Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book) (25 page)

      “Twenty bucks?” Mrs. Houser’s hostility vanished, and she took my hand and shook it. “Thanks a lot.”

      “Is that what was in that envelope?” Ernie whispered in my ear.

      I nodded and spoke to Mrs. Houser. “You’re welcome. Would you care for some water?” I figured she must be thirsty after having had that gag in her mouth for so long.

      “Naw. I just want to get the hell out of here.” She turned like a cyclone on Mr. Bigelow. “So are you going to arrest that son of a bitch, or what?” She jerked her head at Mr. Li, who swallowed.

      “Let’s go down to the station and talk about it,” Mr. Bigelow suggested, then turned to Ernie. “You coming, too?”

      Eyeing me with an expression of frustration, Ernie hesitated before saying, “I guess I’d better. And I suppose we’ll have to take these two along.”

      “My baby’s coming with me,” said Babs, belatedly throwing her arms around her daughter. “And you can’t stop her, Ernie Templeton.” I don’t know what history she and he had, but it evidently didn’t conjure up pleasant memories.

      “I just said they were going with us,” he snarled.

      It took Babs a few minutes to get her legs working properly. She claimed she’d been tied to the chair, with only very few time-outs for personal hygiene purposes, for over a week. Since she’d disappeared two Saturdays before, I guess she wasn’t lying, although I have to admit that my opinion of her wasn’t the highest. It seemed to me that she was setting a very poor example for her child, both with her language and with her choice of associates.

      Speaking of which, as we headed down the stairs, she said, “Where’s Matty? Did he go to you guys?” She sounded hopeful and, at the same time, doubtful, as if she understood Mr. Bumpas’s character too well to believe that he’d done anything so noble.

      “He’s skipped,” said Ernie brutally.

      “Skipped?” she screeched. “You’re kidding!”

      “You know I’m not. And you ought to have expected it.”

      Through gritted teeth, she muttered, “Son of a bitch.”

      On the drive to the police station, she and Barbara-Ann sat in the front seat, and Ernie and I flanked Mr. Li, as we had done on the way to his apartment. I was looking forward to this, since I’d never been to a police station before. New experiences were piling up in my life, and I vowed to use them as well as I could. I was pleased to see that Mrs. Houser put her arm around Barbara-Ann in the automobile.

      Once we got to the police station, Mr. Bigelow and Ernie took custody of Mr. Li, and I walked with Barbara-Ann and Babs. “Your captivity must have been a terrible ordeal for you, Mrs. Houser,” I said by way of getting to know her.

      “It was rough, all right.”

      “Did he feed you, Ma?” Barbara-Ann asked.

      “Yeah. Noodles. If I never see another noodle, it’ll be too soon for me.”

      “My goodness, is that all he gave you?”

      She shrugged, from which I deduced Barbara-Ann had picked up the gesture from her mother. “It’s all he ate. I guess Chinks eat a lot of noodles. They weren’t bad, but too many noodles is too many noodles, if you know what I mean.”

      “Yes, indeed.” I shook my head. “Poor Barbara-Ann was very worried about you.”

      “Was you, sweetie?” She stooped to give her daughter a quick hug. “Thanks, doll.”

      The urge to give her a lecture on the proper care and feeding of children warred with the knowledge that I had no experience of my own in that regard. That, coupled with my desire not to be perceived as a prig, made me hold my tongue, although I did feel compelled to say, “Mr. Templeton had your water turned on so that Barbara-Ann could bathe.”

      “Ernie did that?” She glared at Ernie’s back, since the three men preceded us into the building. “I’ll be damned.”

      I didn’t doubt it for a moment, but I wished she’d kept her prediction to herself. It was then I decided I’d best not talk to her further, since I didn’t want to hear any more bad language issue from a woman’s lips. And there, if one were needed, was another example of how protected I’d been all my life. From magazine articles I’d read, I’d learned that your average flapper took pride in using as much bad language as she could as often as she could, but until that day, I’d managed to avoid listening to any of them do it.

      We entered a big room full of desks and people. Mr. Bigelow handed Mr. Li to another policeman and told him to put him in “holding,” whatever that was. Then he threaded his way through the crowded room to an empty desk, where he pulled a chair out for Babs. Ernie hauled up another one for me, which I gave to Barbara-Ann. With a frown for me, Ernie snabbled another chair and shoved it at me. I sat, and dug my pad and pencil out of my handbag.

      Babs eyed me slantways. “What’s that for?” She gestured at my pad.

