ANGELS OF MERCY
Mercy Allcutt Book #4
CreateSpace
July 2012
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Chapter One
My goodness, but things move fast in Los Angeles. I’d barely begun to think about
purchasing my sister and brother-
Oh, very well . . . things didn’t happen quite that quickly, but almost. Chloe, my
sister, and Harvey Nash, her husband, had intended to build their own home, probably
in Beverly Hills, in anticipation of a family to come, the first infant member of
which was already on its way to being born. Then Velma Blackwood and Stanley Hastings,
two huge names in the motion-
I already lived in the house at this time, Chloe having kindly offered me a haven from our parents when I dared leave the nest, which was in Boston and a good two thousand happy miles away. It was thus that I ended up buying the Nash home, which was not but a couple of blocks away from Angels Flight, the almost vertical funicular railroad running the steep block from Olive to Hill that I took to work every day.
I loved that railroad. I loved my job. I’d had to endure gobs of pressure from my parents and assorted other relations to get it, what’s more. You see, I was born and bred in the upper echelons of Boston society, and the women in the Allcutt clan did not work for their bread. It was baked for them by cooks and served to them by various maids, butlers and house boys. In leaving home and securing employment clear across the country, I had bucked entire centuries of proper Allcutt heritage. Phooey on heritage, say I.
What I wanted was experience of the real world, and there wasn’t much of that to be had in my parents’ Beacon Hill estate in Boston. But I was getting plenty of valuable experience as secretarial assistant to Ernest Templeton, P.I. By the way, P.I stands for Private Investigator. I only mention it because I didn’t know that until Ernie told me.
I didn’t even have to go to an agent or an attorney to purchase the Nash place. Harvey
sent his own personal representatives to me at the Bunker Hill house, so I was able
to secure the property with ease and in comfort. I’ll admit it here, but I’d never
tell Ernie, that having scads of money does make one’s life easier. That didn’t mean
I took grievous advantage of the legacy my great-
No one in the Allcutt family except Chloe and me approved of people enjoying themselves.
The women in my family are supposed to take tea with friends, shop, go to the theater
occasionally, do “good works” at their assorted churches and deplore everything else.
Our church was Episcopalian. I think being an Episcopalian is de rigueur in Boston
for some reason. My mother almost suffered a spasm when she learned I’d gone to services
at the Angelica Gospel Hall a month or so ago and enjoyed a rip-
Anyhow, now that I owned the property on Bunker Hill, my next plan was to rent out rooms. In truth the house had suites of rooms, any of which would serve as a wonderful apartment for a woman like me, a working woman. My first tenant would be Lulu LaBelle, receptionist at the Figueroa Building, where I worked for Ernie on the third floor. Lulu was also a good friend to me.
On this, the third Monday in September, I’d come to work in a sunny mood. Chloe and
Harvey had sent in a swarm of people to pack and move them and their belongings to
their newly acquired mansion in Beverly Hills, and I’d spent a good deal of time
and a very little bit of Great-
Because I’d planned the acquisition of my home and what I aimed to do with it carefully, I’d already hired Mr. and Mrs. Emerald Buck to be my housekeeper/cook (Mrs. Buck) and caretaker (Mr. Buck). Mr. Buck was the custodian at the Figueroa Building, but he said he didn’t mind keeping things running in my home as well as doing his regular job. The man was a positive well of energy. I also provided them with their own apartment, which sweetened the deal for them.
But that’s not the point. The point was that I was in a very good mood when Ernie
Templeton strolled into the office about nine-
“Good morning, Ernie,” said I, beaming at him with genuine pleasure. I liked Ernie. He was a trifle slovenly and definitely not cut of the same upright cloth of my social “equals” in Boston, but that only made him more appealing to me. He was a good, honest man—a shade too honest sometimes—and, therefore, I liked him.
He frowned at me. This was his habitual greeting, so I didn’t take umbrage. “What the devil are you so happy about?”
“It’s Monday, I love my job, and I now have a home of my very own.”
He grunted. “Oh, yeah. You bought Chloe’s house, didn’t you?”
“Indeed I did. Now I intend to stock it with girls like me who hold jobs in the neighborhood.”
“Huh. Must be nice to have money.”
