by Dell Shannon
"He had an overdose of heroin!," said Mendoza. He stood in front of Skyros, hands in pockets, watching him.
"Oh, God help us, so? I was sorry he has no family here, but perhaps it is better, none to know this sad thing. You know? I— Gentlemen, perhaps we go somewhere else to talk? I don't like dead people all around."
"Certainly," said Mendoza cheerfully, "we can go back to my office, if you like."
"I would be so pleased to buy you gentlemen a drink," said Skyros wistfully.
"Now, now, you mustn't corrupt our morals, Mr. Skyros! Not at all necessary."
"Oh, my, no, you mustn't think such a thing," protested Skyros. In Mendoza's office he polished his pink skull again. "But such weather, a foretaste of hell, isn't it? I go out in it as little as possible— my office nice and air-conditioned, like this." He glanced around approvingly. "I didn't know they're so kind to you policemen now. Since the new building is up, isn't it, I suppose?"
"That's right. The laborer worthy of his hire, you know," said Mendoza, beaming at him. "So you do positively identify the body as that of Stevan Domokous. We're very glad to know who he is. Have you any more information about him we ought to know?"
"I am afraid I have, gentlemen. A terrible thing. I know the law says those who take drugs, dope you say, are guilty of offense too, but so many of them,"— he spread fat hands— "only victims of those who sell! Domokous, as I have said to Mr.— Lieutenant?— Carey, he's been in this country only less than a year. I don't think any family back home, all dead in the wars maybe, you know?— and he's lonely. Me, I know him only, let's see, three months— it was the last June he comes to work for me. He's been in New York, but somebody tells him— he says to me— that California, it's like Greece a little, down south, the climate you know, and vineyards— olive trees, isn't it? He thinks he likes it better. But he's a very shy, what's a good word, diffident young man— he doesn't make friends easy— and for the girls, oh, God help us!— a pretty girl looks at him, he runs!" Skyros rumbled a laugh.
"You surprise me," said Mendoza. "A handsome young fellow like that?"
"Oh, well, people, queer. Another one without his looks, the girls crazy for him because he's got the charm. Domokous, maybe he never knew he was good-looking, isn't it, and it don't mean so much without the, as we say, personality."
"How true," said Mendoza. "That's very well put. He was lonely. No hobbies, not many acquaintances? '
"Like I say. Of course, I don't know him except as one of the fellows works for me— he helps unpack things sometimes, keeps the record books in the stockroom— but you gentlemen know, you make a success in business, you got to keep a personal eye on it, isn't it? So I'm out there in back, coming and going, I see the fellows there, talk to them, try to be a little friendly— you know. So I know Domokous like that. And yes, he's lonely. Don't know what to do with himself out of working hours, he tells me. And I must tell you, gentlemen, I've been suspicious maybe he's been up to something like this, the last month it is. At first I think he's maybe drinking a little too much, he's not so quick at his work and so on, a couple times I'm there I see him— you know— stumble against things, like he's as we say tight. But now it seems it was this dope. Now I know, I say to Lieutenant Carey, he's not the kind go off getting drunk somewhere, that's why I wonder when he goes off sudden, like this, say nothing about quitting. But a little difference, you see— way he's been, that I see, it's not that he's bad drunk, to fall down— just unsteady, you know?— like he's drinking a little all the time. I've read in the papers, isn't it, how these men selling this dope, they act friendly, talk you into trying it once only, to make more customers? Gentlemen, I see it could happen so with Domokous— anybody acted friendly with him— you know? He'd want to keep new friends."
"I see," said Mendoza interestedly. "Yes, that's very plausible. Tell me, Mr. Skyros, did you ever— mmh— remonstrate with him, over not doing his work properly— ask him about the reason? Did he ever say anything to you about such a hypothetical new friend?"
"That's what I come to," said Skyros, leaning forward earnestly.
"And I don't know does it help you at all, gentlemen. But these terrible men, this terrible business— and so many unhappy young people they get, I read, like Domokous— anything we can do to help, we must. Yes, I have spoken to Domokous, I ask if he's maybe taking a little too much wine, and he says— now I see, he knew better than to confess the truth— he says maybe so, he's got acquainted with a couple of nice jolly fellows who like to drink more than he's used, and just to be friendly, you know, he goes along. But he says he knows it isn't good, and don't mean to go on. He says, like to himself, you know, 'I just tell Bratty, I can't afford it no ways!' "
"Bratty," said Mendoza. "When was this, Mr. Skyros?"
