Scarlet Spirits

by Alice Duncan

  I hoped not.

  But I decided not to worry about Sam’s family for the day. I plopped my straw hat onto my well-groomed head, picked up my tan-colored handbag, slipped my stockinged feet into my tan-colored, low-heeled shoes, and examined myself in the Cheval-glass mirror. What’s more, I decided I looked pretty darned good, and the day’s plans pleased me.

  I was headed to Angie’s famous Orange Acres! And, golly, was I looking forward to the trip. If you’ve never smelled orange trees in bloom, you’ve missed out on something spectacular. The scent of orange blossoms is probably my favorite in the entire universe. I’d held a bouquet of them when I married Billy. They don’t last long, but I still liked to pick some when our orange trees were blooming, bring them into the house and stick them in a vase. I’d have to sweep up the wilted flowers the following morning, but the effort was more than worth it.

  Feeling relatively chipper, I woke up Spike, and the two of us joined the gents in the living room. Mr. Prophet glanced at me and winked. “You look mighty pretty today, Miss Daisy.” Evidently his mood had improved some.

  I curtsied. “Thank you, Mister Prophet. You look pretty spiffy yourself.”

  “Huh. Don’t know what spiffy means, but I doubt I look it. I’m an old man with one leg and a peg, and I can’t seem to look like anything else.”

  “Phooey.”

  He squinted at me. “Not sure what that means, either.”

  Pa laughed and rose from where he’d been sitting on the sofa. “Don’t worry, Lou. Modern slang is too hard for most of us old folks to understand, I reckon.”

  “Modern slang?” I said. “Heck, I don’t know half the words Mister Prophet uses! In fact, I’ve begun writing them all down. Maybe a publishing house would like to release a dictionary translating old-west sayings into modern English words. I might make a lot of money with book like that.”

  Another laugh came from Pa, this one even heartier than his first. Prophet merely squinted some more. Guess his good mood had been a temporary thing.

  However, the conversation didn’t continue because someone scritched our doorbell, and Spike raced to the front door, excited to welcome visitors to the house. Although I’d been frightened to death of people coming to the house mere weeks prior, this time I figured the scritcher was Angie, so I happily trotted after my hound and opened the door. First, of course, I gave Spike the order to sit. He sat. I love my dog.

  “Good morning, Angie!” I said with probably more enthusiasm than was absolutely required. Angie seemed startled, at any rate.

  “Good morning, Daisy. Ready to pay a visit to my orange grove?”

  “You bet I am. So’s Mister Prophet.”

  I waved an arm, ushering her into the house. As ever, Angie looked exquisite. That day she wore a simple, pull-on dress with an embroidered V-neck that appeared as if it were made of pure silk—unlike the fake silk of my own gown. A muted floral print adorned the background color of soft apricot. Angie had pulled her dark hair into a knot held together by what looked like a couple of enameled chopsticks. She seemed to have a passion for Chinese things. That was all right by me. I liked Chinese stuff, too. Especially the food.

  “We’ll take two automobiles if that’s all right with you, Daisy. I’d like to stay at the place for a while and make sure everything’s running as it should be. Hattie’s going with me.”

  “I’d already decided we should take two machines, so it sounds like a good idea to me,” I told her, securing my straw hat with a hatpin. Wish I had some hatpins with enameled ends, but oh well. I aimed to get Sam to take me to Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles one of these days. Maybe I’d find some pretty hatpins there.

  Mr. Prophet and I walked out to Angie’s car which, I noticed, was being driven by a colored fellow. Hattie sat in the back seat of the huge cream-colored automobile. I learned later it was a 1924 Haynes Model 60 Sport Touring Car, and Angie used a chauffeur because she didn’t know how to drive. What’s more, she told me, she’d just as soon not learn.

  Her prerogative. I enjoyed the independence given me by being able to drive my own car, but Angie had enough money to be independent even if she didn’t know how to drive her own car. I tell you, money is a useful commodity and, if it can’t actually buy happiness, it’s probably the next best thing.

  “We’ll just follow you, if that’s all right,” I said to Angie. The colored fellow had climbed out of her car to open a back door for her. Interesting. Hattie, a black woman, shared the back seat with Angie, a white woman, while a Negro man drove the car. I wondered if he and Hattie were related somehow, although I thought it might be rude to ask. Not sure why.

