Lost Among the Angels (A Mercy Allcutt Book) (29 page)

      The next thing I knew, I’d been grabbed around the middle and all but heaved out of the way. I feared at first that it was the first man’s partner who’d handled me so roughly, but then I saw Ernie hurl himself on top of the fallen man and deduced it had been he.

      Hoping like mad that nobody else would fire any more bullets at anybody, I decided the most prudent thing to do would be to secure the first man’s gun. When I got to my feet, I was horrified to see that Mr. Godfrey had anticipated me. He held the gun via a finger poked through the trigger guard and was looking at it as if it were a poisonous serpent.

      Terror seized me. Then I remembered that, according to Mr. Godfrey, he wanted to marry me. Men didn’t shoot women they wanted to marry, did they? Several newspaper articles and June Williams flashed before my mind’s eye, but I thrust them aside. Ernie and the police obviously needed help. “Give me the gun, Mr. Godfrey. Please,” I added because I can’t seem to help myself. All that breeding, I guess.

      “But …”

      Sternly, I said, “Now! That’s evidence in a police investigation.” I was proud of myself for thinking of that line.

      He said, “Oh. Okay.”

      And, by gum, he handed me the gun! It was very heavy. I’d never held a gun before, and handled it gingerly. I didn’t touch the trigger.

      “Damn it to hell, Mercy Allcutt, give me that gat!”

      It was Ernie, who’d wrestled the criminal to a position of surrender and snapped handcuffs on him.

      I didn’t understand. “What gat? What’s a gat?”

      “Damn it, give me the damned
gun,
you idiot!”

      “Curse it, Ernie Templeton, I saved you from being killed! Don’t you dare swear at me! And don’t call me an idiot, either.” But I handed him the gun.

      He took a deep breath, yanked the criminal to his feet, and said tightly, “Thank you. You helped a lot. And you’re not an idiot.”

      I sniffed.

      At that moment, two uniformed policemen exited Mr. Li’s shop. Between them, handcuffed and being held in a mercilessly tight grip by the police, was the second man. Phil came out of the shop, holding Mr. Li’s arm. Poor Mr. Li, while I agreed with Phil that he didn’t deserve much sympathy, was clearly in a state of abject terror and agitation. The poor man was actually shaking with fright.

      By that time, we’d drawn quite a crowd, including Mr. Godfrey, who still hung around. I’d expected him to escape ere this, but I guess he didn’t have the sense to realize he oughtn’t remain where there were police available to arrest him for June Williams’s murder. Phil spotted him, and leaving Mr. Li to another policeman, came over to talk to him.

      “You’re Hiram Godfrey?”

      Mr. Godfrey nodded.

      “Come down to the station with us. I need to ask you some questions about June Williams.”

      With a sigh, Mr. Godfrey said, “Yes, I meant to do that sooner. Can I get a ride with you?”

      “Sure.”

      Well, thank God for that! At least
somebody
was going to interrogate the man who’d brutally murdered that poor girl. When I thought that I might well have been his next victim, my blood ran cold.

      People were milling around, all talking amongst themselves, mostly in Chinese, although a few tourists were clumped here and there. Mr. Li, still in police custody, spoke to a fellow shopkeeper, I presume about his shop because the man took a key from Mr. Li and went to lock it up. Mr. Li seemed extremely dejected when the police led him away. The two Italian men appeared more annoyed than dejected.

      I was about to seek out Ernie and ask him what we needed to do next when he walked over to me. “You look like hell, Mercy. I’m sorry you scraped your knees when I threw you down.”

      Those weren’t exactly the words I’d been hoping to hear from him, but they brought my mangled condition to my mind. Glancing down, I realized that my brown cotton suit’s skirt had sustained a rip, probably from when my knee struck the concrete floor of the plaza, and that blood ran down my shins. My stockings were a total loss. Instead of taking Ernie to task, I sighed. “I guess so.”

      “Want me to take you home so you can get yourself doctored up?”

      “Oh, no, you don’t! I was instrumental in the capture of that vicious criminal, Ernie Templeton, and I’m going to see him charged. Booked. Whatever the term is.”

