by Dell Shannon
He had called the Elger apartment and got no answer. Called Elger's office and been told Elger was out somewhere with a client.
When the lab man came in Mendoza was studying the official shots of Nestor's body. They weren't telling him much. He had a little box full of the contents of Nestor's pockets on his desk; he looked at it and picked up the button. That ordinary little button that had been clutched in Nestor's dead fingers. The clue out of the detective story.
"Morning," said the lab man, whose name was Duke.
"Say, I've got a little something, I-"
"Hold it a minute," said Mendoza. "Jimmy! I must be going senile. Jimmy, I want search warrants for the quarters of every male in the Nestor case. Let's see, Webster, Elger, this Bob Sheldon, every legitimate male patient he had, every man listed in his address book, every male he knew. To look at their clothes. Just in case. It's possible X didn't realize he'd lost a button. You never know where you'll hit pay dirt. Damn it, it's a very long chance, but-"
He looked at Duke. "What have you got?" `
Duke laid a pair of shoes on the desk. "We're always damn busy," he said, "but we've been concentrating on Hackett the last couple of days. As you can imagine."
Duke was snub-nosed, freckle-faced, and right now looking pleased with himself. "We've been going over his clothes, for any little thing that might show up. Now it is your job to say what this might mean, but for what it's worth, it looks kind of interesting to me. Not to say suggestive. These are his shoes, I just got to them this morning."
"Yes?" said Mendoza.
They were a pair of black moccasin-type shoes, middling expensive, well worn but polished. Mendoza thought absently, Size 11B.
Duke lifted them and held them toward him heel first. "Look at that. They're not new shoes, but they've been taken care of. Kept polished. But here, on both heels-that is, the back of both shoes above the heels-is this deep scrape. The surface of the leather's entirely gone, violently scraped off-more on the left than on the right one."
"Yes, I see."
"Well, that wasn't done when he went over the cliff in his car, you know. It wasn't done on anything in the car. I've had these under the microscope, and I took scrapings to look at closer. You know what was in those scraped spots? Asphalt. Asphalt and," Duke added dreamily, "crankcase oil, and bird droppings, and decayed leaves. Traces, you know."
Mendoza sat up. "What the hell? Does that say-"
"Me, I'm only a chemist,” said Duke. "You're the detective. But we aren't exactly disinterested in this one, and I saw what Dr. Erwin said about that skull fracture. The back of the skull, more to the left side. I think this does tell us a little something?
"Asphalt--"
"The way I read it," said Duke, "and stop me if I don't make sense, is that he got that first blow outdoors, on the street. Literally on the street-a blacktop street. He got knocked backwards, maybe tripped over something or it was just a very hefty blow-and his feet went out from under him, scraping the street, and he went down hard on something-as Erwin said-broad and hard and flat."
"But not the street itself," said Mendoza slowly, "because there wasn't a trace of anything like that in the wound or on the scalp. Of course he had on a hat, but you didn't find anything like that on it. Nothing extraneous."
"That's right" said Duke. "I just thought I'd pass it on.”
"And isn't it interesting," said Mendoza. "Thanks very much… " He thought about that story he'd built up, on Art. The louts jumping him. The outside thing? Or, if you were bound to link it with another case, had he shown some suspicion, and been followed outside?
The nice neat detective-story plot-Art stumbling across the X in the Nestor case, or the Slasher-he had bought it, but now he wasn't so sure.
Art attacked in the street. A blacktop street. Like how many thousand streets in L. A. County?
What the hell?
And that was when the man from Ballistics came in. A paunchy, elderly fellow named Hansen, who said, "I think we've cleared one up for you, Lieutenant. That chiropractor that got himself shot. We've got the gun."
"?Parece mentira! Don't keep me in suspense-where the hell did you-"
"Well, the Wilcox Street boys sent it down, and I fired a few test slugs, and they looked sort of familiar-I did the tests on that slug out of the chiropractor. It's a Harrington and Richardson Sportsman 999-nice little gun. Nine-shot revolver, retails for about fifty bucks." He laid it on Mendoza's desk.
"And where did the Hollywood boys get it?"
"Attempted break-in at a drugstore, Saturday night," said Hansen. "Three juveniles. They got this off one of them.”
"?Un millen demonios! " said Mendoza exasperatedly. "?Ya se ve! So it was the outside thing on Nestor-just what it looked like. The outside thing-too."
