Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man [calibre]

“Bourbon straight is fine by me,” said Dash, running his eye along the rows of bottles.

She nodded and looked at Archer with hiked eyebrows that were as rigid as a pencil, even in the uplifted position, and far darker than her hair. The combination of the two colors for some reason had a deeply unsettling effect on him. As though he were looking at two women instead of merely one.

“And you, Mr. Archer?”

“Whatever you’re having. And you can just call me Archer.”

She nodded, turned to the bar table, and fixed their drinks. Her motions were practiced and efficient, Archer thought as she jiggered, measured, and mixed. That bar must see a lot of work, he figured.

He glanced at another table that was bedecked with framed photographs. He rose and started looking over them. They were all signed either to Beth or Douglas, but none together. There was one of the vice president, and another signed, “Best wishes, Earl Warren.” Then he glanced at another one. “You know Jimmy Stewart?”

She turned to him from the bar table. “My husband did. They flew together in the war.”

“Your husband’s a pilot?”

“Yes, at least he was.” She presented Dash with his bourbon and nothing else in a cut crystal glass. Then she handed Archer his drink. “Dry Manhattan, Archer.”

“You don’t care for the sweet vermouth, then?”

She looked impressed. “I like a man who knows his cocktails. For me, it’s an essential skill. And no, I care for nothing sweet at all.”

Unsure of how to take this, Archer retook his seat and said nothing. She eyed the notepad and pen he had placed on the table. “This must be serious if you’re to chronicle all I have to say.”

“Just standard procedure,” interjected Dash.

She took up residence in front of the flames once more and looked down at the two men, her drink held loosely at her side. She was apparently waiting for them to sample their libations.

Dash took a sip of his and smiled. “Good bourbon.”

“From Kentucky. That’s where they first distilled whiskey into what we call bourbon. In a county of the same name.”

“Didn’t know that,” said Dash, giving the woman the once-over in a single glance.

Archer drank from his Manhattan. “Nice,” he said. “Thank you.”

Dash eyed her closely. “Heard you were ill recently. Appendicitis. You’re looking fine now.”

“How did you know?”

Dash glanced at Archer before saying, “Myron O’Donnell is in my building. He happened to mention that he performed the operation.”

“He was my mother’s doctor, too. And many years ago he saved my father’s life after a car accident. That’s how I came to use him. He’s a fine surgeon.”

As soon as she finished speaking, her look hardened like wet cement solidifying. “Now, to business.”

“You know why we’re here?” said Dash.

“In a general sense, yes.”

She sipped her drink and then placed it on a doily set on the timber mantel. “But please feel free to enlighten me as to particulars.” She picked up a cigarette case from a side table, clicked it open, and extracted a cigarette. Then she placed it into an ivory holder, which she also took from the case, and ignited the end with a platinum lighter that had sat next to the case. She replaced both exactly where they were before.

A careful, measured woman, Archer observed. Who likes things just so. At least the things she can control. He wrote this impression down.

She blew smoke out and picked up her drink, taking another sip.

Dash said, “Some of this may be troubling to hear.”

“Much of what I have to deal with is troubling, Mr. Dash. And people like you and your associate do not get called in when things are not troubling, do you?”

“I appreciate that you understand the situation.”

She took another puff of cigarette and a sip of her drink. “I’ll understand it even better when you tell me the particulars .”

Archer took another swallow of his drink and eyed the room once more, this time with a nuanced approach.

Everything in this place is for show. He eyed Kemper. Maybe including the woman.

He didn’t write this down; he didn’t have to.

Dash laid it all out for her, piece by piece, regurgitating everything that her husband had earlier told them, including his denials of a relationship with Ruby Fraser.

Kemper took it all in and drained the rest of her drink, then turned and started toward the table as though to make another but seemed to think better of it. It was the only moment of indecision Archer had seen in the woman. And from that glimpse he considered the possibility that she actually might be human, with real blood flowing through her thin veins.

She returned to face them in front of the fire, which now seemed to Archer somewhat metaphorical. She perched on the leather-topped fender surrounding the fireplace opening.

“Have you talked to your husband about this…matter?” asked Dash.

She took a moment to finish her cigarette and tossed it, minus the holder, into the fire. She dexterously rolled the ivory holder around and around between her thumb and index finger. “Not really, no. Douglas is running for mayor, I’m sure you know.”

“Which makes the matter even more delicate, and the timing suspicious.”

The cornflower eyes focused on him with an astonishing degree of severity. “Mr. Dash, you are not a fool, I take it?”

“My worst enemies would accuse me of a lot, and they would be right, but being a fool is not one of them. I’ve seen too much of life and suffered through quite a bit of it. It strikes foolishness clean from you, least it did for me.”

“Then do not intimate that the timing of the election makes this accusation scurrilous.”

“Now that’s a fifty-dollar word,” replied Dash.

“And the only one that comes to my mind to fit the situation.”

“Then you believe that your husband did have an affair with Ruby Fraser?”

Her angry look quickly faded. “I…I don’t know about that. I would hope not. But…”

“Did you ask him?”

“No, I didn’t.” She paused and studied her shoes. “Maybe I didn’t want to know his answer,” she added quietly.

“His political opponents would love to make hay out of this.”

“Alfred Drake most assuredly knows of it, or at least his associates do, which in politics is a difference without meaning.”

“I forgot your father was mayor here and once took a run at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento.”

Her lips pursed for a moment. Archer wasn’t sure if she was holding back a smile or not.

She said, “He won the mayor’s race by a landslide and lost the governor’s contest by the same margin.”

“Is there a lesson in that?” asked Archer.

She turned to him, her look now one of amusement. “Fame and influence are both often fickle and localized .”

“I’m sure it was a hard loss for your father,” said Dash.

“It was, if only because it was the only time he did lose at anything.”

“But Drake may be behind this blackmail attempt.”

“He may, or he may not. I have no idea, really. I actually always thought Alfred Drake was a decent man. But I think that of many people and I’ve been proven wrong before.”

“If he is the blackmailer, we could use that against him,” noted Dash.

“No one expects Drake to win, even with this allegation bubbling up.”

Archer spoke up. “Then why would your husband hire us to investigate the matter if it will have no impact on the outcome of the election?”

She graced him with a look that hit Archer somewhere between his gut and his heart. Her slender tongue slid over the pale, glossy, and full lips.