Streets of Death - Dell Shannon

by Dell Shannon

  They waited. In a moment there was a shuffling light footstep along the hall, and a boy came up beside her, head down. He might be fourteen, not a very big fourteen. "Let’s have a look at you, Joey," said Grace in his soft friendly voice, and slowly the boy raised his head.

  "Why, Joey!" said his mother. "What you been up to, getting all marked up like that?" He had a big darkening bruise on one cheek, a cut on the other, a swollen lip.

  "What about it, Joey?" asked Grace.

  "Wel1, I guess," said Joey in a thin treble voice, "it’s from where that ole Mis’ Drews hit me. I guess you know about that, you’re police, ain’t you?"

  They looked at each other. "Joey, what you talking about?" asked his mother. "You done something'? Mis’ Drews? That lady used to live down the block?"

  "Yes, ma’am," said Joey. "I was supprised see her, I was scared she knew who I was. I guess you know all about it, don’t you?" And he looked at the men calmly.

  They told her they’d have to take him in to question; she protested, just a little boy, there was some mistake. In the end she went along too, and at the office they got Wanda to take charge of her, settle her down with coffee, while they started out talking to Joey in Mendoza’s office. "That’s good," said Joey in his reedy voice. "She’s gonna be awful upset." He didn’t seem unduly upset himself, or sorry for how she was feeling. "I kinda wondered if you’d ever find out about it."

  "Would you like to tell us about it, Joey? Just how it happened?" Mendoza had called Loomis of Juvenile; this was one to handle with kid gloves, on account of his age, if there was going to be any prosecution at all.

  "Oh, sure. I’ll tell you, I’d like to tell you," he said thoughtfully, looking around the office. "The ladies, sure. There was one over the next block and Mis’ Walker down the street and about six other ladies I don’t know their names, I did the same way, ask about mowing their grass and could I have a drink. And besides the ladies there was a lot of girls, some girls I know in school live right around. I guess mostly they didn’t tell anybody about it. I’d tell ’em things like there was a stray kitten back of this billboard and they’d come to see."

  "Just hold on a minute." Grace raised his eyebrows at Mendoza. Loomis came in and was briefed. "Now, aren’t you making up some stories, Joey? The four ladies we know about. Are you sure--"

  "More like nine or ten," said Joey. "I guess just like the girls they didn’t all tell, some reason. And I guess I might as well tell you too, I did the burglary at the drugstore up from us. The one on Venice. And another one at the lunch stand the next block, and the store next to it too. And I busted into the school lots of times and broke a lot of stuff. The first day the new teacher was there I took all the money out of her purse, but after that she kept it locked in a drawer."

  "Now wait just a minute here, Joey. That’s quite a lot you’re telling us. Aren’t you making some of it up?"

  "No, sir. I oughta know what I did."

  "¡Porvida!" said Mendoza to Grace. "Maybe we’d better get somebody from Burglary to listen to this too. What the hell is all this?"

  Before the session was over, they did rope in Burglary, to find that the various break-ins Joey was so readily talking about were indeed in the files, unsolved. "I tole you," said Joey. The only one of the first victims they knew about who was home was Rena Walker; she came in and identified him right away, as did Mrs. Drews. They found the knife on Joey, a big eight-inch snickersnee he said he’d bought at a hardware store. In the intervals, Mendoza and Grace had a long talk with Mrs. Perkins, who was more incredulous than anything else.

  "But he’s always been such a quiet boy--never got into any mischief! What--what’s going to happen to him?"

  That was a question. It would be up to the D.A.’s office; Mendoza and Loomis could make recommendations, which wouldn’t necessarily be followed. There’d be the inevitable psychiatric examination, for what it was worth: not much, in Mendoza’s opinion.

  "But there’s got to be a kink somewhere," said Loomis. "My God, I’ve seen all kinds of the j.d.’s, Mendoza, but this one--you’d think he was talking about snitching a candy bar! Good record in school"--they knew about that then--"and then out of the blue, all this coming out, there’s got to be some screw loose there. God knows I don’t think any more of the head doctors than you do, but--"

  Mendoza picked up his cigarette lighter and regarded it absently. By that time, Loomis had seen it in operation several times, but he still eyed it in a fascinated way as it belched Hame. "Reminds me of the story," said Mendoza, "about the social worker doing a research paper on causes of prostitution. When you get past all the broken homes and alcoholism and addiction and weak character, you find some of them just like the life. Somehow I don’t think a session with the head doctors will cure Joey of what ails him."

