Fallen Angels Read online

  “Yes, he did, and lots of others are moving there, too. It’s a very pretty area, and the houses are amazing. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford live there, and so do Vilma Bankey and John Barrymore. Not together, of course.”

  “Of course.” As I’ve mentioned, I’d seen John Barrymore at a party once, and Douglas Fairbanks, too. They were both drinking heavily. And this was supposed to be Prohibition time. Ha! If you have enough money, you can always skirt the law. Just ask Al Capone, or whatever that murdering gangster’s name is.

  “So you’re going to build your own house?”

  She heaved a weary sigh. “That’s what Harvey wants to do. I don’t have the energy for it myself, but I’m sure he’ll hire someone to draw up the plans and everything like that. I hope I won’t have to be too involved. I just don’t feel up to it.”

  I was sure he would. As I mentioned before, Harvey was rich. “It won’t be built until after the baby comes, will it?”

  “He might begin making the plans, but no. There’s not enough time to hire an architect, have the architect create plans, and build a place in six or seven months. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to move anyway. Harvey says Bunker Hill is going downhill, but I don’t see it.”

  “I don’t, either.” I thought Harvey and Chloe’s neighborhood was swell. Granted, it was on a hill right smack in the middle of Los Angeles, and perhaps film people preferred to live away from it all. But I thought the Nash home was wonderful, and Bunker Hill was a sweet place. Besides, the almost vertical railroad, Angels Flight, which took me from Bunker Hill to downtown every day, was darling.

  “You’re more than welcome to live with us after we move, Mercy,” Chloe said in a hurry.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose. You’ll have enough to do when the baby comes.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’ll hire a maid to take care of the baby when I need to rest.”

  I knew rich people did that sort of thing all the time, but it seemed kind of cold to me. I’d never tell Chloe that, however. “Besides,” I said, “I love my job and wouldn’t want to leave it.”

  Chloe nodded. “I’ve already thought about that. Beverly Hills is kind of far from here. You’d have to drive.”

  Which would be a problem, since I didn’t know how to drive.

  Chloe knew that. “I’ll teach you, and you can always get a machine.”

  True, although not on the salary Ernie paid me.

  “I’ll have to think about it. I really don’t want to quit my job.”

  “I know.” Smirking, Chloe drank some of the seltzer water she’d asked for in deference to her tender-tummy problem. “I’d hate to take you away from Ernie. And vice-versa, of course.”

  I didn’t appreciate that smirk. Chloe thought I was more fond of Ernie than our mother would countenance if she knew about it, which she didn’t. Not that there was anything to know about. It was true that I liked Ernie. I even admired him, but I certainly didn’t have any romantic designs upon him. The very notion was absurd. However, I knew better than to respond to Chloe’s smirk. Denial, in my experience, only firms up the other person’s convictions. I think Shakespeare wrote something like that once. In Hamlet, if I’m not mistaken.

  “It will be exciting to have a new house,” I said in order to divest my sister of that blasted expression on her face.

  My ploy succeeded. Chloe sighed. “I suppose it will be nice to live in a brand-new house. I just loathe the notion of moving.”

  I hate to say it, but Chloe was kind of indolent. She didn’t resent our upbringing nearly as much as I did, except insofar as it had been too confining for her fun-loving personality. She possessed none of my passion about social issues, for instance, or the fact that thousands of people in our glorious nation lived in poverty and ignorance and near-starvation. I doubt that she gave a rap about the downtrodden worker proletariat, although I’m sure she’d feel sorry for and give money to a beggar should one appear directly before her. Since she confined herself to the wealthiest circles in L.A., I doubt one ever did.

  “You’ll certainly be able to hire people to do all the packing and moving for you, won’t you?”

  She sighed again. “I suppose so. I guess I’m just so tired, I can’t bear the notion of doing anything at all, much less moving into a new home. And one so far away from so many of my friends. I wonder if Francis will still visit.” Francis Easthope was one of Chloe and Harvey’s closest chums.

  “Oh, I’m sure he will. After all, he has that darling little Bugatti that he loves to drive.” I’d never been “with child,” as the saying goes, so I couldn’t truly appreciate Chloe’s condition, but I said, “I understand how the move might be upsetting to you, though,” because I figured I should.

