letter to my sister Elisa, I meant to take it to post, and I had forgotten it. I was going shopping, to buy her a birthday present, but I wanted to post the letter.'
'So you came home to get it,' said Galeano, and let out his breath in a long sigh.
'Yes. I was in a great hurry-it has been easy to blame myself for that too-I had to catch the bus up to town, there would not be much time to look in the shops before they closed, and I must be home to get dinner for Edwin before I went back to the restaurant. I did not even look to see where Edwin was-when he was not in the living room I thought perhaps he was lying down, he could get to the bed from the chair-and I did not even look. I took up my letter from the table there, put it in an envelope and left again, for the bus. And I went to the post office-we cannot afford the air mail, it is expensive enough to send by sea-and when I had shopped for the present I came home. And I told you how it was. He was gone. His chair was here, and he was gone.'
'You remember if the wheelchair was in the living room when you came home the first time? But you’d have noticed that-'
'It was not. His coat is gone also,' said Marta. 'I think I have had too much brandy.'
'His coat. Regular topcoat-raincoat?'
'A good thick wool coat, brown. He bought it in the east before we came here. And there is another queer thing. I am talking too much to you, but it does not matter.'
She laughed a little drearily. 'What thought did I ever have for money, until Papa died! But now, it is always to think of money. So always, I have a little, what I can save, hidden away for the emergency. I had not looked at it, since Edwin was gone, until last week. And it is gone too.'
'I’ll be damned,' said Galeano. 'How much?'
'Two hundred and eighteen dollars,' she said, shutting her eyes again.
'Where was it?'
'In one of the kitchen jars-canisters, the one for sugar.'
'Be damned,' said Galeano. 'Did he know it was there?'
'Of course. He was my husband.'
'Well-' Galeano looked at her. 'You do feel better, don’t you? Do you good to get all that out of your system. I’m sorry I swore at you.'
'But I called you names too.' She smiled a little.
'And after you said you believed me, too. I think you’ve been kind. But right at this moment, nothing seems to matter to me so very much.'
'Never mind,' said Galeano. 'Part of that’s the brandy and part the cold, I expect. Things will matter again. And I’d better go-I’ve got a job too. You take care of yourself, is all. Listen, things are going to get better.'
'Do you think so? I wonder.'
'They’ve got to,' said Galeano stoutly. 'You just take care now.'
And he was of two minds, as he got into his car downstairs, whether to pass all that on to Mendoza.
Palliser had been the first man in that Thursday morning and Sergeant Lake gave him the message relayed up from the desk last night about the assault-with-intent lodged in jail. 'Something else,' said Palliser. But it had to be followed up, so he went out again and over to the Alameda jail. The suspect had refused to give a name and was booked as John Doe. When one of the trusties brought him to an interrogation room, Palliser said, 'Sit down. Have you decided to tell us who you are?'.
The man sat down opposite him and said reluctantly, 'Steve Smith.'
'That’s a step further on,' said Palliser mildly. And that was interesting. The Steve Smith they’d looked for last week? He was clean-shaven, looked younger than thirty-three, but the rest of him conformed to the description. Palliser had been thinking of this as just another routine errand, but now he looked at Smith with covert interest.
'Why did you attack that girl last night?'
'I never attacked nobody. She’s a liar.'
'Had you ever seen her before?'
'No.'
'You just got talking to her in the restaurant, all casual?'
'She made up to me,' said Smith after some thought.
'Oh, is that so? Did she ask you to drive her home?'
'Yeah. Yeah, she did.'
'All right, what happened then?'
Smith thought some more. Then he said, 'Well, we got in the car and she said I should, you know, love her up a little. Then when I tried to she yelled and got out and a couple fellows grabbed me and called the pigs. I didn’t do nothing to her, that girl. She’s a liar.'
'She had a couple of bruises where she says you tried to strangle her,' said Palliser.
'I never. She’s a Goddamn liar.'
Palliser offered him a cigarette, lit it, sat back and lit one himself. He said conversationally, 'I see you’ve shaved off your little beard.'
Smith was startled; he jumped in his chair and said, 'How the hell did you-I never seen you before in my life!'
'Oh, we have ways of knowing things about you,' said Palliser vaguely. 'Where were you a week ago Sunday, Smith, do you remember?'
'A week ago-I don’t know. Somewhere around. I don’t remember.'
'Where have you been living?'
'Room over in Ho1lywood.'
'Got a job?'
'I been lookin’ for one. I been on unemployment. Some new rule they got, you got to come in ever’ day, wait for a job to show, or they don’t give you no pay. That’s where I been, days.'
'I’ll bet,' said Palliser, 'I could tell you when you shaved off that goatee. It was-'
'I got a right to shave if I want.'
'Sure,' said Palliser. 'But you did it right after you killed that girl, didn’t you? When the other one got away and you were afraid she’d finger you?'
Smith leaped up out of his chair. 'You don’t know that! You can’t say that!'
'I just did. That was when, wasn’t it?'
'No, it wasn’t. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man.'
'We both know what I’m talking about, Steve. You picked those girls up at a lunch counter on the Boulevard, a week ago Sunday. You ended up raping and strangling one of them.'
'I never did no such thing!'
'--But you made a mess of getting rid of the body,' said Palliser. 'It didn’t burn, you know. The fire went out.'
'Thass a Goddamn lie,' said Smith, 'I seen all the smoke it made, 1ike-' and stopped.
'So, suppose you tell me where you took them,' said Palliser gently. So many of the ones they had to deal with were stupid punks like Steve..
'I’m not sayin’ anything else.'
'Oh, yes, you are. Just a little more. How did a bum like you happen to have a house to take them to?'
'I ain’t no bum. I said I been lookin’ for a job. I still had a key to it,' said Smith sullenly.
'Where is it?' asked Palliser patiently.
'Listen, I didn’t mean to hurt that girl none. She, just like this damn woman last night, she said I should love her up and then she yelled-I didn’t go to-'
'Where, Steve? You might as well tell me, we’ll find out in the end,' said Palliser.
