by Alice Duncan
Prophet stole a leaf out of Sam’s book and rolled his eyes. “Not the sharpest tack in the box, is he?” he asked of me.
“Far from it,” I agreed.
Frank said, “Hey.”
“Why’d you try to kill the lady,” Prophet persisted. “Just because you don’t want your uncle to marry her? That’s a damned fool reason if I’ve ever heard one.”
“She’s not Italian!” Frank cried.
“Neither am I,” said Prophet. “What of it?”
“But…She ain’t Catholic, either!”
“Neither am I,” said Prophet. “I guess I can’t marry your uncle, either. Is that right?”
Gazing in perplexity at Prophet, Frank said, “Huh?”
“Shut up, all of you,” said Sam, walking back to us via the middle aisle of the church. “Doan, please take this prisoner down to the station. He just threw a knife at Mrs. Majesty with the intention of killing her. We have a witness.” His nose wrinkled a little, as if he weren’t quite sure Mr. Lou Prophet was what one might call a proper witness.
“And I get the bounty,” added Prophet, returning to the theme of his evening.
“Yes. There’s a bounty on this oaf’s head.” Sam thumped a fist on Frank’s head, eliciting a pained, “Hey” from Frank. “And Mr. Prophet, who foiled the criminal and captured him, gets it. Five hundred dollars, according to the wanted poster Mr. Prophet showed Mrs. Majesty and me.”
“Five hundred, eh?” said Doan. “Doesn’t sound like enough to me.” He eyed Frank with disgust. “We don’t cotton to murderers in Pasadena, you.”
“Hey,” said Frank.
“Shut up,” said Sam.
Frank, after one angry look at his uncle, swallowed and held out his hands for the metal cuffs Doan had ready for him. Doan wasn’t gentle when he snapped them shut. I think Frank wanted to say “Ow” or something, but didn’t dare. He might not have much of a brain, but I guess he could learn lessons if people whacked him often enough. Or stamped on his toes with their wooden limbs.
Thinking about that nearly made me giggle. I think I was merely giddy. The realization that I might well have been a dead Daisy finally struck me with some force, and I sank back onto the pew and sort of sagged there, hurting and exhausted.
“I’m afraid we’re all going to have to go to the station, Daisy. Want to drop by your house first for another sip of syrup? I need some aspirin.” Sam rubbed his left thigh.
“What’s the matter with the two of you?” asked Prophet, his gaze sliding from Sam to me and back again.
“I got shot in the left thigh five or six months ago, and Mrs. Majesty was struck by an automobile on New Year’s Day. Her left shoulder was dislocated, and she sustained quite a few scratches and bumps.”
“Too bad,” said Prophet. “What’s all that got to do with the knife kid?”
“Maybe nothing,” said Sam. “But I want to find out.”
“We can stop by the house for some aspirin,” I told Sam. “But I don’t want to take any more of that horrible syrup.”
“Want to bring the bottle in case you need a nip later? I don’t know how long this will take.”
“No, thanks. I’ll just suffer.” I put on a fake anguished expression, and Sam grinned.
Prophet didn’t. “What kind of nip you got at your house?” He sounded honestly curious.
“Morphine syrup.” I elaborated. “It’s to help me with the pain since my accident, but I don’t like to take it.”
“Ah. Thought maybe you maybe got some hooch in your house someplace.” Prophet sighed in disappointment.
“Hooch! We’re in Pasadena, California, and Prohibition has been the law of the land for five years!” I was truly shocked, although I’m not sure why. Heck, the man had hit Frank with a bottle that had contained, if I’d managed to figure out Mr. Prophet’s speech accurately, rye whiskey.
“Yeah, yeah. Prohibition,” said Prophet as if he wished he could batter to death it along with Frank Pagano.
“The three of us can go in my Hudson,” Sam said, indicating Lou Prophet and me. “Doan and Oversloot will take Frank to the station.”
“I gotta go?” asked Prophet. “I don’t like police stations.”
“You want your five hundred dollars?” Sam asked him.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Prophet, his broad shoulders slumping slightly. “All right. I’ll go with you two. Better than with them two suits and that polecat.”