"I got to think. It'd be about three weeks back."
"Ah. Now, of course, when there's no family to claim the body, the city'll take care of the burial— but perhaps you'd like to arrange for a little something extra? The morgue authorities— "
"I been thinking," said Skyros, nodding. "It's a sad thing. And a long while since I come from the old country, but he came from there too— young man, try to do better for himself— ambitious. Sad to end so. If it's O.K. with the law, gentlemen, I claim the body and see there's a little kind of service, nice and respectful, you know."
"That's very good of you, sir," said Lieutenant Carey.
"Well, we got to be charitable sometimes. Thank you very much, gentlemen, and I hope I help you a little."
Carey got up on Skyros' departure. "Well, I guess that's that. My part of the job cleared up anyway, and I suppose you'll be turning this over to Callaghan in Narcotics?
Mendoza leaned back and shut his eyes, and Hackett looked at him in wary exasperation as Carey went out. "Whenever you're that genial and polished, I suspect you. If that amiable Greek knew you better he'd suspect you too, like hell. What didn't you like about him?"
"Un cuestión insensato. He tells us Domokous had been wearing a monkey on his shoulder for some time. We know— or are pretty sure— he hadn't."
"We don't know he hadn't been drinking. The kind that ends up on foolish powder is the kind ripe for other sorts of what the head-doctors call escape methods too. Liquor as well as other dope. Nine times out of ten they've tried 'em all before they get to the bottom."
"Es verdad. Granted."
"Well? What's in your mind?"
"I wonder," said Mendoza dreamily, "how much Mr. Skyros will report on his income tax that this charitable funeral cost him— and how much he'll actually lay out .... Go and brief somebody to pick him up, will you— home or office— we'll run a tail on him awhile."
"And why, for God's sake?"
"¡Y0 he hablado— I have spoken!"
"O.K., O.K.," said Hackett, and went to dispatch the tail.
When he came back Mendoza said, "You've forgotten the nymph and the dolphin. Sure, look at it once, it might be just the run-of-the-mill thing. Domokous inveigled into trying a jolt just for kicks, he gives himself too big a one— after being so nervous about it he makes a couple of dozen tries at getting the needle in— and passes out. The dirty hypo, obviously used— maybe the pusher sold that to him too. But look at it twice. How does that kind of thing usually go? You don't need to be told, the pusher either superintends the Erst jolt, to see the mark gets just the right kick to make him want another, or he hands out precise instructions. Even if it was his first shot, Domokous ought to have known better than to give himself such a dose. And he had a room. He must have known a little something about the effect to expect— that he'd probably be incapable for a while— and he wouldn't want to get picked up on the street full of heroin. Why go down that alley, like any vagrant drifter, instead of home? A mainliner, sure— you get that— when they've just bought a deck, they can't wait for a pick-up, they'll hit the nearest semi-private spot. But apparently it was his first experiment. Much more natural for him to have secluded himself in his hotel
room."
"Why do you suppose he didn't?"
"I don't know, but it could be because he never intended to experiment with heroin at all. And because even a cheap hotel on Second Street is an awkward place to smuggle a body into." Mendoza took up the phone again and asked for Lieutenant Callaghan in Narcotics ....
"Patrick, mi amigo bueno, does the name Bratty ring any bells in your head?"
"Bratti," said Callaghan. "Mr. Giuseppi Bratti. It does indeed. Like a whole cathedral full of bells, all playing tunes. And I'm committing slander to say it, because we've got no evidence at all. You know how that goes— damn legal red tape— you got to have a bookful of witnessed statements to make a charge, and how the hell d'you get a user to tell all when he knows damn well it means a charge on him too?— or another kind of witness when he knows some loyal friend in the pusher's gang'll see he gets beaten up but good some night? Bratti runs a stable of pushers. Probably about a dozen. One of six or seven fairly big-time boys— local, that is— operating wholesale hereabouts. He'll do his own wholesale buying from some syndicate agent, but who and which I couldn't say. Eventually we hope to be able to. Probably the same agent who supplies other local runners. Naturally we have an eye on Bratti, but nothing yet to take to court."
