Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book)

by Duncan, Alice

  “Can you use the telephone?”

  “Of course.”

  He squinted at me. “I don’t know … You look kind of young.”

  “I’m twenty-one,” I announced firmly.

  “Yeah?” His grin made me wonder if he’d been hoping to discover my age without having to ask. Perhaps he was more subtle than he looked. Or I was more stupid than I had hoped?

  “You sure you want to work?”

  “Of course, I do! Why do you even ask the question? Would I be here if I didn’t want to work?”

  With a careless shrug, he said, “I don’t know. I want somebody who’ll really work. Sometimes rich girls think they want a new experience and will get a job for the hell of it and then they quit when they realize working isn’t as much fun as sitting at home and spending Daddy’s money.”

  The latter part of his speech shocked his hell right out of my head. “Rich girls? Why do you assume I’m a rich girl?”

  His teeth were extremely white. I noticed them when he grinned once more. “You are, aren’t you?”

  There went my cheeks again. “Nonsense,” I said, although I don’t think there was much force behind the word. “If I were rich, would I be looking for work?”

  “Like I said …” He allowed his sentence to trail off.

  It bothered me a lot that he had guessed my status upon first acquaintance. Besides, it wasn’t true that my family’s wealth was all there was to me. I didn’t want to be classified as some mediocre “rich girl” who was only getting a job for the … for fun. I truly craved independence.

  Didn’t I?

  I thought about it for the approximately fifteen seconds Mr. Templeton stared at me, squinting, as if he were attempting to crawl inside my brain and figure out my motivations. Standing up straighter, I said, “I assure you, Mr. Templeton, that I need a job. I will be a good, assiduous, and prompt employee.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I mean, yes.” Phooey.

  At last he stood up and flipped the knife, which landed point-down on his desk. The gesture startled me into a small jump. “Okay. You’re hired. Now let’s get some lunch.”

  And he rose from his scruffy chair, which squealed hideously, rolled down his shirtsleeves, buttoned his cuffs, reached for his jacket, plopped his hat on his head, and motioned for me to precede him from the room.

  I wavered. “But … ”

  “No buts. Twenty-three skidoo, kiddo.”

  I’m sure I looked as confused as I felt. Mr. Templeton gave his hat a pat, shrugged into his jacket, slung himself out from behind his desk, and took my arm. He was quite a bit taller than I, who am five feet, four inches tall in the morning. I shrink during the day. I think everyone does. “Come on, kiddo. Let’s rip a duck apart. My insides are rubbing together.”

  “But … ”

  “I’ll tell you about the job while we eat. You like Chinese?”

  “I … I … ”

  “Good. Chinese it is.”

  * * * * *

  As I stumbled along behind Mr. Templeton, I attempted to assess the situation. Was he only taking me out to luncheon? I mean lunch? Or did he have some devious and far more nefarious plan in mind? On the face of it, he didn’t appear threatening. Then again, if every villain in the world looked the part, villains wouldn’t get away with so much, would they?

  “Mr. Templeton!”

  “Call me Ernie. We’re going to be working together, aren’t we?”

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but … ” I’d had enough. Groping for the stair railing—we’d come that far already—I grabbed on to it and set my feet firmly on the top stair. “Stop pulling me!”

  I hadn’t meant to yell, but it worked. He stopped pulling me. In actual fact, he released my arm, quit walking—he had very long legs—and turned to frown at me. “What’s the matter with you?”

  I was out of breath, for one thing, but I sensed that wasn’t what he meant. “I came here about a job! Not luncheon. I mean lunch.”

  “Oh, heck, kiddo, you have the job. It’s lunchtime, and I’m hungry. So let’s talk about the job over a bowl of noodles at Hop Luey’s. Hell, I don’t even know your name yet.”

  “Well … I don’t believe it’s proper for—”

  It was probably a good thing that he let out a roar of laughter, since I’d started sounding like Boston again. “Proper! Lady, if you want proper, you don’t want Ernie Templeton, P.I.” He poked my chest with his forefinger. “If you want a job, I’m your guy.”

