by Dell Shannon
"He didn't send anyone up to look?"
"Oh, yes. At least he didn't, but he said to call the local precinct. Which Mr. Corder already had. And a couple of men came up and looked at everything. It was a nuisance, of course, made us both awfully late— but we left everything just as it was for them. And they looked in the other garages, and said it was probably kids."
"Any other car touched?"
"No. And that was just it. It was only mine. So I told those men all about it, because it seemed rather open— and-shut to me. There being no windows, I mean— he didn't know which garage, and he had to try several garages before he found the right car. And they looked at me pityingly— these imaginative females!— and said all over again it was probably kids, just messing around."
"Yes. You can't really blame them, on the face of it it sounds too vague and— apologies— the sort of thing a nervous female might dream up. But it is suggestive, isn't it? It might be— it could be— whoever dropped that thing. And on the other hand— all that trouble, hunting up the car and so on, just for— Has there been any vandalism of that sort, kids roaming around at night and getting into mischief, in the neighborhood?"
"Not that I know of."
"And nothing to get hold of on it, any more than on my little business .... And I might have known," added Mendoza as Hackett drifted up to the table, "that I couldn't have lunch in peace, not opposite a pretty female anyway, without you barging in."
"It's not the redhead," said Hackett, “— hello, Miss Weir, and apologies to tell the truth— it's the chance of sticking you with the check, Luis."
"Neither of you'll be sitting opposite long," said Alison. "I've got to get back. I wondered if I ought to advertise it, you know— d'you think it'd do any good?"
"I do not. If he, she, or it knows for pretty certain it must have been lost in the car, they'd recognize an ad as a trap."
"Oh!— of course, I didn't see that. But it's such a little thing— "
"Yes. One piece of advice I'll give you, knowing your casual habits, chica. Put the chain up on your door and keep those two windows near the fire escape locked."
“My lord, you don't really think— ? But I'd suffocate, those are the north windows where the only air comes in— You can't think, just for a little thing like that— ?"
"Somebody went to a little trouble to look in the car. If it wasn't just kids' random mischief, and you're not imagining things. No se sabe nunca— one never knows .... You remember what I say now, ¿comprende? Y hasta muy pronto," as she rose to leave.
"Well, all right, I can't stop to argue now," said Alison, and fled back to her class.
"And what was all that about, if it's any of my business?" asked Hackett.
"It's not, but they say two heads are better than one." Mendoza told him.
"That's a funny one, all right. Maybe one of these superstitious nuts, it's his best lucky talisman or something?"
"Could be. I don't know. I don't know anything about anything," said Mendoza, regarding his coffee gloomily. "And there's another funny little thing tied up to it that— Maybe I'm getting old, Art. Losing my grip— "
"All come out in the wash," said Hackett. "The trouble with you is, you've got what they call a tortuous mind. You build up little picayune things to worry about, that don't mean a damn. Like this Domokous thing. It's un callejón sin salida, boy— a dead-end street. Higgins checked in on Skyros just after you left. If he's playing games with the exotic brunette, they haven't even got to Post Office yet. He goes from home to office and vice versa, and that's all. The brunette— I borrowed one of Galeano's men to check on her— is staying at the Beverly-Hilton. She's one Madame Rafael Bouvardier, of Paris, and she's apparently loaded. Has her own maid with her, and a suite. No expense spared."
"That was the picture," agreed Mendoza. “What's her first name and what's she doing here?"
"How should I know? She hasn't confided in the hotel people. Just a pleasure trip, probably. Though why pick L.A. in this season, God knows. She's been here about three weeks. Don't tell me you want her tailed too. We just haven't got a man free."
"But I can think of unpleasanter jobs," said Mendoza. "I might even take it on myself— keep my hand in, so to speak."
"¡No hay más, that's all, brother!" said Hackett. "Since when do you need practice chasing skirts? Just an excuse to take the afternoon off!"
NINE
Mendoza had said, no hunch; and he didn't have that unreasonably sure conviction that this or that was so. It was more on the order of that uneasy doubt as to whether one had left the gas turned on or the faucet running.
