A Gambling Man

by David Baldacci

  The man sat on the ground holding his broken nose and sobbing in pain.

  Callahan turned and walked back to the Delahaye. “Let’s go, Archer.”

  Archer stood there for a bit until she was almost out of sight. Then he did just as she said.

  Chapter 13

  THE DELAHAYE PROWLED THROUGH THE VALLEY like a muscular river drilling through rock. Archer had placed the weapons they’d taken in the trunk. Both he and Callahan were visibly shaken by what had happened. Archer’s mind was going a million miles an hour, and Callahan looked pale and distraught.

  “I guess you think I’m a bad person,” Callahan said quietly, finally breaking the silence after about twenty-five minutes of nothing but the French car’s purr.

  “I don’t think anything one way or another.”

  “Girls have to know how to take care of themselves, Archer, at least this girl does. You think that just applies to guys?”

  “No. But maybe I assume, just like all other guys.”

  “Assume what?”

  “That gunplay is for the men. Clearly, I’m wrong about that.”

  “Fact is, my daddy taught me to shoot starting when I was eight years old. I could barely hold the deer rifle.”

  “He taught you well. That was not an easy shot tonight with the bad light and distance.”

  “He was as big as a barn. If I’d missed that lug I’d need glasses. And the other guy died from an accident. So that had nothing to do with me.”

  Archer downshifted as the road began to curve sharply. They’d put up the car’s top because the temperature had dropped and the wind was pushing the cold into them like a railroad spike between the ribs.

  “How about the little man then? You were going to shoot him in cold blood.”

  “Maybe I was bluffing.”

  “Don’t think so.”

  She lit up a Camel and blew a puff of angry smoke at him. “How the hell do you know? How the hell do you know anything about me?”

  “I’ve seen you gamble. You don’t have a poker face.”

  She gave him a sideways glance that Archer—who was doing the same to her—felt to his toes. He wasn’t sure how to properly read this situation, mainly because he’d never met a woman like Callahan before.

  So is that my fault or hers?

  With an exhale of Camel smoke followed by a brush at her hair with a shaky index finger, she said, “Do we have to tell anybody about it?”

  “I think there might be trouble if we don’t.”

  She cranked her window down and flicked her Camel away. It caught a shaft of wind and glanced off an oak before sinking into the asphalt. She cranked the glass back up.

  Archer continued, “But we have to think this through. They’re going to find the bodies. It was at a picnic area. Folks are going to stop there, just like we did. They’re going to unwrap their sandwiches, take out the potato salad, pour coffee out of the thermos, and then look around and start puking.”

  “Maybe the other guy will get rid of the bodies,” she said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He’s got exposure, too, Archer. He’s a criminal, not us. We were just protecting ourselves.”

  Archer shook his head. “I told Howells to get the hell out of Reno. And now he’s dead.”

  She shot him a look. “So I say we forget it happened and if anybody asks we don’t know anything. Two murderers are dead; so what? They got what they deserved.”

  He glanced at her purse. “Well, no matter what, you might want to do something with the Smith & Wesson, then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because your slug’s in the man’s back, that’s why. They can match bullets. And speaking of, we need to get rid of the guns in the trunk.”

  She started to bite at a nail painted bright green until it bled, as she thought about this. “We still stopping at Coalinga?”

  “Right now I feel like I’m never going to close my eyes again, but we need gas, and I need some coffee. And staying someplace feels like the right thing to do. We both can sort of calm down.”

  “Can I have a pull on your flask?”

  He worked it free from his pocket and passed it across.

  She took a healthy swallow, sucked her lips inward in satisfaction, and recapped the flask. “That’s better. You want a shot?” she asked, holding it out.

  “I’ve had enough shots for today, thanks.” He pointed to the river rushing parallel to the road. “That’s a good spot to dump them.”

  “Okay, Archer, go ahead. But not my gun. We might need it in case that guy comes after us again.”

