"You can’t expect the free spirits to be up at this hour," said Wanda when he’d knocked five times.
"I can hear somebody in there." At the seventh knock the door was fumbled open.
"What the hell? What you want?"
"Mr. Robinson? Ford Robinson?"
"Yeah?"
"We’d like to ask you some questions about Rodrigo Peralta." Landers showed him the badge.
"Cops!" said Robinson disgustedly. "Cops, in the middle o’ the night. A lady cop yet. What’s with Roddy?" He yawned and scratched his chest. He was covered with so much hair that it was hard to tell what he looked like; he had a mane of wiry curly chestnut hair to his shoulders, he was only wearing shorts and his entire torso was covered with more, like his arms and naked legs.
Landers regarded him for a moment, considering the best approach to use. Wanda spoke up sweetly. "We’re looking for any friends of his who saw him last Monday night. To, you know, say where he was."
"Oh," said Robinson. "Like an alibi. I didn’t see him Monday-more like last Saturday, maybe." He thought. "But I tell you who might of. Yeah, sure. The Kings."
"The Kings?" said Landers, not looking at Wanda.
"Yeah-Nita and Gerald. I run into them on Monday night, downstairs at the disco, they said they were going to see Roddy, see if he had-well, going to see him."
"I see," said Wanda, making businesslike notes. "What time was that?"
"Uh-seven, seven-fifteen like."
"Do you know where the Kings live?"
"Sure, they got a pad right back of here, on Thirty-first." He added the address. "They could prob’ly say Roddy wasn’t wherever you thought he was. Damn cops coming-"
"Thank you very much," said Wanda prettily.
"Listen," said Landers on the sidewalk, "you’re just supposed to be tagging along."
"Men," said Wanda. "You notice we got what we were after. I always believed the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."
Mendoza was sitting at his desk staring out at the Hollywood hills at three o’clock that Friday, the cards scattered on the desk behind him; he had spent an unproductive couple of hours brooding over Fleming. At least the rain had departed definitely; as usual in southern California after a rain, it had turned very cold, and it was brilliantly clear, the back mountains glistening with snow, the nearer hills sharply defined.
The office was quiet; everybody was out on something. The A.P.B. hadn’t brought Benoy in yet. There ought to be a report from S.I.D. on the Hopper killing sometime today. A couple of autopsy reports were in; nothing much in them.
"?Ca! " said Mendoza to himself. " A su tiempo maduran las uvas. " He got up and fished in his pocket for change for the coffee machine, and Sergeant Lake came in and shut the door behind him.
"We’ve got ca1lers," he said. He was looking grim and rather pleased; he had one hand behind him.
"Anybody interesting?"
"Oh, I think so," said Lake. "I think you’ll like her. A very respectable widow by the name of Mrs. Consuelo Gomez. She’s got a mustache, seven sons, and a tender conscience."
"Meaning what, Jimmy?" Mendoza sat down again. Sergeant Lake brought his hand from behind his back with something in it. He laid it on top of the cards on Mendoza’s desk. Mendoza stared at it.
It was a large silver crucifix on a long silver chain. The center of the cross was studded with an opaque pale-green veined stone. It was, in fact, the crucifix which had been torn from Father Patrick Joseph O’Brien when the pretty boys attacked him.
Mendoza raised his eyes from it, and they had gone very cold. "Suppose you show the lady in."
"Oh, she’s got one of them with her," said Lake. "Her youngest, Guido." He went out, and a minute later they came in. Mrs. Gomez was mountainous, in ancient and decent black silk, black hair piled in a knob on her head. But his eyes passed over her to the big boy behind her. Boy-he might be twenty, he was big but gangling: unused to his size as yet, awkward. Almost handsome, a poor attempt at a mustache, long waving black hair. And the very natty loud sports jacket, striped blue and green, a dark shirt, a wide tie.
She sat in the chair beside the desk and flooded Mendoza with emotion, religious and otherwise. "He is my youngest, my baby, I worry over him, I know he goes with these foolish young ones, and he does not come to church any more-I try to talk to him, I say-"
"Oh, for God’s sake knock it off, Mama! You just wasting their time with your crazy ideas-" He gave Mendoza a calculatedly apologetic smile. "Listen, she’s old country, know what I mean, you don’t want to pay no notice, I didn’t want to come here waste your-"
"You be still or I smack you again seven times! Oh, no, you don’t want to come here, to police, and I am stupid and old, but I am yet your mother! I have to drag him here, he feels my hand hard-and maybe he should feel it more often since he thinks he is all grown to a man! Away from his so-clever modern friends, he comes with me, I see to that!" She was breathing asthmatically, and her little black eyes were bright. Queerly, for she didn’t look anything like Teresa Sanchez y Mendoza, he was reminded of his grand mother.
"That," she said, and pointed to the crucifix on the desk, "that is why! That, I find in his drawer! It will be-"
"For God’s sake," he said, "for God’s sake. I told you I found it. On the street."
"That, I know. It is the crucifix the priest at the church always was wearing. Father O’Brien. And he has been murdered, the other Father has told us, by these terrible wicked ones. I have seven sons," she cried emotionally, and all her chins wobbled magnificently, "and I thank the good God the six of them are decent Christian men, it is for my sins I have this wicked one-I tremble to think what he has done, if indeed it can be he has attacked a priest, but I know my duty to God and the law-I bring him to you!"
"For Christ’s sake!" said the boy. "Of all the crap! I told you I found the damn thing, I thought it might be worth a couple bucks at a hock shop. That’s all I know about it."
"Where’d you End it?" asked Mendoza.
"It was over on Fourth somewheres, just lying in the street."
"When?" asked Mendoza.
"Oh, Jesus’ sake, couple o’ days ago." He met Mendoza’s cold eyes and suddenly backed away. "You aren’t gonna believe the stupid old lady, I had anything to do-I found it!"
"I have known he is running with wicked ones, late at night, never would he tell me where he is, and sometimes drinking too much wine-I have implored him, take the good little job his uncle offers, earn the money-I do not know where he has money, his clothes-"
"Knock it off!" he said furiously. "For God’s sake, all that crap about God and the law- That guy outside, he said Mendoza-I suppose you go for all that too, hah? I got shut of that a good long while back! Anything to all that, the hellfire, nobody in the world get out of it-I told you it was all in your silly Goddamn mind, you takin’ a hand to me like I was still a kid-"
"I know my duty to God!"
"To hell with your stupid God! And these Goddamn cops, stupid damn pigs-" His eye fell on the gadget on Mendoza’s desk, the life-sized pearl-handled revolver, and he laughed a little wildly. "Great big men, long as you got the guns around! You believe her, take me in and beat me up so I say anything-"
"Suppose we all calm down," said Mendoza. "Did you mention finding this to anyone, Mr. Gomez?"
"Goddamn all of you!" he said. And suddenly he made a grab for the gadget, snatched it up and turned it on his mother. "You Goddamned fool!" And he pressed the trigger.
Mendoza was on his feet. The barrel belched forth the torch-like flame, and Guido Gomez dropped the thing and began to scream hoarsely. "Fires of hell-fires of hell- fuegos del infierno -I didn’t mean to kill the priest, I didn’t know he was a priest, I didn’t mean-"