anything about women’s clothes.'
'As intelligent people we should always try to overcome these illogical prejudices? He had not moved to start the engine; he smiled at her.
'You know, it would be regrettable if you were lying to me, Miss Weir.'
The little amusement died from her green-hazel eyes meeting his. 'Do you think I’ve lied to you? Why? I-'
'No, I don’t think so. But Teresa Ramirez says her sister meant to tell you about this ‘queer boy,’ and yet you don’t know quite as much as she told Teresa.'
'I told you about that. She probably did mean to tell me a lot more, but I took up her consultation time with lecturing her. You can’t regret it any more than I do, Lieutenant! If I’d listened to her-'
'Yes,' said Mendoza. He’d turned sideways to look at her, his right arm along the seat-back; he laughed abruptly and slid his hand down to brush her shoulder gently, reaching to the ignition. 'I’ll tell you why I’m not just a hundred percent sure-I mustn’t be. Because I’m working this on a preconceived idea, and that’s dangerous. I find something that I doesn’t fit, I’m tempted to think, let it go, it’s not important-because I don’t want to prove my beautiful theory wrong. Just now and then I am wrong, and it’s not an experience I enjoy.'
'I see. I also dislike egotistical men.'
' Mi gatita roja, what you mean is that you dislike the ones honest enough to admit to vanity-nobody walking on two legs isn’t an egotist. And you should have more common sense than to talk so rudely to a rich man.'
'Are you?'
'I am. None of my doing-in case you were thinking of bribes from gangsters-my grandfather was shrewd enough to buy up quite a lot of land which turned out to be just where the city was expanding-office buildings, you know, and hotels, and department stores-all crazy for land to build on. And fortunately I was his only grandson. It was a great shock to everybody, there he was for years in a thirty-dollar-a-month apartment, saying we couldn’t afford this and that, damning the gas company as robbers if the bill was over two dollars, and buying secondhand clothes-my God, he once got a hundred dollars out of me on the grounds of family duty, to pay a hospital bill-and me still in the rookie training school and in debt for my uniforms! And then when he died it all came out. My grandmother hasn’t recovered from the shock yet-she’s still furious at him, and that was nearly fifteen years ago.'
'Oh. Why?'
'For fifty-eight years she’d been nagging at him to stop his gambling-she’d been telling him for fifty-eight years that gamblers are all wastrels, stealing the food out of their families’ mouths to throw away, and they always die without a penny to bless themselves. And that’s where he got his capital-his winnings. And to add insult to injury-because if she’d known about it, she’d have found some way to save face and also, being a woman, something else to nag him about-he managed to get the last word by dying before she found it out. Frankly, I think myself it wasn’t all luck, the old boy wasn’t above keeping a few high cards up his sleeve, but you know the one about the gift horse. And unfortunately,' added Mendoza, sliding neatly ahead of an indignant bus to get in the right-turn lane, 'by then I’d got into the habit of earning an honest living, and I’ve never cured myself.'
'Well, it’s an original approach to a girl,' said Alison thoughtfully. 'Such a fascinating subject too-I’ve always been so interested in money, if only I’d had the chance to study it oftener I might have developed real talent for it. But I must say, I should think you’d bolster up your ego more by doing the King Cophetua business, instead of practically offering a bribe. Not at all subtle.'
'I’m always loved for myself alone. And why? Es claro -a woman of high principle like you, she’s afraid to be taken for a gold digger, so she starts out being very stand-offish. She’s so busy convincing me she’s not interested in my money, vaya, she’s never on guard against my charm.'
'Ah, the double play. I keep forgetting you’re an egotist. But what about the stupid ones?-the ones like Elena, all bleached curls and giggles and gold ankle chains? The ones those tired middle-aged businessmen-'
'?Vaya por Dios! I never go near such females, except in the way of work. There’s no credit to the marksman in an easy target.'
'Or to the wolf who catches the smallest lamb? I see what you mean.'
