Case Pending - Dell Shannon (4 page)

"Oh, I don't know, Luis. One dame every six
months, pretty damn moderate, come to think." Hackett glanced at
him sideways. "So you think it's the same joker too."

"That eye. It's a little psychological point,
maybe—Mendoza tossed away his cigarette and paused with his hand on
the shopdoor.

"Or am I being too subtle? In a fight with
another man, anything goes—one of you may have an eye gouged out.
But to do that to a woman, and a woman you have already made
helpless—Well, what do we call insane? You and I have seen it,
there are men just turns sadistic, and they're not legally insane.
But I don't think this is one of those, Art. I didn't think so with
Carol Brooks. Because of that eye business. And Bainbridge says to
me,
de paso
, just what
Dr. Victor says now—probably much of the damage is made after
death. Only just after, but—
Due para mi
,
it's a wild one, never mind the double-talk of the psychiatrists.

A real, hundred-percent, guaranteed genuine wild
one—
mucho loco
."

"Hell, I said the same thing. And you know what
that means,
chico
—work
or brains don't count in catching him. He's got no sane reason for
picking this girl or that. It'll be luck, that's all, if we do. My
God, he might not know himself what he's done, and a hundred to one
the only way we'll ever put a name to him is if he happens to have a
brain storm in front of witnesses next time. Probably he's living
quiet as you please, an ordinary guy nobody'd look at twice, maybe
going to work every day, comin' home prompt at six to kiss his wife
and look at the sports page before dinner-goes to church every
Sunday—never done a thing anybody'd think queer. It'll just be the
way the cards fall, if and when and how soon we get him."

"It isn't always," said Mendoza, "the
hand dealt to you, so much as the way you play it."

"You should know. How much do you average a year
in poker winnings, anyway?"

"Sometimes enough to buy my shirts."

"That ain't hay for you, at what, twelve bucks a
throw. . . . . You know something else? When we do catch up with him,
he's going to be some guy who's got the reputation of being the
kindest, mildest, sweetest-tempered hombre God ever put on earth.
Everybody who knows him'll say, Oh, John couldn't be the one, he'd
never do such a thing, officer! Want to bet?"

Mendoza laughed, abrupt and mirthless. "Don't
I know it! I only hope he doesn't have another brain storm before we
catch up to him.

No one's ever accused me of being a sentimental man,
¡no, por Dios!
but I
don't care for his notions of how to treat women." He swept the
Hamburg off, passed a hand over the thick, Indian-straight black hair
that grew to a widow's peak, and opened the door.
 

THREE

The girl who had found the body was nervous, too
nervous. Not a nice experience, but it had been over an hour ago, and
if she had nothing to do with it, why was she trembling and
stammering and eying the policemen as if she expected the third
degree? Mendoza was mildly curious.

She was a rather pretty girl, about twenty-seven,
neat rounded figure, modest and dowdy in a clean cotton housedress.
Fine olive-tan complexion, big brown eyes, minimum of make-up: a
respectable girl. "Her name was Elena Ramirez. I realize you
wouldn't be likely to recognize anyone you knew under the
circumstances—so, did you know Miss Ramirez?"

"Oh, no, sir, I never heard of her." She
twisted her hands together and her eyes shifted away. "I'll be
awful late for work, sir, I don't know nothing."

Mendoza let her go. "Sergeant Hackett will drive
you to your job and explain why you're late"; and to Hackett,
"Conversation—find out what you can about her, and then see
what you can pick up where she lives. I don't think she's got
anything to do with it, but one never knows. I'll see the family.
That takes us to an early lunch, maybe Federico's at twelve-thirty,
O.K.?—we'll compare notes."

"
Est bien
,"
said Hackett, and joined Agnes Browne outside. The Italian grocer,
hovering to get Mendoza's attention, asked excitedly if he had said
Ramirez—the family Ramirez over on Liggitt Street, would that be?
Sacred name of God, what a terrible thing—ah, yes, he knew them,
only to nod to, the signor comprehended—sometimes the wife came in
to buy, not often—God pity them, to lose a daughter so—no, no,
the girl he did not know at all—she was assaulted, assassinated by
some madman, then?

