A Gambling Man

by David Baldacci

  “Don’t patronize me, Willie.”

  “If I was patronizing you, Alfred, you’d know it.”

  Drake took a moment to study Dash’s earnest features. “All right. I wish you luck with your investigation, even if it does help Kemper beat me.”

  “Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t,” said Dash. “But you’ll always be a damn good dentist.”

  Drake chortled. “Maybe I’m seeing you in a different light now, too, Willie. Who’d ’a thunk?”

  Dash rose and so did Archer, who said, “So you really think you have no chance against Kemper?”

  “I have no chance. We’ll just have to see, won’t we? Stranger things have happened.”

  They left him sitting there stroking his cat and staring out toward the ocean.

  Chapter 54

  HE DOESN’T STRIKE ME AS A MAN who has sold out to mobsters from Vegas,” said Dash as they drove back to town.

  “He actually seems like a good guy who cares about people.”

  “Like he cared about the young buck planting the bush?” said Dash.

  “Thought you might have noticed that. Any rumors about him on that score?”

  “None that stuck. And for a guy like Drake you’d need some hard proof, otherwise he’ll sue your ass off.”

  “But you did refer to him as the tooth fairy. Or am I reading too much into that?”

  Dash’s features became deadly serious. “That sort of behavior is illegal, Archer, it comes under sodomy and sexual perversion. You can go to prison for a long time for that, and you have to register as a sex offender.”

  “Really?”

  Dash looked uncomfortable. “Hell, some private eyes spend their careers drilling holes in walls and taking pictures of folks engaged in such…activities.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re hired by neighbors, disgruntled family members, or people who believe themselves to be the guardians of ‘morality.’ Folks went to prison and often died there or were sterilized to ‘cure’ them. My take is, if a guy’s different, so what? Live and let live.”

  “Didn’t figure you’d be sympathetic to that sort of thing, Willie.”

  Dash looked out the window. “Yeah, I guess I look like an old, fat son of a bitch with all the prejudices that come with it.” He patted his chest. “But my ticker ain’t just there to keep my blood pumping, Archer. Doesn’t the good book say to love thy neighbor?”

  “The one I read does.”

  “Yeah, well…” He lapsed into silence and ran his fingers along the car window.

  “Did you ever do that sort of work, spying on people?”

  Dash slowly nodded. “For about a year. And then I’d had enough.”

  “So what happened?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Okay. But I hope I’ve proved over the short time we’ve worked together that you can trust me.”

  “I don’t trust easily, Archer.”

  “And you think I do?”

  “You got your flask?”

  Archer handed it to him and Dash took a belt, screwed the cap on, and passed it back to Archer. He settled in his seat and started smoothing down his tie.

  “One day a lady comes in and hires me to spy on her fifteen-year-old nephew. She told me she just knew he was engaged in lewd behavior. But when she told her sister her suspicions, the sister was having none of it. Said she needed proof, so the lady comes to me. Later, I realized the broad just hated her sister and wanted to use the kid to stick it to her. But she was paying me money I really needed, so I took my little bag of dirty tricks and went to work. I followed the kid to this abandoned building that had the rep of being a safe place for guys who were ‘that way.’ I snuck in, got the lay of the land, figured out where he was, and drilled a hole in the wall and took my little pictures of him and another kid. I handed them over to my client, who promptly passed them over to the boy’s mom.”

  “What happened?”

  “The mom and dad apparently went berserk on the kid.”

  “That must’ve been tough for the boy.”

  “I wish that were the end of the story, Archer. See, the client wanted more evidence.”

  “Why?”

  “She told me her sister wasn’t sufficiently alarmed by her son’s ‘perverted’ qualities. Her word, not mine. She wanted me to go back and get even more dirt. I learned later she just wanted to rub her sister’s nose in it.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I went back with my camera to my dirty little hole and…and when I looked through it there he was hanging from the light fixture. I rushed in, cut him down, and tried to revive him, but he was already dead, Archer. Only fifteen and he was dead.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Yeah, I talked to Jesus a lot after that one. After I drank enough whiskey to fill Drake’s swimming pool. Took me a year to get back to work. Pretty much lost every damn thing I had. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “I got off a lot easier than the kid did.”

