The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (9 page)

The woman's red hair, sharp eyes, and the curve of her back under a glossy black dress made her look like a condor. She perused Anna, top to bottom, with raptor eyes lined with Kohl. “And you're the swooning debutante, who is obviously up to somethin'.”

Anna took a step back and folded her arms. “I'm Assistant Matron Holmes and I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Atta girl. Always deny everything.”

Anna's eyebrow shot up. Though “always deny everything” was the motto she lived by, Anna took offense at the suggestion that she was doing anything wrong, especially from a woman who devoted her life to doing wrong things.

The condor looked at her sharply, piercing through Anna's mask. “Calm down, princess. I don't mean no offense. I'm in an ill humor on account of some bastard keeps killin' our girls.” She raised her voice so that the officer could hear. “And the other bastards ain't helping!” She stuck out a puffy hand. “Madam Lulu.”

Anna took it gingerly and shook. “Someone is killing your girls?”

“That's what I said.”

“Do you have any evidence? Because the police say both deaths were suicides and I know that if I were in Peaches' position, I would kill myself.”

That wasn't exactly true. Suicide was an unpardonable sin. Anna would all but kill herself, go to confession, and hope she would later die of her injuries.

Madam Lulu guffawed. “You ever heard of a woman slittin' her own throat?”

Anna considered this in light of the detective novels she'd read. “That won't be sufficient at an inquest.”

“There ain't gonna be no inquest! Now, there's a limit to what I can do given my field of employment. Can't really lean on the police.” Madam Lulu stared at Anna with eyes as black as eight balls.

Anna shifted uncomfortably. “I'm sure the police know what they're doing.”

“Makes it worse, don't it?”

Anna knit her brows. This woman had little confidence in the LAPD.

The madam surveyed Anna from toe to head, taking in her fine, albeit vomit-stained, shoes, her unspoiled hands, and the faint scent of her Ambre Antique perfume. Anna shifted uncomfortably.

“You're quite the princess under that ugly uniform,” the madam said.

“You mistake me!” Anna sounded defensive, even to herself, and far too loud.

“I bet you know some influential people in this town. I bet you could pull some strings. Make things happen down at the station.”

Anna's voice wavered. “That's absurd. I haven't any connections.”

The painted bird smirked. She turned heel and waddled into the house, leaving Anna at a loss as to what to do next. She had been charged with collecting the child and wouldn't leave until she did. But Mr. Melvin had said she didn't have to enter the sin house, and by God she would not. She stared at the dwelling that was painted like Christmas and waited.

A little black girl in a maid's costume, not yet a woman, emerged from the house holding a plump boy no older than three. He was neatly turned out in short pants and a crisp blouse, with a fine embroidered collar. His scrubbed face was red and swollen from crying. The girl caressed the child. “Bye bye, punkin. We'll see ya real soon.” She kissed him and leveled an accusatory stare at the matron who would carry him away. “Lulu said to tell ya that Georgie's ma was named Daisy Tombs. Her real name. In case you could find his kin. But ya mustn't tell 'em she was a parlor girl 'cause no baby needs that.”

The girl held out an envelope. “She left a letter.”

Anna plucked it up with interest. “A suicide note?” Before she could open it, the maid placed Georgie in her arms. Juggling the boy, her purse, and the file, Anna stuffed the paper in her pocket.

The maid said, “Will you tell Officer Singer not to be a stranger? Used to come see us three, four times a week. I guess he's busy with his police work.”

Anna's mouth gaped in reply.

Georgie erupted in hopeless sobs as the maid retreated. Anna pressed the child against her breast and shushed him, swaying from hip to hip. He blubbered. She sang to him softly, but she was desperately sharp, making him wail even louder, as if to drown her out. She would have been offended had not his situation been so dire. His lot seemed as unfair as Anna's own. She was taking this boy to the Orphans' Asylum, to the wicked witch, and unless they found his kin, he was going to have to live there.

Taking a deep breath, Anna turned back to the boardwalk, clutching the blubbering child, and found herself inches away from the corpse of Peaches Payton.

The body lay covered by a sheet on a stretcher borne by the coroner and one Detective Snow—the cruel man who had kicked the vulture. His cheek had a bite scar and his ear had once been torn. Anna's eyes flashed recognition. She had seen both these men before, at the train tracks, collecting the body of the suicide on the night of her elopement. She pressed herself close against the gate to put space between herself and the dead girl as the men passed by. The thin sheet that draped across the body fluttered in the wind. One tiny bare foot protruded. Anna caught a glimpse of the second foot, peeking from beneath the sheet in a shoe that was a little too large.

The coroner shifted his grip and the stretcher jolted. A gust lifted the sheet and it billowed for a moment, then cascaded to the ground leaving the corpse exposed. Georgie fell calm. “Mama.” He extended his finger. Anna clapped a hand across his eyes, fumbled for the latch, and pushed through the gate into the yard as the child began to howl.

“Come back and pick up the sheet!” the coroner ordered Anna, as if she was responsible for the wind. Panic squeezed her spine, though she'd done nothing wrong. She looked back toward the house seeking arms in which to place the baby. She found none.

“Hurry up! I haven't got 'til Sunday,” the coroner said.

Anna set Georgie gently on the grass and hurried over to the gate, latching it behind her, but he followed her and hung off the slats. She reentered the gate and picked Georgie up. The men groaned impatiently. She crossed the yard to the chicken coop, opened the wire door, placed him in the coop and latched it. Chickens ran about, fluttering their wings and squawking as Anna scurried back across the lawn and through the gate to the body.

An emptiness spread through her chest—a sense of failure because she hadn't protected the boy from the sight of this dead thing that had once been his mother. She felt sure that Matron Clemens would have.

