The Knave of Hearts (25 page)

He liked the feel of the knife in his hand. There was
a nice stiff leather sheath had come with it, to fasten on your
belt—it was a hunting knife really, of course—and he decided to
carry it anyway. If he buttoned his coat over it it wouldn’t
show—and then, if he decided to use it, it would be there.

He ran his finger delicately down the blade and
shivered a little, pleasurably. Good and sharp . . .

He was walking fast up and down, again. Looking at
the clock every few minutes.

Queer, very queer, but God’s ways were mysterious.
This one, she didn’t look like Rhoda—this Alison—except for the
hair—but there was a link between them, of course, the same kind,
the same kind. Killing what was in Rhoda time and time again. Of
course. All of them, the essential evil, the devil mocking. Bringing
out the awful weakness in men.

Such a long time to
Saturday night . . .

* * *

Mendoza was feeling pleased with himself and with Mr.
Ralph Stebbins. Sometimes you reached in blind, not expecting much,
and drew an ace the first time round. He’d had a nice little story
planned for the real estate fellow—how he was looking for a
particular kind of place, he’d been driving round and seen these he
liked, and could he be put in touch with the owners? But Mr. Stebbins
wasn’t the usual brash real estate salesman. He was a
weathered-looking old Yankee New Englander with a mouth like a steel
trap, a pair of very sharp blue eyes, and a rustily unused-sounding
voice. One look and two words, and Mendoza had shut the office door
behind him, sat down, and laid all his cards face up on the desk
between them.

"This is all very much maybe, as you can
appreciate. These places, it’s just a random list of possibles from
a first hasty look—"

Mr. Stebbins said, "Dunno. Ain’t s’ many
places with just these qualifications. Alone ’n’ all."

"No. But it might be up in one of the big
canyons—I might be wrong from the word go about the kind of place
it is, the kind he’d like. This is just a first cast. I could set
some men looking all through the property descriptions at the Hall of
Records, sure, and track down the owners’ names in time. A lot of
time. But frankly, I haven’t got a man to spare at the moment, and
then, too, this is home territory for you, and you’ve got an excuse
to ask questions—you’d find out with less trouble, quicker. I
realize I’m asking you to waste a couple of days, cooperating with
us for no profit—"

"Dunno," said Mr. Stebbins. "Reckon
it’s profit to the hull community, if you catch up to a murderer.
Business ain’t so good as all that lately. I just run this place to
give me suthin’ to do anyways. Retired eleven years ago and come
out here and dang near went crazy sittin’ around. Be kind of
interesting, help you fellows out a little."

"I’d be very grateful. As I say, it may all be
a mare’s nest, but—off the record—I think we’re coming a
little closer to an idea who he is, and this is for legal
evidence—just in case—to locate him." The chances were, as
in many of these multiple cases, if and when he was brought to trial,
it would be on a charge of only one or two of the murders; and the
way it looked now, though Julie Anderson was the oldest one, they
might be able to collect more legal evidence on that one than the
others. Maybe Madge Parrott would recognize him—a little step
further on, that would be .... "I don’t need to tell you that
all this is off the record, not to be gossiped about."

Mr. Stebbins sniffed. "Never was much of a
talker. Wife’s dead these four years, I live alone—nobody but the
cat to talk to and she looks a—plenty answer—back but she don’t
speak English. You leave it to me, Lieutenant. I’1l find out for
you ’n’ let you know, soon as."
 

EIGHTEEN

Hackett had the uneasy feeling that he was taking an
undeserved holiday from work. He and Chief Lockhart got on fine
together, and he liked Mrs. Lockhart too, meeting her when he
delivered Lockhart back to his hotel. After all the hard routine day
after day on this thing, it made a little break to be driving
Lockhart around, pointing out all the suspects-in-embryo. It was, he
figured, a long chance that any of them was Gideon Wise—or was it?
But they had to look, though it seemed a time-wasting process.

They’d started out on the Andrews list, but had
missed a few of them—men off sick, one on a late vacation and not
expected back until Monday—so they’d have to come back to those;
and two of them were on Mendoza’s list of those under more careful
scrutiny, too, but it couldn’t be helped. They’d covered a dozen
that first afternoon, started in again next morning and got to twenty
that day—what with driving back and forth, though Hackett had tried
to group them in batches to be found in roughly the same areas.

