Mark of Murder llm-7

by Dell Shannon

  McLelland turned and sent a snap shot toward where he thought the gunman was. This thing had started so suddenly that he'd hardly had time to feel surprise. He just found himself thinking blankly, What the hell? Now, lying there, he heard footsteps across the intersection-soft, but audible; steps walking, then running-away. Leslie heard that too. He came up panting. "For God's sake-" he said. "You hit? What-"

  The other man came up to them. "You're cops?" he said, seeing McLelland in uniform. "Thank God. Mac's dead. Did you see that? He's dead. We were just walkin' along, talking about politics, and he'd just been saying about all this lousy foreign aid, and then- He's dead. And his eye's all-his eye-" He leaned over, retching, and Leslie took his arm. McLelland, gun still in hand, ran down to where the man lay; he'd been neatly drilled through the left eye, probably a fluke shot.

  He looked up the street and saw a black and white squad car coming. It screeched to a halt beside him.

  "Were those shots?" asked the driver.

  "Sounded like a. 38," said McLelland. "This poor devil's a D.O.A. A sniper- I think he was just shooting at anything that showed, way it-"

  From about a block away a gun began to talk-a fusillade of shots, in rapid succession. "For God's sake," said the squad-car driver, "has war been declared?" He picked up the hand radio. "Car 104 at L.A. and Woods. Sniper just shot a man here. Shot at two of our boys."

  "He went up Woods," said McLelland.

  "He went up Woods toward Main."

  The radio crackled excitedly at him. They heard more shots, a little farther off. "Awk!" said the radio as if in comment. "Join car 194 at junction of Main and Woods. Repeat-"

  "What about us?" asked McLelland. But the radio didn't say anything about that, so they stayed there and got the names of the two men, quick and dead, and after the ambulance came they went on with the search. That had been their orders.

  ***

  Mendoza and Palliser were in an empty factory on Third Street when they heard about the sniper. A uniformed man came down the corridor looking, said, "Lieutenant? They sent me over to find you. There's a sniper loose. Last they heard of him, he was on Woods Street somewhere-killed a civilian and shot at two of our men. Then he took some shots at a squad car along Main-"

  "?Porvida! " said Mendoza, and then he said suddenly, "That's our boy. Come on. You've got a car? Let's get going."

  "But how could- A sniper?" said Palliser incredulously. "You mean like that Corning thing last year? Just some nut loose with a gun? I don't-"

  Mendoza was hustling him along. "?Vamos, vamos! It's our boy-I see how his mind works, pues si. I said, just enough sense. He wants to kill, he likes to kill with the knife, but we've told people what he looks like now-and you can kill people from a distance with a gun. With guns. My God, yes-Goldberg's boy too, and that young arsenal-"

  They got over to the corner of Woods and Main at about eleven o'clock. Men were looking at the squad car, whose right front door was riddled with bullet holes. A uniformed man was propped against it ‘with his jacket off and a makeshift bloody bandage round one arm. "For God's sake, isn't anyone following him up? Any idea which way he went?" demanded Mendoza.

  A shattering explosion of shots in the distance answered him. He commandeered the nearest squad car, piled three men in the back and Palliser beside him, and gunned it in the direction of the shots. They roared up Main, with its lights and crowds thinning here, to Winton Street; down there to the right were three squad cars, slewed around in the street, and a little crowd, and four uniformed men. Mendoza swung the car down there.

  "For the love of God, haven't you people any sense?" one of the men was demanding impatiently. "Scatter-get away-" A second man in uniform was leaning against the side of a car, clasping his shoulder; blood seeped between his lingers.

  The gun barked, and the other man's plea was heeded. Several women screamed, the crowd scattering back into the shadows of hedges and houses. This was a residential street. The sniper was apparently behind a hedge across the street.

  There was a woman lying in the street beside the cars. "She's only winged," said one of the patrolmen. "I put a tourniquet on, and the ambulance is on its way. Now let's have a look at you, Bill--"

  They were all crouched clown, now, behind a squad ear, and they all had their guns out.

