Streets of Death

NINE

He was alarmed. She was sobbing so hard her whole body shook, and she made strangling noises in her throat. He half carried her over to the couch, and she lay huddled over one arm uttering great gulping sobs. He didn’t know what to do; he’d never seen anything like it.

"Hey," he said uneasily, "are you all right? Marta?"

Gradually the sobs lessened in intensity; she shook with several long shudders, half straightened up, put her face in her hands, and then after a long moment she ' sniffed, groped in her pocket for a handkerchief, and blew her nose. She was still shaking a little, and she said in a muffled voice, "I am ashamed. I am sorry-to lose control so-"

"Don’t you feel better?" asked Galeano.

She blew her nose again. "Yes, I do," she said, sounding surprised. "It-it is not easy that I-"

"Everybody needs to let off steam once in a while," said Galeano. "You just kept it all bottled up too long."

And surprisingly, Marta suddenly laughed-a wobbly and half tearful laugh. "You are so very right," she said. "It has been-what’s the phrase-one damned thing after another."

Galeano was so relieved he laughed too, uproariously.

"You’d better tell me all about it. Maybe I’d understand better. You know, what you need right now is a good stiff drink. It won’t do your cold any harm, either."

"Yes, I have caught a cold. There is a bottle of brandy, I was going to mix it with some lemon-"

"The hell with the lemon." Galeano went out to the kitchen, found the brandy, poured her a stiff four fingers and gave himself a smaller one. "You get outside that, and if you talk some you’ll feel better yet."

She drank a third of it at once, took a long breath, shuddered and sat back, closing her eyes. "I am," she said dreamily, "very tired. I think you are a kind person. You see, I cannot help but feel it was all my fault-all my fault." She drank more brandy. Between that and the sudden flood of expended emotion all her reticences were down, overrun. "Because I never should have married him. I never loved him as a wife should. It was wrong. We learn too late."

"Why did you?" asked Galeano.

She looked at the brandy, her dark eyes brooding.

"My father-he owned a small manufacturing business in Lingen, our home. It was prosperous, we had thought there was money-there was always money, we were not very rich but my sister and I were not raised to work at jobs, at the convent you don’t learn shorthand, typing. Then Papa died, and it seemed there had been speculation, he left my mother nothing. Oh, the building was worth something, the land-that is all. I had to find work-Elisa was too young then." She finished the brandy. "There was an American unit stationed near, the girls go out with them, and a girl I knew introduced me to Edwin. He asked me to marry him. I did not love him, I liked him well enough is all. My mother said it is the best chance I will ever have, in America there is always opportunity and he is a good honest man. She is very old-fashioned," said Marta, smiling a little, "and she said love is not everything in marriage. I saw all that for myself-and so I married him."

"And it didn’t work out?" asked Galeano.

She gave a short laugh. "Oh! Yes, it worked out, as you say-the way such marriages do! He was not an educated man, but he was good and kind-he was clever with his hands, and a hard worker, he might have made much of himself, gone places as they say. After I had the baby, I felt reconciled- meine kleine Katzchen. But she died-so soon, she died. The doctor said, a thing wrong in her heart, she would never have lived long, but- And then Edwin was hurt in the accident, and those doctors said he would always be so, an invalid, helpless, in the wheelchair. It was like a nightmare beginning, and it does not end. There was no money, no compensation for him-I do not understand all that, but we had a lawyer-that cost a great deal of money too, I still owe the lawyer money, and it all came to nothing. He needed a great deal of care. It was then I began to think, all my fault, for I should not have married him, feeling no love for him. I try to be a good Catholic, I knew my duty, to look after him as a wife should. He was of no faith, we were not married in the Church, but one takes vows nevertheless. But it was hard. Oh, for him too! I realize-but it was difficult."

"And then-what did happen that day?" asked Galeano. "Three weeks ago tomorrow?"

