Streets of Death - Dell Shannon (22 page)

"Why did you?" asked Galeano.

She looked at the brandy, her dark eyes brooding.

"My father--he owned a small manufacturing
business in Lingen, our home. It was prosperous, we had thought there
was money--there was always money, we were not very rich but my
sister and I were not raised to work at jobs, at the convent you
don’t learn shorthand, typing. Then Papa died, and it seemed there
had been speculation, he left my mother nothing. Oh, the building was
worth something, the land--that is all. I had to find work--Elisa was
too young then." She finished the brandy. "There was an
American unit stationed near, the girls go out with them, and a girl
I knew introduced me to Edwin. He asked me to marry him. I did not
love him, I liked him well enough is all. My mother said it is the
best chance I will ever have, in America there is always opportunity
and he is a good honest man. She is very old-fashioned," said
Marta, smiling a little, "and she said love is not everything in
marriage. I saw all that for myself--and so I married him."

"And it didn’t work out?" asked Galeano.

She gave a short laugh. "Oh! Yes, it worked out,
as you say--the way such marriages do! He was not an educated man,
but he was good and kind--he was clever with his hands, and a hard
worker, he might have made much of himself, gone places as they say.
After I had the baby, I felt reconciled--
meine
kleine Kätzchen
. But she died--so soon, she
died. The doctor said, a thing wrong in her heart, she would never
have lived long, but-- And then Edwin was hurt in the accident, and
those doctors said he would always be so, an invalid, helpless, in
the wheelchair. It was like a nightmare beginning, and it does not
end. There was no money, no compensation for him--I do not understand
all that, but we had a lawyer--that cost a great deal of money too, I
still owe the lawyer money, and it all came to nothing. He needed a
great deal of care. It was then I began to think, all my fault, for I
should not have married him, feeling no love for him. I try to be a
good Catholic, I knew my duty, to look after him as a wife should. He
was of no faith, we were not married in the Church, but one takes
vows nevertheless. But it was hard. Oh, for him too! I realize--but
it was difficult."

"And then--what did happen that day?" asked
Galeano. "Three weeks ago tomorrow?"

She opened her eyes and put one hand to her temple,
slowly. "Mother of God, have I not asked myself?" she said
quietly. "We had come here, because the rent is much cheaper and
I can walk to work. In that way, it was better, but not all ways. He
had been very despairing, ever since the baby died, and he had said
to me many times, he would be better dead, such a burden on me and no
good to anyone. I had been afraid he would kill himself. It would not
be a sin to him perhaps, but to me--I had come home, several times
since we are here, to find him drunk. That terrible old man
upstairs--he would come, pretending sympathy, and bring him whiskey.
I tried to talk to him, ask him not to do so, but it was no use--no
use. And then--there was that day." She was silent, and
unobtrusively Galeano tipped the rest of his drink into her glass.
She finished it absently. "It was such a very usual day to begin
with. I left for the restaurant. I had got him dressed and into his
chair, given him breakfast. The woman across the hall was leaving
also. And then, when I was at work, I remembered my letter. The last
evening I had written a letter to my sister Elisa, I meant to take it
to post, and I had forgotten it. I was going shopping, to buy her a
birthday present, but I wanted to post the letter."

"So you came home to get it," said Galeano,
and let out his breath in a long sigh.

"Yes. I was in a great hurry--it has been easy
to blame myself for that too--I had to catch the bus up to town,
there would not be much time to look in the shops before they closed,
and I must be home to get dinner for Edwin before I went back to the
restaurant. I did not even look to see where Edwin was--when he was
not in the living room I thought perhaps he was lying down, he could
get to the bed from the chair--and I did not even look. I took up my
letter from the table there, put it in an envelope and left again,
for the bus. And I went to the post office--we cannot afford the air
mail, it is expensive enough to send by sea--and when I had shopped
for the present I came home. And I told you how it was. He was gone.
His chair was here, and he was gone."

"You remember if the wheelchair was in the
living room when you came home the first time? But you’d have
noticed that--"

"It was not. His coat is gone also," said
Marta. "I think I have had too much brandy."

"His coat. Regular topcoat--raincoat?"

"A good thick wool coat, brown. He bought it in
the east before we came here. And there is another queer thing. I am
talking too much to you, but it does not matter."

She laughed a little drearily. "What thought did
I ever have for money, until Papa died! But now, it is always to
think of money. So always, I have a little, what I can save, hidden
away for the emergency. I had not looked at it, since Edwin was gone,
until last week. And it is gone too."

"I’ll be damned," said Galeano. "How
much?"

"Two hundred and eighteen dollars," she
said, shutting her eyes again.

"Where was it?"

"In one of the kitchen jars-canisters, the one
for sugar."

"Be damned," said Galeano. "Did he
know it was there?"

"Of course. He was my husband."

"Well--" Galeano looked at her. "You
do feel better, don’t you? Do you good to get all that out of your
system. I’m sorry I swore at you."

"But I called you names too." She smiled a
little.

"And after you said you believed me, too. I
think you’ve been kind. But right at this moment, nothing seems to
matter to me so very much."

"Never mind," said Galeano. "Part of
that’s the brandy and part the cold, I expect. Things will matter
again. And I’d better go--I’ve got a job too. You take care of
yourself, is all. Listen, things are going to get better."

"Do you think so? I wonder."

"They’ve got to," said Galeano stoutly.
"You just take care now."

And he was of two minds,
as he got into his car downstairs, whether to pass all that on to
Mendoza.

