"I believe you. I said to Mary, I think the stupidity rubs off on us. I don’t know, I suppose it is just barely possible, Art. And wouldn’t you know, if he is, the last one of all these hundreds of names. But he won’t be there now, for God’s sake."
"Maybe we can get an idea when he was." Hackett got up and put on his jacket. Higgins straightened his tie. Palliser, who had been typing a report across the room and just picked up the phone, said suddenly, "You don’t say, Jase. Who? Well, I’ll be damned! The boss’ll be interested in that, but I’ll never understand how anyone can waste time over- Yes, I see. Yes, it doesn’t say how much but we can talk to the other men and- You and your little ideas. I’ll pass it on… Jase just came across something interesting on Buford, Art."
"Buford? Oh, that. I hope we’ve just come across something interesting too," said Hackett.
Outside, it was making up its mind to rain again. They took Higgins' Pontiac, as it were for good luck. They couldn’t transport a subject in Hackett’s Barracuda. The address on Magnolia was an old square stucco house with a strip of brown grass in front and an ancient Ford sitting in the drive. They parked in front, went up and rang the bell. After an interval the door opened.
"Mrs. Mullarkey?" Hackett showed her the badge.
"What the hell do cops want?" She stared at them angrily, unwilling acknowledgment in her eyes of two great big cops, looking like cops, on her doorstep. "Oh, I suppose you’re lookin’ for Leo-we don’t know where he’s at."
She was a fat bleached blonde about fifty, makeup plastered on, in tight black pants, a bright flowered tunic.
"When was the last time you saw him?" asked Hackett.
"Listen, the soldiers come and asked-and asked," she said impatiently. "We ain’t seen him since-I coulda told them Leo wasn’t goin’ to stay at one thing long, and he never did like bein’ told what to do, no way. So he took off from the Army, so what? How did we know that, or figure it was some big crime?"
"He was here?" asked Higgins.
"Look, I told that sergeant or whatever he was, sure, Leo landed here, God, I dunno, way time gets away from you, it was about three weeks, a month back-he says he’s on leave, he only stayed overnight, he said he was goin’ up to ’Frisco. That’s all I know."
Hackett and Higgins looked at each other and shrugged. Dead end. It could be that in the short time he was here Mullarkey had sold or given some cigarettes with that PX seal to somebody around here. He could have stayed right around here and been the X they were hunting. That was probably as close as they were going to get. But Higgins had caught the one word. "You said we, Mrs. Mullarkey. Your husband could back that up?"
"Husband!" she said, and barked a laugh. "Just all I can do take care of myself, without some lazy man. I got shut of him years back. It’s enough I got two no-good boys, bring the cops down on me. But I got to say, Billy’s got some feelings, not like Leo-believe it or not he gives me some loot just the other day, though where the hell he got it I don’t know and can’t say I care, the way money goes these days-"
"Billy?" said Hackett. "Is he here?"
"Last I looked, watchin’ TV and drinkin’ the last o’ my beer. Cops!" said Mrs. Mullarkey bitterly. "That damn Leo! Always makin’ trouble-I could wish I’d never married that bum-" She stared resentfully at them as they came past her into the house.
Billy Mullarkey was a big beefy young man in stained T-shirt and jeans, sprawled in an armchair wolfing pretzels and beer, watching a game show. He stared up at Hackett and Higgins, and the badge momentarily mesmerized him.
"How about it, Bill?" said Hackett. "Leo gave you some cigarettes when he was here, didn’t he? You had them on you when you decided to find out if it was so, old Mrs. Faber kept lots of money around? You were up early, weren’t you? About seven-thirty that morning, you walked in there, she was just open, and you-"
"What the hell are you talkin’ about?" asked Mrs. Mullarkey.
Without saying a word, Billy stumbled up to his feet and ran blindly for the door. The two big men were more than a match for him, and wrestled him down before he got there. He began to swear, and then he started to cry, and as they hauled him up to his feet and got the cuffs on he sobbed, "It was all her fault, Goddamn it! I wouldn’t ’a’ hurt her, but she wouldn’t tell me where all the rest was-a lousy forty-two bucks I got-if she’d ’a’ told me I wouldn’t ’a’ hurt her-it was all her Goddamned fault-"
EIGHT
After they got him into the car they asked if he’d make a statement, and he said he wasn’t going to say nothing more, embellishing that with various obscenities, so they took him straight down to the Alameda jail. They had enough to get a warrant, and it was to be hoped the charge would stick. After it was passed to the D.A.’s office it was out of their hands.
They got back to the office, nearly at the end of shift. Palliser and Conway were in, nobody else. "It almost had to go back to the restaurant," Conway was saying. "The time element. So this says so all over again, John. Between us we’ve talked to all the other witnesses, and what the hell do they all say?"
"The boss here?" asked Hackett.
"Oh, he took off." Palliser grinned. "Jase had a bright idea on Buford, and when I passed it on our Luis went all absentminded and wandered out-having the same hunch Jase had, I gather. I expect we’ll hear about it. Rich thinks we’ve got somewhere on Ames, which would be gratifying?
"Well, what did we hear?" Conway flung himself back in the desk chair and lit a cigarette. "Talk about nebulous! Which wasn’t surprising, when Ames himself didn’t know he’d been stabbed, apparently. They said they didn’t notice him at all, or just casually saw him come in and sit down-a couple of them recognized him from seeing him there before, didn’t know him-why should anybody have noticed him? But the night watch got all the names and addresses down, and there they are all present and correct to talk to, until I come to this Tom Sawyer. Address turns out to be an empty lot. And all I say-"
"Yes, and I’d agree with you," said Palliser. "It’s too late to do anything about it today, but I think we get back to Mallow on it, and see if Piggott or Shogart can give us any description. You look self-satisfied," he added to Hackett. "Been doing any good?"
"Breaking a case. The Faber thing. Routine does sometimes pay off. What was Jase’s little idea?"
"Interesting," said Palliser thoughtfully. "At least our Luis thought so."
Mr. Sam McAllister was about sixty-five, tall and angular, with a few wisps of gray hair. He was retired from the personnel department of The Broadway department store. He was regarding Mendoza rather sheepishly, and he said, "Now how’d you come to hear about that?"
"Mr. Reinke was annoyed," said Mendoza, grinning back at him. "Never mind. Did you do any good?"
"Well, Millie was annoyed too," said McAllister, involuntarily looking over his shoulder toward the kitchen where an emphatic banging of pans betrayed Millie’s presence. This was a neat little stucco house in the middle of an old block of neat homes, minute lawns in front. "Not too bad, I come out a little ahead. Lordy, but I don’t know when I’ve done such a thing, not in years. We all kind of got carried away, I suppose. Old Charlie fussing about it being illegal-guess he had a point. Tell you one thing, I was bushed when I got home that night-not so young as I used to be!" He laughed.
"Your nephew was in on it too, wasn’t he? Reinke said, a young sailor."
McAllister nodded. "Young Ted Nygard, my niece’s boy. Dropped a little too-I was sorry about that later. He just joined up a while back, green kid from the farm, it was his first leave out here. He’s on a cruiser, real proud of it."
He added the name; he looked at Mendoza with some belated caution; at first he’d just been glad of an audience. "Did I understand, you’re with the state board, something to do with Charlie’s license? Lordy, he did say something, but I just never thought-I sure hope you aren’t going to blame Charlie. It was all my fault we got started, come to think."