She opened her eyes and put one hand to her temple, slowly. "Mother of God, have I not asked myself?" she said quietly. "We had come here, because the rent is much cheaper and I can walk to work. In that way, it was better, but not all ways. He had been very despairing, ever since the baby died, and he had said to me many times, he would be better dead, such a burden on me and no good to anyone. I had been afraid he would kill himself. It would not be a sin to him perhaps, but to me-I had come home, several times since we are here, to find him drunk. That terrible old man upstairs-he would come, pretending sympathy, and bring him whiskey. I tried to talk to him, ask him not to do so, but it was no use-no use. And then-there was that day." She was silent, and unobtrusively Galeano tipped the rest of his drink into her glass. She finished it absently. "It was such a very usual day to begin with. I left for the restaurant. I had got him dressed and into his chair, given him breakfast. The woman across the hall was leaving also. And then, when I was at work, I remembered my letter. The last evening I had written a letter to my sister Elisa, I meant to take it to post, and I had forgotten it. I was going shopping, to buy her a birthday present, but I wanted to post the letter."

"So you came home to get it," said Galeano, and let out his breath in a long sigh.

"Yes. I was in a great hurry-it has been easy to blame myself for that too-I had to catch the bus up to town, there would not be much time to look in the shops before they closed, and I must be home to get dinner for Edwin before I went back to the restaurant. I did not even look to see where Edwin was-when he was not in the living room I thought perhaps he was lying down, he could get to the bed from the chair-and I did not even look. I took up my letter from the table there, put it in an envelope and left again, for the bus. And I went to the post office-we cannot afford the air mail, it is expensive enough to send by sea-and when I had shopped for the present I came home. And I told you how it was. He was gone. His chair was here, and he was gone."

"You remember if the wheelchair was in the living room when you came home the first time? But you’d have noticed that-"

"It was not. His coat is gone also," said Marta. "I think I have had too much brandy."

"His coat. Regular topcoat-raincoat?"

"A good thick wool coat, brown. He bought it in the east before we came here. And there is another queer thing. I am talking too much to you, but it does not matter."

She laughed a little drearily. "What thought did I ever have for money, until Papa died! But now, it is always to think of money. So always, I have a little, what I can save, hidden away for the emergency. I had not looked at it, since Edwin was gone, until last week. And it is gone too."

"I’ll be damned," said Galeano. "How much?"

"Two hundred and eighteen dollars," she said, shutting her eyes again.

"Where was it?"

"In one of the kitchen jars-canisters, the one for sugar."

"Be damned," said Galeano. "Did he know it was there?"

"Of course. He was my husband."

"Well-" Galeano looked at her. "You do feel better, don’t you? Do you good to get all that out of your system. I’m sorry I swore at you."

"But I called you names too." She smiled a little.

"And after you said you believed me, too. I think you’ve been kind. But right at this moment, nothing seems to matter to me so very much."

"Never mind," said Galeano. "Part of that’s the brandy and part the cold, I expect. Things will matter again. And I’d better go-I’ve got a job too. You take care of yourself, is all. Listen, things are going to get better."

"Do you think so? I wonder."

"They’ve got to," said Galeano stoutly. "You just take care now."

And he was of two minds, as he got into his car downstairs, whether to pass all that on to Mendoza.

Palliser had been the first man in that Thursday morning and Sergeant Lake gave him the message relayed up from the desk last night about the assault-with-intent lodged in jail. "Something else," said Palliser. But it had to be followed up, so he went out again and over to the Alameda jail. The suspect had refused to give a name and was booked as John Doe. When one of the trusties brought him to an interrogation room, Palliser said, "Sit down. Have you decided to tell us who you are?".

The man sat down opposite him and said reluctantly, "Steve Smith."

"That’s a step further on," said Palliser mildly. And that was interesting. The Steve Smith they’d looked for last week? He was clean-shaven, looked younger than thirty-three, but the rest of him conformed to the description. Palliser had been thinking of this as just another routine errand, but now he looked at Smith with covert interest.

"Why did you attack that girl last night?"

"I never attacked nobody. She’s a liar."

"Had you ever seen her before?"

"No."

"You just got talking to her in the restaurant, all casual?"

"She made up to me," said Smith after some thought.

"Oh, is that so? Did she ask you to drive her home?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she did."

"All right, what happened then?"

