The Secret Life of Anna Blanc (8 page)

Anna couldn't decide if she were lucky or unlucky, whether God was rewarding her for providing blankets for the Orphans' Asylum or punishing her for corrupting the Widow Crisp. She crouched near the front counter, scrubbing her shoe so hard the lilac polish came off, leaving a regrettable brown streak that would have to be fixed. She had abandoned the ugly vomit-covered frock for a crisp new matron's uniform, which Matron Clemens had provided, though the cost would be deducted from Anna's pay.

The skirt was sensible, unflattering, and white. The blouse, which wrapped around her neck like a boa constrictor, was also white, as was the mannish necktie. It was more ugly than a nurse's uniform, but it looked nicer than anything from the Widow Crisp's trunk and gave her bosoms a little more wiggle room. Anna felt both honored and horrified to wear it.

A girl about Anna's age, with hair the color of a clementine, peeked in through the glass doors of the station, blushed her freckles into oblivion, spun around, and went clipping down the steps. Officer Wolf swept past Anna and out the door in fervent pursuit of the spy. He was grinning.

Behind the counter, a clerk minded his own business, hiding behind thick spectacles. He had ruddy, shiny skin and a mouth so tiny it could belong to a child. He hadn't even looked at Anna, though everyone agreed she was very nice to look at. She needed friends at the station and so cleared her throat to address him. “Excuse me, Mr….”

“Melvin,” he said in a librarian's hush.

Anna glided over. He leaned away from her. It surprised Anna, but
she took a step back and found her most harmless smile. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Melvin. I'm Miss Bl…I mean, Assistant Matron Holmes.” She bobbed. When he said nothing, she said, “I don't understand why that drunken officer is wearing a frock.”

He peered up from behind his cola bottle glasses and spoke in a butterfly whisper. “It's an undercover operation, Matron Holmes. Joe Singer's trying to catch a criminal who…” He lowered his voice until it was barely audible. “…does unspeakable things.”

Anna tried to imagine “unspeakable things” but was interrupted when Matron Clemens appeared, her face frozen in a professional mask of aloofness. “Matron Holmes. There's been a suicide at one of the parlor houses. Detective Wolf says you're familiar with all the cribs and parlor houses from your charity work, and that you are quite intrepid. Is that correct?” She looked hard at Anna.

“Yes, ma'am,” Anna lied. A parlor house must be a teahouse. She wasn't sure what a crib was or where she could find one, but clearly it had something to do with babies.

“Good. Go down to Canary Cottage, collect the orphan, and take him to the Orphans' Asylum.”

Anna blinked. Matron Clemens dropped a file and two coins into Anna's hand and glided off without further instruction.

“Yes, ma'am,” Anna said to the woman's retreating backside. She opened the file and saw the names Peaches Payton and Georgie Payton typed on a document.

She turned to Mr. Melvin and spoke, one butterfly to another. “Would you kindly refresh my memory? What is a crib?”

He looked up and mouthed the words, “A low-class brothel.”

Anna burst out, “She wants me to go to a brothel? Jupiter!”

Matron Clemens and Wolf looked her way. She flashed them her most competent smile, and turned back to Mr. Melvin with a look of desperation.

He spoke quietly to Anna, staring down at his necktie. “You'll have to go from time to time. They don't allow brothel girls to raise children once they're weaned. Some of the girls farm them out, but if not, the
matrons have to go get them and take them to an orphanage or reform school.” His words were directed at his tie. “Don't worry. You won't even see the girls. The brothels on New High Street keep their curtains drawn. There's a city ordinance to that effect.”

Anna leaned closer. “I see. Where can I find them?”

Matron Clemens, unsmiling, was on her way over.

“You better go,” he said.

“Thank you.” Anna slipped out the door with her file and her coins. The wind had died down to a hot puff. She paused on the landing with no idea where to go, her brow wrinkled in consternation.

Joe Singer slouched at the top of the steps beneath a pepper tree, holding up the wall and smoking a cigarette. He had replaced the frock with a police uniform but hadn't removed the bonnet. He sang to himself. “I have loved lots of girls in the sweet long ago, and each one has meant heaven to me.” He stopped singing and addressed her as if reading her mind. “Go left on Main, left on Commercial, right on New High Street. Look for the Esmeralda Club. Canary Cottage is the third brothel after the Esmeralda Club on your right. Three stories high. Green trim.”

Anna launched herself down the stairs, taking them two at a time to get away from the reprobate faster.

“You're welcome!” he called after her.

Anna rode the trolley down Main Street, shaded by towering brownstones. It was easily six cars wide and buzzed with carts, bikes, people, horses, and Model-T Fords. She turned on Commercial, passing furniture stores, hatters, and factories. The motion of the trolley amplified her jangling nerves. Brothels were Beelzebub's parlor, vile pits where bad things were done that she didn't understand. Women were never supposed to be in them. Anna caught herself biting her nails. She rested her hands in her lap and tried to think up excuses in case anyone she knew saw her in Satan's parlor, but quickly realized it
wasn't necessary. No one she knew would ever be in a brothel under any circumstances. She was venturing where no civilized person had gone before, like Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, or Dr. Livingston. She inspired herself.

Visiting Chez Lucifer was not the only challenge of the day. She would have to get the child to the Orphans' Asylum without encountering the witch or, worse yet, Mrs. Curlew Taylor.