They’d covered quite a lot of territory, and they’d
got on fine, enjoying each other. There was still a long list to look
at, and this Saturday morning they were setting out again bright and
early, as so many business places closed at noon.

"What’s the program today?" asked
Lockhart, getting in beside him.

"Three down in Compton, a couple in west
Hollywood—we’ll be chalking up mileage. Talk about a guided
tour."

“
You sure are showing me the country, all right.
Not that you seem to have any what I call country round here—one
town runs right into another, seems like, and it beats me how anybody
ever finds their way around."

"Even natives get lost sometimes. I thought
first we’d recheck on this one we haven’t seen yet, in
Hollywood—it’s more or less on the way and he’s on the Andrews
list. Try where he lives."

"O.K. That the one works at a bank, or the shoe
clerk? Oh, I remember, sure. Hell of a job," said Lockhart
cheerfully, "keep ’em all straight. Funny to think too, all
the scientific things we got nowadays, still comes back to awful
simple first principles. Looking at a man. Having a feeling about
him. The way you say the lieutenant does pretty often. About the only
experience of that I ever had, with Gideon—and a damn funny feeling
it is .... That’s a pretty long cast the lieutenant’s making, on
checking those beach places."

Hackett grunted agreement. "A real wild one—but
knowing Luis, I wouldn’t be too surprised if it came off. Sometimes
he seems to have a kind of sixth sense about these things, way I say.
Doesn’t come off every time, or every tenth time, but once in a
while . . ."

"Pretty smart boy," said Lockhart.

"Sharp enough to cut himself—except just here
and there," said Hackett absently. He caught the light at that
corner, and as he waited, unfolded the list from his pocket to check
the address again. Gates Avenue, that was— And at that moment
something rang a faint bell in his mind about that address. He
couldn’t place it at all, and he didn’t have the feeling that it
was connected with the case, with anything professional .... They
were, naturally, checking these men at the places they worked, but
this was a home address for one who was off sick; they hadn’t been
here before. It was a steep side street off Glendale Avenue, and when
he saw it, saw the shabby old four-family flat, it said a little
something more to him.

Not much. He’d been past here before, that was all.
No, stopped here, about where he was now, sliding into the curb. He
had the vague impression—somebody Angel knew, was it—? Halfway it
came to him, himself and Angel in the front seat, and somebody in the
back saying, "I’ll just run in and leave this for—" and
a name. Somebody they knew knew someone who lived here, or had lived
here then. He didn’t remember any more about it, and it wasn’t
very important, was it?

". . . That fellow down at the beach, you said
he’s found out about who owns most of those places or rents ’em."

"And not a name on any of our lists corresponds.
I said it was a wild one—but there’s three or four left to go.
Hello, Bert," added Hackett, putting his head out the window.
"What’s the word?"

Dwyer came over and got in the back seat. "Morning,
Mr. Lockhart. You and Art still out chasing your wild goose? You know
something, on a thing like this I get awful damn envious of the
detectives in books. Those fellows that only spend about a week to
every case, and twelve hours out of every day they’re consortin’
with beautiful girls and important millionaires and I don’t know
what all—something exciting goin’ on every minute, whether it’s
bedding down with a blonde or having a gunfight with a gangster. Not
that I’m complaining, you understand, about not running up against
a couple of hoods shootin’ around corners at me."

Hackett laughed. "How often I’ve had the same
thought."

"This one—I’ve got half a dozen I’m
collecting statistics on—I’ve got nowhere on yet. Wasted two days
already. He doesn’t seem to know many people. The only one I talked
to who knew anything about him is a woman who lives across the
hall—and I don’t know that I got half of what she said down
right, she’s got an English accent you could cut with a cleaver—and
she don’t know much, except she thinks he’s a very nice young
man. Now I want to talk to the landlady, and nobody answered the door
yesterday afternoon so I came back after supper last night, and her
daughter tells me she’s gone on a visit to her sister in Laguna
Beach. Daughter doesn’t know anything about the tenants, she’s
just there temporary, but Mama’s expected back very late last night
or this morning. So I start out here this morning, and now the
daughter tells me Mama’s decided to stay another day—she called
last night—but she’ll be home for sure by six tonight. So I’ll
have to come back again."

"It all comes of female emancipation," said
Hackett, "letting them gad around all over alone. Is he still
in?"

