The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles by Ken Kuhlken (speld decodable readers TXT) 📖

every time she got the spirit, Pastor Seymour went and doused the flame, making her hold her peace. Or if she didn’t simmer down, leading her upstairs and praying against the spirit that’d caught her, saying it wasn’t from God but was some demon. And the gypsy gal, I remember her ordering Milly to stay away from the holy rollers.” Florence had moved her hands to her lap. Her shoulders sagged forward, knees pressed together as if she had transformed from a willful scamp into a timid and confused little girl. “Tommy, do you believe in the devil?”

“Let’s just say I’m not ruling much of anything out.”

“How about us?”

“Us?”

“You and me. If some devil got into Milly, could be we’re next?"

Tom wasn’t about to tell her he often worried about their heritage. Usually about Florence becoming Milly, especially whenever he chased her down in a speakeasy or watched a tantrum of hers. Sometimes he caught himself worrying for no good reason, only that she stayed way too long in front of a mirror fussing with her face or hair. Or when she came home from work looking too cheery in the harem girl outfit.

He stood and lay a hand on her shoulder. “Not a chance, Sis. We're not letting any devil in. We’re going to be just fine.”

Twenty-seven

NEXT morning, concerns about Pablo, Leo’s warnings, and an ominous feeling persuaded Tom to accompany his sister on the La Brea streetcar to Hollywood High. Florence rewarded his brotherly diligence by deserting him to sit with the closest boy, whom her proximity clearly flustered.

On the way home, he tried to plan his day as well as he could when any one meeting might clue him to something new and urgent. He jotted: Madeline. Milly. Sister Aimee. Hearst. Harry Chandler. Max Van Dam. Fenton Love. LIBRARY.

After a stop at home to shower and shave, when he left Cactus Court he peered at the cars up and down the street, a habit he had fallen into this past week. He noticed what might’ve been a police car parked behind the delivery truck from Miller’s Dairy and would’ve investigated, but a beef with Fenton Love might keep him from the meeting with the redhead and her associate. He walked to the Vermont streetcar stop. While waiting there, he saw a police car make the turn off Vermont onto Wilshire and pull over a block ahead in front of the newsstand. On the ride, as they passed the cruiser, the driver sat with his head turned away. Not Love, Tom believed, but a uniform cop with a fatter head. Until the cruiser fell out of Tom’s sight, it remained at the curb. Which meant nothing. Anyone tailing a streetcar wouldn’t need to hurry.

Downtown, along the blocks to Uncle Sam’s Automat, the only other police he saw were cuffing a gal who looked at first glance like Florence in one of her speakeasy getups.

The eatery was dimly lit and smelled as piquant as Vi’s chili. Madeline and a short man shared a booth in the dimmest back corner. The man sat facing the back wall, leaning across the table as if it was the only thing standing between him and the redhead’s charms.

Madeline stood and offered a smile that raised her brows and flashed her dark green eyes. The fellow remained seated. She slid into the booth and patted the cushion beside her. “Coffee’s like mud,” she said, “but it puts a kick in your step. On me.” The fellow grimaced. Tom supposed she hadn’t offered to buy his coffee. He was pale with thick rimless spectacles and pursed lips. “Tom,” Madeline said, “meet George, hygienist to the dear departed. Without him the morgue would smell like a morgue.”

Tom put out his hand. George complied and squeezed Tom’s hand as if he hoped to crush it. A whiskered man in a cook’s cap brought coffee. Tom reached into his pocket, found a quarter, and slid it like a puck to the redhead, which seemed to pacify George. At least the set of his jaw slackened.

“We’ve got to run before too long,” Madeline said, “what with the mayor and his public counting on us.” She turned toward George and whispered, “Tell him what you know about Frank Gaines.”

The man crooked his head around and leaned as far toward Tom as the table allowed. “You say this fellow was lynched?”

“What do you say?”

“Well, yes, his neck was broken and scarred, potentially from rope burns. Now, though I watch and learn, I’m not a trained examiner. Still, I can assure you, your friend was stabbed. Thrice. In the midsection and higher. In the left chamber of the heart.”

Tom devoted some moments to quieting his pulse. “Before he got hanged?”

“I see no reason anyone would stab a hanged man.”

“How long before the hanging?”

“As I told you, I’m no expert.”

“How about I ask the coroner?”

“At best, he would tell you we have no record of the man.” George reached for his pocket watch, and stared at it as though counting seconds.

“And at worst?” Tom asked.

“I leave that to your imagination,” George said as he slid out of the booth.

Tom stood, waited for Madeline to go ahead, and followed them. On the sidewalk, he said, “Frank had a lady friend, common law wife you might call her. Died around July or August this year. Name of Harriet. Come up with any details, dinner’s on me.”

He considered adding that the offer stood no matter what she did or didn't find.

But she said, “Would you be sore if I make up a detail or two?”

Twenty-eight

INSPIRED by Madeline and the news George delivered, Tom double-timed, weaving along the crowded sidewalks of Grand Avenue and Fifth Street. Without stopping to study the library’s Egyptian spire or reread etched inscriptions about the glory of books, he bounded up the entrance steps, up the staircase to the second floor, and into the periodicals room.

He came out of the stacks with a pile of recent Times and Examiner issues. He looked for headlines that addressed next Tuesday’s election and tried to avoid distractions such as “Bathing Beauties Take Wax Baths to Bleach Themselves for the Latest Evening Gowns,” and “Skyscraper Four Miles High Possible.”