Smith thought some more. Then he said, "Well, we got in the car and she said I should, you know, love her up a little. Then when I tried to she yelled and got out and a couple fellows grabbed me and called the pigs. I didn’t do nothing to her, that girl. She’s a liar."

"She had a couple of bruises where she says you tried to strangle her," said Palliser.

"I never. She’s a Goddamn liar."

Palliser offered him a cigarette, lit it, sat back and lit one himself. He said conversationally, "I see you’ve shaved off your little beard."

Smith was startled; he jumped in his chair and said, "How the hell did you-I never seen you before in my life!"

"Oh, we have ways of knowing things about you," said Palliser vaguely. "Where were you a week ago Sunday, Smith, do you remember?"

"A week ago-I don’t know. Somewhere around. I don’t remember."

"Where have you been living?"

"Room over in Ho1lywood."

"Got a job?"

"I been lookin’ for one. I been on unemployment. Some new rule they got, you got to come in ever’ day, wait for a job to show, or they don’t give you no pay. That’s where I been, days."

"I’ll bet," said Palliser, "I could tell you when you shaved off that goatee. It was-"

"I got a right to shave if I want."

"Sure," said Palliser. "But you did it right after you killed that girl, didn’t you? When the other one got away and you were afraid she’d finger you?"

Smith leaped up out of his chair. "You don’t know that! You can’t say that!"

"I just did. That was when, wasn’t it?"

"No, it wasn’t. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man."

"We both know what I’m talking about, Steve. You picked those girls up at a lunch counter on the Boulevard, a week ago Sunday. You ended up raping and strangling one of them."

"I never did no such thing!"

"--But you made a mess of getting rid of the body," said Palliser. "It didn’t burn, you know. The fire went out."

"Thass a Goddamn lie," said Smith, "I seen all the smoke it made, 1ike-" and stopped.

"So, suppose you tell me where you took them," said Palliser gently. So many of the ones they had to deal with were stupid punks like Steve..

"I’m not sayin’ anything else."

"Oh, yes, you are. Just a little more. How did a bum like you happen to have a house to take them to?"

"I ain’t no bum. I said I been lookin’ for a job. I still had a key to it," said Smith sullenly.

"Where is it?" asked Palliser patiently.

"Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt that girl none. She, just like this damn woman last night, she said I should love her up and then she yelled-I didn’t go to-"

"Where, Steve? You might as well tell me, we’ll find out in the end," said Palliser.

He came back to the office at noon. "And I hope to God S.I.D. comes up with some solid evidence," he said to Mendoza. "We haven’t been exactly brilliant on this one-I really didn’t think that Stephanie girl knew what she was talking about-but at least we got there in the end. It was a strictly spur of the moment deal-"

"With the ones like Steve, they usually are," said Higgins, who had been sitting at the other side of Mendoza’s desk when Palliser came in.

" Ya lo creo. So what did he tell you, John?"

"He’d been down here visiting an old pal a couple of days before, and noticed the house was vacant-his mother used to live there, and he still had a key. When he picked up the girls it was the first place he thought of. He got some groceries on the way-there was a refrigerator there, the place was furnished. I’ll bet whoever owns the place will be surprised to get a power bill. It’s on Gladys Avenue."

Mendoza grunted. "Three blocks from San Pedro. Very nice. Let’s hope S.I.D. turns something."

"I just turned them loose on it."

And Lake came in with a telex: the feedback from the FBI on the prints picked up in the Freeman house. Mendoza swore, looking at it. "Why can’t these hoods stay home, George? New to us-his record’s all in West Virginia. Neal Benoy, and he’s wanted for homicide, and that’s all they tell us. Well, we know he’s here, or was, but it’d be helpful to know something more about him. Jimmy, get me an outside line." After an interval, he got connected to a Lieutenant Devore of the Huntington force, and began taking notes. Devore gave him the gist of Benoy’s record. "He’s been just another no-good bum around town till he got together with a kindred spirit one night last August and murdered a harmless old black fellow. We picked them both up, but they made a break on the way to the courthouse for indictment. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still teamed up-they’re buddies from way back. You want Benoy for something out there? A long way from home-he’s never been out of the state before, far as I know."

