"You have."
"And I'm gratified to find you see through these spurious trappings of the merely expensive. Next time I'll take you to a hamburger stand."
"You will not. I like an excuse to get really dressed up occasionally." She had, after all, compromised with his dictation: pearls, and a very modest decollete, but for the rest an oyster-silk sheath.
"I complimented you once, don't fish for more so early," said Mendoza placidly. "And what I expected to get by coming-besides rooked out of a little money-I don't know. Mr. Torres-Domingo is an unexpected bonus. You see, the uncle of your late pupil went out of his way to visit this place last night, which seemed a little odd."
"Oh! I should think so. Who is the other gentleman you mentioned?"
"I wouldn't say gentleman. He just barely avoided an indictment for homicide about eighteen months ago-he was then the proprietor of a bar on Third Avenue. Another gentleman who later turned out to have been a small-time wholesaler of heroin got himself shot full of holes by a third gentleman who subsequently said that Mr.-the first gentleman-had offered him a substantial sum of money to do the job. We didn't doubt his word-after what showed-but unfortunately there just wasn't enough evidence. The first gentleman retired modestly across the Mexican border, though he is an American citizen, and it's interesting to know he's back home. I don't want him for anything myself, but Lieutenant Patrick Callaghan will be very interested to hear that he's now the headwaiter at a fashionable restaurant."
"I deduce that the lieutenant is on the narcotics team, or whatever you call it."
"And as you and I are not the only people in the world who speak Spanish, we will now cease to talk shop… What are we offered? All the standard Parisian concoctions. Women living alone subsist mostly on casseroles anyway, no treat to you-I suggest the one concession to Americanism, a steak."
"Medium well," she agreed meekly. And when the waiter had gone, "May I ask just one question? People make a lot of money in that-er-business you mentioned. Wholesaling you-know-what. Why should they go to all the trouble of holding down regular jobs too? I always thought of them as-as coming out at night, slinking furtively down alleys, you know-like that-not punching time clocks."
"Oh, God!" he said. "Now you've taken my appetite away. Well, there's a den of crafty bloodsucking robbers in Washington-you'll have heard of them-"
"Which ones?"
"It says Bureau of Internal Revenue on the door. Now, the L.A.P.D. couldn't get one useful piece of evidence against the gentleman I mentioned-as we can't always against a lot of others in a lot of businesses, and I do mean big businesses, on the wrong side of the law. But we can't poke our noses into some things those fellows can. A hundred-thousand-dollar apartment house-a new Cadillac-a mink coat for the girl friend-you are doing well, Mr. Smith, how come you never told your uncle about it? And if Mr. Smith can't explain just where it all came from, he's got a lot more grief than a mere city cop could ever hand him."
"Oh, I see. I do indeed. Cover."
"And then," added Mendoza, not altogether humorously, "when uncle has stowed Mr. Smith away in jail for tax evasion, the indignant public points an accusing finger at us and says, Corrupt cops!-they must have known about him! Stupid cops!-if they didn't find out! Why wasn't he arrested for his real crimes? You try to tell them, just try, that it's because we have to operate within laws about evidence designed to protect the public…. I wonder whether I ought to call in and tell Pat's office about this." Mr. Tomes-Domingo, who had made a precipitate exit on first catching sight of him, reappeared round the screen at the service doors, polishing his bald head with a handkerchief. He shot one furtive glance in Mendoza's direction, pasted on a professional happy smile, and began to circulate among the tables, pausing for a bow, a word here and there with a favored patron. "Oh, well, there's no hurry-he won't run away, and for all I know he's reformed and hasn't any reason to anyway."
The steaks could have been less tough; the service might with advantage have been less ostentatious. Mendoza asked her presently whether she'd got anything useful from any of the girls.
"I wondered when you'd ask. Nothing at all, I'm sorry to say-she hadn't said anything to any of them about that. But she didn't know any of them well, after all."
"No. I didn't expect much of that. I've got a queer sort of an-can I it a lead?-from another angle, but I don't know that that means much either… What do you think of the murals? I've never asked you what kind of thing you paint."
Alison said the murals constituted a libel on the feline race and that she was herself unfashionably pre-Impressionistic. "This and that-I'm not wedded to any one particular type of subject. Now and then I actually sell something." They talked about painting; they talked about cats.
"But when you're away all day, you can't keep pets, it's not fair."
"Nobody keeps a cat. They condescend to live with you is all. And as for the rest of it, I moved. It's miles farther for me to drive, and the rent's higher, but it's on the ground floor and they let me put in one of those little swinging doors in the back door, out to the yard. You've seen the ads-let your pet come and go freely. Yes, a fine idea, but she won't use it-she knows how it works, but she doesn't like the way it slaps her behind, and she got her tail pinched once. Fortunately the other seven apartments are inhabited by cat people. Four of them have keys to mine and run in and out all day waiting on her, which of course is what she schemes for. I believe Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Bryson," he added, looking around for the waiter, "alternate their shopping tours and visits to the beauty salon-coffee, please-" And pairhaps some of our special brandy, sair?"
"That I need," said Alison, "after listening to this barefaced confession. Battening on the charity of your neighbors like that-"
"One of the reasons I picked the apartment. The Elgins keep her supplied with catnip mice, they buy them in wholesale lots, having three Siamese of their own. Of course there is a man two doors down who has a spaniel, but one must expect some undesirables in these unrestricted neighborhoods." The waiter came back with the coffee, the brandy, and the bill on a salver, contriving to slide that in front of Mendoza by a kind of legerdemain suggesting that it appeared out of thin air, not through any offices of this obsequious and excellent servant. Mendoza looked at it, laid two tens on the salver and said now he needed the brandy too.
"I have no sympathy for you," said Alison.
When they came out into the foyer, Mendoza hesitated, glancing at the discreet row of phone booths in an alcove. "I wonder if I had-" There had appeared no bowing, smiling headwaiter as they left the dining room, to make the last honors to new patrons, urge a return. "Oh, well," and he put a hand automatically to his pocket for more largesse as one of the several liveried lackeys approached with Alison's coat.
"So 'appy to 'ave 'ad you wiz us, sair and madame-I 'ope you enjoyed your disenair? You mus' come back soon-Holy Mother o' God, what the hell was that?" Between them they dropped the coat; the lackey took one look over Alison's shoulder, said, "Jesus, let me out of here!" and dived blindly for the door, staggering Mendoza aside. The second volley of shots was a medley of several calibers, including what sounded like a couple of regulation's. From the dark end of the corridor off the foyer plunged a large, shapeless man waving a revolver, and close after him the tuxedo-clad rotundity of Mr. Tomes-Domingo, similarly equipped. The checkroom attendant prudently dropped flat behind his counter as the large man paused to fire twice more behind him and charged into the foyer.
"Wait for me, Neddy!" Mr. Tomes-Domingo sent one wild shot behind him and another inadvertently into the nearest phone booth as he continued flight.