  He got out, grabbed the shotgun, Derringer, and .45 from the trunk, walked down to the riverbank, and tossed them all in. He watched them float for a few moments in the strong current, and then they were gone, like fog in the heat of a rising sun.

  He walked to the car, got back on the road, and sped up.

  “You feel better?” she asked.

  “Yeah. How about you?”

  In a tone he had not heard her use before she said, “I…I killed a man back there, Archer. I…I’m not sure I’ll ever feel right again.”

  He saw her hands suddenly start to shake and the muscles around her throat tense. Sweat bubbles rose up on her forehead.

  He quickly pulled off the road, leaned over, and opened her door.

  “Go ahead. Do it out there. Quick!”

  She jumped out and ran behind a tree, and he could hear her being violently sick. She came back a couple minutes later rubbing at her mouth. Then she got into the car and shut the door.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded but still looked unwell.

  “Sometimes there’s a delayed reaction. Like your mind can’t wrap itself around something right away.”

  “Yeah.”

  “They were going to kill us, Liberty, like you said.”

  She pressed her face against the cool glass, closed her eyes, and exhaled a long breath. “Yeah. Now just shut up and drive.”

  Chapter 14

  COALINGA WASN’T A THRIVING METROPOLIS, nor was it the one-horse town Archer thought it was going to be.

  Liberty eyed the welcome sign. “Where’d they get the name Coalinga? Is it Spanish?”

  He pointed to his right. “There’s a railroad spur over there and those are loaded coal cars, so maybe there’s your answer.”

  It was nearly ten o’clock, and the town seemed to be sound asleep, with no one out and most of the buildings closed up.

  “I don’t know if we can get gas or coffee now, and we might end up sleeping in the car till morning,” said Archer. “Because the filling station over there is shut down for the night, and this doesn’t look like a two-gas-pump kind of town.”

  “There’s a light on in that building over there.”

  They stopped in front and climbed out. The air was cool and dry, and the wind had died down some. Archer slipped on his hat and locked up the Delahaye. The sign out front of the building read: CLANCY’S SALOON. OPEN AT NOON, CLOSE WHENEVER.

  “I like Coalinga better already,” said Callahan as she saw this, too.

  Archer held the door for her and they walked in.

  The four hundred square feet inside consisted of a mahogany bar with ten backless stools, a jukebox with neon tubes blinking wearily, four tables with a pair of low-backed chairs designed in the form of a ship’s wooden wheel around each, a small dance floor made of scratched herringbone parquet on which not a soul was dancing, and a pay phone on the wall. A pencil dangled from a string tacked to that wall, and lines of phone numbers had been scribbled across the paint like math equations. A small window behind the bar was where the food came through for the patrons seated there. A single swing door to the left of that was where the meals came through for the dining area.

  Two men sat at the bar. One young and lean, one old and spreading. They both held mugs of beer, and both looked to be listing to the right in alcoholic zeal. Behind the wooden counter was a beefy man
with curly red hair, a stained white apron, and shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal twin anchor tattoos, one on each forearm. A cigar was clamped on one side of his wide, toothy mouth. He was staring down at the cloth in his hand like he was wondering how it had gotten there.

  Of the four tables, only one was occupied. On one side was a woman in her fifties with white hair and a long, horsey face. Her cherry-red purse sat on the table next to her plate of raw oysters on the half shell and a bourbon, neat, percolating in a short glass. Across from her was a gentleman, also in his fifties, suited in a three-piece worsted wool with a loosened dark tie. He was chubby and sweaty, and his napkin was pinned across his white shirt front like a bull’s-eye. A plate of spaghetti and clams lay in front of him, and he methodically worked his fork and spoon in tandem as he ate. He had a glass of red wine as his meal’s liquid companion.