He had the further guilty feeling that he was wasting time, but he drove out to the Bever1y-Hilton, and was waiting his turn at the desk clerk to frame some discreet questions about Madame Bouvardier, when he saw her descending the nearest stair into the lobby. No expense spared, that you could say again, he reflected: very Parisian, very exotic— again the wide lace-brimmed hat, another black-and-white printed silk gown, what at least looked like diamonds, long gloves, fragile high heels.
And well met: so, wasting time, but might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. He abandoned the line at the desk and strolled after her, with a vague idea of picking her up somehow, all very gentlemanly and polite, and getting confidential over a drink— as confidential as she could be persuaded, and at that he flattered himself he was far more accomplished than any of his sergeants.
But she didn't establish herself conveniently in the lobby, the adjacent lounge, or the bar; she walked purposefully out the main door, and Mendoza drifted up in time to hear her ask the doorman for Madame Bouvardier's car.
"Yes, madame, the chauffeur's just gone out, he'll be here directly, madame."
Hell, thought Mendoza, and turned back for the side door and sprinted for the Facel-Vega in the middle of the lot. Hired car and driver, the chauffeur calling from the lobby to announce arrival— he wouldn't be sixty seconds picking her up. He thrust coins at the attendant and switched on the engine almost in one motion.
But he was just in time, taking the wide curve out to Wilshire, to catch a glimpse of the lace hat through the rear window of a stately black middle-aged Chrysler. He was held up a couple of cars behind, but the Chrysler wasn't hard to keep in view along here; it went straight up Wilshire at a steady pace, heading back for Hollywood. Before they got into town, Mendoza managed to pass the cars ahead and fall in directly behind it.
A couple of blocks this side of La Brea, the Chrysler turned left and went round the block, and Mendoza dropped back a little, guessing at a stop. Middle of the block, and the chauffeur'd gone round to drop her on the right side; he hopped out smartly, illegally double-parked, and opened the door, and out she came, said a few words. Probably as to where and when to pick her up. Mendoza was legitimately caught in this lane by the halted Chrysler, an excuse for watching. The chauffeur touched his cap, grinned apology over his shoulder at Mendoza, and ran around to the driver's door again. And Madame Bouvardier vanished through the door of an elegant black-glass-and-marble fronted shop labeled in discreet gold script, Shanrahan and MacReady.
"Well, well," said Mendoza sadly to himself. "A mare's nest. With a clutch of wild goose eggs in it." But he turned the next corner, miraculously found a parking space, and strolled back to keep an eye on the black glass door.
In twenty minutes it opened and she came out and turned in his direction. He stayed where he was, propping the wall of the bank on the corner, and his flagging interest was slightly aroused by her expression as she passed him: she was biting her lower lip, looking thoughtful and annoyed. She carried no parcel, and her bag was too small to conceal even a little one.
She walked on half a block, stopping a few times to look in windows, and disappeared into the plush elegance of Chez Frédéric, Coiffures.
"Oh, hell," said Mendoza to himself. She hadn't stopped at the counter in there, but with a white-robed attendant at her elbow passed on into the rear premises
. Be there for hours, very likely.
What did he think he was doing, anyway? You couldn't expect a tailing job to turn up something interesting in the first hour. If he wanted to know more about the female, put a man on her, and preserve patience.
And no reason she shouldn't have gone where she did. A place any woman might go. But, as long as he was here.— He turned around and walked back to Shanrahan and MacReady.
* * *
Mr. Brian Shanrahan welcomed him into the chaste quietude of the shop with subdued cries of delight, or what passed for that with a dignified middle-aged professional man of repute.
"And what may I have the pleasure of showing you today? Perhaps at last something in a wedding set? I have— "
"You and my grandmother," said Mendoza.
"And how is the charming señora? Such an interesting old lady— "
"You find her interesting," said Mendoza, "because she's the cautious type who likes to put money into portable value she can look at instead of six percent common stock, and is one of your best customers. It's not for want of telling she hasn't grasped that you figure a two hundred per-cent mark-up."