  At any rate, we finished our luncheon and decided to stop in the ladies’ dresses department in the Broadway before we went home. There I delighted my sister by buying two (count ’em) lightweight, pretty dresses that were suitable for the office. Lulu LaBelle, who sat behind the reception desk in the Figueroa Building, would be almost as pleased as Chloe.

  Then I spent the remainder of the afternoon writing my detective novel. I’d decided to hold the murder in a grand home at a house party, although I hadn’t yet come to the murder part, decided who the corpse would be, or determined who would do the evil deed. But I still enjoyed myself.

  Chloe napped. So did Buttercup. On my feet, come to think of it.

  * * * * *

  On Monday morning, I donned one of my new dresses, pinned my hat to my hair, stuck my gloves in my handbag, picked up said handbag, ate the nice breakfast Mrs. Biddle, Chloe’s housekeeper, fixed for me, kissed Buttercup good-bye, left Chloe’s house and walked to Angels Flight. There I handed the engineer my nickel, boarded the car, and the rest of the passengers and I zipped to the bottom of the hill. From there I walked to Seventh and Hill and entered the lobby.

  I felt mighty jaunty that day, and not merely because I was clad in a pretty new dress of light blue wool jersey with a perky jacket and a dropped waist, but because I positively loved my job. I greeted Lulu with a cheery, “Good morning!”

  Lulu, who possessed a rather flamboyant sense of style and none of my qualms about proper working attire, sat behind her desk filing her nails and chatting with Mr. Emerald Buck, whom I also greeted cheerily and who worked as the custodian at the Figueroa Building. Mr. Buck was ever so much more competent than our last custodian, who liked to hide in the basement and read when he was supposed to be doing his job. Mr. Buck actually enjoyed keeping the building looking neat and tidy. He dusted all exposed surfaces daily, and even polished the brass plate confirming the building’s identity and kept the sidewalk outside the front door swept.

  This morning Lulu wore a vibrant purple dress with huge white flowers on it. Her bottle-blond hair was cut into a curly bob, and her lipstick, a glossy red, clashed violently with the purple of her clothing. What’s more, she had before her on the receptionist’s desk a bottle of nail varnish the same red color as her lipstick. Lulu was nothing if not colorful. In fact, she pretty much personified the nation’s notion of the flapper.

  “’Lo, Mercy. Ernie left you a note.”

  My happy mood slipped a notch. “A note? Ernie? He’s already been here?”

  “Yup. He left you a note.”

  This was strange behavior, indeed. My boss, Ernie, never got to work at eight o’clock, when I was expected to show up. He generally ambled in at nine or nine-thirty, carrying a copy of the Los Angeles Times, an insouciant grin, and an aura of detachment that had initially been as foreign to me as the weather in my new hometown. Now I liked it. For him. I certainly wasn’t ready to adopt a slouch or casual walk. Not that I wanted to do either, mind you. It was up to one of us to add the professional touch to the firm of Ernest Templeton, P.I., and that someone, I’d learned very early in our relationship, sure wasn’t going to be Ernie. Besides, I considered my crisp efficiency something of a hallmark.

  I took the envelope L
ulu flapped at me and voiced my thanks. Then I climbed the stairs up to the third floor, since the exercise was good for me. Besides, ever since a certain episode involving the elevator shaft, I haven’t felt particularly comfortable using that mode of transport. Elevators in other buildings didn’t bother me, but the one in the Figueroa Building sure did.

  After I unlocked the office door, removed my gloves, put them and my hat and handbag in my desk drawer, and sat in my chair, I slit the envelope open—using, by the way, the cunning letter opener I’d bought a day or two prior in Chinatown, which was a short walk from the Figueroa Building. Frowning, I read the note.

  Mercy. Gone to Mrs. Chalmers’ house. Back some time. Ernie

  Hmm. I didn’t particularly care for the message, probably because I didn’t much care for Mrs. Chalmers.