  “I’m sorry, Willie.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for me,” Dash snapped. “I had it coming. He didn’t.”

  Neither man said anything as they drove along. Dash was staring out the window and Archer kept his gaze on the road.

  Finally, Archer said, “So that’s why you took a leave of absence?”

  Dash turned to look at him. “You ever been so ashamed of yourself you can’t even stand to look at your reflection in the mirror?”

  Archer slowly shook his head. “No.”

  “Good. I hope you never get there.”

  They drove back to the office building. Then they took the elevator up and settled in Dash’s office. The man poured out two fingers of Beam each, sat across from Archer, and said, “Okay, you brought up the trust issue, so let’s talk that through.”

  Archer took a sip of the Beam and said warily, “Okay.”

  “When were you going to tell me that you’ve been asking questions about that island, Archer?”

  Archer set his drink down and leaned back in his seat. “I did tell you about the island but you blew it off. So I thought I’d go it alone. For now.”

  “Okay, ‘for now’ is over.”

  “How’d you know? Were you following me?”

  “If I were, you’d never know it. Reggie McKenzie is a buddy of mine. He’s a sloppy drunk, but okay when he’s off the booze. He told you all about that chunk of rock’s history. You also went to the library and looked through a bunch of materials. Sharon Aster helped you there. Nice gal, but too highbrow for the likes of me. Then you went to the town hall and did the same. Linda, the town clerk, is also a friend of mine.”

  “You got lots of friends.”

  “It’s not by happenstance. Most PIs cultivate them. At least the good ones do.”

  “How’d you find all that out so fast?”

  “I just piggybacked on you, Archer.”

  “So you were following me.”

  “I never said I wasn’t. Library, town hall, McKenzie, back to your boardinghouse to pick up your lady friend, and then up to Midnight Moods. I just had my cup of coffee and waited for you to show.”

  “You said you were going to pick up your car and do some thinking.”

  “I did pick up my car, which I used to follow you. And I did do some thinking. I was thinking about you.”

  Archer smiled appreciatively. “Mr. Shaw said you were the best, Willie. And he was right.”

  “I’m not busting your chops, Archer. Yes, you did mention the island, and yes, I did blow it off. And you did what I would have done—you followed up a hunch on your own. So let’s compare notes.”

  Archer took out his notepad. “I found out in the real estate records at the town hall that the island was sold by the federal government six months ago to a company called Stearman Enterprises. Even though it was federal property, I guess Bay Town had to have a record of it because Stearman has its office here. The man listed o
n the paperwork for Stearman—”

  “—was Douglas Kemper,” interjected Dash.

  “Right,” said Archer. “How’d you know? I never mentioned it to the town clerk lady.”

  “Great minds, Archer. Now, at the library you researched certain laws and statutes.”

  Archer consulted his notepad again. “A state has all water rights up to three miles off its coast. That’s important for fishing rights and the like. The feds control everything out to twelve miles.”

  “And anything beyond that is international waters,” added Dash.

  “But in 1947 the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government owns all the seabeds off the California coast, even within the three miles. It’s just the water the state controls.”

  “The Supreme Court? How’d you think to check that?”

  “When I was in college I wanted to be a lawyer. Things didn’t pan out, but I studied some law and then worked with an attorney. I learned a lot.”

  “So this pertains to the island?”

  “Right. When the Navy was done with it and pulled out, the federal government assumed its rights to the island. Along came Stearman and bought those rights. I think the law really was meant to deal with oil and gas rights. You have to drill into the seabed to get to those.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Dash. “But where does the mayor come into this?”

