Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book)

by Duncan, Alice

  She shrugged. “Maybe not. I dunno.”

  Hmm. Well, I’d keep my new idea in mind, just in case Barbara-Ann’s first impression of Ned turned out to be correct. Personally, I hadn’t pegged him as especially peculiar, only lazy and somewhat unrealistic. I hoped Barbara-Ann would stick around long enough to give me her impression of Mr. Godfrey. He was the one I considered peculiar.

  Leaning closer to the girl, I gave her a sympathetic smile. I saw that she’d cleaned herself up, and she didn’t look hungry, although, due to lack of experience, I’m not sure how to tell when a person’s hungry unless he or she tells you so. Anyway, she looked a little less like an orphaned child of war than she had the prior day. “Did you get a bath yesterday, Barbara-Ann?”

  “Yeah. And some dinner.”

  “Good, good. I’m happy to hear it.”

  “And I still got fifty cents left from that buck you give me.”

  “That’s wonderful, dear.” Good Lord in heaven, where had she eaten that she’d spent less than fifty cents? I presume she’d paid for a bath at one of those bathing establishments that still remain from the days when Los Angeles was a simple little western outpost of the nation. Chloe had told me about them. I’d been shocked to learn that some people actually had no running water in their homes, but she told me I’d been too sheltered. And she was right, but it was a flaw I was attempting to rectify. Besides, she’d been sheltered, too.

  “You want it back?” She held out the coin to me.

  I was impressed that a girl so far gone in poverty would relinquish money. “No, dear, you keep it.” Ruthlessly, I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thank you.”

  “Did you figure out what happened to my mother?”

  Oh, dear. At least Barbara-Ann had faith in me. Us. “Um, not quite yet, dear, but Mr. Templeton and I went to the Kit Kat Klub last night. I spoke with a lady named Dolly and another one named Gwenda. They work with your mother there.”

  “Yeah. I know ’em.”

  It didn’t look to me as if she was especially fond of either woman, but I’d noticed before that Barbara-Ann wasn’t wildly demonstrative.

  She reached into the pocket of her skirt, which was different from the one she’d worn the day before. Her hair had been washed and inexpertly braided. The knowledge that I’d helped the child, even in a small way, gave me a warm glow in my bosom.

  “I brung a picture.” She showed me the small photograph she’d retrieved from her pocket.

  “Thank you, Barbara-Ann. I was going to request a photograph.” I took the picture and squinted at it.

  The image wasn’t awfully clear, but it depicted a blandly pretty woman in what appeared to be her working costume, only without the tray of cigarettes slung around her neck. It looked to me as if she were wearing more makeup than was generally considered proper. On the other hand, she did work at the Kit Kat Klub, and I suppose she didn’t deem it odd to be photographed in such a scandalous outfit and with her face painted like one of those Japanese women who walk on people’s backs that I’d read about in an issue of National Geographic. Or maybe the photograph only seemed scandalous because I’m from Boston. With a sigh, I laid it on my desk. “Can you give me the names of any of your mother’s other friends? Perhaps I could talk to them.”

  “Yeah. Sure, I guess.” Her juvenile brow furrowed as she thought. “Well, there’s Matty Bumpas. I guess Mr. Templeton knows about him.”

  I dutifully wrote down the name, pausing over the surname. “Do you know how to spell his name?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  I gave it my best shot.

  “And there’s Dolly and Gwenda, but you already talked to them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Um … oh, yeah! There’s Pauline. My mother and her are good friends.”

  “Do you know Pauline’s last name?”

  “Um … I think it’s Richards or Richardson or something like that.”

  Big help. “Do you know where she lives? Her address?”

  “Naw. Her and my mother always meet at our place.”

  “Do you know if she has a telephone in her home?”

  “I guess so. Her and my mother yakked all the time on the wire.” She concentrated for another few moments. “Then there’s Gladys Merchant. That’s her last name, Merchant.”

  I dutifully noted the name on my pad. “Do you know where she lives?”

  “Naw.”

  “Do you know her telephone number?”

  “Naw.”

  Oh, dear. Peering down at my pad, the task of finding Babs Houser with only the information I’d written down seemed rather overwhelming.

