by Dell Shannon
"A suitcase. What kind?"
"I didn't get a look at that, couldn't say. I've got the impression she was carrying it when she stepped out to hail me, that is, she didn't go back to the curb to get it. And once she was out of the lights I could just see she had some kind of bag. Like she'd just come off a train, but I don't see how she could of. She wasn't on the Lark-I'd have spotted her-and anyway if she had been why didn't she take a cab down at the station, instead of wandering up the hill to the Plaza? Anyway, in she gets, and she says in this funny accent to take her to this address out on Polk Street. Well, it was to-hell-and-gone down toward the beach, fifteen miles easy, and I wanted to be sure she wasn't a nut or something without any money on her, so I said that was quite a ways, it'd cost her four-five bucks, as a kind of hint, if you get me. And right away she says, ‘That will be all right, my good man,' in this crazy accent, and she hands me a fivespot over the back of the seat. So I drove her. It'd mean an empty run back because it wasn't likely I'd pick up another stray way out there, but if she handed over the five so easy I thought maybe there'd be a good tip… It's a block of tract houses, one of those new subdivisions.”
"Let's look at a map." They looked, and Mendoza was more irritated. That block on Polk Street was a short block up and a short block across from Twelvetrees' apartment on 267th.
"-And no streetlights in yet, so I didn't get any better look at her there, and she hadn't done any talking at all on the way. You know, some people want to talk to the driver and some don't, I let them pick. I had a look in the mirror now and then, and she was just sitting kind of huddled up in one corner, holding that serape over her face like she was afraid of breathing germs or something. When we got there, quick as anything she hands me over another five, and before I can get out to open the door, give her her change, she's already out, with her suitcase, and says, ‘That's all right, my man, I don't want change,' and off she goes. I hadn't even killed the engine yet."
"So, of course, you didn't," said Mendoza. "You made a U-tum and headed back-and you didn't see her go into any of those houses."
"Well, no, I didn't. She was a funny one, but we see plenty of them hacking, you know. But that street's too narrow for a U-turn, I had to go up to the next corner. And by the time I got back where she'd got out, no sign of her. But I did notice that the house where she said she wanted to go wasn't lighted at all, as if they were expecting somebody. Only way I knew the right address was, the house next to it had the porch light on and I saw that number."
"Yes. A very funny little story. Thanks very much for coming in. We'll want your name and so on, and a formal statement… " And just how did that little piece of melodrama tit in? Why had Cara Kingman (if it had been) have to taxi back to the apartment? And call such obvious notice to herself in the process? Polk Street. Two blocks to 267th. Which in turn was only about a mile from where Bartlett had been killed three hours earlier. The only thing Mendoza liked at all about this was that it had happened on the Friday night; and that was senseless too, just because he was set on that theory.
" Ca, vaya historial I don't believe it, it's a damned ridiculous coincidence," he said to himself. But it had to be followed up, of course. He put on his hat and set out on the six-block walk down to the old Plaza and Olvera Street.
TEN
Once, they'd been going to destroy the narrow alley with its uneven old brick paving and the gutter down its middle, the leaning ramshackle old buildings flanking it. Nothing to do, that was, with a progressive and fast-growing city proud of its modernity. Then a few civic-minded organizations got up indignant petitions and committees, and in the end it stayed, to become a landmark, one of the places tourists came to see: the first, the oldest street of that little village whose name was nearly as long as the street-the town of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, of the little portion.
