Eve's speech was slurred. “What are you looking at?”
“Eve.”
“It's Lucinda now.” Eve began to descend the stairs. “And look at you. You're an assistant matron.”
“You…” Anna squeezed her eyes shut. “Look beautiful.”
Eve made a scoffing sound. “Sure I do. I've got a maid to style my hair, and Madam Monique buys my clothes. Would you like to see my new mink stole?”
“I…”
“I'm living high now. Live music, dancing, wine. It sure beats working at a factory.” Eve laughed. “What a fool. Fifteen hours a day, four dollars a week, and the boss still wanted to sleep with me. That's not enough coin to board my twins.”
“No…”
Eve's eyes glistened. “So don't you look at me that way, Anna Blanc.”
“No.”
“And don't you dare tell.” She took a drag on her cigarette, her fingers shaking. She looked down at the Persian rug and composed her face. When she glanced up again, Anna saw fragility and sorrow. Eve gritted her teeth. “Don't you tell Joe Singer.”
Before Anna could reply, Monique slipped in with the dog, yanked Anna by the arm and shoved her outside. She slammed the door. Anna heard the bolt slide across the lock. She stood on the doorstep, fingering her skirt, and breathing. Her legs felt weightless and weak, her belly full of lead. She had done this to Eve. She had.
Anna drifted down the steps and into the street. She wanted to run straight to Officer Singer and have him tell her that it wasn't possible, that Eve didn't work at the Poodle Dog but was safe in Denver, caring for the twins and sending him postcards. Anna wanted to cry and have him console her and forgive her because he was the only one who knew what she had done, the only one who could absolve her.
But that would be a selfish act. Eve had forbidden it. If Anna ever fell to such depths, she certainly wouldn't tell Officer Singer. That's what prostitute names were for—anonymity. Keeping Eve's secret was the least she could do. Also, Joe might shoot Anna with his gun if he ever found out that his friend?—lover?—was now whoring because of Anna.
Anna knocked at Madam Lulu's Christmas-green door, her eyes glassy with uncried tears. Lulu answered before Anna could rap twice. She cocked her head and squinted at the flustered socialite. “What?”
Anna pressed her lips together and swallowed. “I have to talk to you.”
Lulu stood aside and Anna entered the brothel. The décor was as lush and vulgar as the woman herself. The room went on and on. Red carpets covered the floor, crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling. A life-sized oil painting of a woman in a partial state of undress smiled brazenly from the wall. There was a floor for dancing and two concert grand Steinway pianos. They reminded her of Officer Singer. The room winked at her.
Balconies overlooking the grand salon encircled the two upper floors. Doors on the balconies led to bedrooms. Stairs led to balconies. It smelled of cigars.
Madam Lulu motioned for Anna to sit. Anna missed the chair and sat on a side table, half in a milk glass candy dish. It cracked. She jumped up. “You were right. Peaches’ and Ruby's deaths were both murders. The other deaths are suspicious. I asked Chief Singer to look into it. He said he would, but he lied.” She settled herself properly into a chair.
“Naw!” Madam Lulu looked at the two halves of the candy dish. The marshmallows were flat. She offered one to Anna.
Anna shook her head at the candy. “But I don't know why! Do you know why? Officer Snow and the coroner saw the evidence. They must know it's murder. Are they covering it up? Or are they lazy and they just don't care?”
“That or they're plain stupid.”
“Maybe they killed her themselves!” Anna swiped a wrist across her brow. “But Madam Lulu, they're officers of the law! Sworn to protect us. And they aren't protecting those girls.”
“Do you want a drink?” Madam Lulu stood and lumbered over to the bar. She poured two glasses of whiskey and waddled back, handing one to Anna.
Anna drained it in one tip and gasped. “I went to the Poodle Dog to pick up a ten-year-old girl and take her to Whittier. The dead girl was from the Poodle Dog, right?”
“That's right.”
“The woman there wouldn't let me in.”
“Who, Monique? There's a reason her house is called the Poodle Dog.” Madam Lulu took Anna's glass. “That'll be fifty cents. You want another?”
