to be rid of it, he wouldn't say so. The canny way he'd got rid of the gun…

Mendoza agreed inattentively. He had a county guide open in front of him and was studying the big detailed map of the downtown area.

"I only dropped in to report no progress too," said Dwyer. "I'm on my way down to Santa Monica to have a look at the wardrobe of a fellow named Ross. Don't know how well he knew Nestor-he's just there in the address book. And you'll likely be getting a formal complaint from a Wall Street type by the name of Marlowe. He wasn't home when I got there-seems he has a butler who also acts as his valet, all veddy-veddy, but it was his day off; the maid was scared of me and my warrant, and let me in. The master arrived just as I was looking over his second-best evening jacket, and he didn't like me at all. He said so. Police, he said, and it was a dirty word coming from him, pawing over his clothes-very highhanded, and the idea of trying to connect him to a sordid crime- Quite a little pile there, I'd say."

"Money and family," said Mendoza, sounding faintly amused. "But you're not going anywhere else. All that can be put off-our Slasher is the hell of a lot more important. That one we've got to get, and in a hurry."

"You have any bright ideas how to do it, beyond what we're doing? Somebody'll recognize him and say so-he's got to eat, he'll be showing somewhere-”

"Eventually!" said Mendoza. "It's not good enough. Yes, I've got a bright idea. Jimmy! Call down to Traffic and ask Fletcher to come up here. Now look." He pointed at the map. "He's stuck to the downtown area up to now, and never above Third. This is his part of town. Incidentally, remembering what we got from up north, the part of any town where that sort does land-the drifters, the almost bums. On and around Skid Row. All right. We had one quite promising lead, you remember, from that leg work on men with scarred faces. A man like that had rented a room over on Boardman, said his name was John Tenney. Had, we subsequently found, paid the landlady partly in silver dollars. Only he skipped before we laid hands on him. He could have skipped because he heard our man questioning the landlady-we don't know."

"Are you heading any particular direction?” asked Dwyer.

" Paciencia. After that we got the attempt on the Rollen girl and the murder of this late unknown. Both along San Pedro, four blocks apart. I'll tell you where I'm heading. I think he's just smart enough to have realized that, with his description in circulation, he's got to have cover, some safe hole to lie up in. I think he's found one, and it'll be somewhere not too far from where he attacked those two. I can't offer a guess where it might be, an empty building-if there are any-or what. But he's got to be somewhere around there, and he won't be coming out of his hole until after dark. We're going to get a lot of men, the more the merrier, and conduct a building-to-building search in a twelve-block square between Main and San Pedro, between Temple and Third."

"For God's sake!" said Scarne. "Do you realize how much territory that covers?"

"Some of it," said Mendoza, "is taken up by the Civic Center. We're sitting on one perimeter of it right here. I know. A lot of residential streets, a lot of business-and part of Skid Row. Nevertheless, we're going to do that. We're going to pry into every nook and cranny-"

"Now?" said Dwyer.

"There's four and a half hours of daylight left. Set it up, get it started. After dark, they can search in pairs. And-" Mendoza stopped, and said, "Yes. The dogs. I want the dogs. Damn it, where's Fletcher?"

The L.A.P.D. had been slow to start using dogs. Maybe some prejudice of the chief's; the chief liked dogs and maybe was reluctant to see them used that way. But with increasing evidence of their great usefulness, the force had finally acquired a few. Oflicially they were under the Traffic office; Mendoza wasn't quite sure how many there were yet, fully trained and ready for action. But on this kind of action, as on many others, a trained dog would be worth two men-seeing and hearing and smelling where a man wouldn't.

"My good Christ," said Dwyer mildly. "Look at it." He flung the map down. "Dozens of little side streets and courts-rooming houses, apartments-along the main drags, warehouses, all those joints on the Row with flop-houses and a few cat houses, probably, upstairs-my God, with a hundred men it'd take three days to be sure you'd covered-"

"So we take three days, or three weeks!" said Mendoza.

"Did you like the afternoon headlines, Bert? We're going to work this the only way we can. Damn." He massaged his temples, elbows on the desk. "I've fumbled around at this… I thought Art's business tied up to the Nestor thing, I've been concentrating on that-but-I don't know…"

"Who's called the hospital last?" asked Palliser.

"Jimmy. Just before I came in," said Mendoza. "They say he's getting a little restless, which they seem to think is a good sign. But of course-"

"Yeah," said Dwyer. They all knew about that. A clean dying one thing: the permanent brain damage another. "You don't think now it was tied up to either case?" He looked at Mendoza thoughtfully.

