Case Pending - Dell Shannon (22 page)

He couldn't get there, to Dad that time. There
he got to instead was that night before Dad—didn't come home. 
He was right there again, he saw Dad plain, awful mad he'd been for
sure, his face an stiff and white and a look in his eyes said how
hard he was holding himself in. Dad saying slow and terrible
quiet, "I can't stand no more, Marion—I just can't stand no
more."

And Marty knew right this minute just how Dad had
felt when he said that. Because he felt the same way, not all of
a sudden but like as if he'd only this minute come to know how he
felt, plain.

I just can't stand no more.

He relaxed, limp, against the headboard, and a queer
vague peace filled him. Like coming to the end of a long, long
walk, like getting there—some place—at last, and he could stop
trying any more.

It didn't matter what place, or what happened
there. It was finished. 
I just can't
stand no more
.

The gas, and the cops whatever kind and whatever they
did or didn't do, and even—more immediate and terrible—his Ma,
and what would happen afterward, when she found out.  Anything,
everything, nothing, it wasn't anyways important any more.

Something had to happen, and what did it matter what
or how? Maybe there were those cops doivn there, even two or three
o'clock in the morning, and they'd see him, when he came out
with—it—and take him to the police station. Maybe not; some other
way, the way he'd thought or—maybe they already knew, he couldn't
see how but they might.  And in the end maybe they'd make him
break the promise. It didn't matter how it came: he knew it
would come, and it was time, he didn't care.

Time for the secret to be
shown open, the terrible secret.

* * *

When Morgan finally moved, he was stiff with cold and
the sense of failure, a resignation too apathetic now to rouse anger
in him. He bad known hall an hour ago that Smith wasn't coming. Why
he'd gone on standing here he didn't know.

He turned and went into the drugstore; hot stuffiness
struck him in the face after the cold outside. The druggist was
rearranging bottles on a sheer along the wall; he turned quickly, to
watch Morgan—didn't come up to ask what he wanted.  Maybe he
thought he was going to get held up. Morgan scraped up all the change
in his pocket, picked out a quarter, went up to the man.

"May I have change for the phone, please?"

"Oh, sure thing." The cash register gave
brisk tongue; a kind of apologetic relief was in the druggists eyes
as he handed over two dimes and a nickel.

As soon as he was inside the phone booth, Morgan
began to sweat, in his heavy coat in that airless, fetid box. He sat
on the inadequate little stool and dialed carefully. After two
rings the receiver was lifted at the other end.

"Sue—"

"Dick!—their voices cutting in on each other,
hers on a little gasp.

"I thought you'd call—been waiting—"

"Has he called?" asked Morgan tautly. "He
didn't show, he won't now, and I'm afraid—darling, I'm afraid he's
spotted those damn cops and thinks—"

"I don't think so." Her voice
steadied. "She called, Dick. About ten minutes to
eight. She said to tell you he'd got 'hung up' and couldn't make
it, it'd have to be tomorrow night—and you'd get a phone call some
time tomorrow, to tell you where and when."

Morgan leaned his forehead on the phone box for a
second; a wave of tingling heat passed over him and be felt weak. 
"He got-delayed? He didn't—that's damn funny, I don't— Sue,
you sure it was the woman, the same—?"

"I'm sure, darling.  You remember what a
soft, ladylike little voice she had, and she spoke quite well too,
not glaringly bad grammar—she's had some education—but awfully
timid and meek, as if she was
cowed
.
I recognized it right away—and she sounded like a chdd reciting a
lesson, as if she was reading the message off—"

"The woman," he said, "the woman. So
she's still with him. Yes, we didn't think she was lying then,
about being married. Yes, a cut above him all right, probably
one of those natural doormats—husband's just being the superior
male when he knocks her around. 
He
—God,
I was afraid—so it's just another breathing space, until tomorrow
night. I wonder why."