"We’ve tied him to a double homicide," said Mendoza. "The lab thinks it was a pair. Who’s the other one?"

"Tony Allesandro. Birds of a feather," said Devore succinctly. "You want his prints and particulars too?"

"Anything you can give us."

"I’ll shoot some stuff out."

" Gracias. We’ll get an A.P.B. out on both of them, just in case." Mendoza put the phone down. Higgins and Palliser had gone out, and Galeano had just come in, looking thoughtful. He sat down in the chair beside the desk. "Have you recovered from your aberration, Nick?"

"Damn you," said Galeano amiably, "it’s not. I said all along that girl is honest-if she wasn’t, she’d have thought up a hell of a lot better tale than that. I just want to put this in front of you-" and he plunged into the story of Marta’s revelations. Mendoza sat back, smoking.

"From the viewpoint of human emotions, interesante, " he said sardonically at the end, "but as for giving us any clue to what happened to Edwin, damn all."

"I know, I know. But it does show why she’d thought and done things to look suspicious. All perfectly natural," said Galeano.

"Maybe."

"And maybe you think she’s conned me!" said Galeano.

"Not necessarily. But I would damn well like to know what did happen to him," said Mendoza. "The hell of it is, the pair of them were so damned isolated-no close friends, the other people in that place strangers, and she-"

"Homesick," said Galeano. "Proud. Holding everybody at arm’s length. I hope she’ll learn better."

"And I’ve reluctantly come round to admit, at least, that there isn’t any smell of a boyfriend," said Mendoza sadly. "It shakes my faith in the eternal venality of human nature."

"They do say, it’s the exception that proves the rule. I just thought you’d like to think all that over," said Galeano, and went out.

Mendoza sighed and swiveled his desk chair around to stare out the window toward the Hollywood hills, invisible today in heavy gray mist. Every now and then something a little more complicated than usual showed up. As a rule the things that bailed them were just the anonymous crimes (like that dairy-store heist) where no possible lead showed and there was nothing much to be done about it. But once in a blue moon, a real mystery came along, where there should be leads and weren’t; and the mystery of Edwin Fleming was the most ballling one that had come their way in some time. He missed Hackett, off today, to talk it over with.

At five o’clock Palliser and Glasser came in with Scarne. "Well, we’ve got Sandra all tied up," said Glasser.

"These stupid jerks-Smith trying to get rid of the body and he couldn’t even do that efficiently-you wouldn’t believe the stuff he overlooked at that house. It’s still empty, luckily, nobody in to mess up the evidence for us. The first thing we found was Sandra’s green plane case. There were prints all over the house-"

"We had the Peacock girl’s and Sandra’s, we’ve sorted out quite a few of both," said Scarne. "Odds and ends of clothes the parents can probably identify, but the prints are solid evidence. He isn’t going to be able to claim that Sandra ran off and met up with some other X, the times are too tight. The other girl could say she was alive at seven, and the autopsy says she was dead between eight and ten."

"Good-solid evidence I always 1ike," said Mendoza.

"And something new just went down; we passed George and Jase going out in a hurry," said Palliser.

Landers had heard what the mechanic had to say about the Corvair without much surprise. The damn thing had been on its last legs for months. "You’d do better to junk it," said the mechanic. "It’s not worth putting money into."

Landers took a look at what they had on the used lot, but nothing looked like a good buy. He walked on down Hollywood Boulevard to the American agency, priced a couple of new models and winced, and went out to the used lot to browse around. Finally he settled on a little Sportabout, the pony-size station wagon, and made a deal for it. It was only three years old, had thirty thousand on it, which wasn’t bad.

But at least the Corvair had been paid for. What with the new payments on top of the rent and everything else, he reflected, Phil would have to stop talking about a house for some time.

Higgins and Grace looked at the new homicide and had the same thought at the same time.

"The Freemans," said Grace, touching his mustache thoughtfully. "Same earmarks, George."

