in Washington-you'll have heard of them-'
'Which ones?'
'It says Bureau of Internal Revenue on the door. Now, the L.A.P.D. couldn't get one useful piece of evidence against the gentleman I mentioned-as we can't always against a lot of others in a lot of businesses, and I do mean big businesses, on the wrong side of the law. But we can't poke our noses into some things those fellows can. A hundred-thousand-dollar apartment house-a new Cadillac-a mink coat for the girl friend-you are doing well, Mr. Smith, how come you never told your uncle about it? And if Mr. Smith can't explain just where it all came from, he's got a lot more grief than a mere city cop could ever hand him.'
'Oh, I see. I do indeed. Cover.'
'And then,' added Mendoza, not altogether humorously, 'when uncle has stowed Mr. Smith away in jail for tax evasion, the indignant public points an accusing finger at us and says, Corrupt cops!-they must have known about him! Stupid cops!-if they didn't find out! Why wasn't he arrested for his real crimes? You try to tell them, just try, that it's because we have to operate within laws about evidence designed to protect the public…. I wonder whether I ought to call in and tell Pat's office about this.' Mr. Tomes-Domingo, who had made a precipitate exit on first catching sight of him, reappeared round the screen at the service doors, polishing his bald head with a handkerchief. He shot one furtive glance in Mendoza's direction, pasted on a professional happy smile, and began to circulate among the tables, pausing for a bow, a word here and there with a favored patron. 'Oh, well, there's no hurry-he won't run away, and for all I know he's reformed and hasn't any reason to anyway.'
The steaks could have been less tough; the service might with advantage have been less ostentatious. Mendoza asked her presently whether she'd got anything useful from any of the girls.
'I wondered when you'd ask. Nothing at all, I'm sorry to say-she hadn't said anything to any of them about that. But she didn't know any of them well, after all.'
'No. I didn't expect much of that. I've got a queer sort of an-can I it a lead?-from another angle, but I don't know that that means much either… What do you think of the murals? I've never asked you what kind of thing you paint.'
Alison said the murals constituted a libel on the feline race and that she was herself unfashionably pre- Impressionistic. 'This and that-I'm not wedded to any one particular type of subject. Now and then I actually sell something.' They talked about painting; they talked about cats.
'But when you're away all day, you can't keep pets, it's not fair.'
'Nobody keeps a cat. They condescend to live with you is all. And as for the rest of it, I moved. It's miles farther for me to drive, and the rent's higher, but it's on the ground floor and they let me put in one of those little swinging doors in the back door, out to the yard. You've seen the ads-let your pet come and go freely. Yes, a fine idea, but she won't use it-she knows how it works, but she doesn't like the way it slaps her behind, and she got her tail pinched once. Fortunately the other seven apartments are inhabited by cat people. Four of them have keys to mine and run in and out all day waiting on her, which of course is what she schemes for. I believe Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Bryson,' he added, looking around for the waiter, 'alternate their shopping tours and visits to the beauty salon-coffee, please-' And pairhaps some of our special brandy, sair?'
'That I need,' said Alison, 'after listening to this barefaced confession. Battening on the charity of your neighbors like that-'
'One of the reasons I picked the apartment. The Elgins keep her supplied with catnip mice, they buy them in wholesale lots, having three Siamese of their own. Of course there is a man two doors down who has a spaniel, but one must expect some undesirables in these unrestricted neighborhoods.' The waiter came back with the coffee, the brandy, and the bill on a salver, contriving to slide that in front of Mendoza by a kind of legerdemain suggesting that it appeared out of thin air, not through any offices of this obsequious and excellent servant. Mendoza looked at it, laid two tens on the salver and said now he needed the brandy too.
'I have no sympathy for you,' said Alison.
When they came out into the foyer, Mendoza hesitated, glancing at the discreet row of phone booths in an alcove. 'I wonder if I had-' There had appeared no bowing, smiling headwaiter as they left the dining room, to make the last honors to new patrons, urge a return. 'Oh, well,' and he put a hand automatically to his pocket for more largesse as one of the several liveried lackeys approached with Alison's coat.
