Dell Shannon - Streets of Death

Mendoza fitted the key in the lock and opened the door.

It was a small, old, inconvenient apartment: what she could afford. But it was all as shiningly clean as the restaurant where she worked, furniture polished, stove and kitchen counter-top immaculate; that was a German girl for you, thought Galeano. There was the wheelchair, pushed to one side of the little living room, a steel and gray-green canvas affair. A few pieces of solid dark furniture, probably chosen with care at secondhand stores, possibly several pieces bought before his accident, when he was still earning and they were planning a home of their own. Just the one bedroom, sparsely furnished: a small square bathroom, a minimum of cosmetics in the medicine cabinet. She had wonderful skin, milk-white, evidently didn’t use much on it.

"There is," said Mendoza, "only one little thing in my mind, boys." He looked out the rear window in the bedroom. "Yes, even as Carey said-who was to see anything there was to see?" This was a square building on a short lot. There was a single driveway to a row of six connected single garages across the back; and on the lot behind a building had recently been torn down. The old house across from the driveway was vacant, with a FOR RENT sign in front of it. "Just one thing," said Mendoza. "When did she have time?"

"Time for what?" said Conway. "She took care to have an alibi. We said-"

"Time to acquire the boyfriend. She’s working eight hours a day, and Edwin must have taken up some more. On the other hand, there is Rappaport. Quite a handsome fellow. Right at the restaurant."

"Oh, for God’s sake," said Galeano.

"And then again, a restaurant. Sometimes these things don’t take all that long. Quite probably there are regular customers. And she could be out shopping on Sunday, on her afternoon break, without the neighbors noticing-there is that. But how in hell to locate him, if it isn’t Rappaport-there won’t be any letters-"

"Woolgathering!" said Galeano. "And you’re supposed to be such a hot detective! If you can’t see that that girl is honest as day-"

Mendoza shook his head at him. "You do surprise me, Nick. Let’s see if Mr. Offerdahl is home." Carey had said he was down the hall; actually Offerdahl lived on the next floor. They climbed more steep stairs, knocked. There were fumbling sounds beyond the door; presently it opened and Offerdahl gazed blearily out at them.

He was the wreck of a once big man: still tall and broad-shouldered, but cadaverously thin, a few wisps of white hair on a round skull, his skin gray and flabby. He was not quite falling-down drunk, and a rich aroma of Scotch enfolded him.

"About Mr. Fleming," said Mendoza conversationally.

Offerdahl blinked. "You used to go see Mr. Fleming? The fellow in the wheelchair? Take him a little drink now and then to cheer him up?"

"Tha’s right," said Offerdahl after a dragging moment. "Poor fella. Poor fella. Jus’ young fella. Para-paraparalyzed."

"Did you see him a week ago last Friday?"

"Oh, don’t be silly," muttered Galeano. "He doesn’t know March from December."

"Haven’t you found the poor fella yet?" asked Offerdahl. "Strange. ’S very strange. Poor, poor fella." He leaned on the door jamb looking thoughtful, and suddenly added, "Good-bye," and shut the door.

"And what you think that was worth," said Galeano sourly, "I don’t damn well know."

"Neither do I," said Mendoza. "Here-you take the key back to her, amigo. And for God’s sake preserve your common sense."

Cunningly, Galeano waited until just before two o’c1ock to take the key back, and offered to drive Mrs. Fleming home through the rain. She thanked him formally, and emerged in a practical hooded gray coat over a subdued navy dress.

"I am sorry if I have offended your chief," she said in the car. "But it is so silly to ask the questions over and over."

Her profile was enchanting, with its little tilted nose and the wisp of tawny hair under the hood. Galeano nearly ran a light. "Wel1, we have certain routines to go through," he said. "Look, nobody suspects you, Mrs. Fleming. I mean, we can see you’ve had a bad time. What with everything."

She was silent. When he stopped in front of the apartment, went round and opened the door, she said, "Thank you-you are kind. I am sorry, your name-"

"Galeano. Nick Galeano."

"Mr. Galeano. Thank you." She ran into the apartment quickly and he stared after her, for a moment forgetting to put on his hat.

By five o’clock Stephanie had pored over a lot of mug-shots, and pointed out three though her responses were laced with doubt. "I mean, all of these look something like him. Not just exactly, but they could be."

Wanda shepherded her back to the Peacocks at the Holiday Inn. If this came to court, she’d be asked to identify X positively; as it was, Palliser and Glasser looked at the possibles she’d picked out with mixed feelings as well. Steven Edward Smith: pedigree of B. and E. Richard Lamont: indecent exposure, assault with intent. Earl Rank: rape, B. and E.

"Two possibles, by their records," said Glasser. But the addresses were nowhere near downtown L.A., and they were fairly recent addresses; Lamont was just out of jail. "People move around," said Palliser. "We can have a look at them, Henry."

After a couple of quiet shifts, the night watch was busy. They had E. M. Shogart back, that stolid plodder who’d put in twenty years in the old Robbery office before it got merged with Homicide, and was still a little unreconciled to the change. He would be up for retirement next year if he wanted to take it, and probably would.

A rather bored Schenke was listening to Piggott talk about his tropical fish, an unlikely hobby which had seized him a while ago, when they got the first call, to a heist up on Seventh. Early, but time meant nothing to the punks. They both went out on it.

It was, expectably, a liquor store, and the owner had been there alone, just about to close. "I got this place up for sale," he told them, "and not before it’s time. I been heisted four times the last nine months."

"Can you give us any description of him?" asked Schenke.

"Description? I could draw you a picture." The owner was a little fat man about sixty, named Wensink. "Talk about adding insult to injury, they not only walked off with the cash from the register, about a hundred and forty, they loaded up a station wagon with a thousand bucks’ retail of my best stuff! There was three of them. One with the gun. The one I saw best was that one. A guy maybe forty, medium-size, not much hair and he had one walleye. And what looked like a forty-five. All business, he was. The other two were younger, one with a mustache, the long hair."

"Well, that’s a switch," said Schenke. "Taking the stock. A station wagon? You got a look at it?"

"I sure did," said Wensink. "They parked right in front, come in just at closing time. Anybody noticed them carrying stuff out, I suppose thought they were just customers. I didn’t get a look at the license plate but it was a Ford nine-passenger wagon, white over brown, about five years old."

He thought the one with the gun might have touched the register, so they called out a man from S.I.D. to dust for prints. Wensink said he’d recognize a mug-shot and would come in tomorrow to look.

When they got back to the office, Shogart had gone out on another call; also a heist, he reported when he came in. An all-night movie-house on Fourth, and the girl in the ticket box was a nitwit, couldn’t say anything except that he’d had a gun. "I wouldn’t even take a bet on that. And God knows they deserve to lose some of their ill-gotten gains, it’s a porno house."

"Amen to that," said Piggott, "but two wrongs, E. M.-" He was interrupted by the phone, and the Traffic man on the other end said he and his partner had just come across a body.