Anna's eyes took in the pale girl. It was the first body she had ever seen. She felt strangely detached. Golden hair fanned out from the dead girl's head like a halo. A wreath of red carnations was clipped into it, the symbol of a love-stricken heart. Carnations were the most fragrant of any flower. Anna could smell their perfume over the metal sting of blood.

Peaches wore a white gown, and she would have been pretty but for the gaping hole across the center of her neck and the fact that her right eye was missing, probably flying overhead in the crop of some vulture. She could see the girl's insides laid bare by the feasting of the birds under her chin, and the tracks of birds on the white linen of her décolletage. There was hardly any blood. She wondered how deep the original incision was, and whether a girl could, in fact, make such a cut herself. And, if she had done it, why had she given such care to her appearance only to spoil the effect with a gash across her throat. A more thoughtful girl would have slit her wrists, having first purchased gloves for the funeral. And she would have made sure that her shoes fit.

The coroner glared at Anna, who was taking too long. Anna knelt down for the sheet. She could see Snow's rain boots, smeared with blood and feathers, and could smell his feet moldering in the rubber. Her lip curled in disgust. She gingerly picked the sheet up, spread it across the corpse, and tucked it beneath the girl's legs to prevent it from slipping off again. The men moved the stretcher before she had even finished and without any acknowledgment of her assistance. As the men progressed toward the wagon, the girl's shoe slipped from her foot and dropped onto the boardwalk, tumbling into the weeds.

Anna ran back to the chicken coop to check on Georgie. He seemed all right, though the chickens were in some distress. He chased them, barraging them with handfuls of dirt and corn, which Anna deemed just fine under the circumstances.

Feeling easier, Anna left Georgie to retrieve the shoe. She picked up a stick and poked through the weeds, finding cigarette butts, broken
glass, and a four-inch piece of animal intestine dripping with a creamy goo, which she flung aside with the stick. She found a sixpence with the face of Queen Victoria, who looked rather placid given that she'd been dropped in the bushes in the worst part of town. How Anna wished the coin were American and not English. She could sorely use the money. She tossed it away. Finally, at the base of a feathery green anise bush, she spied the slipper. Anna picked it up. The fine silk of it shone in the sun, special by any measure, far too good for a bad girl. The designer had scrolled his name in gold on an inner label.

François Pinet.

It was Anna's own shoe. She was sure of it—the one that had tumbled off when she'd leapt onto the train at the station. Peaches must have found it on the tracks. Perhaps, even as Anna had worn one shoe at the Mission Inn, Peaches had worn its mate in the brothel. Anna's stomach felt queer, thinking of the dead girl's toes in her shoe, of the dead girl pretending to be a fine lady, of the dead girl taking her own life, or perhaps having it taken from her.

The slipper was too nice to leave in the dirt—so nice that Anna had kept its mate, planning to have François Pinet make her a new one. She would bring the matching shoe to the station, and the girl could wear them both at her wake—Anna's penance for letting Georgie see his mother's torn body.

She stood quickly, intending to bring the shoe to the coroner, but the wagon was already heading off in a cloud of dust. Now she would have to carry the shoe along with the child, the file, and her purse on her journey to the Orphans' Asylum. Anna tramped back to the chicken coop, where Georgie had smashed half a dozen eggs, and picked him up. He began to wail again. He kicked at Anna, reaching for the chickens. His shirt was no longer crisp and white, but covered in droppings, egg, and dirt, his face streaked with tears and dust. Anna's own clothing was irredeemably soiled for the second time that day. She shifted Georgie's weight onto one hip and he smacked her in the face with his chubby fist. Her nose burned. Next time she went to the brothels, she would demand a pram, preferably one with straps.

Anna lugged Georgie up the road toward the Esmeralda Club, crossing the street to avoid the drunken man, who now leaned against the door of the saloon. He seemed even smaller when standing. He watched her with red eyes under swollen lids. His fattened mouth crooned the words, “Miss Blanc.”

Anna ran.

The toddler bounced in her arms. His corrugated wails wavered in and out with each knock and jolt. He butted her chin with his head, and she bit her tongue. Still, she didn't slow until they reached the trolley stop, and the creepy, frightening man blighted the earth somewhere far, far behind them. How did he know her? Perhaps he recognized her from the paper, like Mr. Wright. Anna made a note to look less like herself. That morning, she had swept her hair up in a glamorous knot. She put her hands on either side of her head and rubbed furiously, until she was sure that her hair looked terrible.

Anna got off the trolley at Aveneda de Las Pulgas and trudged through a copse of towering eucalyptus trees. Her arms ached from carrying the child, her purse, the file, the shoe, and her anxiety over the creepy little man. She approached the Orphans' Asylum from the woods behind, slipping from eucalyptus to eucalyptus with one hand firmly clamped over Georgie's mouth. His baby teeth pinched her fingers. That was all right. As long as he was biting her, he couldn't scream. She snuck along the side of the headmistress's cottage and peered in the window. The witch was cackling at another nun. Her mole was vibrating.

“Now, don't cry, Georgie,” Anna cooed. “A lovely nun is going to care for you while I go find your family. All right?” His eyes radiated hostility and he grunted into her palm. Looking this way and that, Anna padded to the porch. When she pulled her hand from between Georgie's teeth, he threw back his head and screamed. She dropped the orphan and bounded for the woods.

Anna didn't open Peaches' note until she had collapsed onto a trolley bench and was rattling down the Aveneda. It was crumpled from being in her pocket and sealed in an envelope addressed with a single word, “Georgie.” Anna used her fingernail to slit it open and read.

Georgie,

Mi sweet babee. I luv u. But I rekan a difrent muther kan raz u beter. I m so sory, babee. Pleez forgiv me. I was n a low, low, plaz.

Luv,

Muther

Anna frowned and shook her head. Peaches' spelling was tragic.