“What do they do after they take us to the station?” I asked.
“How should I know?” asked Lulu. “You’re the one who’s always reading mystery novels.”
She was right about that. So I cast my mind back to the various novels I’d read over the years, thought through the bits and pieces of information I’d picked up on the job, and came up with a possible scenario. “Well, first I think they’ll book us.”
“What does that mean?”
She had me there. “I think it means that they’ll get our names and addresses and . . . and maybe fingerprint us?”
“What for? They think we’re loose women, not thieves or murderers.”
“Well, maybe they won’t fingerprint us. But I’m sure they’ll ask for our names and addresses. Maybe take our pictures?”
“Do you have a lawyer?”
“A lawyer? No. Why?”
“I don’t think you have to tell them anything if you ask for a lawyer.”
That was the most promising thing either of us had said yet. “Will they still let us make a telephone call?”
“I don’t know,” Lulu said, then repeated, “Like I said, you’re the one who’s always reading mystery books.”
“Oh, dear. I wish I’d asked Ernie or Phil about what happens when someone is arrested.”
“Weren’t you at the station when that guy who tried to kidnap you was taken in?”
I sat up, revived. Slightly. “You’re right! I was right there bleeding, because I’d scraped my knees when Ernie knocked me down.”
“He knocked you down?”
“Only because people were shooting at us.”
Lulu buried her head in her hands. “Good golly, Mercy, for a fine lady from Boston, you sure get yourself in a lot of pickles, don’t you?”
Frowning, I said, “That doesn’t matter. Let me think.”
Lulu let me think.
I didn’t have to think very long, because the police car drew up in front of the station on Sixth Street. Phil’s station was on First Street. Rats. Even if Phil and Lulu didn’t get along, he’d understand why we’d done what we’d one, while the officers who’d nabbed us never would. Not that Phil would have approved of our behavior any more than Ernie would. But his approval didn’t matter. If neither Phil nor Ernie could be found on that dismal night, Lulu and I’d probably have to stand in front of a judge and tell our story to him. I don’t recall anyone ever saying judges were easy to get along with if you were already considered a criminal by the coppers. I sighed heavily.
“All right, ladies,” said Officer Pete. “Let’s go and get you booked.”
Lulu nudged me. “You were right about that part.”
How encouraging. I piped up, “Aren’t we allowed to make a telephone call? Or call a lawyer?”
“Sure. You can call anyone you like after we take your mug shots, print you, and search you.”
“Search us! You certainly can’t mean you’re going to . . . search us!” I was totally dismayed.
“Nobody’s laying a hand on me,” said Lulu with more grit than I’d ever heard from her before.
“We got ladies to search ladies,” said Pete’s partner. “Although why you two should care, I don’t know. After what you were going to do.” He shook his head yet once more. I got the feeling he didn’t have a whole lot of gestures at his disposal and found head-shaking an undemanding way of getting his point across.
“We weren’t going to do any such thing!” I all but bellowed. “I wish you’d believe me! We were looking for Peggy Wickstrom! Do we look like streetwalkers?”
This, clearly, was the wrong thing to say. Both officers only stared at us, and I recalled Lulu’s artful work with the makeup, powder, eyebrow pencil, mascara and rouge pot.
“Listen, lady,” said Pete, who didn’t have his partner’s compassionate nature. Or maybe he just didn’t shake his head as much. “Nobody who’s ever been brought through these doors was guilty. To hear all the pimps and grifters and bootleggers tell it, they’re all as innocent as the Mother Mary.”
“There’s no need to blaspheme,” I muttered, knowing I’d get no understanding from this quarter.
The next forty-five minutes were among the most humiliating of my entire life. Not only were pictures taken of Lulu and me—and I must admit we looked like the types of women the officers thought we were—but we also had our fingerprints taken and we were searched. Fortunately, a woman did the searching, but still, the whole thing was ghastly and embarrassing, and I swear that if anyone ever tells my mother about it, I’ll personally strangle whoever does it.
