by Dell Shannon
EIGHT
The two letters from Athens proved to be from casual friends, apparently; there was nothing in them of any significance— references to other friends, to politics, to a church festival of some kind, the weather, questions about Domokous' new life in America.
Nothing else interesting turned up from the more complete examination of the body, or from Dr. Erwin's patient scrutiny of the clothes.
"I suppose I'm a fool to say it," said Hackett, "because a lot of times when I say you're barking up a tree with no cat in it, all of a sudden something shows up to prove your crystal ball gave you the right message. And don't complain about mixed metaphors, I'm just a plain cop. But I think it's a dead end. Everything doesn't always dovetail so nice and neat as a detective story, you know."
"Unfortunately, no," said Mendoza. "Ragged edges. No hunch, Arturo— or not much of one. Just— " he swiveled around and looked thoughtfully out the window of his office, "just the little funny feeling you get, on discard and draw— better hold onto this worthless-looking low card, next time round it might be worth something .... Damn. I wish I had four times as many men as I had, to keep an eye on everybody. What it comes down to, I don't know much of anything about it at all, I just have the definite conviction there's something to know. I'm not really justified in keeping so many men on it, but— Damn." He got up abruptly. "I'll be up in Callaghan's office if anybody wants me."
And that was on Thursday morning; he missed Alison's call by five minutes.
He found Callaghan in a temper. Having gone to some trouble to secure enough evidence to charge a certain pusher, Callaghan had wasted yesterday in court only to hear the bench dismiss it as inadmissible by the letter of the law. "So, my God in heaven, there's got to be law— but what the hell do they expect of us when they tie one hand behind our backs and give us a toy cap pistol and say, Now, boys, you go out and protect the public from the big bad men! Jesus and Mary, next thing they'll be saying to us, Boys, it isn't legal evidence unless you collect it on the northeast corner of a one-way street during an eclipse of the moon! They— "
"Very annoying," agreed Mendoza, sitting down in the desk chair to be out of Callaghan's way as he paced. Callaghan was even bigger than Hackett, which was saying something, and it was not a large office.
"You can talk!" said Callaghan bitterly. "All you got to think about is dead people! Who was there, who wanted them dead? Clear as day— evidence all according to the book! Nobody says to you— "
"Oh, we run into it too, occasionally. Now calm down and talk to me about Bratti."
"I don't want even to think about Bratti," said Callaghan. "I'm goin' to quit the force and take up some nice peaceful occupation like farming. Why should I knock myself out protecting the public? They don't give a damn about me. They call me an officious cop, persecutin' innocent bystanders— "
"You'll wear out the carpet, Patrick."
"And I'll tell you something else! One thing like this— and the good God knows it's not the first or the last— and every single pro in this town, he has a good laugh at the cops, and he gets twice as cocky as he was before, because he knows damn well we can beat our brains out and never get him inside— "
“You'll give yourself ulcers. Bratti."
"Get out of my chair," said Callaghan, and flung himself into it and drove a hand through his carrot-red hair.
"What about Bratti?"
"He'll be in competition with some others in business on his level. Middlemen, who run strings of pushers."
"Oh, all very businesslike these days. Sure. Same position, almost exactly, as the fellow who owns a lot of slum tenements. Fellow who says, hell, you always get some people who like to live like that, why should go to the expense of cleaning up the place, make it a little fancier for 'em? In six months it's just as bad. I don't cut my profits for any such damn foolishness. But he doesn't live there himself, oh, no, he's got a nice clean new house out in Bel-Air. He hires an agent to collect the rent so he needn't mingle with the hoi polloi and listen to complaints. If you get me. Gimme a cigarette, I'm out .... There's Bratti. And in this burg, call it about a dozen like him. Sure, 'way up at the top there's a hook— up with the syndicate— with the real big boys, and we know where they are these days. Sitting happy as clams in some country where they can't be extradited— even if, God help us, we had any admissible evidence to charge 'em with— "
"Pray a moment's silence," said Mendoza sardonically, "while we return thanks to the Bureau of Internal Revenue for small mercies."