"So I think," said Mendoza. The men from
headquarters had dispersed; the ambulance was gone, the patrol car
was gone. Across the street he saw Dwyer leave the first house next
to the corner lot and head for the neighboring one. Mendoza crossed
to his car and stopped to light a cigarette; he looked at the car
thoughtfully, getting out his keys. He believed in buying the very
best piece of merchandise obtainable of what one set out to buy,
giving it loving care and using it until it fell to pieces. A thing
like a car, that by this scheme was with you for years, you got
acclimated to one another, it had personal individuality for you, it
was more than a mere machine of transportation. The austerely elegant
black Ferrari club-saloon was only thirteen years old, just into
middle age for a Ferrari, and it would be mad, extravagant, to give
it up: he had no intention of doing so: but there was no denying that
with the increase of traffic and parking problems, its size was a
disadvantage, not to say a nuisance. The trouble was, if he did buy a
new car, it would be one with less than twelve cylinders—unless he
should buy one of the new, smaller Ferraris, which was piling madness
on madness.

He muttered, "
Es
dificil
," got in and started the engine.
("Now look, Mr. Mendoza," the mechanic had said patiently,
"the number o' cylinders isn't anythin' to do with how good the
car is! If you knew
anythin'
about engines atall—! I know it sounds to you like you're gettin'
more for your money—facta the matter is, about all it means is it
costs more to run, see? Sure, this is the hell of a great car, but
you'd be just as well off, get just as much power and speed, with say
something like that Mercedes six—I mean if you got to have a
foreigner—or one of them slick hardtop Jaguars.

Liggitt Street, a block the other side of Main and
one down, was a bare cut above Commerce. Not so many signs in
windows, and the houses, most as old and poor, better cared for. The
Ramirez house was one of the two-storey ones; as he came up the walk,
he saw that the curtains at the narrow front windows were clean and
starched, a few flowers planted against the low porch.

He did not mind breaking bad news to strangers, and
often it was of help to notice reactions: little things might tell if
this was as impersonal fate as it looked, or had reasons closer to
home. But he fully expected that a good deal of time would be wasted,
from his point of view, while they assimilated the news, before he
could decently ask questions.

He was not wrong there. The family consisted of Papa,
Mama, assorted children between three and sixteen, an older daughter
perhaps twenty-one, and a stocky middle-aged man who bore enough
resemblance to Papa that his designation as Tio Tomás was
superfluous.

Mendoza waited through Mama's hysterics, the
dispatching of a message to the parish priest, the settling of Mama
on the sofa with a blanket, cologne-soaked handkerchief, glass of
wine, and her remaining brood nested about her comfortingly. He found
a cracked pink saucer in obvious use as an ash tray and smoked
placidly in the midst of the uproar, eyes and ears busy.

Not native Mexican-Americans, these, not a couple of
generations across the border. The kids, they had the marks of smart
American kids, and their English was unhesitating, sparked with
slang; but Mama, fat and decent in ankle4ength black cotton, and
Papa, collarless neck scrawny above an old flannel bathrobe, were Old
Country. It was no different, Mexican, German, Lithuanian,
whatever—always there was bound to be a little friction, the kids
naturally talking on freer modern ways, the old ones disapproving,
worried, and arguments about it. So?

The man called Tio Tomás sat in a straight chair
behind the sofa and said nothing, smoking tiny black Mexican
cigarillos.

"You know I must ask you questions," said
Mendoza at last, putting a hand on Manuel Ramirez' arm. "I'm
sorry to intrude on your grief, but to help us in hunting whoever has
killed your daughter."

"Si, yes, it is understood,,, whispered
Ramirez. "I—I tell you whatever you want to know. Maria
Santisima, my brain is not working for this terrible thing,
but—excuse, mister, I don't speak so good in English."

"Then we speak Spanish."

"Ah, you have the tongue, that's good. I thank
you—pardon, mister, the name I did not."