  It was past the end of shift when Grace took Joey over to Juvenile Hall and Wanda took Mrs. Perkins back home. And Grace, partly because he was a gentle man and partly because he felt out of his depth with Joey, tried to talk sweet reason to him. "You know you’ll have to stay here, and come up in front of a judge, because of all the wrong things you did, Joey. Don’t you--"

  "Will they ever let me out again?"

  "Oh, I expect so, sometime. Don’t you feel sorry for doing all these things? Sorry you hurt those ladies?"

  Joey turned a thoughtful calm gaze on him. "No, I don’t guess I do. I guess as soon as they let me out I’d go do things like that again."

  "Why, Joey?"

  "Well, I guess I don’t know."

  Grace turned him over to the Juvenile Hall staff and started home, feeling baffled.

  * * *

  When Piggott and Shogart came on--it was Schenke’s night off--they heard something about that from the desk. It was one for the books all right, but in this place, this time, ones like that seemed to come up every week.

  Shogart switched on his desk radio to the Traffic calls, put his feet up and shut his eyes. Piggott, reminding himself of several fundamentalist Christian texts on forbearance and tolerance, tried to shut his ears, and opened a new book on the tropical fish. But neither of them had much time to relax on the job; their first call came in twenty minutes later. It was a genuine hit-run, with several witnesses to say so, of course no make on the car, but a dead man and a report to write.

  Piggott had just finished writing it when they had another call, a body somewhere on Maryland Street. It was an old house cut up into four apartments, and waiting reluctantly with the Traffic men was one of the upper-floor tenants, Mr. Walter Pepple. "Of all the damned nuisances," he said disgustedly, "this is the damnedest! Now I suppose I got to waste time going in court to tell about it. Just because I happened to be next door. I was tired, I had to do an extra shift last night, I was all in, and these damned people across the hall were like a bunch of hyenas, yelling and laughing--I stood it as long as I could and then I got up and put on a robe to go complain, see, and just about then I hear somebody go tearing down the hall, sure I mean running, and when I go out the door’s open and here’s this guy bleeding all over the floor-"

  He had been indeed, stabbed repeatedly; there was a knife left beside him. Pepple didn’t know who he was, said he thought he’d just moved in. There wasn’t a landlord on the premises. They found a wallet in a jacket in the closet; if it was his, his name was Rodrigo Peralta. Let the S.I.D. men look for anything else, said Shogart. There were needle-marks all over Peralta’s arms; at first glance, and probably at second, it was just another argument between addict and seller, or addict and addict.

  They got back to the office at ten-forty, and Shogart had just turned the radio on again when they had a call from the main desk. "Say, I just picked up something a little strange," said Patrolman Bill Moss. "We had a call to a public phone down on Washington, and this guy insisted we bring him here to see a Mr. Galeano. He won’t take no, and he’s an old guy in quite a state, he won’t talk to us, just asks for Galeano, so we thought--"

  "Well,
and what’s all that about? You’d better bring him up," said Piggott, rather intrigued. "Who is he?"

  "I’ve got no idea," said Moss. "I thought it might be something to do with a case, when he knows Galeano. We’ll be up." Five minutes later he came in, escorting a little potbellied old man limping and panting.

  "Detective Galeano’s gone home," said Piggott. "Mr. --er? What is it you want to see him about?"

  "Dixon. You just tell him, Mr. Dixon. Seeing it’s his fault I damn near got murdered too," said the old man testily, "least he can do is listen to me. I’m staying right here till he shows up, if it’s tomorrow morning." He lowered himself into Hackett’s desk chair painfully and panted. Piggott looked up Galeano’s number and dialed it. "I don’t know what it’s all about, but he seems to think you will."

  "Dixon?" said Galeano. "Well, I’m damned if I do know, Matt, but I’ll come in and find out. I hadn’t gone to bed anyway, I’m off tomorrow."