"I don't like it—can't stall with him forever,
Dick—and in the end we can't pay, he'll— What can you say to him
any more, to make him—"

"Listen," said Morgan, trying to sound
authoritative, confident (don't let her suspect how you're planning
to deal with it, convince her), "it's the money he wants, he's
not in any rush to get this thing open in court, that's the last
thing he wants. It's his only hold on us, he's not so anxious to
let go of it."

"I suppose not.  But—Dick, I—I've got
to where I just want it
over and decided
,
whichever way. This hanging on—"

"I know, darling, I
know. Maybe tomorrow. I'll be right home—half an hour."

* * *

Lieutenant Callaghan was a good deal less than
mollified to be presented with such small fry as Tomás Ramirez; he
had been lying hopefully in ambush for a certain big-time eastern
wholesaler, and had—as he informed Mendoza bitterly—had a leash
on Mr. Torres-Domingo and assorted friends for some time. What
the hell good did it do to pick up a minnow like this Ramirez, who
just ferried the stuff across the border in small lots? If Mendoza
was interested, they had known about the Maison du Chat for quite a
while, and a usually reliable source of information had led them to
expect the wholesaler on the premises tonight, to set up a deal with
Neddy, Mr. Torres-Domingo being the middleman. At nine o'clock they'd
expected him, and so it was very probable that he'd been, maybe, a
hundred feet away from the kitchen door when Mendoza's bright boy had
got a little too close to the game and flushed it early. And so
their chances of getting him now, or even another line on him, were
just about nil.

And if Mendoza could remember back seventeen years to
when, God help us and if this good-looking redhead here would believe
it, he and Mendoza had been in the rookie school together, Mendoza
just might recall that one of the first things they'd been told was
that there were different divisions within any big-city police
force. And that one division was sort of expected to play ball
with the others, seeing that they weren't exactly in competition with
each other.

"Well," said Mendoza mildly to that, "I
suppose I could have checked with you first, certainly if anything
definite had showed up—but Ramirez was only one of those vague
hunches, you know."

"Sure, sure, we all know Mendoza's
hunches! Second sight he's got, maybe a crystal ball, I wouldn't
know, our little genius Luis Rodoffo Vicente Mendoza! One look,
and he says, that naughty fellow's got a stack of H in his back
pocket, and won't my good old friend Pat jump for joy to have a
little of his work all done for him!  Oh, he's a star, our
Luis! Hey presto, and I've ended up with a couple of
hired-salesmen punks I could've taken two months ago, instead of the
real big boy—and our Luis thinks he does me a favor to give me this
Ramirez!"

"Now when did I say so? It's the way the cards
fall," said Mendoza philosophically. "These things
happen. My crystal ball doesn!t always show me the right
picture—"

"That you can say twice," said Callaghan.
"Got you in trouble before—got you a bullet in the leg in that
Brawley business, and right now, by God, I'm sorry it wasn't in the
head! And I'll never know how you hypnotize these respectable,
high-class, good-looking women to go round with you." He looked
at Alison there in the drafty corridor outside his office at
headquarters. "You look like a decent God-fearing Irish girl."

"Only on my mother's side—she was a McCann,"
said Alison solemnly. "And I think it's sheer surprise,
Lieutenant—for any man these days who thinks he can still order us
around, the dominant male, you know. By the time we've recovered
enough to begin to talk back—"

"It's too late, I know." Callaghan shook
his head at her. "You watch yourself. I've got another
piece of advice for you, lady—whatever else you do with him's your
own business, but don't ever get into a hand of poker with him. And
seeing you've done about all the damage you can do tonight, Luis—on
headquarters business, that is—I guess you can get out of my sight
and take her home."