  “That I couldn’t find. I mean, if the state governor has no power over that island, why would a mayor?” Archer paused, recalling a snippet of conversation. “But your buddy Reggie McKenzie did tell me something interesting. He said that about two weeks before he died, Ben Smalls took a boat ride out to that island, and McKenzie said when he came back he did not look happy.”

  “Fascinating,” said Dash, his mind clearly moving at high speed.

  “Beth told me that his old man, Andrew, hanged himself in his barn.”

  “That’s right, he did. I wondered how you knew that when you mentioned it to Drake.”

  “I also took a boat and went out to the island. It’s bigger than you’d think. And you can reach it in about fifteen minutes. And there’s something going on out there. I found survey stakes in the ground and a post with the name Lancet Surveyors and Architectural Group on it.”

  Dash rubbed his cheek. “So there’s going to be a building put up.”

  “Right. And there’s something else.” Archer looked at the man nervously.

  “Is this where you tell me what you haven’t told me so far?”

  “That night I saw Beth Kemper? I was down at the harbor. I saw a boat coming into shore close to three. It was Armstrong’s boat, and he and Hank and Tony and some other folks were on it. I’m sure they’d been out to that island. That’s what got me thinking about something like that in the first place. Beth Kemper pulled into the parking lot as they were heading to their cars. She and her old man had a heated argument. I followed her to the diner.”

  “And you didn’t tell me this before because…?”

  “I don’t have a good answer.”

  “If you had pulled this from the get-go, Archer, you’d be looking for another job. But I know now you got the chops and the instincts. And I was clearly holding back from you, so there we go. I just got some of my own applesauce thrown in my face. Now, let’s look at this again. Armstrong went to the island. Kemper’s on the documents of the company that bought the property. Fifteen-minute ride out is pretty convenient for carrying folks back and forth who might just want to stay for a few hours and not overnight.”

  “But what sort of place would that be?”

  “We’ll wait until later, then go find out.”

  Chapter 55

  A GUMSHOE’S STOCK IN TRADE, ARCHER,” Dash said quietly, as he pulled the small leather case from his pocket and opened it, revealing a neatly arranged set of small tools. They were at the back door of the offices of Lancet Surveyors and Architectural Group, two blocks off Sawyer Avenue. It was a two-story nondescript brick building. If this was the height of the firm’s design powers, thought Archer, he might look elsewhere if he was ever in the market for inspired architectural work.

  Dash inserted two different lock picks in the upper lock and worked away. After twenty seconds, Archer heard a click. Dash next inserted one of the tools in the lower lock and did the same. Then he put his kit away, turned the knob, and opened the door to the darkened building.

  Inside Dash whispered to Archer, “There’s an old cop that makes the rounds of these buildings at night. He’s pretty much deaf and blind, but he carries a gun. He’ll never hit anything on purpose but will by accident. So we can’t turn on any lights.”

  Archer nodded. They felt along the walls until they reached a door. They went through it and eyed the space they were in. There was enough moonlight along with a streetlight’s glare coming in through the broad windows to give them reasonable illumination. They searched the rooms on the lower level, found nothing, and took the stairs to the upper level. The door of every room up here was unlocked except for one.

  That naturally garnered their interest, and out came Dash’s lockpick kit once more. The door was soon defeated, and they walked into the windowless office.

  Dash slipped a small flashlight from his pocket and turned it on. It was more than enough light to see what they needed to see.

  On a large table in the center of the room was an architectural mockup of a series of enormous buildings without roofs.

  “The Golden Rock,” said Dash, reading off a sign on one of the buildings. Then he cast his gaze lower to look at some drawings that had been set next to the building mockup.

  “What does that mean?” asked Archer.