Very well, I thought I knew what a polecat was. Wasn’t it another term for skunk? If so, Mr. Prophet had pegged Frank Pagano quite well. If it didn’t mean skunk…Well, I could always ask Regina Petrie. I still wanted to know what a curly wolf was. But I could ask Prophet at the station. Every time I’ve ever had to visit the Pasadena Police Department on official business, it had taken forever. I guess they have to be careful to dot their I’s and cross their T’s, and that makes things move sluggishly.
So a sullen Frank Pagano, with a uniformed policeman on either side of him, walked out to the police car parked on Marengo Avenue next to the side entrance to our church. Sam’s machine was parked only a little bit farther down the street.
Sam opened the front passenger door for me, and I did my best to achieve a graceful entrance to the automobile. Didn’t succeed awfully well. Sam opened the back passenger door for Prophet, who managed, with a couple of grunts and a swear word or three, to get himself and his wooden leg into the car, too.
We drove in silence to my house. I stayed in the Hudson with Mr. Prophet while Sam went inside to get himself some aspirin tablets and water. He wanted me to come inside with him, but I hurt too much. He eyed Lou Prophet and said, “Don’t move. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“He won’t move!” I cried, feeling sorry for Mr. Prophet who, while a rather unusual character, at least for Pasadena, remained a human being with feelings. “Gee, Sam, have some faith.”
“In him?” Sam asked hooking a thumb at Prophet.
Prophet growled something I didn’t hear. Sam just said, “Oh, hell,” and trod up the front walkway to the porch. I heard Spike barking like an insane creature until the door was opened—I couldn’t see by whom—and Sam went into the house.
“He don’t like me much,” grumbled Prophet.
“He doesn’t know you,” I countered.
“Hellkatoot.”
“I beg your pardon?” I said, flummoxed.
“Nothin’.”
Very well, then. As long as we were stuck in Sam’s Hudson, I decided to ask Mr. Prophet a couple of questions. “How did you know Frank Pagano was at the church? It was lucky for me you were there too.”
“I followed him.”
“Why?”
“Whattaya mean, why?”
“Why did you follow him?”
“Because I wanted the money they’re gonna pay for catchin’ him.”
“How did you know he needed catching?”
“I keep up with things. Wanted people. Criminals. Stuff like that.”
“Goodness, what an odd hobby.” I hoped that didn’t sound rude.
“Ain’t a hobby. Was a living for most of my life.”
“Keeping tabs on people who were wanted by the law?”
“Yeah.”
“Goodness, I didn’t know people could make a living finding people wanted by the law.”
“Where you been all your life, girl? People like me been chasing curly wolves like that stupid kid for a hundred years or more.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve lived in Pasadena all my life. We…uh…don’t have a whole lot of criminals in Pasadena, I guess.”
“Yeah,” said Prophet, sounding disgruntled. “I know. That bastard nephew of your copper pal was pure dumb luck. Saw his face in the post office and saw him in the flesh as soon as I stepped out of the post office.”
“Why didn’t you capture him then?”
“Hell, lady, I didn’t have my weapons on me. That kid’s fifty years younger’n me. He might be a damned fool, but he�
�s a young one.”
“I guess that’s a good point.”
“Huh.”
“Um…Mr. Prophet, what precisely is a curly wolf?”
It was dark in Sam’s car, so I couldn’t see Mr. Prophet’s expression very well, but I could tell my question had astonished him. He sat there silent for a few moments, then said, “Shee-it. I’m too goddamned old for this world, I reckon.”
“What does your being old have to do with curly wolves? I’ve never heard that expression before.”
“A curly wolf is a bad man, Miss Majesty,” said Lou Prophet, enunciating carefully, as if I were a slow student.
“It’s actually Missus Majesty.”
“Missus Majesty,” growled Prophet, sounding disgusted.
“I see.” Although his tone had annoyed me, I decided not to start a fight or anything. “And is a polecat a skunk?”