"Now that's slander, Mendoza," said Shanrahan aggrievedly. "Seldom more than a hundred and fifty. And if it's something for her birthday, she was in and briefed me thoroughly. There's this bracelet she has her eye on, very fine stones, if you'd like to look— "
"No," said Mendoza. "It's ridiculous, and I refuse to be a party to it. I'd like to inherit something from her eventually besides stock for a secondhand jewelry shop. I didn't come in to buy anything, I want some information?
Mr. Shanrahan sighed and asked what about.
"A few minutes ago a woman came in here— a very exotic, expensive-looking young woman— black and white ensemble, lace-brimmed hat, gloves— "
"And diamonds in some very old-fashioned mountings," nodded the jeweler intelligently. "Friend of yours?"
"Heaven forbid, not my type— "
"Didn't know you had one."
"What did she want? Who waited on her?"
"As a matter of fact I did."
"Of course, you took one look and she spelled Money, so you wouldn't trust her to an underling."
"Or I tried to. She looked at a couple of things, but she wasn't really interested. If she hadn't— um— as you say, looked quite so expensive, I might have put her down as an amateur novelist looking for information. The first thing she came out with was, what enormous value all these beautiful things must represent, we must have to be very careful about thieves. Did we have a burglar alarm? Did we have a night watchman? Had we ever suffered a robbery? All in machine-gun style, and a very thick accent."
"¡Vaya por Dios!" said Mendoza. “I refuse to believe that she came in to, as the pros say, case the joint! Now what the devil— "
"Good God," said Mr. Shanrahan. "You don't think— "
"No, I don't, it's ridiculous, I just said so. A suite at the Beverly-Hilton, her own maid— and those clothes— Impossible."
"Good God," said Mr. Shanrahan again. "Burglary. Don't even suggest it. Another one. We average three a year, and this is really too soon after the last— only three weeks. My heart won't take this sort of thing much longer— not to speak of the insurance company. Really, Mendoza!"
"Don't look at me, I'm not the mastermind plotting it— if there is a plot. Lose much in that one?"
"Oh, well, it could have been worse," said Mr. Shanrahan discreetly. Mr. Shanrahan would always be discreet, even with an old customer who was by way of being a friend. He glanced sidewise at Mendoza, opened his mouth for further speech, decided against it, and whisked out his handkerchief to clean his glasses instead. "It's the principle of the thing. And, as I say, the insurance."
"Yes. Did this woman say anything else?"
"One has to be polite. I was— um— noncommittal, you know, and then she got onto insurance. We must have to carry a terrible amount of insurance, all these valuable things, and also, it was to be supposed, sometimes things which do not belong to us. Was it not a great financial burden? My God, Mendoza, you don't suppose— ?"
"No, I don't. I don't know what she was after. Insurance. ¡Media vuelta!— right about face! I don't know anything, damn it. ¡Mil rayos! So far as I know, she's simply a rich visiting foreigner, eminently respectable, and she didn't mean anything sinister at all— just talking off the top of her mind. And I am wasting the afternoon. I shall now cease to do so and go back to legitimate work."
"I hope to God you're right," said Mr. Shanrahan nervously. "Now— just a moment, Mendoza, as long as you're here you might as well take a look at this bracelet— no harm— won't take a minute, just let me fetch it out for you— "
Mendoza looked at it, heard the price, said it was outrageous, and named another twenty percent below. Shanrahan told him coldly that this was not a street booth in a village market, where haggling was expected; there were prices set and that was that, take it or leave it.
"Don't give me that," said Mendoza. "What with taxes and inflation, luxury business isn't living so high it can pick and choose customers. How long have you had this in stock without a bite on it?" Shanrahan looked offended and after much persuasion named a price five percent under the original. They insulted each other for another five minutes and came to a deadlock on the Federal tax, Mendoza refusing to be responsible for it. Shanrahan offered to split it with him.
"I'll think about it," said Mendoza, picking up his hat.
Shanrahan looked at him wistfully. "I live for the day when you get hooked by some predatory empty-headed blonde."
