The Secret Life of Anna Blanc
Read The Secret Life of Anna Blanc Online
Authors: Jennifer Kincheloe
Published 2015 by Seventh Street Books®, an imprint of Prometheus Books
The Secret Life of Anna Blanc
. Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer Kincheloe. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht
Cover image © David et Myrtille / Trevillion Images
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. I took some liberties for the sake of the story. Some books and songs were released a year or two later than 1907, when the novel takes place. For example, the book
The Circular Staircase
and the song
Harvest Moon
were not published until 1908. Emma Summers and the Boyle Heights Rape Fiend were real people, but the details of their lives have been changed for the sake of this story. The character of Anna Blanc bears some resemblance to Fanny Bixby, one of California's richest young women, who became a police matron in Long Beach in 1907. However, this resemblance is purely coincidental. I learned about Fanny Bixby after I wrote the book. The novel was actually inspired by police matron Alice Stebbins Wells, who in 1910 became the first woman police officer in Los Angeles. She was nothing like Anna Blanc.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Kincheloe, Jennifer, 1966-
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   ISBN 978-1-63388-080-1 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-63388-081-8 (e-book)  1.  Women detectives--Fiction. 2. Sex role--Fiction. 3.  Murder--Investigation--Fiction. 4.  Women--Crimes against--Fiction. 5.  Brothels--Fiction. 6. Los Angeles (Calif.)--Fiction.  I. Title.Â
PS3611.I568S33 2015
 2015024093
Printed in the United States of America
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ONTENTS
Los Angeles, 1907
Anna Blanc wore a six-inch hairpiece made from the tresses of a yak. She had crowned the abundant puffs and curls with the largest ostrich feather hat in Los Angeles. The look was dramatic, the latest from Vionnet at the House of Doucet, and a terrible choice when running for a train. She sprinted along the moonlit tracks, her big hair bun bouncing, her feathers shaking, her satin gown trailing an undignified sprig of rosemary snagged from the bush where she'd been hiding. Above her, the majestic dome of La Grande Station rose from the expanse of dust and steel, menacing her like some giant guardian of propriety. As she flew past a palm tree, her veil caught on a frond and tore, revealing an eye, a nose, a cheek. “Biscuits!” she swore.
It had occurred to Anna that she should wait to board the train until the last possible moment, so it would be harder for any pursuer to drag her back off. But, just as the last passengers were stepping on board the late-night train, and Louis Taylor was waving frantically from a car window, two men had approached from the tracks carrying a tin bathtub. One was very thin. One was a cop. This gave Anna pause. She had always admired policemen and wanted to be one, but not this one. His face was scarred, like he had been mauled by a dog. More importantly, he might have come to hunt Anna but had gotten hung up by whatever was in the tub, in which case she needed to stay in the bushes.
As they passed closer to Anna, beneath a sputtering gaslight, she rose on tiptoes, peeking through the leaves of a hibiscus bush, and saw a large, lumpy sack oozing in the tub. It looked violent and disgusting
and made her feel ill. It could be a deer, but she thought not. No one called the police when a train hit an animal. It had to be a corpse, likely a woman or a child, because the lumps were too small to be a manâ¦unless parts were missing. She resented the sickening lumps for turning her stomach on this most special of all nights.
By the time the policeman had left, the train was rolling. Anna popped from the bush. She charged through the warm December night in glamorous shoes, her taffeta petticoats thrashing down the rails. She felt the rumble of the locomotive in her pounding pulse. It belched black smoke, filling her panting, petal lips with grit, showering her with dirty ash.
Louis hung from the door of the car, bareheaded, reaching for her as she sprinted, his eyes bulging, his tongue tip pasted to the corner of his mouth, his striped, silk necktie flapping in the wind. She grabbed his hand and leapt, losing one François Pinet shoe.
Louis leaned against the oak paneled wall, sweating, heart pounding, and exhaled deeply, as if he'd been holding his breath. He grabbed a perfect Homburg hat from the luggage rack and flipped it on. “So much for a quiet departure. There wasn't a person at the station who didn't see you board.”
Anna collapsed against the wall next to him, her mind racing with dangerous possibilities. “He might find out I was on the train, but he won't know where I got off.” Even as she said it, she didn't believe it. She half believed that there was nowhere beyond the reach of her father, the man who restricted her freedoms, down to the very books she read. She felt a quivering panic in her chest, and wetness spread under her arms. She looked down at her shoeless foot and made a little sound of distress.
Louis took her arm and cooed, “Don't fret, darling. Your father can't stop us from marrying, you know. It's the twentieth century, and he isn't in France anymore. This is Los Angeles.”
She looked up, dread clouding her grey eyes. “You have no idea what he can do.”
Louis raised one eyebrow, which, together with his spanking fine
mustache, looked very debonair. “Darling, once the deed is done, it's done.”
The car insides were cozy, like a nice hotel, with polished wood, vaulted ceilings, and emerald velvet seats. Anna scanned the faces on her getaway train. To her relief, she recognized no one among the traveling suits and black derbies. She barely recognized Louis, whom she'd spoken to only twice, though they'd attended the same balls and exchanged a dozen mushy letters. They'd kept their affair entirely secret.
Anna's father set a high price on her beauty, and would just as soon keep her as an ornament, like a prized Ming Vase, as relinquish her to another man. He'd driven away every suitor who had shown up on his doorstep with violets and honorable intentions. This being widely known, Louis had taken a different approach. He'd delivered his passionate declarations through Anna's friend Clara, while studiously ignoring Anna in public and never coming to call.
Anna limped on one heeled shoe as Louis urged her down the aisle to an empty row at the back of the car. He walked so closely behind her that when she swayed with the train she fell against him. He had a man smell, humid and spicy, like her father's Bay Rum aftershave.
