Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book) (8 page)

      “I won’t,” I promised. How could I? “So her … uh … gentleman friend doesn’t know where she is either?”

      Gwenda shrugged, almost losing her tray. “Guess not.”

      “Hmm. Can you think of anything Babs might have said to you that might indicate where she is? I mean, did she seem worried about anything or anyone, or did she say she was afraid of anything or anyone.”

      “Oh! Yeah! Now that you mention it, she did say she was afraid of a Chink.”

      I think I blinked. A chink? Why would anyone be afraid of a chink? “Um …”

      Suddenly, both Gwenda and I jumped about a yard in the air at a roar that came from directly behind me.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing in this joint?”

      Gwenda screamed. Fortunately, nobody else heard her due to the aforesaid noise level. I spun around, my heart in my throat, to discover Mr. Templeton! He seemed to be in a rather bad mood, but I was incredibly happy to see him. “Oh, Mr. Templeton, you
do
care!”

      Stammering “I gotta go,” Gwenda raced away through the swarm faster than I’d have believed possible, dodging and weaving like a boxer in the ring—if what I’ve heard about the fights is correct.

      Although I was thrilled to see him, Mr. Templeton did not seem similarly enraptured. Why, I knew not. He repeated, not quite so loudly, “What the devil are you doing here in this dive.”

      “The same thing you’re doing,” I said, feeling bright and cheerful and ever so much more comfortable now that I knew he wasn’t the old meanie he’d portrayed himself to be in front of Barbara-Ann. I’d heard before that men are hesitant to demonstrate their softer tendencies.

      “I sincerely doubt that,” he said. He said it through gritted teeth, too, for some reason. “What the hell are you doing here alone?”

      I thought it was sweet that he cared about my welfare, even if I didn’t approve of his language. I assured him, “Oh, I’m not alone. A friend came with me.”

      As if by magic, Mr. Easthope appeared at my side. I saw Mr. Templeton’s eyebrows lift until they nearly receded into his hairline.

      “Is anything the matter?” Mr. Easthope seemed concerned.

      I took him by the arm, feeling very warm and protected. I know women don’t
really
need to be protected by men—most of the time—but I have to admit to being gratified at that moment that I had two such staunch and handsome supporters. “Mr. Easthope, please allow me to introduce you to my employer, Mr. Ernest Templeton. I understand you two may have met before.”

      Taking in Mr. Easthope and the words of my introduction, Mr. Templeton seemed to grow taller as he stiffened. His face flushed a little, and he didn’t look significantly gratified to know I wasn’t alone.

      Mr. Easthope, on the other hand, appeared a trifle nervous. Nevertheless, he held out his hand like the gentleman he was. “How do you do, Mr. Templeton?”

      After scowling at the hand for a couple of seconds, Mr. Templeton shook it. “Easthope.” He didn’t expound on his comment.

      Feeling a little nervous myself, I started to chatter. “Mr. Templeton is here to find that little girl’s mother, Mr. Easthope, just as I am. She works—that is to say, she used to work here, you see.”

      “Say, where do I know you from?” asked Mr. Templeton, ignoring me completely. Really, the man was very annoying at times.

      Mr. Easthope cleared his throat. “Ah … I believe we met during the Taylor investigation.”

      “Huh. That mess.” Mr. Templeton’s voice dripped with contempt, as if the Taylor investigation was all Mr. Easthope’s fault.

      “Er … yes.”

      “Well, Taylor aside, I don’t know how anyone could bring a lady like Miss Allcutt to a dive like this.”

      Mr. Easthope’s eyes opened wide, and he began to look frightened. I didn’t like this at all, so I answered Mr. Templeton’s veiled accusation.

      “He only brought me here because I was going to come by myself if he didn’t,” I said heatedly. “There’s no reason for this rancor on your part, Mr. Templeton.”

      He said, “Huh,” at me and turned to Mr. Easthope. “You’d probably better take her home now. I’ll cover this place.”

      “That’s probably better,” I admitted. “You have ever so much more experience than I.”

      I don’t have any idea in the world why Mr. Templeton rolled his eyes and looked disgusted. However, I know for certain that Mr. Easthope was relieved to get out of the Kit Kat Klub. I was too, if you want to know the truth. 

