The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (18 page)

“Yes, well. Forget about it. I'd like you to come down to the California club Friday night. The mayor and I are meeting the Mexican Ambassador for dinner.”

Joe's mouth tightened. “Is that an invitation or an order?”

The chief leaned back in his chair and exhaled. “If it has to be, it's an order. But why don't you put your surliness aside and come because you might learn something. Life isn't black and white, son. Sometimes you have to compromise.”

Joe's mind drifted to Anna, to her gorgeous piano, and her offer to do “anything.” He closed his eyes. His mind drifted to compromise.

It was Sunday morning. Anna's bedroom windows were thrown open against the heat. Outside, the gardener was watering the flowerbeds, and the scent of wild mint drifted up from beneath the spigot. Anna tossed her room in search of her lilac taffeta swimsuit. Today, Edgar was calling. They were going to the beach. He had already seen her blue wool suit, and she absolutely refused to rent an ugly one at the bathhouse. It meant missing mass, but such were the sacrifices one made while courting, or how was one to ever be fruitful and multiply given one's fiancé's busy schedule?

She dug through her dresser looking for the bathing suit, tossing undermuslins, sets of drawers, and negligees all over the floor. Just as she laid hold of the elusive thing, she heard a wagon pull up outside and a man's voice singing, “I'll sing to you a romance and play on my guitar; 'Tis of a dark-eyed maiden, I worshipped from afar…”

Anna's breath quickened. She recognized the voice. It was the talented but wicked Officer Singer, come to destroy her. She yanked back the curtains and there he was in the drive, sauntering toward the grand front entrance of the Blanc mansion in baggy denim waist overalls. He looked like a field hand. Three other men in work clothes lounged against the wagon. One patted the horse's behind.

All of Anna's limbs lunged at once, and she tripped over herself bolting for the door, never mind that she wore a night dress and her hair was down and messy from sleep. She had to intercept Joe Singer before someone else did. Had she seen her father's car in the drive? She couldn't remember. Anna skidded down the hall in bare feet, her skin sticking to the floor, her body jiggle-jiggling without a corset, her lacey
chiffon night dress billowing out. She hit the marble foyer and swung open the massive front door, just as Joe Singer reached for the knocker. He stood with his hand poised in the air. He let it drop and stuck it in his pocket. She was small in the doorframe, breathing hard, looking beyond Joe, and scanning the drive for her father's car. It was gone. She let out a little cry of relief and turned hot eyes on Joe.

Joe looked at her bare toes, her thin night dress, and her hair tumbling down in a tangle. He smiled a lopsided smile. “Is this a bad time?”

Anna glared. “I'm afraid
mon père
's not home. You'll have to come back and destroy me another day.”

“Tempting, but I'd rather borrow your piano.”

She sniffed in contempt. “So you are corruptible.”

“No. I'm just borrowing it. It's different. And at least I'm not a liar.”

She wanted to pinch him, but instead she let him in. “You know where it is.”

Anna turned and fled down the hall, through the conservatory, and up the staircase to her bedroom. By the time she'd dressed, fixed her hair, and returned, the men had muscled the piano through French doors and out into the garden. They handled it reverently, like it was an enormous egg.

Anna stood by, not speaking. When the piano was loaded in the wagon, Joe cushioned it tenderly with blankets and straw. He ran his hand along the smooth ebony finish, caressing it the way she'd seen Romeo caress Juliet on stage.

He cast Anna a glance. “I'm just borrowing it.”

She tossed her head. “Borrowing. Blackmailing. It's semantics.”

Joe flushed and licked his lips. The three men had already settled themselves on the front seat of the wagon. They nodded in Anna's direction. She gave them a false smile and a lackluster wave. Joe Singer stayed in back, perched on Anna's stool. He closed his eyes and began to play her baby grand, slowly at first. Anna marveled as his fingers began to accelerate. The music raced around her, and he threw his head back in that enviable joy. Clearly he'd forgotten whatever guilt he'd felt at blackmailing her.

Now that he was making love to her piano, he couldn't tell on Anna, not if he wanted to keep it. She felt suddenly light and her heart smiled. Without permission, her feet tapped to his raucous rag.

Anna's lightness was short-lived. As the horses pulled the clunking wagon into the street, flooding the neighborhood with music, an ocean blue Cadillac turned into the drive.

Anna fled inside and threw herself down on a fainting couch, accidently sitting on the cat. It hissed. She grabbed it around the belly, because petting a cat is an activity one might do on a couch. Slowing her breathing, she waited for the tinkling of the bell, and tried to subdue the squirming monster. She got a scratch on her neck for her efforts.

