by Dell Shannon
"Do the police think Marta had something to do with Ed’s disappearing?" Pat Frost’s eyes were uncomfortably sharp. "He is-was-a lot of care, I suppose. My goodness, Marion! If she did something-my goodness! But I wouldn’t be surprised, is all I can say."
"That’s slander, Mrs. Frost," said Galeano mildly.
"Don’t tell me Marta’s corrupted our cops, Mr. Ga1eano," she said sweetly.
Marion Prescott said, "Yes, your Jack did rather fall for her, didn’t he, dear? Until you hauled him back into line."
Galeano escaped.
***
He’d have to put that in a report, and what it sounded like-Conway and Mendoza would pounce on that Jack Frost, God, what a name, for the boyfriend. There was nothing in it, couldn’t be anything in it: lots of men would be attracted to Marta. And Carey had talked to the Cadbys, said they hadn’t had any contact recently. Which was exactly what they would say if there was any reason not to admit it.
Yielding to impulse, Galeano stopped at the Globe Grill for an early lunch. The place was crowded and another girl waited on him, but he could see Marta across the coffee shop, neat in her uniform. Yes, a lot of men-more money, a better life. He didn’t know what place she came from. There were still a lot of places in Europe, off the beaten track, where people still thought all Americans were millionaires. She got disappointed there. So there she was, with a husband less well educated, likely not much in common (after the baby died), and then a permanent invalid.
She happened to turn and catch his eye on her just then, and a slight flush showed on her cheekbones, her wide mouth tightened.
Cops keeping an eye on her, thought Galeano. Suspecting her.
But he retained a wide streak of peasant common sense, and as he picked up his bill, it suddenly said to him, What did she gain by it? Which was a question. Read it the obvious way, that the hypothetical boyfriend was to get rid of Edwin-fake a suicide, the easiest thing. Galeano couldn’t imagine any circumstances in which that would have gone so wrong as to necessitate taking the body away. But even if it somehow had, and there was no blood, nothing suspicious in the apartment,. they’d have got together to make up a tale. Ed was in the hospital for more tests; he was sick in bed and couldn’t be seen. There was just no reason at all for her to tell the LAPD that very funny story-unless it was true. Damn it, thought Galeano, that is an honest girl.
When he got back to the office, ready to argue the case with Mendoza, he found Hackett and Higgins just sitting, Hackett reading a report just typed, and Grace on the phone. Higgins told him about the new one. They were hoping the lab could give them a lead. It had already given them a lead on one of the heists last night, at the liquor store: the boys had picked up a dandy set of latents from the cash register, being run through to see if they were in Records. If not LAPD’s, maybe somebody’s: NCIC or the FBI would tell them.
Grace put the phone down and said, "That’s funny."
"What?" asked Higgins.
"That bartender," said Grace. "Who was nervous. When Tom and I asked him about Buford coming in that night. A funny little thing, and funny little things make me nervous. I just thought I’d find out about him. And-·"
"Goddamn!" said Higgins suddenly. "Talking about funny little things just reminded me. Matt had an anonymous call-somebody said that Robert Chard thing was a deliberate kill. Probably means damn all."
"Anyway," said Grace, brushing his mustache back and forth, "that bartender-his name’s Reinke, Charles Reinke-owns that place, holds the liquor license, which in this state says he’s very clean and respectable. Which is also funny."
"The boss here?" asked Galeano.
"I don’t know where he is," said Hackett.
Mendoza came in briskly, announced that it was still raining, and went into his office. Galeano followed him and without preamble gave him the gist of what he’d turned up. "If it means anything," he added. "Which I’m not convinced it does. For one thing, I just don’t see what it gained her to tell that tale. If there’d been collusion to kill him and something went wrong, why in hell hide the body? And even so, why should she-"
" De acuerdo," said Mendoza. "I got there too, Nick. But I can imagine circumstances where-mmh-she couldn’t very well have done anything else. Jack Frost.?Porvida! But we’d better talk to him. Just in case." He opened the top drawer of the desk and brought out the inevitable pack of cards, stacked it neatly on the blotter, got out a cigarette and operated the flame-thrower. "That’s a very curious thing. Homesick, she said."