      
Five
 

The next morning, I was pretty tired from my late night, but I chalked it up to experience and didn’t let it bother me. I also returned Mrs. Biddle’s cleaning supplies to her. She didn’t thank me, but looked at me rather as if she suspected me of being the family’s skeleton. I think she believed my parents had shipped me west so that I couldn’t embarrass them back home.

      So be it. In spite of my lack of sleep, I felt buoyant, and I fairly danced to Angel’s Flight and to work.  The weather that morning was kind of foggy, not, in actual fact, unlike the insides of my head, which were slightly jumbled, notwithstanding my good mood. Chloe had already told me that sometimes Los Angeles weather in June and July was overcast, but this was the first evidence of the phenomenon I’d seen so far.

      Lo and behold, I didn’t have to track Ned down in his closet that morning! He was there, at the reception desk, talking to Lulu, when I arrived at the Figueroa Building. They both looked up when I entered the building.

      “Good morning,” I said, cheery.

      “ ’Lo,” said Lulu.

      Ned straightened, smoothed his shirt, and said, “Hello, Miss Allcutt. How are you today?”

      Lulu stared at him. “You feeling okay, Ned?”

      He frowned back. “Fine, thanks.”

      “Huh.” She picked up an emery board and started filing away.

      “I’m glad you’re here, Ned, because I need you.”

      He lifted his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, which I found quite off-putting.

      “To oil a chair,” I elaborated, making my voice stern.

      “Be happy to,” he said.

      “Have you finished fixing the elevator?” I asked pointedly.

      “Not yet.”

      “Too bad. Then you’ll have to walk up three flights again, I guess.” With a sweet smile, I added, “You might consider bringing everything you need the first time, Ned, so you won’t have to climb up and down stairs as many times as you did yesterday.”

      Lulu said, “Ha!”

      Ned shuffled off, and I climbed the stairs.

      Although my thoughts were slightly unfocused, I was delighted when I saw that Ned had done a fine job on the door, and that anyone visiting Mr. Templeton from now on would not only be able to find his office, since the hallway lights now worked, but would be able to read his entire name and profession. Well, they could read the initials of his profession, at any rate, since Ned had replaced the
I
in
P.I.
As I put my small handbag in my desk drawer, I breathed a sigh of satisfaction.

      I, Mercedes Louise Allcutt, was a working girl. I had a job. An important job. Withdrawing a lined tablet from the top center drawer of my desk, I determined that I should write down all the information I had uncovered the night before while at the Kit Kat Klub.

      Before I got started, Ned showed up with the oil can. “What needs to be oiled, Miss Allcutt?” He made sheep’s eyes at me. Good Lord.

      “Mr. Templeton’s chair,” I said.

      “In that office?” Ned pointed.

      Where did he think Mr. Templeton’s chair was? I only said, “Yes.” I said it nicely, too, since I was starting to think poor Ned’s stepping stones didn’t quite reach his front door, if you know what I mean.

      I’d begun my list when Ned appeared before my desk again, staring at me rather like a hungry dog might stare at somebody who was eating a steak in front of it. “I oiled the chair.”

      “Thank you.” Another smile.

      “Anything else you need?”

      “No, thank you. I don’t believe so.” I remembered the elevator. “Wait! The elevator. That really does need to be repaired, Ned.”

      “Yeah, but I meant is there anything I can do for
you
.”

      “Oh. No, I don’t think so.” I tacked a “thank you” onto my sentence, because that’s the way I was reared. Boston, don’t you know.

      He seemed a trifle let down, but he left. Thank God, I might add. He was becoming kind of a nuisance. I returned to my pad and my list.

      Disappointment had barely begun to overtake my enthusiasm when Mr. Templeton showed up. I glanced from my pad, wishing I’d had more concrete information to write on it, but cheered by his presence. We could discuss the Houser matter, and I’m sure he’d have some valuable suggestions that I could jot down in my almost-empty pad.

      “Good morning,” said I, noticing as I did so that Mr. Templeton didn’t appear as jolly as I felt.

      He said, “Huh.” Then he went to his office, threw his hat at the coat rack, and plopped into his chair. I know he did those things, because I rose and followed him.

      His brow furrowed. He rocked back and forth in his chair twice. He glared at me. “What the hell happened to my squeak?”

      “Your squeak?”

      “Yeah.”

      “I had Ned oil your chair.”

