The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (31 page)

Detective Wolf wore linen trousers creased in front and back, a vest, double-breasted jacket, gloves, and a boater's hat. His nose twitched from too much lavender aftershave. He was credibly disguised as a gentleman, though if Anna had been there she would have insisted that he change his tie. But Anna was not there.

He swaggered into an upscale shop and lost himself in a forest of overly feathered ladies' hats. He lifted one at random and pretended to admire it. It towered more than a foot, with a basket of fruit pinned to the side, including a life-sized pomegranate, grapefruit, and two lemons. It smelled like glue. Only a man would have a neck thick enough to support it comfortably. If the LAPD ever again had an occasion to dress an officer in ladies' clothing, he would buy the hat for Joe.

Across the forest, he could hear the milliner charming a lady at the till. He snuck a glance at them in a mirror. The lady wasn't interesting. She was too thin and looked frigid. But the man had oversized blue eyes, with thick black lashes and unnaturally blonde hair. He was a dandy, a dude, in his fancy suit and ascot, the kind of man Wolf distained and women loved. He flashed his eyes at Wolf, who immediately pegged him for a deviant.

Three women in the shopping district had recognized this man in Anna's portrait and identified him as their milliner. Wolf signaled through the window to Joe, who loitered outside in denim waist overalls. Joe barely nodded and disappeared from view.

The lady at the till purchased two hats and left with two round, striped boxes stacked in her arms. Bells tinkled as the shop doors closed behind her. Wolf stepped to the door and locked it with a click. He
took off his jacket and hung it over a hat rack. He removed his vest, folded his arms, and leaned up against the door.

The milliner smiled at Wolf the way the girls did when they fell for his oily charm. “I beg your pardon. Can I help you?”

Wolf sized him up. The milliner's smile began to fade. “Hey, what are you about?”

It was Wolf's turn to smile. He flashed his badge. “Arresting you.”

The milliner's big eyes got bigger, and he skittered like a rabbit through a door to the back of his shop. Wolf leapt the counter in pursuit and hurled into the work space where the hats were made. It smelled like a wet dog. The fop was hiding, but Wolf could hear him moving. He weaved his way among beaver skins soaking in mercury, vats of wet wool, ovens and cutting machines, hats on forms, and a motherly old woman elbow deep in a tub of dye who screamed when she saw him. Wolf shouted, “Where did he go?” but she cowered and said nothing.

He heard a
bang
as the man threw open a back door into the alley and it slammed against the wall. Wolf snapped his fingers. “Damn it! I wanted him.”

He charged to the alley door and saw the milliner lying flat on his back and Joe standing over him shaking out his hand and grinning. “He ran smack into my fist.”

One of the milliner's large blue eyes was turning red, the flesh above it swelling up with blood. Wolf rolled him over. Joe wiped his bloody knuckles on the fop's fine suit and cuffed his hands behind his back. “So.” He lifted the dazed dandy's face by the collar. “Were you really just trying to humiliate the men?”

Anna carefully picked her way down the sidewalk, trussed up like a lady, in a fierce new corset that squeezed her organs into an unnatural figure eight. It pinched, and she couldn't fully expand her lungs, but she was doing everything she could to stay in line and be a good fiancée. She would do everything except throw out the advertisement for the Arrow shirt suit, which she planned to keep until Edgar took her in his arms and made her no longer want it.

Two chaperones flanked Anna. They looked more like men than women, with fuzzy beards on their chins that resembled bread mold. Anna could not remember their names. Tramping ahead of Anna was their leader, Miss Olga Baumgartner, so muscular Anna was sure she was a man. The three persons formed a mobile human jail cell. Mrs. Morales had not hired this trio. It had been the work of Mr. Blanc himself. Anna thought he must have gotten them from the circus, but she was too tired to be amused. Her life was racing forward without her.

She and Edgar would marry next Saturday in a quiet ceremony that would get the job done. There would be rumors about the rushed affair, speculation that Anna's gown had been cream and not white, and her status would once more be downgraded. But when there was no baby, she would be vindicated. She didn't care. She felt nothing. Not excitement, not love, not sadness. Nothing. And nothing cures nothing like shopping.

Anna had one week to finish buying her trousseau. None of the extraordinarily expensive things she had ordered from Paris would arrive in time, and Edgar was taking her on a honeymoon next Sunday. He had given Miss Baumgartner a sum of money that would more than
cover anything Anna wanted. At least there were four women to carry the bags.