"Oh, Luis," said Higgins, poking his head in, "I forgot to tell you about this anonymous call on that Chard.
And S.I.D. just called, they made those prints off that heist last night, he was in our records, Roy Titus. Art and I are just going out to have a look for him. They picked up some latents from that new job, the old lady, but they aren’t processed yet."
" Bueno." Mendoza took the deck in his long, strong hands and began to shuffle it. "Good hunting." He squared the deck and cut it precisely to show the ace of diamonds.
"Oh, yes, I’ve seen you do that before," said Higgins, and went out. Mendoza shuffled, squared the deck and cut it to the ace of spades; shuffled and cut the ace of hearts.
"Plotting," he said absently to Galeano, "can be complicated. Most of what we see isn’t plotted. Anything but."
"I see what you mean," said Galeano. Mendoza cut the deck, contemplated the ace of clubs, and the phone buzzed. He picked it up.
Loud enough for Galeano to hear, it sneezed at him. "Hello, Luis."
"God bless you, Saul. What do you want?"
"We’ve got a very pretty little homicide for you," said Lieutenant Goldberg of Narcotics, and blew his nose.
"You want to come look at it? Damn these allergies. Pat and I are both here, it’s a very classy apartment on Wilshire. Do come and see, Luis, we’ve got something interesting to show you."
"?Condenacion!" said Mendoza resignedly. "What’s the address?"
FIVE
Galeano and Grace went along to see what it was. The address was one of the new high-rise buildings out on Wilshire; Galeano could never get used to calling them condominiums when they were just glorified apartments. There was a black and white at the curb; Mendoza slid the Ferrari into a red zone and they got out.
"Where’s Goldberg?" he asked the uniformed man by the squad car.
"Fourth floor, this side, sir. And thanks for the excuse to get out of there. I’m waiting for the men from the zoo, tell him I’ll send ’em right up."
"The zoo?" said Grace. But Mendoza was already at the door.
The elevator took its time, eventually decanted them on the fourth floor. Down a plushly carpeted hall they spotted another navy uniform and made for it. "Homicide," said Mendoza. "This is it?"
"Oh, brother, you said it," said the Traffic man. "I’d rather have a riot to handle any day, at least with people you sometimes know where you are. Lieutenant Goldberg said you’re to go straight in." He opened the door behind him gingerly, a crack, peered in, and opened it wider for them. It was class, all right: rich deep carpeting, hotel-size furniture, damask draperies, in a big rectangular living room with a wall of window offering a view of the city. Lying face down under the window was a dead man, blood around him on the chaste carpeting. He was a chesty middle-aged man in a natty gray suit. Lieutenant Saul Goldberg, thin and dark and looking less morose than usual, was standing at one end of the long velvet upholstered sofa, and at the other end stood Captain Patrick Callaghan also of Narcotics, incredibly bigger than Hackett and redder-haired than Alison. He looked rather pale, and his eyes were glued to the closed door opposite.
"Well, hello, Luis," said Goldberg. There was another man sitting on the couch, a rather fat middle-aged man in very expensive-looking sports clothes, an exquisite shade of fawn. He had jumped nervously when the door opened. There was a large, long wooden packing crate in the middle of the room with a lot of straw in it.
"Don’t let it out!" said th
e man on the couch.
"We won’t let it out," said Goldberg.
"What in hell goes on here'?" asked Mendoza.
"This is Mr. Enoch Hoyt. A longtime narco dealer, just a couple of years ago graduated to the big time of smuggling. That," said Goldberg, nodding at the dead man, "was his partner, Mr. Delmar Underwood."
"I didn’t mean to shoot him," said Hoyt aggrievedly. "I told you it was an accident. Anybody might have- Are you sure that door’s shut, for God’s sake?"
"So what happened?" asked Mendoza.
Goldberg blew his nose deliberately. "We got a hot tip that there was a big shipment of stuff coming in from Central America-coke mostly, some H. We’d known all about Mr. Hoyt and Mr. Underwood for some time, we were just waiting to get the goods on them. The ingenuity that goes into the criminal trades-like with the conmen, if they used that much genius in legitimate channels they’d all be millionaires-"
"This pair don’t seem to have done too badly," said Mendoza, looking around.