  “Um … that’s the only names I can think of.”

  “I’m sure this will be a big help. But do let me know if you can think of any other names. Will you do that?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “And while I’m at it, why don’t I jot down your telephone number?” I realized I should have done so the day before. I might be new at this, but I was learning.

  “Broadway four nine three two.”

  “Thank you, Barbara-Ann.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Mr. Templeton’s office door opened at that point, and both Barbara-Ann and I glanced at the two men exiting. Barbara-Ann frowned at Mr. Templeton, who returned the favor. I was very curious to know why the two of them didn’t care for each other and, since it was clear they didn’t, why Barbara-Ann had still chosen to come to him for help.

  Returning his attention to Mr. Godfrey, Mr. Templeton said, “Please keep in touch. I’ll work on the leads I have.”

  “Thank you.” Mr. Godfrey pressed Mr. Templeton’s hand, glanced at the chair beside my desk as if he wished he could sit in it and chat some more, saw Barbara-Ann there, sighed, and left the office.

  I leaned closer to the little girl. “What did you think of that man, Barbara-Ann? Do you think he’s peculiar, too?”

  As I might have expected, she shrugged. “I dunno. Looks pretty dumb, I guess.”

  Hmm. So far, my idea that she might possess cognitive powers honed on the mean streets of Los Angeles remained unproven, but I determined to keep working on it.

  Turning at the front door, Mr. Templeton stood there, resumed frowning, rested his fists on his hips, and glanced from Barbara-Ann to me, and back once more. “You’re here again, I see.” Grumpy. Very grumpy.

  “Yeah.” Sullen. Very sullen.

  “Barbara-Ann brought me a photograph of her mother and has given me some names of people whom I can question about her. Her mother, I mean,” I told him brightly.

  “That’s just dandy.” And Mr. Templeton disappeared into his office and closed the door.

  “Well!” I stared at the door, furious.

  “He don’t like me much,” said Barbara-Ann, voicing my own thoughts. I glanced at her and she gave yet another shrug. “It’s okay. I don’t like him much, neither.”

  “And why is that, Barbara-Ann?” I spoke eagerly, hoping to clear up at least one muddle in my mind.

  “He tried to lock my mother up a couple of years ago.”

  “Good heavens! Why ever did he do that?”

  Another shrug. “ ’Cause of that guy she hangs out with. Matty Bumpas.”

  “My goodness. Is Mr. Bumpas a criminal?”

  “I dunno.” Hooking a thumb over her shoulder, as she’d done when Ned left, she said, “The P.I. thinks so. Maybe he is. He wears flashy clothes and struts a lot. Always has money, but he’s been in trouble with the law more than once. He’s pretty dumb.”

  “Hmm.” Mr. Matty Bumpas sounded like an unpleasant character. I was sorry Barbara-Ann had to suffer his presence. Children are so much at the mercy of their parents. As much as my own parents annoyed me, I realized at that moment that I could have had a much more difficult time of it. Money may not buy happiness, but it’s probably the next best thing.

  “I gotta go,” Barbara-Ann announced, rising from the chair. “Gotta get to work.”

  “All right,
dear. I’ll see what I can do with the information you’ve given me.”

  “Okay. See ya.”

  “Oh, wait a minute, Barbara-Ann!”

  She’d opened the front door, but she turned and looked at me warily. I reached into my desk drawer, withdrew my handbag, and took out another dollar bill. Why not? The notion of that young child being on her own tugged at my heartstrings. “Take this, dear, and … well, get something to eat or something. New stockings would be nice.” The ones she had on today were probably the same ones she’d worn the day before. If they weren’t, they were every bit as ragged.

  Her eyes grew huge. “Gee, you mean it?”

  “Yes. Please take it.”

  “Well … I don’t need no charity.” But she eyed the dollar bill as if she were afraid it would vanish.

  “This isn’t charity, dear. You need help. I’m only trying to help a little bit. You needn’t think of it as charity.”

  “Well … thanks.” She took the bill and darted out of the office as if she feared I’d think better of my offer and snatch it back.

