Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man

“Her show doesn’t start until ten. So we can go there after dinner. And my treat. I’m gainfully employed, and now I have some leads to follow up on. So how about it? Will you come?”

“Sure, Archer, I’ll come.”

“Great.” He rose.

“Hey, do you have to rush off?” She eyed her bed. “I’m... kind of lonely.”

“No can do, Liberty. I’m a workingman now.”

She looked resignedly up at him. “You’re sure taking this shamus thing to heart, Archer.”

“Only way to do it.” He tipped his hat and walked out the door wondering how he’d found the fortitude to do that.

Archer went back to the Dash agency.

Morrison told him that Dash had left almost immediately after Archer had dropped him off.

“Where does he live?” asked Archer. “Nearby?”

“If he hasn’t told you, I don’t think it right that I should.”

“Okay, did a message arrive from Kemper? It was supposed to be a list of people for us to check out.”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Do you have Kemper’s address, then? I could run over and get the list.”

Morrison looked at him.

“Willie knows I’m going to do some investigating on my own.”

“I know. He told me. He said he was coming to trust you.” She paused, wrote something down on a piece of paper, and handed it to him. “Kemper’s address.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Archer asked, taking the paper. “He seems to be in pain.”

“Ulcers. He just needs to rest from time to time and watch his diet.” Morrison opened her desk drawer and took out a black leather card case. “Here.”

“What is it?”

“Your ticket. It just came in twenty minutes ago.”

Archer looked surprised. “But didn’t I have to sign something?”

“I did all the paperwork for you.”

Archer opened the case and saw the printed card with his name and other information on it. “Aloysius Archer, Licensed Private Investigator in the city of Bay Town under the auspices of Willie Dash, Very Private Investigations, Incorporated. Licensed under California Law, Bonded and Insured.”

“The cost of getting it will be deducted from your earnings.”

“How much are my earnings?”

“Willie didn’t discuss that with you?”

“No, and I asked him.”

“Well, I’ll have to leave that to him.”

“He said I should apply for my own ticket because the law might change and this might not be enough.”

“If he said so, I would believe it.”

“He said I need five people to vouch for me. He said you would be one of them.”

“Sure, Archer, whatever you need.”

“Just like that?”

“If Willie said it was okay for me to sign, then that’s good enough for me.”

Archer left her and looked at the address as he walked down the hall. Kemper’s office was on Idaho Avenue. He rode back down in the elevator with Earl, who was not nearly as talkative as before, but just sat on his little chair and read his newspaper.

Archer drove to a Rexall drugstore and bought a map of Bay Town and the surrounding area. As he sat at the counter drinking a cup of coffee and studying it, the pink-frocked soda jerk girl with a matching cap said, “You looking for someplace in particular, mister?”

“Idaho Avenue?”

“On the rich side of town,” said the girl.

“Is that right?”

She had curly red hair, a skinny frame, and a freckled face with a button nose barely large enough to support both nostrils. She placed her long index finger on a spot on the open map. “We’re here, okay?”

“Right.”

“And Sawyer Ave cuts right through the middle of town. Anything to the mountain side is the working-class side, at least for the most part. Anything to the ocean side is the rich side, except for obviously where Sawyer’s Wharf is. And Idaho Ave is right here,” she added, stabbing the paper with her finger once more.

“So I guess folks want the water view?”

“I guess rich folks get whatever it is they want,” she replied gamely.

“How about up in the foothills? That’s not ocean side.”

“Now that’s where the really rich live. See, you don’t just get the ocean views up there, you get to look down on the rest of us.” She laughed at her own little joke.

“You mean, like the Kempers?”

Her freckles seemed to bulge at the mention of the name. “You know them?”

“I met them today. Husband and wife.”

She gave him an appraising look and adjusted her pink cap. “Old man Armstrong and his family really built up this town.”

“His son-in-law, Douglas Kemper, is running for mayor.”

She shrugged. “Don’t know nothing about that. I’m more into flicks than politics.”

Archer noted the movie pulp magazine stashed under the counter behind her. “Do you know anything about Kemper?”

“He’s got a bunch of businesses. My mom and dad work for him, and my two brothers work for him, too.”

This got Archer’s attention. “What sort of businesses?”

“He builds houses and apartment buildings, for one. My dad’s a carpenter with that company. Lots of people moving to this area and they need some place to live. And he has a vineyard, too, a little north of here. My older brother works there building the casks and working in the grape fields. And Kemper owns a members-only country club, the Winward. It’s a mile north of here and right on the water. They have a marina and folks keep their boats there. My middle brother works there as a valet. He says it’s really nice. And Kemper owns the Mayport Hotel. That’s near Idaho Ave. My mom’s a maid there. It’s probably the nicest hotel in town.”

“Sounds like the Kempers only deal in the nicest of everything.” He handed her a buck tip.

Her fingers closed around it and she flashed him a smile. “Thanks, mister.”

Archer left, fired up the Delahaye, and started off in the direction of Idaho Avenue. He glanced at the passenger seat where he’d placed the map.

The traffic was light, and he figured he could make it in under twenty minutes. Bay Town was bustling, Archer could see that easily enough. Folks were driving and walking and biking and riding the trolleys that were gold in color and promoted Bay Town as the “place of paradise.” Folks seemed to have taken this to heart and were dressed up and shopping and working and hauling stuff and generally moving both commerce and contentment from here to there with smiles on their faces.

Archer passed several dance halls, two buildings advertising card clubs, and a filling station where helpful uniformed attendants pumped gas, cleaned windshields, and gave out shiny toy metal cars to little boys jumping up and down in the rear seats. There was an open-air food market on a patch of green town square, where farmers in bib overalls were offering their wares from the beds of ancient pickup trucks to discerning shoppers. There was a new-looking movie theater playing The Fountainhead with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal.

The fog had burned off down here and the sun was warm, but the air was still damp and thus chilly. He looked toward the foothills where the Kempers resided and saw higher-level winds swirling up the west-facing slopes and ruffling the canopies of the sea of trees. And up there silver strands of marine fog still crept into the clefts of the rock like a thief’s hand slipping into a pocket. To his left the ocean shimmered broad and fine, with seagulls dipping for their meals and boats puttering along as they made to port or away from it. About a hundred boats of all sizes were moored in the bay, bobbing up and down to the beat of the Pacific. An airplane, a Western Airlines DC-4, glided along about a thousand feet above the water, its four propellers whirling in precise synchronization.