      “I’m only going to take a few notes,” I told her with what I hoped was a winning smile.

      “How come?” Her tone dripped with misgiving.

      My goodness, but the woman had a suspicious streak! If she didn’t hang out with hoodlums, she might find that the whole world wasn’t against her. “Just for my own reference. I’m not going to publish them or anything.”

      “Publish them? Huh?”

      “Never mind that,” Mr. Bigelow said sharply. “Forget Miss Allcutt. You’re here to answer some questions, Babs.”

      She sneered at him. “Yeah? Well, we’ll see. I don’t believe you about Matty. He ain’t skipped. He was going to get money to bail me out.”

      “Yeah?” said Mr. Bigelow in his turn. “How do you figure that, Babs? Matty’s skipped, see?”

      “Huh. I don’t believe you.”

      “You’d better believe me, because I’m about all you have now. Why was Li holding you, and who was he holding you for?”

      Mr. Bigelow must have seen me wince at his grammatical construction, because he glanced questioningly at me for a second. I only smiled, and silently commanded myself not to be so cursedly prim and proper.

      “First you tell me where Matty is,” Babs said.

      “He’s gone, I tell you. His pad’s empty, and he’s flown, sugar puss, so you’d better cooperate.”

      “Empty?”

      “Empty.”

      Babs pinched her lips tightly together, thereby making quite a spectacle of herself, because a tiny bit of lipstick remained from when she’d last painted her mouth, and when she crinkled her lips like that, pink lines radiated in all directions. It was an odd effect, and I couldn’t help staring. Fortunately, she didn’t notice.

      At last, she said, “Aw, hell. I still don’t believe you about Matty, but the bum didn’t pay up, so I guess I can’t depend on him.”

      “You’ve got that right,” Ernie interposed.

      Babs glared at him, and he subsided, sitting on a corner of Mr. Bigelow’s desk, folding his arms across his chest, and observing Babs with his hat set to one side. He looked the very image of a motion-picture tough guy. I was impressed.

      “Okay,” Babs said then, her tone softer than it had been. I guess she’d realized she had no other option. “There’s this guy, see, this man named Carpetti. He’s running drugs up from Mexico, and Matty thought he’d get a bite of the action.” At the name Carpetti, Ernie and Mr. Bigelow exchanged a significant glance. It was clear to me that they’d heard the name before.

      “I thought Matty was strictly booze,” Mr. Bigelow interrupted.

      “Yeah, well, he decided he wanted a piece of the drug action, see?”

      “Good old Matty,” muttered Ernie. Babs shot him another hateful glance.

      “Anyways, see, Matty likes the horses, and he gambled away some of the money he was supposed to give Carpetti, and Carpetti nabbed me. They’ve been using Li’s shop for the deals, see, and Carpetti’s goons made Li hold me. Matty was supposed to come up with the money in exchange for me.” Her eyebrows formed a deep V over her nose. “The bum never come. I thought they was gonna bump me off.”

      “They probably would have if Matty hadn’t paid up by the time the next deal was supposed to happen,” Mr. Bigelow commented. “Do you know when that’s going to be? Li said in a couple of days. Is he telling the truth?”

      Again she shrugged. “I guess. That’s what I heard, anyhow. Li told me Carpetti and his goons are supposed to come to his shop on Thursday at noon. If Matty hadn’t paid up by then …” She shuddered, and I felt rather sorry for her, even if she had brought this misery on herself. “Well, he didn’t say, but I got the picture. They was gonna bump me off.” She reached out for Barbara-Ann, who took her hand and squeezed it. The image of Barbara-Ann left alone in the world because her mother consorted with low felons made my heart squeeze painfully.

      That, however, was irrelevant. Ernie and Mr. Bigelow again exchanged a glance. “So,” said Mr. Bigelow. “We’ve got to figure out what to do by Thursday.”

      “Yeah,” agreed Ernie. “We need some kind of sting.”

      “That would work. Got any ideas?”

      Risking censure, but profoundly eager to understand everything, I said, “What’s a sting?”

      Both men looked at me, and I sensed annoyance in both faces. Nevertheless, I lifted my chin and persisted. “Perhaps I can help if I know what you’re talking about.”

      “You?” Babs laughed. “What could you do?”

      “Not a damned thing,” said Ernie in a deadly voice.

      “Wait a minute, Ernie,” said Mr. Bigelow, putting a hand on his shoulder and eyeing me with a speculative gleam in his eye. “Maybe we can use her.”

      Ernie’s head whipped around so fast, I feared for his neck. “The hell you say!”