  “Well, for starters, the Rock is what they call Alcatraz, but it’s sure as hell not golden and this sure as hell isn’t a prison.” Dash looked over the buildings more closely. “Damn, Archer, these are casinos.” He pointed to the interiors of the buildings, where miniature pieces of furnishings and equipment were set. “See there, craps tables, roulette wheels, poker and blackjack tables. Over there is the cashier, in that corner the mother of all bars. Over there are slot machines.”

  “They’re building gambling casinos on that island?” said Archer.

  “Looks like it. And I’ve been to Vegas, and if this place is to scale it’s way bigger than anything they got there. Now, you remember me telling you that they outlawed gambling boats off the coast?” said Dash.

  “Yeah, which means this building makes no sense unless they’re going to overturn the law.”

  “That would be incredibly difficult because gambling is actually outlawed in the California State Constitution. And I told you our now governor Warren led the drive against gambling boats when he was attorney general. The big lawsuit was about Santa Monica Bay. Point being, where did you measure from the shore out three miles? Did you start at Santa Monica itself, or the two farthest points out of the bay? See, the latter would put you in really heavy water, where folks aren’t going to gamble and puke at the same time.”

  “When I was out there I saw there’s a big breakwater west of the island, so I imagine it’s pretty calm waters around the island for the most part.”

  “Another reason to buy and develop it.”

  “So it’s serious money, then?”

  “Serious enough. Before Warren pulled the plug, a guy named Tony Cornero, with his ship the Rex, was making two hundred grand a month in profits. Just one ship.”

  “But gambling is still illegal. Like you said, it’s in the state constitution.”

  “Not so fast, Archer. In 1948 Truman signed the Knowland Bill. It outlawed gambling in all territorial waters as well as the transport of folks to those gambling vessels.”

  “Okay, but—” Archer caught himself. “Wait a minute. The law only applies to ships?”

  “That’s right. If you’re on land off the coast that is not under the jurisdiction of California, there’s apparently no applicable law against gambling and no law against ferr
ying folks out there to gamble.”

  “But hold on. If the governor was so against gambling on boats, why would he allow it on land?”

  “The Navy built that island. And even if they hadn’t, it’s just over three miles out, and there’s no dispute about the measurement from the shore here the way the coastline is configured in Bay Town. So California has no say in the matter. It’s in federal waters.”

  “But Catalina Island and the other Channel Islands are even farther off the coast. Why hasn’t anyone tried to get gambling on them?”

  “Because even though the military is all over them they’re officially part of California, so the governor has control over what happens there. There was some question about whether the treaty signed with Mexico way back that ceded northern Mexico to the U.S. included them, but a few years ago Mexico confirmed they have no rights to them. But even if they could be used for gambling they’re a lot farther out, Archer, and in heavy water. You want to spend an hour or two or three in heavy seas to play blackjack or craps? And drink your fill and come back in heavy seas and stand at the gunwale and contemplate killing yourself because you’re so seasick?”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “Yeah, sometimes it really is the little things. That island is in the perfect location to be a gambling joint. A fast ferry ride out and back in relatively calm waters. That’s why the ships were so popular. But this island setup is even better. The floor’s not moving while you’re rolling the dice.”

  “But they could outlaw anybody getting ferried out there.”

  “Guess who controls that in each locality, Archer?”

  “The mayor?”

  “Bingo. And the town council. Which explains what happened to Ben Smalls and why this election is so important to some folks. And Kemper’s country club is right on the water and has a marina with a big dock. They could have the ferries leave from there.”

  “But if President Truman signed a bill about boats, what’s to stop him signing a bill about an island?”

  “If Kemper was a real smart guy, and I’m thinking he is, he’s paid off some powerful folks in D.C. to make sure there’s no Knowland Bill number two and that the state of California is not going to make this a priority. Hell, America is just now digging out of a war. They want some fun. Now, gambling is fun. Sure, most lose their shirts, but they’re smiling while they get stripped naked. And if one ship can make two hundred thou a month, what do you guess a bunch of mammoth casinos out there could do? Folks will do a lot for that much dough.”