Anna frowned and shook her head. She gave Madam Lulu her trolley fare. “I'll give you more later.” Her voice was thick. She poked a finger through the center of a marshmallow. “While I was at the Poodle Dog, I saw a friend. I guess she works there now.”
Lulu scratched her head. “What's a female friend of yours doing working at the Poodle Dog?”
Anna tried to compose her face. “Maybe I was unaware of her lewd nature, and she gave way to her baser impulses. Or, maybe…” Anna snorted, and her voice went high. “It's because I got her fired from her job and she's a widow with children and no family.”
Tears came dripping down Anna's cheeks, and she sniffled. Madam Lulu rolled her eyes. “Get a hold of yourself! You'll get boogers on my tablecloth.”
Anna snorted again, took out a handkerchief, and wiped her face. She lifted her chin and tossed her head. “I'm sorry.”
“So why are you here?” Madam Lulu asked.
Anna took a deep breath. “Do brothel girls put coins in their shoes for any reason? Superstition or tradition?”
“No.”
Anna nodded and closed her eyes. She blinked them open. “Do you have any other clues? Any evidence at all? I have a book. It says to notice everything, that the smallest things could be important.”
“I don't know nothin’ you don't know about already,” Madam Lulu said.
Anna stood up and stared absently at the painting of the half-naked woman. “Then tell me about the brothels. How many of them are there?”
Madam Lulu took a cigar out of a box, picked up a cleaver and smack, cut the cap on the marble tabletop. She stuck the cigar in her mouth unlit. “You're asking about the whole demimonde in LA? I don't know, a hundred.”
“My stars.” Anna took out a notebook, leaned forward, and began to scribble.
Madam Lulu chewed on her cigar. “But those ain't all parlor houses like my place. That's counting the dollar girls in the cribs down Alameda Street. The French girls, Japanese girls, the Chinese girls, the Belgian, whatever you like. Some of them places have but one or two girls.”
Anna made her pencil scribble faster. “How many girls are working as prostitutes?”
“You should ask Helmut Melvin. If they get vagged, he takes their money.”
Anna looked up from her notebook. “Vagged?”
“Arrested for vagrancy. There's no law against prostitution, long as we stay in our little corner. So, on occasion, they vag the girls, fine ’em fifty dollars and let ’em go. It's how the mayor pays for his fancy boat.”
Anna thought of the mayor's droopy mustache dotted with pink whipped cream and her stomach turned. “How many parlor houses are there?”
“At any given time? Maybe eight. Four years ago, they closed us down, but most of us opened up again.” Madam Lulu waved her cigar hand in the air dismissively. “We get raided from time to time, depending on which way the wind is blowing, but we pop back up.” Madam Lulu reached in a table drawer and pulled out a little red booklet. She handed it to Anna. “Here. Have a sporting guide. It's out of date, but it will give you an idea.”
“A sporting guide?”
“Sounds better than a whoring guide.”
Anna read the cover. “La Fiesta De Los Angeles Souvenir Sporting Guide?” It appeared to be created for tourists celebrating the city's fiesta. She flipped through the pages. It described the different brothels, and praised their charms with vague euphemisms. Had Anna read it out of context, she wouldn't have known what they were talking about. In fact, she still wasn't clear.”
“That'll be fifty cents,” Mada
m Lulu said. She finally lit her cigar.
Anna waved away the smoke. “Which parlor houses have lost girls? I want to know about drug overdoses, suicides, accidents, and disappearances, starting in January.”
Madam Lulu flipped her eyes to the ceiling. “I've lost two, Monique's lost two, the Octoroon—they lost a girl. Madam Van lost two girls. The Yankee Doodle lost one. That's all I know.”
Anna scribbled this down. “Good. Can you tell me about the parlor girls? What their lives are like. What they do. Where they go.”
“Go?” Madam Lulu said. “They don't go nowhere, unless they've been arrested or they're leaving town.”
“Not to buy groceries?” Anna asked.
“Delivery boys bring us everything we need.”
Anna thought about the girls’ pale faces. Eve's pale face. “So they never leave?”
“They aren't welcome to share the streets with the proper ladies. But we do go to the races,” Madam Lulu said. “That's just in the fall.”