"?Que se yo? ” said Mendoza. "I don't know. There's nothing really that says yes or no. I'll say this much, I doubt very much whether that is linked with our Slasher. In spite of his being the one who derailed the Daylight. It doesn't fit-it isn't the right shape. But it could have been the outside thing. And if it was"-he sat up straighter, automatically brushing ash off the desk, aligning the desk box and blotter-"if it was, by God, or if it wasn't, we'll get the X on that and get him but good. But-"

"Amen to that," said Palliser.

"But in the meantime we've got the Slasher on our hands. I say, let's go all out to get that one, and then we'll have the slate clear-and the damn press off our necks-to hunt down the other one. Plural or singular? Hell, I don't know," said Mendoza. "I don't even know whether the motive on Nestor came out of his abortion trade or something else-his girl friends, his marriage.?Basra! Forget about that for a minute-" He looked up as the door opened.

"What's the urgent summons to my lowly office?" asked Fletcher of Traffic. He was a big, heavy, amiable man, about due for retirement.

"How soon can you get me about fifty men?" asked Mendoza. "More if you can. And all the dogs available? For a house-to-house search of about one square mile of downtown?"239

Fletcher just looked at him. "Are you serious? Right now? What the hell on? Not-"

"That's just what," said Mendoza. "We've got to get this boy, Jack, and the sooner the better. I've got a hunch he's holed up somewhere inside that area, and I want a thorough hunt. Leave the rest of the citizenry to its own devices awhile, and haul in some men off tour. I can't make rules for your department, but everybody in this office is working round the clock as from now. Maybe you saw the afternoon headlines too."

Fletcher laughed shortly. "I did. The citizenry! It's been told often enough, by a lot of people who should know, it's got one damn good police force, but let a thing like this come along, you'd think we're a bunch of morons, way they talk."

"Some people," said Mendoza, "just naturally think we've got to be morons, to be cops in the iirst place. Sometimes I almost agree with them." And he thought, If Art died…

Fletcher rubbed his jaw. "Use your phone," he said, and it wasn't a request. He used it, ruthlessly, for ten minutes. When he put it down for the last time he said, "God help the innocent citizenry tonight. And bless the Hollywood boys-they can pull men off a lot of nice genteel places where nothing ever happens, without much danger

… Crews of twenty cars to report in within fifteen minutes, that's thirty-six men. Another twenty called in from stationary traffic duty, and God help the drivers at downtown intersections. Lessee, it's four-forty. Call it five o'clock for briefing. Where?"

"Your sergeants' office. I want every man issued with extra ammo," said Mendoza. "I know our Slasher isn't on the Most Wanted list-not on any list, his prints unknown-but he's the hell of a dangerous boy. We don't want any more casualties, do we?"

"I'll see to it," said Fletcher briefly. "O.K., twenty minutes." He went out.

"We're going to be fairly busy for quite a while," said Mendoza. "Maybe you'd all better snatch a sandwich or something while you can." Dwyer and Scarne drifted out after Fletcher. The outside phone rang and Mendoza picked it up… "Yes, querida," he said. Palliser watched him for a moment, saw he wasn't getting any bad news, and went out unobtrusively.

"They said he's been restless. They seem to think-it might be a sign that he'll be conscious soon. I-oh, damn," said Alison. "I know they're doing all they can, and-and they know so much more now, but they're so horribly impersonal about it. That afternoon nurse-they've got specials on, you know-talking about the patient this and the patient that when it's Art."

"I know," said Mendoza. "Just how they are, amante. All in the day's work to them."

Alison said forlornly, "She's a Seventh-Day Adventist. She gave us some Improving Literature to read, about vegetarian diets. Well, she seems kind enough, but-”

"Yes, darling. What about Angel? I said she ought to see her own doctor."

"Yes, he gave her some tranquilizers but she won't take them. Luis. Did you mean what you said-about r-resigning? I don't know what you'd do. I don't know-"

" No se preocupe," said Mendoza. He thought, Have to borrow a gun somewhere. He couldn't go home for his own. 38 in the handkerchief drawer, the shoulder holster, or Alison would know…

"-Luis?"

"No," he said. "I won't be home. We've got a little project on down here. It's expect me when you see me, I'm afraid."

"Yes," said Alison. A little silence, and then she said, "It's just, it feels as if everything's in slow motion, somehow. That it's days since I've seen you, and-everything taking so long to happen-Luis-"

"Yes,” he said. "It does feel rather like that."

"Mairi says to tell you to get a proper dinner somewhere." Alison uttered a little laugh.

"I will if I have time."

"And El Senor broke that jardiniere you don't like. The green one the Mawsons gave us for a wedding present. He knocked it over quite deliberately--"

"?Senor Comedido!" said Mendoza. "How tactful of him… I don't know when I'll see you, amante. Take care… " He put the phone down and said to Sergeant Lake, "Get me a gun somewhere, will you? And a cup of coffee if you can."

"See what I can do," said Lake, and got up. In the doorway he collided with Lieutenant Goldberg of Burglary, just coming in.