“Very damn small," said Callaghan gloomily. "Sure, sure, about the only legal charge on some of those boys. Only some of them. I'm not worrying about 'em— I can't, who can?— like worrying about the bomb. I don't know the answer to the syndicates, except it's a little bit like killing fleas on a dog— you've got to get after the little ones so they can't grow up to be big ones— and you can't stop a minute because they breed like, well, fleas. The ones here and now I got to worry about are the syndicate agents and the boys like Bratti and the boys they hire. The port authorities can worry about the stuff coming in, and isn't it God's truth, they could do with ten times more men like all of us. It gets in. This way, that way. And it gets to the agents. And they get it to the Brattis. And the Brattis— wearin' kid gloves and takin' great care of their respectable surfaces— they see it gets to the pushers. Everybody making the hell of a profit every time it changes hands— strictly cash basis, no credit— because it gets cut so much on the way. A little deck of worth a hundred bucks raw, coming in, by the time it gets to Bratti to distribute, it's twenty times bigger and worth a thousand times the cash."
"This isn't news to me, friend. I've been on the force just as long as you. All about Bratti, por favor."
"I could write a book," said Callaghan, "and what good would it do me? I don't know what kind of background he came from, but I'd guess he's had a fair education, he uses pretty good English. Let that go. I don't know where he got his capital. For the legitimate business, that is— about that I know, it's out in the open for anybody to see— ambitious young man makes good: starts with one small hole-in-the-wall joint and builds it up. Once in a while it does make you think— he's doing all right on the right side of the law, you know. A lot of people saying the pros, it's because they get branded— nobody'll give 'em a job, nobody'll teach 'em a useful trade, so they stay pros— that's not the answer, as any cop could tell them. They've just got a kink somewhere. I don't know how long Bratti's been in the other business. That kind, they spring up overnight like toadstools. And when he drops dead of a heart attack— or when we get the goods on him— and the position's open, somebody else'll be right there to take over. Just as he took over— or maybe built up that business for himself. No, my God, that's not the syndicate thing— why should the big boys worry about organizing that low?— it's standard business procedure. And how do I know about Bratti? I'll tell you, though God help me if I ever said it to a judge! About eighteen months ago we picked up a pusher by the name of Fred Ring— we thought we had some nice solid evidence on him— but at the last minute the witness reneged and jumped bail on us, and he had a record so the judge looked down his nose and said the mere signed statement wasn't worth a whoop in hell, and threw it out. But while we had Ring, we ran a tape on some of his interviews with visitors, all underhand as hell— and of course since that Supreme Court decision that's inadmissible evidence too— but it gave us Bratti's name. We gathered Bratti was paying the lawyer. Which put Ring, ten to one, as the head pusher. Bratti and the boys like him, they don't want too many of these irresponsible underlings knowing their names and faces and addresses. For one thing, it's not very unusual for a pusher— the man on the street-to sample his own goods. There's a big turnover in pushers: the personnel, as a business report'd say, fluctuates. Some of 'em get to be customers, on the other side of the fence, and that kind— or any of 'em— could be dangerous to the next highest man on the totem pole. O.K. There'll be one, usually, heading the string, taking de
livery of supplies and handing 'em out, the one who knows the middle-man. We think Ring was it at the time. We kept a very close eye on him, but didn't get anything. We have also been keeping an eye on Bratti, with the same result. Ring didn't last long after that— "
"Fished out of the bay one foggy morning?"
