an honest-to-God fight.
No, neither of them ever remembered an adult coming in not to skate. There'd been a kind of fad for it once, like that miniature golf and ping-pong, that was when Ehrlich had opened this place, but nowadays anybody grown-up, they'd feel like a danm fool roller skating. Well, the chairs round the sides were for people to sit and watch, sure, but this wasn't like an Ice Palace where there was a show to see, for God's sake-just a bunch of kids skating-nobody came just for that, the chairs were mostly used by the kids themselves, resting and talking.
As for the club thing, it wasn't really a club but a kind of season-ticket deal, see. You got a cut rate if you joined as a 'regular patron': there weren't no meetings or nothing, all a card meant was they'd paid three or six months in advance. All the kids with cards didn't necessarily know each other: sometimes yes, sometimes no. A card was an automatic pass good for three nights a week up to the date on it. What with kids sixteen and seventeen getting maybe forty a week at some job, a lot of them had more money than was good for them, to throw away. Both men knew the Ramirez girl and confirmed that she had been in last night. What with the row, they could hardly miss her. Ehrlich had been damned mad about it too, the guy saying the rink was a low dive and all: Ehrlich was death on liquor in the place. This fellow barged right in, about twenty minutes to ten it was, and pulled the kid off the floor-one that was with this girl. Gave him hell, way the kids both looked: but not shouting, private-like at the side of the rink, see, where it was kind of dark, account the overhead lights were just in the middle, to light the skating floor. The fellow took the boy out finally, maybe five minutes later-practically dragged him, hardly give him time to take his skates off and turn them in. Yes, off the premises-Ehrlich probably saw them go out to the street or wherever, he was arguing at the guy and followed them. The girl was mad too, naturally. And she didn't stay long after; a couple other kids come up and talked to her, but she probably didn't feel much like staying to skate alone, thought it made her look silly, have her boy friend dragged away from her like that. She took off her skates when the other kids left her, and turned them in to Hayes who was on duty then, and left the floor. Murphy, who was having a cigarette in the little foyer, had noticed her come out; she'd gone into the rest room- those were opposite sides of the foyer, with the ticket desk in the center. Ehrlich was sitting there again by then, he would have seen her too. She was in the rest room maybe five minutes, and come out, and left. That was maybe ten or five after. It sure was awful, what had happened to her-to think of a guy who'd do that walking around loose. No, neither of them could say offhand if anybody left right after her-the kids came and went all the time, there was a Coke machine in the foyer. And what the hell were the cops getting at with that?-somebody from here the one killed her? If Ehrlich heard that he'd hit the ceiling-besides, they were all kids in here last night, like every night, and no kid had done that.
Dwyer had called in at one-thirty to report that Tomas Ramirez had left Liggitt Street and was sitting alone in a bar-and that it might be a good idea if the relief man sent to join Dwyer understood Spanish. Sergeant Lake's prim script appended-Sent Smith, so that had been taken care of.
Mendoza got up restlessly and stood at the window, not really focusing on the panoramic view of the city spread out before him. He wished the Ramirez house had a phone; there was, he had thought, no such great urgency about the matter that it could not wait a couple of hours-he would stop on his way home, or Hackett could see them tomorrow. Now suddenly he felt that it was urgent.
It was four o'clock. He told himself he was a single-minded fool, and on his way out told Sergeant Lake he'd be back in half an hour. He drove the few blocks to Liggitt Street, and as he pulled up at the curb before the house Teresa Ramirez came out. Scarf over her hair for the rain, shabby brown coat, folded string shopping bag on her way to market, probably for tonight's dinner. ('You got to think about them that's still alive.') He lowered the window and beckoned her.
She ducked in beside him for shelter from the rain, held the door shut but not latched. 'You found out anything yet?'
'A little. Something else I want to ask you about.'
'Well, O.K., only I got the shopping to do-but it don't matter, I guess, if it'll help you catch this fellow.'
'I'll drive you wherever you're going. Did your sister-'
'That's real nice of you, but I don't want to put you out. But maybe you get gas allowance on the job?-excuse me, I don't mean to sound nosy, but I guess you don't get paid much, driving such an old car, and I wouldn't want you should go out of your way for me-'
'No trouble at all,' said Mendoza without a smile. 'Tell me-and take your time to think about it-did your sister say anything to you recently about being annoyed by a man who followed her and stared at her?'
'They did, sometimes,' she said, nodding. 'I told her it was account of her looking so-you know-and that Miss Weir at that school said so too. But-you mean special, just lately? I can't remember she mentioned anything like that… Wait a minute though, she did! Only it wasn't a man like that, like you mean, somebody whistling at her or making smart cracks. Way she said it, it was more as if there was something sort of funny about it. She didn't say much-just about some guy who stared at her, got on her nerves, you know. She said she was going try find out who he was, and get him to stop.'
Mendoza almost dropped his cigarette, suppressing an exclamation. 'She said that? It sounds as if he were someone local then, someone who lives or works around here?'
'Don't know anything about that, I don't think she mentioned any particular place she'd seen him-except-she did say, and I guess that must've been what she meant, she thought she knew somebody who knew this guy. A kid over on Commerce Street, she said… No, I don't know if this kid lived on Commerce or she'd maybe just seen him there, see. She just said, next time she saw him she was going to ask him who this other guy was, and tell him tell the guy stop bothering her.'
'She had seen this boy with him?'
'Maybe. I don't know. She must've, or how would she know the boy knew him? All Elena said she knew about him, was his name's Danny… . I didn't pay much notice to it, she didn't sound like it was anything important, just- like it made her kind of mad because it was so silly.'
Do we start moving at last? Mendoza asked himself. A little something, a nuance, no more-maybe nothing at all-but a starting place.
He was pleased. He asked her where she wanted to go.
'Main an' First, its nice of you… You mean you think this guy might be the one? But it wasn't anything at all, or I'd sure have remembered and told you before! She didn't sound like she was scared of him or anything. You might ask that Miss Weir about it, though, if you think it's real important, because Elena did say she was going to tell her all about it-maybe she told her more than she did me.'
FIVE
Martin Lindstrom put on the blue corduroy jacket that was getting too small for him, and buttoned it up slowly. He didn't feel very good.
'Where you going?' she asked sharply.
'Just out awhile.' He still had fifteen cents left but that wasn't enough to get into a movie, except the one over on Main that had Mexican pictures, and those were never any good even if you could talk Mexican, nothing interesting in them.
'You be back for supper, mind! I don't want you gallivanting all over the streets alla time like these kids their mothers don't care what they're up to. Why you got to go out, Marty? It's raining something fierce, you better stay home.'
'I-I-got to see a guy's all,' he said. 'One o' the guys at school, Ma, I said I'd help him with his homework, see.'
'Oh.' Her tight mouth relaxed a little; she was proud of his good marks at school.
It was a lie; and he didn't want to go out in the rain, but he didn't want to stay here either; he felt bad, but he wasn't sure about what exactly, just everything. He'd been feeling that way a long while, all wrong but not knowing how or where, seemed like. Of course he knew when everything had sort of started to get on top of him like this, it was after Dad went. He wondered where Dad was now. The funny thing was, and it was part of the bad feeling now, he ought to be feeling better about everything because of what that guy this morning said about finding Dad.