“Someone was hit by the train,” she said. “That's why the train was late.”
Louis shook his head. “Yes, I know. Let's not speak of it. I mean, it's not a nice topic for a lady.” He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Unless you want to.”
“No. It's justâ¦it's hard to get hit by a train unless you try.”
He nodded soberly.
Anna would have said a prayer for the deceased, but there was no point. All suicides went to hell. Plus, suicide by train was bad manners, as someone else had to clean it up. A considerate person would take too much laudanum or something, and die in their bed, or drown at sea, so as not to inconvenience other people. She opened her mouth to say so, but Louis clapped his hands over her eyes. “Don't look.”
Anna smiled indulgently. “Why not?”
“Because
my
darling is a lady.”
This seemed like a bad reason for anything. Anna peeled his fingers off her eyes too late. The train was passing through a gully, and all she could see was darkness and scrub. She looked inquisitively at Louis.
He whispered, “Alameda Street. You know. The women, um, shall we say, wave at the train.”
Anna took her seat, scrunching her forehead, knowing there must be more to the story. It was long past midnight. Louis slid in closer than was strictly proper, turned his face to hers, and raised his eyebrows. Their legs touched through nine blessed layers of fabric. Anna blushed. A girl was supposed to object and scoot away, but she didn't. She found she didn't mind at all. His thigh was curiously hard and warm beneath his wool trousers. What she wanted to do was touch it.
“I haven't had a single moment alone with you, and I intend to make up for it.” He gazed into her eyes as if checking to see if they were green or gray or blue, and whispered, “Take off your glove.”
Anna glanced up the aisle of the near-empty car and saw nothing but the backs of heads. She quickly peeled off her glove. He took her hand, hid it beneath the fold of his coat, and began to draw figure eights on her naked palm with one slow finger, sending shivers from her wrists to her lips, and to other parts.
“When the lights go out, I'm going to kiss you,” he said. Anna felt like she was still sprinting for the train.
A heavy
bump, bump
made the lovers start. Anna's eyes cut to an old woman, who hobbled down the aisle, dragging a monogrammed Louis Vuitton case as cracked as her powdered face. Her dress had layers and layers of horrid black pleats and was so long out of fashion she could have worn it to Lincoln's funeral. The old lady parked herself one row in front of Anna and Louis in the otherwise empty back of the train. She turned around and stared at them from under wiry gray eyebrows. Sour old lady breath floated over the seat. Louis glared back at her. She clucked in disapproval and turned to face forward. In a few minutes, her head nodded and she began to snore, snorting in, whistling out.
Anna giggled at this a little maniacally, fueled by the excitement of running away, of holding his hand. She had never touched Louis beforeâor any man except her father. Not without a glove. She felt dizzy, almost drunk, sitting next to him, fingers entwined and caressing, and she had not foreseen it. As eager as she was to marry Louis, it had never been because of love. She chose him because he was well regarded, dressed wellâa real Beau Brummellâand was clever enough to circumvent her possessive father. People said lots of nice things about Louis in spite of his povertyâhow presentable he was, how sympathetic and well mannered, and how that rumor about his mother, which had traveled clear across the Atlantic, couldn't possibly be true.
Despite Clara's romanticizing the affair, Anna had accepted his proposal not so she could have a life with him in particular, but so she could have a different life. She'd never confess this to Clara, who loved her own husband to distractionâalmost as much as she loved Anna. Good, complicit Clara, who had smuggled Anna's trunks out of the house and had them sent to Louis's apartment in Glendale.
Being with Louis now, it occurred to Anna that she didn't not-love him. And it was rather thrilling to be holding his hand, alone on a rough velvet seat, at night, in the back of a vibrating train.
When the lights finally went out, he kissed her in the dark, one soft brush of lips on lips. With dreamy, heavy eyes, he cooed, “You are the dandiest girl on earth.”
Anna sighed and held her face up for another, but he placed two fingers on her puckered lips and smiled. “No more kisses,” he whispered. “I'm afraid I'd cause a scandal.”
Anna flushed. He'd already caused a scandal by stealing her away, and, if no one were looking, she didn't see why he shouldn't kiss her again and for longer. Instead, he removed her hat, plucking out hatpins one by one, and coaxed her cheek down onto his itchy, tweeded shoulder. Her enormous, yak-hair bun crushed against his face, but he didn't seem to mind.
“Now, go to sleep.” His voice was silky and low. “I don't want you tired when I kiss you tomorrow night.”
Anna bit her lip. He was even more handsome than she had thought before, like a hero in a book. His hands were so lovely caressing hers. She couldn't possibly sleep with him so near. She might never sleep again. She might actually be in love with him. Anna said a silent, sheepish prayer of thanks to Saint Valentine of Rome, patron saint of lovers, and promised to go to confession for deceiving her father and running off with a Protestant.
The train rattled through fragrant lemon groves, cool air whistling through a slightly opened window. Anna awoke to the pungent perfume, with her face pressed onto Louis's chest, one hand in his lap. His head was thrown back, mouth slightly open, his thin mustache quivering with each exhalation. She reluctantly withdrew her hand, straightened up, and, to her horror, found drool on his shirt where her mouth had been. After dabbing a trail of spit from her cheek, she adjusted her towering, lopsided hair in a hand mirror and shook him awake. He opened his eyes with a yawning, “Good morning, darling,” and a crooked smile that said, “We just spent the night together.” Anna matched it with one of her own.
The train made a grinding, screeching sound as it pulled into the station at Riverside. Louis gathered up his coat. “This, my queen, is the beginning of a dream come true. We're young. We have money. We finally have control of our lives.”