One snapped a picture.
When Mr. Blanc opened his paper the next morning, Anna's bottom was on the front page, accompanied by the true story of her adventures in the brothel—that is to say, Anna's version of the story as explained to a very romantic cop from Pasadena, as he explained it to a Los Angeles Herald reporter over the phone. The article told about the dead and missing girls, how no one at the LAPD believed her, how Eve's death had driven her to the brothels to hunt for her killer, how she had solved the crime on her own, slain Louis Taylor, and saved Joe Singer from a fiery death, then selflessly saved him again by being his blanket when he was in shock. She left out the part about stabbing Edgar, as it didn't reflect well on her detection abilities, and he might not want the world to know that he had lost a fight to a girl.
Mr. Blanc didn't read the article, but the rest of Los Angeles did. Though some readers said Anna's behavior represented a terrible breach of decorum, many women in Los Angeles felt a certain pride on her behalf. Most men framed the picture of Anna's bottom and hid it from their wives. Everyone had an opinion and everyone was talking about her.
Anna missed the article. When the papers hit the newsstands, she was driving her yellow convertible through the mustard gold hills of California, heading for the spiritualist colony at Summerland, looking like a fairy that had fallen into a campfire. She congratulated herself on having had the foresight to take two dollars from Joe's pocket. Now she had money for Coca-Cola and gas. She had also stolen Joe's shoes, which fit her bandaged feet like canoes. He didn't need them, as he was horizontal and unconscious.
Madam Lulu and Charlene had delivered Anna's car to the Pasadena police station, bearing the news that the crowd had re-gathered at Canary Cottage, making it impossible for Anna to return. Anna didn't think Edgar would receive her after she'd tried to kill him. For a brief moment, she considered calling on the Breedloves. Of all the people in the world that Anna had loved, Clara was the only one that Anna was sure had truly loved her back. But Clara had surely dropped her. Clara would never approve of her stabbing Edgar, because Clara was not that kind of girl.
Anna took a swig of Coca-Cola and wished it were brandy. Without Clara, Anna's life could never be more than half worth living. They had been a two-woman sorority united against the Miss Curlews of the world—partners in subverting every cruel repression under Anna's dictator father. When Anna had needed books, whiskey, or an alibi, Clara had provided. When Clara had to visit her spiritualist aunt's haunted house, Anna had been there, brandishing her crucifix.
But now, other than some very nice prostitutes, Anna was friendless and utterly alone.
When the second article about Anna appeared in the paper, which featured Joe's side of the story, she was smashing a window at Clara's dead aunt's empty beach house. Unlike people, ghosts didn't care about tattered reputations, ruined fortunes, and mistakes one might make with a paring knife.
The house was full of furniture covered in sheets. There was an organ, a sonorous grandfather clock, and framed photographs of the aunt with ghostly images of transparent dead people hovering around her. There was a windowless room for séances, stairs and doors leading absolutely nowhere, and a library of spooky books—The Salem Seer and Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena. It was deliciously creepy, but not somewhere one would choose to sleep alone. She would have felt very safe with a policeman in her bed—one that could sing her to sleep with lullabies. She bit her lip and banished the thought.
Anna hadn't eaten in two days. Her stomach panged and she headed for the kitchen. The cupboards brimmed with crackers, pickles, canned peaches, jars of peanut butter and, to Anna's delight, several tins of kippers. Anna stuffed a salty dill pickle into her mouth and bit it like an enormous cigar. She opened a can of fish, slipped an oily creature into her mouth, and chewed it with the pickle. She moaned with pleasure. Three giant cucumbers and ten kippers later, she was satisfied.
Anna was too tired to see ghosts. Only Joe Singer appeared in her dreams, and in them he had left her for Helmut Melvin. She cried and cried in her sleep. Anna slept all night, all the next day, and into the following evening.
She awoke to the sound of footsteps on the stairs and sat up in bed. The door creaked open. A dark figure stood there, barely visible on the threshold. Anna rubbed her bleary eyes. Maybe Louis Taylor had come to apologize.
She reached for her crucifix and held it high. “Be gone, oh restless spirit!”
The ghost giggled.
