"Could you describe the man, Mr. Bagby?" asked Conway.
"Well, yes, just an average-looking young fella, maybe about twenty-five. He was big, around six feet, and he had blond hair-he was wearing ordinary sports clothes, slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, and he was clean-shaved. In fact he looked pretty clean and neat altogether. Not the kind of lout you'd expect- Well, I don't know anything about guns-it was just a black sort of gun, not very big."
Schenke and Conway looked at each other resignedly.
"Baby Face again. Did he touch anything in here, did you notice?'
Bagby shook his head. "I don't think so. He waited till another customer left and we were alone, and then he just came over to the counter and said, this is a stickup, give me all the money-and I saw the gun, so I did, and then he went out. No, I didn't follow him or look- I don't know if he got into a car."
The citizens. Well, faced with a gun in unknown hands, anybody would play safe. Schenke started to tell him they'd like a formal statement, if he'd come to headquarters sometime tomorrow. There'd be another report on Baby Face, and the way it looked, no more leads than the other reports had turned up.
They didn't have another call the rest of the shift. The beginning of the week was sometimes slow.
On Tuesday morning when Palliser came in, he wasted a little time hearing all about the vacation. "But it's good to have you back. With Henry off, we've been busy. And we'll be busier, with the worst of the summer still to come." He rubbed his handsome straight nose ruefully.
Hackett and Higgins had drifted into Mendoza's office after him. Hackett had the night report and said, "Baby Face again. And no leads. Well, how often do we pick up a heister? Go through the motions." He laid the report on Mendoza's desk.
It was Jason Grace's day off, and there was enough work on hand to keep the rest of them busy. They were still taking statements from the witnesses to the bank robbery, and two of the tellers were coming in again to look at more mug shots down in Records. The rest of them went out, and Hackett sat down in the chair beside the desk and lit a cigarette. "Have you had a chance to go through last week's reports?"
"Desultorily," said Mendoza. "‘Any one in particular?"
Hackett sighed. "These muggings. There's not a damn thing we can do about it, nowhere to go, but it looks like an organized effort to me. The first one was just after you left. So far there have been five. All of them in interesting places-the parking lots by the Ahmanson Theatre, that complex of shops around the Music Center, around those high-class restaurants in Little Tokyo. About the only places in downtown L.A. where you might reasonably expect to run into the well-heeled victims. And they've taken a little haul, all right. The jewelry, the cash."
"They," said Mendoza.
"Well, yes," said Hackett. "Only one of the victims was alone, an elderly widower. He's still in the hospital. The rest were couples having a night on the town. They all say it was three, four, five young louts. Moved in fast and didn't care how much damage they did. I know, Luis, but it smells to me like gang action. Fairly smart gang action. Picking those spots. It's funny when you come to think, these-um-fashionable places being right downtown in what used to be the real slums."
"Mmh," said Mendoza. He'd grown up in those slums before the fashionable places got built, or got to be fashionable.
"I talked to Slade over in Juvenile about it. He says there are four or five gangs who could be responsible, but no way to pin it down. Whichever, they know a fence. None of the jewelry showed up."
"And gangs down here," said Mendoza sardonically, "would know every fence operating."
"Well, it's just a thought," said Hackett. He sighed again and stood up. "And I would have a bet with you that it's a waste of time. That Bagby, Baby Face's latest victim, offered to come in and look at mug shots. Somehow I don't think Baby Face is anywhere in Records."
"You never know," said Mendoza. " Buena suerte." The phone buzzed at him as Hackett went out and he picked it up.
"Mendoza."
"I got your love note about your latest overdose," said Captain Goldberg. "What the hell do you suppose we can do about it? You haven't even had an autopsy report yet."
"I just thought you'd like the information for your statistics, Saul. No, I don't know what kind of an O.D. it was yet. But we all know the probabilities."
Goldberg sneezed and said, "Damn allergies. For a bet the Quaaludes-and/or liquor or PCP. Anybody can buy the stuff on any street corner, and when the kids are such goddamn fools to get hooked-well, let me see the autopsy report when you get it, just to pass the time. How was the vacation abroad?"
Mendoza told him and finished going over the reports he hadn't caught up on. He was just going down the hall to the coffee machine when Sergeant Lake on the switchboard beckoned to him urgently.
Mendoza halted. "What's gone down now?"
Lake proffered him the phone. He was smiling broadly.
"It's Jase, Lieutenant, they've got one."
"?No me diga! " Mendoza took the phone. "Congratulations, Jase."
Grace was in the middle of a sentence. "-and I've got to admit to you, we could've got one a year ago if we hadn't been particular. Us black folk get priority now, you know, and then too there are always plenty of black babies, but Virginia wasn't about to take just any baby and neither was I. Jimmy, you there?"
"It's me," said Mendoza.
"Oh, Lieutenant. That's good, you can tell everybody. We just got the confirmation an hour ago. Only heard about the possibility last night. We haven't even seen him yet, but he sounds just what we want. No, it wasn't the adoption agency, it was Virginia's doctor. He knows the family, very respectable family, good people, but the daughter got in trouble. He's only three days old, but the doctor's going to arrange everything-well, we don't know when we can see him, but we've already decided on Adam John and Virginia's crazy to go out shopping for baby clothes-"
Mendoza was laughing. "Good news, Jase, congratulations, just what you wanted." The Graces already had one adopted baby, little Celia Ann, and had been hunting another for a couple of years.
"You pass the word on, Lieutenant-tell you more tomorrow."
Mendoza grinned at Lake. "A1l of these pregnancies must've rubbed off on Jase."
Lake grinned back. "Just what he wanted. It's grand; I suppose he'll be raving about this one and taking all the pictures to show, the way he did with the first one. Well, kids, they can be a lot of trouble, but a lot of fun too."
Mendoza looked into the big communal detective office. Galeano and Landers were in and he passed on the news. They were pleased for Grace; he had felt a little resentful of all those pregnancies.
"At least," said Landers, "they already have a house. When I think of the payments on that old shack-·"
Hackett and Higgins were apparently still down in Records with the witnesses. They hadn't shown up when the rest of them went out to lunch, leaving Wanda Larsen taking a belated statement from one of the witnesses to the bank robbery, and they had just landed back at the office at one-forty-five when a new heist went down, with a first report of a D.O.A. victim.
Mendoza went out on that with Galeano. It was a big chain pharmacy and on Olympic, and the D.O.A. was the head pharmacist, Dave Bryan. Everybody else around was in a state of shock. There were two other pharmacists, five women clerks, and seven or eight customers. Most of the heisters were shy birds, wary of operating in front of a crowd, but like everyone else they came all sorts. The two patrolmen had done their best to preserve the scene, but there had been some milling around. It probably wouldn't make any difference here.