Mark of Murder - Dell Shannon (19 page)

"Well . . ." said Palliser. He didn't get
what was bothering Mendoza. Mendoza with quite a reputation as the
smart boy, but for the first time Palliser got what Hackett meant
when he said that Mendoza had a tortuous mind, looked for
complexities and imagined subtleties where they didn't exist.

Mendoza got out a cigarette and lit it, carefully
stepping on the match to bury it in loose earth. "I will grant
you," he said, "that anybody wanting to set up a fake
accident around here would be likely to think right off of a car
going over a cliff. Brakes failing, or a moment's inattention, on a
lot of roads around here . . . My own first thought would be,
somewhere up in Griffith Park. But it's the summer season, the Greek
Theater's open, and there'd be crowds up there, maybe to notice
something. Or maybe, as I say, he knew this road for some reason."

"Yes," said Palliser patiently.

"Anyway, he was taking pains at it. Some effort
and time spent. ¿
Conforme
?"

"Yes, sure."

"And then," said Mendoza, "when he
came to the actual faking of the accident, our clever, cautious X did
it in the damnedest silliest way possible. As if he thought we'd take
one casual look, and say, ‘Too bad, the poor fellow must have
missed that bend in the road,' and never take a second look. As if he
hadn't any idea that the Ford would leave tire marks for us to see,
that we can take casts of--that we'd obviously look for skid marks
and not find any. He'd used Art's own belt to tie him up, and he took
a little trouble putting it back on him. It wouldn't have taken
another thirty seconds to get Art's prints on the wheel and gear
selector, but instead, he just wiped them both clean, and of course
that told the story right there. He had heard of fingerprinting. But
apart from that--"

"I don't see what you're getting at," said
Palliser.

"Apart from that," said Mendoza, "either
he didn't know that police forces are quite bright these days, with
scientific labs and all the rest of it. Or he didn't care."

"I don't--"

"We built up a nice theory here," said
Mendoza, and he was looking tired, a little sad, a little grim. "We
said, wishful thinking maybe, it must have been that Art had found
out something definite on one of these cases, and whoever he'd
dropped on managed to jump him, put him out of action. And set up
this fake accident so he couldn't pass on the information .... You've
been a cop long enough to know that the obvious thing is generally
what happened. just look at the surface facts here and tell me
whether we weren't reaching a little far out, toward the
detective-story plot."

"Well, it's damned offbeat, sure, but--"

"He meant to see Telfer," said Mendoza. "We
don't know whether he did. But that's not a very savory district
around there. And didn't we say, not many men could put Art down and
out just so easy. I'll tell you what's in my mind. just a little
easier than I can see that offbeat, implausible plot, I can see
him--maybe on the way back to his car--getting jumped by three or
four or five louts. Juvenile louts, maybe riding high on liquor or H.
And the louts, rolling him, finding out he's a cop, and saying, ‘Hey,
let's have some fun with the cop.' And talking it over, forgetting
about his wallet--I know he wasn't robbed--looking for his car,
finding it. Tying him up in case he came to, while they argued about
how to have fun with the big cop-- Maybe riding around in both cars
awhile, talking it over. And finally-- And by that time so high they
didn't take any special care about it. They'd have been disappointed
the gas didn't explode. Can you see that?"

Palliser said, "Damnation. That's a story.
Looking at it like that--just as a separate thing, I mean-- Hell,
I've got to say it'd be just a little more likely-- I mean, well,
expectable, if that's the word for it. But there's nothing to say--"

"We're like lawyers,"
said Mendoza. "We have to go by precedent. The obvious is
usually just what happened. . . . I'll just say, let's keep open
minds. It could be the way we thought--but it could be something
altogether different too." He dropped his cigarette and stepped
on it carefully. "Let's get back and see if they've picked up
Webster."