After the search and through gritted teeth, I asked the female police person, “May we make our telephone calls now?”
The woman glanced at Pete, who was doggedly filling out forms. It looked to me as though he was having a difficult time of it, too. Neanderthal. Buttercup had more brains in her head than three Petes put together.
Can you tell I was quite ruffled by that time?
“Pete? These here girls want to make their calls.”
Pete peered up, squinting. “Find anything on ’em?”
“Naw. They’re clean.”
“Huh.”
“I think they’re who they say they are,” offered the woman.
Pete merely grunted again. Not a man of large understanding, or one who liked to have his assumptions overset. The lady police officer shrugged. “Go ahead. You can use the ’phone on my desk. It’s over here.” She led the way.
Lulu and I both thanked her. By that time, even though she’d been the one to do the searching, I’d come to think of this female police person as our only port in that particular storm. Then I said, “May I please have my handbag? I need to get my address book out.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said she.
I felt my eyes open wider. “Don’t you trust me? You already know there’s nothing in there that can do anyone any harm!”
The woman shrugged. “Rules are rules. I don’t make ’em. I only have to follow them.”
I think I growled. However, the woman dug in my handbag—not a difficult task, since it was so small—and withdrew the address book. It was a pretty one with a Chinese fabric cover that I’d bought in Chinatown on a luncheon break once. I took it from her gently, refraining from snatching it away as I wanted to do. The woman was right, whether I liked it or not: she was only following rules.
“When you pick up the receiver, the operator will ask for the number you want,” said the woman. “Give her the number, and she’ll place the call.”
“What if the person I’m calling isn’t at home?”
The woman glanced at a clock on the wall, which told us the hour was growing on toward midnight. Good heavens. “If your party ain’t home, let your friend call someone.”
“You mean I only get one call, and if the person I’m calling isn’t there, I don’t get to try another person? That’s not fair!”
“Honey,” said the woman, “life ain’t fair.”
I felt another growl rise in my throat, but Lulu touched me gently on the arm and said, “Ernie’s probably home, Mercy. He’s not one to carry on much during the week.”
Although I wanted to, I didn’t ask her how she’d come by that interesting bit of information. Rather, I picked up the telephone receiver and, through gritted teeth, asked the operator to connect me with Ernie’s telephone number.”
The phone rang and rang and rang. I was about to give up in despair when I heard a click, and a groggy voice said, “Templeton.”
“Oh, thank God! Ernie, it’s Mercy. Listen, Lulu and I were trying to find Peggy Wickstrom tonight, and a policeman arrested us! He thought we were . . . well, never mind. We’re at the police station. The one on Sixth Street. Can you come and pick us up?”
Silence greeted this spate of information.
“Ernie?” Panic made my heart thunder in my chest.
After fully long enough for me to have several heart attacks, the voice on
the other end of the wire said, “Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is—”
“No!” I all but shrieked. “It’s Mercy, Ernie, and I’m telling you the truth. Would I joke about something like this? You have to help us! I only have this one telephone call. You have to come and get us out of here!”
“Shit.”
Goodness. While Ernie used words like damn and hell a lot, I’d never heard that one come from him. I stepped back, startled. Then I said in a small voice, “Ernie? I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. You’re always sorry when you get yourself entangled with things that are none of your business.”
“Peggy Wickstrom is—” I began indignantly, but Ernie interrupted.
“Shut up. I’ll be there as soon as I wake up and get dressed. How much is your bail?”
Bail? I glanced with abstraction at Lulu, who didn’t have a notion what Ernie and I were discussing. Returning my attention to the receiver, I said, “Um . . . bail?”
Again Ernie said, “Shit.”
“I have money,” I told him hastily. “I can pay . . . whatever it costs to get us out of here.” Oh, Lord, bail! I’d never in a million years have believed that I, Mercedes Louise Allcutt, would one day have to be bailed out of a Los Angeles City jail.
