Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man

She picked up the lit stub and took a long drag on it, shooting both men probing looks. “Who wants to know?”

“For starters, I do. And maybe Mrs. Kemper, the very important lady.”

She looked relieved. “She’s got nothing to worry about. He’s a perfect gentleman.”

“Then you have no idea who might be claiming that Kemper and you are far more than friends?”

She presented him with a knife-sharp glare. “What are you trying to pull here, mister? Who says that?”

“Mr. Kemper has received a blackmail demand and you figure prominently in it.”

“Well, I don’t know nothing about that. Sweet Jesus.”

“Then if someone asked, you’d say that there was nothing there?”

“That’s what I’m telling you. That’s what I’d tell anybody who asked.”

“I need you to tell me that you’re speaking the truth.”

“I am. I never slept with Mr. Kemper. Swear to God.”

“Okay, Archer, you got that?”

Archer nodded. “Got it. Swear to God.”

“Okay, the next time we come back it’ll be with an affidavit for you to sign. Do you know what an affidavit is?”

She shook her head.

“Well, it’s a document where you tell the truth and then sign it, to make it official. Then, if you change your story, it can be used against you.”

“Well, why would anyone want to sign that?” she asked.

“It can also help you, but only if you’re telling the truth. And since you are, there’s no problem, right?” said Archer.

She didn’t respond. She just looked at Archer like he was the last thing standing between her and death row.

Dash rose. “One more thing. How much do you make here?”

“Hundred dollars a week, room and board included. Most dough I ever made. Why?”

“Just setting a baseline, Ruby. That’s all.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I suppose not. You’re not thinking of leaving town anytime soon?”

She eyed him like a chicken did a fox. “I don’t know. Should I?”

“Not till you hear from me, no. But if I do tell you to go, Ruby, you need to go like nobody’s business.”

“You’re scaring me.”

“Good. Then I’m getting my point across.” He added, “Maybe we’ll be back to take in your show. What time does it start?”

“Ten o’clock sharp.”

“I’ll have to take a nap. You be a good girl, Ruby, and we’ll get through this.”

Downstairs, Dash made a call from the front office of Midnight Moods to Connie Morrison and then waited for a few minutes for her to ring him back with an answer. After that, as they were leaving, Archer said, “Do you believe her?”

“I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that she’s a drug user.”

Archer looked startled. “How do you know?”

“The eyes don’t lie. From the looks of her I’d say opium. Don’t think she’s taken heroin yet. Hope she never does. That’s the difference between getting shot with a .22 and a bazooka.”

“Where are we off to now?”

“The next piece of the puzzle, Archer.”

“Mrs. Kemper?”

Dash gave him an admiring look. “You might just make a decent gumshoe after all.”

Archer drove back toward town and then up a road that zigzagged as they passed canyons with clefts that crept through the rock like capillaries inside the body. As they reached a plateau in the rise and the ground flattened out like a skillet, he was then directed by Dash to pass through a pair of impressive wrought iron gates embossed with the letter A in scrollwork that appeared when the gates were closed and the two halves came together. The gates were mounted on two enormous stone columns. With the ocean on the left and the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains on the right, the Delahaye roared along on a curved, pale cobblestone road.

The trees up here were lush and covered the ground like a vast, decamped army. Fifty-foot-tall live oaks with their jumble of branches lined their way. Spanish moss hung off them like veils on blushing brides.

This botanical spectacle held forth until they rounded a bend where the columns of trees retreated. There the greenest, widest patch of grassy lawn Archer had ever seen commenced; it led up to a peninsula of land on which sat a long two-story structure that was built of limestone block, round gray and brown stone, and other elements thrown in for interesting architectural measure. A sea of French doors ran along the front and were anchored by a pair of massive wrought iron doors with impressive scrollwork that served as the main entrance. On either side of them were lit gas lanterns about the size of Archer’s torso, and still they seemed small next to the doors.

Thick, plush, variegated ivy covered much of the home’s lower front façade. Throughout the landscape were well-tended flower beds creating patterns of color, green hedges, and lush topiary bushes set in either pots or the ground. It was an idyllic setting powered by money, and presumably a lot of it. Along with a ton of sweat labor.

As they turned and came up the long drive running along the face of the house, Archer got a glimpse of the rear grounds, which faced the ocean and held a stunning vista of the Pacific. There was a tennis court with a tented seating area on one side and an oval-shaped pool with deep, dark blue water on the other. A long stone wall ran along the rear perimeter of the property, which presumably ended in a cliff. The Pacific stretched out nearly a thousand feet below like a private body of water.

Next, he looked at a large metal-roofed barn from which two men in denim work clothes were coming out, while another man pushed a wheelbarrow full of brush; a fourth man hosed down a dark blue Triumph Roadster with its canvas top up. A green John Deere tractor sat idle near the barn; a man had the engine cover open and was tinkering with the motor.

Archer pulled to a stop in the paved motor court next to a red-and-black Bentley with a topless front compartment for the chauffeur. Next to that was a silver-and-black Rolls-Royce Phantom.

As Dash got out he said, “Hey, now your ride’s in good company.”

“I’d say so,” replied Archer. “Nice place the Kempers have.”

“Didn’t you note the letter A on the gates? Sawyer Armstrong built this place for his daughter as a wedding present but couldn’t resist putting his ‘name’ on it.”

Dash breathed in the sea air that rose up from below like it had taken an express elevator car to get there. “Smell that, Archer?”

“Yeah. Fish.”

“Bet you never seen a house this big before?”

“I have.”

“Get outta here, you’re having one on me.”

“The one I saw back in Poca City was bigger than this place, but not by much. But it was also phony and so were the people in it. The jury’s still out on this one.”

“It won’t be much longer. But I wouldn’t call Beth Kemper a phony.”

“How do you know she’ll see us?”

“I phoned Connie from Midnight Moods and had her set up an appointment. She called back to confirm it. That’s what I was waiting on.”

They walked up to the massive double front doors. They, too, were embossed with an A , but here each door held its own letter.

Archer said, “Boy, the guy likes to remind people of the origins of this place.”

Dash said, “For me, it’s a sign of insecurity, but I could be wrong.”

He poked at a buzzer. From somewhere distant they heard the peal of a bell, its sound dulled by distance.

About twenty seconds later footsteps approached.

The opening door revealed a Chinese man who wore a waist-long white tuxedo jacket, black pants with lighter black stripes down the sides of the trousers, and a bow tie the color of the pants. His skin was tanned, and he had three moles that marched across his forehead like a line of ants. His dark hair was trimmed with silver at the temples, like the best character actors in the movies, and was slicked back. He had a long, tapered mustache that dovetailed around his mouth and ended in a stringy goatee. He had the sort of face that made it hard to guess the correct age. Archer put the range at forty to sixty.