  “Perfectly fine,” said Angie. “I’ll have Cyrus wait until you back out of your driveway, and then he’ll pull ahead and keep you in sight. Orange Acres isn’t very far to the east of us here. In fact, it’s just off Colorado Boulevard in Lamanda Park, which Pasadena annexed recently.”

  Pasadena had, indeed, annexed Lamanda Park recently. I’d had a hideous experience in Lamanda Park once, but I didn’t like to think about it. It had involved gangsters, Tommy guns and Flossie before she became Mrs. Buckingham. The two of us barely got out of the incident intact, although we’d been coated from head to toe with plaster dust.

  “You want to wait here until I back out the Chevrolet?” I asked Mr. Prophet.

  Aiming a frown Angie’s way, he said, “Naw. I’ll just walk there with you. I might only have one leg, but I’m still plenty quick.”

  “That’s fine.” He was also plenty touchy.

  He opened the driver’s side door for me, which surprised me. Mr. Prophet demonstrated so few characteristics one might call gentlemanly that when he displayed one, the action took me aback. Nevertheless, trying not to look astonished, I said, “Thank you.”

  He said, “Yeah.”

  Guess gentlemanliness only went so far where Mr. Lou Prophet was concerned.

  After he got himself stuffed into the front passenger side of the Chevrolet, I backed it down the driveway, into the street, and pulled over to the curb. Pa stood on the porch, waving, so I waved back. Mr. Prophet clutched his seat as if he didn’t trust me not to crash the car into one of Marengo’s pepper trees. Huh. And here I’d driven him all over Pasadena only the day before this expedition.

  “Your faith in my driving expertise is touching, Mister Prophet,” I told him.

  “Hellkatoot,” said he. “I don’t like ridin’ around in these things, no matter who’s drivin’. Give me a horse any old day. I was in one of these things when that sister of the sheets drove me over a cliff and I lost my leg.” He tapped on his peg.

  Sister of the sheets? I had a pretty good idea what the expression meant, but I might ask him later in order to be sure. Another day, when he was in a better mood. “I fear the day of the horse is fading fast.”

  “Huh. Horses are a hell of a lot easier to take care of than these damned machines.”

  “I wish you’d stop cursing with every other word you say. Do you really have to swear all the time?” My mind chanted, prig, prig, prig. But honestly, did the man have to curse so often?

  “Yeah. I think I do.”

  I sighed and decided to save this conversation and an explanation of the expression he’d used for another day when he wasn’t feeling so tetchy. Anyway, I had enough to do, keeping up with Angie’s gorgeous automobile. I wondered if her chauffeur—Cyrus? I think she’d said his name was Cyrus—washed and polished it every day. It was sure bright and shiny.

  Angie was right in that it didn’t take us long to get to Orange Acres. We were there in twenty-five minutes at the most. I could tell when we were approaching the place, because all the trees were blooming like mad, and the heady, toe-curling, heart-thumping scent of orange blossoms filled the air.

  Even though I knew I was taking a chance, what with his iffy mood and all, I couldn’t help but ask Mr. Prophet, “Isn’t that aroma glorious?”

  He turned his head and squinted at me.

/>   Irked, I said, “Well? It is glorious! Even if you don’t like Angie, you must at least appreciate the sweet scent of orange blossoms.”

  He said, “Huh.”

  Very well then. I shut up and followed Cyrus, Angie and Hattie through a huge open gate and up a long and winding road. I swear, the scent of those blossoms was about as close to heaven as even our kitchen got when Aunt Vi was in holiday-cookie-baking mode.

  When Cyrus pulled the big car to a stop at the bottom of a beautiful porch with steps leading up to it, I parked my car behind Angie’s. She got out and walked over to me.

  “Do you want to leave your automobile here, or would you rather park it in the shade?”

  The weather being as fine as the orange-blossom aroma surrounding us, I said, “I’ll just leave it here. But first I’m going to open the windows. The fragrance in the air here is absolutely wonderful!”

  Smiling with what looked like approval, Angie said, “I love the scent, too. Orange blossoms are my particular favorites.”