  "What the hell is all this, anyway?" asked the wounded man, sounding indignant. "All of a sudden-"

  "It's our boy," said Mendoza calmly, peering round the bumper long enough to fire a shot at that hedge. "I know. We've flushed him."

  "The- That's crazy," said the other patrolman. "Excuse me, sir, but he's always used a knife, I don't see-"

  "I think he's beyond caring how he kills," said Mendoza, firing another shot. Two more bullets hit the other side of the squad car, and then there was silence. The woman lying in the street moaned. "Don't tell me we've got him? Cover me, please." He moved around the car, bent low, made a dash for the shelter of the hedge across the street. His flashlight flicked on briefly; he straightened.

  "Gone-fan out after him-all directions! John, come with me-call up some more cars, will you?"

  Palliser ran to keep up with him as he started down toward San Pedro. "I don't see how you make this out-all of a sudden-"

  "He wouldn't have expected all this," said Mendoza.

  "He didn't know we were out hunting too. His first night's target practice with the arsenal-yes-but maybe getting his fire returned has shaken him a little. Damn, I'm out of condition. Wait a minute. Listen."

  There were distant sirens; Palliser couldn't hear anything else. Then from the corner of San Pedro down there a squad car came bucketing around the corner fast, and its headlights caught a man running diagonally across the street. Just one flash, and he was gone; he'd been nearly at the opposite curb; but they both saw the guns, one dangling from each hand. The squad car braked loudly, and Mendoza fired across its hood. "Searchlight, for God's sake!" he snapped.

  The light came on, swung to point where they'd seen him. Two men scrambled out of the car. A bullet came out of the dark and hit the top of the light, and they heard a man running.

  "One of you follow me-the other call in a Code Nine," said Mendoza, and plunged across the street. Another shot plucked at Palliser's sleeve as he ran beside him.

  "He's heading back-to his hole," panted Mendoza. "Bet you-" But these damn dark streets, and they were only guessing he was ahead of them…

  Then they saw him, for just another half second. There was a street light at the corner, and they saw him-a darting thin figure in clothes that flapped loose about him-turn left there, running awkwardly in great strides. They came round the corner after him, and skidded to a haIt.

  "Where the hell did he go?" gasped the uniformed man. This silent empty street was fairly well lighted; along here all the buildings were dark, but they could see the full block ahead, and no living thing moved on it.

  "Damn!" said Mendoza. "into one of these buildings. The nearest one, for choice. I want men-a lot of men-we're going through every building on this block-"

  A squad car screeched to a stop beside them, with one man in it. "O.K.," said Mendoza tautly. "You call up reinforcements-tell them where we are. You two go round to the side of this place-and be damn careful, no flashlights! John, let's see what we've got here." He moved to the front of the corner building. "I think this has got to be it, we weren't thirty feet behind him-he didn't go far past the corner. What in God's name is this place?"

  It was an old building; and they saw now, in the yellow light from the old-fashioned street lamps, that this whole block of buildings was waiting for demolition. In the last few years a good many of these shabby old streets had come in for renovation; the city was building itself new city and county buildings, and big companies were buying up this valuable downtown land to knock down the derelict old buildings, put up shiny new skyscrapers.

  A start had been made on demolishing the buildings near this corner. A great pile of knocked-apart
lumber and twisted metal lay in a heap alongside the corner building, which had two wings enclosing a square open entrance. For a second that looked vaguely familiar to Palliser, but he couldn't place it. A department store of some kind? But no sign of display windows. The whole place looked ready to fall down, and up there past the wings it was dark as the mouth of hell. But Mendoza was walking up toward where the door would be, quite cool, gun in hand.

  "He'll be lying quiet," he muttered, "hoping we won't realize this is where he's got to be."

  There had been a door, probably; it was missing now, they found by feeling along a rough stucco wall. They went in shoulder to shoulder-into whatever it was, and Palliser thought, an extra-wide doorway.

  Bare wooden floor. Mendoza wasn't trying to be quiet. He took a few steps straight ahead and, holding his flashlight at arm's length away from his body, switched it on briefly.

  "Christ!" said Palliser involuntarily.

