Extra Kill - Dell Shannon (4 page)

"Was it about the apartment? You're lucky to
catch me, I was just goin' to market. You're welcome to see over it,
won't take a minute to it get the key—" She might have been
sixty; she was an inch or so short of live feet and very nearly as
wide, but every bit of her looked as firm and brisk and bouncy as a
brand-new rubber ball. She had pug-dog features under a good deal of
wild gray hair, and her cotton housedress was a blinding Prussian
blue with a pink-and-white print superimposed.

"Not about the apartment, no," said
Mendoza. Oh, well, as long as he was here . . . He got out of the car
and introduced himself. "You, or someone here, put in a call to
the police last Friday night complaining about a drunk—"

"Mrs. Bragg, that's me, how-do. Mex, hey? Well,
I don't mind that, you're mostly awful polite folk, I will say, nor I
don't mind the police part either—matter of fact it might be sort
of handy sometimes, with them Johnstones. Now there, if I haven't got
the key, musta picked up the wrong bunch—it's this apartment right
here, what'd-you-say-the-name-is, and a bargain if I do say so—"

"I'm not interested in the apartment? But he had
to follow her to the door to say it, and she prodded him inside
before he got it across.

"This call you put in—it was you?—"

"And what about it?" said Mrs. Bragg. "Got
a right to call the police, I hope, I pay taxes, and not the first
time either since them Johnstones've been in Number Three. I don't
mind folk taking a drink now and then, and it's none of my business
are they really married or not, which I don't think they are, but
when it comes to getting roaring drunk three nights a week average,
and taking 'em both as it does, him trying to beat her up and her
yelling blue murder, well, l've got my other tenants to think of, I
hope you can understand that—"

"Yes, of course, why don't you get rid of them?"

"0h, well, she's a nice woman when she isn't
drunk, quite the lady, and the rent on the dot first of every month.
Funny thing is, it never lasts long, you see—half an hour and they
quiet down. Beats me what fun they get out of it, but there it is, it
takes all sorts. Thing is, it went on a bit longer Friday night, and
I thought it might kind of bring them to their senses if I called the
police, which it did as it has before—they quieted down soon as
they come and the older one, he gave 'em a good talking-to, and never
a peep out of them afterwards? She eyed him speculatively. "Might
be real handy, have one of you here all the time.

You're sure you don't want to move? It's a real nice
apartment—now you're here you might's well see over it, just on the
chance. Three and a half rooms, all utilities, and furnished real
nice if I do say so—just take a look around—and only ninety a
month. The gentleman I've just lost out of it, he was a real
gentleman, if he did have a funny name—Twelvetrees it was, Mr.
Brooke Twelvetrees, kind of elegant-sounding at that when you say it,
isn't it?—and he took real good care of everything, I was sorry to
see him go. You can see he left everything in apple—pie order, to
tell the truth I haven't got round to cleaning it up myself since,
except for emptying the wastebasket and so on. Which, however, would
be done before you moved in, even to windows washed. Handy to
everything, market two blocks away, and thirty minutes to downtown.
Now you can see—"

Submerged in the flood, Mendoza was swept ruthlessly
across the tiny living room (pink Bowers in the rug, Prussian blue
mohair davenport, blond step-table beside a maroon-upholstered chair)
into an even tinier bedroom, in which there was just room for a
double bed of blond finished pine, a bureau enameled cream, and a
straight chair. The bed bore a pink chenille spread with fringe, and
there was a small bedside table with a lamp about nine inches high
which wore a madly ruffled shade very much askew. The rug here had
maroon flowers.

Mrs. Bragg pounded the bed vigorously. "Good
mattress, good as new, you can see. Oh, I tell you, I was sorry to
see Mr. Twelvetrees go—a real gentleman he was, and finicky as a
lady, you can see by the way he left everything so neat. Here's the
bathroom, shower and tub if they are all together so to speak, and
real tile, not that plastic stuff." It was mauve, and the shower
curtain was embellished with improbably blue fish.