He was always saying things like that. As a matter of fact, he’d pegged me as a rich
girl the moment he saw me. I’d chalked up his astute perception to long years in
his profession. He was good at this detectival business. Before he became a P.I.,
he’d belonged to the Los Angeles Police Department, but he couldn’t stand the corruption
therein and had quit. I was almost accustomed to his snide references to my upper-
Ergo, I only said, “Yes, it is.”
With a characteristic roll of his deep brown eyes, he moved toward his office door.
I, you see, sat in the outer office, where I had my own desk, my own telephone, and
a good deal more of my own property, which I’d bought here and there to spiff the
place up some. The office—nay; the entire building—had been a run-
Figuring that was it as far as morning greetings that day would go, I went back to my work. Well . . .
To tell the truth, there wasn’t much work to do in that office at the time. Ernie and I—I, mind you—had solved a terrible murder the preceding month, but business had been rather slow since then. A couple of wives wanting Ernie to spy on their husbands; a couple of husbands wanting Ernie to spy on their wives. That was it. The business side of a private investigator’s life can be, all things considered, a bit on the sordid side in between murder cases and so forth. I’d never tell my mother that. Actually, I didn’t have to. She told me how sordid it was every time she wrote me a letter.
That morning, however, before Ernie shoved his office door open, entered, flung his hat and coat at the rack set there to receive them—he often missed, but that’s neither here nor there—and plunked himself in his swivel chair to read the Los Angeles Times, he hesitated. Then he stopped. Then he turned around and spoke to me again.
“Who are you going to rent rooms to?”
“Lulu, of course. But I suppose I’ll have to place an advertisement in the Times in order to find other working girls who need a place of refuge from the rigors of Los Angeles life.”
“Huh. You’re going to get yourself into trouble, Mercy. You know that, don’t you?”
Ernie and I’d had similar conversations earlier in our association. He considered me too innocent for words. I agreed with him, which had been the whole point of my moving west and getting a job. I wanted experience of the real world in order to write the novels I had within me begging to get out. Gritty stuff. You know what I mean. How can a girl write gritty stuff when she has no understanding of grit? The answer to that question is: she can’t.
“I will not,” I said hotly. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you, Ernie Templeton?”
He heaved a deep sigh. “No, I don’t think you’re an idiot. I think you have no experience,
and that you’ll find yourself in trouble because of it. How do you plan to select
these so-
“Well . . . um, actually, I haven’t given that much thought yet.” Golly, I hated admitting that.
“Figures.” Ernie slouched over to me and took the chair beside my desk. “Tell you what, Mercy. You place your ad in the Times, and when people begin responding, I’ll sit in on the first interview to show you how it’s done.”
“Interview?” I think I blinked blankly at him.
Another eye-
“Heavens, no! I’ll allow no men at all above the first floor.”
He covered his face with his hands for a second and his shoulders shook slightly. I think he was laughing at me, and I resented it. “Good God, Mercy,” he said in a voice that hinted of amusement and exasperation. “I’m not talking about you allowing men in your house. I’m talking about finding suitable tenants. You can’t just let in anybody, you know, or you’ll end up with a house full of riffraff.”
Deciding it wouldn’t behoove me to chastise Ernie for his amusement at my expense, I said stiffly, “Very well. I shall interview the women desiring accommodations.”
“Do you know how to interview anyone?” he asked, his tone laced with doubt.
I bridled instantly. “I certainly can’t do any worse than you did when you interviewed me!”
He grinned. He would. “Yeah, that was something, wasn’t it? I knew you’d do the minute I saw you.”
I sniffed significantly. “There. You see?”
“But you don’t have my experience.”
“I’ve learned a lot—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You fancy yourself a real detective by this time. But you’re not. Tell you what. You show me the ad before you take it to the Times. I want to make sure you word it properly. Then, as I said, I’ll sit in on the first interview with you. In fact, I’ll conduct your first interview. Show you how to go about it. Then you’ll know what questions to ask of these working girls of yours.”
“Hmm.”
“You’d better take my offer, Mercy, or you’re liable to end up in the soup.”
Boy, I hated to admit it, but he might well be right. My judgment concerning people hadn’t always been the best of late, although I chalk that up merely to having been reared in the confines of the aforementioned ivory tower. I was learning and learning fast. Therefore, rather than refuse Ernie’s offer and perhaps make a huge mistake, I said graciously, “Very well. Thank you for your kind offer.”