In the new corset, Anna had to stop every few yards to catch her breath. She paused in front of the Southern California Music Company. It occurred to her that she might buy a talking machine and some records, maybe even a recording of “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.” It would be heavy, but one of the muscular ladies could carry it.

Anna glided inside to the elevator, a little light-headed from the corset and the heat. Because God was still cruel, it was not working. The talking machines were on the sixth floor and she was going to have to take the stairs. The air in the stairwell was dusty, bug legs and skin flakes spun in the sunbeams. She took a sip of dirty air and mounted the first of several hundred steps.

Four blocks away, in his little apartment, Joe missed Anna's baby grand. He liked to play when he felt blue, and since Anna got yanked off the force he had felt blue. He had written her a song, which he called “Miss Jekyll and Matron Hyde.” It was in a minor key. On his sorry piano, it sounded terrible. Wolf said Anna was being held prisoner in her castle on the hill and would marry Edgar on Saturday.

Joe went to the kitchen and shook the last drops out of a bottle of Siglo XX. His ratty old upright was no match for his blue mood when he was dry, so he walked down to the Music Company, where he knew the manager's daughter, a Miss Julia Lory, would be working. She was pretty and maybe a little sweet on him. She let him borrow sheet music and play the pianos. She would have his business someday. He'd saved three hundred dollars and figured he needed two hundred more. If he gave up beer for a year, he'd have it. He could practice. Get better. Maybe even make a recording.

The pianos were sold on the bottom floor, where it was cooler than outside. He sat down at a blonde Wentworth upright and ran his fingers over the butter-smooth keys. It sounded good, but not as
good as Anna's baby grand. He started in on a rag, a frantic, cheerful sequence of notes to elevate his mood. His hands moved in a blur. The piano action stood exposed and the hammers were fluttering like hummingbird wings, mirroring the movement of the keys, making quiet puffing sounds as they cut through air.

Miss Lory came over and leaned against the instrument, smiling, tapping her fingers on the hard top. Joe's hands wound down and stopped. She smiled. “I heard you from the other room. I knew it was you. No one plays like you, Mr. Singer.”

He smiled back. “How much is this one?”

“Four hundred dollars.” She lowered her voice. “That's your special price. Normally, it's four-fifty, but I asked Daddy if he'd give you a discount.”

“Really? Thank you.” He started in on “By the Light of the Silvery Moon.” “Give me six more months, and you've got a deal.” He moved down an octave and scooted over so she could sit. She put her hands on the keys and jumped in.

Anna heard their duet as she took the stairs slowly down from the sixth floor, one by one, pausing every fifth step to rest. The corset was taking its toll. She leaned up against the rail to listen to Joe's song about crooning and mooning and spooning. Her organs, already maximally squished, rearranged to make room for her throbbing heart.

Anna wasn't alone in the stairwell. One bearded lady hoisted a talking machine over her shoulder; sweat beaded on her upper lip. She glared at Anna, who was taking weeks to reach the first floor. Miss Baumgartner lugged four bags of records. The third guard carried nothing, guarding Anna. Anna almost asked her for a piggyback ride. Instead, she sighed and took five more steps, taking quick shallow breaths.

She reached the bottom landing only to find the elevator working again. God's cruel joke. She hobbled into the showroom and, out of curiosity, looked for the source of the music.

Her face went slack. She saw Joe Singer sitting at the piano, smiling and playing her song with a different girl—a pretty girl leaning in close to him. A girl whose fiancé hadn't threatened to kill him. He laughed at something the pretty girl said, which Anna couldn't hear over the music.

Anna's heart turned poison green and sprouted tendrils that spread through her body and wrapped around her lungs. More than ever, she felt she couldn't breathe. She didn't want Joe Singer to have a girl, even after she was married, even after she was dead. Of course, she could say nothing about it. All their spooning had been of a professional nature. He had said some sweet things, but a gentleman would in such situations. He had never pursued her, and she belonged to someone else. She had no right to the jealousy she felt. It would be wrong to upturn the piano bench or club the girl with a clarinet. Besides, that would require the removal of her corset. Anna resolved to act with dignity. She would slink away.

Joe sang in his rich tenor voice about mooning, crooning, and spooning. The piano girl sang the patter, on key, smiling at him with full pink lips and white teeth. Anna couldn't bear the sight or the sound. She ran. That is, she took the deepest breath possible in her iron maiden, and sped at a crawl toward the door, hoping to God he wouldn't see her.