  Oh, brother. Rubbing my chest, I said, “Well …”

  “Good. Let’s go.”

  So we went.

  * * * * *

  When I got back to Chloe’s house, it was about two in the afternoon, and I was feeling slightly giddy.

  But, by gum, I had a job!

  Two

  The next morning, I awoke to the jangle of the wind-up alarm clock I’d bought at the five-and-dime on the corner of Fourth and Hill, and jumped out of bed with a feeling of renewed purpose in my life. I had a job! What’s more, it wasn’t just any old job. It was a job working with a private investigator! Mr. Templeton had told me what P.I. meant over lunch.

  If ever there was a job suited to a novelist, I told myself, this one was it. I would surely meet people with problems I could borrow for my novels, since I had none of my own that anyone else would give a rap about. Perhaps I might even meet criminals! Bootleggers! Gangsters! The notion made a shudder of delicious anticipation tap dance up my spine.

  I dressed in a sober navy blue skirt and white blouse, picked up my matching jacket and cloche hat, and hurtled downstairs to the kitchen, surprising Mrs. Biddle, Chloe’s housekeeper, into dropping an egg.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Biddle. Here, let me help you.”

  I grabbed a rag from the sink, but Mrs. Biddle snatched it away from me. “Never you mind. I don’t need nobody helping me.”

  “Well,” I said, dropping the help issue since I got the feeling she didn’t consider me adequate—which was probably true—“do you have some brass polish I can borrow?”

  “What you want with brass polish?” She looked at me as if I were crazy. I guess she wasn’t accustomed to the people for whom she worked raiding her kitchen for cleaning supplies before eight o’clock in the morning.

  “I’ll need a couple of rags, too,” I said. “And what kind of paint do you use to paint signs on windows, do you know?”

  “I don’t have any idea.” She backed up a little bit, hunching, and seemed to be sidling toward the knives.

  Well, that was all right. I couldn’t help it if people thought I was unusual. “And I’ll need something to wash windows with, too. What do you use to wash windows, Mrs. Biddle?”

  “Bon Ami,” she said. “And vinegar.”

  Before I could muddle through why the woman was trying to speak French to me, I saw in the cupboard a red-and-yellow cardboard box with the words “Bon Ami” stenciled thereon. Aha. I understood it all now. Bon Ami was some kind of window cleaner. Good. “Do you mind if I borrow it? Just for today?”

  She didn’t speak. When I turned to look, she was shaking her head slowly and staring at me. She’d made it to the knives, and her right hand was hovering over them. In case I made any sudden moves, I guess. Perceiving that it would be better all around if I desisted in garnering unto myself any more cleaning supplies, at least for today, I smiled in a friendly manner, lifting the box of Bon Ami from the cupboard. “Thank you. I’ll just run along now.”

  Mrs. Biddle nodded, but she neither smiled nor left the knife rack until I was out of the kitchen. I suppose my actions might be considered a trifle peculiar, but that was only because Mrs. Biddle didn’t understand that I had a job now! Or, if she did understand that, she didn’t consider having a job anything unusual, since she and probably everyone else she knew also had jobs. It crossed my mind that there might even be people in the world who wishe
d they didn’t have jobs—or at least wished they didn’t have to have them. Hmmm. I decided to think about that later.

  I was so excited, I could scarcely sit down to eat my toast and drink my tea. As soon as I’d swallowed the last bite, I jumped up from the table and assembled my cleaning supplies into a canvas sack I’d found in the basement. I hoped Mrs. Biddle wouldn’t need the sack for anything before I got home from work, but I didn’t ask. By that time I’d decided I’d best not fuss her anymore that morning. Then I left the house, walking the two blocks to Angel’s Flight with a spring in my step, perhaps aided in the endeavor by the fact that the weather hadn’t turned hot yet.

  Goodness gracious, but Los Angeles was a bustling city. You could see a good deal of it from the top of Angel’s Flight. According to Harvey, Chloe’s husband, much of the city’s wealth sprang from the burgeoning moving-picture industry. I thought that was interesting, but to tell the truth I also thought it was a trifle distressing. Perhaps that’s my moralistic Boston upbringing rearing its ugly head, but wealth based upon illusions seems … well … unworthy, somehow.