“What? A polecat? Hell, no. A skunk’s a skunk. A polecat’s more like a…I dunno. A weasel, I reckon. A polecat’s another name for a bad man, in case you wondered about that.”
“I see. Thank you. Are those two expressions common where you come from?”
“Georgia? Naw. I picked ’em up when I was workin’ around Arizona and Mexico and places like that.”
“You captured men who were wanted by the law in Arizona and Mexico? Your work must have been fascinating! And dangerous.”
“I guess.”
And then I had an Epiphany of my own! I finally figured out where I’d heard the name Lou Prophet before.
“Oh, my word, I know who you are! I’ve read all about you! You’re Lou Prophet, the old-west bounty hunter!”
Thirteen
“Cripes,” said Lou Prophet, former old-west bounty hunter. Actually, I think he said another word, but I changed it here because the one he used was impolite.
“I read you were hired by a studio in Hollywood to be an advisor on the set of some of the western flickers they’re making now. I’m so excited to meet you! And under the circumstances, too! I mean, you saved my life!”
“Hell, I didn’t save anyone. I caught the young scamp what flung that knife at you.” He added in an undertone, “Wasted a good bottle of rye on the sumbitch while I did it, too.”
“Well, I think you’re wonderful,” I told him.
He said, “Huh.”
Very well, I had met some movie stars. It was difficult to avoid them when you worked in a profession like mine in Pasadena, California, where a whole bunch of them had homes. The worst of the lot so far had been a deranged actress named Lola de la Monica, who pretended to be from Spain, but whose east-coast accent slipped out now and then when she wasn’t careful.
But this man was the real thing! He’d actually done the things the flickers tried to depict. Why, he’d been a bounty hunter! I was so excited, I could hardly stand it.
I vowed to telephone Harold Kincaid on the morrow to tell him I’d met the famous—well, semi-famous—old-west character, Mr. Lou Prophet!
Harold probably wouldn’t care, but I’d bet anything Regina Petrie would. It was through Regina that I’d read about Lou Prophet. Many of her fiancé, Robert Browning’s, collection of old yellow-back novels were about Lou Prophet and his like. I’d telephone her, too. Maybe I’d call Flossie Buckingham, as well.
Oh, wait. Flossie, a former gangster’s moll, might not appreciate meeting a man who, a generation or so earlier, might have been the one “keeping” her. I hadn’t read anything about Mr. Prophet and women, but if I had to guess, I’d bet—
The front door of the Hudson opened, and Sam slid in behind of the steering wheel. I’ll bet I jumped a yard in the air, he startled me so badly.
He looked at me funny. “You were expecting someone else?” He didn’t sound particularly cheerful, and he shot a killing glance at the back seat.
Prophet held up his hands in an “I give up” gesture. “Warn’t me,” said he. “I didn’t do nothin’.”
“He’s telling the truth, Sam.” I was going to babble on and tell Sam Lou Prophet’s story, but I thought it might be more diplomatic to ask about his wounded thigh first. “Did you get some aspirin?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Your father was still up. I told him he might as well go to bed, since this will probably take a long time.”
“Did you tell him what happened?”
“Not the knife-throwing part. Just said I’d be late getting you home because of some police business.”
“Good. I don’t want my parents any more scared than they are already.”
“I don’t, either. But at least your father knows you’ll be late, and he won’t worry.”
“How late?” asked Prophet from the back seat.
“I have no idea. But you’re going to have to tell your story, Daisy’s going to have to tell her story, and my idiot nephew is going to have to invent some story he hopes will keep him out of the electric chair.”
“For attempted murder? That’s harsh, ain’t it?”
“I beg your pardon?” I cried, glaring at Mr. Prophet, who’d said the words. “If his aim had been true, I’d be dead now!”
“Well, yeah, I know that, but—”
“Hold on!” Sam raised his voice just a little, but it sounded like a fog horn in a barrel. He had one of those voices. Commanding, I guess you’d call it. “It will take as long as it takes, and there’s not much I can do about that.”
“But I gotta be home by nine,” said Prophet, sounding perhaps the least little bit worried.
