A Gambling Man

by David Baldacci

  He turned back to Bobby. “Drake ever talk to you about the campaign for mayor or Sawyer Armstrong?”

  “No sir. We never talked about stuff like that.”

  “Okay, you got somewhere you can go, or people you can stay with?”

  Bobby shook his head. “I…ran away from home a few years ago when…” He looked at them anxiously.

  “Yeah, I understand. Okay, Ruthie knows that Drake is dead. She knows we came over to speak with you. For now, you just play dumb, okay? You don’t know anything. You got that, Bobby?”

  “S-sure, okay. Hey, mister, with Mr. Drake dead, will I…will I have to leave here? I don’t have no other place to go.”

  Dash looked uncomfortable. “I could lie to you, son, and say you can stay here for as long as you want. But fact is, Bobby, I have no idea. But for right now, you can stay, okay?”

  “O-okay, thanks.” He looked past them and out the window toward the house. “He was a really nice man. He treated me okay, he really did.” He wiped his face on the sheet again, but it came away looking as tear-streaked as before.

  “Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end sometime,” noted Dash. “And for some people in this town, all I see are bad times coming.”

  Chapter 67

  ARCHER AND DASH PULLED AWAY IN THE DELAHAYE as the dawn kept creeping up on them.

  Archer said, “Where would they have taken Kemper? And what’s Armstrong’s game? How is he going to get out of this one?”

  “From his point of view, he’s home free. He just has to get rid of Kemper, and his star keeps shining bright. No one will ever point their finger at him. Kemper was his beloved son-in-law. Armstrong was supporting his campaign. He loved and respected the man. He shows up after he gets arrested and tells you to do all you can to save the man. He’ll cry some crocodile tears when and if they find his body, and that’ll be it.”

  “But if we find out that he was the one who snatched Kemper?”

  “He’ll be nowhere near that, Archer, with an unshakable alibi. And he won’t have used Hank and Tony. Some boys from out of town were no doubt paid to do the job and keep their mouths shut later.”

  “So what do we do, then?”

  “We find Kemper.”

  “He could be anywhere, though.”

  Dash looked at him and smiled. “I think we need to go to the hospital.”

  “But Ernie Prettyman is unconscious. He can’t tell us anything.”

  “This has nothing to do with Ern. I just want to prove to myself that Armstrong isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.”

  * * *

  Bay Town General Hospital was a large, whitewashed building, four stories tall, with lots of windows, a flat face, and no interesting architectural elements. It looked about as appealing to enter as a morgue. At least to Archer.

  “Look here, Archer, while I’m in here checking things out, I want you to go to the Occidental Building and see if Beth Kemper is there. You said she has an apartment there. It’s only one block over in that direction.” He pointed to his right.

  “Beth? Why would she be there?”

  “For some reason I don’t think she wants to be anyplace right now that has an A on the gates.”

  “You think she knows her husband’s been taken?”

  “Doubtful. So I want you to tell her. And then I want you to persuade her to throw in her lot with us. She needs to tell us where Armstrong might have taken her hubby.”

  “You think she’ll tell us?”

  “Depends on how persuasive you are.”

  Archer dropped Dash off, and Dash told Archer he would meet him at the Occidental as soon as he could.

  Then Archer parked the Delahaye at the curb and got out. He stared up at the façade of the Occidental Building. It was constructed of white and brown slabs of stone with emerald-green slashes thrown in, probably to make the architect happy. A long burgundy awning was emblazoned with the name of the place in case the two-foot-high chrome letters on the side of the building weren’t clear enough. There was a doorman out front wearing a black top hat, and a long coat the same color as the awning with brass buttons and a vest the color of a British redcoat. Long, white gloves covered his hands. A cab whistle dangled on a chain around his neck. To Archer, the man looked as embarrassed as he probably felt wearing that get-up.

  He walked over to the man and said, “Hey, pal, checking to see if Beth Kemper is at her place here.”

  The gent looked him up and down in a disinterested way. “Who wants to know?”

  Archer produced his PI license, which had about as much effect as if he’d stuck out his tongue and tried to pull the guy’s pants down in a fit of mild mischief.

  “You’ll have to do a lot better than that,” said the man. And he looked like he meant it.

  “Then Lincoln wants to know.”

  The man looked dubiously at the single bill Archer held out.

  “And his twin brother,” Archer added, producing a second five-spot.

  “Lady is in, and it’s Apartment 411, pal,” said the man, sliding the two Lincolns into one of his numerous pockets.

  Archer cleared the set of double doors and took the stairs up to the fourth floor.

  He hurried down to 411, knocked on the wood, and did it twice more before there was a response.

  “Who the hell is it?” called out Beth Kemper.

  “Archer. We need to talk. It’s about your husband.”

  He could hear feet running toward the door and it was thrown open a moment later.

  There stood Kemper in a nightgown and bare feet, her hair disrupted by sleep. “Yes?” she said breathlessly. “What about Douglas?”

  Archer took off his hat and said, “Can I come in?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  He stepped through and she closed the door behind her.

  “Have you proven that Douglas didn’t kill those people?”

