A Gambling Man

by David Baldacci

  “You can take that up with Willie. But I’m not sure we can have two clients for the same case.”

  Armstrong put his wallet away but held out a fifty-dollar bill. “I will take it up with Willie. But take this in payment for your assorted injuries. I apologize if you are in real pain.”

  Archer made no move to take the money. “I’ll wait to hear from Willie.” He glanced at Tony. “And that guy doesn’t hit hard enough to be worth fifty bucks.”

  This comment earned a murderous look from Tony.

  Armstrong stuck the bill in his pocket. “I like you, Archer. I’m not exactly sure why, but I do. But then my opinion is not set in stone.” His face went dark, and he stood and walked out. Tony and Hank glared at Archer for a moment, as though they were contemplating killing him and wondering what to do with the body. Finally, they followed their boss out.

  Archer picked up his gun and put it back in the clip holster. He stood up slowly and stretched out his torso, gritting his teeth with the cascading pain.

  He gingerly readjusted his hat, as though the weight of the fedora was too much for his injured head to bear. He wondered if his skull was fractured and when he went to bed tonight whether he would wake up in the morning.

  He slowly walked out of the room and headed back up to the light of the real world and away from the rats.

  But, instead, maybe he was heading right toward them.

  Chapter 33

  JESUS, ARCHER, DID THEY DO THAT TO YOU?”

  Callahan was looking at the purplish bruises on Archer’s neck and face as he slowly drained a whiskey sour and ran his tongue over his teeth to make certain they were all still there. He came away unsure.

  He set the glass down on the bar. “No, I just fell off the roof of this place and landed on somebody’s fist. And then I did it three more times.”

  “But why did they work you over?”

  “I’m not sure I have a good answer for that. I’m not sure he did, either.”

  “Armstrong, you mean?”

  Archer nodded and waved to the waitress for a second round. She obliged and he sipped this one slowly.

  “Does it hurt much?”

  “Only when I blink.” He rubbed his side where he could feel the swelling. Tony was good, he knew just where to hit to hurt a man. He called the waitress and asked for some ice wrapped in a cloth.

  The waitress said, “You don’t look so good, mister. Were you in an accident?”

  “There was nothing accidental about it.”

  When she brought the ice in the cloth he took turns holding it against his face and his neck and his side.

  “Is that helping?” asked Callahan.

  “I’ll let you know next week.”

  Callahan said, “I’m not sure I want to work for a man who beats up my friend.”

  “Thanks for elevating me to the status of a friend. What’s the next level after that?”

  “Archer, you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, sure. We’re pals, always have been, always will be.”

  “You want me to massage where it hurts?”

  “Don’t get carried away with all this friendship talk, Liberty. You might start getting ideas, and then I might start getting ideas, and we might end up killing each other over all those ideas.”

  She pulled her stool closer and said, “I can’t believe I actually got the job.”

  He gave her an incredulous glance. “That’s not how you were acting. You seemed really sure of yourself, like you were a shoo-in once Dawson saw your stuff.”

  “Yeah, well, that was just talk. I do that to boost myself up. Inside, I was a wreck.”

  “Good to know that about you. Maybe I do the same.”

  “So do you want to head on back to town?”

  “Not yet. You forgot the other reason we came here.”

  “What was that?”

  “To talk to Ruby Fraser.” He looked at his timepiece. “We missed her show. She might be up in her room. I know where it is, come on.”

  He stood and then staggered a bit. She grabbed hold of him.

  “You sure you’re up for this?”

  “No, but I’m going to do it anyway because according to Sawyer Armstrong, I might not get another chance.”

  “Hey, why isn’t that jerk Willie Dash out here helping you? What a bum.”

  “He’s not a bum. He’s also not a well man.” He laid the ice and cloth on the table. “Now come on.”

  They headed up the stairs and reached the top floor, which was empty at this hour.

  “How come she has to live all the way up here?” asked Callahan.

  “This is the hired-help section. According to Mabel Dawson, girls here work their way down.”

  “Hey, do you think they expect me to live up here, too?”

  “No, you’ll get a palace with your own bathroom at sea level, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Hey, how come you know so much about negotiating contracts?”

  “I knew what Ruby Fraser was making here. I doubled that amount and added fifty on top for good measure, and nicer lodgings.”

  “Well, aren’t you a smart one, but then you are a college boy.”

  “I studied prelaw in college. Even worked for a lawyer during the summer. Got to see the law up close and personal.”

  “So you wanted to be a lawyer.”

  He lit up a Lucky and blew out smoke. “I was a lawyer, of sorts. Back in Poca City.”

  “What’d you do there?”

  “Kept myself from being hanged.”

  “That’s funny, Archer.”

  “It wasn’t funny at the time.”

  Archer led the way down the hall to Fraser’s door. He knocked but no one answered.

  “She doesn’t seem to be here,” said Callahan, staring at the door. “Maybe she’s off doing another show. Like Dawson said, they keep performing until around two-ish.”

  Archer knocked harder. “Ruby, it’s Archer. We need to talk.”

  There was still no answer.

