Angels of Mercy

by Duncan, Alice

  “But, Lulu, we only lost a few material items. Peggy seems to have sold her very soul to the devil.”

  Oh, my goodness, that was a bleak thought.

  So as not to dwell on it, I turned to Ernie, who sat sprawled in a chair drinking some warmed-up coffee. “Do you think the police will actually look for Peggy, Ernie? Please tell me the truth. Is there any hope at all that our missing possessions will be recovered?”

  He eyed me narrowly for a considerable space of time before he said a concise, “No.”

  Caroline gasped.

  Lulu said, “It figures.”

  “Honestly? They won’t even try?” I asked, hoping he was only being pessimistic to teach me a lesson, although I’d learned better by that time. In spades.

  “They’ve got big stuff to worry about, Mercy,” Ernie told me in a kindly voice, as if to humor me. “A petty burglary like this won’t even register on their scale of crimes. Heck, another big Hollywood fellow got killed last night, just like Milton Halsey Gossett.”

  “Good Lord. Another murder?”

  I spoke the words, but we all goggled at Ernie.

  “Yup. Producer named Gregory Preston.”

  “Oh, my!” Lulu cried. “Isn’t he the one who made Guardian of the Plain?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And he was killed the same way Mr. Gossett was?” I asked.

  “Exactly the same. Point-blank range. Found him at the foot of the stairs, just like Gossett.”

  Something almost pleasant occurred to me. “Well, they can’t blame that murder on poor Calvin Buck! And don’t you think the same person must have committed both crimes?”

  “Yes, I do, but don’t bet your money on the police letting go a viable suspect just because he didn’t do both murders.”

  “How depressing,” I muttered, stunned, although Ernie was right. If the police had what they considered a sure thing, they didn’t aim to look farther. I’d learned that after the police accused Ernie or murdering a former client. Idiots. The police. Not Ernie or the client.

  “Anyhow, the cops have murders, book-making rings, bootleggers, and all sorts of other, bigger, crimes to worry about. I doubt they’ll put a team on to looking for your stolen items.” After eyeing me for a second, he said, “They might send out a notice to pawn shops in town. Sometimes pawnbrokers will rat someone out if he—or she—attempts to pawn stolen merchandise.”

  I could almost hear him say, “Fat chance of that happening,” although he didn’t do so aloud. Feeling worse than ever, I looked at Lulu and Caroline. “I’ll make this up to you. I’ll pay for your losses. And I’ll definitely buy another radio as soon as I can. The police might not care about your stolen property, but I do.”

  “Mercy,” said Lulu, sounding as if she were trying to maintain her patience. “This wasn’t your fault. Crumb, I ought to have known the lemonade had booze in it. I’ve tasted enough of Uncle Junior’s corn liquor to know alcohol when I taste it.”

  I felt my eyes widen, not sure if I was more shocked over her revelation about drinking corn liquor or about her having an uncle named Junior. “Really?”

  “Really.” Lulu heaved a gigantic sigh. “We lived in a real backwater, Mercy. You’ve never seen anything like where we lived. L.A. and Boston are centers of the civilized world compared to my little town in Oklahoma. Lots of folks made liquor in their own stills. The revenuers would try to find them and bust them up, but Uncle Junior was smart. He had his still in a cave, and no revenuer to date has been able to find it. Heck, the rest of the family doesn’t even know where it is.”

  Feeling stupid, I asked, “What’s a revenuer?”

  Ernie laughed. He would. “A G-man sent to quell the manufacture and distribution of illegal liquor, Mercy.”

  I almost asked him what a G-man was, but then realized the G must stand for Government, so I said merely, “Oh.”

  “Prohibition’s a lost cause anyway,” he went on. “People like a glass of beer every now and then, and it sure doesn’t hurt them any.” He saw me open my mouth to rebut this statement, I guess, because he went on quickly, “I know. There will always be people who abuse both liquor and drugs. And probably lots of other things that aren’t in themselves evil. But to quash an entire industry isn’t the way to go about anything. I’m from Chicago, and when Prohibition started it put thousands of people out of work, especially in the German and Polish sections of town, because they were the main brewers. Well, and the Russians, too. They like their vodka.”

