something in it. He laid it on top of the cards on Mendoza’s desk. Mendoza stared at it.
It was a large silver crucifix on a long silver chain. The center of the cross was studded with an opaque pale-green veined stone. It was, in fact, the crucifix which had been torn from Father Patrick Joseph O’Brien when the pretty boys attacked him.
Mendoza raised his eyes from it, and they had gone very cold. 'Suppose you show the lady in.'
'Oh, she’s got one of them with her,' said Lake. 'Her youngest, Guido.' He went out, and a minute later they came in. Mrs. Gomez was mountainous, in ancient and decent black silk, black hair piled in a knob on her head. But his eyes passed over her to the big boy behind her. Boy-he might be twenty, he was big but gangling: unused to his size as yet, awkward. Almost handsome, a poor attempt at a mustache, long waving black hair. And the very natty loud sports jacket, striped blue and green, a dark shirt, a wide tie.
She sat in the chair beside the desk and flooded Mendoza with emotion, religious and otherwise. 'He is my youngest, my baby, I worry over him, I know he goes with these foolish young ones, and he does not come to church any more-I try to talk to him, I say-'
'Oh, for God’s sake knock it off, Mama! You just wasting their time with your crazy ideas-' He gave Mendoza a calculatedly apologetic smile. 'Listen, she’s old country, know what I mean, you don’t want to pay no notice, I didn’t want to come here waste your-'
'You be still or I smack you again seven times! Oh, no, you don’t want to come here, to police, and I am stupid and old, but I am yet your mother! I have to drag him here, he feels my hand hard-and maybe he should feel it more often since he thinks he is all grown to a man! Away from his so-clever modern friends, he comes with me, I see to that!' She was breathing asthmatically, and her little black eyes were bright. Queerly, for she didn’t look anything like Teresa Sanchez y Mendoza, he was reminded of his grand mother.
'That,' she said, and pointed to the crucifix on the desk, 'that is why! That, I find in his drawer! It will be-'
'For God’s sake,' he said, 'for God’s sake. I told you I found it. On the street.'
'That, I know. It is the crucifix the priest at the church always was wearing. Father O’Brien. And he has been murdered, the other Father has told us, by these terrible wicked ones. I have seven sons,' she cried emotionally, and all her chins wobbled magnificently, 'and I thank the good God the six of them are decent Christian men, it is for my sins I have this wicked one-I tremble to think what he has done, if indeed it can be he has attacked a priest, but I know my duty to God and the law-I bring him to you!'
'For Christ’s sake!' said the boy. 'Of all the crap! I told you I found the damn thing, I thought it might be worth a couple bucks at a hock shop. That’s all I know about it.'
'Where’d you End it?' asked Mendoza.
'It was over on Fourth somewheres, just lying in the street.'
'When?' asked Mendoza.
'Oh, Jesus’ sake, couple o’ days ago.' He met Mendoza’s cold eyes and suddenly backed away. 'You aren’t gonna believe the stupid old lady, I had anything to do-I found it!'
'I have known he is running with wicked ones, late at night, never would he tell me where he is, and sometimes drinking too much wine-I have implored him, take the good little job his uncle offers, earn the money-I do not know where he has money, his clothes-'
'Knock it off!' he said furiously. 'For God’s sake, all that crap about God and the law- That guy outside, he said Mendoza-I suppose you go for all that too, hah? I got shut of that a good long while back! Anything to all that, the hellfire, nobody in the world get out of it-I told you it was all in your silly Goddamn mind, you takin’ a hand to me like I was still a kid-'
'I know my duty to God!'
'To hell with your stupid God! And these Goddamn cops, stupid damn pigs-' His eye fell on the gadget on Mendoza’s desk, the life-sized pearl-handled revolver, and he laughed a little wildly. 'Great big men, long as you got the guns around! You believe her, take me in and beat me up so I say anything-'
'Suppose we all calm down,' said Mendoza. 'Did you mention finding this to anyone, Mr. Gomez?'