  Archer sat in a chair and waited until she did the same. “No, we haven’t. Not yet. But there have been developments, lots of them.”

  “What developments?”

  “For starters, Alfred Drake shot himself this morning at his home. He’s dead.”

  Her hand flew to her bosom. “Oh my God. Why would Alfred do that?”

  “Let’s just say he played his winning card. He didn’t want to be your old man’s lackey as mayor.”

  “That’s ridiculous. My father wasn’t backing Drake.”

  “You’re right about that; he was blackmailing him.”

  “Blackmail? I don’t understand, Archer.”

  “You don’t have to, but it’s true. Drake was a key to the casinos that were going to go up on that hunk of rock out there your father bought. Your husband would never agree to do his dirty work, so he couldn’t be allowed to be mayor. Your father was the one who sent the blackmail note to your hubby. He was the one who had Fraser and Sheen killed. And now he, with the help of Chief Pickett, is framing Douglas for the twin murders and hoping he spends his last few minutes on earth breathing in cyanide in the gas chamber at San Quentin.”

  “You…you must be mad,” she said breathlessly. “Even if what you say about the election is true, my father wouldn’t have to try to frame Douglas for murder and see him executed.”

  “He already executed Benjamin Smalls. So what’s one more?”

  She stood, her fury evident in the reddened cheeks, the slash of her mouth, and the trembling arm that was pointing to the door. “You just get up and march the hell out of here. I never want to see your lying face again, do you hear me?”

  “Well, you’re going to have to endure it for just a while longer. By the way, do you know your blood type?”

  This comment might very well have been the only thing that Archer could have said to stop the lady in her tracks. “What?”

  “Your blood type. Everyone has one. Mine’s AB.”

  “I’m…I’m a B,” she said slowly.

  “Okay, do you know your mother’s blo
od type?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “How about your father’s?”

  “No,” she snapped, obviously growing irritated at these queries.

  “How about Sawyer Armstrong’s?”

  She started to say something, but as she got the point of his question the look on her face made Archer tense.

  “What exactly do you mean by…that?” she said in a low and threatening voice.

  “I think you know exactly what I mean.”

  “How dare you? You are a lying, filthy—”

  “They killed Myron O’Donnell last night. And the only things missing from his office were the medical records for you, your mother, and Sawyer. See, the doc had all three of them. He’d had your mother’s and Sawyer’s for a while. But then you just had your appendix operation. And Sawyer realized that what O’Donnell could have seen from that was that one plus one does not equal…you.”

  Archer barely caught her before Kemper hit the floor in a dead faint. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. He laid her down on the bed, propped up against the pillows, found some smelling salts in her medicine cabinet, and also poured out a snifter of brandy from the small bar set up on a stainless steel rolling table in the front room.

  The salts did their duty, and she jerked and sat up, gasping. He gently but firmly pushed her back against the pillows and held up the snifter.

  “Drink this,” he said. “It won’t make you feel any better, but it won’t make you feel any worse, either.”

  She took the drink without a word and finished it in one impressive swallow. “You…if you’re lying to me, Archer—”

  “I don’t have anywhere near that sort of imagination, Beth. They shot O’Donnell, made it look like a narcotics job, and slit the poor elevator guy’s throat, just like they did Fraser.”

  Kemper dropped the empty glass on the bed, slowly sat up and put her face in her hands, and started moaning.

  Archer gripped her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to drop this on you like an A-bomb, but you needed to know.”

  Through her hands she said, “You mentioned that you had news of Douglas?”

  “You might need some more brandy.”

  She shuddered and lowered her hands. She looked up at him hopelessly. “Please…please don’t tell me that he’s…”

  “He’s not dead. But the jury’s still out on whether he will be. That’s why we need your help.”

  She shuddered again and said in a whisper, “I have whiskey out there.”

  “I have whiskey in here,” he replied, pulling out his pocket flask and handing it to her.

  She took a swallow, handed it back to him, and said, “Now, tell me what’s happened to Douglas.”

  “They took him from his jail cell. They knocked out the guys that Willie had set up to guard him.”

  “Why? Why take Douglas?”

  “With Drake out of the picture, he’s the mayor by default. Sawyer can’t have that.”

  “And you really have proof that he’s not my father?”

  “We’re trying to get it. And even though you fainted back there, something tells me that you’re not as surprised by that as you should be.”

  She wouldn’t look at him but she didn’t have to. The eyes welling with tears and the tremble of her delicate mouth were enough.

  “He…he didn’t always act like a father…around me.”

  “Yeah, he also found it difficult allowing anyone to grow close to you. Benjamin Smalls, your husband.” Archer paused for a moment and then decided to launch it. “Your mother.”

  She didn’t move even the tiniest of her muscles. She just sat there staring at nothing like nothing was the most fascinating thing ever.

  “We talked to your husband in jail before he got snatched. He said the idea for the luncheon that day was Sawyer’s. He insisted you be there. So your mother went solo, right into the Pacific. That’s what happened, right, Beth? Douglas said the light went out of your marriage then. He thought you blamed him. But did you?”

  She looked up at him with such a sorrowful expression that Archer’s mouth started to tremble.