“You’re welcome.” And he rose and slumped to his office. Shortly thereafter I heard his hat hit the floor, Ernie’s soft ensuing “Damn,” and the workday began.
About the only interesting thing that happened during the rest of the day was that I composed what I considered a nice ad to run in the Times:
Rooms to let to employed, single young ladies. Telephone Miss Allcutt at HOllywood
3-
As much as I didn’t want to, I showed the ad to Ernie before I took it to the Times to place it. I had to admit he was correct in that he was the one with the experience in that office.
“You’re giving them your home telephone number?” he asked, squinting at me.
As I sat in the chair across from his desk, I’d been wringing my hands in anticipation of what I expected from Ernie, which was criticism. It looked as if I wasn’t going to be disappointed in that expectation. “Well . . . yes. If I’m at work, Mrs. Buck will answer the telephone. Why? Don’t you think it’s a good idea?”
“I think the idea stinks. I also think you shouldn’t say, ‘Telephone Miss Allcutt.’ Hell, Mercy, that’s announcing to the world that you’re a single woman alone in the world.”
I goggled at him for a moment, confused. “I don’t see how it announces anything of the sort. It’s only my name.”
“Just leave out the ‘Miss Allcutt’ business altogether, all right? It’s safer that way. You don’t want any madmen showing up at your door looking for single women, do you?” He tapped the side of his head. “Think about it, Mercy.”
I thought about it. Again, I regretted the conclusion I came to, which was that Ernie was, as usual, right. I sighed. “But what should I say then?” I was losing a good deal of my confidence along with some of my happy mood.
“Just give the telephone exchange. Don’t mention your name, and definitely don’t let on that you’re a young, unmarried woman living alone in that huge house.”
“I’m not living alone!” I cried, because it was the truth, and because his words stung. Darn it, you’d think I hadn’t learned a single, solitary thing about life on the mean streets of Los Angeles in the months I’d lived here, and that wasn’t accurate. “The Bucks have already taken up accommodations in the suite of rooms off the kitchen. And I’m not stupid, either, Ernie Templeton! You’re acting as if I don’t have a lick of common sense.”
Ernie sucked in about a gallon of air. His voice, when he used it again, was measured. “I didn’t mean to imply that you have no common sense, Mercy, and I know you’re not stupid. You’re . . . still a trifle innocent of the world, is all.”
I sniffed.
“What I propose,” he said, in the same measured tone, “is that you leave out a name, any name. Just have the Times print the telephone exchange, only make it the one here at the office. That way, nobody you don’t want hanging around will know your home telephone number, and if an undesirable person does happen to show up, it’ll be here, where there will be lots of people in lots of offices—primarily me—to hear you holler for help or kick the rotter out. Doesn’t that make good sense?”
He didn’t sound sarcastic as he asked the last question, so I didn’t get mad at him. Rather, I said, “But wouldn’t you mind having my prospective tenants calling here at the office?”
He shrugged. “Hell, why not? Nobody else ever calls.”
He had a point there, unfortunately. “Well . . .”
“It’s fine, Mercy. I’ll be happy to hear the telephone ringing. Anyhow, when it comes to interviewing tenants, this will be a good place to do it. That way, I won’t have to go out of my way and neither will you. It’ll be neutral territory. Besides which, if anyone really unsavory shows up, he or she won’t know where you live.”
Darn it, he had yet another good point there. “All right,” I said, feeling humble. “Thank you, Ernie.”
“You’ve already enlisted Lulu and the Bucks, right?”
“Yes,” I said frigidly. “Lulu will be moving in over the coming weekend. And I consider both Lulu and the Bucks a very good start in what I believe will be a noble enterprise. Why should young women who have to work for a living be any different from young men who have to secure employment?” My feminist sensibilities were another thing my parents deplored. Sometimes I wondered what they’d have to deplore if I weren’t around.
“No reason I can think of,” Ernie said with casual indifference, curse him. “Mrs. Buck is going to feed the herd of nubile young ladies?”
Frowning, I said, “I wouldn’t put it that way. But yes. I aim to set up a sort of boarding house. Lulu’s told me there are a lot of those in Los Angeles. They give young women a safe refuge away from work and healthy meals. For the proper recompense, of course.”
