“Thanks much. Anything you’d like to hear?”
“Nothing in particular,” said Collins. “But I wonder how I can get word to Ricks?”
“Beats me. Maybe hire one of them sky-writing machines.”
“I’d better talk to Mansfield. Do you know where he can be found?”
“I sure do. That’s Jake playing the guitar — the heavy-set guy. Hang around. We take a break after this number.”
Collins took Lorna back to the table, and they waited while the group sang Rover’s Got a Doghouse in the Sky. The selection received applause. Little Lefty bowed; Jake Mansfield played a quick pizzicato on his Durbro. Collins went back to the bandstand.
He signaled Mansfield, a fleshy man wearing tight black trousers, an imitation suede sports shirt, and a turquoise and silver neck ornament.
Mansfield incuriously approached. “Hi, friend. Was you waving to me?”
“I’m trying to get in touch with Steve Ricks. Lefty said you were the man to ask. But come over to the table; I’ll stand you a drink.”
“Words I like to hear,” said Mansfield. He followed Collins quickly.
Collins performed introductions, signaled the waitress. “Two more of the same for us, and whatever Mr. Mansfield wants.”
“Call me Jake. I’ll have Scotch on the rocks. Double, if the gentleman’s good for it.”
“Sure,” said Collins expansively. “When a man has money it’s his duty to spend it.”
“Me, too,” said Jake Mansfield. “But with me the project’s still in the talking stage. You know Steve?”
“I know his ex-wife. Ricks is behind on his alimony.”
Mansfield looked uninterested. “With Steve that’s the way it would be, all right. Too bad you wasted the drink, sport. I don’t know where he is.”
“I looked for him last weekend,” said Collins. “I thought he played with your group.”
Mansfield nodded. “He’s not a bad guy. Got a nice personality. He didn’t make the scene last week — let on he was sick, but looked pretty healthy to me.”
“He didn’t say where he was heading over the weekend?”
“Nobody tells me anything. I’m the boss. Cheers.” He raised his glass, swallowed two thirds at a gulp. “You a lawyer?”
“No, nothing like that. I just wanted to talk to him. Does he have a girl friend?”
“Nobody special. See that little redhead over there? Steve’s been playing around with her. That’s her husband, that big boy in the red shirt. He’s a truck driver. Maybe that’s why Steve didn’t come around last week. He’s got a real good survival instinct. Wished I had it. My life has been one sorry mess.” He finished his drink and glanced thoughtfully at Collins, who signaled the waitress.
“Something a little funny about this,” said Jake Mansfield. “I still think you must be a lawyer. Or a process-server?”
“Not so you could notice it,” Collins laughed.
“You got a way about you like the cops on TV. They come out on top every time.”
Collins smiled wryly. “On TV.”
“Look at Ody over there. The bouncer. Wouldn’t think he’s a cop, would you? Half a ton of blubber. How he keeps the peace! Give Ody your lip and his backside blots out the ceiling. ’Scuse me, Miz Collins. Well, here’s cheers.”
“Cheers,” said Collins. “I’d surely like to talk to Steve.”
“Can’t help you, my friend.” Mansfield rose. “I got to go back to the stand. Come back tomorrow night and hear a real band. This is just a pick-up group.”
“Maybe we’ll do that.”
“Thanks for the lousy Scotch.”
For another twenty minutes Collins sat brooding, the highball warming in his hand. Lorna sat by him in quiet empathy. Suddenly he turned an interrogative look at her. She nodded, picked up her purse, and they left.
On the following day Steve Ricks’ car was found by the city police; more accurately, it was brought to the attention of the city police by a Mrs. Ramon Menendez, who lived in a square yellow cabin under two fig trees on Matthews Avenue, an unpaved lane six blocks from the Santa Fé yard. According to Mrs. Menendez, the car had been parked on Matthews Avenue Tuesday night. She had paid no particular attention to it; many of the neighborhood youths owned just such jalopies. Some time during Thursday night the car was stripped, probably by some of the self-same teenagers, and Mrs. Menendez had telephoned the police.
The discovery was reported to the Sheriff’s office, and Inspector Collins came out to investigate. With its tires removed, the faded, dented car looked like a cripple.
Collins walked around it while Wilson, the fingerprint man, investigated the interior. Wilson pointed to a smear on the plastic seat. “Looks to me like blood.”
Collins nodded without any great interest. “It figures. Can I look in the glove compartment?”
“Go ahead.”
The glove compartment yielded nothing of interest. Collins snapped it shut, went to the rear of the car, pried open the trunk. Here he found a cheap suitcase containing a rumpled black and white sports shirt, several packets of guitar strings, as many prophylactics, and a bottle of mouthwash.
Collins closed the trunk, and rejoined Wilson. He raised the rear cushion and found only dirt and lint.
A few minutes later Wilson got out.
“Get anything?” asked Collins.
“Not much. Some smears. Two or three prints — maybe.”
“About what I expected,” said Collins. “But there’s one little thing I see that cheers me up.” He made an entry in his notebook and went off for a talk with Mrs. Menendez.
She was a short dark woman, speaking accented English. She was excited by the proximity of crime. Yes, she told Collins with flashing hands, she had noticed the car drive into Matthews Street on the night of Tuesday, June 16. The lights had gone past her windows about nine o’clock — she had been expecting her sister to call and had run to the door, only to see the car halt a few feet down the street.
“Then what happened?”
“Then nothing happen. I see this man sitting in the car, he sit for a minute like he thinks real hard. I notice him because I wonder why somebody want to stop in the middle of the road so late at night. But he don’t look like he was leaving, so I go back in the house. When I go to see again, during the commercial, the car look empty. I could see because the light down by Flora Street is shining through the windshield. Then I see the man. He was sitting real quiet.”
I’ll bet he was, thought Collins — he was resting after bludgeoning Steve Ricks and heaving him aboard the boxcar. Not to mention hacking off his victim’s hands and knocking out the teeth... Funny, now that he thought about it. The murderer had gone to great lengths to hinder identification of the body, yet he had casually abandoned his victim’s car without troubling to remove the license plates or destroy the registration certificate. The madman theory again?
Collins took his leave of Mrs. Menendez and pondered the matter. The situation was probably this: the identified corpse of Steve Ricks would have led to an investigation in which awkward disclosures might come to light. So it was necessary that the corpse be rendered unidentifiable. By putting it aboard a boxcar, it might even go undiscovered for two or three weeks.
An automobile was more difficult to dispose of. Why hadn’t the murderer merely left the car in front of 982 Mulberry Street, where it might stand uninvestigated for weeks? Miscalculation? Carelessness? Panic? Probably something of the sort, thought Collins. The murderer had completed his grisly work and wanted only to get back to the world of normalcy; he dropped it off in the first likely looking side street.