Anna's arm dropped. “Clara? What are you doing here?”
“Oh, Dearest! When we saw your picture in the paper, we searched everywhere for you. Theo's been combing the brothels since the raid. But of course you'd come here.”
“That's why Theo was at Canary Cottage.” Anna blew out a long breath. She looked sideways at Clara. “You're talking to me? Looking for me? Are you here to tell me we can never speak again?”
“Oh, Dearest.” Clara's face flushed and scrunched up. She came and sat next to Anna, wiping tear after tear off her rosy cheeks. “I've been a terrible friend.” She sniffed. “I should love you no matter what your career is or who's seen your bottom, and I do. I think you're heroic.” She kissed Anna's stunned face. “Forgive me?”
Anna slipped her arms around Clara's waist and squeezed her tight. “You're good.”
“You're famous now.”
“Infamous.” Anna laughed and put her head on Clara's shoulder. “So is Enid Curlew.”
Clara and Anna spent the next week wading at the beach and digging through the aunt's drawers for incriminating personal items, while Clara's maid packed old knickknacks in boxes. In the evenings, they ate canned fish and pickles and watched the sun set from the porch. They drank every drop of the dead aunt's whiskey.
Clara told Anna all that had happened in her absence. A girl from the club had a bun in the oven. Clara's sister-in-law had learned a new card game. Miss Curlew-Taylor had gone into hiding. Anna told Clara about her adventures in the brothels, what it felt like to kill a man, and what Joe Singer could do with his tongue. She told her that she never really knew Edgar until the end, how he had never once kissed her, but how she loved him for all he had done and would think of him whenever she smelled petunias.
The next morning, Anna drove Clara and her maid to the train station in Santa Barbara. Theo was expecting them home. Anna planned to stay at the beach house until she had eaten every last cracker and pickle, at which time she would have nothing to eat and would have to return to Los Angeles. Hopefully, by then people would have forgotten her.
As soon as Clara's train was puffing its way down the coast, Anna went to the post office. She sent a letter to Edgar, begging his forgiveness for thinking he was a murderer and for all the rest, and saying how lucky it was that he looked so splendid in his chinoiserie robe and matching slippers, because otherwise she would have left her eyes open when she stabbed him and wouldn't have missed. She said she was very sorry, but she could not marry him, but asked if she could call on him when she returned to LA. Edgar did not reply.
Late one afternoon, Anna padded up the steps from the beach, all salty and rosy in one of the dead aunt's swimsuits. She wore it without stockings, exhibiting her bare, sun-kissed shins for anyone to see. But the houses on the bluff were empty. There was no one to see, just the purple islands in the distance and the oilrigs adorning the ocean like tarnished silver filigree.
She reached the crest of the yellow hill, cooled by the ocean breeze on wet wool, the tired sun warming her legs, and heard a man singing.
She'll spoon you for a collar.
She's a menace with a paring knife.
Her bottom's black and famous
and she'll burn a man alive.
Joe Singer sat on the dead aunt's porch railing, holding a burlap sack, his face pink in spots from where the scabs had been after she dragged him across the driveway on his face. Still, he looked good enough to eat and Anna tingled. She had to steel herself.
Joe stop
ped singing. He looked down at her shins and let out a low, scandalized whistle. “I could arrest you for that, Miss Blanc.”
She tossed her singed, uneven hair. “Do you wear stockings when you swim, Officer Singer? I guess not. And you're out of your jurisdiction. I can do anything I want. I could swim naked…” Anna mentally kicked herself.
“I'd like to see you try.” He gave her his “mocking Anna” smile.
Anna glowered at him. She didn't have to be nice. She owed him nothing for his misguided heroism. She had saved him, not the other way around. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why have you come? Shouldn't you be with your brothel girl? She was ugly by the way.”
Joe chuckled bitterly. “Shouldn't you be with Edgar Wright?”
She lifted her chin. “I would be, but…”
“Oh, that's right. You stabbed him.” He smirked. “You know, Anna, I'm glad you think I sleep with prostitutes, because if you didn't, the next time you needed something you'd be giving me your Juliet line, and I'd probably fall for it.”