  At first no one looked up when they walked in. Then Chubby with the clams saw Callahan and made such a fuss that White Hair turned to see. Her long face became pinched and sour. She turned back to her tablemate and said something low, snappy, and apparently pointed as a spear because the clams once more became Chubby’s sole focus. The bartender looked up, saw Callahan, grabbed a glass, and started polishing it to a fine sheen, a sloppy grin spreading across his face, as though he’d just won a prize that would take him away from here. The young drunk turned, eyed Callahan, and almost fell off his stool. The old drunk would probably have done likewise, but he had already fallen face-first into the mahogany and was now snoring.

  The swinging door did its thing and a woman in her twenties with sandy brown hair and short, muscular legs and attired in a light brown waitress uniform with faded red piping came out carrying a platter of clean glasses. She saw them and pointed with her free hand to a table.

  “Have a seat, be with you folks in a sec.”

  Archer and Callahan sat, and after the waitress deposited the glasses in a double-door wooden cabinet, she came over with menus and cloth napkins folded around cutlery. She handed it all out and said, “Can I get you something to drink? If you want food, the kitchen closes in twenty minutes.”

  “Then we must be getting close to ‘whenever,’” noted Archer.

  “Yeah, you’re the first person to come up with that line,” she said in a bored tone.

  “I’ll have coffee, black,” said Archer. “You folks know how to make a gimlet?”

  “Yes. We’ve done those before.”

  “Great, then a gimlet chaser for the coffee, and go easy on the Rose’s and let the gin make its mark for me. Or do I tell that to friendly behind the bar?”

  “I’ll give him the order,” she said as she turned to Callahan. “And you, ma’am?”

  “You got cranberry juice?” asked Callahan.

  “Yes. Is that all you want?”

  “Yeah, so long as it goes with the vodka.”

  The woman grinned and gave Archer a condescending look. “Now, that’s wit, buckaroo. I’ll get your drinks.”

  Archer took his hat off and set it on the table. He looked around the room. He’d been in bars better than this and lousier than this. The same alcohol was served here that was dished out in the best bars in the world, LA, New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, what was left of it. So in that respect a bar in Coalinga, California, was as good as any of those. But Archer was still in Coalinga and not Paris.

  Callahan slipped out a Camel and tapped the lighting end on the hard surface to make the tobacco as good as it could be. “You think that little goon headed back to Reno?” she said.

  Archer shrugged. “Maybe. He’s out of guns and bigger goons. I don’t see him following us alone.”

  “He might still come after us with some other muscle.”

  “Good luck finding us. California is a pretty big place.”

  “That’s true,” she replied, her spirits seeming to lift.

  They sat there in silence until his coffee and gimlet came along with her cocktail. The waitress pulled out her pad and pen.

  “You folks had a chance to look over the menu? No more oysters and no more clams, by the way.”

  “What would you recommend?” asked Archer.

  “The steak. We got two pieces left. And baked potato. We got two of those left, too.”

  “Steak and potatoes, why didn’t I think of that?” said Callahan. “Sold.”

  “Make it a deuce,” added Archer.

  The waitress went off. Archer drank down the rest of his coffee and turned his attention to the gimlet.

  Callahan shot him a nervous glance. “You’re looking pensive again, Archer.”

  “You still want to go on to Hollywood?”

  She gave him a pointed look that seemed to peek right into his soul. She finished a long drag on her smoke before saying, “That was the original plan. You see any reason why I should change it?”

  “Yeah, two of them, same as the number of bodies we left up in the mountains.”

  “Do we have to go over that again?”

  “Hear me out.”

  “Okay.”

  She sat back and crossed one long leg over the other, which rode her skirt way up, and commenced to jiggling her foot, letting her high heel dangle precariously off her toes. Chubby glanced over and saw this, and seemed to whimper before his companion kicked him under the table.

  “It might be better if we stuck together, at least for a while.”

  “You mean, if he comes after us with more goons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you said he wouldn’t be able to find us, Archer.”

  “I know I did, but I’ve been thinking about that. I’m not sure I didn’t let it slip when I was in Reno about where I was headed. And the Delahaye sort of sticks out. And if you go to Hollywood and start making a name for yourself? He sure as hell knows what your name is. He would’ve gotten it from Howells. Mine too.”