"Such as there are," said Higgins. This was much the same kind of house as the Freemans’, in the same kind of neighborhood: modest middle-class. The householder had been Mrs. Myrtle Hopper, widow, who’d lived alone here since her youngest daughter got married. It was the daughter and her husband who had found her, coming to visit.

The front door wasn’t forced; the back door was locked. Mrs. Hopper was knifed and dead on the livingroom floor, and the place had been ransacked. At the moment the daughter was having hysterics at a neighbor’s house, but eventually they’d ask her what was missing.

"No phone book," said Grace. "Maybe they used another excuse this time. They didn’t get much at the Freemans’, and I don’t suppose they’d have got much here. What we’ve heard about this Benoy, maybe just mean by nature, doing what comes naturally."

"Could be," agreed Higgins. "Could also be, careless about his prints as he seems to be, he’s left some here too."

They’d thought at first the Freemans might have been killed by someone who thought he still had the church collection money, but now the prints had been identified as this Benoy’s, it looked like just the random thing, and this bore the same general appearance.

They called S.I.D. and imagined how the men would be cussing, a new one to work turning up at this end of shift. Higgins and Grace could go home, and hear what the lab had got tomorrow.

The wired prints of Benoy’s sidekick came in from West Virginia; by then there was an A.P.B. out on Benoy. It would be nice to know what he was driving, but there wasn’t a clue about that.

Alison was, she said, definitely better. The doctor had said it was just a question of time, and it didn’t usually last beyond the third month. Cats twined under their feet at the dinner table, and Cedric paced up and down looking for handouts.

Mairi came to summon them to the ceremonial good nights, and for once Terry and Johnny looked and behaved like angels, too tired from a full day for anything else.

"The darlings," said Alison. "I was ready to murder them yesterday, but a settled stomach makes a great difference. And by the way, I found out something very funny today," she added as they went back down the hall. "?Que ocurre? "

"Well, I sent for this brochure," said Alison rather guiltily. She picked it up from her armchair and sat down, not offering to show it to him. "Houses. Bigger houses on, well, some land. If you’re going to have a drink, I’ll have some creme de menthe, amado."

"I wasn’t, but I’ll get it." In the kitchen, he said to El Senor resignedly, "She’s going to move us to a ranch now." El Senor uttered a raucous demand for rye, and Mendoza poured him some in a saucer. When he got back to the living room, the other three cats were all trying to settle in Alison’s lap at once.

"You can’t all fit now, and just wait a couple of months," she said, shooing Sheba and Nefertite off. "Thanks, amado. Well, it’s very funny, you know I said maybe an acre, but come to find out, we’ve got nearly an acre here. It’s forty-five thousand square feet, and I figured it out-we’ve got forty-two here. And we really need more-"

"I didn’t know that," said Mendoza absently.

"Neither did I. Luis, you’re not listening."

"I was wondering whether Carey had had a look at that vacant lot. But of course he did.?Diez millones de demonios desde el imferno! " said Mendoza to his rye. "It’s such a simple little mystery, and yet so vague. What the hell could have happened to the man?"

"Who? Now, I think, it’s been some time since you brought any homework from the office," said Alison. "You haven’t been-mmh-in the exact mood to listen. But if you have any bright ideas about Edwin Fleming, I’d like to hear some." He sat down and told her about it, and she listened interestedly.

"Well, that’s the funniest thing you’ve had in ages," she said when he’d finished with Galeano’s account of today’s interview. "You can think of explanations, and then you see it’s impossible because of his being in the wheelchair. And she couldn’t have- And if I know all you hardheaded cynics, you turned every stone looking for a boyfriend, and there just isn’t one."

" En ninguna parte, " said Mendoza bitterly. "Nowhere."

"Well, all I can say is, I’m sorry for Detective Galeano," said Alison. "She sounds like a very prickly sort of girl. And speaking of sex, by the way, I’ve also been sitting up taking enough notice to think about some names-"

Mendoza uttered a groan. "I haven’t dared ask about that."

"Well, I haven’t decided anything yet."

