Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book) (3 page)

      Goodness gracious, but Los Angeles was a bustling city. You could see a good deal of it from the top of Angel’s Flight. According to Harvey, Chloe’s husband, much of the city’s wealth sprang from the burgeoning moving-picture industry. I thought that was interesting, but to tell the truth I also thought it was a trifle distressing. Perhaps that’s my moralistic Boston upbringing rearing its ugly head, but wealth based upon illusions seems … well … unworthy, somehow.

      
My
job, on the other hand … well, my job was worthwhile. That is to say, it was going to be worthwhile. Uplifting, even. Because Mr. Templeton, a private investigator, assisted people with their problems. I thought that was quite noble, actually, even though Mr. Templeton himself, upon first acquaintance, didn’t necessarily strike one as a particularly heroic soul.

      At lunch the day before, however, he’d explained to me exactly what kind of work a private investigator did. I came away not merely filled to the brim with good Chinese food, but bursting with enthusiasm.

      Oh, boy, if I wanted to gain experience, this sounded like the way to do it. I’d be working with honest-to-goodness
criminals
. Sometimes. Rarely, according to Mr. Templeton, but still, sometimes. I’d never met a real, live, honest-to-goodness criminal before, unless you counted a business associate of my father’s, who had been locked up for embezzling funds from the bank he owned in order to support a mistress. That had been a shame, true, and a terrible embarrassment to his wife and family, but it didn’t really count as far as experience went, since I didn’t know him well and, besides, it was more in the nature of cheating. I mean, he didn’t kidnap anybody or anything.

      In this job, I’d get the opportunity to meet
real
criminals, like robbers and people who shot other people and that sort of thing. More, I’d learn all about how to investigate things. Like, for instance, insurance fraud. Mind you, that sounded moderately boring, but Mr. Templeton said that sometimes he was asked to find missing persons. That should be interesting, shouldn’t it? I doubted that I’d find it satisfying to spy on roving spouses, but that went with the territory, and I decided that I would just cope in cases like that.

      Naturally, I didn’t see myself as sitting on the sidelines, answering the telephone and typing, at least not in the long run. Until I became fully acquainted with Mr. Templeton’s business, of course, those would be my duties. Long-term, however, I wanted to be more than a secretary. I wanted to be Mr. Templeton’s assistant!

      He hadn’t mentioned needing assistance, but I figured I could work up to it.

      Before climbing the stairs to the third floor, I stopped by the reception desk to speak to the girl with the blood-red fingernails and white hair. It was slightly before eight o’clock, and she looked as if she’d rather sleep a few more hours than sit behind a desk.

      “Good morning,” I said, making sure I sounded peppy.

      “Hi,” she said, giving me the impression that she didn’t appreciate pep at that hour of the day.

      Well, I wasn’t responsible for her poor sleeping habits. I stuck out my hand, smiled brightly, and said, “I’m Mercy Allcutt. We spoke yesterday. I’m going to be working with Mr. Templeton.”

      Her sleepy eyes opened wide. Perhaps my announcement had awakened her. “You’re working for
Ernie?
”

      “Yes. As of today.” I felt kind of silly with my hand hovering there in the air, but she took it at last and shook it limply. Because she didn’t seem inclined to tell me on her own, I asked, “What’s your name?”

      “Lulu,” she said. “Lulu LaBelle.”

      “My goodness. Is that French?”

      “What? Lulu? Naw, it’s because my first name is really Louise.”

      “Really? My middle name is Louise.”

      “Yeah?” She narrowed her eyes. “Say, wasn’t there some lady who wrote books named Louise Allcutt?”

      “Louisa May Alcott was her name. She was one of the Transcendentalists of the mid-nineteenth century. We’re supposed to be distantly related, but I’m not sure about that.”

      Her eyes seemed to be glazing over. “Oh.”

      I thought about reviving the French issue, and decided against it. Lulu didn’t seem awfully perky or communicative this morning. She leaned over the desk, though, as if she were interested in something. “Say, you really going to be working for Ernie?”

      “Mr. Templeton? Yes.” I doubted that he’d be Ernie to me any time soon, even though he’d told me to call him that. Calling one’s employer by his first name seemed so disrespectful.