Anna's eyes flared. “Are you trying to deny you sleep with brothel girls? I caught you red-handed!”
“Did you?”
“Yes!”
His stare was cold. She had to look away. “Why did you come here bothering me?”
“It's nothing personal. I'm supposed to track you down. Captain Wells wants you back.”
Anna's face lit up like Chinese New Year. “Really?”
Joe tossed her the burlap bag. She caught it in her hand, reached into the sack, and pulled out a wad of red fabric—Peaches’ whoring outfit. She had left it on the floor in Joe's apartment, along with Lulu's blonde wig.
“I don't suppose you're gonna return my best suit,” he said.
His suit was now ash, and Anna was glad. She ignored the comment and held up the dress. It, too, was ruined, the filmy fabric torn diagonally up the back in two frayed pieces. She gave him a puzzled look.
“I commandeered it and Melvin ripped it. On behalf of the LAPD, I apologize.” He mocked her with a deferential incline of his head. “Captain Wells said he'd give you two new matron's uniforms in compensation, since you go through them so fast, if you'll come back.”
Anna blinked at the tattered dress. “Mr. Melvin ripped it? You did a sting? You…”
She glanced up at Joe and held her breath. Joe looked away, as aloof as the real Arrow Collar Man. “Big Cindy said the doggy wig was Lulu's so Melvin left it on the bed.”
Anna's mind whirred. What had she seen that night in the Mystery Man's shadowy room? A lock of blonde hair. The outline of a body in a dress. A tiny rouged mouth…
Anna let out an anguished cry. Joe Singer hadn't been with a prostitute. He'd been undercover, helping her solve the case. That ugly girl had been baby-mouthed Mr. Melvin. Anna grabbed the porch rail to steady herself, reeling under the weight of her mistake. Hadn't she known it in her heart? Joe wasn't a Beelzebub. No. He was an angel. She could have loved him all along. But now he looked like a wrathful angel—the kind that carried swords and didn't accept apologies.
Anna's brows drew together in an anguished appeal. “I'm sorry! I couldn't have known.”
He smiled a crooked, vinegar smile and heaved himself to his feet. “Don't be, Sherlock. You would've run off anyway, the first time Edgar Wright whistled. This way it was a little easier on my ego.” He swept up the bag and took the porch steps two at a time.
“Oh, please. Don't go yet.”
Joe turned and waited, his lids lowered. There was something flickering beneath the hostility, some tiny light, and though Anna couldn't name it, it made her hope. She smiled with all her sugar sweetness, desperate to hold his attention but fearing she could not and that she never really had. “We should…It would be swell if we could…debrief about the case.”
A shadow passed over Joe's face, and the tiny light extinguished. He let loose a joyless guffaw. “The case.” He pivoted and sauntered down the drive.
Anna's voice broke. “I'll see you at the station, then?”
He called back over his shoulder. “Nope. I'll be patrolling the streets of San Diego.”
This news shook Anna like an earthquake, and a panicky feeling rose in her chest. All she wanted in the world was to be in those indignant arms, kissing those lovely, smirking lips, and other things. And to fight crime. But Joe Singer was leaving her.
She had to stop him. Anna scrambled after Joe and grabbed his sleeve. “What do you mean you're leaving Central Station? I need you! You're the only man I've ever loved.”
He removed her hand from his coat. “You said that before, Anna. Right before you eloped with somebody else. Where were you going? Buenos Aires?”
“But you were sleeping with Mr. Melvin! And you didn't want me!”
Joe threw up his hands. “Of course I wanted you! Every man in LA wants you. So don't worry, Sherlock. Just wait a minute and something better will come along.”
Anna's cheeks burned like they'd been slapped. “If you loved me, you had a funny way of showing it. You could have told me you were going to the brothel!”
“Tell you I was in the brothel? Hah! You said you could never marry a man who went to a brothel for any reason.”
“Yes, I definitely wouldn't! Sometimes! But other times…”
“Like when he's Edgar Wright? Well Anna, I have a confession. Every day for four months Lulu's pianist gave me lessons on her Steinway. And I don't regret it! How do you like that? Well, my father didn't. But I never slept with any of the girls.” Joe continued walking, leaving Anna stunned in the drive.