"We got on to San Diego, but those boys were just too late to catch it at the border, they’d already signed for it and got through Customs. Mr. Hoyt had some pretty forged papers identifying him as an assistant curator at the Los Angeles Zoo."
"I can hear the damn thing in there, Saul," said Callaghan. He hadn’t taken his eyes from the door. "I don’t suppose you keep up with the latest dodges for smuggling in the dream powder, Luis. This is one of the newest. You see, snakes don’t eat very often. The big ones. So you stuff your shipment of coke or H or whatever in a big plastic bag, and you get the snake to swallow it with the rest of its once-a-month dinner, and then you shut it up in a crate and address it to the Chief Herpetologist, L. A. Zoo, and when it gets to Customs at the Mexican border somebody like Mr. Hoyt--"
"I will be damned," said Mendoza.
"What kind of snake?" asked Galeano nervously. "Well, I only got a very brief look at it," said Goldberg, "before I slammed the door, but the manifest says it’s a boa constrictor."
"I said it was just plain nuts!" said Hoyt plaintively. "I didn’t want nothing to do with it-I know it’s the latest gimmick, going smooth as damn-it here and New York and Miami, and our latest consignment got picked off by the Mexico City cops, damn it, and Del said to try it, we had a contact in Guadalajara-but I never liked the idea from the start-"
"Supposedly," said Callaghan, his eyes on the door, "the snake is dormant, and when they’ve got it through Customs they just knock it on the head, slit it open and recover the-"
"Dormant!" said Hoyt wildly. "Say, listen, that’s what Del said, he knew some guys been doing it for months, no trouble at all, but-Dormant? When he pried up the nails on that damn box, that Goddamned snake came out like a bolt of lightning, about fifty feet of it, and my God, I never meant to shoot Del, but I’d got my gun out just in case and the damned thing was all over the floor, I just-"
Something heavy landed against the closed door with a thud, and Callaghan flinched.
"It was at this interesting juncture," said Goldberg, "that Pat and I arrived, armed with a search warrant-we hoped they hadn’t had time to get rid of the shipment to their dealers-and I’d just knocked on the door when the gun went off, so we came charging in."
"Ugh!" said Callaghan.
"To find Mr. Hoyt screaming and waving a gun around, and the, er, party of the first part disappearing into the bedroom. So I shut the door. I’m not a great pet lover myself. You can take Hoyt away and book him anytime. We’re waiting for some men from the zoo to corral the boa. We’ll ask if there’s any way to make it disgorge the goods without killing it-it’d be a shame, poor thing, after it’s performed such a good deed in getting Delmar put away."
"Yes, please, I’d like to get booked in right away," said Hoyt, getting up anxiously.
"The damn thing’s working on the door," said Callaghan. "Where the hell are those herpetologists?"
Mendoza was laughing. "The things we run into-we’ll take him off your hands, boys. Send me chapter and verse for the report. And do have fun with the snake charmers."
"Ugh!" said Callaghan. "I don’t think I’m a coward, but I don’t like snakes. I just don’t like ’em."
Galeano was just as relieved to be out of that place, headed for the Alameda jail with Hoyt in a squad car. He didn’t like snakes either. No way.
***
Sometimes, said Hackett to Higgins, this damn job was so monotonous and so easy that you might as well be on an assembly line screwing in bolt forty-six. The automatic routine turned up the answer like a coin bringing you the candy bar out of the machine. And it made you feel tired, dealing with the stupid, stupid punks.
This particular punk, who was old enough to know better, had left a nice set of prints on that cash register last night, and the lab boys had had no trouble at all in locating them in LAPD records and marking him as Roy Titus, who had a long record of such stupidities behind him. He was forty-five now and had a record going back to age twelve, mostly armed robbery, B. and E., a couple of muggings and two burglaries. He’d served some time, not as much as he should have; and at the moment he was still on parole, which meant that his current address was on file.