  “Goodness. I’d never even thought about the industry itself. I’ve only ever thought about men drinking away their families’ food money in taverns and stuff.”

  Ernie nodded. “Carrie Nation has a lot to answer for.”

  “But I don’t approve of drinking, either,” said Caroline, her voice even softer than usual.

  With a shrug, Ernie said, “Nobody has to approve of drinking. Just don’t drink if you don’t want to. That doesn’t mean the rest of the world shouldn’t have a little tot if it wants one.”

  Caroline frowned but said no more. She was definitely not the argumentative sort.

  “But Ernie,” said I after thinking about it for a minute, “if we carry your scenario to its logical conclusion, you’d condone drug-taking and gambling and all those other sorts of vices, too.”

  “I don’t necessarily condone taking anything at all. But hell, yes! Make the manufacture of all those things legal, give the government oversight, and you’ll create a million jobs. You probably won’t have any more drunks or addicts than you have now, but you’ll at least have full employment rosters and empty jails.”

  I frowned, recalling some of the things my father had said about the government interfering in the banking industry. On the other hand, my father was a banker. “Do you really think that would work?”

  “Lord, I don’t know. All I know is Prohibition isn’t working for anyone except the bootleggers.”

  “You might just have a point there,” I conceded. I didn’t want to, though. Ernie’s jaded view of the world troubled me sometimes, although I appreciated his coming to my defense about the Peggy situation.

  “I think you’re right,” said Lulu.

  That pretty much put a cap on the conversation. Shortly thereafter, Ernie rose from his chair, stretched, and said, “Well, I’d better beat it. Tomorrow’s Monday.” He eyed Lulu and Caroline. “You gals going to be all right to go to work in the morning?”

  “Yeah,” said Lulu. “I feel much better now.

  “Indeed,” said Caroline, smiling a tiny smile. “Your recipe for recovery worked very well, Mr. Templeton.”

  I expected him to tell her to call him Ernie, but he didn’t. For some reason, I was glad of it.

  “Happy to help,” he said, and he took off for the front door.

  Buttercup and I rose to follow him. He slapped his hat on his head, donned his jacket and said, “Don’t take any wooden nickels, Mercy. You’ve already taken too many of ’em lately.”

  “You’ve got that right,” I said despondently, wishing he’d give me another hug.

  But he didn’t. He only winked at me and left my house. I dragged myself back to the living room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lulu and Caroline still sat where I’d left them. They both appeared slightly less under the weather than they had when Ernie and I had come home and found them unconscious from the drug Peggy had given them.

  Although it was only about six-thirty by then, Caroline said, “I think I’d better go to bed. I need to rest up, and I still don’t feel too well.”

  Naturally, as soon as the words left her lips, my feeling of culpability nearly drowned me again. “I’m so sorry, Caroline. I truly will do everything I can to get your belongings back. And if they can’t be found, I’ll do my best to replace everything.”

  She gave me one of her sweet smiles. “I know you will, Mercy, but truly, this wasn’t your fault.” Shaking her head sadly, she said, “I guess
it’s true what people say, that sometimes the big city can corrupt vulnerable youth.”

  Lulu and I both stared at her as she went slowly out of the living room and up the staircase. I felt lower than dirt.

  “I’m going to get her a new charm bracelet,” I told Lulu. “At the very least.”

  “That would be nice, but it wouldn’t be her grandma’s,” said Lulu, telling the truth even though I didn’t want to hear it.

  “I know.”

  Silence settled over us. I didn’t know how Lulu was feeling, but I was drained. I felt as though I didn’t want to move for about ten years or so. I was so pooped, I didn’t even stroke Buttercup, who had curled up on my lap. She didn’t seem to mind; actually she seemed to be sleeping quite soundly without any stroking on my part.

  After what seemed like a century or two, Lulu broke into the quiet. “I wonder if there’s any way we could find Peggy on our own. I know darned well the coppers aren’t going to try to find her.”

  “You want to find her?”

  With an incredulous glance at me, Lulu said, “Yes, I want to find her! Then I want to get our stuff back and then beat the stuffing out of her! What she did is just plain wrong. Don’t you want to find her?”