FIFTEEN
Mendoza called Wilcox Street and set up an immediate date with Sergeant Nesbitt at the County Jail. Damn it, this turned the whole case upside down. The facts that Nestor had been an abortionist, had been cheating on his wife, didn't matter a damn; he hadn't been murdered for a personal reason; it had been just what it looked like, the break-in, the burglars finding him there, using the gun in panicky impulse. So the Nestor thing hadn't anything to do with the assauly on Art; he hadn't stumbled onto the personal killer there because there wasn't one. And there wasn't any way he could have stumbled onto these actual killers, either.
So, a hundred to one, the assault on Art had been the outside thing too. Because, to hell with the train wreck, Mendoza didn't see one like the Slasher setting up that faked accident-elementarily faked as it had been. If Art had stumbled onto the Slasher that night, the Slasher would probably have just yanked out his homemade knife and
… And, buying the detective-story plot, they'd wasted three days on that. Where to look now? Nowhere. They hadn't a clue as to where or when the first assault on Art had happened.
He said to Sergeant Lake, "If I'm not back when Mrs. Sheldon comes in, ask her to wait, will you?" He went downstairs to the lot and headed the Ferrari for North Broadway.
Wait a minute. Were there any leads? Even small ones. It could have been the way he'd outlined it to Palliser, a little gang of juvenile louts drifting the streets, jumping Art on impulse. In that case, a very small chance indeed that they could ever be identified, charged. But-the terminus a quo. He was all right when he left Mrs. Nestor's apartment on Kenmore. He'd meant perhaps to see the Elgers, see the Corliss woman, see the desk clerk, but they didn't know where he'd actually headed from Mrs. Nestor's. But Mendoza thought that Margaret Corliss was leveling with him now, and she'd denied again that Art had been to see her that night. All right. Mendoza was thinking again about Cliff Elger. None of these people had had anything to do with taking Nestor off, and it looked pretty farfetched that any of the rest of them could have had anything to do with the assault on Art; but Cliff Elger? That big boy, bigger than Art, who had the hair-trigger temper? Could he have got so mad at something Art said-about his wife, probably-that he struck that first violent blow, and found himself stuck with a badly injured cop? And with the reputation to preserve… Art attacked in the street. His heels scraping a blacktop street as he fell-but he hadn't fallen onto the blacktop, or there'd have been the same traces of asphalt and so on in the wound.
"I'm a fool," said Mendoza to himself suddenly, braking for a light. It was, when you thought about it, obvious. Whoever had struck that blow. Art standing at the curb or in the street-he could see it-car keys in his hand, ready to walk round the car to the driver's door. Either he'd been already facing someone, talking, or someone had spoken to him and he'd turned. And the blow struck-the violent blow-and he had fallen backward, feet sliding out from under him, and gone down hard on the broad, flat expanse of the car trunk. There wouldn't have been traces on the car, after the accident; he'd been wearing a hat.
That said a little more, but it wasn't any lead to who. Cliff Elger, roaring mad at something Art had said, following him down to the street,
getting madder when he couldn't rouse Art's temper in return… Maybe. Normandie was a blacktop street.
So was the street Madge Corliss' apartment was on. So were a lot of streets-including Third and the side streets around there. Wait a minute again. If that little build-up about how it happened was so, didn't it say probably that the car had been parked along the curb, not diagonally? And that wasn't much help either, because on most streets in L.A. and Hollywood the street parking wasn't diagonal. You got that in a lot of towns around-Glendale, Pasadena, Beverly Hills-but not much here.
"Hell," said Mendoza, and parked, pocketed the keys, and walked up to the jail.
Sergeant Nesbitt was waiting for him at the top of the steps. "Lieutenant Mendoza? Nesbitt." He was a square, solid man about forty, with a square stolid face. "I understand you're going to claim my young punks on a murder rap. Well, glad to oblige. They're all under eighteen, though, you won't be getting the gas chamber for them."
"What's the story?" They went inside.