Conway had wandered around all day Thursday on the Peralta thing, and got nowhere. He and Glasser were off on Friday, and Peralta fell to Landers, Grace and Higgins being busy on the new one, Palliser cleaning up Sandra Moseley and on the phone to Fresno, and Hackett in court: Roy Titus was being arraigned this morning. Wanda, Larsen said she’d like some street experience, and if they came across any of Peralta’s girl friends she might be helpful, so Landers let her come along.

They had turned up some known acquaintances of Peralta, three men he’d been picked up with at various times, all users: Ford Robinson, Joe Ryan, Bob Wooley. That kind tended to drift, and none of them was still at the addresses they’d given on arrest. But Conway had talked to a fellow at one of those places who said Robinson had a pad over a disco on Vermont, The Aquarian. Landers looked up the address and he and Wanda started out in the new-to-him car. It was a nice little job, handled very sweetly; Phil had admired it.

The disco wasn’t open, of course, but there was a rickety stair going up one side of the old stucco building, and they climbed it. At the top was a door painted a violent royal blue, and Landers knocked on it.

"You can’t expect the free spirits to be up at this hour," said Wanda when he’d knocked five times.

"I can hear somebody in there." At the seventh knock the door was fumbled open.

"What the hell? What you want?"

"Mr. Robinson? Ford Robinson?"

"Yeah?"

"We’d like to ask you some questions about Rodrigo Peralta." Landers showed him the badge.

"Cops!" said Robinson disgustedly. "Cops, in the middle o’ the night. A lady cop yet. What’s with Roddy?" He yawned and scratched his chest. He was covered with so much hair that it was hard to tell what he looked like; he had a mane of wiry curly chestnut hair to his shoulders, he was only wearing shorts and his entire torso was covered with more, like his arms and naked legs.

Landers regarded him for a moment, considering the best approach to use. Wanda spoke up sweetly. "We’re looking for any friends of his who saw him last Monday night. To, you know, say where he was."

"Oh," said Robinson. "Like an alibi. I didn’t see him Monday-more like last Saturday, maybe." He thought. "But I tell you who might of. Yeah, sure. The Kings."

"The Kings?" said Landers, not looking at Wanda.

"Yeah-Nita and Gerald. I run into them on Monday night, downstairs at the disco, they said they were going to see Roddy, see if he had-well, going to see him."

"I see," said Wanda, making businesslike notes. "What time was that?"

"Uh-seven, seven-fifteen like."

"Do you know where the Kings live?"

"Sure, they got a pad right back of here, on Thirty-first." He added the address. "They could prob’ly say Roddy wasn’t wherever you thought he was. Damn cops coming-"

"Thank you very much," said Wanda prettily.

"Listen," said Landers on the sidewalk, "you’re just supposed to be tagging along."

"Men," said Wanda. "You notice we got what we were after. I always believed the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

Mendoza was sitting at his desk staring out at the Hollywood hills at three o’clock that Friday, the cards scattered on the desk behind him; he had spent an unproductive couple of hours brooding over Fleming. At least the rain had departed definitely; as usual in southern California after a rain, it had turned very cold, and it was brilliantly clear, the back mountains glistening with snow, the nearer hills sharply defined.

The office was quiet; everybody was out on something. The A.P.B. hadn’t brought Benoy in yet. There ought to be a report from S.I.D. on the Hopper killing sometime today. A couple of autopsy reports were in; nothing much in them.

"?Ca! " said Mendoza to himself. " A su tiempo maduran las uvas. " He got up and fished in his pocket for change for the coffee machine, and Sergeant Lake came in and shut the door behind him.

"We’ve got ca1lers," he said. He was looking grim and rather pleased; he had one hand behind him.

"Anybody interesting?"

"Oh, I think so," said Lake. "I think you’ll like her. A very respectable widow by the name of Mrs. Consuelo Gomez. She’s got a mustache, seven sons, and a tender conscience."

"Meaning what, Jimmy?" Mendoza sat down again. Sergeant Lake brought his hand from behind his back with something in it. He laid it on top of the cards on Mendoza’s desk. Mendoza stared at it.

It was a large silver crucifix on a long silver chain. The center of the cross was studded with an opaque pale-green veined stone. It was, in fact, the crucifix which had been torn from Father Patrick Joseph O’Brien when the pretty boys attacked him.