The maid ushered Edgar into the parlor. Anna, still wrestling the mewing cat, felt her underarms dampen. She grimaced. “Hello Darling. You're early.”

Edgar turned and fled.

It seemed a strange reaction to finding Joe Singer in her driveway. She'd expected him to yell. Anna sat forward and tried to see out the door. She heard his cool voice from the hall. “Please put out the cat.”

“Oh. Of course!” Anna strode across the room and shoved the cat out an open window. “She's gone.” It growled as it fell.

Edgar cautiously reentered the room, his eyes stony hard, his angry flush compounded by embarrassment. “Why was the police chief's son playing piano in your driveway?”

“The police chief's son? I hardly think so.” She laughed. It sounded tinny.

“It was he!”

She yawned. “Was it? Well I had nothing to do with it. I donated my piano to the Orphans' Asylum. Some grubby men came to pick it up. That's all.”

Edgar studied her face, his lips as firm and straight as the horizon. Anna examined the nails on one hand. The other gripped the arm of the settee like it was the bar on a roller coaster. She glanced up cautiously. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, letting out a long, slow breath. “I can't go today. I have to meet your father.”

On Monday morning, Anna sat at her desk, going through endless dusty stacks of files, and fanning herself with a newspaper. She gave herself a paper cut. “Cock!” It was a word she'd heard about the station. Since taking a rooster's name in vain was permissible, and she liked the ring of it, she had incorporated it into her vocabulary. She stuck her finger in her mouth to suck the blood.

A few patrolmen loitered about drinking cold coffee and complaining about their hot uniforms. They began to hoot and whistle. Anna looked up. Officer Singer strolled into the station in the olive wool coat of the LAPD, holding up a large cotton frock and making it dance the hoochie coochie. “Who's going to be the bait tonight, because I ain't doing it anymore. Wolf, I bet you'd like a chance to wear ladies' clothes.”

“Only if the lady's still in them,” Wolf said. The men laughed like a pack of hyenas, all except Captain Wells and Mr. Melvin, whose nose was in his cup.

“You're in mixed company, Detective Wolf,” warned the captain, loosening his collar.

Joe walked from grinning man to grinning man. “Washington? Sanchez? Come on now, give me a break.” Each one laughed and shook his head.

The coroner stomped in. “I'm missing an autopsy book. Who has it?”

Anna slumped down in her chair.

The coroner frowned at the lack of response. “All right.” He strode to a bookshelf and began to rifle through it. “I'm doing a lecture on medical jurisprudence at the college next Monday night, and if you
have any pride in your work you should be there. Don't eat first. Who's going?” He turned to face the men.

Anna's hand shot up like a rocket.

Joe approached the coroner. “How about you, Doc? I'll go to your talk if you'll be the girl tonight. You get a free bottle of whiskey.” Joe raised his eyebrows hopefully.

The coroner's lips scrunched in disapproval. “I'm a Baptist man. We don't drink and we don't wear frocks.”

Joe swore and scanned the room. “This isn't fair! You guys have to take your turn.”

Anna stood. “I'll do it.”

The station fell silent for a beat, and then the hyenas began to howl.

“You can't do it, Sherlock. It's dangerous,” Joe said.

“I want to do it.” Anna looked to Captain Wells. “It's the exact kind of thing that I'd like to do.”

“She wants to be a detective. Let her do it,” Wolf said. “I'll protect her.” The men seemed to find this particularly funny.

Joe's arm went slack, the dress hanging limp at his side. He appealed to Captain Wells. “She can't do it.”

Captain Wells handed Joe a bottle of whiskey. “Officer Singer, you make an ugly girl. But you're the prettiest officer we have. So either be the girl or take the girl. Wolf will go with you. But I'm warning you, don't screw it up again.”

Joe frowned hard.

Anna sprawled across her bed studying a map of Los Angeles. The coroner's lecture on Monday night would be at USC, almost four miles across the city, and that was as the crow flies. If she took her yellow convertible, her father would see that the car was missing, initiate a manhunt, and fire the Widow Crisp. Without an allowance, Anna didn't have trolley fare. She was going to have to walk. It would take hours, and she might not make it to the lecture in time. And how safe were those streets for a woman alone at night? Anna didn't know. Before her deal with the Widow Crisp, she had rarely gone anywhere alone, and never at night. She'd like to ask Theo to escort her, but then she'd have to tell Clara. She wished she could ask Edgar, but it was out of the question.

A cuckoo stuck his head out of a miniature chalet and chirped seven times. Anna would have to solve the problem later. Nothing could spoil tonight—not danger, Douglas Doogan, Joe Singer, or the fact that a brat had seen her steal the maid's dress from a clothesline. Tonight she would live her dream. She was going to trap a criminal—a man who did unspeakable things.