  It sprang at them out of the darkness, terrifying, incredible-a dark-skinned giant in a great feather head-dress and long glittering cloak, double life size.

  He heard Mendoza take a breath, and then laugh. "Wall mural," he said. "Polynesian god of some sort?" His voice echoed oddly. "Where are we, anyway, John?"

  Palliser held his own flashlight out and pointed it to their right. A long wide corridor, thick with dust. There was a door, closed, at the far end: they could just make out, painted on it, the mute legend GENT ME.

  Nothing stirred: no gun spoke out of the darkness. Mendoza turned his flashlight ahead, lower. There was a wooden counter there, like a bar; fittings of some kind had been removed from it. The light flashed around nervously, here and there, and a pair of giant hula dancers seemed to undulate at them from another wall.

  "I think-" said Mendoza, and at that moment the light showed them a face. A face not fifteen feet away-a face of nightmare. The man was pressed against the wall there, rigid, looking toward them. Not a big man: a thin man in ragged clothes too big for him, nondescript clothes. His face was a mask of blind hate and rage and terror: and splashed across it was the mark-the red scar mark of death, that in the end had triggered death.

  For an instant they all stood there motionless; then the Slasher made one quick, convulsive movement and vanished out of the circle of light. Mendoza plunged after him, the flashlight sweeping a wide arc.

  Black as the Earl of Hell's weskit, thought Palliser ridiculously, hurrying after him. His grandmother used to say that. Black as…

  But the flashlight showed a rectangular blackness-and another-and then they were through the nearest one, and he understood where they were.

  This was a derelict movie theater. That had been the candy and popcorn stand out there. All the fittings taken out-carpets and curtains-probably the plumbing-and, here, the seats.

  It was a vast, black, empty great place, with the floor sloping sharply away under his feet. The two flashlights found the man again, running diagonally across the uneven floor, stumbling, turning up toward the archway that had once led to the last left aisle. Mendoza fired at him and evidently missed.

  Then the quarry was out of the light, and the roar of Mendoza's gun was echoed by anther-a bullet slammed past Palliser's shoulder, close. He fired blindly.

  They were running, up the slanting floor now, and Mendoza fired again. Dimly Palliser was aware of sirens somewhere in the distance, and loud excited voices nearer…

  He rammed into a wall, and swore. He had missed the archway-he groped for it and came out into unexpected light.

  They had parked two squad cars directly in front, and headed their searchlights up here. It wasn't very bright, but you could see in here now. Palliser saw.

  The man who liked to kill was standing against the wall there twenty feet away, his terrible face contorted. He still had both his guns. Mendoza was facing him, ten feet down from Palliser.

  Men were coming, pouring into the lobby excitedly.

  The man fired, and missed, and raised the other gun. Then a shot spat at him from another direction, and he fell back against the wall and slid down it slowly, and sprawled full length.

  "Thanks very much, Bert," said Mendoza. "That was my last slug. I never claimed to be a marksman."

  Dwyer walked up to the body and looked down at it, gun still in hand. "You can say I told you so if you want," he said. "You and your hunches!"

  NINETEEN

  There was quite a bit of clearing up to do; Mendoza didn't get home until two-thirty again. There were all the reporters swarming around. And they found the Slasher's secret place and the rest of his arsenal; they found out who he had probably been, from an old union card in his wallet. The Railroad Brotherhood. So for a start they looked for that name, John Tenney, on the list of former S.P. employees, and there it was-he'd been hired, briefly, as a trackwalker, some years back.

  "In a kind of way, you might feel sorry for him, if he hadn't.. ." said Palliser, leaving that unfinished. And Mendoza said, "That damned lush Telfer! Look at all this mess! Seven people killed--I don't suppose anyone's missing the wino or Florence, or the other Skid Row type we found this morning, but there's the boy, and Loretta Lincoln, and Simms-and several more hurt, including a couple of cops. My God, and if Telfer hadn't been drunk that night we'd probably have picked the Slasher up inside twenty-four hours, with a full description."

  "It isn't going to trouble Telfer's conscience," said Palliser dryly.