      For a second or two, I thought he was going to blow up at me, but he controlled himself. In actual fact, after his initial reaction to my demand, which entailed tight lips, a hideous frown, and a deeply furrowed brow, he grinned. Then he took that blasted flask from his pocket, uncorked it, and swallowed some of its vile contents. Right there on the plaza in Chinatown, in front of God, half the Chinese population of Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Police Department. Not to mention me. “Okay. You can wash up at the department, I guess. They have iodine there, too. And bandages.”

      “Thank you.”

      I was grateful that Phil had Mr. Godfrey ride in the front seat with him, because I certainly didn’t want to sit next to him. Ernie and I shared the Ford’s back seat. The drive to the police station took only a couple of minutes, since it was right there near Chinatown. The two gunmen, who arrived in a marked police vehicle, were led into the station by the uniformed policemen, and we followed with Mr. Godfrey. It seemed to me that Phil and Ernie were treating him with alarming negligence, considering he had murdered an innocent woman. Then again, I knew they both maintained that they weren’t sure who had murdered June Williams. I guess they didn’t want a suit for false arrest or something filed against them. I still thought they should have been more vigilant.

      We went into the same large, busy room that we’d visited before with Barbara-Ann Houser and her mother. People were smoking and walking and talking, and I saw that Phil and Ernie got admiring nods and several comments from other officers present when they spotted the two gangsters. That made me feel good. Evidently the police had been looking for those men before this.

      Phil gestured at me to take a chair on one side of his desk, and nodded to Mr. Godfrey to take the one on the other side. Ernie hauled over another chair, set it near mine, and straddled it.

      “Take ’em to booking, Sullivan,” Phil said to the same man who’d escorted Mr. Li on our prior visit. “Then come back here. I might need you to pick up Babs Houser and the kid.”

      That caught my attention. “Why do you need Mrs. Houser? You’re not going to charge her with anything, are you?”

      Phil eyed me speculatively. “You don’t think she was involved in this?”

      Bridling, I said, “I sincerely doubt it. Why, she was held hostage, wasn’t she?”

      Ernie took over from Phil. “Yeah, but her boyfriend was in it up to his eyeballs. She was only kidnapped when Matty blew the dough on the ponies.”

      I believe that meant he gambled the money away on horse races. “But she didn’t say she was involved in the crime itself. In fact, she seemed rather irritated with Mr. Bumpas. I mean Matty.” Drat my upbringing!

      “You expect her to confess to being involved with a dope ring?” Ernie chuckled.

      I felt stupid and naïve, but I pursued the subject not because I cared much about Babs Houser, but because I had formed a fondness for Barbara-Ann, a girl with spunk and grit, two qualities I admired and even wanted to emulate. In a way. “Just because a woman has poor taste in men and doesn’t have sense enough to leave one when he pursues a criminal life, doesn’t mean she’s actually
involved
in the criminal activity,” I pointed out, believing it a valid argument and worth consideration.

      The glance exchanged by Phil and Ernie let me know they didn’t share my sentiments. Feeling rather as if my back were to a wall, I said desperately, “But what about Barbara-Ann? You can’t arrest her mother! What would the poor child do?”

      Ernie shrugged, again reminding me of Barbara-Ann herself. “She does okay on her own, it looks like to me.”

      Horrified, I cried, “But she’s only twelve years old!”

      “Don’t worry, Miss Allcutt. We don’t plan to arrest Babs Houser,” Phil said, relieving my mind considerably.

      I frowned at Ernie to let him know I didn’t appreciate his attitude about what I considered a serious subject. He only grinned and took out his flask again. I watched, disgruntled, as he took a swig. Honestly! Right here in the police station.

      Mr. Sullivan came back at that point, and clapped Ernie on the back. “Still sucking on that flask, are you, Ernie?”

      Grinning up at him, Ernie said, “Can’t seem to shake the habit, Sully.”

      Mr. Sullivan winked at me, probably because I was gazing at Ernie and him with patent disapproval writ large on my countenance. “Don’t worry, ma’am. It’s only apple cider.”

      “Don’t tell her that!” Ernie cried, either honestly aghast or faking it very well. “She thinks I’m a lush!”