'So I’ll let you have the last word. You’ll do me a favor tomorrow-'
'What?' She regarded him warily.
Mendoza grinned at her. 'Don’t sound so suspicious, I don’t operate so crude and sudden as that! Look, I want you to ask all your girls if Elena said anything at all to them about this staring man. Don’t tell them much, don’t lead them-a couple of them might make up this or that to be important-but you’ll be more apt to get something helpful out of them if anything’s there to be got. Official questioning might encourage them to romanticize.'
'Oh, well, certainly I’ll do that, I meant to anyway. Yes, I think you’re right about that.'
At headquarters he piloted her upstairs to his office. She looked around curiously. 'What exactly is the procedure? I’ve never done this before.'
'I’ve made a rough draft, here, of the substance of what you told me. Just look it over and see if you want to change or add anything, and then we’ll get it typed for you to sign. And what do you want?' he added as Hackett wandered in after them. 'I thought you were safely occupied for the afternoon.'
' Una espectativa vana,' said Hackett, spreading his hands. 'Kids! It’s the damnedest thing, they’ll be budding Einsteins at twelve, but the minute they hit their teens I swear to God they all turn into morons. You’d think they were blind and deaf.' His eyes were busy on Alison.
'It’s a phenomenon known as puberty,' said Mendoza. 'Nothing?'
'Nada. You goin’ to remember your manners, or do I count as the hired help around here?'
'Miss Weir-the cross I am given to bear, Sergeant Hackett.'
'The brawn,' said Alison wisely, nodding at him. 'I knew you must have somebody to do the real work.'
'And she has brains too,' said Hackett admiringly. 'You got a visitor, Luis, before I forget. That Ramirez girl.' He jerked a thumb.
'Oh?' Mendoza got up. 'You’ll excuse me, Miss Weir-if this caveman type gets obstreperous, you’ve only to scream.'
Standing there by the clerk’s empty desk in the anteroom, before she spoke, she wasn’t this century at all. Black cotton dress too long, the shabby brown coat over her arm, and a black woolen shawl held around her, both hands clasping it at her breast. No make-up: she’d come straight from church, from late mass, probably. This large official place had somewhat subdued her.
'You wanted to see me, Miss Ramirez? Sit down here, won’t you?'
'Oh, thanks, but it won’t take long, what I come for. I wasn’t sure you’d be here, Sunday an’ all, I thought I’d ask could I leave a note for you-' She took a breath. 'There was some of your guys come with a warrant, to look all through Elena’s things-Mama, she just had a fit, she don’t understand about these things so good-'
'I’m sorry it troubled her. We have to do that, you know.'
'Sure, I know, it don’t matter, we haven’t nothing to hide.'
He wondered: the visiting uncle? The faint defiance over the honesty in her round brown eyes looked convincing. He thought, whether they caught the shifty Tio Tomas at anything or not, that was a wrong one; but he also thought the Ramirez family hadn’t an inkling of that. He waited; she had something else to say. She fidgeted with the shawl, burst out a little nervously, 'I-I thought of something else, Lieutenant, that’s why I come.'
'Yes?'
'I don’t want to sound like I’m telling you your own business, see, but-well, you are sort of looking into that Palace skating place, aren’t you? I mean-'
'We are. Why?'
'I don’t know nothing about it,' she said. 'I never been there myself, and anyway I guess this don’t have anything to do with it, I mean whoever runs it, you know. But I got to thinking, after you asked me yesterday about any guy bothering Elena, I tried to remember just what she did say, if there was anything I hadn’t told you. And I remembered one more thing she said. It was when she was talking about this fellow watching her, she said, ‘He gets on my nerves, honest, I nearly fell down a couple times.’ '
'Now that’s very interesting,' said Mendoza.
'See, she must’ve meant it was at the rink she saw him. Once, anyways. Because where else would being nervous make her almost fall down? I-'