“I know you have money,” he spat at me. “I’ll be there as soon as I can be. You say you’re at the Central Station on Sixth?”
“Is it the Central Station? I thought Phil’s was—”
“Mercy! Answer my damned question!”
After jumping three or four inches at the loudness of Ernie’s voice, I said, “Yes. Central Station on Sixth.”
Ernie said “Shit” once more, and then the line went dead.
Lulu put a hand on my arm. “I heard his voice,” she said softly. “He’s real mad, huh?”
“And how,” I answered.
“But he’s coming?”
“He’s coming.”
After asking, we were told that we could sit on a couple of the cold, hard folding chairs lined up against the wall near the lady policeman’s desk. I was glad she didn’t lock us in a cell or make us sit nearer Pete or his partner. Pete still seemed to be struggling with his paperwork.
I looked at the name plate on the lady policeman’s desk, and discovered her to be named Officer Mary Johnson. Since we had nothing to do but wait and Officer Johnson didn’t appear awfully busy, I decided to talk to her.
“Um, do you know how much bail my employer will need to have to get us out of here?” I didn’t have much money in my handbag, but I could certainly get my hands on any amount I needed.
“No bail’s been set yet. That’s for the judge to decide.”
“The judge! But . . . Are we going to have to stand before a judge?”
The woman shrugged. “I doubt it. I think you two were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pete gets carried away sometimes. Anybody but a halfwit could see you’re not used to the streets.”
I gulped hard. “Thank you for believing our story. It’s the truth.”
“Uh-huh.”
Not awfully promising, but I persisted. Ernie had once—perhaps more than once—said I had more persistence than brains, a comment I didn’t take kindly. “We really were looking for a girl named Peggy Wickstrom. She used to work at the Palaise de Danse, and we figured maybe someone there would be able to steer us in the right direction.”
Officer Johnson lifted an eyebrow.
“You see, I rented her rooms in my home, and she drugged my tenants and ran off with some of our personal property.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s probably long gone by this time.”
“That’s what Ernie and Phil told me,” I said, feeling dispirited.
“Who’re Ernie and Phil?”
“Ernie Templeton. He’s my boss. I’m his secretary. Phil Bigelow is a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.”
Officer Johnson’s other eyebrow lifted to meet her first one. “You know Detective Bigelow? He’s kind of a hotshot.” She glanced at Officer Pete, and I think she smirked. Perhaps she was hoping, as I was, that Officer Pete would be reprimanded for jumping to illegal conclusions. Well, inappropriate conclusions, at any rate.
“Yes. He’s a friend of mine,” I said, stretching the truth only a tiny bit. Phil and I were on friendly terms with each other, but we weren’t what I’d call true friends. Officer Johnson didn’t need to know that.
“Yeah? You know the mayor, too? Or the district attorney? We don’t get too many folks in here with highfalutin friends like that.”
Perhaps Officer Johnson thought I was boasting. Or perhaps she didn’t think it appropriate to throw names at her. I always hated it when people bragged about all the movie stars they knew, probably because I’d met many so-called stars myself and wouldn’t give you two cents for most of them, with a few exceptions.
“I wasn’t trying to imply that Detective Bigelow would come storming down here to spring Miss LaBelle or me,” I told her, striving for a humble tone. “I only—”
“LaBelle? Who’s that? This here paperwork says your friend’s name is Mullins.”
“Cripes, Mercy,” muttered Lulu at my elbow.
I wished I’d kept my fat mouth shut. “LaBelle is her . . . um, stage name,” I said lamely.
“Stage name, eh?”
“Yes.”
“She an actress, is she?”
“She’s only chosen a name for the future, when she makes it big in the pictures.”
A hard elbow poked in my side let me know that Lulu didn’t appreciate me relating her history to this person. I cleared my throat. “Anyhow, it’s my boss, Mr. Templeton, who’ll be coming down here to get us. Um . . . he mentioned bail. You don’t know how much that bail will be unless we see a judge first?”