"Far as I know. I’m not allowed to look at him
close, but this woman across the hall said yesterday she thinks he’s
home sick all right, she didn’t hear him go out for a couple of
mornings. Cold or something."

"Yes. Well, no harm looking." Hackett got
out of the car. "That wouldn’t make him too sick to answer the
door. Now, Chief, you stay out of sight, we’ll reconnoiter the
terrain inside and hide you where you can get a glimpse and hear him,
and I’ll be the fellow with the wrong address looking for Mr.
Smith."

Which program was carried
out, but to no avail; the door stayed shut and silence came from
beyond it. "Either he’s shamming and told his boss a lie to
play hookey, or he’s died of pneumonia maybe. Hell," said
Hackett, "that means another trip back later on. Oh, well, all
in the day’s work . . ."

* * *

"Alison," said Mendoza aloud, and woke with
a start. He lay for a moment orienting himself to a new day (a moment
ago, she’d been there close, smiling at him). He swore in a whisper
and sat up. The cats were awaiting his waking in their own ways: Bast
curled philosophically on his feet, her daughter diligently washing
her stomach, El Senor sitting on the bureau by the window making
chattering noises at the birds in the yard.

Mendoza got up; he felt like death. On Thursday night
he had looked at the little tablets and told himself it was absurd
and dangerous to be dependent on such things, what had got into him?
He hadn’t taken any, and had lain awake until three o’clock, and
taken one, and then had to drag himself out at eight still half
asleep. So last night he had taken two, and now as usual he felt only
half here mentally. He groped out to the kitchen, fed the cats and
let them out, started the coffee, and with no strength to shave or
dress until afterward, sat there waiting for it. Just as it was
arriving at the pouring stage, there was an excited flurry outside:
El Senor and a bird. Mendoza went out and took it away from him; it
wasn’t much hurt, and it lay there in his hand, warm, shamming dead
instinctively in this moment of terror, a small gray sparrow with
bright shoe-button eyes. He laid it in the crotch of the big oak tree
down the yard, and brought El Senor in to give it a chance to recover
its breath. "No!
¿Comprende?
Bad cat! Yes, I know it’s your nature,
hijito
,
and you are annoyed at my obtuseness, but I can’t help it. No
birds!" And very likely El Senor, brooding on this piece of
injustice, would think up some diabolical revenge while Mendoza was
absent.

He poured the coffee, and added a little rye to it,
and drank it too hot; shuddered, and began to come back to life a
little. He took a second cup, also spiked with rye, back to the
bedroom with him; he didn’t want any breakfast.

And as he faced the man in the mirror, shaving, the
old lady whispered to him over his shoulder, A bad place you come to,
boy—men never know how to look after themselves—that is what we
are for, Luis, that and a few other things maybe,
hijito
.
You laugh at the old ways and ideas, Luis, but live a little longer,
mi nieto
, you come to
see they would not be there at all if they were not forged out of the
generations’ sorrow and joy. Listen to me,
hijito
,
use the little sense the good God gave you . . .

Damn, old one, old enough to know my own mind, he
said to her. Turned forty this year, and damn the head doctors who
said it was all what you took in before you walked alone or learned
the alphabet! You grew up, got your eyes open, came to be a man
standing alone, an intelligent, rational man. God knew he had loved
her, he had grieved for her, though she was old and it came quick and
easy; but what a mixture there (look at it steady and whole!) of
superstition, sentimentality—and the dry shrewdness which was maybe
the part of her he had kept .... Running back and forth to the
priests . . . The old fairy stories to amuse a child, the legends
heard from a thousand mothers down the generations—and not until he
was grown and away had he recognized them for what they were: the
garbled tamed stories, once pagan religion, of a people of older and
darker blood than the haughty fairskinned Spaniards with their guns
and their pride .... Of smiling Tlazoltcotl, mother of the gods:
Tonacatecutli, the god of gods; Tonatiuh of the sun; Xiucoatl and
Ometecutli and Mictlantecutli who held the sword of death; and
Cihuacoatl the beautiful goddess, Chae who sent the rain or drought,
and Kolotl of the dog face, and the great Quetzalcoatl, the
feathered-serpent god. A long time past and just stories for
children, she said, half believing, half fearing .... Did any man
ever escape entirely from the blood in him?