  It occurred to me that if I could discover how it was done, I might pay the Housers’ water bill so that she could have running water again in her apartment. Mr. Templeton could probably tell me how to go about it. I’d heard of utility companies. Perhaps water was a utility. There was certainly a lot about life away from Beacon Hill that I didn’t understand.

  But that would have to wait. First I needed to go over the information I had collected and see if I couldn’t get a hint as to the whereabouts of Babs Houser. The possibility that she might be no longer living had occurred to me more than once, but I preferred to look on the bright side, the notion of Barbara-Ann being bereft forever of the only parent she possessed being too dismal to contemplate.

  Therefore, I looked at her photograph. Then I looked at the list of names on my pad. The list was very short. And it contained no addresses or telephone numbers. In fact, only one of the women listed there had a last name I was sure of. Blast it, why had I neglected to ask Barbara-Ann for Dolly and Gwenda’s surnames? Because I was new at this, was why. But collecting people’s full names was only sensible when one was bent upon investigation. I wasn’t very good at it yet, but I had confidence in my abilities. I’d learned to typewrite, hadn’t I?

  It then occurred to me that my desk held, besides my handbag, a telephone directory for the city of Los Angeles. So I retrieved the directory and looked in it for the name Pauline Richards. No luck. So I tried Pauline Richardson, and lo and behold, the name was there! In black and white. In front of my very own eyes. Marking the number, I lifted the receiver … and paused.

  Never in my entire life had I telephoned a perfect stranger out of the blue, without being properly introduced beforehand. To do so was in shockingly bad taste. My mother would never let me live it down if she ever heard about it. I put the receiver back on the hook.

  But why would she ever hear about it? And anyhow, the restrictions about not telephoning and not speaking to strangers had been delivered with Boston in mind. This was Los Angeles! This was the new world of the West, where motion pictures were made and life was different! And, Mother aside, if Chloe ever found out that I’d hesitated to telephone somebody because I was worried about bad manners, she’d never let me live it down. To fail now, in the name of manners, would prove my sister right about my silliness in wanting to have and hold a job. And about my being a prude, if not a dowdy one.

  Worse, it would prove Mr. Templeton right, and he’d go to his grave believing me to be a shallow rich girl who couldn’t handle a job of real work. I picked up the receiver again and dialed.

  Los Angeles was a large-enough city to have established a direct-dialing system that allowed you to reach people without going through a telephone exchange and an operator. So was Boston. So this (dialing a telephone number), at least, was one thing I didn’t have to learn. It felt good to be doing something I knew how to do.

  Somebody answered the wire! I was breathless when I spoke in my turn. “Pauline Richardson?”

  “Yeah, this is her.”

  It had to be the right person. Nobody else talked like that, except Barbara-Ann. “My name is Mercy Allcutt, and I’m helping Barbara-Ann Houser find her mother, who hasn’t been seen since last Saturday. Are you acquainted with Mrs. Houser?”

  A gasp on the other end of the wire told me that Pauline hadn’t realized her friend was missing. “Babs is missing? How’d that happen? Where is she?”

  The inability of people to think things through before they asked questions amazed me. “I don’t know how it happened, and I’m trying to find her,” I said gently. “And Barbara-Ann said you and Mrs. Houser are friends. I hoped perhaps you could assist me.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “Well, perhaps you can give me the names of other friends that I might be in touch with. Or maybe you know if Mrs. Houser has been under any particular strain, or if she seemed worried about anything. Any little bit of information might help.”

  “Well, there’s the Chink. She’s been all in a stew over the Chink for a few weeks now. Personally, I think she oughta toss out that louse she’s seeing, but that’s just me.”

  I hesitated before speaking again. There seemed to be a rather large language barrier between Miss Richardson and me, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Her speech had contained another reference to a chink. And she’d introduced a louse into the conversation. If I saw a louse, I’d most certainly toss it out, although I’m not sure I’d recognize one if it crawled across my desk. I’d read that sometimes a segment of society will create and use its own form of cant or argot. Perhaps this was the argot used by women who work in speakeasies in Los Angeles.

  “Um … a chink?”

  “Yeah. Owns one of them trinket shops in Chinatown.”

