The Ace of Spades - Dell Shannon (6 page)

Mendoza grinned at the scrawl: the old lady had been
trying for fifteen years to get him married to a comfortable, modest,
practical wife— of her own choice— preferably one who could coax
him back to the priests. Probably had a new candidate to trot out.

Mrs. Carter from across the hall informed him that
Bast had had her wheat germ in fresh liver at four o'clock and he was
not to give her any more until Thursday.

Mrs. Bryson from upstairs, front, informed him that
she had let Bast out for a little run at nine o'clock.

Bertha, the eminently satisfactory maid-of-all-work
who managed the domestic lives of the whole apartment population,
informed him that he was out of half-and-half and that there was a
sale on that coffee he liked this week at a local market.

Mr. Elgin from upstairs, rear, expressed himself as
uneasy concerning Bast and that smart-aleck young Siamese tom of his;
it was, he thought, quite possible that he and Mendoza might find
themselves joint owners of some crossbred kittens presently.

Mendoza looked at Bast. "What, have you grown up
finally and discovered sex? Misbehaving yourself,
gatita
—
he's a good year younger than you! Well, time will tel1," and he
wandered into the bedroom unbuttoning his shirt.

But he sat up another half hour, ruminating not only
on his latest corpse, but now on Alison's visitor— and a few other
things.
 

FIVE

When Hackett got to the office on Wednesday morning,
early for once, there was someone waiting to see Mendoza— Sergeant
Lake passed over the business card noncommittally under the visitor's
eye. Charles Driscoll, and the name of a national insurance firm.

Hackett looked Driscoll over. About forty, tallish
and broadish, sandy, and by the coolly insolent stare he gave in
return, a brash one. Flashy pencil-striped suit off the rack, a
garish tie. "Yes, Mr. Driscoll, if you'd like to come into the
office?"

"You wouldn't be Lieutenant Mendoza," said
Driscoll, standing up, "don't tell me."

"Sergeant Hackett. Just come in, the
lieutenant'll be here soon."

Hackett exchanged a look with Lake, left the office
door open, saw Driscoll settled in the armchair beside the desk
facing the door, and offered him a cigarette.

"Thanks very much. Quite a setup you've got
here— compared to most police H.Q.'s." Driscoll ignored
Hackett's proffered lighter, produced an ornate black-and-gold one of
his own.

"We find it satisfactory," said Hackett.

"But kind of stultifying all the same, you know—
" Driscoll gestured with his cigarette. "I always feel
sorry for you guys— having to stay inside so many rules and
regulations. Must be damn annoying. Bein' in the private-eye line
myself, I know all the ropes, if you get me. Though I get the hell of
a lot more interesting cases than you poor bastards, acourse ....
That your lieutenant?" He dropped his tone only a little,
looking out to the anteroom where Mendoza had stopped to have a word
with Sergeant Lake. "My, my, what the best-dressed man will
wear— quite the gigolo, isn't he? Protégé of the Chief's, to be
sittin' at a lieutenant's desk? Doesn't look much like a cop."

Mendoza came in and said good morning to Driscoll.
"Some odds and ends on Domokous, Art— go out and see Dwyer,
will you, he's just checked in .... Now, what was it you wanted to
see me about, Mr. Driscoll?"

Hackett went out regretfully. He wasn't equipped by
nature to reach the Driscolls with any kind of back talk that really
got to them: they just made him mad, and that only pleased them,
naturally. About thirty seconds from now, when Mendoza had sized him
up, Driscoll was due to be snubbed more subtly than he'd ever been in
his life, and it would have been gratifying to see. Mendoza was so
good at that kind of thing when he wanted to be— the polished
aristocrat condescending to the bumptious peasant. He could get more
insult into one polite phrase than any other man Hackett knew, and
all smooth as silk on the surface.

