Neighbor Sought in Shooting Death of Man : Crime: Victim’s brother is wounded in violent end to brief argument in Santa Ana over remarks allegedly made about the suspect’s wife.

Two women had sequestered themselves uncertainly in apartments across a sidewalk from each other Monday, one the wife of a suspected killer, the other newly widowed, jobless and left to raise four children.

Until three months ago their husbands had been friends. And on Sunday night, police said, Florentino Garcia gunned down his next-door neighbor, Sergio Mendez, 30, and wounded his brother Jose Mendez, 21.

Garcia, 42, immediately bolted from the neighborhood and remained at large Monday night. Police searching for him believe he is bound for Mexico.

As they arrived home after work about 10 p.m. Sunday, the Mendez brothers were confronted outside their tan stucco apartment in the 700 block of Garfield Street, police said. After a brief argument, Garcia allegedly aimed a .45-caliber pistol at the pair and fired at close range, wounding each brother once.

The four Mendez children, the oldest one 7, ran out to see their father wounded on the pavement before he died at the scene, Andrea Mendez said tearfully through an interpreter.

Jose Mendez’s condition had improved by Monday afternoon from critical to stable, officials at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana said.

One man slain, another wounded--all, police said, over an allegedly off-color remark about Garcia’s wife.

By late Monday afternoon, Garcia’s wife had taken her two children and fled the apartment, neighbors said. They knew little of the family, although one neighbor who asked not to be identified said Garcia was unemployed.

Red-eyed and soft-spoken, Andrea Mendez, 28, spoke haltingly on Memorial Day afternoon of what provoked the bloodshed outside her door, balancing her 4-month-old daughter on her lap as her three other children surrounded her. A 25-year-old friend who lives across the hall from the Mendez family translated from Spanish to English for Andrea Mendez but asked not to be identified because the killer has not been captured.

Until three months ago, “Sergio and Florentino had been good friends,” Andrea Mendez said. Then Garcia’s wife, whose name neither police nor Mendez knew, told her husband that Sergio Mendez “say something to her,” Andrea Mendez said. “Florentino asked Sergio what do you say to my wife, and he say I don’t say nothing to your wife. Nothing.”

Santa Ana Police Lt. Earl Porter said a witness told officers that the men had been on “unfriendly terms” in recent months because Sergio Mendez allegedly made sexual remarks to Garcia’s wife.

Sergio Mendez asked that Garcia’s wife make the allegation in his presence, an offer that was apparently declined, Andrea Mendez said.

On Sunday night, the Mendez brothers pulled into their carport and were met by Garcia in the tiny courtyard, Andrea Mendez said. “Florentino was waiting for him.”

Sergio Mendez offered his neighbor a beer, there was a heated argument, then residents heard two shots.

“They woke me up,” the neighbor and friend said. “My children were scared.” She said the Mendez children saw their father once before he died.

“It’s terrible for her,” the neighbor said of Andrea Mendez. “She has four kids and she doesn’t work, and her family is all in Mexico. She has only here her brother, who is just 18.”

Nine people shared the tidy but cramped studio apartment, which they rent for $570 a month.

Andrea Mendez’s husband and brother-in-law supported the family with jobs pouring concrete. They immigrated 14 years ago from the state of Guanajuato.

Andrea Mendez said she has no plans for her husband’s funeral although she hopes to bury him here. She doesn’t yet know how they will make ends meet.

Her children were told their father is dead, but didn’t understand as they played together on the carpet.