On New High Street, Anna pulled the trolley cord. The bell dinged and the streetcar lurched to a stop. She followed Officer Singer's directions, wandering past storefronts with bright awnings, which offered everything from dripping blocks of ice to prickly cactus paddles. As she moved down New High Street, the awnings began to sag and the vendors along the hot cement walk became fewer, replaced by saloons with signs that read, “Closed.” She heard the whistle of a nearby train.

Anna walked over broken glass and into a cloud of stale beer fumes and urine stench. She stepped around a red lace garter soaking up mud in the gutter. She stepped on something and felt it crunch and roll under the sole of her shoe like sweet gherkins.

A disembodied voice howled. Anna sprang off and, to her horror, saw fingers. Her eyes followed the smashed hand to the arm of a little man sprawled behind a fraying potato sack full of empty whiskey bottles. He was nursing the smooth glass top of a bottle. Anna could see his slimy white tongue wiggling inside. He didn't seem bothered about his crushed fingers. They were the least of his injuries. His lips swelled into a bloody pucker and a plum of flesh hung under each eye. He'd been soundly trounced. All the same, he leered at Anna with surprising energy.

Anna quickened her step. She stumbled to a stop in front of two arched windows that looked like eyes. A sign in gold letters read, “The Esmeralda Club.” She peered down the street, looking for brothels. She spied an empty beer mill, a vacant pool hall, a silent dance hall. The drunken officer had said that Canary Cottage was the third brothel, but Anna didn't see a single “Devil's Lair” sign, and most of the buildings looked sinful. How could she tell where the brothels began or
ended? There was no one to ask this early in the morning. The reprobates were all still asleep.

A city ordinance, Mr. Melvin had said, forbade houses of ill repute to leave their curtains open. Anna proceeded until she found a building with the curtains drawn. It was a large stone edifice that rose from the street in three layers, ornate and decorated like a cake. It might have belonged to a prosperous family, had it been in a different neighborhood and had it featured sheer lace curtains at windows open to let in the breeze on this gruesomely hot day. But the windows were hung with heavy velvet drapes, pulled closed. She counted one.

Anna passed two buildings with no curtains, which she thought might be ordinary saloons. She skipped those. She passed a complex of small, grungy apartments encircling a courtyard where several pairs of drawers dried on a line. Raucous snores drifted from a window. The curtains were dark, heavy and closed. She counted two.

On down the street, a three-story building had bright green window trim and closed scarlet drapes—the third crib. It was neat, but garish, in a color combination that would offend Christmas. The proprietor, whoever she was, could clearly use a decorator. Even the wicked must have an aesthetic.

In front, a thin, angular man sat behind the reigns of a coroner's wagon hitched to a pair of shiny black horses. He looked like a mantis saying his prayers, eyes closed, mouth active. Anna stopped in her tracks. He seemed vaguely familiar, like the cousin of an acquaintance met once and forgotten. One of the horses swished its tail. She held the file up to shield her face and tiptoed past.

In a vacant lot next to the brothel a cat stalked an unseen creature in the grass. Three cats crouched in a jacaranda tree, white velvet against the rough bark and green leaves. A litter of tabby kittens swarmed over a woodpile, sharpening their claws and pouncing on prey, real or imaginary, amidst the dry weeds and feathery, fragrant anise. All across the field she could see them—spotted cats, orange cats, black cats, long hairs, and their mixed-up progeny—more cats than Anna had ever seen in one place. When Anna approached, they waved their tails and
padded toward her as if expecting her to feed them. Anna knelt to pet the first several, but they were dusty and flea-bitten, and she was quickly overwhelmed. She resorted to stomping and shooing them. “Go back!” They hopped into the brothel yard or wandered off into the field.

A picket fence surrounded the brothel. A cluster of cowbells hung from the gate. Chickens clucked in a coop, and a poison green motorcycle with a sidecar dripped grease onto the grass. Red letters on a green sign spelled out, “Canary Cottage.”

Somewhere behind Anna, a male voice hollered, “Detective Snow, will you please come help with this? I have an appointment!” Anna snapped her head around. The praying mantis had come to life and was standing behind the wagon, sliding out a wooden stretcher covered with a sheet that billowed in the wind. She followed the direction of his gaze. An officer stepped out from behind a tree in the cat field, shooing vultures away from something on the ground. They flapped their ratty wings into the air, the wrinkled red of their heads visible even at a distance. They circled.

“The dead don't mind if you're late, Coroner,” called the officer. He stopped shooing and let the vultures settle. What the man did next shocked Anna more than anything she had seen that day. He kicked a bird so hard that it sailed upside down into the air, one black wing at an unnatural angle. A bit of meat dropped from its cracked beak. The other startled scavengers looped into the sky, only to settle back down on their dinner, which Anna guessed would soon include their wounded companion.

The horrid officer began jogging toward the wagon. Anna turned away. She felt a sickening in her stomach and crossed herself. Never had she been surrounded by such evil—suicide, debauchery, cruelty, and callousness. And on a day that was so hot, she felt licked by the flames of hell itself.

She shook the cluster of bells and prayed that someone would come out so she didn't have to go inside and face the inevitably gaudy furniture in that tasteless den of inequity.

No one came. Anna scanned the building's facade for signs of life. From the corner of her eye, she saw a blood red curtain part, revealing
the hint of a pale face. Anna shifted her focus to the window and the curtain shut.

The brothel door opened and spit out a woman, taffeta rustling, fox stole swinging, her face chalked with rouge. Anna lifted her chin so high and tight it ached, and tried to channel Matron Clemens's air of authority. “Good afternoon. I am a police matron…” Anna's Matron Clemens impression abruptly fell away. She squeaked, “You're that woman from the morgue!”