'So 'appy to 'ave 'ad you wiz us, sair and madame-I 'ope you enjoyed your disenair? You mus' come back soon-Holy Mother o' God, what the hell was that?' Between them they dropped the coat; the lackey took one look over Alison's shoulder, said, 'Jesus, let me out of here!' and dived blindly for the door, staggering Mendoza aside. The second volley of shots was a medley of several calibers, including what sounded like a couple of regulation's. From the dark end of the corridor off the foyer plunged a large, shapeless man waving a revolver, and close after him the tuxedo-clad rotundity of Mr. Tomes-Domingo, similarly equipped. The checkroom attendant prudently dropped flat behind his counter as the large man paused to fire twice more behind him and charged into the foyer.
'Wait for me, Neddy!' Mr. Tomes-Domingo sent one wild shot behind him and another inadvertently into the nearest phone booth as he continued flight.
The first man swept the gun in an are round the foyer. 'Don't nobody move-I'm comin' through-'
Mendoza recovered his balance, shoved Alison hard to sprawl full length on the floor, and in one leap covered the ten feet to the gun as it swung back in his direction. He got a good left-handed grip on the gunhand as they collided, his momentum lending force to the considerable impact, and as they went down landed one right that connected satisfactorily.
Neddy went over backward and Mendoza went with him; the gun emptied itself into the ceiling as they hit the floor with Mendoza's knee in the paunch under him; Neddy uttered a strangled whoof and lost an interest in the proceedings.
Mr. Tomes-Domingo yelped, fired once more and hit the plate-glass door, turned and ran into the embrace of an enormous red-haired man in the vanguard of the pursuit, which had just erupted down the corridor. The red- haired man adjusted him to a convenient position and hit him once in the jaw, and he flew backward six feet and collapsed on top of Mendoza, who was just sitting up. One of the three men behind the red-haired man dropped his gun and sank onto the divan beside the checkroom, clutching his shoulder.
There was a very short silence before several women in the crowd collecting at the dining-room door went off like air-raid sirens.
Mendoza heaved off Mr. Tomes-Domingo, sat up and began to swear in Spanish. The red-haired man bellowed the crowd to quiet, and turned to the man nearest him: 'Find a phone and call the wagon and an ambulance-and-' flinging round to the man on the divan-'just what in the name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph did you think you were doing, you almighty bastard? You-'
'?Hijo de perra! -Take your hands off that man, you son of a Dublin whore!' Mendoza shoved him away and bent over Higgins, who was fumbling a handkerchief under his coat. 'Easy, boy 'It's not bad, Lieutenant-I just-'
'Before God!-Luis Mendoza!-does this belong to you? Just what the holy hell are you doing in this?-you tellin' me you put this blundering bastard out back there-to bitch up two months' work and the first chance I've had to lay hands on-I ought to bust you right in the-I ought to-'
Mendoza twitched the handkerchief from the red-haired man's breast pocket, wadded it up with his own, shoved Higgins flat on the divan and pulled aside the coat to slap on the temporary bandage. 'Temper, Patrick, temper! We're in public-you'll be giving people the idea there's no loyalty, no unity in the police force. And listen, you red bastard, next time you have to knock a man out to arrest him, for the love of God don't aim him at me- you've damn near fractured my spine! There's the squad car. For God's sake, let's clear this crowd back-Who's this?'
The little round man who had popped out like a cork from the dining-room crowd was sounding off in falsetto. 'I am the manager-I am the owner-what do you do here in my place, shooting and yelling? I call the police!-what is all this about?-shootings-gangsters-I will not have gangsters in my nice quiet place-'
'Then you shouldn't hire one as a headwaiter,' said Mendoza. 'And you should also change your butcher, your steaks are tough.' He pushed past him and went over to Alison, who was just somewhat shakily regaining her feet. 'I don't usually knock them down the first date, mi vida -apologies! Are you all right? Here, sit down.'
' I'm all right,' said Alison, 'but you owe me a pair of stockings.'