“I don't care!”
Joe didn't stop. Her eyes welled with tears. “Fine! Just…just go. I hope you get eaten by a great white shark. And don't you ever try to tell me what to do!” Anna lifted her skirt and defiantly showed off her shins. “Officer Singer! Look!” Joe didn't look. She lifted her skirt above her knees. “Officer Singer!” He kept on walking.
Anna was both desperate to hold him and determined not to be ignored. If he got away now, she might lose him forever. She must act decisively and confess later. Anna struggled with the buttons on her swimsuit and stripped out of it. She chased after Joe and threw it at his head. It landed with a splat, like a wet nightcap.
Joe spun sharply. He saw her standing in the yard in wet underwear, and his eyes widened. His head snapped to the house next door and back to Anna. “No!”
“You can't boss me!” She sprinted for the cliff, peeling her corset cover over her head, her wet petticoats sticking to her legs. Joe bolted after her, scooping up her sandy, dripping clothes and tucking them under his arm. “Damn it, Anna! You have neighbors!”
“Yes! A whole family of spinsters. They'll drop dead from shock, and I don't care!” Anna shed a soggy petticoat. She pattered down the steps that led from the grassy bluff to the beach below in her remaining petticoat, the color of her skin visible through the wet white fabric. She raced to the bottom, across the shifting sand and toward the water, spooking a baby elephant seal. It loped off barking.
Joe caught up to Anna at the water and yanked her by the corset strings. “Put your clothes on!” He grabbed her arm and wrestled it through the sleeve of her corset cover, while Anna used her other hand to pull her last petticoat down to her knees.
He reached down to pull up her petticoat, while Anna unhooked the front of her corset. When he went to fix her corset, Anna untied her drawers. Joe tackled her and she landed on her bottom. He pushed her flat on the wet sand and straddled her, pinning her wrists. He breathed peppermint breath onto her face and shouted. “What do you want from me, Sherlock? How do I get you to stop torturing me?”
Anna let loose a string of teary hiccups. “Write me a nicer song! One where I'm not a homicidal vamp. Say I spooned you for love. Not for a collar.”
He shook his head. “Then give me some material, Sherlock. You gotta stop breaking my sorry heart!”
“Don't go to San Diego! I'll spoon you for love. I'll make love and
kiss you and…and give you material.”
Joe's eyes dropped to her unhooked corset and the wet cotton clinging haphazardly to her hips. He closed his eyes and inhaled. “Oh, Lord.” He searched Anna's face. “Don't lie to me.”
“I'm not!” She bit her lip. “Well, I lied about the spinsters. There's nobody for miles, except fish and…”
Joe kissed her.
I would like to thank my husband, Jonathan, for his unfailing support.
Many thanks to Neil Blair and Zoe King at the Blair Partnership (TBP) for being extraordinary agents and fighting my fight. I'd especially like to thank Liz Bonsor of TBP for discovering my work and tracking me down on LinkedIn. Your confidence in my novel, your suggestions, and your support made all the difference.
I'd also like to thank everyone at Seventh Street Books (SSB) for being so good at what they do—Dan Mayer for his gentle, insightful edits, Jill Maxick for patiently enduring my wacky efforts to promote the book, Nicole Sommer-Lecht for her amazing cover design, Sheila Stewart for diligently checking the facts, Cheryl Quimba for publicizing the book, and my fellow SSB authors for their advice.
Without my writer's group, the Denver Writer's Workshop, there would be no novel. A special thanks to members Ethan Elliot, Gary Patterson, Mary Villalba, Dave Durkee, Karen Smith, Jamie Gordon, Jenny Peterson, Heather Bell, and Brock Wood. They taught me how to write. Thanks also to everyone who reviewed the manuscript and encouraged me—David Weiss, Stephanie Manuzak, Christa Jorgensen Shorey, Joe Weber, Cassi Clark, Livia Harper, and especially Susan Ludes and LA historian AnneMarie Kooistra. Thanks to authors Quincy Allen and M. H. Boroson for your advice and support.
The Secret Life of Anna Blanc Page 34