      “Wait a minute. Let’s talk about this.”

      When Ernie opened his mouth and appeared ready to explode, Mr. Bigelow went on, “Hold on a minute, Ernie. Let me get something.” He fished around in his desk drawer and withdrew one of those broadsides you find hanging on walls in post offices. “Is this Carpetti?” He showed the broadside to Babs, who squinted hard.

      “I … I’m not sure. I don’t think I ever seen the guy. If you ask Matty … oh, yeah. I forgot. The creep ran out on me.” She sucked in a gallon or two of air, which was tainted with the smoke of about a million cigars and cigarettes being puffed on by the minions of the Los Angeles Police Department. “I swear to God, I hope the drug guys skewer him. And if they don’t, I will.”

      “Hmm.” Mr. Bigelow was clearly disappointed. “Maybe I’ll show Li.” And without explanation, he rose from his chair and went to speak to a uniformed officer. The officer nodded and walked away, and Mr. Bigelow rejoined us. “Li will be here in a minute,” he announced.

      “Maybe I’ll skewer him, too,” muttered Babs.

      “Did he treat you badly?” I made sure to sound sympathetic.

      Shrug. “I guess not, except that he kept me tied up. He’s scared of Carpetti, too. I’d still like to skewer him.”

      “Wait till we get Carpetti before you do that, okay?” Mr. Bigelow’s request was jocular, but his voice wasn’t.

      As we waited for Mr. Li to show up, Ernie turned to me. “Don’t think I’m going to let you get involved in this, Mercy. You’re a secretary, not a detective, and you’d better remember that.” Turning to Mr. Bigelow, he said, “I don’t want her involved.”

      “But I already am involved,” I said indignantly.

      “That’s not my fault,” Ernie announced ominously. “If you’d obeyed orders, you wouldn’t be here now.”

      “Orders! Well, I like that!”

      “I’m your
boss,
dammit!”

      “You may be my boss, but you can’t direct my every action!”

      “If you want to keep your job, you’d better do what I say from now on!”

      “Hey,” Mr. Bigelow cut in—and loudly, too, or we’d never have heard him. “Cut it out, you two. I want to see if Li recognizes this picture.”

      Mr. Li, in handcuffs and being escorted by a burly uniformed police officer, shuffled up to Mr. Bigelow’s desk, his head bent, his expression downcast. I didn’t feel any sorrier for him than I did Babs Houser. In fact, of all the people involved in this mess, the only one for whom I had sympathy was Barbara-Ann.

      The uniformed officer pulled up yet another chair and shoved Mr. Li into it. Over Mr. Li’s head, he asked of Mr. Bigelow, “Anything else?”

      “Yeah. Go get the book, Sullivan.”

      Mr. Sullivan departed (he didn’t salute, from which I gathered that the L.A.P.D. and the armed services didn’t have all that much in common), and Mr. Bigelow showed Mr. Li the same broadside he’d lately shown Babs. “Recognize this mug, Li?”

      Mr. Li glanced at the broadside and winced. “I guess.”

      “What do you mean, you guess?” Mr. Bigelow said in an ominous tone. “Is this Carpetti or not?”

      Mr. Li squinted harder. “Scar on forehead. Yeah, I guess it’s Carpetti.”

      “You guess?” More ominous this time.

      “Yeah. That Carpetti.”

      “Aha!” Mr. Bigelow shot a triumphant glance at Ernie. “So we
are
dealing with Carpetti!”

      “Told you, didn’t I?” asked a surly Babs, tossing her head, a gesture that would have been more effective if her hair had been clean and neatly arranged and her mascara unsmudged.

      Both Ernie and Mr. Bigelow ignored her. Mr. Bigelow handed the broadside to me, of all people. I took it, and I’m sure I appeared as surprised as I felt. Before I’d had time to do more than close my fingers on it, Ernie snatched it away from me.

      “Wait a minute, Phil. What the devil’s going on here? Mercy’s done enough butting in. She’s not doing anything else in this game.”

      “I will if I want to!” cried I, sounding, I regret to say, like a much younger Mercy Allcutt when denied a treat.

      “Wait a minute, Ernie. We really can use Miss Allcutt, and she won’t be in any danger, either.”

      I grabbed the broadside and tugged, causing it to tear a little. Exasperated, I said, “Ernie Templeton, give that to me this minute.” It was the first time I’d used my tone of command on him. As I might have anticipated, it didn’t work anywhere near as well on Ernie as it had on Ned.