Chicago area, but none of them seems to be missing a Ruth.'
'I didn't expect so,' said Mendoza. 'That must've been a hell of a job. Thanks very much, Donovan.'
'At least we could check by phone, didn't have to do the legwork in this damn heat. But thank God, it's beginning to cool off now, getting into fall.'
'I wish I could say the same.' He was just off the phone when an autopsy report came in from the coroner's office on Anthony Delucca. He had to think before he remembered-the teenager on the bus-stop bench. It had been an overdose of Quaaludes. He filed it and forgot it.
The office was humming along quietly, Higgins typing a report, Palliser on the phone, nobody else in. Hackett and Landers had gone over to the jail to talk to Gerber. Mendoza swiveled his desk chair around to the window and sat smoking, staring at the view over the Hollywood Hills, and tried to think if there was anything else to do on Juliette Martin. There wasn't. Wait for the French police. Hell, he thought. There must be a catch to that somewhere. X would know about that possibility, too. Wait and maybe never hear anything from France on Juliette. Why not? He didn't have any ideas about it at all.
Lake brought him a cable. It was from the Surete and said simply, PRINTS UNKNOWN OUR RECORDS. Mendoza snarled at it.
Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn't the Surete's fault. Passports didn't carry a typed address, only one filled in by the holder. But the French passport bureau might, for God's sake, have noted down something about the girl. What the proof of citizenship had been, something.
And he reflected moodily, they'd have to bury the poor girl eventually. They couldn't leave her down in the cold tray at the morgue indefinitely.
Hackett looked in the door and said, 'Gerber gave us a statement. He admitted he was on the heist with Bauman, but it was Bauman had the gun and fired it.'
' Naturalmente.'
'So it's up to the D.A.'s office what to call it. Want to bet it'll start murder two and get reduced? Tom's doing the final report on it. Anything new gone down?'
'I don't know. Everybody seems to be out somewhere on something.' Sunday was just another day to the men at Robbery-Homicide.
HACKETT WENT DOWN the hall for a cup of coffee, but he hadn't taken more than three sips before Lake buzzed him.
'Attempted heist, it's a liquor store on Wilshire and the squad's got him.'
'No rest for the wicked,' said Hackett, annoyed. He abandoned the coffee and went back downstairs to the parking lot. The liquor store was a little way out on Wilshire.
The heister had picked a wrong target on this one. The store owner was a hefty ex-Marine by the name of Nolan who worked out at a gym regularly, and the gun hadn't scared him worth a damn. He said to Hackett disgustedly, 'For Christ's sake, the damn punk didn't even have his finger in the trigger guard! Does he think I'm a goddamn idiot? I just took one swing at him and put him out cold, and called for cops, and I bet some goddamn fool judge sends him up for sixty days, poor guy not responsible because his mama spanked him too much.'
The heister was sitting on the floor propped against the counter. The patrolman had put the cuffs on him, and he was feeling his bruised jaw with both cuffed hands. He raised his head to look at Hackett, and Hackett said pleasedly, 'Well, I will be damned if it isn't Baby Face.'
The various descriptions had been faithful. The man looked about twenty-five and he was fairly tall and husky F but he had a round, boyish face, a shock of white-blond hair. He was very neatly dressed in brown slacks and a clean white sports shirt. He looked as if he was ready to cry.
The patrolman handed the gun to Hackett. It was an old. 32 Colt automatic and it wasn't loaded.
'All right, let's have your name,' said Hackett.
The heister said in a thin voice, 'Ricky Davies. I'm sorry. He didn't need to hit me that hard, I wouldn't have done anything to him. The gun's not loaded. I don't even know how to load a gun.'
Nolan said, 'Oh, for Christ's sake.'
Hackett reached down and helped Davies onto his feet.
'Come on, I think we want a little talk with you.' The uniformed man went out to go back on tour and Nolan said to nobody in particular, 'These goddamn punks.'
At least the air-conditioning was back on at the jail. While Davies was getting booked in, Hackett called the office and told Lake to start the machinery on the warrant. Davies had I.D. on him, a driver's license, a couple of credit cards and nineteen-sixty-four in cash. He sat hunched in the cramped little interrogation room, and asked in a subdued voice, 'Can I call my wife? She's going to be upset as hell about this and I don't know how to tell her. She thinks I'm out with a buddy of mine. She's going to be mad as hell at me and I don't blame her.'
Hackett offered him a cigarette and he said he didn't smoke. 'You can call your wife whenever you like, and a lawyer. How did you get into this?' Davies was hardly the seasoned criminal by his looks and manner.
Davies said miserably, 'It was on account of all the bills. I never did anything wrong before in my life-never wanted to. But it's just, everything costs so much. I've got a good job- I work at Desmond's men's store up on Western-and I thought Stella and I could get by O.K. on what we both make, we just got married six months ago- but we had to get an apartment, I'd been living at home with Mom and she'd been with her folks too, and the rent's three-fifty-you can't find anything much cheaper and it's not a high-class place at that, and Stella's used to nice things- I wanted her to have nice things-and we had to get furniture and a lot of things. She works too, she's a cocktail waitress at the Tail o' Cock, but even between us there's the payments on her car, and my car, and the rent, and all the groceries, I never realized how much groceries cost. And then she said she'd all ways wanted a diamond watch and I got her one for her birthday-and you got to dress pretty sharp in my job and I even when I get a discount it adds up.' He took a breath.
'And Stella likes nice clothes-all pretty girls do. And the Visa account got up to the limit, a thousand bucks, and I missed one payment on the car, and then Stella got the flu and was off work a week, and she'd used up her vacation and sick leave when we went on the honeymoon. We went up to Tahoe and that was part of the Visa account. And I got so I just didn't know which way to turn,' said Davies helplessly. 'And Stella wanted to get me a nice birthday present, it's this gold ring with my initials, she put it on our account at Bullocks', it was ninety-four bucks-and I was feeling kind of desperate, if you get me. I got that gun at a pawn shop for thirty dollars. I don't know anything about guns, I never had any bullets for it-and people just handed over the money. I thought if I came right downtown here there wouldn't be the chance of anybody recognizing me from up in Hollywood. I felt pretty bad about it, it was all wrong, but I got the Visa account nearly cleared up. Stella never looks at the statement- I knew she wouldn't notice.' He looked at Hackett, his face haggard. 'She's going to be mad as hell at me, get into all this.'
'Have you ever been in any trouble before?'
He shook his blond head. 'I never even had a parking ticket.'
Hackett stood up. 'We1l, you can get bail and your wife can get you a lawyer.' It was funny in a way, and he felt sorry for this stupid kid. It would probably end up as a reduced charge. Call it a year in and probation. 'You'd better call your wife and break the news.'
'Thanks,' said Davies meaninglessly. Hackett turned him over to the jailer and started back to the office to write the final report on this.
MENDOZA HAD GONE home and nobody else was left in the office at five-fifty, except Higgins and Palliser. They were on their way out past the switchboard when Lake beckoned, put down the earphone and said, 'Something funny, boys. It's the California Community Hospital and they say they've got a murder. The desk downstairs relayed the call. It's a Dr. Rasmussen. Says one of the patients has been murdered.'
'For God's sake,' said Higgins. 'And hell, the night watch won't be on for a couple of hours. We'd better have a quick look and see what it is anyway. O.K. John? Jimmy, call our wives and say we'll be late.'
'Murder at a hospital,' said Palliser as they waited for the elevator. 'Funny isn't the word. I didn't think