She heaved a huge sigh. “It’ll probably twenty-five dollars. We haven’t found any priors on either of you. We don’t have night court here, so you’ll have to come back to see the judge. I expect you’ll get the money back once the judge realizes Pete and Mac jumped to the wrong conclusion. Although,” she added severely, “you two sure look like a couple of hookers at first glance. A second glance would have shown them two idiots they were wrong about you.”
Relief flooded me. “Oh, thank you! Do you really think so?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve seen enough of the real thing to know you ain’t it.”
Oddly comforting, I thought, feeling better about our predicament. Not that sitting in a stark police station, even though an honest-to-goodness police officer believed you to be innocent, was all that much fun.
And then Ernie arrived.
Chapter Sixteen
You’d have thought General Custer, the Seventh Cavalry and the entire Sioux Nation had stormed the gates of the Central Police Station when the door banged open and Ernie stomped inside.
“Where’s Mercy Allcutt!” he bellowed to one and all without bothering to look around first. I got the clear impression he was annoyed at having been awakened in the middle of the night, especially by me, and especially for the reason I’d called.
With my heart in my throat and dreading the tongue-lashing Lulu and I—especially I—were about to receive from that source, I waved. “We’re over here, Ernie!”
Officer Pete got up and went to Ernie, a scowl on his face. Well, both men wore scowls. There were a few minutes of heated discussion between them. I didn’t hear much of it; only the occasional swear word and Ernie scoffing at Officer Pete’s depiction of us as—I absolutely hate using this word, but it’s the one he used—whores.
“Whores?” hollered Ernie. “They’re no more whores than you are, dammit. They thought they were being smart and going out to find the girl who burgled Miss Allcutt’s home. Idiots. I’ll grant you they’re both idiots, but that’s not a criminal offense or half the L.A.P.D. would be locked up instead of going around locking up other people.”
“Now see here, you—”
And so it
went. I don’t know how long Ernie and Pete fussed at each other, but eventually Officer Johnson got up from her desk and joined them. The argument didn’t last long after that. Spotting Lulu and me scrunched back against the wall and doing our best to disappear into the dirty plaster, Ernie barged toward us, not bothering to allow Officer Johnson to lead the way.
“Get the hell up, and let’s get out of here,” he commanded.
I noticed he looked only slightly more rumpled than usual. He’d combed his hair, at least. He assuredly didn’t look sleepy. He looked as though he aimed to take us up to the highest of the Hollywood Hills and throw us over it.
Lulu and I got up. Lulu said, “Thanks, Ern.”
“Yes. Thank you, Ernie.” My own voice sounded much feebler than I wanted it to. However, this experience had shocked me. Badly.
“Yeah, yeah. Get a move on.”
“Don’t we have to post bail?”
“No. After a little friendly discussion, your captor decided he’d made a mistake. I don’t think he wanted to face the day you and Lulu showed up in court and presented yourselves to the judge looking normal. Anyhow, after I pointed out that you could sue the police for false arrest, and win, he decided to let you go.” He spoke the last sentence very loudly. I didn’t look to see how Officer Pete took it.
Ernie hurried us to the front door of the police station, opened it and shoved us both out into the dark night. Taking each of us by a shoulder, presumably so we couldn’t escape, he aimed us toward where I suspected he’d parked his Studebaker. As we walked, he eyed us with patent disfavor. “What the hell did you think you were doing, dressing up like that and parading around in that neighborhood?”
Lulu, I noticed, had her lips pressed tightly together, and I got the impression she was going to let me do the talking. Fair enough. Ernie was my boss, after all, and I was the one who’d called him.
“You already know that. You shouted it to the whole of Central Station.”
“Yeah, I know. You were looking for Peggy Wickstrom. But why were you looking like that?” He shot us both a disparaging glance. “I don’t blame that policeman for thinking you were wh—”
Angels of Mercy Page 18