"Sixty-fi' cents," said the bartender.
He felt in his other pocket, threw a silver dollar onto the bar. He drank the whiskey, and as it jolted his insides he felt a little better.
"You like to buy me a drink, honey?" A hand on his arm, insinuating. He turned and looked at her. Another one like that last one-a kind he knew, knew all about, the only kind of woman he'd ever had, ever could have. She was a little high, her voice was slurred, she had a scrawny aging body and her lipstick was all smeared. "You buy a lil drink for Rosie, an' Rosie'll be nice to you, honey. I seen you before, ain't I? Around-"
He laughed and leaned into the light from the blaring TV above the bar, and she gave a little gasp and drew back: "You seen me before?"
"No-maybe not." She'd have stepped back farther, but he put his arm around her and closed his hand cruelly round the thin sagging breast. "I buy you all the drinks you want," he said savagely, "an' pay you besides. Is it a deal?"
"Sure-it's a deal," she said dully. "Can I have a drink now, honey?"
"Sure thing," he said. He hated her, hugging the hate to himself. The way she'd gasped and looked away. Everybody in the world, except him. His hand went secret and sure to the knife.
There was always the blood…
Mendoza's turn at the newspaper and magazine counter finally arrived and the fatherly attendant turned his British beam in his direction. "Do for you, sir?"
"I see you stock some American papers-I don't suppose you've got a Los Angeles paper? A Times?"
The beam faltered. "Well, now, I'm afraid not, sir. I don't recall that I've ever been asked-"
"Well, could you get me one, please?"
"l really couldn't say, sir. I can try. Beg pardon, what was the name again?"
" The Los Angeles Times," said Mendoza hopefully. He looked around the vaulted immense lobby of the luxury hotel, the new sports jacket feeling uneasy on his shoulders, and felt homesick. Nearly two weeks out of touch now, and they were staying here another week before flying home.
"Beg pardon, would you mind-that's L-O-?… Yes, sir. Er-would that be California, I presume?"
"It's quite a well-known town," said Mendoza irritably.
"Yes, sir. I'll see what I can do, sir. ‘Kyou, sir." The beam turned elsewhere.
Mendoza turned away and a diffident voice said, "Another Californian? I just flew in myself-if this is any use to you, you're welcome." A big hearty-looking man in city clothes, smiling, holding out a folded newspaper. "Kind of foolish to extend the feud this far from home." The paper was a San Francisco Chronicle, with yesterday's date on it.
"Thanks very much indeed," said Mendoza. The big man waved away gratitude.
Carrying his treasure under one arm, Mendoza wandered down the lobby toward the alcove where he'd left Alison. Alison was enjoying the vacation anyway, he thought gloomily. And probably, just as she said, it was only egotism.
Alison was chatting with Mrs. Garven; inevitably, they were showing each other snapshots. Of Mrs. Garven's two rather plain daughters back in Montreal, and-of course-of the twins. When the Kitcheners abandoned them in favor of a round of night clubs, Mrs. Garven had attached herself. Garven was a prosperous businessman, with an ulcer to prove it, and all he talked about was common stock, its vagaries and inner economics, which Mendoza knew as much about as he knew or cared about the migration of lemming.
It was a fine hotel, and the weather was nice, and the service excellent, if they did keep pressing exotic rum drinks on you. But he still felt self-conscious without a tie, and he still felt uneasy about being so far from home. Suppose something big had come up. Or Art should have come down with Asian flu or something. Quizas, and so what? Other good experienced men in the office.
He sat down opposite Alison and Edith Garven and lit a cigarette. "Just eleven months,” Alison was saying rather wistfully. "But Teresa's walking already and Johnny probably is by now too. It does seem ages we've been away, but we have such a wonderful nurse-"
Mendoza opened the well-handled Chronicle and started to hunt through it for any news from L.A. The alleged feud was largely a joke, but for all that the San Francisco papers were a little chary of printing news about Los Angeles, and prone to treat it sarcastically where possible. The headlines were about forthcoming elections, a senatorial speech, an argument in the House. A socialite wedding. A dog show. He turned pages hopefully.
"… must go up and dress, Ted and I are going to that amusing calypso place tonight. Have you been there yet?"
"Yes, last night. Well, I didn't exactly-”
"Of course the songs do tend to be rather… But I feel one should be broad-minded, my dear, especially in a foreign country. I-"
"?Ca! " said Mendoza softly. The bottom corner of this page had been torn, but he saw the dateline, Los Angeles, and carefully held the torn pieces together to read the brief story tucked away on the third page. Los Angeles, July I4.-A fourth victim of the latest mass killer roaming the City of Angels was found today, a teen-age boy. The Slasher, as he is locally known, has murdered and mutilated two men, a woman, and the boy within a period of less than two weeks. His first victim was left in a hotel room almost certainly rented by the murderer, but police as yet have apparently no clue to his identity.
"?Por Dios! " said Mendoza to himself distractedly. "My God-that body in the hotel-I knew there was something about it…" He could vividly imagine all the desperate hunting, the try-anything routine, on a thing like that. And no details at all, of course, damn it-not from 'Frisco. He got up and paced down the lobby, muttering to himself. The Slasher, My God. My God, four people-a mass killer, one of those berserk killers. He wished to God there'd been just a few details. Damn. He thought, I could call Art, long distance. And what good would that do, to know the details?
"?Que ocurre, querido? " Alison put her arm through his. "I do wish you'd cheer up and enjoy yourself more. You look-"
He told her, thrust the folded paper at her. "I know what sort of job one like that is, damn it. I should never I have let you drag me this far from home. God knows what a mess that is, and don't I know it, the press needling us for not dropping on him inside twenty-four hours-probably damn all in the way of evidence-"
"Now look," said Alison reasonably, "there's Art, and John Palliser, and a lot of other perfectly capable men still there to cope with it, Luis. It's hardly as if you were-were shirking your duty or something like that. And it's silly to worry about it when there's nothing you can do. Look, it's nearly six o'clock. Let's go up and get dressed, and we said we'd try that Spanish place the taxi driver recommended.?Como no? Come on, be sensible and forget it."
"Oh hell," said Mendoza miserably. He trailed upstairs after her, to the luxurious big room that he disliked further because it had twin beds, and shaved and got into the uncomfortable evening clothes she'd insisted on; but he didn't forget the Slasher. He could just imagine what the boys were going through. And a few other cases on hand too, probably.
He hadn't any business to be here. He ought to be home, joining the hunt.
He could call Art. He could-"?Mil rayos! " he said to the very bad rye that the Spanish place had produced with prodding. He'd had a feeling all along… There was a boy with a guitar who sang, but Mendoza hardly heard him. He was back home, with a harassed Hackett and all the rest of them, visualizing the routine they'd be setting up, the tiresome questioning, the eager follow-up of any small lead. On one like that. The Slasher. Hell. Thirty-five hundred miles…
"Well, you understand, I don't want to get anybody in trouble," said Mr. James Clay. "You couldn't help liking Frank, he was that sort of guy, but that doesn't say I exactly approved of all he did. Not that I'm a prude, but-"