'O.K., let's go in and look at them.'
Nesbitt told the desk man whom they wanted to see; in a few minutes they were let into one of the interrogation rooms, and the boys were brought in by a uniformed jailer.
Mendoza looked at them coldly, resignedly. They were about what he'd expected to see, from the black leather jackets and wide belts and dirty jeans to the expressions on their faces. And there was a lot of talk about it, from a lot of different people, and a lot of different solutions offered to cure the problem. It was a problem all right. They said, clean up the slums. A fine idea, but it wasn't going to cure the problem, because quite a lot of very respectable citizens-Luis Rodolfo Vicente Mendoza among others-had grown up in the slums. They said lack of discipline, which was a little more realistic, but it was theoretically a free country and you couldn't tell people how to bring up their kids. They said prejudice, they said inadequate public schools. What nobody among all the do- gooders would ever admit was that some people just came equipped that way, and that more people were just naturally the kind who'd play along with any strong character to be one of a gang; and you weren't going to change character overnight.
Wills was tall and thin, with an angular pale face, sullen pale eyes, and lank dark hair; he looked older than seventeen. Kellerman was a fat lump, big and awkward and blond. Lopez was a little runt of a kid, skinny and dark, with terrified eyes. They just stood and looked back at him.
'Well, let's get the show on the road,' said Mendoza sharply. 'Which of you shot Nestor last Tuesday night?'
They looked surprised; and then Lopez looked almost idiotic with panic. 'We n-never shot nobody, mister.?Se lo digo, no! Honestamente , we never-we never do a thing like that-'
'You got rocks in your head?' said Wills coldly. 'What makes you think we shot a guy?'
'I don't think, I know,' said Mendoza. 'There's no point going the long way round here. You've been pulling a series of break-ins. Probably in other places than Hollywood. Last Tuesday night you broke into the office of Dr. Frank Nestor, on Wilshire Boulevard. Only you found the office wasn't empty-Dr. Nestor was there.' Why had he been there, by the way? Not very important? 'Wills, you had the. 22. When Dr. Nestor showed up, did you panic and shoot on impulse, or did you kill him deliberately? You did have the. 22-It's your gun?'
'For Christ's sake!' said Wills incredulously. 'That's crazy, man! We was never near no doctor's office, Tuesday night or any other! We never heard o' that doctor. Why the hell'd we want to break in a doctor's?'
'I can think of reasons,' said Mendoza.
'Oh-dope. We don't go for that crap,' said Kellerman. 'Not me, boy! I seen what it done to my brother. You're nuts-we'd never do a real bad thing like that. Gee, what was a couple cartons cigarettes and-'
'I said, let's not go the long way round,' said Mendoza.
'I've got other things to worry about than you three louts.' He took a step toward them and Lopez cringed back. 'Now listen-'
'You c'n beat me all you want!' cried Lopez in a high frightened voice. 'Just go on 'n' try-you never make me-?Santa Maria y Josejo – I never-'
'Oh, for God's sake, Joe,' said Wills contemptuously, 'they don't dare lay a hand on us!' He gave Mendoza an insolent leer. 'They got to stay little gents-ain't that so, bloodhound?'
Mendoza pasted a careful, bland smile on his mouth. Never let them see they were getting to you. It was sometimes difficult. Sure-that juvenile thing last year. All the careful rules and regulations to protect the citizenry- and the L.A.P.D. with a lot of private rules on that too, especially about the minors, and what it came to was that the punks could call you every name in the book, tell the most obvious lies, accuse you of anything from wife beating to sodomy, and you had to take it without even a word or two in reply. Sometimes a man lost his temper a little and roughed up one of them-which was the only way to reach a lot of them-and then you got the press screaming about police brutality and the tenderhearted public excitedly demanding investigation. Mendoza smiled at these three young punks, pityingly. The only other way to reach them was to talk to them like the immature children they were. 'Look, Mikey boy,' he said very gently, 'I've got no time to waste playing games with little boys. I'll give you just five minutes to tell me a straight story, but whether you do or not, I'm getting warrants on all of you for murder. As of now. That. 22 is the gun that killed Frank Nestor, that we know, and it was in your possession on Saturday night. Which of you had it on Tuesday night?'