  “Mine, too,” I told her. T’was the truth, by gosh.

  Lou Prophet said, “Huh,” opened his door, got out of the Chevrolet, and stared around with what looked to me like glumness, perhaps enhanced by a pinch of disgust. Guess he didn’t want to give up a good grudge without a struggle.

  So be it.

  Thirteen

  First of all, Angie led us into the house, which was a perfection of a place. I guess you’d call the style in which it was built Victorian. It had several peaked gables, a turret and casement windows. Painted light blue with white gingerbread trim, the place would have looked right at home in a book of fairy tales. Nice fairy tales like those of Mother Goose; not those of the Grimm brothers. The massive front door bore a window with stained-glass image of a peacock in full-tail mode. Lovely.

  The door opened to reveal a small entryway where an umbrella stand and a hat rack sat. Although it didn’t look to me as if he wanted to do it, Mr. Prophet hung his perky brown fedora on a peg. For the record, he wore a nice-looking brown tweed suit that day. Don’t know if he’d picked it up at the Salvation Army or if he’d bought it new, using some of the money he’d earned when he’d captured Sam’s nephew, Frank Pagano, after Frank heaved his knife at me. That was the night both Sam and I met Mr. Prophet, who kept a “wanted” poster tucked in his back pocket. The poster bore a photograph of Frank, who was an embarrassing relative to have if you were a policeman.

  Anyway, I think Mr. Prophet collected the $500 offered by the law for Frank’s capture, even though Frank hadn’t been brought to trial yet. Probably Sam had something to do with him getting the money early, if that’s what happened.

  “Would you like to sit in the front parlor for a moment or two, or would you prefer a tour of the house and grounds first?”

  “I’ll go on upstairs and see to the ladies,” said Hattie, walking toward a stairway ornamented with a rose-patterned runner.

  I heard a grunt from Prophet, but pretended I didn’t.

  “Thank you, Hattie,” said Angie. “We’ll be on the sun porch in a little while.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Hattie.

  Angie smiled at both Mr. Prophet and me, but I was the only one who smiled back. I felt kind of like thumping Mr. Prophet on the head. However, even though my mother wasn’t there to “Daisy” me, I didn’t do it.

  “I’d love to see the house,” I told Angie, my enthusiasm clear to hear in my tone. “It’s just beautiful.”

  “Thank you. It has an irregular floor plan. The bedrooms are upstairs, and each one has a little balcony off a window. But that’s where the ladies reside, so we’ll confine ourselves to the lower floor today.”

  “Ladies,” grumbled Mr. Prophet under his breath.

  I actually did thump him that time, only on the shoulder, not the head. I received a magnificent sneer for my effort, too. Huh, as Mr. Prophet himself might say. Still, he was a guest, and I didn’t think it was polite of him to act like a curmudgeon.

  On the other hand, maybe he was thinking of the money Angie had skint him of. Or fleeced from him. Or whatever old-fashioned slang expression referred to stealing money from someone. I guess he had a right to be grumpy. Sort of. But he didn’t have to carry it to extremes, darn it, especially since Angie had told him she’d pay him back. With interest.

  As Angie led us from room to room, I saw what she meant about an irregular floor plan. I don’t think any two rooms were the same size or shape. They were all beautifully furnished, however, and I got to thinking I might just take Angie with Harold and me when we went to that furniture warehouse about which Sam and Harold had talked when we’d planned our party.

  “And here’s my favorite room in the whole house,” Angie said as she led us down a hallway ending in a screened-in, tile-floored sun porch. “I like to sit here of an evening and read or just smell those orange blossoms.”

  “I don’t blame you. This is… Well, it’s about as perfect as a room can be.” In fact, I wanted it. Not that I didn’t adore the house Sam had bought for us, but it would be nice to have a sun porch like this in which to sit on a pleasant evening and read a book. Or just look at the sunset. Not that we got great sunsets in Pasadena, but the mountains to the north are always pretty.

  “Thank you,” said Angie. I could tell she was pleased by my endorsement of her creation. “Let me take you into the orchard now. The gardener here at the Acres is the younger Mr. Wu, my other gardener’s son, and he has a little shed back there in an open spot.”

