Дэвид Балдаччи - One Good Deed

Archer smoked his Chesterfield down as he thought about this. “He did pay me an extra hundred dollars. So he must’ve liked what I did.”

Jackie tapped her ash into the ashtray and nodded. “He’s a hard man to please, and don’t I know it.”

“What are you saying, that I should go back out there and ask for a job?”

“You got any other prospects?”

“Shaw is paying me a few bucks to help him on the case.”

“Really? Is that allowed? I mean, you’re not with the police. And you told me that he thought you might have killed Hank.”

“Well, he doesn’t think that anymore, thank God. But he believes I might have the right qualities to be a good gumshoe.”

“Is that what you want to do with your life?”

“How the hell do I know? Does anybody know what they want to do after the world went to war and everything got blown up? What do you want to do?”

She didn’t answer right away. She took a final drag on her smoke, tapped it out, finished her Rebel Yell, and looked squarely at him.

“I just want to be happy, Archer. And every day I’m alive it seems like it’s getting to be too much to hope for.”

Archer wished Jackie luck with her father that night and then headed back to downtown Poca, making a stop at the Checkered Past for dinner, then taking another brief detour before he walked on to the Derby carrying a paper bag in one hand. He had gotten his things from Ernestine’s and, using his newfound wealth, rented back his old room at the hotel. He took the stairs up to 610, cast his hat onto the bed, hung up his other clothes, and lifted the bottle of bourbon from the paper bag, along with a fresh pack of Lucky Strikes. Shaw had taken his drinking glasses, so Archer sat in a chair, put the heels of his new shoes up on the windowsill after opening the window, and drank straight from the bottle.

He lit a cigarette and blew smoke out the open window, tapping his ash onto the sill. He smoked down two cigarettes. Around eight o’clock, when the light was dimming, something happened that Archer had never once seen since he’d been here. An unholy storm came in, the sky turning to a mass of ugly, darkened clouds, and the winds fiercely picked up. A few moments later the heavens opened up and the rain poured down, forcing pedestrians on the street to make a run for it. After that the lightning flashed, and the thunder boomed. And it went on and on as Archer sat there and watched this spectacle of Mother Nature unleashed on Poca and its inhabitants. It was like she’d been saving up all her energy for the longest time to unleash it right this minute.

How much he drank, Archer wasn’t sure. And he wasn’t sure when he fell asleep in the chair. He did remember checking his watch at one point, and seeing it was about nine o’clock. He recalled praying that the meeting between father and daughter would go off without a hitch. He thought about going over there, but if Jackie spotted him it would not be good.

He woke much later due to the pounding on his door, not from the storm still raging unabated outside. His eyes popped open, his feet came down to the floor, and he looked around, momentarily disoriented. It was fully dark outside now, but a hint of light was emerging. He looked at his watch as the pounding on the door continued. It was nearly five in the morning.

“Archer?” the voice called out. “I know you’re in there. Open this damn door or I’m going to break it down.”

It was Irving Shaw.

Archer groaned, rubbed at his head and then his eyes, staggered over to the door, and opened it.

“What can I do you for, Mr. Shaw?” said Archer wearily.

Shaw looked as grim as he’d ever seen the man, and that was saying something.

Archer stiffened to attention when he saw this. “What’s up with you?”

He cast a glance over Archer’s shoulder. “You got anybody in here with you?”

Archer turned and waved his hand around the clearly empty room.

“Do you see anybody? Hey, how’d you even know I was here?”

“Because you were nowhere else. We got a problem. Sit down in that chair.”

Shaw slammed the door shut behind him, pulled Archer over to the chair, and pushed him down on it.

“What the hell is going on?” asked a thoroughly rattled Archer.

Shaw eyed the half-empty bottle. “Are you drunk?”

“I might ’a been. I’m sure as hell not now.”

Shaw went over to the window where the drenched drapes were flapping in the breeze and the floor was wet. He slammed the window shut, put his shoe up on the windowsill, placed his left elbow over his raised knee, turned his head, and cast a keen eye on Archer. “Tell me something, and I want the truth. Did you go out to see Lucas Tuttle yesterday?”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why?”

“To get the debt owed to Hank Pittleman paid.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I gave it to Jackie. Me and her were going over later today to give it to Marjorie.”

“And did you get paid?”

“He put in three hundred for me. More than I asked for, but he said he respected what I had done.”

“Why would he pay off the debt if he didn’t get the note back? I understand it’s the same as cash.”

Despite the alcohol he had drank, Archer gathered his wits and formed his lie. “Pittleman gave me the note, so I could give it to Tuttle when he paid off the debt.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

Shaw’s gaze sharpened. “Funny, you never mentioned that before now. And what did Tuttle do with the note?”

“He burned it with a match and threw it in the fireplace. I saw him do it.”

“Did he now?”

“Yeah, he did.”

“The thing is, Miss Tuttle told me earlier that Pittleman did not give you the note. That he would do so only when he’d gotten paid everything due to him. So, I’ll ask you once more, where did you get the note?”

Archer let out an extended breath. “Okay, I took it from Pittleman when I found his body. But I didn’t touch any of his cash.”

Shaw shook his head the whole time.

“What?” asked Archer.

“I thought you and me had reached an understanding.” He tapped his bad arm, which was still in a sling. “Hell, you saved my life. But now you just admitted to lying to me again, so that don’t set too well.”

“I would have liked to tell you the truth, but things kept getting in the way.”

“I can’t tell you how many men I’ve put in prison have said something similar. So you were going to deliver that cash to Marjorie Pittleman later today?”

“Well, yeah. It’s owed to her.”

“When did you get back from Tuttle’s place?”

“Left there around four and got back to town about five o’clock or so.”

“So you had plenty of time to go to Marjorie Pittleman’s yesterday and give her that money back. Why didn’t you?”

“Jackie wanted to have time to get ready to meet with her father last night. So I went and got some dinner, and then came back here, got my old room. I had something to drink, and I guess I just fell asleep. I just woke up now when you were pounding on my door.”

“You been sleeping this whole time?”

“Off and on, yeah. Why? What the hell are you so riled up about?”

“I’ll tell you, Archer. Mr. Lucas Tuttle was found at his home shot dead.”

Archer leaned so far back in the chair, he nearly toppled off it. “The hell you say. He was alive when I left.”

Shaw let out a long sigh. “Please tell me that somebody can verify that.”

“I talked to a man named Bobby Kent before I left.”

“Was Tuttle with you?”

“No.”