“And our murders were in the winter, spring, and summer. If they never go out, our killer has to be a patron,” Anna said. “How else would he meet his victims? I need a list of your customers.”
“That's privileged information. Ain't no madam gonna give you that.”
“Then I have nothing to go on!”
“I'm keepin’ my eyes open. I'll let you know what I see. What does your sweetheart say?”
“Edgar doesn't know anything about this.”
“No, not your fiancé. Your sweetheart. Joe Singer. The police chief's son.”
Anna lifted her chin. “He's not my sweetheart. I don't even like him.”
Madam Lulu raised one eyebrow. “You want to solve the crime or not?”
Anna walked all the way back to the station in the heat, arriving exhausted and late, but armed with information. She wasn't sure what Madam Lulu had been implying about Officer Singer, but she thought she'd better give him another try. She had new, irrefutable evidence. Once she showed him, he'd help her, because, in spite of the fact that he had blackmailed her, she felt he would do the right thing. Now that Eve worked at the Poodle Dog, Anna felt even more determined to catch the killer. Eve would not end up with a sixpence in her shoe. Only over Anna's dead body.
Anna decided she would need to get Officer Singer alone, away from prying eyes. Snow might have seen her at the crime scene and knew she'd asked questions about the suicide. Anna herself posed no threat to Snow. No one listened to her. They all thought she was ridiculous. But Officer Singer was the chief's son—a genuine threat. Snow was party to the murders—at the very least derelict in his duty; possibly part of a cover up; or maybe even the killer. If he found out that Officer Singer was investigating with Anna, it would put Snow on his guard and put Joe and Anna in danger. Snow must not see them conspiring.
Detective Snow stormed into the station. He blew straight to Matron Clemens, who was typing a letter on LAPD stationary. “Where's Matron Holmes?”
Matron Clemens appraised him coolly. “She's taking a child to Whittier.”
As Snow stomped off to his desk, Anna strode through the front doors.
“Speak of the devil.” Matron Clemens raised her voice. “Matron Holmes, did you take the girl to Whittier?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Anna lied. She felt anxious.
“Monique didn't give you trouble?”
“No, ma’am. She was lovely. We…had tea.”
Matron Clemens raised an eyebrow. “I suppose it's always good to make friends. Mr. Melvin has your paycheck.”
Anna smiled with all her might. When Matron Clemens turned back to her work, Anna strode straight for Joe Singer's desk and dropped a note. Without slowing down, or noticing that Snow followed her with his animal eyes, she hurried through the station and out the back door. Joe picked up the note and read it. “Meet me in the stables. Be discreet.”
Joe closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, mentally bracing himself for whatever it was that Anna had in store. He couldn't think of a single good reason to comply, but he slid out of his chair and went after her anyway.
When Joe was out of sight, Snow crossed to his desk, and picked up the note.
The stables were sunlit. Summer heat made the horsey, leathery smells even stronger. Anna selected the only stall without a horse and threw herself down onto the clean straw to wait for Joe Singer, if he came. She couldn't be sure that he would. He hadn't spoken to her since they had last met in the stables and fought. He had done one thing for her. He'd hunted Douglas Doogan down at the Bucket of Blood saloon, and, because Doogan couldn't be held, knocked him silly and put him in a citrus car on a train bound for Cincinnati. Mr. Melvin had told her so. It was a romantic gesture, and Anna did her best not to appreciate it. She never thanked him.
Anna stretched. The straw released a cloud of dust that floated in the sunbeams and made her nose tickle dangerously. She quickly placed a finger on her upper lip to prevent a telltale sneeze. She didn't want anyone to find her except Officer Singer. Her mind whirred, sorting the facts, finding the right words to present her evidence.
She stood up and peeked around a saddle hanging over the side of the stall. Next stall over, a black mare stomped and whinnied, glistening with sweat. She heard a squeak and saw Joe swing the stable door open and come inside. He moved down the long center walk, scanning the two-dozen stalls and looking irritated. He stepped on a fresh road apple and said some unrepeatable word, scraping off his shoe.