      I’m pretty sure my mouth fell open in surprise. Surprise quickly transformed into indignation. Since Ernie was still holding the small flask, I whipped out a hand and grabbed it from him. He tried to snatch it back, but I was too quick for him and held on tight. When I sniffed its contents, I realized that Mr. Sullivan was right. Ernie had been sipping apple cider out of that blasted flask! I glared at him. “Do you mean to tell me you’ve been pretending to be drinking spirits ever since the day I first walked into your office?”

      Ernie held up his hands, palms out. “Not I. I never told you what was in that flask, did I?”

      I tried to remember. Actually, I couldn’t recall that he’d ever
said
he was drinking liquor from the flask. But he’d made sure I
believed
he had been. “A sin of omission is no less a sin than one of commission, Ernest Templeton. You led me to believe you were drinking spirits. You lied to me.”

      “Nuts. I’m not responsible for your evil mind.”

      Mr. Sullivan winked at me again, and I decided I’d never win this particular argument. It was also past time to take care of my appearance, if I could. My poor skinned knees hurt when I stood up. “May I wash up, please?” My voice was almost as stiff as my knees.

      “Sure.” Ernie rose, too. He didn’t look especially repentant, but I did appreciate it when he led me to a woman who was a secretary, I guess, and asked her to take me to a washroom.

      She wanted to know all about Ernie as she did so, probably because she thought he was good-looking and would have liked to get to know him better. Although Ernie Templeton wasn’t my favorite person at the moment, I obliged as best I could, deliberately leaving out references to his less savory character traits. I thought that was very nice of me.

Sixteen

When I returned to the big room full of people, I was surprised to see that Mr. Godfrey was gone and even more surprised to see that Matty Bumpas had taken his place in the chair next to Phil’s desk. Mr. Bumpas was clearly not happy to be there, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about it, since his hands were cuffed behind his back, and Mr. Sullivan loomed like a monolith behind him, ready, I presume, to squash him flat if he tried to escape.

      I met Ernie at the secretary’s desk. It looked to me as if he’d been talking with her for some time—and the cad was making great headway, if I was any judge. When he saw me, he broke off his conversation, and we walked back to Phil’s desk together.

      “Where’s Mr. Godfrey?” was my first question. I’d taken off my stockings and thrown them away, acknowledging as I did so that money was a fine thing to have enough of, if you didn’t overdo it. I’d washed my knees and used the iodine, which stung like mad, on the scrapes, then made gauze pads to cover them and stuck the pads in place with the tape the kind-hearted secretary had let me borrow. Since my handbag was in the office and I didn’t have an alternative, I’d finger-combed my hair, grateful for my new bob since it fell into place quite well even without the benefit of brush or comb. There wasn’t anything I could do about the state of my ripped and stained clothing.

      Looking me up and down in a very unprofessional manner, Ernie said, “There was an outstanding warrant on him, so Sullivan took him to booking. You don’t look much better, kiddo.”

      “Thank you
ever
so much.”

      He grinned. “You’re ever so welcome.”

      I gave up on that topic. There was obviously no making Ernest Templeton, P.I., use the manners his mother had taught him if he didn’t want to use them. “When are they going to arrest him for murder?”

      Casting a sarcastic glance at the ceiling, Ernie said, “After they book him on the outstanding FTA charge, I expect.”

      “What’s an FTA charge?”

      “Failure to appear. He didn’t show up in court on an assault.”

      “An assault charge?” My outlook brightened instantly.

      “Yeah. I guess he thought somebody before you and Miss Williams wanted to marry him. Only she pressed charges.”

      “Ha! I knew he was a fiend!”

      “Yeah, maybe.”

      “And you’re sure they’ll take care of Mr. Godfrey?”

      “They’ll take care of him, all right,” he assured me.

      I eyed him closely, not entirely sure he meant they were actually going to arrest the man for the murder of June Williams. However, it was nice to know that Mr. Godfrey would be out of my hair at least for a little while. I lowered my voice for my next question. “Where did they find Matty Bumpas?”

      “Train station. Phil’s had some fellows watching it for a day or two, in case he tried to skip. He did.” Ernie’s grin was quite devilish.

      “Good for Phil.”

      “Yeah, he’s a good copper.”

      “Did he send someone to bring Babs Houser here?”

      “Yeah. She should be here any minute now if she was at that fancy hotel you put her in when they knocked on her door.”