  My job, on the other hand … well, my job was worthwhile. That is to say, it was going to be worthwhile. Uplifting, even. Because Mr. Templeton, a private investigator, assisted people with their problems. I thought that was quite noble, actually, even though Mr. Templeton himself, upon first acquaintance, didn’t necessarily strike one as a particularly heroic soul.

  At lunch the day before, however, he’d explained to me exactly what kind of work a private investigator did. I came away not merely filled to the brim with good Chinese food, but bursting with enthusiasm.

  Oh, boy, if I wanted to gain experience, this sounded like the way to do it. I’d be working with honest-to-goodness criminals. Sometimes. Rarely, according to Mr. Templeton, but still, sometimes. I’d never met a real, live, honest-to-goodness criminal before, unless you counted a business associate of my father’s, who had been locked up for embezzling funds from the bank he owned in order to support a mistress. That had been a shame, true, and a terrible embarrassment to his wife and family, but it didn’t really count as far as experience went, since I didn’t know him well and, besides, it was more in the nature of cheating. I mean, he didn’t kidnap anybody or anything.

  In this job, I’d get the opportunity to meet real criminals, like robbers and people who shot other people and that sort of thing. More, I’d learn all about how to investigate things. Like, for instance, insurance fraud. Mind you, that sounded moderately boring, but Mr. Templeton said that sometimes he was asked to find missing persons. That should be interesting, shouldn’t it? I doubted that I’d find it satisfying to spy on roving spouses, but that went with the territory, and I decided that I would just cope in cases like that.

  Naturally, I didn’t see myself as sitting on the sidelines, answering the telephone and typing, at least not in the long run. Until I became fully acquainted with Mr. Templeton’s business, of course, those would be my duties. Long-term, however, I wanted to be more than a secretary. I wanted to be Mr. Templeton’s assistant!

  He hadn’t mentioned needing assistance, but I figured I could work up to it.

  Before climbing the stairs to the third floor, I stopped by the reception desk to speak to the girl with the blood-red fingernails and white hair. It was slightly before eight o’clock, and she looked as if she’d rather sleep a few more hours than sit behind a desk.

  “Good morning,” I said, making sure I sounded peppy.

  “Hi,” she said, giving me the impression that she didn’t appreciate pep at that hour of the day.

  Well, I wasn’t responsible for her poor sleeping habits. I stuck out my hand, smiled brightly, and said, “I’m Mercy Allcutt. We spoke yesterday. I’m going to be working with Mr. Templeton.”

  Her sleepy eyes opened wide. Perhaps my announcement had awakened her. “You’re working for Ernie?”

  “Yes. As of today.” I felt kind of silly with my hand hovering there in the air, but she took it at last and shook it limply. Because she didn’t seem inclined to tell me on her own, I asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Lulu,” she said. “Lulu LaBelle.”

  “My goodness. Is that French?”

  “What? Lulu? Naw, it’s because my first name is really Louise.”

  “Really? My middle name is Louise.”

  “Yeah?” She narrowed her eyes. “Say, wasn’t there some lady who wrote books named Louise Allcutt?”

  “Louisa May Alcott was her name. She was one of the Transcendentalists of the mid-nineteenth century. We’re supposed to be distantly related, but I’m not sure about that.”

  Her eyes seemed to be glazing over. “Oh.”

  I thought about reviving the French issue, and decided against it. Lulu didn’t seem awfully perky or communicative this morning. She leaned over the desk, though, as if she were interested in something. “Say, you really going to be working for Ernie?”

  “Mr. Templeton? Yes.” I doubted that he’d be Ernie to me any time soon, even though he’d told me to call him that. Calling one’s employer by his first name seemed so disrespectful.

  “He’s a looker,” said Lulu, giving me a sly glance. “But brash. Real brash.”