  "No, probably not… "

  And when he did get home he couldn't sleep. Had the assauly on Art been tied up to Nestor? How and why? Had to get at that thing again in the morning… Cliff Elger? He still didn't know where the Elgers had been on Tuesday night when Nestor was shot…

  But, he thought suddenly, coming to complete wakefulness from an instant's half-sleep, it had to come back to that appointment in Nestor's office that night. Didn't it? He had told his wife he had an evening appointment. It might have been a date with a girl, but- vide Anita Sheldon-they wouldn't stay there. Naturally. So if it had been that, then he must have been killed very close to the eight o'clock margin Bainbridge gave them, or he wouldn't still have been in the office. But if it hadn't been a girl friend…

  That scrapbook. He'd been thinking, Nestor not above a little blackmail. Had it been something like that? Have a good look at that list of patients, when the court order came through… By what Bert and the others said, the other women in Nestor's address book had been casual pickups, not exactly the kind to inspire the grand passion-to the point of murderous jealousy. But of course you never did know. People…

  Art. If that wasn't linked to Nestor, was the outside thing, where the hell to start looking? Dead end. Hell. Andrea Nestor?

  No. No. A man. They knew that much, because it had been a man who got rid of that gun. Maybe two people?

  Andrea Nestor scarcely a woman to do murder for, either…

  He drifted off uneasily at last, but woke for good at six. El Senor was chattering at the birds outside the window. Mendoza shaved and dressed, went out to the living room and called the hospital. Established routine now, he thought. Part of these long, long days

  … The nurse's impersonal voice said, "Oh yes, sir-just a moment, Dr. MacFarlane wants to speak to you personally, if you'll wait a moment."

  "All right," said Mendoza. He waited, wondering academically how far his pulse rate had shot up.

  "Lieutenant? Yes. He's been increasingly restless," said the doctor. "I think the chances are good that he'll regain consciousness sometime today. I'd like either you or someone else who knows him well to-er-stand by for a call, as it were. You understand."

  "Yes, Doctor."

  "You'll be called as soon as we know… Well, we're still not making any guesses, of course. Wait and see. You'll have someone standing by?"

  "Yes." Much as he would like to be the man, he couldn't; he had things to do today. "Thanks very much, Doctor."

  "We'll just keep hoping," said MacFarlane sadly. Even Mrs. MacTaggart wasn't
up, this morning. He got out the Ferrari and stopped for breakfast at the Manning's on Vermont, but he couldn't get much of it down; he had three cups of coffee and began to feel slightly more alive.

  He got to the office before the night shift was off; told them the latest news. When Dwyer came in he said, "You're taking a little holiday, Bert. Stick around in case the hospital ca1ls." He explained.

  "O.K.," said Dwyer, looking grim.

  Mendoza looked at the clock irritably; he couldn't decently arrive at the Elgers' apartment before nine o'clock. He sat at his desk thinking about that appointment of Nestor's on Tuesday night.

  An appointment with Ruth Elger? And Elger- So X discovered belatedly that he'd lost a button and, just in case he'd lost it in Nestor's office, gave away the jacket if he couldn't replace the button. How were you going to prove it?

  A button. Suddenly, now, Mendoza was wondering whether that might have been what Art had spotted. If there was a tie-up. Whether X hadn't noticed the missing button until Art noticed, and questioned him about it. Whether…

  Such a very ordinary little button. He got it out and looked at it. And another thought crossed his mind about it too, as a faint possibility of a lead-probably very faint. In these days of mass production. However…

  All the morning papers had screaming headlines about the capture of the Slasher.

  Nine o'clock found him using the knocker on the Elgers' apartment door.

  Ruth Elger let him in; she wasn't dressed yet, but looked better this time-no hangover, and make-up.

  "Well, for heaven's sake, what do you want?" she asked rather crossly.

  "Answers to a few questions, Mrs. Elger, if you don't mind." The room wasn't much neater than when he'd seen it first, and it hadn't been dusted in some time. She told him ungraciously to sit down, perched herself on the arm of a chair.

  "Well?"

  "Do you remember what you and your husband were doing on Tuesday night a week ago? A week ago yesterday?"