He drove back to the office. The hospital hadn't called. They had, however, got an ident on that unknown victim of the Slasher, through the Greyhound Bus office and the San Diego police. His name was George Snaid, and he'd been picked up for vagrancy in San Diego and given the usual twenty-four hours to leave town. Nothing more was known about him. Another of the victims who wouldn't be missed.
The court order to open Madge Corliss' safe-deposit box hadn't come through yet. "Damn judges," said Mendoza. He wanted to see that list.
He sent Lake out for coffee. He sat at his desk chain smoking nervously. Dwyer, with nothing special to do, was playing solitaire desultorily, laying out the cards on top of a filing case, wandering over to stare at the phones on the desk every Eve minutes. He wasn't much of a cardplayer, and his inept, awkward shuffling of the deck got on Mendoza's nerves.
"I did think of something," he said presently. "A little thing. You know how that dame in the room next to Florence Dahl said the Slasher kept shouting something like ‘Every ham's gaining on me'? It came to me what it was. Every man's hand against me. Out of the Bible, isn't it?"
"I couldn't say," said Mendoza. "Very likely. Yes, that's probably what it was. I wonder if we could trace him back at all. Where he started, how he got that way. That landlady on Boardman Street said he had a Southern accent."
But he wasn't thinking about the Slasher; that was over and done, and there was other work to do. "Bert?"
"Well?"
"You talked to those old pals of Nestor's who used to play poker with him. Any of them mention anything about that?"
"About what?"
"What kind of poker player he was."
"Oh." Dwyer considered, looking at the deck in his hand. "One fellow-another chiropractor-said he was a wild gambler. Take any long chance, he said. So he lost oftener than he won."
"Yes. That kind of poker player," said Mendoza. "But that wasn't why he lost oftener than he won. That was because he didn't play enough poker. The man who's playing any game regularly, day to day, always has an edge over the occasional player… Do you have to try to tear the deck in half every time you shuffle? Look."
He took the cards from Dwyer and shuffled them. "Gentle and easy, see?"
"I'm not a pro gambler," said Dwyer.
"No." Having the cards, Mendoza kept them; absently he shuffled, squared the deck neatly, cut it, and turned up the ace of diamonds. " Tuerto," he said. "A lucky card."
He shuffled the deck again, squared it and cut, to show the ace of diamonds again.
"Don't ever ask me to play cards with you," said Dwyer. "It's just a trick." Mendoza shuffled again, using a different method, and began to deal him a poker hand, calling the cards as he tossed them face down. "King of spades. Deuce of clubs. Ace of hearts. Four of hearts-"
"Wrong. Three of clubs."
"Hell, I'm out of practice at crooked deals… " The cards moved restlessly between his hands. "Did I tell you about meeting Benny Metzer on that cruise liner? I took twenty bucks off him-he could have killed me." Mendoza laughed sharply.
"One of your pro gambler acquaintances? Do tell." Dwyer was watching the telephone again.
"That's right, you came up here from Forgery, didn't you?"
"And a damn dull job that was," said Dwyer absently.
"Sometimes it can be." Mendoza dealt himself a straight poker hand and quite by chance drew a full house. "So it can happen," he muttered.
Think about this thing, damn it. Nestor. If that nice story he'd built up about Cliff Elger was so, then-when Nestor was still in his office-his appointment, whatever it was, must have taken up some time. Not the usual job, because Corliss hadn't known about it. The spot of genteel blackmail? And, naturally, the blackmailee arguing, and the sparring back and forth about the price? Only, really, why bring in Elger, in that case? Blackmail was quite a reasonable motive for murder.
Only what did the blackmail have to be? Threat of revealing an abortion. These days, with the relaxed morals… And besides, Nestor couldn't have carried out such a threat without revealing himself and his part in it, which anybody with common sense would.. .
All right. All right. Some featherbrained woman, not seeing that, shooting him in panic? A man had got rid of the. 22. So, the woman confessing to some protective male-father, husband, boy friend-who had thereupon set up the bogus burglary and got rid of the gun.
And that would say for pretty sure that the assault on Art had been the outside thing.
Wouldn't it? Well, for ninety-eight per cent sure. Art hadn't known about those illicit patients-couldn't have known who they were, of course. Hard to see how he might have inadvertently stumbled across
…
Mendoza shuffled and cut, and turned up the knave of clubs. He stared at it for a moment, slapped the deck together, centered it on his desk, and stood up. "Do you know what the knave of clubs means in cartomancy?"
"I don't even know what cartomancy means," said Dwyer.
"Fortunetelling with cards. The knave of clubs," said Mendoza, "stands for a bearer of unexpected news. I'm going out to find him. I probably won't be long."
"Let's just hope it's good news," said Dwyer after him. This was a will-o'-the-wisp, of course. Just an idea. But sometimes you grabbed at any small hope there might be, looking for a lead.
He went straight out Wilshire, and there wasn't much traffic this early. It wasn't ten o'clock yet. Just on ten. The street signs changed to elegant black on white, and he was in Beverly Hills. He turned left on Beverly Drive and went down four blocks to a line of expensive-looking shop fronts. Miraculously he found a parking slot, and found he had a nickel in change. He yanked the handle on the parking meter; nothing happened; he shook it hard, and it condescended to bury the red Violation sign in its insides. He walked back to the most expensive-looking shop front of all. It presented a genteel pale fawn facade with tinted glass double doors. There was no legend on the doors at all; the only designation it offered to reveal its commercial purposes was a single discreet name in lower-case giIt letters above the door: herrrington.
Mendoza went in. There was pale fawn carpeting, nothing so vulgar as a counter; this room, an anteroom to the high mysteries beyond, was only about fifteen feet square. An exquisite young man in pale fawn dacron drifted up, identified him, and murmured, "I'll fetch Mr. Harrington, sir. Do sit down."
Mendoza didn't sit down. He wandered over to one of the full-length triple mirrors and decided absently that the Italian silk was too dark a gray. He adjusted his tie. "You again," said Harrington abruptly behind him. "Good God, I just made you two new suits and those evening clothes. You're a vain bastard, Mendoza."
Mendoza turned around. "You malign me. No, I don't want anything new. I want some information."
Harrington was a solid, round little man of some heft, with a bald round head and pudgy little hands. He also had a pair of very sharp black eyes. He cocked the bald head at Mendoza. "Oh?"
"Which you probably can't give me," said Mendoza. He handed over the button, the little ordinary button. "Can you tell me anything about that? It occurred to me it's in your line. You're quite a specialist on anything to do with male attire, aren't you?"
Harrington looked at the button, turning it over in his fingers.