At ten-thirty on a gray February morning it wasn't much to see: shabby refaced buildings, haphazard stalls cheek-by-jowl in a row down the middle, over the old gutter, and most of the shops shut, boards up in the stall windows. Night was its time, when the lights softened down the shabbiness and the tourists came, the buyers (tourists or not), and the famous old restaurant was open midway down the street, and the women who'd marketed and cooked and chatted all day in their ready-made cotton housedresses got out their shawls and combs. There'd be a couple of men with guitars stationed somewhere, and the man at the mouth of the street with his little bags of hot roasted pinon nuts, and the music and laughter drifting out of La Golondrina, the restaurant, and the buyers drifting along looking at everything (the women stumbling on the uneven bricks, in their high heels)-at the gimcrack cheap jewelry and the beautiful handcrafted real stud from the little silversmithies here and south of the border, at the handmade baskets, and braided-leather and to0led-leather shoes, at the hand-blown glass and the hand-woven cotton (also at the boxed cheap linens from Belgium, and the good stud and the bad from Japan, from the Philippines, from everywhere in Europe)-and maybe stopping to have their fortunes told by the old woman at the far end of the street.
And even at ten-thirty in the morning, over the whole street there hung the faint scent of glamour-and that was the combined scents from the little cavelike shop, three breakneck steps down from street level, where the candles were made, the incredible rainbow candles scented with pine, with orange, with jasmine and gardenia, and nameless musky saccharine odors.
Most of the shops were shut, but he knew that behind many of them were living quarters. This was a minor little errand, he needn't have come himself, but-he also knew-he might have a better chance of getting whatever there was to get than the most fluent of his Spanish-speaking sergeants.
He could have wished that the article in question had been something other than a serape. That inimitable object of Mexicana, the long strip of rough cactus cloth or cotton, garishly striped and fringed, was to be had at all but a few specialty shops: but maybe that fact was balanced by another, that it had been raining that night.
He started at the mouth of the street and took one side at a time. Not every shop had quarters attached; not everyone was at home. Everyone who was was anxious to be helpful but remembered nothing of any use to him… To be sure, most places had remained open that rainy evening. When one was under shelter, and it was the regular time for business, why not? There was always a chance that the rain would slacken, that a few people who had decided to come to the street would not be put off by the weather. And so it had been: business had been very poor, of course, but a few buyers had come-chiefly people who had reservations at the restaurant and visited the shops afterward. But many places had closed earlier than usual, ten or ten-thirty. Not all, no. Wine was pressed on him. In one place a very old woman looked on him in contempt and called him a police spy. In the place next door a pretty high-school-age girl asked him please would he talk to her brother and tell him he was crazy: "See, Joe keeps saying he's got nine counts on him to start, being Mexican-what's the use of trying to get educated and so on, he'd never get anywhere, might as well get things however you can. He's in with some real bad fellows, Mama and I get worried-and if you'd just show him-" He took the name and address for Taylor in Juvenile; Taylor would see one of the youth counselors contacted Joe and did what he could… By the time he got to the mouth of the street again, having worked his way right up one side and down the other, Mendoza, who was not a wine drinker, was feeling slightly bilious and disgruntled at this waste of time.
But there, in the end shop-scarcely more than an alcove, now, shut off from the street by a large board, with a single room behind it-he found Manuel Perez, improving the out-of-business hour by making up his accounts. Mr. Perez removed his horn-rimmed glasses, listened gravely to Mendoza's questions, and said at once that he remembered the occasion very well indeed.
"At last I arrive," said Mendoza. "Now why didn't I start here? Tell me."
It seemed that Mr. Perez had kept his shop open later than any other that rainy night, not in
the hope of customers but because he was waiting for his son, who had borrowed the family car to take his girl to a school dance. La familia Perez lived a couple of miles away from the street, and especially on a cold wet night Mr. Perez had not fancied the walk home. The dance was to be over at midnight, and Diego, who was a good reliable boy, would then deliver his girl home and come to pick up his father at the shop: which in fact he had done, somewhere around twelve-thirty.
Meanwhile Mr. Perez had spent a quiet evening sitting in his shop, waiting on the few customers who came. "And you comprehend, later on it's pleasant sitting there alone-a few other shopkeepers who don't live here, they called out goodnight as they left-the Garcias two doors up stayed open late, and Mrs. Sanchez across the way too, it's anything to make a dollar with that one-but the lights go out, one by one, and presently I'm the only one left open, and all is quiet but for the rain, splat-splat-splat, outside… I took the opportunity to write a letter to my brother in Fresno, and later on I read my book-I always keep a book here for the slow times, I'm a great reader and at home with the children it's noisy… " And just about midnight, as Mr. Perez sat reading in his little lonely circle of light, a woman's voice spoke to him from the street.