      “He’s a looker,” said Lulu, giving me a sly glance. “But brash. Real brash.”

      Brash, was he? Yes, I suppose he was. “Good word for it,” I murmured. Then, because I didn’t really want to know Lulu’s opinion of Mr. Templeton, believing it to be my obligation to suppress gossip about my employer among staff and others, I said, “Lulu, is there a building caretaker? Or a building supervisor? A janitor? Somebody who’s supposed to keep the place clean and repair things?”

      “Ha!” She tossed her white head. I was wildly curious to know how her hair had gone so white while she was still so young. Perhaps she was suffering from some dread disease that had turned her hair white and rendered her exhausted of a morning. My heart instantly melted toward her, and I resolved always to be kind, even if she persisted in being too casual for my comfort. “There’s supposed to be. Guy named Ned. He’s generally in the basement reading
Fu Manchu
.”

      “The basement?”

      “Yeah. He’s got a room down there. If you want him to do something, you’d better go find him and ask him, ’cause he hides out once he gets to work, and he don’t do nothing unless he’s told.”

      “Good. I’ll do that. Thank you, Lulu. Do you mind if I leave this stuff here while I go downstairs to talk to Ned? Er … does he have a last name?” I’m sure it was my ever-so-proper upbringing, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling a perfect stranger—or even an imperfect one, which I assumed this Ned person to be—by his first name.

      Lulu shrugged. “Don’t know his last name. Sure, you can leave that stuff here.” She reached under her desk, withdrew a handbag, and began to root around in it, coming up with an emery board. As I headed for the stairs, she began filing away at her nails. I wondered if they’d ever be good enough for her.

      It took a while, but I found Ned. I would have found him sooner, but the door to his closet was closed. Persisting in my pursuit—after all, I was working for an investigator now, wasn’t I?—I opened every door I saw and eventually opened the right one. Lulu had been right about him: he was inside the closet, reading. Not
Fu Manchu
, but a book called
The House Without a Key
, by somebody named Earl Derr Biggers. I’d never heard of Mr. Biggers, although Ned had been so engrossed that he jumped a foot off his stool and dropped the book when I opened the door. He said something that sounded like, “Argh!”

      I smiled sweetly. “Ned?”

      He swallowed and slammed a hand over his heart. “I’m Ned.”

      “Are you the custodian?”

      He was regaining his composure rapidly. Sitting up straight on his stool and lifting his slightly meager chin, he said, “I’m an actor. I’m only doing this lousy job until I hit it big.”

      This seemed to be a common phenomenon in Los Angeles. I hadn’t been in the city long, a mere three weeks, but already I’d met waiters and waitresses, clerks, elevator operators, secretaries, laundresses, housemaids, and now a custodian, all of whom were biding their time working at menial jobs while waiting for fate, or somebody like my sister’s husband, to tap them on their shoulders and create instant successes out of them. It seemed chancy to me, but what did I know? I was here to gain experience, not pass judgment.

      “That’s wonderful, Mr. … er … Ned. But in your capacity as custodian, may I borrow you for a few minutes?”

      He bent over and picked up his book. “To do what?” He didn’t sound awfully eager to do the job for which he was being paid.

      “I need three light bulbs replaced and a sign repainted on a window.” Recalling the windows, the desk, the telephone, and the brass doorknobs, I added, “And I’ll need to borrow a bucket and some soap.”

      Sliding off his stool, he stood up with a sigh. He was a little taller than I and not particularly handsome, and I wondered how soon his star would shine in movie palaces across the country. I didn’t harbor too many hopes for the poor fellow, and thought it would behoove him to learn other, more profitable, skills than acting or janitoring. Naturally, I didn’t say so.

      “Where?”

      “On the third floor.”

      “Whose office?”

      “Mr. Ernest Templeton’s.”

      “Ernie’s room?” He squinted at me narrowly, as if he hadn’t really noticed me as a person before. “Say, you’re new around here, aren’t you?”

      “Yes.” I stuck my hand out and smiled brightly. “Mercy Allcutt, Mr. … Ned. Pleased to meet you.” Where in the world had all the last names of people living in Los Angeles gone?