  Mrs. Persephone Chalmers, who possessed a name darned near as horrid as Chloe’s or mine, had wafted into Ernie’s office a week or so before, exuding an aura of exotic perfume and fragile femininity that bothered me considerably, and not merely because she began practically every sentence with a breathy “Oh.” I also didn’t like it that Ernie had been taken in by her. I knew, if Ernie didn’t, that there was something mighty fishy about Mrs. Chalmers. She’d told Ernie she wanted to hire him to find some jewelry that had allegedly been stolen from her home. It seemed to be taking Ernie a mighty long time to deal with what seemed to me to be a fairly minor matter. Of course, it wasn’t my jewelry that had been stolen, but still . . .

  Not that I knew for a rock-solid certainty that she was a faker—yet—but I considered the possibility quite likely. For one thing, if she were truly a married lady, as implied by that Missus, wouldn’t she call herself Mrs. George Chalmers, or something like that? Didn’t proper married ladies introduce themselves using their husbands’ first names? I know my mother always did. She was Mrs. Albert Monteith Allcutt, and nobody had better ever forget it. Mind you, I didn’t especially approve of that fashion, since it seemed in my estimation to devalue women, but society as a whole wasn’t nearly as forward-thinking as I.

  For another thing, she was just too . . . too . . . wafty. I mean, she acted as if she were a fairy princess who’d managed to get herself lost from a children’s storybook and dumped into the middle of Los Angeles, for crumb’s sake.

  Oh, very well. The main reason I didn’t care for her was that Ernie seemed to be positively smitten with the stupid woman. How could a reasonably intelligent person, which Ernie was, fall for a phony like that?

  Stupid question. Men adored women who exuded helplessness. Nuts to them all, the women and the men, is what I say.

  Not that it mattered. Ernie had gone to her house, and there wasn’t a single, solitary thing I could do about it.

  Phooey.

  Chapter Two

  Ernie’s defection from the office didn’t prevent me from pursuing my honest employment to the best of my ability, however. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of it to do at the time.

  I’d tried to drum up business a few weeks earlier by placing an advertisement in the Los Angeles Times, but Ernie had been furious with me for doing so. Which made no sense, since the ad had worked. Why, even Mrs. Persephone Chalmers had hired him as a result of that ad, darn it.

  Hmm. Maybe the ad hadn’t been such a great idea, after all.

  At any rate, Ernie was out gallivanting with a client, and I was left with nothing to do. Although the advertisement had helped secure a few new paying customers, it hadn’t garnered us enough work to keep me busy eight hours a day, five days a week. Therefore, I dusted off my desk and polished the brass plaque declaring my name to be Miss Allcutt, and washed the windows using my very own packet of Bon Ami. I’d bought the Bon Ami because Mrs. Biddle, Chloe’s housekeeper, used it at Chloe’s house. Then, although they didn’t really need it, I straightened and dusted the pictures on the wall—pictures I’d added to the formerly colorless office myself, I might add—and repositioned the rug I’d also bought.

  After I’d done all those things, I sat with my folded hands resting upon my desk, wishing I’d brought a book to read. Failing that, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to work on my novel, so that’s what I was doing when Phil Bigelow, a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and Ernie’s best friend, pushed open the office door. I looked up and was happy to see a friend.

  “Good morning, Phil.” He’d told me to call him Phil, so I did. I wasn’t taking a liberty.

  He removed his hat and smiled at me. “’Morning, Mercy. Is Ernie here?”

  “Why no, he isn’t.”

  Phil frowned, took out his pocket watch and scowled at it, which seemed puzzling behavior on his part, since he and Ernie were great friends. “He told me to meet him here at nine.”

  I glanced at the clock on my desk—which I’d also purchased in Chinatown, and which looked like a little Chinese pagoda. “It’s not quite nine yet.” Not quite nine, Ernie was nowhere to be seen, and I had nothing to do. Was this any way to run a business? I’d have rolled my eyes, but I didn’t do things like that except in front of Ernie, who didn’t count.

  “Well, hell. Sorry, Mercy. But this is important. I’ll just wait for him then, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Certainly. Have a seat.” I gestured to one of the chairs in front of my desk. “Are you and Ernie working on an interesting case together?”

  “You know I can’t tell you about ongoing police matters,” he said sternly, the rat.

  Exasperated, I said, “I know that, but . . . but you can tell me about recently closed cases, can’t you? Even if they didn’t involve Ernie? I’m not asking for state secrets, for pity’s sake.”

