The door opened, and Joe entered with Matilda in tow. He looked miserable. Anna hoped he was.
“Georges, this is Miss Matilda Nilsson. She was drugged and raped at the Jonquil Apartments. She’s fifteen.”
At that moment, fair Matilda seemed even younger, blinking her blond eyelashes. Anna’s heart ached for her.
Georges’s own eyes widened and he blew out a breath. “Hello Miss Matilda. I’m very sorry you’ve been ill used.”
“I know you. I saw you at the café,” said Matilda warily. She seemed to shrink.
Georges smiled at the girl and spoke gently. “Possibly. Was I having the moules?” He made a face. “I don’t recommend them. Not enough garlic. The strawberry pie was all right.”
“Yes. I like the pie.”
Georges’s answer seemed to irritate Joe, whose lips grimly turned downward. “Miss Matilda. This is very important. Is this man the
Black Pearl?”
Matilda never took her eyes off Georges. “Detective. I never met The Black Pearl. I met Mrs. Rosenberg and the green man from
Mars.”
Georges looked sideways at Anna, one eyebrow up, one eyebrow down. Anna shook her head. “Thank you, Miss Matilda. I will be through here in a second and I’ll bring you a treat. Can you sew quietly in my office?
“Yes ma’am.”
“Miss Matilda,” Joe said. “Would you please send down the twins?”
Matilda nodded and hurried out. Anna felt the loss of her—a premonition of what life at the station would be without Matilda’s sweet generosity.
“So now what? We wait for my accuser?” asked Georges. He seemed almost eager.
“Yes. We wait for Allie Sutton.”
They waited together in taut silence until finally Mr. Melvin cracked open the door. Three necks snapped around to look. The clerk was alone. “Allie Sutton doesn’t live at that address.”
Joe said something profane under his breath.
Anna took him by the arm and pulled him into the corridor. She gave him a hard look.
Joe hissed. “Of course she didn’t give us her correct address. She didn’t want him to find her. She doesn’t want him to know about the baby.”
“Why do you even care about the Jonquil? You never gave a hoot about Madam Lulu’s brothel.”
“What do you mean, why do I care? Madam Lulu employs women. She doesn’t lure innocent, underage girls. She doesn’t drug them. Anna, you care, too. You want to catch the Black Pearl.”
“He is not the Black Pearl!”
Anna caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye and turned to see the backsides of Sue and Clementine, hurrying away with Matilda.
“No. Come back. I’m sorry. He made me shout,” said Anna.
The girls obediently turned and tremulously came forward.
When Anna had been a child, her father had spewed red hot words. Sometimes, he spanked her. But she hadn’t feared him. He never left marks. The twins fled a father who broke Sue’s arm. Who knew what violence had driven poor Matilda from her family. It was no wonder hot words frightened them.
Anna smiled with all her sweetness. “He’s sorry. He won’t do it again.”
Joe sighed. “Miss Matilda, there are peppermints on my desk. Please help yourself.”
“Is the moules man still there?” She seemed wary.
“You don’t need to fear him, Matilda. He’s a good man. He’s my brother.” Anna proffered a twinkleless smile.
“He teaches Martian men our customs.”
Joe leaned toward her. “Miss Matilda, what do you mean?”
Matilda looked cautiously at Anna. “How to eat.”
“You saw him eating with the man from Mars?”
The girl nodded.
“Thank you, Miss Matilda.” Joe smiled grimly. “Now go get some peppermints. As many as you want.”
Matilda rushed off down the hall as if fleeing something. The twins watched her go, then looked cautiously at Joe. Like influenza, Matilda’s nervousness was catching.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Anna.
Joe opened the door and ushered the twins inside. “Sue, Clementine, this is Georges Devereaux. I don’t suppose you’ve met before.”
Clementine scratched her thigh through her frock and said, “We run in the same circles.”
Despite the situation, or because of it, Anna almost laughed.
Joe said, “Miss Clementine, what do you mean? Are you acquainted with Mr. Devereaux?”
