Fallen Angels (3 page)

I took the envelope Lulu 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
about 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.

I went out to lunch that day with Lulu. We
dined, if it can be called that, at a little delicatessen down the
street from the Figueroa Building.

“Where’d Ernie go?” Lulu asked at one
point.

“He’s consulting with a client,” said I,
trying to manhandle a rather hefty corned-beef sandwich into
submission. Corned-beef sandwiches were another aspect of my new
life that I liked a lot. Mother would pitch a fit if anyone so much
as hinted at enjoying corned beef, which only proves one more time
how snobbishness can get in the way of a fulfilling life. Or a
filling one, anyhow.

“All morning? Must be a mighty pretty
client.” Lulu giggled.

I didn’t.

Nevertheless, at about two-thirty that
afternoon when, Ernie-less and bored to tears, and after vetoing
the notion of visiting the Los Angeles Public Library to check out
a novel or two as not being work-related, I decided to do a little
detecting of my own. First I called the Los Angeles Police
Department and asked to speak to Detective Bigelow.

“Bigelow,” came Phil’s voice, sounding
gruffer than usual. I deduced from his tone that he was not in a
good mood.

“Good afternoon, Phil. This is Mercy. Have
you heard from Ernie?”

“No, damn it—sorry, Mercy. The son of a
. . . um, as I told you earlier, we had an appointment at nine this
morning, and I haven’t heard from him
yet
. Have you?”

Poor Phil sounded quite annoyed. I
didn’t blame him, but my mind was uneasy. While Ernie was a casual
individual, he wasn’t generally
this
casual. Not about his business, at least.
“No. I haven’t heard a word from him. I don’t like his continued
absence or this unusual silence, Phil. Do you think something might
have happened to him?”

“Happened to him?” Phil snapped. “What the
devil could happen to him with the Chalmers woman?”

“You’re the one who said she’s trouble,” I
reminded him.

“I didn’t mean
trouble
trouble,” said Phil, not clearing up the
matter one little bit in my mind. “Anyhow, what kind of trouble
do
you
mean?”

“Well, I don’t know, but don’t you think this
behavior is unlike him?”

A largish pause on Phil’s end of the wire
ensued before Phil said, “I don’t know, Mercy. Maybe he’s . . . um
. . .”

I knew what he was thinking. Men. That’s all
they ever think about, according to Chloe. I wouldn’t know from
personal experience.

I huffed, but had to admit Phil might have
something there, even if I didn’t want to believe it. I said,
“Perhaps,” with as much dignity as I could, and bade Phil good
day.

Nuts. I didn’t buy Phil’s theory. Not
that he’d voiced it, but
I
knew what it was. He thought Ernie had decided upon a spot of
dalliance with the lovely Mrs. Chalmers. Of course, the fact that
I’d thought the same thing didn’t cheer me up any. However, I
determined I needed to find Ernie. And if he
were
dallying with Mrs. Chalmers without having
had the courtesy to keep his appointment with Phil or tell me when
he’d be returning to the office so that I could pass the
information on to clients who called—not that we had any—I was also
going to give him a big, fat piece of my mind.