      After looking at my hand as if it were a strange and unusual object for about ten seconds, he shook it. “Happy to meet you, too.” He gave me a smile that I think was meant to be seductive, although I’m not sure. “You’re pretty cute, Miss Allcutt.”

      I snatched my hand back. “Thank you. Please follow me.” And I marched off.

      Perhaps there are advantages to being born in the upper echelons of an old and established society and learning from the cradle how to behave as if the world belongs to you, because after hesitating for less than a second, Ned followed behind me as meekly as a lamb. The phrase
born to command
occurred to me, and I wondered if I had been. If so, it might be a handy attribute to cultivate.

      Over my shoulder, I said, “I have to pick up some things at the reception desk first.”

      “Okay.”

      And that was that. Ned and Lulu greeted each other with tepid enthusiasm, and then he and I walked up the stairs. After we’d scaled the second flight, he said, puffing, “Gotta fix that elevator, I guess.”

      Aha. Already I’d discovered something in my new capacity as sleuth’s assistant—I mean secretary. If one forces the people who are supposed to fix elevators to climb several flights of stairs, they’ll get around to fixing the elevators. “Good idea.”

      After I pointed out to Ned where the light bulbs were to go and where the sign was to be touched up, I went into the office—using the key Mr. Templeton had given me the day before and feeling quite important because of it—and began doing my own chores. First of all, I organized my desk. Made it my own. Wiped it down with Bon Ami, figuring that if it was good for windows, it must be all right to use on desks.

      “Gotta go down to the basement and get the ladder,” Ned said at one point.

      “Fine.” It occurred to me to ask why he hadn’t just brought it up with him in the first place, but I didn’t want to begin our acquaintance on a sour note.

      I have to admit to being slightly flummoxed by the Bon Ami at first, because it turned out to be a solid block. I’m not sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t a window cleaner masquerading as a bar of soap. However, after reading the directions, I soon figured it out, and I scrubbed and polished as if I’d been born to it. My mother would have been appalled.

      But my mother wasn’t there—hallelujah!—and I rubbed and scoured and had myself a grand old time. After I’d conquered the desk, I washed the window on the door, which I probably should have done first, since it had to be painted. But it didn’t matter since Ned wasn’t nearly as enchanted with his job as I was with mine, and he was taking his merry old time with the light bulbs. He’d brought up the ladder and hadn’t started doing anything that might count as helpful when he next stuck his head into the office.

      “Forgot the light bulbs,” he said. “Gotta go down and get ’em.”

      “Fine,” said I, thinking it was a good thing moving pictures were silent so Ned wouldn’t have to learn lines should fate honor him with fame and fortune. He’d be a total dud on Broadway.

      So I washed the window in the door—the Bon Ami worked quite well once I mastered the art of its proper use—then washed the other windows in Mr. Templeton’s office and my own, and got out the brass polish, thinking as I did so that I should polish the plaque on the front of the building. If the Figueroa Building looked a little spiffier, more people might rent offices there. It was while I was polishing the doorknob that Mr. Templeton showed up.

      I was totally engrossed in making the brass shine and delighting in its gleam, when his voice made me start. “What’s going on here?”

      Whirling around, I brushed a lock of hair away from my somewhat damp forehead with the hand holding the rag, thereby polishing my own nose, which didn’t need it, and said, “Mr. Templeton!”

      He nodded and repeated, “What’s going on?”

      I glanced at the clean windows and the shiny doorknob. “I’m just tidying up a little.”

      He looked from the doorknob to the window to me and said, “Uh.” With that, he brushed past me and went into his office, tossing his hat at the coat rack from the doorway. He missed, went behind his desk, stooped to pick up the hat, and placed it on the rack.

      “There are no messages,” I called after him. The day before, he’d been most emphatic about the importance of documenting telephone calls. As I’d arranged my desk, I’d found a pad especially imprinted for the purpose of taking telephone messages, which I thought must be the very height of efficiency.

      He said, “Uh. Figures.”

      I folded my brass-polishing rag, stuck it in the bottom drawer of my newly reorganized desk, straightened my skirt and blouse, tucked my hair back into place, and went into Mr. Templeton’s office. I stood there, holding my hands folded at my waist and smiling for what seemed like an hour before he looked up from the newspaper he’d been reading and said, “Yeah?”