want-” Mendoza was prodded back across the living room to the kitchen, to admire a very small table with chromium-tube legs and a rose-colored plastic top, chairs to match, real blue tile on the drainboard, a practically new refrigerator and stove. Mrs. Bragg pounded the table to illustrate its sturdiness, and it rocked violently.
'There now, he's got it over the trap-you don't need to worry about that, it's just what they call access for the plumber, case they have to get at the line underneath, and it don't hardly show a bit, you can see, it covered with the same linoleum. You see, it's steady as a rock, you get it in the right place. Everything handy. I don't deny it's small, but arranged very convenient, as you can see-' She made a sudden dart at the narrow kitchen door and snatched up an object from the threshold: I a shiny new trowel. 'So that's where my trowel got to-he musta been at that Tree of Heaven again. Real helpful he was, and quite the gardener, I often said to him, ‘You ought have a place of your own.' He even got me some special plant food for the blamed thing, but it didn't seem to do no good. Well, now, you can see what a bargain the place is at ninety-'
'But really I'm not interested in another apartment-”
'-And I'm not one of those fussy landladies, either. Men will be men, single ones, that is, and some of the others, and women I don't mind, none of my business and live and let live I always say, as long as everything's quiet and no rowdy parties. The only thing I do draw the line at-just in the interests of my investment here, as you can understand-is pets and children, that I can't have-'
Mendoza, between fascination and the feeling that he might willy-nilly find himself signing a lease on the spot, perceived that Providence was rescuing him. He said in that case the apartment would never do, as he had some cats. 'Cats!' exclaimed Mrs. Bragg, recoiling a step.
'Three cats,' said Mendoza. 'That is, a cat and two kittens.'
'Cats I will not have. I'm afraid if you want the apartment you'll have to get rid of them.' She looked at him disapprovingly, he had disappointed her. Something peculiar about a man who kept cats, and three at that.
'I'm only curious,' said Mendoza, recovering his equilibrium, 'but do you say that to prospective tenants with children?'
'Tenants with children or pets I don't take. I'm sorry, but you should have explained that to start with and I needn't have wasted time showing you over the place. I'm very sorry, but I can't make any exception.' She all but pushed him out the door. 'I'm sure you can understand that it's ruination on a furnished place.'
Mendoza got back into his car as she banged her own front door.
' Quid! ' he said to himself. 'And my grandmother asks me why I don't marry a wife! A ningun precio -not at any price, take such a chance!'
THREE
He looked, in the places indicated to look, and found nothing. If there was anything funny anywhere, it didn't show in any way. He saw the kids again, the insolent, sullen kids who didn't clearly understand that they'd done anything wrong, just resented the cops for putting them in jail. Who said sullenly, insolently, that the cops were making scapegoats of them (though they didn't use that word) on the Bartlett thing-probably had some reason to put Bartlett away themselves and were covering for the real killer.
He even thought about that, but not for very long, because while all cops in uniform and out, who carried guns at all, carried. 38's, they weren't smooth bores and Ballistics would have spotted it right away. He looked back in the records over Joe Bartlett's career, and at the family, and it was all one big blank.
Hackett went to see everybody again, and it all sounded just the way it had before. Hackett said, 'I told you so. Walsh, he hadn't had the experience, that's all, and it shook him-only natural.'
Mendoza began to agree. You just didn't run into the kind of thing it would be if it wasn't those juveniles-the fiction-plot thing, the obscure complexity.
Walsh had come to see him on Tuesday, and by Thursday, having taken his closer look at it, Mendoza stopped looking. He saw Walsh again on Friday, and told him it looked like a mare's nest. And after Walsh had thanked him for listening anyway, and gone, he sat there with a couple of days' work in front of him and felt uneasy about it. He didn't know why. It wasn't a hunch; it wasn't the kids' stubborn denial, although there was a little something there, all right: it had made them feel like big-time pros to have shot that cashier; that one they hadn't tried to deny-of course they couldn't, there were witnesses. And the cashier hadn't died after all: the homicide charge depended entirely on Bartlett.
It wasn't anything he could put a finger on-that made him wonder if he hadn't missed something…
After a while he put it forcibly out of his mind and went back to the several cases on hand when Walsh had first come in.
The day after that he happened to drop in at the same restaurant for lunch that Woods and Goldberg had picked. Federico's, where a good many of the headquarters officers habitually went, was closed for redecoration, and this was a hole-in-the-wall place which opened out unexpectedly into several large dining rooms. It wasn't fancy, but the food was good and not too expensive, and there were no jukeboxes or piped-in-music: you could eat in peace. Consequently it was crowded, and he wandered through the first two rooms into the third looking for a table. There, at the back, he ran into Goldberg and Woods just sitting down, and joined them principally because the only empty chair was at their table.
Lieutenant Goldberg of Burglary and Theft he knew, but Sergeant Woods he didn't. Woods was young for a sergeant, not more than twenty-eight; he looked more like an earnest postgraduate student of something like anthropology. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with a pale face under already thinning dark hair, a rich bass voice, and a very quiet manner.
Goldberg asked how life was treating Mendoza these days, and Mendoza said he couldn't complain. The waiter took their orders and went away, cigarettes were lit, and after a little desultory conversation Goldberg asked suddenly, 'Say, what should you do for a cat that has fleas? Is the stuff for dogs too strong?'
'Fleas? Cats that are properly cared for don't have fleas. Where does she sleep-or he?'
'She, we've still got a kitten we couldn't find a home for. In the garage, at least I fixed a box with an old blanket, but half the time- ”
“ Entendido, there's your trouble, leaving her outside at night to roam all over. Keep her in-I know people think they're nocturnal animals, but when they live with us they keep our hours, you know.'
'Well, I suppose I could bring the box into the service porch.'
'You can, not that it'll do much good,' said Mendoza. 'She'll pick her own bed, and quite likely it'll be yours or one of the kids'. Let her. If you've been feeding her things out of cans, stop it, and get her fresh liver and beef. Wheatgerm oil twice a week, and lots of brushing with a good stiff brush.'
'Look,' said Goldberg, 'I've got a living to earn, I can't spend all the time waiting on a cat, and my wife's got the house and the kids-neither can she. Do you know what beef liver's gone to now? Of course it's an academic question with you. All I asked was about flea powder.'
'And I told you what to do. Let a vet de-flea her now. Fresh meat only, horsemeat'll do, and meanwhile brush half a can of talcum into her every day.'
'Look,' said Goldberg, 'she's only a cat.”
Mendoza put out his cigarette as the waiter came up and said, 'You shouldn't have a cat, Goldberg, you've got the wrong attitude entirely. Cat people say, ‘We're only human beings.' '
Woods uttered the deep rumbling laugh that sounded so surprising coming from his weedy-looking frame and said, 'Reason I don't like cats around much-like a lot of people, I think-not that I don't like them exactly, but they make me feel so damned inferior.'
'Isn't it the truth,' agreed Mendoza. 'Yes, if they'd only admit it, I'm convinced that's the reason some people say they can't stand cats. Now I'm an egotist myself, I admit it, but it certainly hasn't cured me. Right now I've got a cat that's crazy-in a devilish sort of way-and even he makes me feel inferior.”
'Is that so?' said Woods. 'A crazy cat?'
'Possessed of the devil. I intended to keep one of the kittens, but I ended up with this El Se n or as well