What Dwyer had to say was that Domokous' wallet had
turned up. Empty of cash, whether or not it had held any, but
everything else probably intact, and not much: I.D. card laboriously
filled out in English, Social Security card, L.A. Public Library
card, and that was all, except for a snapshot of a girl, a rather
fuzzy close-up of a not-very-pretty dark girl smiling into the
camera. The wallet had been turned in to a Main Street precinct
station by a housewife who'd found it near the corner of San Rafael
and Main; she said it had contained no cash when she picked it up.

And that tied in to a run-of-the-mill business, sure.
Somebody coming across Domokous in that alley, either dead or
unconscious, and taking the only thing of value on him— a few
bucks, maybe, in the billfold— taking the cash, dropping the
billfold on the street. Kind of thing that happened every day, this
way or that way.

Hackett thought himself that Luis was building this
thing up into more complexity than the facts indicated: so, all
right, say that scrap of paper was part of a list of some kind, to do
with Skyros' business. Domokous had been a clerk there, no reason he
shouldn't have it in his pocket, was there? You wanted to be
intricate about it, say it'd got torn off accidentally and he'd felt
guilty, stuck the torn piece in his pocket instead of throwing it
away.

Domokous still looked quite straightforward to
Hackett. He didn't like Mr. Skyros much, any more than Mendoza did—
a very canny customer and out for profit for Mr. Skyros every time,
but what was that? A lot of people like that. Most people. Domokous
was just another victim of a pusher, probably one of those employed
by this Bratti.

But, run-of-the-mill or not, there was still routine
to be done on it. Hackett went down to Carey's office, signed the
necessary forms, and received the contents of Domokous' hotel room.
Not much: he went through it desultorily. A suit, probably his Sunday
one, fairly new if cheap: a few shirts, socks, a little underwear, a
modest pile of dime store handkerchiefs: odds and ends of personal
possessions otherwise— an ancient cardboard-covered album of family
snapshots, all obviously dating from years back in the old country—
a little box containing an old-fashioned tie pin with a red glass
stone in it, a tarnished silver ring, an old pocket watch— a couple
of letters in some language Hackett took to be Greek, funny—
looking sort of stuff, both recently postmarked Athens.

He'd gone through collections like that often enough
before, the relics left of a life: they always secretly saddened him
a little. All there was to show— whatever sort of life it had been,
good, bad, or indifferent; and so immediately losing any importance,
what had had value in someone's mind .... N0 pockets in a shroud, he
thought vaguely, putting the album back in the cardboard carton where
Carey had stashed the smaller articles.

Dwyer, Higgins, and Reade were on Skyros; Dwyer had
reported in, and so far as Hackett could see there wasn't much there
either. All looked on the level, perfectly ordinary. Andreas Skyros,
Inc., had been operating for seventeen years, dealt mostly in
European imports from a number of countries; Skyros had never been in
trouble with the law, privately or businesswise. He was married, but
had no family: owned a house in a good residential district of west
Hollywood, and ran an almost new Buick; his wife had a new Chevvy
convertible. He was doing all right, especially in the last six or
seven years, but all aboveboard. So? Skyros was exactly what he
looked like. The whole thing was a mare's nest.

He left Domokous' possessions with Sergeant Lake for
Mendoza, and drove down to Skyros' offices on Figueroa. Skyros wasn't
in, which was just as well; Hackett introduced himself to the clerk
in the front office, and interviewed all the personnel who'd worked
with the dead man— four other stockroom clerks and the 
bookkeeper, a pretty brunette. He didn't get much more than they
already had, or anything to contradict Skyros except a nuance or two.

Sure, Domokous had been kind of lonely, they all
said: couldn't seem to settle down, like. Quiet sort, and not talking
English so good he couldn't join in, if the sergeant saw what they
meant— didn't get jokes and so on. They'd all liked him well
enough, but what with his being quiet anyway and not talking the
language much, he was hard to get to know, and he hadn't been here
long. He liked to read, used to go to the public library and get
books in his own lingo. But he had a girl, all right— he'd said a
little something about her, and he had her picture in his wallet. The
girl bookkeeper spoke up then, pertly, and said maybe he had but if
she was any judge and she figured she was, he wouldn't have let that
hamper him— way he eyed her every time she came out back. Awfully
good— looking he'd been, and it was terrible, have anything like
that happen— she'd never have thought he was the kind to go for
dope. Which the others confirmed: reserved, you might say, but not
nuts, or queer any way.