  Goodness. I hadn’t known Lulu to harbor violent thoughts about anyone or anything until that moment, although now that she’d brought them to the surface, I discovered within myself a certain desire to do something hurtful to Peggy Wickstrom. While I didn’t believe I could ever beat the stuffing out of anyone, I could darned well stamp on her feet or kick her in the shins or something. What’s more, I’d feel good doing it.

  Therefore, after thinking for a moment or two, I said, “Yes. I’d like to find her. I’d like to know why she stole from us. We never did anything mean to her. If she didn’t like me for lecturing her—and I know I did that, and I know she didn’t like it—why didn’t she just move out? Why did she do this to us?”

  Lulu rolled her eyes in a very Ernie-like gesture. “Mercy Allcutt, you still haven’t learned that there are evil people in the world, have you?”

  Frowning, I said, “Well . . . yes, I know there are evil people in the world. For heaven’s sake, I’ve met enough of them since I moved to Los Angeles. I . . . oh, nuts. I feel stupid saying it, but I still have a hard time believing that Peggy is all bad. She’s only eighteen, Lulu! When I was eighteen, I was attending tea parties and dances and trying to avoid the boys my mother wanted me to marry.”

  This revelation about my privileged background made Lulu laugh. “Mercy, you slay me! Shoot, when I was eighteen, I was on the bus to Los Angeles, determined to become a movie star. I found myself a job at the Figueroa Building, and I’ve been there ever since, supporting myself. Nobody’s ever invited me to a tea party in my whole life.”

  “I suppose not,” I said, chastened and feeling every iota of my sheltered youth. “But I invited you to the Ambassador Hotel for dinner with John Gilbert.”

  “Yes, you did, and I love you for it,” said Lulu, suddenly serious. “You’re a good person, Mercy. You can’t help it that you always think the best of people. You didn’t grow up living in a town with the likes of Gerald O’Flannagan.”

  With a sigh, I said, “There were probably lots of people like him in Boston, but I didn’t have to deal with them.”

  “Exactly.”

  Silence descended upon us again until I said, “I wish I could think of a way to find Peggy. If we can’t get her to give us our stuff back, maybe we could at least get her arrested. That would be satisfying.”

  “True. And it might shake her up some, too. She is young. You’re right about that. Maybe a stint in jail would cure her of her bad tendencies. I know Rupert swore he’d never even jaywalk again once he got out of the clink.”

  “That was a terrible miscarriage of justice,” I said in firm defense of Lulu’s hapless brother, who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and been arrested for it.

  “Well, you got him free again,” said Lulu, giving me a warm smile.

  She was right. That realization made me feel marginally less like an ineffectual nitwit. “I wonder . . .” My voice trailed off, since I truly hadn’t a clue how to go about finding someone who didn’t want to be found.

  Her forehead wrinkled in concentration, Lulu said, “Where’d you say she worked? Some place on Flower?”

  “Anthony’s Palaise de Danse,” I said, my nose wrinkling, much as Lulu’s forehead had done. “I think it’s near Flower and Seventh.”

  “Hmm. I wonder if she’s going to keep working there. She might not if she thinks the cops are after her.”

  “Do you think they’ll check on her there?”

  With a shrug, Lulu said, “They probably will. It’s called making a token effort, I think.”

  Shoot, she sounded more like Ernie than Ernie did. “Well, there’s no law that says we can’t make our own token effort, is there?”

  Lulu smiled again. “By golly, there sure isn’t.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  “Okay. I’m game. But not tonight. I’m too bushed. And we both have to go to work tomorrow.”

  “Right. But maybe we can snoop around after work.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.”

  I went to bed that night not happy, but at least pleased that Lulu and I aimed to do something constructive about righting the wrong that had been done to us and Caroline.

  * * * * *

  Ernie arrived at the Figueroa Building early on Monday morning. That is to say, he didn’t arrive early early, but he arrived earlier than he generally did. I’d only been at my desk, after doing my morning chores of dusting and straightening things, for a half-hour or so before he strolled in. With him strolled Detective Phil Bigelow.