“Of course.”
Approximately three weeks earlier than this particular Monday morning, Ernie had sat me down and explained to me the appropriate rent I should expect to get from my prospective tenants. I’d been going to give Lulu a big break in the rent, but he’d pointed out to me that if I did that, Lulu would have felt she owed me something and ended up resenting me. That notion hadn’t once occurred to me, but after thinking about it I realized he was correct. In other words, he’d been a big help to me then, but his attitude now niggled at me.
“Darn you, Ernie, I’m learning! Quit disparaging me, will you? It was I, don’t forget, who saved you from a murder charge not long ago!”
“How could I ever forget?” He rubbed his behind, which had been badly bruised in the incident mentioned.
“Ernest Templeton, if you aren’t the most—”
He held up a hand, stopping me in mid-
“Helping?” I arched my eyebrows at him.
“All right. I appreciate you saving my neck.”
“That’s better.” I sniffed again. This was becoming a bad habit of mine when in Ernie’s company, and I resolved to stop doing it.
“Even though you almost got yourself killed in the process.”
“That wasn’t my fault!” I cried, stung.
He shrugged, a gesture as characteristic of him as my sniff was of me. “And I’m not disparaging you. I’m only trying to get you to see that you need . . . that is to say, you might benefit from a little help from a man who’s been loose in the big, bad world for many years now. Until you moved out here to live with Chloe and Harvey, you’d never seen hide or hair of the seamier side of life. Admit it, Mercy.”
“I admit it readily,” I said smartly. “Which is why I showed you my ad before I went to the Times to place it. However, I won’t be ridiculed.”
“I’m not ridiculing you,” Ernie said, sounding world-
“Heavens! You don’t really think criminals will answer my ad, do you?” that particular possibility had not occurred to me, thereby, I regret to say, justifying Ernie’s doubts about my interviewing abilities. Darn it. “I mean, I certainly don’t want any of . . . those types of women renting rooms in my house.”
“Exactly my point. So you’ll leave out your name and use the office telephone number, right?”
I thought about it for a moment or two, wishing I could see a flaw in Ernie’s plan. I couldn’t. “Right,” I said.
And just in time, too, because Ernie’s best friend and, according to Ernie, the only honest copper in the entire Los Angeles Police Department, shoved open the outer door at that moment, and I rose to go do my duty as Ernie’s assistant. I mean his secretary.
“ ’Lo, Mercy,” said Phil Bigelow, removing his hat like a true gentleman, unlike
some other men I could mention. Phil and I had been on a first-
“Good morning, Phil. Ernie’s not busy, so you can walk right in.”
Phil chuckled. “When is he ever busy?”
“Not very often, I fear,” I said ruefully.
“Well, maybe that’s about to change.”
Brightening, I said, “Oh! Do you have a case for him to work on?”
He shook his head at me. “You know I can’t talk about my work with you, Mercy.”
“Phooey. You talk about your work all the time with Ernie. I’m his private secretary, so I should be in the know, too.”
He gave me a big grin. “Well, I’ll let Ernie tell you about this case then, if he thinks you can help.”
Oh, great. Phil knew good and well that Ernie never wanted me involved in any of his cases. Which was silly, considering I’d been of great assistance to him quite often since I’d come to work for him.
Men. As Chloe sometimes says, there’s no doing anything with them.
Since that was the case, and since it was lunchtime, I said farewell to my aggravating
employer and his almost-
“Want to go to the Times office with me, Lulu? I’m placing an advertisement for young ladies to take rooms in my house.”
Lulu, who looked rather like a pansy that day, in a vivid yellow dress with brown
accessories, and with her lips and fingernails painted a bright, startling red, rose
from her desk as if she’d been shot from a gun. “You betcha!” Then she reached into
her drawer, drew out a mind-
I had my doubts about the way she was going about trying to be “discovered.” I mean, I should think such an agenda would require a trifle more positive action on a girl’s part than sitting behind the reception desk at the Figueroa Building on Seventh and Hill and waiting for a picture producer to stroll in, but what did I know?
According to Ernie, nothing at all.
Upon that lowering thought, Lulu and I left the building and headed to the Times.
Alice Duncan
P.O. Box 4316
Roswell, NM 88202-
alice@aliceduncan.net