  When he walked in half an hour later, Dixon had dropped off to sleep and was snoring slightly, head back. He woke up with a start at Galeano’s voice, sat up and grimaced, a hand to his back.

  "What’s this all about, Mr. Dixon?"

  "I had me quite a night, all on accounta you, young feller. Havin’ to get out in this damp weather, my arthritis is killing me. Ow. I tried to give you fellows a little hint about Bob, quiet like, and you have to come out flat-footed and say so! Oh, you didn’t say it was me on account you didn’t know, but them two bitches can add two and two. They knew. How they’d’ve covered up about me gettin’ killed I don't know, because I don't go out and get drunk and pick fights like Bob did, but they was gonna get me--they said so--do me just like they did Bob, beat the poor guy to death they did, I saw it--whangin’ away with a couple o’ chairs, and that Elmer just a-laughin’ all the while they was at it. And they’d’ve got me too, only for once I was too quick for ’em." He chuckled. "You wouldn’t have a cup of coffee around here, would you? I’m still cold as bedamned, that night air."

  Piggott went down the hall to the coffee machine.

  "You mean Mrs. Chard and--" Galeano, even as steeped in sin as any cop of experience, was momentarily startled.

  "Who else? Them two bitches," said Dixon. "I’m a patient man, Galeano, but enough’s enough. I wasn’t no pal of Bob’s, but they didn’t need to go kill the poor bastard. Just because Cissy found he was runnin’ with another woman, for which I can’t blame him--and he had a little life insurance too. They beat him to death, the two of ’em, right there in the kitchen, and Elmer got the wheelbarrow from out back and they carted him off somewheres, figure leave him on the street and you’d think he got killed by a car."

  "Well, I’ll be Goddamned," said Galeano blankly.

  "And then, damn it, you had to go and tell ’em there’d been some tip on it, and acourse they guessed it was me! They’d ’a’ got me too, but I was too smart for ’em. Locked m’self in the bedroom, and I heard Cissy tell her ma I’d have to come out sooner or later, they’d grab me then--but I got out the window and climbed a fence to the next yard, how I done it I dunno with the way my back’s been, but I did, and called up a squad car. And you better believe, Galeano, I don’t stir outta the police station till them two bitches and that Elmer, they’re all locked up good and tight!"

  "For God’s sake! " said Galeano. He looked at Piggott and Shogart.

  "The statement’s enough to go on." Shogart was grinning wryly. "This is his wife and daughter? Well, we’d better go get ’em, and make it all kosher with the warrants tomorrow, get the statement down. My God, what does go on."

  They all went out to the Constance Street house, but ended up calling a wagon. The Dixons and Cecelia Chard were all on the way to being drunk, and the two women went berserk. Before it was all over Galeano and Shogart were well marked up by fingernails, Galeano’s shirt was torn and one sleeve out of his jacket, and Piggott had the beginning of a nice black eye from Elmer.

  "I thought they were riffraff," said Galeano ruefully, "but I never got beyond that. My good God." They had to wake Dixon up again to tell him they were all in jail, and they would see he was driven home if that was where he wanted to go.

  "Sure," he said, sitting up and yawning. "It’ll be damn good to have some peace and quiet in that house. I only hope some damn fool judge don’t let ’em out in a hurry. They’d sure as hell get me good, then."

  * * *

  Mendoza, who had a perverted sense of humor about these things, was still laughing over Dixon that next morning when Conway started out with Wanda to question the Dixons and Mrs. Chard, get statements and warrants.

  "Mas vale que digan, Aqui corrié, y no, Aqui murió," he gasped to Hackett, shoving over Galeano’s note. "How right Nick is, if you don’t get rich at this job you get a look at human nature. Dios mio, the people we meet. And how are you and George doing on your private hunt?"

  "We’re not. Nothing suggestive’s turned up at all. I’m beginning to think George is right, that cigarette pack could have been there for weeks, maybe she just didn’t notice it. We’ll go on to the bitter end, but I think it’s a waste of time."

  "Which I understand," said Palliser, passing Hackett in the doorway, "Tom’s been saying about my brainwave on Sandra. What do you think?"

