Дэвид Балдаччи - One Good Deed

Desiree Lankford, dressed in a dark gray skirt and a three-button jacket with a pale blouse and sensible pumps, greeted him.

“Hello, Mr. Archer,” she said. “You’re right on time. This way.”

She led him down a hall floored in two-by-two-foot terra cotta tile. As he gazed around, he noted once more the old wooden beams running along the ceiling and the walls plastered and thick. The place smelled of wood fires and age.

“You live here?” asked Archer.

“No, but I don’t live too far away. I’m heading out now, in fact. I hope your meeting goes all right.”

Desiree led him to a door and opened it.

Archer stepped through and she closed the door. He could hear her firm tread heading back down the hall. The room he was now in was large, comfortably furnished, and set up as an office or study of sorts, with shelves full of books and papers, a large weighing scale in one corner, and a map of the area with little pins stuck in it. A credenza stood against one wall with an ice bucket and scoop, and a line of liquor bottles and cut crystal tumblers behind that. Just the sight of it gave Archer a painful thirst.

Behind the desk was a stone fireplace, built of knobby gray-and-brown rock, that climbed to the arched ceiling. Next to the fireplace was a broad leafy plant on a wooden stand. In another corner was a hunter-green Mosler safe about six feet tall with a silver combination lock and matching spin wheel. Cigar and pipe smoke mingled aromatically in the air Archer was breathing. It actually made him want a Lucky Strike in the worst way.

On a console set next to the door were two revolvers: a .38 Long Colt double action with a three-and-a-half-inch barrel, and a Smith & Wesson .32 hammerless with a two-inch muzzle. He could see that both the wheel guns were fully loaded.

And sitting behind a large, paper-littered desk about the size of a dinner table set in front of the tall stone fireplace was Lucas Tuttle. The green eyes in the center of that face swiveled around and took hold of their target. He was holding what looked like a phone receiver in his hand, though it was hooked by a squiggly cord to a funny looking little machine.

“So you called for a meeting, huh? I wonder why?” said Tuttle, as he reached down, slid his Remington out from the kneehole, and laid it on the desk, the muzzle pointing in Archer’s general direction.

Archer swept off his hat and came forward. “Told you I’d be working this thing. And like you told Detective Shaw, the matter was in my hands.”

Tuttle’s eyes indicated a wooden-backed chair with a nail-head upholstered seat on Archer’s side of the desk. Archer took it, making sure he was not directly in front of the Remington’s muzzle, not that it would matter much with the scattergun’s shot field. He crossed his legs and perched his hat on his knee.

When Archer glanced at the double barrels, he thought he saw a bit of something that was white colored in one of them.

“Hello, Archer, you all there or are you drunk?”

He looked up to see Tuttle staring at him.

“What’s that thing?” asked Archer, indicating what Tuttle was holding.

“Called a Dictaphone. Records my voice. I can talk into it and then have Desiree type up what I said.” He put the Dictaphone receiver down. “Has that Detective Shaw found out anything about who killed Pittleman?”

“No, but not for lack of trying. He’s a good man. He’ll get there.”

Tuttle shook his head, not looking convinced. “I don’t share your confidence. But then I don’t get involved with the police as a matter of course.”

“Then you’re a smart man, but then again sometimes you can’t get around it.”

Archer fell silent and looked pointedly at the older man.

“Well?” said Tuttle. “You called and wanted to see me. I’m a busy man, so let’s have at it, son.”

“Two men tried to kill Jackie Saturday night.”

Tuttle half rose from his seat. “What? Is she—?”

“She’s fine. One was Malcolm Draper, he worked for Hank Pittleman. The other man was an ex-con named Dickie Dill who worked at the slaughterhouse.”

Tuttle’s eyes narrowed. “Why would somebody working for Pittleman want Jackie dead?”

“Well, it couldn’t be Hank Pittleman’s doing, since he was already dead.”

“Wait, are you saying it was Marjorie? I can’t believe that.”

“Jackie was seeing her husband.”

“Everybody knew that, including Marjorie.”

“But still, it couldn’t sit well with her.”

“I told you before, I’m sure it did bother her. But Hank controlled the money. Without him she doesn’t get to live in that big house.”

“Fair point.” Here Archer paused, considering some advice that Shaw had given him about revealing information. A smart detective had to have a good reason to do so.

“Turns out Pittleman had a cancer in his brain. He was dying and he had a lot of gambling debts. His money was running out.”

He stopped talking and watched Tuttle carefully for his reaction to this.

Tuttle sat up and said, “But he was a rich man. The richest man around. So how could that be?”

“You’re not rich if you spend more than you have. Then you’re just like everybody else.”

Tuttle leaned back in his chair. “Well, I can’t argue with that logic. What does all that mean with regard to our meeting today?”

“Pittleman’s dead. Do you take that as your debt to him no longer being valid?”

Tuttle shook his head. “No, I don’t see it that way at all. Marjorie Pittleman will now become the holder of the debt. And from what you just told me, she can probably use the money.”

“Did you talk to her about the debt when you were there?”

Tuttle looked at Archer as though he had a screw loose. “Good Lord, boy. I don’t talk business with a woman. They don’t have the sense for it. Certainly, Marjorie doesn’t. Like I said, I was there to pay my respects, nothing else.”

“With no Hank Pittleman around, the problem with your daughter goes away, too.”

Tuttle said eagerly, “You’ve convinced her to come home then?”

“No, not exactly.”

Tuttle frowned. “Then what are you doing here except wasting my time, son?”

Archer gazed at him. “How about if I can get Jackie to meet with you, to talk things out? You make your case to her. If I could make that happen, would it be enough for you to repay the debt and give me my commission?”

The green eyes blazed with curiosity. “Are you serious about her meeting with me?”

“First, is that a deal? Will that satisfy you to honor the debt and pay me my fee?”

Tuttle considered this for a moment and then nodded. “It’s a deal.”

“Okay, then. She’ll meet you at nine o’clock tonight. At her house.”

Tuttle glanced at him in surprise. “Is that a fact? And where is her house?”

“Number 27 Eldorado Street.”

Tuttle wrote this down and then glanced up at Archer. “So you knew all along she was willing to meet with me? You could’ve just said so.”

“I wanted to make sure you would agree to the deal first .”

Tuttle looked at him in a new light. “You might make a pretty fine businessman, Archer.”

“Well, let’s just start my career off with this one, then.”

Archer pulled out the note papers. “Got the documents right here. Good as cash, Pittleman told me. You give me the five thousand dollars plus interest and my two hundred dollars, and you get these papers and the meeting with Jackie.”

Tuttle took his time getting up from his desk as Archer watched him closely, but keeping one eye on the Remington, too, just in case.

Tuttle walked over to the Mosler safe, worked the combination dial this way and that, and then spun the wheel and lifted the lever, and the heavy steel door slowly swung wide. Archer rose for a better look. Inside the maw of the safe were stacks of cash and coins, little cloth bags of something with string ties, what looked to be piles of stock and bond certificates, and a large stash of gold bars. It looked like what might be in a proper bank vault. It was more wealth than Archer supposed he would ever see again collected in a single place.