Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man

“Willie Dash and Archer to see Mrs. Kemper. We’re expected.”

“May I see identification, please?”

“Oh, so you’re one of those butlers? Okay, pal, feast your eyes.”

Dash held out his ID card and the man examined it long enough to have copied out all the information it contained three times over. He handed it back and motioned them in. He closed the door, and they followed him down a marble hall that had a cushiony Oriental rug running right down the middle of it for what seemed like miles. The walls were festooned with enough paintings that Archer could have been forgiven for believing he had mistakenly stepped into a museum. They passed large rooms that were all furnished with just the right amount of furniture and not a smidgen more. White, gray, and pale blue were the dominant colors. Archer could see how that scheme would play well off the California sun that was streaming in through all the windows and French doors that also lined the rear of the home.

The interior was as quiet as a tomb and nearly as joyful, Archer thought as he walked next to Dash. Even with all the beautiful things, he couldn’t imagine living here.

The man stopped at double curved doors made of walnut, which shone with elbow-greased polish, and knocked on one of them.

“All right,” said the voice within. To Archer it sounded dulled and joyless, like a knife blade left outside to rust.

He steeled himself to meet Beth Armstrong Kemper.

The man opened the door and stepped to the side for them to pass through. They did so and he closed the door, and Archer heard his soft footsteps moving away.

Archer glanced around the room. He didn’t have to be a world-class shamus to deduce that this was the library. Three walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves bursting with books would have been his first and only necessary clue. The carpet was white with subtle dashes of orange and muted teal done up in a breaking-wave pattern. It felt deep and springy, like he was standing on a trampoline. The furniture was large and tasteful and well laid out over the room’s expanse. A fireplace at one end was mounted in stone and topped by a mantel consisting of one enormous worm-eaten piece of blackened and distressed timber that someone could have built a boat out of with wood left over. Despite the warmth outside, it was deliciously cool in here, and a small fire flickered in the hearth. There were two camel-haired wingback chairs set in front of the fireplace. One of them was occupied.

When Beth Kemper rose and turned to them, Archer had to catch his breath and almost dropped the notepad and pen he’d taken from his pocket. She was not the most beautiful woman or the one with the finest figure he had ever seen. Yet he wasn’t sure he had ever been in the presence of a lovelier woman, and right now he couldn’t explain the distinction. It was just a feeling, an overpowering one.

She was tall and slim, with blonde hair that had not come out of the bottle. It skimmed her shoulders like a shade tree does its underlings. Her skin wasn’t pale in keeping with her hair. It had a healthy glow that radiated right up to her eyes, which were cornflower blue but seemed enhanced by something inside the woman that transformed soft cornflower into electrically charged sapphires.

Her features were classical in the sense that there wasn’t a flaw to be detected or criticized. The cheek bumps, the jawline, the slender, plum, line-straight nose, the shallow sockets the eyes rested in, the high forehead without trace of wrinkle or brow furrow, all seemed molded by the sure hand of a sculptor intent on perfection, or at least most people’s view thereof.

She was dressed simply in a lavender day dress that dropped straight down her tall frame, with a strip of white around the neck and also at the ends of the elbow-length sleeves. The hemline just touched her knees. She wore a strand of small pearls, a platinum, engraved wrist cuff, and white unadorned heels of simple, elegant design. Her engagement and wedding rings were the stuff of royalty, thought Archer.

He also observed that Beth Kemper had the weary expression of a woman who wished to tolerate others only on her terms but had never yet been afforded that singular opportunity.

He figured she couldn’t be much older than he was, maybe thirty at the most.

“Gentlemen,” she said, her voice bubbling like a brook, but he thought that might be just for a certain effect.

“Mrs. Kemper. I’m Willie Dash. You might remember me. Our paths have crossed at certain functions from time to time. This is my associate, Archer.”

Kemper barely looked at Dash. “Is Archer your surname or given one?” she asked.

For a moment Archer couldn’t remember the answer. He twirled his hat in his hands, a trait of his when nervous, and said, “Archer’s my last name.”

“And your Christian name?”

“Aloysius.”

She nodded, satisfied, and motioned to the two chairs while she stood with her back to the fire. “Yes, Mr. Dash, I do remember you. You and my father go way back.”

After they sat, Dash said, “We’ve known each other a long time, yes.”

“To the extent that anyone really knows my father.”

“Yes ma’am. I understand what you mean. He and I have butted heads a few times, and I can’t say I understand him any better now than I did then.”

“Then you and I have something in common.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Would you like something to drink? A bit early in the day but I’m having one if that influences your decision.”

It was then that Archer saw the bar set up a few paces from the fireplace and on the same wall.

“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.”