"Difficult, I know. And an eye on all the others?"
"Those we think we've spotted. Kind of like batting at mosquitoes, of course— you get one, there's another one right there to carry on."
"Would you know whether Bratti has offended anybody 1ately?"
"It's very damn likely," said Callaghan. "He offends me every time I think about him. But I wouldn't know, specifically .... Oh, quite the respectable merchant on the surface— he owns three restaurants— lives in an apartment over by Silver Lake. And now, why?"
"I couldn't say, right now. It's this new corpse, the one full of heroin— "
"I noticed it, Hackett sent me a memo as maybe an interested party. Bratti cropped up behind it, I hope?"
"Away out in left field. I'll let you know if anything more definite comes up, un millón de gracias . . ."
Mendoza relayed that to Hackett. "Now. Just file this in our minds, and let's get back to the corpse. I want to see all his possessions, but I don't suppose there's much interesting there— "
"If you're not just making up fairy tales," agreed Hackett, "it'd be a lot easier to ransack a hotel room than bring a body back to it."
"— In fact, I think the only thing of real interest we've got is this little scrap of paper. I think it may have been the one thing they missed, down in the bottom of his pocket— such a little thing. Just take another look at it. Torn off the right top corner of the page— doesn't that say a little something to us? Stapled: you find people who work in offices, businesslike people, writing personal letters on the typewriter and stapling the sheets together— but at the left top corner. Since his was stapled at the right, I'm inclined to think it was also stapled at the left, and who does that to a letter— and a letter, or anything, of only a few sheets? I don't think that scrap came from a letter. I think it came from a list of some kind, a list containing a good many pages stapled like that across the top. A nymph and a dolphin, it says. So, I'm reaching for it maybe, but Skyros— who employed the corpse— is an import-export dealer. And among the various items imported from abroad these days are, as usual, a lot of bric-a-brac ornaments for the gracious home— porcelain and alabaster and bronze figurines, vases, and so on. The kind of thing you might reasonably expect to find decorated with nymphs and dolphins."
"Yes, I see what you're driving at. It's a nebulous sort of connection, but could be. How do you read it, maybe he found out something funny about Skyros' business and got taken off to prevent his talking? But how and why heroin?"
"I'm not reading it any way yet," said Mendoza. "I want to know a lot more about everything first. About Skyros, most of all. Business, private life, the works."
"And as usual I'm the office boy to do all the finding out," said Hackett. "O.K., I'll get busy and we'll see what turns up.
FOUR
Alison got home as usual about half past four that afternoon; classes at her school were over at four, and she hadn't any errands to do. She was feeling irritable and out of sorts— principally the weather, she reflected, stripping off her clothes and heading for the shower— why on earth she'd ever settled in this climate! Scarcely from ignorance, either, after having been mostly brought up in Mexico, which could be even worse. Doubtless from an unconscious love of martyrdom, she told herself savagely, emerging from the shower shuddering: and not only the climate. So, if she hadn't settled down in L.A. and opened this damned charm school, she wouldn't be saddled with these little morons who paid her to tell them to take a bath occasionally and not pluck out all their eyebrows or wear lace to a picnic. Also, of course, she wouldn't have met Lieutenant Luis Mendoza, which might have been another good thing.
She sat at her dressing table and was annoyed at its clutter, result of a series of mornings of hasty dressing: she tidied it automatically, and of course that reminded her of him all over again— Luis rearranging things all neat on the coffee table, the desk, anywhere in reach of him, and apologizing— "My grandmother says I'd get up off my deathbed to straighten a picture on the wall." Way he was built: one of those tidy-minded people. Luis. Just as well she was somewhat the same way, because, if—
She bent forward, brushing her hair vigorously, angrily. And that was woolgathering with a vengeance, all right! Anybody as smart as Alison Weir— or as smart as Alison Weir ought to be, at least— with one abortive short-lived marriage behind her and thirty years of varied living, should know Luis Mendoza for what he was at one look. Luis— like one of his beloved cats, fastidious, independent, aloof. Not for any one woman, maybe ever.