Since Republican progressives had ousted Governor Richardson in the primary, his conservative and corporate backers including Harry Chandler had nobody to promote. The only other viable candidates were Democrat Wardell and Socialist Upton Sinclair. Hearst’s Examiner stood behind the Republican progressive C.C. Young, whose victory seemed assured. Nothing in the governor’s race appeared liable to motivate the cover up.

The Times favored incumbent Senator Shortridge against the Democrat John B. Elliot. The Examiner reprinted a poem by Ambrose Bierce, whose stories Tom had begun reading after he learned that Bierce disappeared not long after Charlie Hickey vanished. About Shortridge the orator, Bierce wrote:

Like a worn mother he attempts in vain

To still the unruly crier of his brain:

The more he rocks the cradle of his chin

The more uproarious grows the brat within.

Otherwise, the race didn’t seem to attract a mite of passion in either Chandler’s or Hearst’s newspaper.

On state, county and city propositions, the Times and Examiner generally agreed, although Chandler’s stand was decidedly less fervid than Hearst’s on the bond for a University of California campus in Westwood. A half dozen bond propositions regarded solutions to city traffic issues, local and suburban roads, and state highways. The Examiner and Times both lobbied in favor of them all.

When Tom returned to the stacks to exchange his pile of news for another, he spotted a whole shelf dedicated to the Forum. He wondered if Socrates’ was the world’s most prolific essayist, until he discovered multiple copies of each issue. Donated, he supposed.

He selected issues dedicated to Harry Chandler, William Randolph Hearst, the Klan, and Sister McPherson. Back at his table, Tom had company. A fellow turned from a book just long enough to shoot Tom a savage glare. He wasn’t one of the disheveled crazies. Rather, his hair was slick with pomade, he wore pressed tweeds and a bow tie.

Tom sat and chose the Sister Aimee issue.

The Forum, September 20, 1926

For the people, by Socrates:

This reporter must acknowledge he does not stand with Sister McPherson on all issues. When she rails against Mister Darwin's theories, I have to smile. She's a wise one, who knows you don't build a legion of devotees by advocating a doctrine that, if you accept it, will make you revisit all you've ever learned. We who survived the Great War, and the influenza plague that called away our loved ones, need comfort, not science. Broach science after we're comforted. For now, heal us.

As a fellow scribbler, I admire her poetic sense. Even while tending toward the flowery and archaic, it rises above the ordinary through its consistent vigor and frequent brilliance.

The Reverend Robert Shuler deems our Sister a charlatan, a P.T. Barnum who stages melodramas with costumes and facades that put the faith to shame. He calls her an entertainer who takes her cues from the devil. He condemns her for owning a fine automobile, dressing like a queen, and traveling in luxury, without noting what she gives.

Temple sisters stitch baby clothes for poor mothers. Brothers find jobs for men released from prison. Her commissary provides food, clothing, and rent money for the needy, regardless of race or religion. The prayer tower with its switchboard ministers advises and consoles parents, embattled husbands and wives, and those brought to their knees by opium or liquor.

For seven years, with her children in tow, Sister traveled the land, sleeping in her automobile, preaching glad tidings to the poor, the ailing rich, the colored, the foreign. By all accounts, she has been the conduit for healing thousands of the lame, the blind, the deathly ill. Mothers who cannot shoulder the burden of another child send her their babies. Since her arrival in Los Angeles, Sister has served as profound evidence that our wives and daughters can exhibit strength, wisdom, and courage far beyond what we may have believed.

For this valiant woman of exuberant good will, I say to the Reverend Shuler, step aside. Our Sister, who preaches recovery of innocence to prostitutes, moderation to nightclub revelers, and sacrifice to the favored, earns from both saint and sinner respect and regard for the same reason she won the hearts of Klansmen, Gypsies, and the prize-fight crowd: because she does not judge them.

How, I ask, can we look upon her current troubles without recognizing the grand irony, that she who is loath to judge is being judged by us all.

 

The man in tweeds had jumped up and rushed away after another savage glance. As he’d left books on the table, Tom leaned over and read the titles. One was a historical study of California earthquakes, the other a primer on explosives.

A wall clock informed him time was in short supply. After folding and pocketing several Forum issues, he left the library on heavy feet and with a fluttering heart. Because his next chore would take him to Milly.

Twenty-nine

TOM stopped by his home for a sandwich and to stall. For the first time since Oz brought him news about the lynching, he wondered if he should use more discretion in choosing which leads to follow. But he couldn’t hope to live in peace as such a coward he wouldn’t face his own mother.

He was slathering butter on a roll when the front door rattled. He opened it to find Mister Hines from the Top Hat staring up at him.

“Good day, Mister Tom.”

“And to you.”

“You see, Mister Max he ask can you stop by the club tonight. He come in about nine o’clock.”

“Sure will,” Tom said. “Stay for a sandwich.”

“No sir, but thank you kindly.” Mr. Hines tipped his derby and scooted off.

The walk, bus, and streetcar rides, Tom wasted on the futile attempt to calm himself by planning for the showdown. But he couldn’t imagine what to say to the woman who bore him, smothered him with what she fancied as love, and found ingenious ways to terrorize him and Florence. The woman who took her children at least monthly on walks around the La Brea tar pits and convinced them that, should they defy her, she would heave them into the pits where they would spend eternity with the ghosts of ancient beasts. Because she had born them, she claimed, she held forever the legal and moral right to end their wicked lives.

Her current home was near the corner of Apex and Fargo, in a boxy clapboard duplex of wartime construction, and with a castle turret more recently tacked on. A lookout