  I was surprised to see them both. “Hey, Ernie and Phil. Are you here about the burglary, Phil?” My heart lightened to think that the L.A.P.D. might honestly be going to work on my own personal case.

  “Yeah, Ernie told me about that,” said Phil, removing his hat. He was much more gentlemanly than Ernie, who never took off his hat until he went into his office, even though there was a lady—me—in the outer office. “It’s too bad, and I’m sorry you lost some things.”

  That didn’t sound as if he was champing at the bit to work on my case. “You’re not here about that, are you?”

  “Well . . .” Phil scuffed his toe on the Chinese rug I’d bought and placed before my desk. This rug wasn’t expensive, but it was darned pretty. “To tell the truth, Mercy, that’s not my department. I’m a detective in homicide, and I’ve got another murder on my hands. The burglary boys are handling your case.”

  I sniffed. “It didn’t sound to me as if they aimed to handle it very much.”

  With a sigh, Phil said, “I know it’s hard for a civilian to understand these things, Mercy, but petty crimes like that happen all the time, and it’s virtually impossible to find and prosecute the offenders. By this time, I expect your property has been fenced and your former tenant and her friend are probably drinking up the profits.”

  My jaw dropped momentarily, but it snapped shut because I needed to know the answers to a couple of questions. “What does fence mean in this context, Phil?”

  Ernie had stopped to listen to our conversation, and he answered that question for me. “It means your Peggy and her Johnny have likely sold your stuff to a second party, Mercy. Like a pawnbroker. As I said before, the police will probably send a notice to the pawnbrokers, but it’s also probably already too late for them to do anything. And Phil’s right. I imagine Peggy and Johnny bought booze with the proceeds and had themselves a dandy little party.”

  Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, “But Peggy’s only eighteen!”

  I saw and resented the look that passed between Ernie and Phil.

  “All right. I know I’m naïve,” I said hotly. “But, darn it, she’s just a child! It makes me sick to think that terrible Johnny Autumn character has warped her so ba
dly.”

  “He might not have done as much warping as you think,” Ernie said wryly. “Some folks are ripe for the picking.”

  “That’s . . . really discouraging, Ernie.”

  “Yeah. It is. I agree.”

  “But you know, Mercy,” said Phil as if he were running interference between us, “it’s certainly possible that we’ll nab this Autumn character, and if we do that, chances are we’ll pick up his cronies, too, and one of them seems to be this Miss Wickstrom of yours.”

  “She’s not—”

  “Mercy disavows any acceptance of Peggy Wickstrom, Phil,” Ernie interrupted. “She only tried to give the girl a break.”

  Although I didn’t appreciate his rudeness, I had to appreciate his sentiment. “That’s right,” I said, nodding.

  “Very commendable,” said Phil. He didn’t sound as if he meant it.

  “But in the meantime, we’re working on the Gossett and Preston cases. I know it might not seem like it to you, but for a homicide guy like Phil, a murder is a little more important than the theft of a few bucks and a few trinkets.”

  “Well, of course it is!” I all but shouted at my boss who, as you have undoubtedly guessed, had said the above.

  Phil gave me a commiserating look as he and Ernie walked on into Ernie’s office and closed the door. Stupid men. On the other hand, perhaps Phil was right in that the police might well arrest Johnny Autumn for something, and that might lead the way to finding Peggy Wickstrom. It appeared as though our stolen property was gone for good, however, and that made me feel pretty awful—not for myself, but for Caroline and Lulu. Especially Caroline, whose grandmother had been giving her charms to put on her charm bracelet for years and years.

  I vowed once more to get the girl another charm bracelet. It wouldn’t be the same, but it seemed the least I could do. And in the meantime, I’d replace the radio that very day on my lunch hour. Later on Lulu and I would do a little snooping of our own. The least we could do was go to the Palaise de Danse and find out if Peggy was there. I thought about ’phoning the place again to find out, but didn’t want anyone to tip Peggy off that we were looking for her. If she was still working there, which I doubted. Peggy might not be the brightest candle in the box, but she wasn’t stupid enough to return to her place of employment after perpetrating a burglary.