"And you'll still be hoping when they nail down your coffin," said Mendoza.
* * *
He went back to his office and ruminated. First causes, he thought: so, what about Domokous? Look at the facts available, build it up from there.
Hackett had collected a number of little facts by now. The Second Street hotel was largely tenanted by residents, not transients; there was supposed to be a desk clerk on duty most of the time, but actually it was a desultory job. The clerk remembered Domokous going out that Monday night about seven o'clock, but couldn't say whether he'd come in again: didn't recall seeing him go out on the Tuesday morning, but he might have— the clerk didn't always see residents in or out. And friends of residents, if they knew the room number, would walk right up; the clerk couldn't keep track of everybody.
It looked as if that Monday night might be the crucial time, because Domokous hadn't come to work on Tuesday.
The clerk said he'd certainly never seen Domokous the worse for drink; ditto, the other clerks and the pretty bookkeeper at Skyros, Inc. The artistic little tale Mr. Skyros had told looked fishier in consequence.
But there could be— considering the nymph and the dolphin— a relatively innocent explanation. If Skyros was sailing a bit near the wind in his business, say over some matter of customs duty, something like that— it needn't have one thing to do with Domokous' death— Skyros might easily be nervous, want the death passed off as smoothly as possible without investigation too close to home. So he'd just bolstered up the truth with enough imaginary detail to satisfy authority, get the cops off his neck.
Driscoll . . . Yes, quite outside Domokous' death, the insurance firm with an eye on Skyros? And Domokous just what he looked like, victim of a pusher. Those puncture marks in him— But it could be. People, as Bainbridge sententiously said, did some damned funny things. That knock on the head: all right, heroin didn't kill instantaneously, and he might have got it when he fell in that alley, when the heroin got to him. A couple of funny little points that Mendoza didn't much like, the business about Bratti, for instance. Was there any connection between Skyros and Bratti? But even that could be innocent. Skyros might have heard the name from Domokous, some time when no one else was around. It just could be.
He had got that far thinking about first causes when Sergeant Lake came in and said, "There's the longest beard I've ever seen just came in— you can see
there's some sort of fellow behind it, but not much of him— and says he wants to see you. Claims he's a priest of some kind."
"I've just gone out," said Mendoza, in instant reaction to the word. And then he said, "Wait a minute— a beard? A priest— a Greek? Possibly a Greek bearing gifts? Shoot him in, Jimmy!"
It was in truth a magnificent beard— pepper-and-salt, and curly; it cascaded from high on its owner's cheekbones to somewhere well below where his waist would have been if he'd had one. Mendoza eyed it with respect and ambiguous feelings. Having the tiresome sort himself which called for a second shave if he was to appear in public in the evening, he'd often thought how convenient it would have been to live in an era when beards were de rigueur; on the other hand, in this kind of weather it must be rather like carrying around a portable electric blanket. He stood up and took the proffered hand; above the beard a pair of gentle gray eyes blinked at him shortsightedly through old-fashioned round rimless glasses.
"I hope I don't disturb you inconveniently, Lieutenant. Er— Nikolas Papoulos, if I may introduce— "
"And you are a parish priest of a local Orthodox church. I think perhaps— sit down, won't you— you've come to tell me that you knew Stevan Domokous?"
"Dear me, you really are a detective, then." The eyes twinkled at him briefly. "We hear these days how efficient our police force is— just yesterday my wife called my attention to a most interesting article in the Times— but I digress— however, this convinces me. Efficient indeed."
The eyes lost their twinkle. "But it's a sad errand I come on, yes. And I should apologize not to have come before. But I've been ill, and also I hesitated— it really seemed a minor— It was only yesterday I learned of this dreadful thing. Er— Mr. Skyros, whom I do not know— he approached me about the service for poor Stevan. I understand the city morgue had only just released the body. I was much shocked, Lieutenant— and I may say grieved, for though I had not known Stevan long, he was a faithful attendant at church and seemed an eminently good young man. I could hardly believe it, in fact, I can hardly believe it."