Startled, he had looked up, and there she was outside the perimeter of light, no more than a dark figure. His glasses were for reading distance and in his surprise he hadn't taken them off, so he could give only a vague description. She spoke hurriedly and with a strange foreign accent on her English; she said she wanted something to protect her hat from the rain; one of his serapes would do, how much were they? The whole, queer little transaction happened so quickly that it was not until she was gone that Mr. Perez told himself it was surely odd, when she wanted to save her hat from the rain, that she had not naturally stepped over the threshold into the shop… "But no, she stays outside, she is really only a hand and arm reaching into the light, you understand?"
On hearing the price, two dollars, she held out the money, said any one would do, and he took it over to her. But she had forgotten the tax, the eight cents for the state, and when he reminded her she had impatiently handed him another dollar bill, said, "That's all right, don't bother about change,” and walked away rapidly. This Mr. Perez had not liked, because he was an honest man and also had his pride, and he did not like to accept tips like a waiter; however, she was gone-"and money is money.”
"That is very true. Was she carrying anything?"
Yes, she had had a suitcase; this she had set down a little in front of her to open her purse, and Mr. Perez had seen it a trifle more clearly than the lady. It had been an old brown leather suitcase. And the purse she was carrying, it had glistened as she opened it, catching the reflection of light from the shop-he thought it might have been of that shiny plastic, or perhaps patent leather, a dark color.
"And her hand-you saw her sleeve and hand?" Mendoza thought of Cara Kingman's silver-enameled fingernails.
Yes, so Mr. Perez had. A light-colored sleeve, of a coat he thought, but could not say whether a long or short coat-and it had a dark cuff, like velvet. As for the hand, the lady had been wearing gloves.
"Of what sort?" asked Mendoza.
"One small thing I can tell you about that," said Mr. Perez. "You comprehend, her hand is closer to me, and partly in the light, so I have a better look-for just that one small moment. She handed the money to me between her fingers, and then when I spoke of the tax, she reached into her purse again-impatient, you know-and held the third bill out on her palm, like so. Her gloves were a very light tan color, like raw leather-I don't know if they were leather or cloth-but they had buttons on the inside of the wrist, and when she held her hand out so, I saw that on that glove-her left hand it would be-the little button was missing."
A small amber-colored button in the loose earth raked over the corpse. " Diez millen demonios negros desde infierno! " said Mendoza.
"This does not, I fear," said Mr. Perez sympathetically, "please you to hear for some reason."
"On the contrary, it is very helpful indeed. But at the moment I don't know what it means-except that I have been wrong somewhere-or exactly what to do with it… "
***
Hackett's older sister had a couple of kids, and when they were smaller, a few years ago, once in a while he'd got roped in to sit with them, read to them. There was a thing the little girl had been crazy about, The Wizard of Oz; he'd read out of that one a good deal, and right now something in it came back to him. The way one of the wicked witches had just disappeared when she died-nothing left at all, because all there'd been to her was a kind of shell of malice.
He wouldn't, some odd superstitious way, be at all surprised if the same thing happened to Mona Ferne before his eyes. Maybe Mr. Horwitz took a jaundiced general view, but he'd been so right about this one. The front, and that was absolutely all…
"Such a terrible thing, I can't bear to think of it," she said in her light, sweet voice. "Poor darling Brooke. He did have talent, you know, he'd have done great things, I'm convinced-it's a tragedy for that reason as well as for all his friends."
"Yes, of course," said Hackett. "When did you see Mr. Twelvetrees last, Miss Ferne?"