      “Oh, you did, did you?”

      His mood was starting to affect my own. “Yes, I did. It was noisy and sounded most unprofessional. I should think you’d thank me, not growl at me.”

      “Huh.” His furrowed brow did not smooth out. “I kinda liked that squeak. It spoke to me.”

      “It spoke to everyone,” I said sourly, by this time thoroughly disgruntled with my irritating employer.

      “I bet it didn’t give them comfort on stressful days, though.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, but he didn’t look like it. “I liked it.”

      “For heaven’s sake, why are we talking about your stupid chair? We have more important things to discuss.”

      “Yeah? Like what?” His glower was really quite magnificent. “Like you showing up at the Kit Kat Klub with that fairy last night?”

      With that fairy? What was the man talking about? “What fairy?”

      “That Easthope character. Huh!”

      “Mr. Easthope was very kind to accompany me to that place.” Was Mr. Easthope a fairy? Whatever did that mean? I determined to ask Chloe. It was probably some term specific to Los Angeles, or perhaps to the moving-picture industry, which seemed to have spawned a language all its own.

      “He was an ass to take you there, and you have no business in a place like that.” He sounded awfully stern. “For God’s sake, the joint could have been raided.”

      Oh, my, that possibility hadn’t crossed my mind. I was about to tell him that, in a conciliating sort of voice, when he mumbled, “Of course, they’ve probably paid the L.A.P.D. not to raid the place.”

      That comment changed my mind for me. “Well, then, there’s no reason for this unreasonable attitude on your part, is there?”

      I thought it was a pretty good rejoinder, but evidently Mr. Templeton wasn’t buying it. “You damned fool. You were as out of place there as a kitten in a lion’s den! I forbid you to go anywhere like that again.”

      “You can’t forbid me to do anything,” I pointed out.

      “Yes, I can. It’s a term of your employment.”

      I
knew
he was kidding that time. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop talking about that wretched place, can’t you? We have more important things to talk about.”

      “Yeah?” he repeated. “Like what?”

      He had a very effective sneer. It made me want to hurl my secretarial pad with the lined green pages at him. “Like Babs Houser, is what! Whom, I mean.”

      “Nuts to Babs Houser. I’ve got to find Mr. Godfrey’s fiancée.”

      That stopped me short. “Who’s Mr. Godfrey?”

      “The fellow who came in yesterday. He hired me to find his fiancée.”

      “That fat man with the sweaty face and the piggy eyes?”

      “That’s not very nice, Miss Allcutt.” But he grinned, the fiend.

      “Well, I didn’t care for his attitude.”

      “Tsk, tsk.”

      In spite of my distaste for Mr. Godfrey, not to mention my annoyance with Mr. Templeton, my curiosity was piqued. “What happened to his fiancée?”

      “Disappeared. Kaput.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that.”

      I pondered this interesting development for a moment. After recalling my own brief meeting with Mr. Godfrey, I said, “Maybe she did so on purpose.”

      Mr. Templeton squinted at me. “Eh?”

      “For heaven’s sake, Mr. Godfrey is a toad. If I were his fiancée, I’d disappear, too.”

      I know he fought to hide his grin, because I discerned the struggle on his face. He only said, “How unkind you are, Miss Mercy Allcutt. However, he’s a paying client, and I’m going to earn my fee.”

      “Fiddlesticks. Barbara-Ann’s problem is ever so much more important than Mr. Godfrey’s!”

      He shrugged. “He has money and she doesn’t.”

      “Is that all you care about? Money?”

      “Some of us have to care about money, Miss Allcutt. We can’t all be born into wealth.” 

      His tone was quite snide, but he had a point, the beast. I still didn’t believe his heart was as stony as he pretended. “You went to the Kit Kat Klub last night,” I pointed out.

      “So what?”

      “So that’s where Babs works. Worked. Works.” Nuts. “Anyhow, I know you care about finding her, even if you don’t want to admit it, because you went there.”

      “Maybe I just wanted a drink and a little fun. Did you ever think about that?”

      I hadn’t, actually, and I didn’t particularly want to think about it now, either. I didn’t care for the notion of Mr. Templeton dancing with those girls at the Kit Kat Klub and drinking bootleg liquor and being loose and disgusting. “I doubt that. I think you were there to look for information about Babs Houser’s disappearance.”