  “The chink owns the shop?” This was terribly confusing, but I swore I wouldn’t give up until I’d decoded Pauline’s message.

  “Yeah. Third one in from the west arch off Hill. Little place.”

  Nuts. I decided to go ahead and ask. “Miss Richardson, what exactly is a chink?”

  Laughter pealed over the telephone wire. “Sweetie, where you been all your life? A Chink is a Chinaman!”

  Ah. Illumination at last. “I see. And … um … the louse?”

  “Matty Bumpas, of course! He’s the slimiest slug in the neighborhood.”

  More illumination! I felt as if I were getting somewhere, although I wasn’t sure exactly where that was. The argot was commencing to unfold, however, and that was a good thing. I think. “I see. Yes, I understand he’s not an admirable character.”

  “Admirable? Honey, you got a way with words.”

  How gratifying. “You wouldn’t know the name of this Chinese man, would you?”

  “Naw. But like I say, it’s the third shop in from the west arch. A little ways from that water garden thing with the funny writing that you throw pennies in. On the plaza there. You can’t miss it.”

  I was writing as fast as I could, and only hoped that reading my notes would prove more edifying than listening to Miss Richardson’s directions. “And you’re sure you don’t know the name of the man? Or the name of his shop?”

  “Naw. Anyhow, them Chinks have screwy names. Even if I heard it, I prolly wouldn’t remember it.”

  I’m sure they thought the same of us, although I didn’t say so. “Thank you very much, Miss Richardson. Please call if you think of anything else that might help us find Mrs. Houser.” I gave her the telephone number to the office and told her that I worked for Mr. Ernest Templeton.

  A full-blown shriek on the other end of the wire nearly deafened me. “Ernie? You work for Ernie Templeton? That’s rich!” And she hung up the receiver on her end, leaving me staring at mine and rubbing my ear.

  There was only one other person on my list whom I could attempt to find, since I knew neither Dolly nor Gwenda’s surnames. I turned pages in the Los Angeles telephone directory unt
il I got to the M’s. Merchant … Merchant … Aha! But there was no Gladys Merchant. There was a G. W. Merchant who lived on Figueroa, which was the same street that Mr. William Desmond Taylor had lived on, if I remembered correctly. Hmm. It seemed unlikely that a good friend of Babs Houser would have the wherewithal to live in a fancy neighborhood. Perhaps it wasn’t the right G. Merchant.

  With a sigh, I decided there was only one way to find out, and I dialed the number. I’m ashamed to say that I was more pleased than not when nobody answered the telephone on the other end of the wire. If I expected to be successful in my new endeavor as a working person, I had to get over my fussy ways.

  Still and all, I’d dared, and I’d succeeded, at least with Pauline Richardson. I contemplated the information I’d jotted on my pad. So. Babs Houser had been worried about a Chinese man. Of course, I’d read all about opium dens and so forth, but not in connection with Los Angeles. What was it Dolly had mentioned last night at the Kit Kat Klub? Something about …

  Good Lord! It suddenly dawned on me what white slavers must be, and I gasped aloud. Could this Chinese person of whom Babs was afraid be involved in the kidnapping and selling of white women into … the notion was so shocking, I could scarcely make myself even think the word … prostitution?

  My heart started racing, and I stared at my list, aghast. Shoving my chair back on its little rollers, I stood up and grabbed my pad. I’d taken a step toward Mr. Templeton’s office door, when I recalled the events of the morning. And that woman. And how friendly he’d been with her. And how coy she’d been with him. And how much he’d seemed to enjoy it. Hmm. The office door was closed. For some reason, I got the impression it was closed against me, in particular.

  But that was asinine. Clutching my pad to my bosom, I marched up to Mr. Templeton’s door and knocked. Softly, just in case the bear in the lair was grumpy.

  “C’m in,” he called.

  So I did.

  I’d expected to find him sitting in his chair with his feet propped on his desk, reading a newspaper, but by gum, he actually seemed to be working on something. About time. He’d been hunched over, writing on a pad of his own, but he shoved it aside, sat up straight, stretched, and said, “Ow. Been writing too long.” As if to prove it, he wiggled his fingers and rolled his head to get the kinks out of his neck and back.