Luis . . . She laid down the hairbrush; and the phone rang. "Oh, hello, Pat," she said, putting false cheerfulness in her tone.
"I just called to say that Cheryl Bradley dropped in this morning, and I asked her about that thing you found— you'd said she'd ridden home with you from that dreary party at the Mawsons'. It's not hers, she says."
"Oh, well, thanks. That really about covers everybody I know who might've lost it in the car. I think it must have been whoever took it. You know, the more I look at it the more I feel it is awfully old and might be valuable. Luis said so .... D'you suppose I ought to advertise it? I mean, if anyone showed up to claim it I could tell that Sergeant Rhodes— "
"Nobody would dare," said Miss Moore.
"But if I said something like, found in the Exposition Park area?
They might not realize it'd dropped out in the car— "
"Finders keepers," said Miss Moore. "I don't suppose it's anything but a worthless so-called lucky piece, but just to be on the safe side, I'd advise you to take it to an expert and see if it is worth anything. And in the unlikely event that it is, take the profit and return thanks to Providence."
"Yes," said Alison, "but— Oh, well, I suppose it is the sensible thing to do. Thanks anyway. Are you going to the Vesperian exhibition on Friday? Then I'll pick you up, about one o'clock? O.K., thanks, Pat." As she put the phone down and went back to the bedroom to finish applying lipstick, the door-buzzer sounded, and she said to herself, "Damn," snatched up her dressing gown and struggled into it on the way to the door.
The woman standing in the hall didn't look quite like the ordinary house-to-house salesperson: nor did she act like one. She surveyed Alison head to foot and said, "But I did not expect such a one! You look to be, how is it said, a cut above!"
"I beg your pardon," said Alison. The woman was dark, elegant, exquisitely dressed: middle height, slim but rounded, waxen-white complexion, dark eyes cleverly elongated, polished dark hair in the latest fashionable cut, cameo-pure features. Over thirty, but not much, and not looking it. And dressed in what Alison instantly recognized as not only the latest fashion and exactly the right thing for her, but the latest original fashion, for which a very r
espectable sum of money must have been paid out. That subtly-cut powder-blue silk-faille afternoon gown, the elbow-length gloves to match, the small bit of blue frivolity with a veil meant for a hat, the sapphire— colored earrings and bracelets, the big diamond on the ungloved hand, the cobweb stockings, the spike-heeled black patent pumps, the black faille bag with a big rhinestone initial— an ornate L— all of them, probably, would have cost as much as Alison earned in six months. And the cloud of musky, heavy scent wafting out from her, as much again per application, very likely.
"It is not you with cause to beg the pardon," said this apparition, "but him! Is he here?" Her gaze swept over Alison's printed rayon dressing gown. "You are in the center of dressing— undressing? If he is here— I come in, I wish to speak with him!"
"You don't come in," said Alison, angry and bewildered. "What is it you want? You must have mistaken the apartment— "
"No, no, I memorize the address! Miss Alison Weir, it is? You have very nice hair, my dear, if one does not mind the color. I come in!"
And she brushed by Alison regally, to the middle of the living room.
"But what a pity to live in such a little squalid flat! Can you do no better?"
“Look here!" said Alison, furiously conscious that the dressing gown had only cost nine dollars new and that she was in her bare feet and hadn't any lipstick on, "this is my apartment and I don't know you— if you don't leave at once— "
"Naturally you do not know me, You have a temper— so indeed have I. Is he here?" She swept into the bedroom, into the bath, back across the living room to look into the kitchenette. "Ah! He is not here! But you expect him, perhaps?"
"Are you implying," said Alison, drawing herself up to her full sixty-four inches, "that I— "
"Imply, what is this? You need not put on the good face for me, miss! I beg you, be calm, I have no quarrel with you at this moment! It is that women, we should be sisters together, not so, and help one another? That is why I have come. I reason, here it is probable I find him alone— except for you, of course— and it is much better to make the direct talk. I promise myself, I will restrain my temper, I will be dignified— however difficult, considering the dishonor he uses with me! But I see he is not here."