Anna slipped the stolen frock over her head. It was soft and thin from too many washings, and looked every bit the servant's dress. But the maid had an excellent figure. The dress fit Anna perfectly. She rolled a silky pair of stockings up her legs, and donned her lilac-colored François Pinet shoes with the big silver buckles. There was the stain from Officer Singer's vomit, but, as he might vomit on her again, she didn't want to risk a fresh pair.

Anna climbed through her open window and onto a second story
balcony, toting a knotted rope she had stolen from the barn. She tied the end of the rope around the stone railing, took a deep breath, and climbed over, lowering herself backward over the side. She landed in a prickly bougainvillea. It stung. Pierced and snagged, she snuck across the lawn and down the safe, clean streets to catch a trolley to Boyle Heights.

The streetcar was packed with people, and Anna would have had to stand, except that a gentleman gave her his seat. The man was striking: white-blonde hair, with remarkable blue eyes and an elegant gray suit. He wore a patterned scarf fastened beneath his high-style collar, a pearl and diamond stickpin, and cuff links to match. His cheeks were as rosy as Princess Pat's herself.

Anna inclined her head. “Thank you.”

He grasped a canvas loop directly above Anna, and her knees brushed against his trousers. He smiled down at her. “I couldn't have you stand in those shoes.”

Anna winced, thinking of the stain, and hoped he couldn't see it in the fading light. She rearranged her skirt to cover them.

“Oh, don't hide them. They're lovely. If we were in Paris, I'd say they were François Pinet.”

Anna's eyes widened. Hardly any men in LA knew French designers. “They are François Pinet! I had them sent from Paris. How did you know?”

“No one makes shoes like Pinet. If you don't mind my saying so, that dress is not from Paris.”

Anna blushed. “No. It definitely isn't. I had to borrow it from my friend's maid. My other frock…” She searched the windows of the trolley for an explanation. “Caught on fire.”

“Oh my. I'm glad you weren't hurt.”

“I'm burned in places you can't see,” she said, and mentally kicked herself.

The
Los Angeles Times
building towered on the street ahead. He yanked the trolley cord and the bell tinkled. “Ah well. This is my stop. Adieu.”

“Adieu.” Anna wished that he would be escorting her tonight and not Joe Singer, because he would be much better company.

The gentleman made a gallant bow and swung off the streetcar. With a rumble, the trolley began to move. Anna gazed after the handsome man, who walked with the grace of a ballerina. He turned back and waved.

Anna disembarked at the corner of Brooklyn and Soto. Joe was waiting, dressed like a printer, down to the ink on his cuffs—no doubt his idea of a clever disguise. He was whistling and sucking on a peppermint. He held out his arm to her. “Mrs. Singer.”

Anna sniffed and gingerly tested the ink on his sleeves for dryness. Satisfied it wouldn't stain the dress, she took his arm. He smelled clean, like Pears' Soap.

The sky was already black, though a full moon was rising. It illuminated a place very different from Anna's own neighborhood perched high atop Bunker Hill. There was a synagogue with a large gold star and shop signs in four different alphabets. Hardly anyone on the streets conversed in English. It was like the aftermath of Babel. There were a few people like Anna in the quarter—whites who spoke English without an accent—and there was a men's club where Jews and such people did business. The strangeness and excitement made her feel like she had drunk too much black coffee.

Anna and Joe strolled through the melting pot, stiffly, arm in arm, like a married couple who hates each other.

“I didn't think you'd go through with this, Sherlock,” Joe said in his easy voice.

“I didn't think you'd be sober.”

“You know, your uppity ways aren't helping your career any.
Matron Clemens doesn't like you. Snow and the coroner really don't like you. You're an embarrassment to Wolf.”

Anna considered this for a moment and wiped a piece of lint from the thin, soft fabric of her dress. “I don't care.”

“I'm telling you this as a favor. And nobody's looking into that suicide.”

She smiled tightly. “Are you saying your father's a liar?”

He glared. “I'm sayin' we're all busy trying to catch real bad boys.”

“I don't believe you.”

“Do you know about the Boyle Heights Rape Fiend?”

Anna considered lying and saying that she did, but then he might not tell her and she badly wanted to know. She reluctantly shook her head.

Joe put his fist to his forehead and blew out a peppermint breath. “Geez Louise. You don't even know what you're in for. I suppose Wolf thinks that's funny. Do you know what a rape fiend is?”