“No.” She sounded very la-dee-da. “But it was just a matter of time. I saw him at the Jonquil Café speaking with Mrs. Rosenberg. But we are friends with men like him—Mrs. Rosenberg’s friends.”
Joe turned to the other girl, “Miss Sue?”
“Yes. I know him. He’s distinctive looking,” said Sue.
“Thank you,” said Georges.
Joe glared at Georges. “Don’t speak.”
Anna said almost pleadingly. “But you can’t be sure. You didn’t recognize him from the newspaper photograph.” She produced the newspaper and plunked it down on the table with a smack.
Sue and Clementine flinched.
Joe said, “Girls. Help yourselves to some peppermints. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll talk later.”
When Sue and Clementine had disappeared down the hall, Joe turned cold eyes on Georges. “Georges Devereaux, you’re under arrest for the operation of a prostitution ring exploiting underage girls.”
“No!” Anna forced herself between Georges and Joe. “This is bunk.”
Georges took Anna by the shoulders and gently turned her to face him. “Anna, it’s okay. I can fight my own battles. Tell Thomas to call my lawyer. We’ll straighten this out.”
“You’ll be slandered in the papers.”
“I didn’t do it, Anna. I’ll be vindicated. Just like you.”
Her voice cracked. “That hasn’t worked out so well.”
“Go on. Cuff me.” Georges held out his wrists to Joe.
Joe’s face was blank, stony. The color had drained from his rosy cheeks, like a faded illustration. “That won’t be necessary. Come with me.” He ushered Georges to a desk to be booked.
Anna stormed over to the station’s telephone exchange where a man sat behind a panel that sprouted wires like hair. “I need to place a call, please.”
He handed her a receiver.
Mr. Melvin shuffled over and made eye contact with Anna’s white necktie. “Is everything all right, Assistant Matron Blanc?”
“Everything is all wrong. Everything! I’m going to call my brother’s man.” Anna lifted the candlestick phone, put the receiver to her ear, and her hard-set lips to the transmitter. “Get me the Hotel Alexandria, please.”
The front desk put Anna through to Georges’s room. After fifteen rings and no Thomas, she hung up. “Mr. Melvin, if anyone asks for me, I’m going to my hotel. I need to get my brother his medicine and lunch. He’ll hate the food.”
Anna glanced over at Georges in booking and found Joe watching her. She looked away.
The doorman greeted Anna and she met his good morning with the smile she’d been trained to deliver, no matter what she felt like inside. She turned the smile on the man at the front desk. “I need someone to pack a picnic lunch for Mr. Devereaux. Can you have it for me in fifteen minutes?”
Anna didn’t stay for his, “Yes, Miss.” She rode the elevator to the hotel room, fumbling in her purse for sweets for the boy, and dropping horehound candies all over the floor. “Oh, just have them all,” she squeaked and dashed off as soon as he’d opened the wrought iron doors.
She let herself into the suite with her fancy fish key. Anna went room by room, but Thomas was nowhere to be found. She searched Georges’s desk for any indication of who his lawyer might be. She found paper, monogrammed stationery, calling cards printed with Georges’s name, a variety of fountain pens, and an address book. She flipped through the book. The man’s name would not be listed under lawyer. But
perhaps Georges used Anna’s father’s lawyer. She tapped her lip, taking a moment to recall his name—a Mr. Paxton. She found the name and number listed under P. Anna picked up the telephone. “Hello Central. Please connect me to Mr. Paxton, Esquire 41286.” She waited on the line for seconds that seemed like hours, until Mr. Paxton’s secretary, and finally the man himself, came on the line. “Georges Devereaux needs the best criminal defense lawyer in the city, whoever you think that might be. He’s down at Central Station. He’s been arrested.”
Anna hung up the phone, closed her eyes, and caught her breath. She needed to get Georges’s medicine, because if anyone could make someone have fits, Joe Singer could.
She found Georges’s medicine kit in a marble-topped cabinet in his bath. It contained a syringe, several small bottles labeled “morphine,” and a bottle of hypno-sedative containing bromides. She put the kit in her purse and flew back to the elevator to the ground floor where a picnic basket awaited her. It felt heavy, like it contained an elephant. Anna hauled it to the trolley and was back at the station in under an hour.