  He said, “We can look for her downstairs and then ask around. Maybe she’s doing another number, like you said. But I’d like to leave a note inside her room.”

  He tried the door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open and walked in.

  Callahan nervously followed. “Archer, I’m not sure we should be doing this.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Archer turned on a table lamp and took out his notepad and pen, only he found that in the skirmish with Hank and Tony, the point had been broken off his pen. “Check in the kitchen for something to write with. I’ll look in the bedroom.”

  Archer walked into the tiny bedroom and noted that the bed was made, but the room was messy with clothes and shoes everywhere. He found a pen in the nightstand next to the Gideon Bible and had turned to leave when Callahan filled the doorway like a tsunami coming right for him. Her face was drained of all color and she looked like she might be sick.

  “What is it?” he asked sharply.

  She stepped aside and pointed to her left with one hand while holding her stomach with the other. “In there,” she said, her voice brimming with dread.

  Archer raced past her and into the kitchen.

  The room was illuminated by a single overhead bulb. But Archer could see enough.

  Ruby Fraser was all dressed up, probably for her big number tonight. She was sitting in a chair that was pushed back against the wall. Her head was slightly tilted back, her long legs splayed out in front of her, and the woman’s wide eyes were full upon Archer. Still, she could not see him.

  Ruby Fraser could no longer see anything.

  He gingerly stepped forward and bent down so he could ascertain more closely what had killed her. It wasn’t difficult. Her throat had been cut so brutally that he could glimpse white bone through the fresh opening. The cut disappeared around both sides of her neck and ran along the back to nearly her spine. Another six inches and she would have lost her head entirely.

  The woman had
not been killed here. There was no blood on the floor, table or walls, though the front of her dress was coated with it, transforming white to crimson.

  He felt her wrist. It was ice cold. He checked his watch. It was ten to twelve. If she had done her show at ten, and it had taken a half hour or so, how could she be killed, moved, and cold as ice barely an hour or so later? He lifted her arm. It moved freely. He replaced it exactly where it was.

  “Don’t do that, Archer. Don’t touch her, it’s…not right.”

  He turned to see Callahan staring dully at the dead woman from the doorway.

  “She was really pretty,” said Callahan in a hushed voice. “And really young.”

  “Yeah, she was,” said Archer, taking a few steps back.

  “Poor kid. Who could have done this?”

  “What I want to know is how could somebody move a dead body in here and nobody see it. The lack of blood shows she was killed somewhere else.”

  Callahan still looked like she might be sick. “What do we do now? Call the cops?”

  “There’s a phone booth right off the front entrance. I’ll make the call from there.”

  “Will you tell the police who you are?”

  “My morals say yes, my survival instinct says no.”

  “I always go with survival.”

  “Let’s blow this joint before somebody sees us.”

  As they turned to leave, Archer looked back at Fraser and said quietly, “I’m sorry, Ruby. Nobody deserves to go out like that.”

  Before they left, Archer took out a handkerchief and rubbed at all the places they had touched, including the doorknobs.

  “What are you doing?” asked Callahan.

  “Getting rid of our fingerprints.”

  “What for?”

  “Because in the state of California they can send you to the gas chamber, that’s what for.”

  Chapter 34

  ARCHER STEPPED INTO THE PHONE BOOTH, dropped in a coin, covered the receiver with his handkerchief, and dialed in the number for the police he’d found in the phone book dangling from a chain on the booth’s inner wall. When the voice came on the line, Archer told the person about the body at Midnight Moods, giving the room location. He hung up, put his handkerchief away, and stepped out, pale and aching from his earlier beating.

  Callahan was standing next to the booth and watching him carefully. “Well?”

  “A radio patrol car should be here shortly.”

  “And where will we be? Long gone from here, I hope.”

  “Give me a minute. I want to check something.”

  “What?”

  “Something that’s bugging me timing wise.”

  They found Mabel Dawson in her office. She looked up from her desk where she was writing something on a piece of paper.

  “I don’t have the contract ready yet, Archer. I’m talking to the lawyer tomorrow, so just hold your horses. And we don’t advance money on any contract, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “No, it wasn’t that. I wanted to speak with Ruby Fraser. Do you know where she might be? I’ve been looking around but no one’s seen her.”

  She put her pen down and frowned. “Now I’m really starting to get worried. She didn’t turn up for her show tonight.”

  “She didn’t?”

  “You know she didn’t.”

  He shot Callahan a glance. “How would I know that?” said Archer.

  Dawson rubbed her forehead. “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess you wouldn’t know. Well, it was because Liberty took Ruby’s slot. That’s why I had her go out onstage tonight. I mean, why’d you think I’d do something like that?”

  “Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that Liberty sang in place of Ruby?”

  “Yes. It was the only thing I could think of. I didn’t have anybody else worth anything to stand in for her. Ruby has good pipes, but nothing like Liberty, so I told Liberty to go out onstage to Michael, he’s the pianist, and find a song she knew. And that’s what she did.”

  “I thought you were just putting me on the spot to test me,” said Callahan.

  “Well, maybe there was a little bit of that, but the main thing was I needed a singer to cover for Ruby.”