"Well, we've been having quite a little wave of break-ins up in my stamping ground. Drugstores, independent markets, dress shops, and so on. The cheaper stores. where the buildings are old and the locks not so good, you know. It's been mostly petty stuff, we figured it was juveniles-not much cash, and stuff they wouldn't get much for- I think myself some of it was stolen to give away to their girl friends, make them look big. You know. Cigarettes, liquor, clothes from the dress shops, and so on. Well, Saturday night a squad car touring out on Fountain spotted what looked like a flashlight in the rear of this drugstore on a corner, took a closer look, found the back door forced, and picked these three up in the stock room. They had an old Model A Ford sitting by the back door, half full of stuff they'd already piled in it." Nesbitt rummaged and produced his notebook. "One Michael Wills, Joe Lopez, George Kellerman. They're all from down around your part of town, and they've all been in a little trouble before. Wills was picked up and warned once for carrying a switchblade, and the other two have one count each of Grand Theft Auto-little joy riding, you know. Probation. Wills and Kellerman are seventeen, Lopez sixteen."
"Well, they've got into big trouble this time,” said Mendoza. "Who had the. 22?"
"Wills. I'd say he's the ringleader."
"O.K., let's go in and look at them."
Nesbitt told the desk man whom they wanted to see; in a few minutes they were let into one of the interrogation rooms, and the boys were brought in by a uniformed jailer.
Mendoza looked at them coldly, resignedly. They were about what he'd expected to see, from the black leather jackets and wide belts and dirty jeans to the expressions on their faces. And there was a lot of talk about it, from a lot of different people, and a lot of different solutions offered to cure the problem. It was a problem all right. They said, clean up the slums. A fine idea, but it wasn't going to cure the problem, because quite a lot of very respectable citizens-Luis Rodolfo Vicente Mendoza among others-had grown up in the slums. They said lack of discipline, which was a little more realistic, but it was theoretically a free country and you couldn't tell people how to bring up their kids. They said prejudice, they said inadequate public schools. What nobody among all the do-gooders would ever admit was that some people just came equipped that way, and that more people were just naturally the kind who'd play along with any strong character to be one of a gang; and you weren't going to change character overnight.
Wills was tall and thin, with an angular pale face, sullen pale eyes, and lank dark hair; he looked older than seventeen. Kellerman was a fat lump, big and awkward and blond. Lopez was a little runt of a kid, skinny and dark, with terrified eyes. They just stood and looked back at him.
"Well, let's get the show on the road," said Mendoza sharply. "Which of you shot Nestor last Tuesday night?"
They looked surprised; and then Lopez looked almost idiotic with panic. "We n-never shot nobody, mister.?Se lo digo, no! Honestamente , we never-we never do a thing like that-"
"You got rocks in your head?" said Wills coldly. "What makes you think we shot a guy?"
"I don't think, I know," said Mendoza. "There's no point going the long way round here. You've been pulling a series of break-ins. Probably in other places than Hollywood. Last Tuesday night you broke into the office of Dr. Frank Nestor, on Wilshire Boulevard. Only you found the office wasn't empty-Dr. Nestor was there." Why had he been there, by the way? Not very important? "Wills, you had the. 22. When Dr. Nestor showed up, did you panic and shoot on impulse, or did you kill him deliberately? You did have the. 22-It's your gun?"
"For Christ's sake!" said Wills incredulously. "That's crazy, man! We was never near no doctor's office, Tuesday night or any other! We never heard o' that doctor. Why the hell'd we want to break in a doctor's?"
"I can think of reasons," said Mendoza.
"Oh-dope. We don't go for that crap," said Kellerman. "Not me, boy! I seen what it done to my brother. You're nuts-we'd never do a real bad thing like that. Gee, what was a couple cartons cigarettes and-"
"I said, let's not go the long way round," said Mendoza.
"I've got other things to worry about than you three louts." He took a step toward them and Lopez cringed back. "Now listen-"
"You c'n beat me all you want!" cried Lopez in a high frightened voice. "Just go on 'n' try-you never make me-?Santa Maria y Josejo – I never-"
"Oh, for God's sake, Joe," said Wills contemptuously, "they don't dare lay a hand on us!" He gave Mendoza an insolent leer. "They got to stay little gents-ain't that so, bloodhound?"