"Why, you bloodthirsty Latin," said Callaghan, "you ought to know as well as me we're twenty, thirty years away from that kind of thing. Of course not— he got to liking his own wares too much and finally passed out in the General. They aren't gangsters any more, they're just syndicate men, and employees of syndicate men, and customers of the syndicates. Like the big corporations of other kinds, the syndicates deal with subsidiaries— and it's all very quiet and business-like. They know it doesn't pay, it's not only dangerous to their continued operation but cuts into net profits, if they go roaring around like I've heard tell they used to, pumping lead into anybody gets in their way. That just doesn't happen any more. The big boys are awful leery of the law these days, and the hell of a lot smarter— they've found out, for one thing, a smart shyster is less expensive in the long run than the old-fashioned cannister man you just gave orders to go out and bump off So-and-So, and don't waste cartridges. Look at Bratti. Thirty years ago Bratti would have been a barely literate lout— standard type as per the Hollywood version— anybody'd know him for a gangster minute they laid eyes on him. Today, you can't tell him from any other man in the crowd, except maybe he's a little better dressed. He knows how to behave in polite society, he's married and has a couple of kids, he pays his bills on time, he's a respectable householder. Far as I know, never even got a traffic ticket. Most of 'em are like that these days, the boys with any authority— even the junior executives. One thing, they've got to have cover for the tax boys in Washington, and most of 'em are running legal businesses on the side. They've found out it's a lot nicer, quieter life havin' a permanent home and all, not being on the run half the time. Sure, human nature doesn't change, and there are still the feuds between gangs of this sort and that, the jealousy and the fear and the loose— mouths who'll tell what they know to anybody pays 'em, and the men who'll do the same thing to pay off a grudge. But why should Bratti or anybody else keep a hot cannon man at his elbow? Almost impossible to tattle to the cops on one man, you know— a threat on one is a threat on all, and all of 'em know that."
"You're lecturing," complained Mendoza. "Now listen to me for a minute. I've got a very simple little problem, nothing so vast as yours by a long way. Here's a dead man, full of heroin. I don't know whether it was his first shot or whether he gave it to himself, on the evidence, but in my own mind I'm pretty sure it was, and he didn't. It looks, and it could be so, as if he went down an alley to take his little jolt, took too big a one and died there. A lot of holes in him where users stick their needles— arms and thighs— but all put in him, the surgeon thinks, after death. Can't swear positively it wasn't just before death, that it wasn't him, getting up nerve. If it was, that doesn't, of course, look like a habitual user. But it could have been his first, voluntary jolt. O.K. His employer was one Andreas Skyros, importer, prosperous, looks very much according to Hoyle on the surface, ¿comprende? He's very shocked and sad over this unfortunate misguided young fellow led into bad ways by new acquaintances. And he says when he reprimanded the young man for being slow at his work, the young man mentioned the name Bratti as— by implication— one of the said acquaintances."
"You don't say," said Callaghan. "Not much there. Bratti wouldn't be working the street himself, making up to potential customers, all pals together, Try a little of this for what ails you."
"Exactly. I have the feeling that— as so often happens— we're being underrated. Nobody else who knew the corpse remembers him mentioning the name. So I just got to wondering about Mr. Skyros."
"Never heard of him."
"But there was heroin in the corpse— that's how it got to be a corpse. And— "
"Down on Carson Street," nodded Callaghan. "I got the memo somewhere. Whereabouts?"
"In an alley just down from Carson and Main."
"You don't say," said Callaghan. "Bratti's first joint is on that corner— he still owns it. He branched out later in classier directions— has a place out on Ventura and another on La Cienega now."
"Vaya, vaya," said Mendoza, "does he indeed? That makes me wonder even harder. Have you ever sat in a game, Pat, with a pro sharp?— where the cold deck was rung in, and cards forced on you?"
"Yes," said Callaghan, "or I got a strong suspicion I have, anyway. I've sat in some hands of draw with you, before you got to be a millionaire and can't be bothered to shuffle a pack for less than five hundred in the kitty. Mind you, I could never prove it, you're too damn smooth, but a couple of times I had the distinct feeling that you had another deck up your sleeve."
"Slander," grinned Mendoza. "It's just that I have more courage and skill as a gambler— you've got no finesse, and you let the thought of the rent and the car payment intrude and back out too soon. Fatal. What I started to say was, I just had a feeling that that casual throwing off of Bratti's name was— mmh— something like the dealer handing me a royal flush first time round, out of a deck of readers. And me, it's maybe evidence of a suspicious and ungrateful nature, but a long while ago I learned you don't get something for nothing. I wouldn't be surprised about the royal flush if that particular dealer owed me a little favor— ¿como no?— but as it was, why should Mr. Skyros hand it to me on a silver platter?"