None of them remembered
Domokous ever mentioning anyone named Bratti. And none of them could
say what his girl's name was or where she lived. And it didn't matter
much, because probably the news story would bring her in— unless,
of course, she'd been mixed up in his death somehow, which didn't
seem likely.

* * *

The news story about Domokous' identification had, in
fact, already brought her in; she was sitting on the edge of a chair
in Mendoza's office, looking less grieved than sullen. She was about
twenty-five, dark and thin, no striking beauty but not ugly either.
She sat with head bent over her clasped hands, and looked at Mendoza
through a tangle of black hair fallen across her cheek.

The other woman said nervously, "He was a good
young man, sir. Never would he do such a thing as that you say. He
save his money to marry Katya, like we tell, in the spring they are
to marry, all is arranged." She was in black like the girl, a
spare old woman, patience and tragedy in her big dark eyes. The
grandmother. Slav, from this place or that, and definitely Old
Country; but the girl born here, probably— little accent. "Someone
tells lies about him, fixes up a lie, to make you think this. Stevan,
not even much wine he drinks— he's careful with money."

"It's that man, where he worked!" burst out
the girl.

"And what makes you say that, Miss Roslev?"
asked Mendoza.

"When he did not come, on the Thursday, for
Katya's birthday, we knew something bad happen— the man at the
hotel, he knows nothing, and we did not like to go to his place of
work,"Katya said. "And all the time, lying out so, dead,
none to care for him, pray for him— Oh, it is bad to think! And he
is so of hopes, the long journey here and the better chance to make
success— "

"Always you're so scared!" said the girl
contemptuously. “Think this looks bad, that don't look right— had
my way, I'd have gone and asked, all right! I knew there was
something funny going on— Stevan, he was worried— "

"Katya, you talk too much, you get us in
trouble," whispered the old woman. "We don't know nothing
at all, it's only in your head— only we know Stevan was a good boy—
"

"He was too good!" said the girl. "I
said— oh, well, never mind that .... You scared even come to the
police, they don't eat you, here."

"Katya, so rude to the officer, please take
care."

"But Miss Roslev's quite right, we don't bite,"
smiled Mendoza at her. "Why do you think his death is connected
with Mr. Skyros?"

"I'll tell you why, what I came to say, see?
Stevan, he told me about it— told us— last time he was there, it
was. He'd found out something about this Mr. Skyros— something bad,
he thought— See, he'd had to work late one night, there was a big
shipment some kind come in— and he went up to Mr. Skyros' office,
ask him something, and heard him and somebody else talking— and he
said it sounded like it was about something bad, crooked you know—
he said. I wouldn't put it past Mr. Skyros, be mixed up in something
like that, only— "

"Something crooked. What kind of something, what
did he overhear exactly?"

"I don't know," she said, sullen again.
"Just, it was about a lot of money, he said. Worth an awful lot.
He didn't say exact— but I thought— maybe since, he found out
more, and they killed him so's he couldn't tell, see? Because he said
then— police ought to know about crooks, if they was— "

"Katya, you shouldn't say, we don't know for
sure— Mr. Skyros, a lot of money he'll have, he see you get in
jail, to say— "

"I guess not! I'm not afraid o' him, nor the
cops neither! You go and ask him what he knows, see?"

"But you haven't given me anything very definite
to go on, Miss Roslev. If you could remember a more specific phrase,
a word?"

She was silent awhile, looking at him; and then she
said, "I s'pose you got to have more, like you say. Can't do
nothing if you don't know .... Well, I told you anyhow. I guess—
all I could tell you, mister— and maybe— "

"Katya— " The old woman was still nervous
of Mendoza, of Authority; and the girl let herself be urged out ....
Mendoza was still ruminating on them when Hackett came in, and they
exchanged news.