'Goddamn all of you!' he said. And suddenly he made a grab for the gadget, snatched it up and turned it on his mother. 'You Goddamned fool!' And he pressed the trigger.
Mendoza was on his feet. The barrel belched forth the torch-like flame, and Guido Gomez dropped the thing and began to scream hoarsely. 'Fires of hell-fires of hell- fuegos del infierno -I didn’t mean to kill the priest, I didn’t know he was a priest, I didn’t mean-'
TEN
It took a while to calm him down. Sergeant Farrell shooed Wanda in three minutes later, when she and Landers came back, and she got Mrs. Gomez out and down to First Aid; Hackett came in and cowed Guido considerably by mere looks. Within ten minutes he was talking, sullen, reluctant, resentful, but talking.
They spelled it out for him that they knew there were three of them, and he came out with two names, Jay Folger, Bruce Hardwick. 'We met up the semester I went to L.A.C.C. Goddamn it, you got me you’re sure as hell goin’ to get them-they been pullin’ break-ins up in Hollywood for the bread, I wasn’t in on that, I swear.' He gave them addresses: Emmett Terrace, Alta Loma Drive, 'Jay, he drove me home one night, we saw that crazy old lady Miller lives at the end o’ the block on her way home, he says have some fun with the old scarecrow, and we- No, we never got any loot off them, it was just for kicks. God-damned old creeps, think they know it all, tell everybody else how to live- But that night-that night-I never knew it was a priest, till I saw his clothes.'
Mendoza held up the crucifix. 'How about this?'
Guido shivered and looked away. 'I grabbed it-and then I was afraid, after, to hock it or anything. I shoulda put it in the trash, got rid of it, but I-and the Goddamned old woman-'
Mendoza sighed deeply and dropped it on his desk.
'Take him away, Art,' he said. 'I do get so tired of the punks, the brainless louts.'
Palliser was back then, and they all went up to Hollywood after Jay Folger and Bruce Hardwick. They didn’t find either one. At the address on Emmett, a flustered middle-aged woman told them, 'I don’t know when either of them’ll be home, Jay or his father-l’m just the house-keeper-Mr. Folger travels a lot for his company, and Jay, goodness knows where he is, he’s got his own car.'
At the Alta Loma address, Mrs. Hardwick stared at the badge in Mendoza’s hand and said, 'Police? What- what do you want with Bruce?' She was a fake redhead with a foolish face, a slack mouth, and she bleated like a sheep at them. 'Bruce wouldn’t do anything wrong, I see he has plenty of money of his own, he wouldn’t-'
'God give me patience,' said Mendoza.
Both of them were supposed to be attending L.A.C.C., but when the school was contacted the registrar said they’d both dropped out last semester. Eventually they would show up at their respective homes; the Robbery- Homicide men went up to the Wilcox Street precinct house and talked to Sergeant Barth, who said he’d have a squad car check at intervals, bring them in if they showed.
At least they knew who the pretty boys were; sooner or later they’d be in custody.
Mendoza went home to tell Alison what a successful gadget her Christmas present had proven to be.
With Guido coming apart, they’d have picked up Folger and Hardwick sometime; as it turned out, they were forestalled. Folger and Hardwick were out for some more lighthearted fun in the slums that night, and at nine- fifteen, having left Folger’s sporty Jaguar parked on a side street, they had the misfortune to jump on Miss Maureen O’Connor. Miss O’Connor was tired, on her way home from work at a cafeteria uptown, and she was rather short- tempered by nature anyway.
'Come out at me like a pair of wild men,' she told the uniformed men indignantly. 'See me limping when I got off the bus, I s’pose, I twisted my ankle in the kitchen, and think they’d snatch my purse and I wouldn’t do nothing-Hah! Fat chance I’d let ’em try! I just let ’em have it, and I bet they think twice, tackle a poor defenseless