It wasn’t even very far away from headquarters, on Budlong Avenue. Hackett and Higgins drove up there, in Higgins’ car instead of the scarlet Barracuda in case they found him. It was an old apartment building, and before they parked they spotted Titus talking to a man in the driveway, so they went up to him and started to inform him of his rights. The other man looked surprised and asked what was going on.
"Who are you, anyway? What right you got to butt in on a private deal? You want a piece of the action, you wait your turn!"
"What deal?" asked Hackett.
"Oh, hell," said Titus. "How’d you know I pulled anything?"
He had the haul from the liquor store neatly stacked in his garage; the other fellow lived down the block and on being offered a case of good whiskey at a quarter the retail price, wasn’t about to ask questions. He was annoyed to miss out on the deal.
At this end of a day, Hackett and Higgins were not disposed to waste time questioning Titus about the two pals who’d pulled the job with him. They stashed him in jail; the warrant would be through presently, and they’d ask him about his pals tomorrow.
Hackett called Mr. Wensink and told him most of the liquor had been recovered, but it would be impounded as evidence; he’d get it back eventually.
"Maybe not me," said Wensink. "I think I got a buyer for this place, and I’m getting out. I’m getting too old to worry about heisters all the time I’m open for business. I’m going to retire and move to the country somewhere."
***
Higgins went home, and after kissing Mary and going in to see Margaret Emily peacefully asleep in her crib, went back to the garage to call Steve Dwyer in to dinner. "He’s been out in that darkroom ever since he got home from school, and I know he’s got homework," said Mary.
"I don’t know why in hell," Higgins said to Steve, "you’re set on being a cop. Most boring job there is a lot of the time."
"Not on the lab end," said Steve. "Gee, isn’t the place peaceful without Laura at the piano all the time!" Laura had permission to stay overnight with a girl friend. But dinner wasn’t exactly restful, the Scottie Brucie bouncing under their feet, and Steve anxious to get back to his photographic experiments.
"Just until nine o’clock," said Mary firmly. "I’ll call you."
"Oh, Mother! It’s Friday night!"
"Well, nine-thirty."
"He may invent a new camera or something and make us millionaires," said Higgins. "I don’t know why I didn’t go in for the lab end. No brains, I guess. Sometimes I think it rubs off on us, the stupid people we have to deal with."
"Now, George," said Mary.
***
Mendoza went home, still thinking about that snake, and Mrs. MacTaggart greeted him at the door with relief.
"If you’d take them off my hands while I
get at the dinner, then-Alison’s better, she’s had a good long nap, but I want to get that souffle in."
"Daddy, come on-" Johnny pulling his arm urgently-"I want to show you what we learned in school today-"
"Listen to me first, Daddy, I can say a new poem-" Terry clinging to the other arm. The twins had been in nursery school for three months and on the whole the effect was good; they were speaking English-most of the time, at least. Mendoza kept them occupied in the living room until Alison came in, looking more like her usual self, when they erupted at her.
" Mamacita, you listen to my new poem-" "It’s a silly poem, Mama, I can do the Pledge of ’Legiance real good now-"
"The darlings," said Alison fondly when Mairi had taken them off to their baths. "Yes, I’m better-knock wood. And I’ve got something to show you, Luis. House plans. Well, you can’t deny it, this will be too small when the baby comes. And we ought to have more yard. Later on we might want a pool-"
"?Despacia!" said Mendoza. "I can see you’re feeling better, plotting to spend more money."
There was fish for dinner, and the cats sat on their feet under the table reminding them that cats liked fish too. Cedric, who didn’t, went away in disgust and brought in a dead bird from the backyard.
***
On Saturday morning Mendoza had just come in and said good morning to Sergeant Farrell, who sat in for Lake on days off, when an agitated voice said, "Oh, Sergeant Hackett!" Mendoza turned to see Hackett behind him. "I had to come, I got to make you listen-I tell you, they’re gonna kill that lady! Honest to God they are! They were talkin’ about it again, I heard ’em!"
Hackett looked down at Mr. Yeager and wondered if the man was slightly nuts. Hearing voices. "Now, look, Mr. Yeager-"
"No, you gotta listen to me, you gotta do something! They’re goin' to murder her!" Yeager yanked at his sleeve in excitement. "I heard ’em say so!"