Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man

He walked back to his room and dressed meticulously, down to his pocket square. He put his PI license in his jacket pocket, clipped the .38 to his belt, and drove out to the same diner near the wharf where they served breakfast all day. He ordered coffee and two over-easy eggs with crispy bacon, toast, and orange juice, which he knew they made in California in abundance.

He laid out the map of Bay Town on the table and started going over it. But this time with a different focus. He was looking at the water instead of the land.

He didn’t know how far out Armstrong had gone in the boat, but common sense told him it couldn’t have been too far. They sure weren’t going to Hawaii in a boat that size.

His breakfast came and he ate and drank while he studied the map.

“What are you doing, Mr. Archer?”

He turned to see Madame Genevieve standing next to him clutching a sack about the size of his old Army duffel.

“Just learning more about the town. What are you doing here?”

She held up the sack. “I was at the dock buying fish for dinner tonight from a vendor and saw you through the window.” She sat down across from him. “You know, for two dollars more per day you get breakfast and supper at my place. I make a better breakfast than they do here. And I get my fish fresh for dinner, as I just told you.”

He lit a cigarette and nodded. “Thanks, I’ll sure keep that in mind.” He glanced at the map and then back at her. “Hey, how well do you know this area?”

“What do you want to know?”

He stabbed the Pacific with his finger. “What’s off the coast here that a person could get to relatively fast by boat? I know about the northern and southern Channel Islands. Anacapa is the closest to the coast but it’s still about twelve miles out and over an hour by boat. And it’s about an hour-and-a-half boat ride to Santa Cruz. The others are a lot farther out, up to seventy miles or so. Anything closer than that?”

Madame Genevieve studied the map for a few moments. “I do remember hearing about an island that was built about three miles out, so you could get there in about fifteen or twenty minutes in a fast boat depending on the sea conditions.”

He looked at her strangely as his smoke dangled from his mouth. “Wait a sec, you said an island that was built ?”

“During the war the military took over the Channel Islands, but they needed more capacity for some sort of special work. There was a very shallow spot about three miles directly out from here, where the land was just at the surface. The military built upon that base of earth to make a new island there.”

“Who owns that piece of rock now?”

“I suppose the military still does. Why all the interest?”

“Just curious.”

“I suppose all good private eyes are.”

“We can assume that, yeah.”

“Where did you go last night?”

“Just out for a walk. Found this place and had some coffee.”

“And now you go to work as a detective?”

“That’s right. A very tardy detective.” He folded up his map and put it in his pocket. “See you later.”

He put down money for his meal, tipped his hat, and left. She watched him every step of the way.

“Hey, shamus, how’s it going?” said Earl as Archer stepped into the elevator car.

“It’s going faster than I thought.”

“Got you a juicy murder to work on?” said the little man as he closed the gate and hit the button for the fourth floor. He had on his uniform with the shirt untucked, and Archer spied a half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort tucked behind his fold-up seat.

“Why do you say that?”

Earl cackled. “Afternoon edition of the Gazette . Gal killed at Midnight Moods. You working on that?”

“It’s confidential.”

“Yeah, I thought so, all right. Now, don’t you go get sliced and diced, Archer. Lotta that going around, it seems.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The car clanked to a stop and he got off. He looked back to see Earl leaning out of the car and watching him like Archer was about to combust and the man didn’t want to miss the spectacle.

Connie Morrison looked up from her desk as Archer walked into the office of Willie Dash, Very Private Investigations.

“Hey, sorry I’m late, Connie, I—”

She interrupted. “Willie is in his office. He wants to see you. Right now.”

Her tone was a bit severe and her tight hair bun pulled her eyes back to such a degree that Archer wasn’t sure if she was glaring at him or merely reacting to the pressure on her hair.

“Everything okay?” said Archer.

“Just go see him, Archer.”

Archer hooked his hat on the wall peg, buttoned his suit jacket, and rapped on Dash’s door.

“Come,” said the voice.

He opened the door and walked in.

Dash was behind his desk, his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His black toupee lay next to him, its wisps of hair sticking up like the man’s finger had met a light socket while he was wearing it.

He took off his steel-rimmed spectacles and eyed Archer.

“Grab a seat, Archer, and let me finish this letter for Connie to get out.”

Archer sat and waited patiently while Dash’s ballpoint skated in cursive across the paper. Done, Dash rose, left the room with the paper, and came back a minute later without it. He was in his socks. Archer looked around the room for the bottle of Beam but didn’t see it. The wall bed was nestled all snug up in the wall. He looked at Dash’s eyes and saw not a trace of drunken red.

Dash sat down and eyed Archer right back.

“No, I did not sleep here, and no, I have not been hitting the bottle. And, yes, I know my toupee looks like a Sherman tank ran over it. Fact is, it blew off and landed in a ditch where a squirrel decided it was his new best friend.”

“Keen eye, Willie. Sherlock Holmes has nothing on you.”

Dash adjusted his plastic suspenders, smoothed down his shirt, and glanced at his watch. “You have a funny idea of a workday.”

“I know, I’m sorry. But I was out really late doing some sleuthing.” He paused and then let loose with his changeup pitch. “Ruby Fraser is dead.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

Archer looked deflated. “Okay.”

“And you and your friend were at Midnight Moods last night?”

“How’d you hear about that?”

“I hear lots of things, Archer. What were you doing there?”

“My friend was auditioning for a job, which she got. And I went there to talk to Ruby again. I planned to have a second go at her. And when I got back here yesterday, Connie had my ticket ready and said I was to basically have at it, that you trusted me. Was she selling me a line or what?”

“Connie doesn’t sell lines. So just drop the hurt-feelings crap, compose yourself, and tell me what you did after we parted ways yesterday.”

Archer went through the whole gambit, from A to Z. Going to see Sheen and getting the list of names from him. Driving to Midnight Moods with Callahan. And then Archer got around to telling Dash about finding Fraser.

“So you walked in and there she was, dead?”

“And then I phoned the cops from the lobby, without identifying myself.”

“You might have put you, me, and this agency in jeopardy, Archer.”

“So you would have volunteered your name to the cops?”

“No, I’m not saying that. But did anyone see you and the lady go in or out? Because if they did, you two might be looking down the barrel of a murder charge, or at the very least intent to obstruct a police investigation.”

“I don’t see how I obstructed anything. But for me, they would’ve found Fraser a lot later than they did.”