Mendoza pasted a careful, bland smile on his mouth. Never let them see they were getting to you. It was sometimes difficult. Sure-that juvenile thing last year. All the careful rules and regulations to protect the citizenry-and the L.A.P.D. with a lot of private rules on that too, especially about the minors, and what it came to was that the punks could call you every name in the book, tell the most obvious lies, accuse you of anything from wife beating to sodomy, and you had to take it without even a word or two in reply. Sometimes a man lost his temper a little and roughed up one of them-which was the only way to reach a lot of them-and then you got the press screaming about police brutality and the tenderhearted public excitedly demanding investigation. Mendoza smiled at these three young punks, pityingly. The only other way to reach them was to talk to them like the immature children they were. "Look, Mikey boy," he said very gently, "I've got no time to waste playing games with little boys. I'll give you just five minutes to tell me a straight story, but whether you do or not, I'm getting warrants on all of you for murder. As of now. That. 22 is the gun that killed Frank Nestor, that we know, and it was in your possession on Saturday night. Which of you had it on Tuesday night?"
Evidently he reached them with that. Lopez started to say a fervent Hail Mary, with his eyes shut; Kellerman just looked worried. Wills suddenly dropped his sneer and said, "Listen, is that on the level? Somebody got killed with that gun? Jesus-"
"I told you there was somethin' a little funny about it, Mike," said Kellerman.
"That's level," said Mendoza. "What fancy story are you going to tell me now?"
"Jesus," said Wills. "I'm not taking no murder rap! I never had that gun until Thursday night, bloodhound, and that's level in spades. I never laid eyes on it till Thursday."
"?No me tome el pelo! Don't kid me," said Mendoza skeptically. "So where'd you get it?"
Wills licked his lips. "We found it," he said.
"Oh, for God's sake," said Mendoza, "can't you think up a better one than that?"
"No, honest-honest, mister, we did!" said Lopez eagerly. "It was down on Main, we was all together-we saw this guy drop something, just ahead of us, see, and Mike picked it up- I saw him-honestamente -"
"That's right," said Kellerman stolidly. "I saw him too. It looked like a swell gun, not so old either-but I told Mike, see, when I see the serial number's filed off, I said, get shut of it, maybe it's hot."
"You've got all the answers," said Mend
oza. "Do you really think I'm going to buy that one?"
"It's the truth!" snarled Wills. "It's all I can tell you. Jesus, I wish now I'd tossed it in the first alley we passed, but I didn't. It was mostly loaded, too-eight slugs in it. That's God's own truth, this guy dropped it and I picked it up. Right in the street, see-on the sidewalk."
His tone was passionate. Mendoza looked at him. "So now suppose you produce a nice tight alibi for all three of you for last Tuesday night."
"Hell!" said Wills violently. "You Goddamn cops-"
"I ain't taking no murder rap either, Mike,” said Kellerman. His broad forehead wrinkled painfully with thought.
"It ain't sense. So maybe we get hit a little tougher if we tell them, it's still not murder. Gee, none of us'd do a bad thing like a murder!" He looked at Mendoza earnestly. "We couldn't've, because we was down in Boyle Heights last Tuesday night, we cracked a TV store and got a lot of stuit. You can check it, I guess-lessee, we was with them girls up to about nine, and then we did the store, and we sold a lot of the stuff at a pawnshop on Whittier Boulevard, that'd be about ten-thirty, wasn't it, Mike? And-"
"Oh hell!" said Wills sullenly. "Well, all right. That's where we was, just like George says."
"That's right, mister, honestamente -"
Mendoza looked at Nesbitt and raised his eyebrows. Nesbitt shrugged.
"We'd sold stuff there before-the old guy's name is Behrens. Honest, he'd tell you we was in, about ten-thirty, and-”
"All right, what's the address?" Mendoza wrote it down. "I'll probably be seeing you again." He turned on his heel. Walking down the corridor, he asked Nesbitt, "What do you think?"
"Finding a gun," said Nesbitt. "I ask you."
"Down on Main," said Mendoza absently. He thought suddenly, suppose you had a gun you wanted to get rid of? A hot gun. Maybe one you had a license for, so the serial number could be traced. You could sell it, but the transaction would be traceable too. You could pawn it, but all pawnbrokers were supposed to keep records of serial numbers. You could just dump it somewhere, in anzio empty lot, but there was always the chance of someone seeing you, or Ending it and reporting it. Really, a very excellent way of getting rid of it would be to file away the serial number and then drop it somewhere, casually, in a district like Skid Row, where the chances were that whoever picked it up would keep it for his own nefarious purposes or pawn it for drinking money.
