Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man [calibre]

“Does it go away?”

“Look at me. I live in a goddamn elevator, son.”

“How long did it take you?”

“I won’t say ’cause I don’t want to discourage you.”

“I got on, didn’t I?” retorted Archer.

“Sure you did. Now stop sweating and looking like you gonna puke and we getting somewhere.”

Archer put a hand against the wall. “What can you tell me about Willie Dash?”

The man picked up his paper but his brown eyes stayed on Archer. “What you want to know?”

“What kind of a man is he?”

“You looking to hire him?”

“No, work for him.”

This surprised the man. He took a moment to light up his stogie, sticking the burned match in a metal cup that stuck out from the wall of the car. “Work for him? What, you a baby shamus or something?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, Willie is getting up there, all right. Can’t be doing this forever.”

“But he’s good at what he does?”

The man puffed on the cigar to get it going as the car slowly moved past the second floor and began its assault on the third. “You know he was a G-man with Hoover’s boys before he left to be a copper in Frisco.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“He was one of the best. Worked with that there Eliot Ness.”

“Why’d he leave?”

The man shrugged. “Who knows? Why’d he leave Frisco to come here and be a private dick?”

“So he’s really good, then.”

The man smiled slyly. “Hell, he caught me. It was his second day on the job as a detective in Frisco and he nailed my ass.”

“For doing what?”

“Held up a liquor store. Done my time at San Quentin. I don’t recommend it, son. Death row there. Used to hang ’em. Now they gas ’em.”

“Either way you’re dead,” said Archer.

“Now, Willie put in a real good word for me, so I didn’t get nearly as long a sentence as I might have and then I got time off for good behavior, and I was getting up there age-wise and they needed more room for younger bad guys needing prison beds. It was Willie got me a job here after I left prison.”

“So he kept in touch after you went into the joint?”

“Visited me at the prison a few times. Said I did what I did because I was down and out and the wrong color; all stuff I knew. Hell, I’m a Mississippi boy. Only thing the police do down south is march in parades on July Fourth and shoot folks look like me. Why I got outta the south. But I ain’t find it all that different no matter where I go. Figgered robbing a place might get me three squares and a roof over my head, so I hit that liquor store. But Willie said I could make an honest living, if I wanted to.”

“So you came down here and climbed into this car?”

“Naw. Willie got me a job at the docks, loading shit on and taking shit off the boats. Did that for years.” He held up his gnarled hands. “Where I got these. Then Willie got me this sitting job when I couldn’t lift the shit no more. I can still poke a button and close a gate, see?”

“Did that surprise you? I mean, what he did for you?”

“Nothing surprises me, young man. Not no more. You live to be my age and you colored to boot, life ain’t got no more surprises, ’cept why no white man ain’t shot me dead at some point along the way for no reason ’cept he wanted to, see?”

A minute later the slow-moving car passed the third floor and settled into the home stretch.

“What about his gal, Connie Morrison?”

The old man cackled. “Connie? They used to be hitched.”

Archer shook out a Lucky. The old man struck a match and lit it for him before depositing the spent match in the chromium cup.

“So, they were married? But not anymore?”

“That’s right. Think Willie was married way back to some gal when he was a G-man, but guess that didn’t work out. Pretty sure he’s done walking down the aisle now. Not sure ’bout Connie. She’s forty-two, which is long in the tooth for getting hitched. But maybe some man’ll snatch her up.”

“What’s your name, by the way?”

“Earl. You?”

“Archer. So if I go to work for him, what’s your advice?”

“Go in with both eyes and ears open and pray that’s enough.”

“Think he can teach me stuff?”

“He’s forgot more about gumshoeing than you’ll ever know, young man, no offense.”

With a jolt and a hiss, they reached the fourth floor, and Earl slid open the cage door. When the outer door disappeared into the wall, Archer quickly stepped through and gratefully sucked in even the stale air at his sudden freedom.

Earl poked his head out. “Down the hall and to the left, Archer. Good luck to you.”

“At this point in my life you’d think I wouldn’t need so much damn luck,” muttered Archer as he headed on to meet ex–G-man and former copper Willie Dash.

Chapter 20

THE DOOR WAS PEBBLED GLASS with painted letters on its surface that spelled out: WILLIE DASH: VERY PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.

The image of a lawman’s five-point star was etched below this as though to lend gravitas to the entry point, a certain officialness. Or maybe it had been thrown in for the price of the name above, mused Archer.

The doorknob was brass and looked worn down, probably by the thousands of nervous, sweaty hands that had touched it looking for some help of a “very private” nature.

The door was locked. He noted the buzzer next to the door and pressed it.

“Yes,” said the voice, from the little intercom screen.

“It’s Archer.”

Archer heard a lock click free. He turned the knob and swung the door open.

Six feet directly across from him was, presumably, Connie Morrison. He could have laid flat on the floor, his hat against one wall, and the bottom of his shoes would have touched her desk. Morrison was a honey blonde with shoulder-length hair parted in the middle with the sides winging their way down. The lady was sitting behind a carved oak desk that looked like it had come over on the Mayflower and gotten wet along the way.

Archer took in the small reception area. Four walls, one window, five dented metal file cabinets with alphabet letters on their fronts, and a square of faded carpet that was so worn it looked like the plank floor had reclaimed it. There was a fuzzy light overhead, and a table lamp with a patterned shade on the desk.

A Royal typewriter about the size of a Sherman tank sat on the desk in front of her with a black blotter underneath that. A jar of finely sharpened pencils was near her elbow, along with a stapler and a roll of tape in its holder. A Boston sharpener bolted to the wall just behind her, and standing ready to take care of all those yellow number twos, completed this dream of an office setup.

On the walls were diplomas and certificates from places Archer had never heard of, and framed photos of people he didn’t know, except for President Harry S. “The buck stops here” Truman dressed in a cream suit and a dotted bow tie, who smiled all alone from one wall.

A rubber tree that looked fake and still somehow dead leaned out of a blue-and-white ceramic planter with an elephant on it that sat next to the desk.

When Morrison rose and came around to the front of the desk, Archer could see that she wore a blue tailor-made suit dress and that she was medium height, and thin. She had fine lines all over her chiseled face, like the depth markings on a shipping channel map.

Morrison slipped on a pair of rimless cheaters that she was holding in her hand. They accentuated the woman’s eyes, which Archer decided were closer to periwinkle blue than any other blue he knew of. They were slightly washed out, as were the woman’s features. Her heels were black and matched the color of her hosiery and added about two inches of height to her frame. A slender platinum watch graced her left wrist.