But, as God is cruel, he did.

Just as she made it safely onto the hot sidewalk, passing the window, hemmed in and shielded by her burly entourage, Joe saw her through the glass. He leapt from the bench, excusing himself to Miss Lory even as he hurled himself out the door. He bellowed, “Sherlock!”

Anna didn't turn around. He caught up, dodged in front of her, and jogged backward. “Hey.” He grinned. “Everyone misses you down at the station. It's boring without you.” He wiped his forehead on his sleeve and flashed his dimples.

Her green heart thumped. She turned her head so she wouldn't have to see him.

He bobbed around so he could look her in the face and gave her a
knee-weakening half smile. “What's wrong?” He leaned close and whispered. “Aren't you gonna try to seduce me in the line of duty?”

Anna's weak knees wobbled and she snapped her head away. “No. I've given up police work.”

Miss Baumgartner hurled her girth between them and threatened Joe with an evil glare. He danced around the formidable chaperone like a boxer. “That's too bad. We captured the Boyle Heights Rape Fiend. Wolf and I got him. He was a milliner, of all things. Big blue eyes, dark lashes, blonde, blonde hair. Dressed like a dandy, looked just like your picture.” He gave her a cocky grin and swaggered. “Only now he has a black eye.”

Miss Baumgartner took a swat at him, but he was quicker and more agile and dodged it.

Anna's eyes flashed for a moment, but their light was soon extinguished. “Don't tell me. I don't want to know.”

“What's wrong with you? We should be celebrating. You cracked the case.” He smiled, warm and open as if all were forgiven, making her heart pitter-pat. She had to get away from him before she succumbed to liking him intensely.

With effort, she put on a chilly voice. “Nothing's wrong with me. I just don't need to be associating with a low class policeman.”

Joe flinched like he'd been struck in the face. Then, his mouth and eyes hardened. “Forgive me, Miss Blanc. I'll make sure to stay out of your way.”

He stopped dancing and turned his back on her, striding off toward the Music Company and the piano girl. Anna squeezed her face as she stopped to watch him go. He didn't look back. She wanted him to look back.

Miss Baumgartner loomed over her. “Leave him, Miss Blanc, or I'll report it.”

Anna stared a moment longer at his backside. For once his shirttails were tucked in. It made her wonder if he was wearing one of the new Arrow shirt suits. She would never know, and the thought crushed her. Anna took her eyes away from Joe's denim trousers and submitted
to her captors. She wondered if it would sting so much to see him after she belonged to Edgar and was initiated into the mysteries of marriage.

Anna moved down the street away from Joe like an injured bird, encaged by her entourage. She felt dizzy and realized that the corset would need to be loosened or she would faint. She paused to catch her breath. “Take me to Hamburger's. Ninth and Broadway.” She laid a hand on the wall for support. “I want to rest in the dressing room.”

Miss Baumgartner's gaze drifted to the department store. The Music Company stood between them and Hamburger's. She raised her eyebrows.

Anna tugged at her corset. “Please. We'll cross the street so he doesn't see us.” She made a little sound of despair. “He's already inside with that piano girl.”

The street was busy with carts and horses, whirring electric cars, swift hansom cabs, and Fords spewing exhaust. She waited for a gap and hobbled her way across, forging a path to avoid road apples herself and make sure her chaperones would have to step in them. Miss Baumgartner squished a big brown one and it smelled.

She walked past the Music Company on the opposite side of Broadway, never once looking, and crossed over again on Eighth Street. As she reached the middle of the road, a trolley rattled by, clanging its bells. Hanging off the back was Detective Snow. If he noticed her, he didn't show it. She watched his stupid slack face disappear down the road and narrowed her eyes. A moment later, the coroner's wagon rumbled past, kicking up dust and heading in the same direction—toward New High Street, toward the parlor houses.

Anna's stomach would have flipped if it hadn't been crushed up against her liver by whalebone. She was sure there was another death. Maybe a murder. If it were a brothel girl, there was nothing she could do to prevent Snow and the coroner from disguising it as a suicide. She had promised Edgar to stay away from police work. An army of gorilla women had been hired to help her keep that promise. And there was the added difficulty that she couldn't walk five steps in a row without resting and was very possibly going to faint.