* * *

At about the same time, Sergeant Nesbitt of the
Wilcox Street detective bureau was feeling pleased with himself.
There'd been quite a spate of break-ins lately, with practically
nothing to go looking on, and it was gratifying to have enough to
make a charge on one of them. Three young punks just starting to
accumulate records; a good many cops would be seeing a good deal of
them from now on. He just thought about that in passing; he wasn't a
particularly imaginative man, and crooks were just crooks to him. It
was his job to deal with them. He dealt with them very efficiently.

These particular crooks had had a couple of weapons
on them--tvvo guns and a switch-blade knife.

He finished writing up his notes on it and said
casually on his way out to lunch, "Oh, Bill. You better send
those cannisters down to headquarters Ballistics. They're so damn
fussy about checking everything. just in case."

"O.K., will do,"
said Bill, and subsequently sent them, by way of an annoyed
plainclothesman who had hoped to finish the Times crossword puzzle
before anything came up.

* * *

The man full of hate was feeling something new and
pleasant now.

He was important. He was the Goddamnedest most
important guy in L.A.

He was in all the newspapers, by God.

It was exciting, it was the most exciting thing that
had ever happened to him.

He couldn't make out why. Maybe it was different in a
big town? Because there'd been others--he thought back, vaguely, to
the others. He remembered a girl, a pretty girl, who had fought him
and said, "Please." There had been that guy, Dago some
kind, he'd been pretty high and hadn't fought him. And a while before
that, another woman. He didn't remember where that had been, but in
the country somewhere.

Not much fuss made about them. But of course he
hadn't stayed around. Maybe there had been at that. He got out his
knife and looked at it. He was proud of the knife. He had made it
himself, back at Marlett's old farm workshop. Out of a piece of old
iron he'd made it, in his spare time, and Jesus, he'd sweated blood
over setting them teeth in it, like a saw. It was a good knife. It
had made him somebody important.

He was in all the papers. When he'd heard some guys
talking about it, in that bar last night, he'd gone out and bought a
paper, and managed to spell out what it said. Some of the long words
were hard, but he could read most of it. Right on the front page, it
had been. Him! The Slasher, they called him. He liked that. He liked
the new, exciting feeling of being important.

It was a thing he hadn't expected, hadn't reckoned on
at all. He liked looking at the blood, but it was a personal,
temporary thing. In a vague way he'd known that if they caught him
they'd kill him--the law--just like he'd killed.

He didn't mind. No. His life hadn't been so good a
thing to him that he minded. Ever since the fire in the school, back
there when he was just a kid . . .

But now--now he was so important to millions of
people!--he would mind. He thought back to the best one, the kid. Oh,
Jesus God, he had liked that one, the feel of doing it. The kid, the
damned little Mex kid, calling him sir. It had been all there ahead
of him, the whole bit--his whole life, sex and fun and liquor and
money--why the hell should he have it, when I never had nothing? I
took it away from him, he thought. Like God or something.

Important. Hell, the whole state was talking about
him, thinking about him. Just because . . .
 
He
wouldn't have minded, a couple of days ago. Now, he thought
furiously, delightedly, he'd like to do a lot more before that
happened. Really show them--pay them all back, the whole world, for
what they'd done to him. So he minded, now. He was thinking about
that now. They'd be looking. Every man's hand against . . .

But it had always been that way.

He thought, and he made a plan. So they wouldn't find
him.

He'd stayed in a lot worse places.

He hadn't much to pick up, in the room. He still had
the money he'd saved on that job up north, a lot of money, nearly
four hundred bucks. He put the bottle of bourbon into his pocket; and
the cigarettes, the paper bag full of doughnuts, the extra shirt and
sweater went into the little canvas bag.

He went out of his room, down the hall, and out the
back door. Four houses up, along the little alley there, was Los
Angeles Street. He walked up it to Temple, and on his way he passed
the massive rectangular bulk of the Police Facilities Building, but
he didn't know what it was.

As he walked up Temple a plainclothes detective was
talking to the landlady in the house he had just left. "He had
such a scarred face? What name did he give you?"
 