  "You talked to the girl," said Mendoza consideringly. "From what I know of the case, Rank could be a hot suspect. Why don’t you think so?"

  "For one thing, he was at work out in Van Nuys at that car-wash place up to three o’clock that Sunday. I don’t think he’d have had time to get to Hollywood and pick up those girls by five o’clock. He’s not the only man in Records with the right pedigree and possible access to a house near San Pedro.”

  "And we aren’t even sure of that, are we? But the girl picked him, John."

  "Along with a couple of others. Damn," said Palliser suddenly, "we never did locate that Steve Smith. Who she also picked. But she wasn’t at all certain, you know, and I think myself the fact that these mug-shots showed men wearing goatees had something to do with her picking ’em. At least I understand we’ve got those rapes cleaned up--Jase called to tell me about it last night. My God, what a thing."

  Sergeant Lake buzzed Mendoza. "You’ve got a new one. Twenty-fourth Place, double homicide."

  "¡Diez millónes de demonios!"' said Mendoza. "All right, I’m on it, Jimmy."

  They went to look, and they looked sadly: just more of the mindless brutality stalking the streets of any big city. The daughter had come home from a night at a girl friend’s and found them: Mr. and Mrs. Paul Freeman, both in their fifties, beaten and dead on their livingroom floor and the house ransacked. A modest house, but between sobs Janice Freeman told them this and that. "Of c-course we were always careful about locking doors and all--there’s the chain on the front, you can see. Not that Daddy ever had much money himself, but there’s the church money--he keeps the books for our church, the Methodist chapel it is, and he always had the collection to take to the bank-- Oh, if I’d only been here, if I’d just been here--"

  If she’d been there she’d probably have ended up dead too. There were a few suggestive things to notice. Mendoza nodded at the phone book, lying open on a table against the wall, oddly undisturbed. "The door wasn’t forced, chain off. That could be why, John."

  "Oh, yes," said Palliser, going closer to look at it. The book was open to the yellow pages, to the listing for service stations. "He rang the bell--or they did--said he was stalled and could he please use the phone. And the helpful Christian let him in."

  "Tal vez. You’d better call up S.I.D." Looking at the corpses, Mendoza thought about statistics. They did enter the picture. Thoughtless people would quote the fact that the incidence of black crime was astronomically higher than white; what they forgot was that there was an astronomically higher number of black victims too.

  "Oh, if I’d just been here. I can’t help feeling it wouldn’t have happened if I’d just been here--"

  * * *


  Galeano got up late, his day off, dropped his jacket at a tailor’s for repair, and drove down to the Globe Grill for breakfast. This time he sat where Marta had to wait on him. Her lips tightened when she saw him, but she came up correctly to take his order.

  "Did you sell the car to Jim?" he asked.

  "Yes," she said stiffly. "That is all right? There’s no reason I should not?"

  "Not that I know of." He ordered almost at random, and she went away at once. She didn’t make any comment on his facial decorations; maybe she thought cops were always getting into fights. She didn’t come back until she brought his plate, and he watched her unobtrusively. Damn it, he thought, the girl was nothing to him; just, those damned cynics so ready to believe she was telling a tale, and he--halfway--believed her. He was sorry for her; look at it any way, she’d had a raw deal. And if she was telling the truth-- But there were all the questions: her coming home earlier than she’d said she had that day, and the car, what that Frost woman said, what they’d said about Fleming--Damn it, why should she tell such a story unless it was true?

  He wondered suddenly if Carey had thought of digging up that raw empty lot where the building had been torn down. That was woolgathering with a vengeance. For one thing, he thought suddenly, Mrs. Del Sardo was right--that place had thin walls, you couldn’t have a good argument without neighbors knowing it. It didn’t make much noise, say, to hit a man over the head, but a little girl like Marta couldn’t have got him out of the place, down the stairs, alone.

  What about the wheelchair? It had rubber tires. Galeano had a sudden clear vision of Fleming, dead or dying, tied into the wheelchair while she manipulated it down the stairs quietly, so quietly, late at night. She’d taken him to the doctor--that had meant getting him down the stairs. She was a sturdy girl, and it was a question of leverage, keeping the thing straight. But he’d probably helped, those times, with the increased strength in his arms and shoulders.