“Why?” I asked. He seemed a trifle old to be operating under rules set for him by parents.
“Because those bastards lock the door at nine,” said he.
“What bas-people are those?”
A corner of Mr. Prophet’s mouth turned up, undoubtedly because I’d nearly said the word “bastard.” Ornery old cuss, this Mr. Lou Prophet.
“The bastards at the Odd Fellows House of Christian Charity.” He chuffed out an aggrieved breath. “Call themselves Christians, anyways.”
“Oh.” Suddenly a rush of compassion flooded me. This poor old fellow, who used to be one of the most dangerous gunmen in history—if Robert Browning’s book collection was telling the truth—now lived in an old folks’ home. In Pasadena, California, of all places! I glanced at Sam, who didn’t look at either Prophet or me. He just kept scowling through the windshield of the Hudson. I deduced it wouldn’t be prudent to ask him to intercede with the Odd Fellows on Mr. Prophet’s behalf. But if I approached him in a roundabout way, maybe he’d do it.
“Um…Perhaps Detective Rotondo can call the House and explain why you’ve been detained if we have to stay at the police station past nine.”
“That’d be great,” said Prophet, sounding surly. I didn’t know why until he went on to say, “I can just see them stuffed shirts getting a call from the coppers. They’d never let me through their precious doors again. They already think I’m dirtier’n pig slop and goin’ straight to hell. If your pal there called them, they’d think he was a drinking buddy of mine or somethin’.”
“Oh.” A drinking buddy? Did the USA still contain drinking buddies? Hmm. To judge from the stories in the newspapers telling about people dying after drinking bathtub gin, not to mention gangsters in Chicago and New York murdering each other by the dozens, maybe it did.
“Let’s not worry about that for a while,” Sam said churlishly. “We can work something out.”
“Thanks, Sam. After all, Mr. Prophet saved my life tonight.”
“No, he didn’t. He let Frank throw the knife and then tackled him.”
I glared at Sam, who couldn’t see me. “That’s not…Well, it’s not…Well, I think he saved my life, and I think he should be treated with respect and kindness.”
“Huh,” said Sam.
Mr. Prophet said the word that sounds kind of like “Cripes” again.
I swear. Men could drive a person nuts faster than anything else in the world.
They probably say the same thing about
women, but they’re wrong. According to me, anyhow.
We arrived at the police station. Sam parked his Hudson in back of the station, which was itself located at the back of Pasadena City Hall, and the three of us limped to the station door. We probably looked like a trio of car-crash survivors. Come to think of it, I was one of those, but neither Sam nor Mr. Prophet was.
It took until quite a while past nine p.m. before we were ready to leave the police station. I was taken into an ugly cell-like room where I reported to one policeman my version of what I’d witnessed during choir practice. Another policeman was there working as a stenographer and taking down everyone’s words.
After the two officers were through with me, they led Mr. Prophet into the same room. I wanted to be in there with them, but—according to Sam—officers liked to question witnesses individually so they couldn’t influence each other’s statements. That kind of made sense to me, but I was nosy, darn it, and I wanted to hear what Mr. Prophet had to say. Too bad for Daisy, I reckon.
When Mr. Prophet was led out to the waiting room where I sat—I might have twiddled my thumbs if my hands had been up to the effort—I patted the hard wooden seat next to me. He gave me a look clearly telling me he thought I was strange, but he sat in the chair I offered.
“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” I asked him.
“Naw. Better’n some interviews I’ve survived.”
“I’m glad of that,” I said, wondering precisely which interviews had been worse than the one he’d just endured. “You’ll be getting the five-hundred dollars, won’t you?”
“Damned well better be gettin’ it,” he said.
“Do you have to swear every time you open your mouth, Mr. Prophet?” I asked, sounding prissy to my own ears.
He turned and looked at me up and down and back and forth, making me incredibly uncomfortable, then said, “Reckon I do.”
“Oh.”
“But I won’t get the money until that sumbitch is convicted.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am.”
“I suppose not.”
We sat in silence for a second or three.
“Um…Mr. Prophet, would you mind if I asked you some questions about your career?”