"You think he did?" Callaghan cocked his head at him. "I don't deny it, you get feelings about these things, I know. Our Luis, crystal ball in his back pocket."
"I think he did," said Mendoza. "I think he knew what card he was dealing me. And so I wondered, you know, if maybe Mr. Skyros had some little grudge on Mr. Bratti. And if so, why."
Callaghan got up and paced down the office. "It's a piddling little thing .... And I might feel the hell of a lot more inclined to take you at face value if I didn't have a suspicious nature— knowing you— and get the unworthy idea maybe you just haven't got the men to spare to keep an eye on this Skyros."
"You wrong me. I'm being scrupulous— keeping you briefed on what might be your business."
"Andreas Skyros. Where?"
Mendoza told him home and office address. Callaghan wrote them down. "You think I've got any more men to send out?" he asked. "And on a homicide! That's your business. For a change, I've got a hunch. End of this thing'll be a homicide charge, nothing for me at all, and you'll be the one to get your name in the papers— arresting officer. Talk about cold decks. O.K., O.K., I'll have a look into it."
"Muchas gracias," said Mendoza meekly.
* * *
He came back to his office and among other things found the message about Alison's call. Quite a few other matters, besides this nebulous business of Stevan Domokous, under his jurisdiction; and in any case he was scrupulous about mixing business with outside concerns. Ten-forty: she'd probably be lecturing her current class on the proper use of mascara or something similar. He went over a few reports on other present cases, from Sergeants Galeano, Clock, and Schanke: cleared up some accumulated routine. It was eleven forty-five when he called her, at her office.
"I wouldn't have bothered you," said Alison, "it's none of your business— scarcely so melodramatic as homicide— but really it is maddening, how even these days so many men seem to have it firmly fixed in their minds that all females are scatterbrained and prone to hysterics. I grant you, some of it's our own fault— these women who make a fetish of being career girls, twice as efficient as any mere male. I mean, a lot of it's automatic self-defense on the part of the implied mere males, and I can't say I blame them. Shakespeare— you know— protesting too much. Better or worse, females are apt to be less objective about things, it's the way we're made. Which I suppose is my excuse, automatic seeking for sensible male advice."
"Yes," said Mendoza, "I agree with you every time, what you mean is women jum
p to conclusions and call it intuition. What— "
"And there's the pot calling the kettle black," said Alison. "What else is one of your famous hunches? Well, never mind. The thing is, somebody broke into my garage last night and apparently went over the car. As if they were looking for something, anyway that's what it looked like to me. When I came to get it this morning, the front seat was all pulled out— teetering on the supports. So far as I can see nothing was taken, but— "
"I'll be damned," said Mendoza. "Look, meet me at Federico's for lunch, I want to hear about this."
"Well, all right, but I can't take much time— it's a little drive. Half an hour?"
"Half an hour."
He was waiting for her when she arrived. "I've already ordered, save time. Now, go on from where you left off. What about the garage door? I don't know that I've ever noticed the garages— usual arrangement, couple of rows of them, single garage for each apartment?"
"That's right. And to anticipate, none of them have windows, and five other garages had their padlocks forced. Mr. Corder happened to come out just after me, and found his broken, and we looked, and found the others. I hadn't thought much about mine, you see. It's an old one, the padlock, and rusted, and it does stick sometimes— I'll think it's closed and then find it's just stuck halfway. I suppose it's careless of me, but quite a few times I've put the car away after dark and next morning found the padlock wasn't closed properly. So I hadn't thought twice about finding it that way this morning. Not until I saw the car, with the driver's door open and the seat pulled out. Everything intact as far as I can see— there wasn't anything there to take, of course, except some maps and cleaning rags in the glove compartment?
"The seat," said Mendoza. "That thing you found— "
"Yes, I thought of it right away. It doesn't seem to belong to anyone I know. And we have it dinned into us so much about co-operating with the police— I was just trying to be a dutiful citizen. I called that sergeant again and told him about it, but he obviously thought I was imagining things— just a nervous female. Well, I thought somebody ought to know— "