THIRTEEN

Just after four o'clock a very angry man burst in on
Sergeant Lake and demanded, "This is the murder office, where
they hunt the murderers? I will sue you all! Every man in the police
I will sue! Infame! You call me a murderer, and it's a lie! You
slander my good name!" He waved a copy of the Times in one hand
and shook his other fist under Lake's nose. He was a little fat man
about fifty, with a few strands of black hair plastered across a
round bald head, a round olive-skinned face, and a pair of luxurious
braggadocio mustaches. "Scoundrels!" he said richly. "I
denounce you!"

Every man in the office heard him and came to find
out what was happening. Mendoza said, "What's this all about?"
and the little man swung to face him.

"Who is the chief man here? It is an outrage! My
name you publish in the paper, and say it is that of this madman who
kills children! I will sue you all--"

"Now just quiet down and come into my office,
and let's hear all about this, Mr .... ?"

"Oh, you pretend you don't know my name! I am
Tosci as you very well know-- Francesco Tosci--isn't it plain to see
in my own writing here? And I'm a respectable man, never in my life
have I killed anyone--it is infamous!" He glared at Mendoza. "In
all the newspapers, plain to be read, my name!"

Mendoza exchanged a glance with Palliser. "Let's
see what you're talking about," said Mendoza.
 
Mr. Tosci was more than willing. He flung down the
Times and with a shaking finger pointed out the reproduced illegible
signature from the Liverpool Arms register. "My signature, it
is--this I admit--but I do not kill people! It is--"

Mendoza and Palliser got him soothed down between
them, with elaborate apologies, and Mr. Tosci sat down, sizzling only
gently. Mr. Tosci was, it appeared, a barber, with his own shop over
on Flower Street, and he had never so much as had a moving-violation
ticket. He had not seen the newspapers today until a customer left a
Times behind and, in tidying up, Mr. Tosci had picked it up and to
his horror recognized the reproduced signature on the front page. He
had rushed straight out, leaving the shop in his assistant's charge,
to come here and accuse them of slander. He--

"Libel," murmured Palliser.

"Me!" said Mr. Tosci. "My name all
over the papers, and saying I am this fiend who--"

Mendoza apologized again. "But you were at that
hotel that night, Mr. Tosci? You signed the register when?"

The little barber calmed down enough to explain. They
would understand as fellow men that these things happened, it was a
great pity but one was only human. He had had a little argument with
his wife, and there had been a few hot words, and in the end Mr.
Tosci had stormed out of the house and decided to spend the night at
a hotel. "Women," said Mr. Tosci with a sigh. "Always
the one word more. I thought by the next day she would be cooled
down." He had gone to the Liverpool Arms more or less at random,
and been given a room, spent an innocent night in it, and gone to his
shop at nine the next morning, after having breakfast at a Manning's
coffee shop on the way.

"And why you are thinking--"

"Yes," said Mendoza. "I want Telfer,
and I want him now. Somebody go and get him! Now, Mr. Tosci, if
you'll just wait a little and let me explain--"

"Who is this Telfer? It is an outrage----"

But they got him to wait, with explanation. Scarne
went out in a hurry to pick up Telfer, who was located in his shabby
room at the hotel, reading a sports sheet and drinking port. Scarne
hustled him into his clothes and brought him in.

"That's the man," said Tosci instantly as
Telfer was ushered into Mendoza's office. "He will say, he was
the man I paid for the room, and he gave me the key."

"Well, Telfer!" said Mendoza. "Did
this man come into the hotel the same night the Slasher did?"

Telfer looked acutely uneasy. "I--guess he did.
Sure."

"You don't remember, do you?" Mendoza's
tone was cold. "You don't remember because you were drunk. You
were so drunk you pulled a complete blank. You carry it fine, you
look just a bit high, but it was the hell of a lot more than that,
wasn't it?"