"That’s a step further on," said Palliser mildly. And that was interesting. The Steve Smith they’d looked for last week? He was clean-shaven, looked younger than thirty-three, but the rest of him conformed to the description. Palliser had been thinking of this as just another routine errand, but now he looked at Smith with covert interest.
"Why did you attack that girl last night?"
"I never attacked nobody. She’s a liar."
"Had you ever seen her before?"
"No."
"You just got talking to her in the restaurant, all casual?"
"She made up to me," said Smith after some thought.
"Oh, is that so? Did she ask you to drive her home?"
"Yeah. Yeah, she did."
"All right, what happened then?"
Smith thought some more. Then he said, "Well, we got in the car and she said I should, you know, love her up a little. Then when I tried to she yelled and got out and a couple fellows grabbed me and called the pigs. I didn’t do nothing to her, that girl. She’s a liar."
"She had a couple of bruises where she says you tried to strangle her," said Palliser.
"I never. She’s a Goddamn liar."
Palliser offered him a cigarette, lit it, sat back and lit one himself. He said conversationally, "I see you’ve shaved off your little beard."
Smith was startled; he jumped in his chair and said, "How the hell did you-I never seen you before in my life!"
"Oh, we have ways of knowing things about you," said Palliser vaguely. "Where were you a week ago Sunday, Smith, do you remember?"
"A week ago-I don’t know. Somewhere around. I don’t remember."
"Where have you been living?"
"Room over in Ho1lywood."
"Got a job?"
"I been lookin’ for one. I been on unemployment. Some new rule they got, you got to come in ever’ day, wait for a job to show, or they don’t give you no pay. That’s where I been, days."
"I’ll bet," said Palliser, "I could tell you when you shaved off that goatee. It was-"
"I got a right to shave if I want."
"Sure," said Palliser. "But you did it right after you killed that girl, didn’t you? When the other one got away and you were afraid she’d finger you?"
Smith leaped up out of his chair. "You don’t know that! You can’t say that!"
"I just did. That was when, wasn’t it?"
"No, it wasn’t. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man."
"We both know what I’m talking about, Steve. You picked those girls up at a lunch counter on the Boulevard, a week ago Sunday. You ended up raping and strangling one of them."
"I never did no such thing!"
"--But you made a mess of getting rid of the body," said Palliser. "It didn’t burn, you know. The fire went out."
"Thass a Goddamn lie," said Smith, "I seen all the smoke it made, 1ike-" and stopped.
"So, suppose you tell me where you took them," said Palliser gently. So many of the ones they had to deal with were stupid punks like Steve..
"I’m not sayin’ anything else."
"Oh, yes, you are. Just a little more. How did a bum like you happen to have a house to take them to?"
"I ain’t no bum. I said I been lookin’ for a job. I still had a key to it," said Smith sullenly.
"Where is it?" asked Palliser patiently.
"Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt that girl none. She, just like this damn woman last night, she said I should love her up and then she yelled-I didn’t go to-"
"Where, Steve? You might as well tell me, we’ll find out in the end," said Palliser.
He came back to the office at noon. "And I hope to God S.I.D. comes up with some solid evidence," he said to Mendoza. "We haven’t been exactly brilliant on this one-I really didn’t think that Stephanie girl knew what she was talking about-but at least we got there in the end. It was a strictly spur of the moment deal-"
"With the ones like Steve, they usually are," said Higgins, who had been sitting at the other side of Mendoza’s desk when Palliser came in.
" Ya lo creo. So what did he tell you, John?"
"He’d been down here visiting an old pal a couple of days before, and noticed the house was vacant-his mother used to live there, and he still had a key. When he picked up the girls it was the first place he thought of. He got some groceries on the way-there was a refrigerator there, the place was furnished. I’ll bet whoever owns the place will be surprised to get a power bill. It’s on Gladys Avenue."
Mendoza grunted. "Three blocks from San Pedro. Very nice. Let’s hope S.I.D. turns something."
"I just turned them loose on it."
And Lake came in with a telex: the feedback from the FBI on the prints picked up in the Freeman house. Mendoza swore, looking at it. "Why can’t these hoods stay home, George? New to us-his record’s all in West Virginia. Neal Benoy, and he’s wanted for homicide, and that’s all they tell us. Well, we know he’s here, or was, but it’d be helpful to know something more about him. Jimmy, get me an outside line." After an interval, he got connected to a Lieutenant Devore of the Huntington force, and began taking notes. Devore gave him the gist of Benoy’s record. "He’s been just another no-good bum around town till he got together with a kindred spirit one night last August and murdered a harmless old black fellow. We picked them both up, but they made a break on the way to the courthouse for indictment. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were still teamed up-they’re buddies from way back. You want Benoy for something out there? A long way from home-he’s never been out of the state before, far as I know."
"We’ve tied him to a double homicide," said Mendoza. "The lab thinks it was a pair. Who’s the other one?"
"Tony Allesandro. Birds of a feather," said Devore succinctly. "You want his prints and particulars too?"
"Anything you can give us."
"I’ll shoot some stuff out."
" Gracias. We’ll get an A.P.B. out on both of them, just in case." Mendoza put the phone down. Higgins and Palliser had gone out, and Galeano had just come in, looking thoughtful. He sat down in the chair beside the desk. "Have you recovered from your aberration, Nick?"
"Damn you," said Galeano amiably, "it’s not. I said all along that girl is honest-if she wasn’t, she’d have thought up a hell of a lot better tale than that. I just want to put this in front of you-" and he plunged into the story of Marta’s revelations. Mendoza sat back, smoking.
"From the viewpoint of human emotions, interesante, " he said sardonically at the end, "but as for giving us any clue to what happened to Edwin, damn all."
"I know, I know. But it does show why she’d thought and done things to look suspicious. All perfectly natural," said Galeano.
"Maybe."
"And maybe you think she’s conned me!" said Galeano.
"Not necessarily. But I would damn well like to know what did happen to him," said Mendoza. "The hell of it is, the pair of them were so damned isolated-no close friends, the other people in that place strangers, and she-"
"Homesick," said Galeano. "Proud. Holding everybody at arm’s length. I hope she’ll learn better."
"And I’ve reluctantly come round to admit, at least, that there isn’t any smell of a boyfriend," said Mendoza sadly. "It shakes my faith in the eternal venality of human nature."
"They do say, it’s the exception that proves the rule. I just thought you’d like to think all that over," said Galeano, and went out.
Mendoza sighed and swiveled his desk chair around to stare out the window toward the Hollywood hills, invisible today in heavy gray mist. Every now and then something a little more complicated than usual showed up. As a rule the things that bailed them were just the anonymous crimes (like that dairy-store heist) where no possible lead showed and there was nothing much to be done about it. But once in a blue moon, a real mystery came along, where there should be leads and weren’t; and the mystery of Edwin Fleming was the most ballling one that had come their way in some time. He missed Hackett, off today, to talk it over with.