Mendoza raised his eyes from it, and they had gone very cold. "Suppose you show the lady in."

"Oh, she’s got one of them with her," said Lake. "Her youngest, Guido." He went out, and a minute later they came in. Mrs. Gomez was mountainous, in ancient and decent black silk, black hair piled in a knob on her head. But his eyes passed over her to the big boy behind her. Boy-he might be twenty, he was big but gangling: unused to his size as yet, awkward. Almost handsome, a poor attempt at a mustache, long waving black hair. And the very natty loud sports jacket, striped blue and green, a dark shirt, a wide tie.

She sat in the chair beside the desk and flooded Mendoza with emotion, religious and otherwise. "He is my youngest, my baby, I worry over him, I know he goes with these foolish young ones, and he does not come to church any more-I try to talk to him, I say-"

"Oh, for God’s sake knock it off, Mama! You just wasting their time with your crazy ideas-" He gave Mendoza a calculatedly apologetic smile. "Listen, she’s old country, know what I mean, you don’t want to pay no notice, I didn’t want to come here waste your-"

"You be still or I smack you again seven times! Oh, no, you don’t want to come here, to police, and I am stupid and old, but I am yet your mother! I have to drag him here, he feels my hand hard-and maybe he should feel it more often since he thinks he is all grown to a man! Away from his so-clever modern friends, he comes with me, I see to that!" She was breathing asthmatically, and her little black eyes were bright. Queerly, for she didn’t look anything like Teresa Sanchez y Mendoza, he was reminded of his grand mother.

"That," she said, and pointed to the crucifix on the desk, "that is why! That, I find in his drawer! It will be-"

"For God’s sake," he said, "for God’s sake. I told you I found it. On the street."

"That, I know. It is the crucifix the priest at the church always was wearing. Father O’Brien. And he has been murdered, the other Father has told us, by these terrible wicked ones. I have seven sons," she cried emotionally, and all her chins wobbled magnificently, "and I thank the good God the six of them are decent Christian men, it is for my sins I have this wicked one-I tremble to think what he has done, if indeed it can be he has attacked a priest, but I know my duty to God and the law-I bring him to you!"

"For Christ’s sake!" said the boy. "Of all the crap! I told you I found the damn thing, I thought it might be worth a couple bucks at a hock shop. That’s all I know about it."

"Where’d you End it?" asked Mendoza.

"It was over on Fourth somewheres, just lying in the street."

"When?" asked Mendoza.

"Oh, Jesus’ sake, couple o’ days ago." He met Mendoza’s cold eyes and suddenly backed away. "You aren’t gonna believe the stupid old lady, I had anything to do-I found it!"

"I have known he is running with wicked ones, late at night, never would he tell me where he is, and sometimes drinking too much wine-I have implored him, take the good little job his uncle offers, earn the money-I do not know where he has money, his clothes-"

"Knock it off!" he said furiously. "For God’s sake, all that crap about God and the law- That guy outside, he said Mendoza-I suppose you go for all that too, hah? I got shut of that a good long while back! Anything to all that, the hellfire, nobody in the world get out of it-I told you it was all in your silly Goddamn mind, you takin’ a hand to me like I was still a kid-"

"I know my duty to God!"

"To hell with your stupid God! And these Goddamn cops, stupid damn pigs-" His eye fell on the gadget on Mendoza’s desk, the life-sized pearl-handled revolver, and he laughed a little wildly. "Great big men, long as you got the guns around! You believe her, take me in and beat me up so I say anything-"

"Suppose we all calm down," said Mendoza. "Did you mention finding this to anyone, Mr. Gomez?"

"Goddamn all of you!" he said. And suddenly he made a grab for the gadget, snatched it up and turned it on his mother. "You Goddamned fool!" And he pressed the trigger.

Mendoza was on his feet. The barrel belched forth the torch-like flame, and Guido Gomez dropped the thing and began to scream hoarsely. "Fires of hell-fires of hell- fuegos del infierno -I didn’t mean to kill the priest, I didn’t know he was a priest, I didn’t mean-"