Anna preferred not to appear completely ignorant, so she rolled her eyes. And she did know, sort of. Mr. Melvin said it was a man who did unspeakable things. What those things were, specifically, she wasn't clear.

“Well, if we're lucky, you'll meet one tonight,” Joe said.

Quite independent of her head, Anna's arm pulled him closer. His eyes flickered with surprised amusement. He sucked his peppermint. “This one attacks couples with a knife. Ties up the man. Strips the woman naked. Has his way with her, right there in front of her husband or father or whoever it is. He's done it five times here in Boyle Heights. Before that, he was doing it in Omaha.”

Anna's back went cold, like she was lying on an iceberg in her underwear. She held him even closer. Without her mind's permission, her free hand reached for his bicep until she held his strong arm with both of hers. This time, his lips celebrated with a long, luxurious smile.

“How many times have you done this sting?” she asked.

“A lot.”

“And you've never seen this rape fiend?”

“Nope. But I've stumbled on the aftermath.”

Anna exhaled, trying to appear cool, though the muscles of her back had hardened into rocks. She noticed she was hugging his arm, and recoiled like his bicep was a hot coal. How she wished the man who did unspeakable things was only a kidnapper or a bank robber or even a crazed murderer, and not a rape fiend. Under no circumstances did she think Officer Singer should get to see her naked.

Joe handed her a bottle. “Your whiskey.”

She took a long swig and quickly tucked it in her purse. Despite her good breeding, she was not about to share. She had shoes to protect, and if anyone was to be dragged into the bushes and covered with leaves tonight, it was going to be her. She felt in her purse for the smooth handle of the paring knife. Her voice wobbled slightly, but her chin was high. “If we're stalking a maniac, why didn't they give us guns?”

Joe opened his vest and flashed a Smith and Wesson, strapped over his ribs in a new leather holster.

“Where's my gun?”

He frowned and rubbed his forehead. “Let me take you home.”

“No! I'm not afraid!”

“Uh huh. Sherlock, what are you doing here?” He looked at her, eyebrows up, as if he really wanted to know.

“The same as you. I'm trapping a criminal.” She stared back at him, jaw set in stubborn determination, her eyes still glinting with indignation over the gun. She may not like the man, but she wanted him to take her seriously.

He studied her for a moment, looking perplexed. His expression softened and he sighed. “All right. Just keep your eyes open. We want to make sure he's the one that's surprised. He's got a knife. I've got a gun, and Wolf is supposed to show up and provide us with backup. If you see or hear anything suspicious, pinch me.” He pinched her side and she jumped. He grinned. “You'll be all right.”

With that, he began to ignore her, sauntering along, still holding her arm, tipping his hat to passersby and amusing himself by singing. “By the light, of the silvery moon, I want to spoon, S-P-O-O-N…”

Though she could do without him spelling out diphthongs, she liked the song, and his voice was undeniably good—like someone from vaudeville. He seemed so carefree, so like a man on an evening stroll, it distracted her from the fact that their purpose that night was to get violently attacked. For the sake of authentic police work, she pretended his warm arm and lovely song belonged to someone else—someone virtuous and pleasant, who liked her. Anna's tight muscles began to melt, and she relaxed her grip on his arm. Joe stretched and clenched his hand as the blood flowed back into his fingers. She braced herself for some rough comment, but all he said was, “Come on, Sherlock. You sing the patter,” and dove back into the song. “By the light…”

Anna couldn't carry a tune in her best Liberty of London bag, but since she didn't know that, she sang the patter. “Not the dark, but the light.”

“Of the silvery moon.”

“Not the sun but the moon.”

“I wanna spoon.”

“Not croon but spoon…”

After several minutes of singing and make believe, Anna pretended to be gay. She matched her step to the music and sang more boldly. He genuinely smiled at her with both dimples. He wasn't such bad company, provided he didn't vomit or speak.

They passed a red fire hydrant crowned with a straw hat that someone must be missing, and an old night-owl hack hitched to a pair of mismatched horses. Joe kicked a pinecone down the sidewalk. Then Anna kicked it, sending it skittering along the cement. They took turns walloping the spiny thing as they strolled, circling the block around the trolley stop, passing the same red hydrant five or six times, waiting for Wolf.

When Wolf finally stepped off the trolley, dressed in a dapper suit and derby, he winked at Anna like a masher and walked off in the opposite direction. Joe steered her down a side street, off into the heart of Boyle Heights. It had begun. Periodically, Anna would see Wolf leaning up against a lamp post or peering from behind a juniper bush or rhododendron,
which Anna thought ridiculous given his attire. They carried on this way for two hours, strolling up and down dark side streets and weed-choked alleys until most of the people had gone in for the night.