"I'm really not interested—"

"Plenty of closet space, even for a man like Mr.
Twelvetrees and he had as many clothes as a woman, you shoulda seen—a
real snappy dresser he was. And the kitchen, if I do say, is all nice
and modern as anybody'd want—” Mendoza was prodded back across
the living room to the kitchen, to admire a very small table with
chromium-tube legs and a rose-colored plastic top, chairs to match,
real blue tile on the drainboard, a practically new refrigerator and
stove. Mrs. Bragg pounded the table to illustrate its sturdiness, and
it rocked violently.

"There now, he's got it over the trap—you
don't need to worry about that, it's just what they call access for
the plumber, case they have to get at the line underneath, and it
don't hardly show a bit, you can see, it covered with the same
linoleum. You see, it's steady as a rock, you get it in the right
place. Everything handy. I don't deny it's small, but arranged very
convenient, as you can see—" She made a sudden dart at the
narrow kitchen door and snatched up an object from the threshold: I a
shiny new trowel. "So that's where my trowel got to—he musta
been at that Tree of Heaven again. Real helpful he was, and quite the
gardener, I often said to him, ‘You ought have a place of your
own.' He even got me some special plant food for the blamed thing,
but it didn't seem to do no good. Well, now, you can see what a
bargain the place is at ninety—"

"But really I'm not interested in another
apartment—”

"—And I'm not one of those fussy landladies,
either. Men will be men, single ones, that is, and some of the
others, and women I don't mind, none of my business and live and let
live I always say, as long as everything's quiet and no rowdy
parties. The only thing I do draw the line at—just in the interests
of my investment here, as you can understand—is pets and children,
that I can't have—"

Mendoza, between fascination and the feeling that he
might willy-nilly find himself signing a lease on the spot, perceived
that Providence was rescuing him. He said in that case the apartment
would never do, as he had some cats. "Cats!" exclaimed Mrs.
Bragg, recoiling a step.

"Three cats," said Mendoza. "That is,
a cat and two kittens."

"Cats I will not have. I'm afraid if you want
the apartment you'll have to get rid of them." She looked at him
disapprovingly, he had disappointed her. Something peculiar about a
man who kept cats, and three at that.

"I'm only curious," said Mendoza,
recovering his equilibrium, "but do you say that to prospective
tenants with children?"

"Tenants with children or pets I don't take. I'm
sorry, but you should have explained that to start with and I needn't
have wasted time showing you over the place. I'm very sorry, but I
can't make any exception." She all but pushed him out the door.
"I'm sure you can understand that it's ruination on a furnished
place."

Mendoza got back into his car as she banged her own
front door.

"
Quid!
"
he said to himself. "And my grandmother asks me why I don't
marry a wife! A
ningun precio
—not
at any price, take such a chance!"
 
 

THREE

He looked, in the places indicated to look, and found
nothing. If there was anything funny anywhere, it didn't show in any
way. He saw the kids again, the insolent, sullen kids who didn't
clearly understand that they'd done anything wrong, just resented the
cops for putting them in jail. Who said sullenly, insolently, that
the cops were making scapegoats of them (though they didn't use that
word) on the Bartlett thing—probably had some reason to put
Bartlett away themselves and were covering for the real killer.

He even thought about that, but not for very long,
because while all cops in uniform and out, who carried guns at all,
carried .38's, they weren't smooth bores and Ballistics would have
spotted it right away. He looked back in the records over Joe
Bartlett's career, and at the family, and it was all one big blank.

Hackett went to see everybody again, and it all
sounded just the way it had before. Hackett said, "I told you
so. Walsh, he hadn't had the experience, that's all, and it shook
him—only natural."

Mendoza began to agree. You just didn't run into the
kind of thing it would be if it wasn't those juveniles—the
fiction-plot thing, the obscure complexity.