  Brash, was he? Yes, I suppose he was. “Good word for it,” I murmured. Then, because I didn’t really want to know Lulu’s opinion of Mr. Templeton, believing it to be my obligation to suppress gossip about my employer among staff and others, I said, “Lulu, is there a building caretaker? Or a building supervisor? A janitor? Somebody who’s supposed to keep the place clean and repair things?”

  “Ha!” She tossed her white head. I was wildly curious to know how her hair had gone so white while she was still so young. Perhaps she was suffering from some dread disease that had turned her hair white and rendered her exhausted of a morning. My heart instantly melted toward her, and I resolved always to be kind, even if she persisted in being too casual for my comfort. “There’s supposed to be. Guy named Ned. He’s generally in the basement reading Fu Manchu.”

  “The basement?”

  “Yeah. He’s got a room down there. If you want him to do something, you’d better go find him and ask him, ’cause he hides out once he gets to work, and he don’t do nothing unless he’s told.”

  “Good. I’ll do that. Thank you, Lulu. Do you mind if I leave this stuff here while I go downstairs to talk to Ned? Er … does he have a last name?” I’m sure it was my ever-so-proper upbringing, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling a perfect stranger—or even an imperfect one, which I assumed this Ned person to be—by his first name.

  Lulu shrugged. “Don’t know his last name. Sure, you can leave that stuff here.” She reached under her desk, withdrew a handbag, and began to root around in it, coming up with an emery board. As I headed for the stairs, she began filing away at her nails. I wondered if they’d ever be good enough for her.

  It took a while, but I found Ned. I would have found him sooner, but the door to his closet was closed. Persisting in my pursuit—after all, I was working for an investigator now, wasn’t I?—I opened every door I saw and eventually opened the right one. Lulu had been right about him: he was inside the closet, reading. Not Fu Manchu, but a book called The House Without a Key, by somebody named Earl Derr Biggers. I’d never heard of Mr. Biggers, although Ned had been so engrossed that he jumped a foot off his stool and dropped the book when I opened the door. He said something that sounded like, “Argh!”

  I smiled sweetly. “Ned?”

  He swallowed and slammed a hand over his heart. “I’m Ned.”

  “Are you the custodian?”

  He was regaining his composure rapidly. Sitting up straight on his stool and lifting his slightly meager chin, he said, “I’m an actor. I’m only doing this lousy job until I hit it big.”

  This seemed to be a common phenomenon in Los Angeles. I hadn’t been in the city long, a mere three weeks, but already I’d met waiters and waitresses, clerks, elevator operator
s, secretaries, laundresses, housemaids, and now a custodian, all of whom were biding their time working at menial jobs while waiting for fate, or somebody like my sister’s husband, to tap them on their shoulders and create instant successes out of them. It seemed chancy to me, but what did I know? I was here to gain experience, not pass judgment.

  “That’s wonderful, Mr. … er … Ned. But in your capacity as custodian, may I borrow you for a few minutes?”

  He bent over and picked up his book. “To do what?” He didn’t sound awfully eager to do the job for which he was being paid.

  “I need three light bulbs replaced and a sign repainted on a window.” Recalling the windows, the desk, the telephone, and the brass doorknobs, I added, “And I’ll need to borrow a bucket and some soap.”

  Sliding off his stool, he stood up with a sigh. He was a little taller than I and not particularly handsome, and I wondered how soon his star would shine in movie palaces across the country. I didn’t harbor too many hopes for the poor fellow, and thought it would behoove him to learn other, more profitable, skills than acting or janitoring. Naturally, I didn’t say so.

  “Where?”

  “On the third floor.”

  “Whose office?”

  “Mr. Ernest Templeton’s.”

  “Ernie’s room?” He squinted at me narrowly, as if he hadn’t really noticed me as a person before. “Say, you’re new around here, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.” I stuck my hand out and smiled brightly. “Mercy Allcutt, Mr. … Ned. Pleased to meet you.” Where in the world had all the last names of people living in Los Angeles gone?

  After looking at my hand as if it were a strange and unusual object for about ten seconds, he shook it. “Happy to meet you, too.” He gave me a smile that I think was meant to be seductive, although I’m not sure. “You’re pretty cute, Miss Allcutt.”