  Two Wus, by gad. Because I doubted Angie would be as amused as I, I didn’t say the two words aloud.

  She, Mr. Prophet and I exited the sun porch and found ourselves on a paved walkway wending its way across a small lawn with a white picket fence surrounding it. Roses, entwined with honeysuckle, climbed the fence. The combined scents of honeysuckle, roses and orange blossoms in the yard was enough to make a person swoon.

  Noticing one climbing rose in particular because it was absolutely adorable, I touched one of its tiny blossoms. “This is a spectacular rose, Angie. And it smells divine.”

  “That’s my Cecile Brunner rose. It’s my favorite.”

  “I’ve never seen a rose with little flowers like this one has.”

  “I planted it in particular because I think it’s charming.” Angie gazed with adoration at her favorite rose. Boy, I guess she’d really meant it when she’d told me she’d built her present life from nothing.

  All in all, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lovelier back yard. On the spot, I decided to ask Sam to build us something like an arched trellis so I could plant a Cecile Brunner rosebush to climb all over it. Maybe I’d plant the rosebush on one side of the arch and some honeysuckle on the other, and they could mingle in our back yard the way they did in Angie’s. We might have a by-gosh rose arbor in our back yard!

  I reminded myself Sam and I weren’t married yet, and he might want a say in how he wanted the back yard planted. Fiddlesticks.

  Anyhow, Angie went to the gate in the little white picket fence, opened it, and gestured the two of us to follow her through it and on into the orange grove.

  “Oh, my, Angie,” I said, my voice proclaiming my awe at her handiwork, “this is… Well, it’s just perfect. Stunning.”

  She took my arm and spoke confidentially. “I tried my best to make my home as nice as I could. I even wanted the orchard to be pretty. That’s probably because there was no prettiness at all in my life during most of it.”

  I think I heard another “Huh” from Mr. Prophet but wasn’t sure.

  “And you did this all by yourself? I mean, the planning and hiring of architects and carpenters and so forth?”

  “I did.”

  “What an ambitious project. You’ve done really well for yourself.”

  This time I know I heard a grumpy “Huh” from Mr. Prophet.

  By this time, we’d reached the open space where the gardener’s shed stood. Both Angie and I turned around to face Mr
. Prophet, I with as hideous a scowl as I could produce on my face. Since I was occupied in glaring at the Prophet of Gloom (sorry about that one), I didn’t see the expression on Angie’s face, but I heard her peevishness when next she spoke.

  “I should have returned your money before we came out to the orchard, I suppose. I apologize, but if you’ll contain your carping for another few minutes, I’ll give you back all of your money. With interest.”

  “Good.”

  In this case “good” was no better than “huh,” but I didn’t thump him again. Even if I’d been so inclined, I couldn’t have done it, because at that precise moment Lou Prophet swept out an arm, felling both Angie and me.

  I landed hard and opened my mouth to bellow something on the order of “Hey!” I didn’t get the chance because a gunshot rang out the second we hit the dirt. Therefore, I cowered and covered my head with my arms instead. A split-second later, Mr. Prophet had whipped out his own gun—I have no idea what kind it was or where he’d been keeping it—and pulled its trigger, aiming at what looked to me like a tree branch.

  But he hadn’t aimed at a branch. Rather, he’d aimed at the man hiding on the branch and who tumbled from the tree a mere heartbeat later. He brought with him a cascade of waxy, sweet-smelling orange blossoms.

  “Stay down,” Prophet ordered Angie and me as we huddled together on the ground. All right by me. Under the circumstances, I didn’t even object to being bossed around or shoved off my feet.

  Daring to lift my head a trifle and squinting, I saw Mr. Prophet duck behind an orange tree and gaze sharply around. Looking for more gunmen or other miscreants? I didn’t know, but I recommenced cowering and let him do it.

  Slowly he emerged from behind the tree, still alert and peering this way and that. I didn’t do likewise until he’d inspected every corner of that little open space in the middle of the orchard and said, “I think it’s all right for you two to get up now.” He didn’t offer to help us, but I didn’t mind. Under the circumstances, I was kind of glad he was on the alert for other possible gunmen. He could be gentlemanly later. Mind you, he probably wouldn’t be, but he could be if he wanted.