She sat in the same chair her daughter had slouched in yesterday, but easily upright, graceful: everything about her was finished to a high gloss, from the lacquered flaxen coiffure to the fragile patent leather sandals with their stilt heels. Ten feet away, she looked an attractive thirty-five; any closer, no. All artificial: the smallest gesture, the tinkling laugh, the expression, the whole woman a planned thing into which God knew what minute calculations had gone. He didn't know much about such things, but he could guess at all the desperate, tedious, grim effort put forth-over the years more and more-on the front: the important thing. The massage, the cosmetics, the diets, the plastic surgery, the money spent and the time used, so much time that she'd had none left over for anything else at all, and so everything else about her had shriveled and died, and she was an empty shell posturing and talking there. All to preserve the illusion that was no illusion, closer than across a room. Any nearer, you saw the lines and the hollows, the little scars at the temples and in front of the ears, the depth of the skillful cosmetic mask, the little loose fold of skin at the throat, and the veins standing up on the backs of the narrow hands with their long enameled nails, their flashing rings, and the expensively capped front teeth, and the faint blistering round the eyelids from strain because she ought to wear glasses.
Those carefully made-up brown eyes widened on him. "Heavens, Sergeant, you can't think I had anything to do with-? No, no, I see you must ask everyone, mustn't you? Well, now, let me see-I believe it must have been that Thursday, the twenty-ninth it would be. Yes. Brooke dropped by and asked me to go to dinner with him, but I had an engagement already… I never could bring myself to believe it was so, what dear Martin thought-Brooke would never-I've been quite upset about it, but then all of us who knew him-and now to have this terrible thing happen! I've hardly taken it in yet, but I'll try to help you however I can-"
"Yes, thank you." This house, Hackett thought-something haunted about this house, with that great tree brooding over it, the rooms like caves until you turned on a light. But this wasn't the ghost who haunted it: the ghost was the other one… She had let him in-looking like hell again, today in an old-womanish gray cotton dress, ugly clumping shoes, her sullen face naked without cosmetics in the daylight from the door. Yet that clear pale skin-looking at her there, he suddenly saw that her eyes were beautiful, her good hazel-brown eyes clear as brook water, framed in heavy lashes. It was an oddly disturbing discovery, and almost immediately he'd made another which disturbed him even more.
And that wasn't his kind of thing, either-the intuitive understanding of emotional secrets. He was a cop, not a psychologist; his business, and one he was pretty good at, was collecting facts and fitting them together to make a picture. Mendoza was the one with the crystal ball….
It was the way she di
d it, the tone of her flat voice-turning to call up the stairs, "Mother!" All of a sudden he knew about this Angel Carstairs… You'd think she could do something, Mr. Horwitz said. I'm twenty-six years old and,… But she was doing something: the same thing she'd been doing, probably, most of her life. She was punishing Mona-for being her mother, for being what she was. And so anything Mona was or did or said, she had to go the opposite way-just to annoy. It was the negative approach, and also a trap she'd got caught in; because now for such a long while this had been the one reason for Angel Carstairs' existence, she couldn't stop and turn another way and go out to find life away from Mona. Maybe she understood that, maybe she didn't; either way she lived in a little hell she'd made herself, because every way she tormented Mona (reminding her with every mocking Mother of their ages, making herself the graceless ugly duckling in mute rebellion against the creed that beauty was the sole importance), she was tormenting herself too.
Yesterday he'd felt sorry for her; today, she made him mad. At the deliberate waste, the senseless negation.
And at the same time, facing this empty shell of a woman, he understood it.
He didn't want to stay in this house any longer than necessary, but he had questions to ask; he went on asking them. Mendoza had guessed right on one thing: it had been Mona Ferne who introduced Twelvetrees to the Kingmans and their Temple. She had met him through a small theatrical group-very careful to emphasize, not amateurs, but studio extras, bit players, that sort-"These brave young people, so ambitious and hard-working! I was one myself at one time, you know, and I realize how much it means, any little encouragement and support."