  “I…I questioned my fa—I questioned Sawyer on…what happened to my mother.”

  “You questioned him on whether he sabotaged your mother’s plane?”

  “It took all the nerve I had. And…and he answered my question with a question. He…” She broke down at this point and seemed to be struggling to keep from collapsing.

  Archer just held the woman for a long minute in silence, except for her sobs. When they finally subsided, Archer handed her back the flask and said, “Just finish it, Beth. The whiskey and your story. You can do this.”

  She drank the whiskey but held on to the flask, gripping the metal hide like it was her last attachment to life. Her words came in a rush, like they had been bottled up inside of her for two centuries instead of a mere two years. “He said he wondered whether people would think it odd that I didn’t go up with my mother that day. That I should have been with her, but let something as unimportant as a luncheon prevent me from being with her, when she might have most needed me. Because a second pair of hands, even untrained ones, and another mind to troubleshoot the situation might have made all the difference.” She stopped and stifled a sob as she leaned her head against Archer’s chest.

  “In other words, he guilted you.”

  She glanced up at him. “He did worse than that, Archer. He made me doubt myself.”

  “What possible motivation would you have to kill your mother?”

  “Oh, he supplied that, too.” She ran her fingers down the flask as though it held all the answers she needed, only in Braille. “He again wondered whether others would think I wanted her out of the way so I could be the reigning queen of the Armstrong family. He even suggested that some might think with Eleanor gone, he was the only one standing in the way of my inheriting a vast fortune. He joked that he would have to watch himself around me.”

  “I think you needed to watch yourself around him.”

  “So he’s really not my father?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  They both looked up to see Dash standing in the doorway holding a piece of paper.

  “Now we just need to find Armstrong. Because when we find him, we find your husband. Do you know where he might take Douglas if he intended that the man would never come back alive?”

  Beth Kemper nodded. “I do, Willie. He would have taken Douglas to the Cliffs, his little retreat high up in the mountains.”

  “Can you tell us how to get there?”

  “Yes, I can.”

  Chapter 68

  IT COST ME TWO SAWBUCKS and a promise to the records clerk that I’d provide him with lascivious details about some of my cases,” said Dash.

  Dash and Archer were in the Delahaye starting their climb up into the mountains. Daylight had brought increasing clouds, and a huge storm system was coming in off the water like an armada ready to do some serious business. The mists and fogs were already making their ascent treacherous.

  They had stopped at the office, where Dash had picked up something that he said would probably be necessary. When Archer saw it, he couldn’t disagree with the man’s logic.

  “Why would the clerk want to know those sorts of details?” asked Archer.

  “He’s really a Hollywood screenwriter masquerading as a records clerk, at least in his own mind.” Changing gears, Dash said, “So, the Cliffs. Armstrong’s little retreat high up in the mountains. A man might just go up there and have an accident.”

  “But if he kills Kemper, surely the jig is up for him.”

  “Why? Particularly if the body is never found? Armstrong’s already laid the groundwork for Drake’s campaign being backed by Vegas mobsters. Then Drake offs himself and the mobsters are getting concerned because their guy is out of the race and Kemper is the only game in town for the mayor’s slot. They get to him in jail and ask for his loyalty. He refuses. So what do they do? The
y take him and kill him, and the mob guys disappear and are never seen again. Where does Armstrong come into the equation in a court of law? He’ll have a dozen alibis that he and his goons were nowhere near the jail because they weren’t. And what evidence do we have that he had Fraser killed except for an affidavit by a lady who’s so scared of Armstrong that if she does come back and testify, she’ll probably claim we killed everybody, instead of Armstrong being behind it?”

  “So that’s why we’re heading up to the Cliffs? To rescue Kemper?”

  “Yes, but Archer, pull off the road, I don’t want you getting us into an accident when I tell you what I have to.”

  Archer stopped on the shoulder and stared at the man. “What are you talking about?”

  “I made two phone calls from the hospital. One to Connie. She’s fine. The other call I made was to Midnight Moods.”

  “Why’d you call there?”

  “The thing is, Archer, we have to assume that Armstrong knows all that we know, okay? So knowing what we know, what does the guy do?”

  “Well, if he thinks we’re coming after him, he might want to get some leverage over us.”

  “That’s exactly right. Now, Connie is the only person in this town I really care about. But like I told you, she’s safe.” He stopped and stared expectantly at Archer, who, to his credit, had seized on where Dash was going halfway through his last sentence.

  “They have Liberty. You called Midnight Moods and she’s gone.”

  “I’m sorry, Archer.”

  Archer drove the car back on the road. “No, Willie, you’re wrong there. They’re going to be the ones who are sorry.”

  The rain started to fall a quarter of the way up. Halfway up they could barely see out of the windscreen. The fog was so thick, fledgling day had been turned into night.

  Archer was gripping the wheel so hard his forearms were growing weary. All he could think about was Liberty and what they might be doing to her right now. Especially Hank and Tony.

  He suddenly realized something. “Wait a minute, what’d you find at the hospital?”

  “Exactly what I hoped to find. Now don’t ask me anymore. Just concentrate on your driving,” he added as a curve shot up.