When he neared her stall, Anna whispered, “Officer Singer, I'm here.” Their eyes met over the stall front, and his cool eyes made it clear that he had not forgiven her. Her heart beat faster. Joe opened the gate and sauntered in. He leaned on the boards and folded his arms across his chest. “What?”
Anna smiled at him. Her smile lit up the stables like a little sun. It was broad, warm, and genuine. She had asked and he had come, and she felt glad to see him standing there looking handsome and hostile, unaware that he was about to see things her way. Her warmth must have caught him off guard because he cocked his head and squinted.
Anna's eyes snapped over his shoulder. She was no longer looking at Joe, but past him, down the long center path, to where the stable door was once again swinging open. Snow lumbered inside, looking back and forth, like a snake ready to strike. Anna's smile vanished and goose bumps crawled up her arms.
“Sherlock?” Joe said.
Before he could turn to see what Anna saw, she tackled him. He landed in the straw on his backside and winced, rubbing his ribs where Anna had shot him. She crouched next to him and gave him a warning look, holding a finger to her lips. He shook his head. “You're a weird girl.”
She clapped a hand across his mouth, knocking him backward. Joe lay propped on his elbows, watching her like she was a bad melodrama. He obliged her request for silence for the same reason he came to the stables in the first place—one that eluded him at the moment.
Anna held still and listened. She could hear the faint sound of boots on dirt, moving from stall to stall. She now wondered if Joe had been fool enough to leave the note on his desk, and if Snow was specifically looking for them. Anna took her hand from Joe's mouth and crawled on her hands and knees to edge the stall door shut. Her uniform dragged in the clean straw.
At any moment, Snow could check their stall. If he found them in conference, a secret conference, he would think Joe was colluding with Anna. At best, it would complicate their investigation. At worst, if Snow were guilty…Hadn't she read it in novels a hundred times? Murderers did away with people who knew about their crime and had the power to reveal it.
If Joe were brutally murdered at the hands of a killer, it would be his own fault for leaving Anna's note on his desk for anyone to read. Even so, she wanted to save him. She looked into his puzzled, Arrow-Collar-Man face and imagined it cold, white, and dead. She had driven Eve to a life of sin. She would not lead Joe Singer like a lamb to the slaughter. She must convince Snow that they were not talking.
From her last visit to the stables, Anna knew that they were used for more than just horses. “Make eyes at me,” she whispered, and gazed into his eyes adoringly, like they were hat shop windows. Joe gave her a confused, cockeyed look, which would never do.
She lunged for Joe, knocking him flat into the straw, and she kissed him. She kissed him with all the intensity of their situation, and all the passion required to overcome it—their stormy history, his grudge, her guilt, his uncertain life expectancy if he didn't kiss her back, and his possible killer looming in the stables.
Joe pulled away from her, breathless and bedoozled. “You're not going to knee me in the groin again, are you?”
Anna silenced him with a kiss she'd been practicing on her pillow since that night in the park. Joe took the bait. He met her passion and raised it one.
Whether this was good or bad for Anna's mental health, she didn't know, but of all the good deeds she had done in her life, this was her favorite. Snow peeked over the planks just as Joe rolled her in the straw. They were touching head to foot and she was only six blessed layers of fabric away from his bare skin. Snow or no Snow, her nether parts celebrated.
Joe remained oblivious to Snow's presence and desperately kissed his way from her lips down her throat to the inch of her neck that was visible above her high, stiff collar. “I take it back,” he whispered. “You'd be very useful in the home.”
Anna felt her heart falling, falling, falling. She rubbed her silken ankle against his stockinged ankle, wrapped her arms around his back, and couldn't help but slip her fingers through a gap where his shirttails were not properly tucked in.
“You slay me, Anna,” he murmured between kisses. “I mean it.”
“I mean it, too.” And she did. He was so tasty delicious she could die.
He kissed her mouth again, and she was kissing back with everything she had, pressing herself against him, sliding her fingers across the warm, soft skin of his back, feeling his beating heart, his hands playing along the sides of her dress. Joe was whispering endearments between kisses, and Snow was peering into the stall, and Anna was hoping that Snow would never go away so she could be justified in spooning Joe Singer forever, or at least until five when her shift was done.
The Secret Life of Anna Blanc Page 19