* * *

Palliser had been the first man in that Thursday
morning and Sergeant Lake gave him the message relayed up from the
desk last night about the assault-with-intent lodged in jail.
"Something else," said Palliser. But it had to be followed
up, so he went out again and over to the Alameda jail. The suspect
had refused to give a name and was booked as John Doe. When one of
the trusties brought him to an interrogation room, Palliser said,
"Sit down. Have you decided to tell us who you are?" .

The man sat down opposite him and said reluctantly,
"Steve Smith."

"That’s a step further on," said Palliser
mildly. And that was interesting. The Steve Smith they’d looked for
last week? He was clean-shaven, looked younger than thirty-three, but
the rest of him conformed to the description. Palliser had been
thinking of this as just another routine errand, but now he looked at
Smith with covert interest.

"Why did you attack that girl last night?"

"I never attacked nobody. She’s a liar."

"Had you ever seen her before?"

"No."

"You just got talking to her in the restaurant,
all casual?"

"She made up to me," said Smith after some
thought.

"Oh, is that so? Did she ask you to drive her
home?"

"Yeah. Yeah, she did."

"All right, what happened then?"

Smith thought some more. Then he said, "Well, we
got in the car and she said I should, you know, love her  up a
little. Then when I tried to she yelled and got out and a couple
fellows grabbed me and called the pigs. I didn’t do nothing to her,
that girl. She’s a liar."

"She had a couple of bruises where she says you
tried to strangle her," said Palliser.

"I never. She’s a Goddamn liar."

Palliser offered him a cigarette, lit it, sat back
and lit one himself. He said conversationally, "I see you’ve
shaved off your little beard."

Smith was startled; he jumped in his chair and said,
"How the hell did you--I never seen you before in my life!"
 
"Oh, we have ways of knowing things
about you," said Palliser vaguely. "Where were you a week
ago Sunday, Smith, do you remember?"

"A week ago--I don’t know. Somewhere around. I
don’t remember."

"Where have you been living?"

"
Room over in Ho1lywood."

"Got a job?"

"I been lookin’ for one. I been on
unemployment. Some new rule they got, you got to come in ever’ day,
wait for a job to show, or they don’t give you no pay. That’s
where I been, days."

"I’ll bet," said Palliser, "I could
tell you when you shaved off that goatee. It was--"

"I got a right to shave if I want."
 
"Sure," said Palliser. "But
you did it right after you killed that girl, didn’t you? When the
other one got away and you were afraid she’d finger you?"

Smith leaped up out of his chair. "You don’t
know that! You can’t say that!"

"I just did. That was when, wasn’t it?"

"No, it wasn’t. I don’t know what you’re
talkin’ about, man."

"We both know what I’m talking about, Steve.
You picked those girls up at a lunch counter on the Boulevard, a week
ago Sunday. You ended up raping and strangling one of them."

"I never did no such thing!"

"---But you made a mess of getting rid of the
body," said Palliser. "It didn’t burn, you know. The fire
went out."

"Thass a Goddamn lie," said Smith, "I
seen all the smoke it made, 1ike--" and stopped.

"So, suppose you tell me where you took them,"
said Palliser gently. So many of the ones they had to deal with were
stupid punks like Steve..

"I’m not sayin’ anything else."

"Oh, yes, you are. Just a little more. How did a
bum like you happen to have a house to take them to?"

"I ain’t no bum. I said I been lookin’ for a
job. I still had a key to it," said Smith sullenly.

"Where is it?" asked Palliser patiently.

"Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt that girl none.
She, just like this damn woman last night, she said I should love her
up and then she yelled--I didn’t go to--"

"Where, Steve? You
might as well tell me, we’ll find out in the end," said
Palliser.

* * *

He came back to the office at noon. "And I hope
to God S.I.D. comes up with some solid evidence," he said to
Mendoza. "We haven’t been exactly brilliant on this one--I
really didn’t think that Stephanie girl knew what she was talking
about--but at least we got there in the end. It was a strictly spur
of the moment deal--"

"With the ones like Steve, they usually are,"
said Higgins, who had been sitting at the other side of Mendoza’s
desk when Palliser came in.

"
Ya lo creo
.
So what did he tell you, John?"

"He’d been down here visiting an old pal a
couple of days before, and noticed the house was vacant--his mother
used to live there, and he still had a key. When he picked up the
girls it was the first place he thought of. He got some groceries on
the way--there was a refrigerator there, the place was furnished.
I’ll bet whoever owns the place will be surprised to get a power
bill. It’s on Gladys Avenue."

Mendoza grunted. "Three blocks from San Pedro.
Very nice. Let’s hope S.I.D. turns something."

"I just turned them loose on it."

And Lake came in with a telex: the feedback from the
FBI on the prints picked up in the Freeman house. Mendoza swore,
looking at it. "Why can’t these hoods stay home, George? New
to us--his record’s all in West Virginia. Neal Benoy, and he’s
wanted for homicide, and that’s all they tell us. Well, we know
he’s here, or was, but it’d be helpful to know something more
about him. Jimmy, get me an outside line." After an interval, he
got connected to a Lieutenant Devore of the Huntington force, and
began taking notes. Devore gave him the gist of Benoy’s record.
"He’s been just another no-good bum around town till he got
together with a kindred spirit one night last August and murdered a
harmless old black fellow. We picked them both up, but they made a
break on the way to the courthouse for indictment. I wouldn’t be
surprised if they were still teamed up--they’re buddies from way
back. You want Benoy for something out there? A long way from
home--he’s never been out of the state before, far as I know."

"We’ve tied him to a double homicide,"
said Mendoza. "The lab thinks it was a pair. Who’s the other
one?"

"Tony Allesandro. Birds of a feather," said
Devore succinctly. "You want his prints and particulars too?"