She lugged the picnic basket to the men’s department of the city jail. A jailer unlocked the great steel door. The hallway was grated. He escorted her through to another steel door. On the other side, through a barred window, Anna could see Georges standing in the bull ring in striped pajamas, alongside embezzlers, drunkards, and automobile bandits.
Ire rose in her throat. She was going to kill Joe Singer. She approached the jailer and spoke from between clenched teeth. “Please let me into the bull ring.”
He looked scandalized. “It’s not safe. You don’t know what those men might do. It’s no place for a lady.”
“And it’s no place for a gentleman, and yet Georges Devereaux is there.” She made a growling sound. “Detective Singer could have let him wait at my desk. Did he really think he would flee? Let me in!”
The jailer hesitated.
Anna brazenly laid hold of the key ring fastened to his belt. She tugged. “I’ll let myself in.” She tugged again.
His face turned bright red at her familiarity. He capitulated and unlocked the door. She entered the bull ring on tiptoes, as if to limit her exposure to the unknown substances that stained the grimy floor. But there was no way to keep oneself unstained in the bull ring. The air reeked of body odor and rotting teeth. Rat droppings collected on the cement. Fifty men, vagrants or criminals, shared space in a room crammed with half as many cots. Half of them had to stand all night or lay down on the evil-smelling floor to sleep. The tanks and the felony cells must be full.
Every eye fixed on Anna. The door closed and locked behind her. Steel walls encircled her. Anna wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake. She tried to appear collected, though inside she felt like running. The inmates seemed to lean toward her. A drunk man reached out and touched her skirt. The jailer banged a baton on the grate. “Don’t touch her.” With his right hand, he aimed his gun through the bars. The inmates moved back. They seemed cowed.
Georges looked up and his face registered shock. “No Anna. This is no place for you.”
Anna tried to ignore the many eyes upon her, the crowd parting to let her pass. She was comforted by the jailer’s gun, but not quite comforted enough. “I could say the same for you. Joe could have put you in a cell for one. They have hammocks.”
“Apparently, they’re full of murderers.”
Anna glanced about the bull ring. “He couldn’t at least get you a bunk?”
“He doesn’t believe in special treatment.”
“Hah. That’s not going to make me forgive him.” Anna held out the picnic basket. “I brought you lunch. And I brought your medicine. Three times a day, father said.”
“I don’t want to take it. I need my wits about me.”
“You’re taking your medicine. You can borrow my wits. She set the heavy picnic basket down on the grimy floor and produced a bottle of pills from her purse. She unscrewed the cap and held one to Georges’s mouth. “Open.”
He groaned and rolled his eyes, but obediently took his medicine. Anna held a cup to his lips and smiled. “There. I’ll return this evening to make sure you take the next dose.”
He swallowed. “Thomas called my lawyer?”
“No, he wasn’t home. I called father’s lawyer. A Mr. Paxton.”
George nodded. “Then, I won’t be here for my next dose. My lawyer will have me out of here in no time.”
Anna opened the picnic basket. There were tarts, donuts, sardines, crackers, grapes, an orange, cut vegetables wrapped in a cloth, and five different sandwiches. Anna opened each sandwich in turn: banana and sugar, roast beef, peanut butter and jelly, egg salad, some sort of grated cheese. Lastly, there were three bottles of wine—red, white, and rosé—two Coca Colas, and four crystal glasses wrapped in linen napkins. The other inmates fixed hungry eyes upon it.
“No wonder it was so heavy.” Anna said, “I don’t think the hotel chef knows what you like to eat, so he simply gave you everything.”
“Honestly, Anna. I don’t feel like eating at all. It stinks in here.”
“Oh, please eat, Georges. Please eat.” She extended the banana and sugar sandwich in his direction, because it was the most scrumptious. “Just hold your nose.”
He took it and smiled. “If you’ll eat, I’ll eat.
Anna held her nose. “I’ll eat, so that you’ll eat.”