Evidently he reached them with that. Lopez started to say a fervent Hail Mary, with his eyes shut; Kellerman just looked worried. Wills suddenly dropped his sneer and said, 'Listen, is that on the level? Somebody got killed with that gun? Jesus-'
'I told you there was somethin' a little funny about it, Mike,' said Kellerman.
'That's level,' said Mendoza. 'What fancy story are you going to tell me now?'
'Jesus,' said Wills. 'I'm not taking no murder rap! I never had that gun until Thursday night, bloodhound, and that's level in spades. I never laid eyes on it till Thursday.'
'?No me tome el pelo! Don't kid me,' said Mendoza skeptically. 'So where'd you get it?'
Wills licked his lips. 'We found it,' he said.
'Oh, for God's sake,' said Mendoza, 'can't you think up a better one than that?'
'No, honest-honest, mister, we did!' said Lopez eagerly. 'It was down on Main, we was all together-we saw this guy drop something, just ahead of us, see, and Mike picked it up- I saw him-honestamente -'
'That's right,' said Kellerman stolidly. 'I saw him too. It looked like a swell gun, not so old either-but I told Mike, see, when I see the serial number's filed off, I said, get shut of it, maybe it's hot.'
'You've got all the answers,' said Mendoza. 'Do you really think I'm going to buy that one?'
'It's the truth!' snarled Wills. 'It's all I can tell you. Jesus, I wish now I'd tossed it in the first alley we passed, but I didn't. It was mostly loaded, too-eight slugs in it. That's God's own truth, this guy dropped it and I picked it up. Right in the street, see-on the sidewalk.'
His tone was passionate. Mendoza looked at him. 'So now suppose you produce a nice tight alibi for all three of you for last Tuesday night.'
'Hell!' said Wills violently. 'You Goddamn cops-'
'I ain't taking no murder rap either, Mike,” said Kellerman. His broad forehead wrinkled painfully with thought.
'It ain't sense. So maybe we get hit a little tougher if we tell them, it's still not murder. Gee, none of us'd do a bad thing like a murder!' He looked at Mendoza earnestly. 'We couldn't've, because we was down in Boyle Heights last Tuesday night, we cracked a TV store and got a lot of stuit. You can check it, I guess-lessee, we was with them girls up to about nine, and then we did the store, and we sold a lot of the stuff at a pawnshop on Whittier Boulevard, that'd be about ten-thirty, wasn't it, Mike? And-'
'Oh hell!' said Wills sullenly. 'Well, all right. That's where we was, just like George says.'
'That's right, mister, honestamente -'
Mendoza looked at Nesbitt and raised his eyebrows. Nesbitt shrugged.
'We'd sold stuff there before-the old guy's name is Behrens. Honest, he'd tell you we was in, about ten-thirty, and-”
'All right, what's the address?' Mendoza wrote it down. 'I'll probably be seeing you again.' He turned on his heel. Walking down the corridor, he asked Nesbitt, 'What do you think?'
'Finding a gun,' said Nesbitt. 'I ask you.'
'Down on Main,' said Mendoza absently. He thought suddenly, suppose you had a gun you wanted to get rid of? A hot gun. Maybe one you had a license for, so the serial number could be traced. You could sell it, but the transaction would be traceable too. You could pawn it, but all pawnbrokers were supposed to keep records of serial numbers. You could just dump it somewhere, in anzio empty lot, but there was always the chance of someone seeing you, or Ending it and reporting it. Really, a very excellent way of getting rid of it would be to file away the serial number and then drop it somewhere, casually, in a district like Skid Row, where the chances were that whoever picked it up would keep it for his own nefarious purposes or pawn it for drinking money.
He wished now he'd asked those punks if they remembered anything about the hypothetical man who'd dropped the. 22. But it had almost certainly been after dark, and they wouldn't remember any details. Hell. And no way to…
'We'd better check,' he said to Nesbitt. 'The pawnbroker, and his stock. Just in case.'
'Sure,' said Nesbitt sadly. 'We have to check everything.'