"Lieutenant Mendoza."

"Mendoza." He gave it the hard Mexican
pronunciation that was ultimately Aztec, instead of the more elegant
Spanish sibilance. "You are—an agent of police?"

"I am. I'll ask you first."

"The gentleman's good to wait and be polite."
It was the oldest girl, coming up quietly, looking at him with open
curiosity; she was pale, but had not been weeping. She was not as
pretty as her sister had been, but not bad-looking, in a buxom way.
"Of course we know you got to ask questions, but look, Papa, no
sense disturbing Mama with it—I guess you and me can tell him
whatever he wants. Let's go in the kitchen, if that's all right,
mister?"

"It is Lieutenant, Teresa," said Ranrez
distractedly; he let her urge him through a shabby dining room.
Mendoza strolled after: she threw him a glance over her shoulder of
mixed interest, anxiety, and a kind of mechanical female
brandishment. The kitchen was big, cold, reasonably clean. "Please
to sit down, sir—if you would accept my hospitality, a glass of
wine—it's only cheap stuff' Ramirez was trying to pull himself
together; the conventional courtesy was automatic.

"No, no, thanks. Tell me first, I believe your
daughter lived here with you?—then you must have been worried that
she didn't come home last night? Do you know where she was?"

The girl answered from where she had perched uneasily
on the kitchen table. "Sure, we were worried. But she might've
gone to stay overnight with a girl friend, or—well, you know how it
is, we sort of talked back 'n' forth and kept waiting for her maybe
to call one of the neighbors with a message—Mrs. Gomez next door
lets us—"

"Where had she gone and when did she leave?"

"She was—she was just out on a date. I don't
know where they were going. Ricky, he was here for Elena about seven,
I guess, and they went right after." In answer to the query only
begun, she added hurriedly, "Ricky Wade, he's a boy
Elena's—Elena had been going with a lot. A nice boy he is, you
needn't go thinking anything about him, see. I don't know where they
were going, but they did go to the Palace rink a lot—that
roller-skating place, you know. Silly, I say, but Elena's—Elena was
just a kid, she liked it."

"She would have had nineteen years only the next
month," murmured Ramirez. "It was wrong, Teresa, I said so!
We should have gone to the police at once, at once! Elena was a good
girl in her heart, she was properly brought up, never would she have
done such a thing—all the talk around and around, I should have let
you and Mama talk and gone to the police myself—"

"What would she not have done, Miss Ramirez?"
asked Mendoza.

"Oh, well, I spose we got to say or you'll think
it's funny we didn't seem more worried." Her mouth tightened.
"We were going to do something about it this morning, don't know
what, but—We were awful worried, you can see that, way Papa and I
both stayed home from work—it wasn't as if Elena ever did nothing
like that before, stay away all night and not call or nothing.
But—well, we got to thinking maybe her and Ricky'd eloped—you
know, over to Las Vegas or somewhere, to get married in a hurry."

"It is not true!" exclaimed Ramirez
excitedly, jumping up. The bathrobe fell open to reveal his spindly
legs and unexpectedly gay pink cotton underpants. "It is a
wicked lie, that Elena is got in trouble with this fellow and has to
run away and marry quick! She is a respectable girl, never would
she—oh, she does this and that Mama and I don't like, sure, but
she's young, it's different times and ways now, I know that—she's
impatient, she wants the moon like all youngsters, but never would
she—"

"I never said she did, I never! But after they
made up and he came back, she sure meant to keep him, she was set on
marrying him some day, you know good as I do. All I said was, if be
all of a sudden wanted to elope, she wouldn't take the risk of losing
him, she'd say yes quick!"

"Did you disapprove of this Mr. Wade, then?"
asked Mendoza of Ramirez casually.

"Disapprove?" He moved his thin shoulders
wearily. "He is not of the faith. I don't know, if Elena wanted
so bad, I—You don't have nothing to say about it any more, anyway,
fathers. The kids, they go their own way. She wouldn't have been
happy in such a marriage, that I thought. But it wasn't really
serious, they were just youngsters—"