He laughed and pinched his nose, too. Anna bit into the roast beef sandwich and tasted horseradish, which ordinarily she loved, but today it only burned her sinuses. She finished it and tried the cheese. She finished that and had the egg salad. She drank a Coca Cola and then she had some wine.
The lawyer arrived. It was not Mr. Paxton, but an Earl Rogers, who specialized in criminal defense and who had been sent by Mr. Paxton. He had hooded eyes, and impossibly straight brown hair parted down the middle. Anna was unaware of his legal reputation. She did know that he sometimes lodged at Madam Lulu’s brothel when his wife threw him out.
The jailer let Anna and Georges out of the bull ring so that Georges could meet with his lawyer in private. A guard escorted them down the grated hallway and through the steel door. Georges carried the picnic basket. Mr. Rogers asked to speak with Georges alone.
“But I want to come,” said Anna.
“It’s all right, Anna. I know you have work to do.” Georges held out a tart. “Here, take this. You’ve hardly eaten a bite.” He chuckled.
Anna took the tart, squeezed Georges’s hand, and departed in search of Joe Singer.
Joe strode across the station floor, saw her approaching, and veered into the little kitchen. Anna followed, and slammed and locked the door. “What have you done?” She handed him the tart.
Joe remained silent. He set the tart down on the table.
Anna perched on a chair as far from Joe as she could be in that small room. “He’s my brother. He’s the only family I have. And maybe, if he and I become close, father will soften and forgive me. Then I’ll forgive him, and we’ll be a family.”
“Forgive you? For what? For catching a killer?”
“For bringing shame on him and my dead mother’s memory. And now my brother, who is shameful already because he’s a bastard. He didn’t need any extra shame, and the situation of his birth, well that’s not his fault.”
“You didn’t shame your family. He should be proud of you.”
“Georges is proud of me!”
“So, you believe that he’s innocent? That this whole Black Pearl thing is a set up?”
“Just like he believes in me. He sought me out, Joe. Regardless of what anyone in society says about me, he associates with me.”
“I associate with you.”
“Yes, but you can’t help it. You’re in love with me.
“That is my predicament.”
“So, I’ve got to do everything I can for him, because I can’t believe he’s guilty. I just can’t. It would be disloyal and wrong to think ill of him.
And you put him in the bull ring!”
“So, what if we find out he’s guilty? What if we have proof? Where’s your loyalty then?”
“Don’t you see? He can’t be guilty. He just can’t. So, you can’t have proof.”
“But Anna, if he’s guilty, he belongs in a box.”
“Let him go. I’m begging you. You once said you’d do anything for me.”
Joe threw his hands in the air. “Well this particular scenario hadn’t occurred to me. I thought you cared about justice.”
“I love you both and it isn’t fair that I have to choose between you. But he needs me and you don’t.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m going to fight for him, and if it means fighting against you, so be it.” She took up the tart and marched out the door.
CHAPTER 22
Joe sat alone in the kitchen, head in hands. Detective Wolf came in and claimed his lunch pail from the shelf. “What’s up with honeybun. She looks distraught.”
“I arrested her brother for using a child for immoral purposes—it’s a kidnapping charge.”
Wolf sat across from him. “I didn’t know she had a brother.”
Joe looked up. “He’s her half-brother. Georges Devereaux. He’s a, I don’t know, banker.”
“I see. So, I’m guessing you think he did it.”
“He says he’s being blackmailed but we have witnesses—four that place him at the Jonquil Café, and one who positively identified him as ‘Mr. King,’ also known as ‘The Black Pearl,’ which is what they call their macquereau. The madam won’t talk. I’m bringing in a fifth person for questioning who apparently is the Black Pearl’s lover.”
“Young girls are your witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“And this Georges Devereaux is rich?”
“Loaded. He’s retained Earl Rogers.”
“And his lover—is she a current lover, or a woman scorned?”
“Current lover.”
“Good luck with that.”
“I know, but I have a bad feeling about him. And there’s a whole bunch of potential witnesses that I haven’t even spoken to yet.”
“And what if they surprise you—say he isn’t The Black Pearl?
The Body in Griffith Park Page 15