Mendoza rubbed his nose and said he wouldn't presume
to teach Lieutenant Callaghan his job, but he did think that
Ramirez—"

"Oh, get out, scat!" said Callaghan. "He's
on his way here now, I sent two men after him while you were phoning
your bright little boy's wife. I can't hold him on anything, unless
one of these two involve him or we find the stuff in his
possession—both of which are likely to happen. Not that I give a
damn about him, but thank you so much for pointing him out, and now
good night to you."

Mendoza grinned at him, said, "
¡Uno
no puede complacer a todo el mundo!
—one
can't please everybody! Be good, Pat—
hasta
más ver
," and took Alison's arm down
the hall to the elevator. "And now," he added, "
la
familia Ramirez
is due for another shock."

"Yes, poor people. I must see them, to return
half the tuition she'd paid, you know. I didn't like to blunder in
the very day after, but I thought at the inquest I might have a
chance to—"

"You haven't been subpoenaed, you notice. A very
routine affair. Maybe twenty minutes—adjourned awaiting further
evidence—that's how it'll go.  Come if you like, but it'll be
very dull, I won't be there."

"I'd like to think that was a
non
sequitur
," said Alison, "but I'm
afraid you didn't mean it that way. I suppose that ex-football-star
sergeant will represent you. I think I will go. I've never
been to an inquest and it's an excuse to take the morning
off. Besides, I do want to see the family, only decent."

Mendoza looked at her and shook his head, getting out
his car keys. "Occasionally I agree with Pat—astonishing how I
seem to acquire these high-principled women."

"That," said Alison sedately, "is a
very premature verb." And twenty minutes later, at her apartment
door: "Don't forget those stockings.Size—

"Nine and a half, thirty-three inches, I'd guess
it."

"Mmh, yes," said Alison, "and entirely
too good a guess it is."

"Women, we never satisfy them—they don't like
us too callow and they don't like us too experienced!" He laid a
caressing hand round her throat. "I'd said to myself, very
gentlemanly this time, maybe next time I'll kiss her good night, but
I told you I'm always breaking resolutions. . .and sometimes
even twice—or three times—if it seems like a good idea."

"Once was quite enough," said Alison rather
breathlessly, pushing him away, "for three days' acquaintance!"

"So we figure it like compound interest,
chica—I'll add up how much it comes to per week."

"Good night,
mi villano
optimists
," said Alison firmly.

He smiled at the closing
door; he never liked them too easy.

* * *

At about the same time that Alison Weir was
struggling with the zipper of the oyster-silk sheath and reflecting
that Lieutenant Callaghan's advice about watching herself was an
excellent idea, Agnes Browne was standing in the cold dim
rooming-house hall, shivering in just her slip and the cotton robe
she'd tied round her when Mrs. Anderson called her to the phone.

"You shouldn't've," she kept saying, almost
crying. "Hitting a policeman like that, Joe, it's terrible,
they right've arrested you—you shouldn't go losing your temper like
that."

"Well, they got a nerve, snooping around you
just on account you found a body! What the hell they after,
anyway? You didn't have anything to do— Listen, Agnes, I don't
get it, Rita says there was a guy came up to her after work, another
cop, asking about you—I guess she told you—I just got in, had to
work late, and when she—"

"Oh, dear," whispered Agnes to herself.
"I-I know, she called me. . . ." Rita was Joe's sister who
worked the same counter as Agnes, it seemed funny to think if she'd
got that job at Kress's instead she'd never've met Rita or Joe, and
it'd been just chance really—and she couldn't wish she hadn't,
but—"Oh, dear." Asking questions about how long had she
known Agnes, Rita said, and like that. They must suspect. "I-I
don't know what they're after, Joe, but no call for you to get in
trouble account of me, it's my own—"

"You got nobody to talk up for you, I guess your
friends got a right to—"

"You mustn't," said Agnes in agony. "It's
awful good of you, Joe, but you don't know—you-you better just not
b-bother about me any more, because—" But she couldn't come
out with it like that, over the phone, hear what he'd say, know what
he'd think—she just hung up quick and went back to her room, shut
herself in.