  “But then should we go to Bay Town, if he knows that’s where you’ll be?”

  “I have to, Liberty. I want a shot at this job. And I told the guy I’d be coming.” Archer now looked uncertain. “But maybe you shouldn’t go to Bay Town. Maybe you should go to Hollywood, but change your name. All those folks do, right?”

  “But if I get in pictures, he’ll recognize me, even if I change my name. Hell, he might even try to blackmail me.”

  Archer nodded slowly. “That’s true. So what do you want to do?”

  “I think we should stay together,” she said. “And go to Bay Town. I can hang around long enough to see if the guy shows up.”

  “But you don’t have to do that. You can go lie low somewhere else.”

  “And leave you all by your lonesome? What kind of a fink do you think I am?”

  They sat in silence until their meals came. Archer was lost in thought and Callahan was lost in more Camels.

  They ate and put down money for their bill. When the waitress came over to collect it, Archer asked if there was a place to stay the night.

  “Yes, it’s right down the street, called the Coalinga House. They do overnights and they have vacancies right now. Knock hard, they might have gone to bed. Mildred Hawks is the owner’s name. She’s nice. Tell her Katy sent you.”

  * * *

  They walked out, got into the Delahaye, and drove the short distance to the Coalinga House. It was a broad plank-and-brick building with a porch down the front and a row of rocking chairs lined up like toy soldiers alongside little pots with fresh flowers. There was a concrete statue of a kitten playing cute on the first step up to the porch.

  “Well, at least it doesn’t look like a place where we can get into too much trouble, Archer.”

  The door was painted red and Archer had to pound on it for a full minute before they heard footsteps pecking on the floor toward them.

  The door opened and there stood, presumably, Mildred. She was in her sixties with long, braided gray hair flipped over one granny-robed shoulder. She looked sleepy and annoyed at the same time.

  “Yes?�
��

  “We need a place to stay,” said Archer. “Just got in town. Katy at Clancy’s recommended you. I’m assuming you’re Mildred?”

  Mildred nodded warily and then eyed Callahan with a severe eye. “I’ve only got one room available.”

  Callahan said, “One is all we need.”

  “Then you’re married?”

  She said, “We’re driving in from Reno. Who goes to Reno except to get hitched?”

  Mildred’s gaze swept down to their hands. “And where are your rings then?”

  Callahan’s expression turned to one of despair. “Can you believe it, we were robbed on the way? We’ve reported it, but the police don’t hold out much hope.”

  “If you were just married, you must have your certificate.”

  “That was with the things that were stolen,” said Callahan mournfully. “Along with something borrowed and something blue. Crappy way to start a honeymoon, huh? I’ve had to work hard not to cry my eyes out.”

  This stream of lies so confidently told seemed to soften Mildred up. She opened the door wider. “I have a place at the top of the stairs. Bathroom down the hall.”

  “That sounds perfect,” replied Callahan. She turned to Archer. “Well, honey?”

  “Well what?” said Archer.

  “Aren’t you going to carry me over the threshold?” She looked at Mildred. “Men, right? They’re like little boys who have to be constantly told to blow their noses and to lift the seat on the toilet.”

  Mildred gave her a knowing look and stepped back out of the way. “Okay, young man, go ahead. Do your duty.”

  He picked Callahan up effortlessly, swung her through, and set her down.

  “There you go, honey,” he said. “Hope you’re happy.”

  Mildred said, “Well, aren’t you going to kiss, too? That’s all part of it.”

  Callahan and Archer exchanged nervous glances. “Sure,” said Callahan. She leaned over and planted a kiss on Archer. She was about to pull away, but then didn’t. They wrapped their arms around each other and lingered. When they pulled apart, each looked as surprised as the other.

  A breathless and flushed Callahan smoothed down her dress while Archer adjusted his tie.