  With a grin, Phil said, “All right, then. Over the weekend we nabbed two burglars who’d been working along Sunset, breaking into houses and stealing jewelry and so forth. Last week we picked up a bunco artist who’d been trying to gyp a rich lady out of her inheritance. Evidently, this isn’t the first time he’d tried that. We discovered he’s wanted in New York and New Jersey, as well as Salt Lake City.”

  “Salt Lake City?”

  “Yup.”

  “Isn’t Salt Lake City full of Mormons? I thought they were all proper and law-abiding citizens.”

  “They probably are, but this guy definitely isn’t.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  “And now,” Phil continued, “I’m working on a case I can’t discuss.” He took another gander at his watch. “And Ernie’s supposed to be helping with it.”

  “He is?”

  “Yes.”

  Hmm. I wondered if this case Phil couldn’t talk about had anything to do with Mrs. Persephone Chalmers, who seemed like a shady character to me. I was trying to think of a sneaky way to find out when Phil again hauled out his watch and gave it a black frown. “Damn it—sorry, Mercy. But Ernie swore he’d be here at nine. It’s important.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said, “I’m sorry,” and then wished I hadn’t. Heck, it wasn’t my fault Ernie was late to keep his appointments. I was punctuality itself. “It’s only just nine, Phil. Take it easy. I’m sure he’ll be here shortly.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No. That is to say, I didn’t speak to him directly. But he left a note for me with Lulu downstairs.”

  “Huh.”

  Phil and Lulu weren’t fond of each other, although for my money Lulu had more reason to dislike Phil than Phil had to dislike Lulu. He’d arrested Lulu’s brother Rupert on a charge of murder, for heaven’s sake, and the poor boy hadn’t done it. Anybody but an idiot could have seen Rupert didn’t have the brains to concoct a scheme like the one that had been perpetrated. Not that Rupert wasn’t a bright lad, but he was rather innocent, and had come to the big city directly from a small town in Oklahoma, not that Oklahoma probably doesn’t grow crooks, too, but . . . Oh, never mind.

  It occurred to me to tell Phil what Ernie’s note said, but I didn’t, hoping he’d leak some more information a
bout his current, mysterious case.

  Phil transferred his frown to me. “Well? What did the note say?”

  I thought about telling him that the note had been for me and not him, but that would have been disingenuous. If Ernie hadn’t wanted Phil to know where he was, he wouldn’t have left a note at all. I’m sure he wouldn’t have done it for my sake alone. Which didn’t make me feel very important, as you can well imagine. With a hearty sigh, I fished the crumpled note out of the wastepaper basket where I’d tossed it and smoothed it out on my desk.

  Phil read it. “Aw, hell.” He looked up quickly. “Sorry, Mercy.”

  I wished he’d quit apologizing every time he said a hell or a damn. Ernie swore in my presence all the time. I was practically inured to swearing by that time. “It’s all right. But why don’t you like it?”

  “That woman is trouble,” Phil grumbled.

  I perked up. “Ha! I knew it!”

  Phil looked at me oddly, and I think I blushed. At any rate, my face got hot.

  “I mean, how interesting,” I said feebly.

  “Well,” Phil said after another few seconds. “When Ernie gets back, tell him to ’phone me.”

  “I will.” In fact, I pulled over one of my very professional-looking message pads and wrote the message on it. By that time in my career as a P.I.’s secretary, I’d already memorized Phil’s Los Angeles Police Department telephone number.

  He stood. “Thanks, Mercy. I’d better be going now.” He glared into space for a moment or two. “Drat Ernie Templeton.” And he marched out the door, slapping his hat on his head.

  I concurred with him about my dratted employer, actually, although it would have been disloyal to say so. I only sighed and wished I had something to do.

  It wasn’t until about ten-thirty that I began to worry about my wayward boss. Granted, his note hadn’t been specific as to time, but it wasn’t like Ernie to disappear like this or miss a specific appointment. He’d never vanished before in the almost three months I’d worked for him, and he’d never been late for an appointment. Of course, I supposed there was always the possibility that he was making mad, passionate love to Mrs. Persephone Chalmers, but I doubted it. Or maybe I just didn’t want that scenario to be the truth.