Walsh had come to see him on Tuesday, and by
Thursday, having taken his closer look at it, Mendoza stopped
looking. He saw Walsh again on Friday, and told him it looked like a
mare's nest. And after Walsh had thanked him for listening anyway,
and gone, he sat there with a couple of days' work in front of him
and felt uneasy about it. He didn't know why. It wasn't a hunch; it
wasn't the kids' stubborn denial, although there was a little
something there, all right: it had made them feel like big-time pros
to have shot that cashier; that one they hadn't tried to deny—of
course they couldn't, there were witnesses. And the cashier hadn't
died after all: the homicide charge depended entirely on Bartlett.

It wasn't anything he could put a finger on—that
made him wonder if he hadn't missed something ....

After a while he put it
forcibly out of his mind and went back to the several cases on hand
when Walsh had first come in.

* * *

The day after that he happened to drop in at the same
restaurant for lunch that Woods and Goldberg had picked. Federico's,
where a good many of the headquarters officers habitually went, was
closed for redecoration, and this was a hole-in-the-wall place which
opened out unexpectedly into several large dining rooms. It wasn't
fancy, but the food was good and not too expensive, and there were no
jukeboxes or piped-in-music: you could eat in peace. Consequently it
was crowded, and he wandered through the first two rooms into the
third looking for a table. There, at the back, he ran into Goldberg
and Woods just sitting down, and joined them principally because the
only empty chair was at their table.

Lieutenant Goldberg of Burglary and Theft he knew,
but Sergeant Woods he didn't. Woods was young for a sergeant, not
more than twenty-eight; he looked more like an earnest postgraduate
student of something like anthropology. He was tall, thin, and
gangling, with a pale face under already thinning dark hair, a rich
bass voice, and a very quiet manner.

Goldberg asked how life was treating Mendoza these
days, and Mendoza said he couldn't complain. The waiter took their
orders and went away, cigarettes were lit, and after a little
desultory conversation Goldberg asked suddenly, "Say, what
should you do for a cat that has fleas? Is the stuff for dogs too
strong?"

"Fleas? Cats that are properly cared for don't
have fleas. Where does she sleep—or he?"

"She, we've still got a kitten we couldn't find
a home for. In the garage, at least I fixed a box with an old
blanket, but half the time—
”

“
Entendido
, there's
your trouble, leaving her outside at night to roam all over. Keep her
in—I know people think they're nocturnal animals, but when they
live with us they keep our hours, you know."

"Well, I suppose I could bring the box into the
service porch."

"You can, not that it'll do much good,"
said Mendoza. "She'll pick her own bed, and quite likely it'll
be yours or one of the kids'. Let her. If you've been feeding her
things out of cans, stop it, and get her fresh liver and beef.
Wheatgerm oil twice a week, and lots of brushing with a good stiff
brush."

"Look," said Goldberg, "I've got a
living to earn, I can't spend all the time waiting on a cat, and my
wife's got the house and the kids—neither can she. Do you know what
beef liver's gone to now? Of course it's an academic question with
you. All I asked was about flea powder."

"And I told you what to do. Let a vet de-flea
her now. Fresh meat only, horsemeat'll do, and meanwhile brush half a
can of talcum into her every day."

"Look," said Goldberg, "she's only a
cat.”

Mendoza put out his cigarette as the waiter came up
and said, "You shouldn't have a cat, Goldberg, you've got the
wrong attitude entirely. Cat people say, ‘We're only human beings.'
"

Woods uttered the deep rumbling laugh that sounded so
surprising coming from his weedy—looking frame and said, "Reason
I don't like cats around much—like a lot of people, I think—not
that I don't like them exactly, but they make me feel so damned
inferior."

"Isn't it the truth," agreed Mendoza. "Yes,
if they'd only admit it, I'm convinced that's the reason some people
say they can't stand cats. Now I'm an egotist myself, I admit it, but
it certainly hasn't cured me. Right now I've got a cat that's
crazy—in a devilish sort of way—and even he makes me feel
inferior.”

"Is that so?" said Woods. "A crazy
cat?"