  “Did anyone check her room?” asked Archer slowly as he inwardly cringed at the mention of Fraser’s “pipes.”

  “Yeah. I did before I made the decision to use Liberty.”

  “What time?”

  “I got a message from the stage manager right after Liberty finished her audition that Ruby hadn’t turned up for her warmup. So I went looking for her, starting with her room. The door was locked but I have a key. I thought maybe she was sick or had overslept or something. I went in. But there was no one there.”

  Archer glanced at Callahan once more. “And no one had seen her?”

  “No. I thought she might have gone off somewhere with someone and left me in the lurch.”

  “Why would you think that?” asked Archer in a sharp tone.

  Dawson looked at him warily. “No reason, Archer.”

  “Come on, Mabel, we’re all friends here.”

  “Ruby liked men.”

  “Any men in particular?”

  “Rich men,” said Dawson.

  “Okay, I guess that narrows it down. Any rich man in particular?”

  “You’re the gumshoe, I’ll let you figure that out.” She sat back, a look of clarity spreading over her features. “So that’s why you were out earlier talking to her. It was about some man she might be seeing.”

  “It might have been. So what’s the deal with Sawyer Armstrong?”

  She eyed his damaged face and then ran her gaze over his stiffened posture. “Maybe I should be asking you the same thing.”

  “I understand he built this place.”

  “Before the war started.”

  “Is Armstrong married?”

  “What do you care?”

  “I’m just trying to get some information. That’s what private detectives do.”

  “His wife, Eleanor, died in a plane crash a couple years ago.”

  “Do you know Beth Kemper or her husband?”

  She laughed. “I don’t move in those sorts of exalted circles.”

  “I understand that Douglas Kemper comes here to play cards. And maybe for other things?”

  “Maybe you understand that. I don’t.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I’m not getting involved. If you have any other questions, ask somebody else.”

  “Okay. Well, if Ruby turns up, let her know that I want to talk to her.”

  Dawson looked at Callahan. “Don’t be late on Friday, Liberty. We need to sign your deal and get things sorted out.”

  They left, got into the Delahaye, and were driving out when the first patrol car came flying up the road and passed them heading to the entrance. As they made their way down the road, two more prowlers sailed past them, their lights flinging away the gloomy darkness and their sirens cutting through the sounds of the breakers off in the distance.

  “What now, Archer?” said Callahan.

  “Now we go back to the boardinghouse.”

  “You want to go get a drink?”

  “No, I’ve had enough.”

  “Okay, I guess I can understand that. I just feel bad leaving her there like that.”

  He gripped her shoulder. “Get that out of your mind. And don’t slip up if anybody asks you, Liberty. We didn’t go up there and we didn’t see anything. You got that square?”

  “Sure, Archer, sure.”

  “Because if the police start asking questions and you mess up, we’re both in trouble. Big trouble.”

  They rode the rest of the way back in silence.

  Chapter 35

  A DISTRAUGHT CALLAHAN HAD GONE to her room, and Archer to his. He got undressed and climbed into bed, but he couldn’t sleep. He felt that if he closed his eyes, they wouldn’t reopen. And his whole body ached even more.

  It was nearly two in the morning n
ow, but he rose, padded down to the bath, and splashed cold water on his face and neck. He went back to his room, slipped on the same clothes, and laced up his shoes. He opened the window and looked out. Even from the other side of Sawyer Avenue, he could hear the beat of the ocean, smell its pungent scent, and feel the mist from the marine fog that chilled him to the bone and made his injuries more painful still.

  He pulled his PI license from his jacket pocket and looked at it.

  Though it looked official and important, it represented nothing to him, really, because he’d done nothing to earn it. This could have been handed out to any Tom, Dick, or Harry.

  Or Aloysius.

  He was a shamus solely under the auspices of Willie Dash. Anyone could be under the auspices. It was like hitching a ride in someone’s car and then claiming you owned it.

  He pulled his pocket flask, and, despite telling Callahan he’d had his fill, he took several swallows of rye whiskey, which flamed his already inflamed body. It felt good, as though it was fire of his own making, and not a by-product of another’s man angry attack.

  He closed the window and went downstairs as quietly as he could. He had no desire to run into Callahan or anyone else. But that desire was to be defeated.

  In the front room Madame Genevieve sat in an upholstered chair wearing a thick woolen robe and frayed white slippers. She was nursing what looked like a hot toddy in a clear glass mug with a handle. Her hair was mostly hidden under an old-fashioned cloth sleeping bonnet. Her ankles protruded from the robe and were bony and the color of the dead.

  She looked up at him. “You cannot sleep, Mr. Archer?”

  He leaned against the stair post and shook his head. “Might just be the new place.”

  “Your ‘friend’ does not appear to have that difficulty. I passed her door earlier and heard the snores. Soft but still audible.”

  “Well, she had a big night. We both did.” Archer sat down in a chair across from her. “So what are you doing up? Can’t sleep either?”

  “I like this time of night. There is no one around and it is quiet. I can think. But I can also open the window and I can hear the water speaking to me. I can smell it. I can let it embrace me like a shroud.”