Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man

“Sure you do. Armstrong told you to do it, and so you did what you always do when Armstrong tells you to do something. Now the question is why he wanted you to do it.”

“Is this another rhetorical question?” asked Dawson, looking ill now.

“Yeah, it is. They needed his room to kill Fraser and Sheen. They transported Fraser from that room to hers after she was dead using the connecting attic space between the two rooms. They left Sheen in Parnell’s old room after the poor guy was murdered.”

Dawson took a deliberate step back. “I don’t know nothing about that.”

Dash shook his head and smiled. “Come on, Mabel, you’re up to your baby blues in this, honey. See, you told us Fraser liked rich men. Now, who’s the richest of all in this town and a widower and available to boot?”

“You’re nuts. Armstrong’s almost old enough to be her grandfather.”

“You’d be surprised at how millions in dough can make people seem a lot younger. So you arranged for poor Ruby to meet up with Armstrong in Parnell’s old room, only it was Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum in there and not Armstrong. They pretended her throat was a steak, and then they deposited the lady in her own room through the crawlspace after cleaning up the blood. When you went looking for her, why do I think you skipped Parnell’s old digs? If you had opened that door and seen them cutting up poor Ruby, they might have had to kill you, too.”

“This is crazy talk, Willie,” said Dawson.

“Then why are your eyebrows sweating? Armstrong already knows what I’m about to tell you and here it is: You are what we call in the business a loose end. He’s had four people killed so far. What’s one more, sweetie? You get my drift, or are you under the delusion that you’re actually something special?”

Dawson plopped down in a chair that Archer had hastily drawn up for her while Callahan launched into Sinatra’s “Five Minutes More.”

Dash knelt down next to her and gently patted her hand. “Come on, Mabel, I got nothing against you. And I bet you didn’t know what they were going to do to poor Ruby.”

She shook her head and said in a hushed voice, “I didn’t. I swear to God. I thought I was doing her a favor. You know, hooking her up with money. The poor kid. Why... why would they do that to her?”

“She was just a murder to pin on somebody else,” said Dash. “Look, you got someplace safe out of town you can go to for a few days?”

“My sister’s. In Long Beach.”

“Okay, but first, we’re going to my office. I’m going to have an affidavit typed up and you’re going to sign it.”

“What affidavit?” she said, her eyes bugging out at the man.

“Just saying what you already told us. I’ll get my secretary to come in, type it up, and notarize it.”

“But then I’ll be—”

“What you’ll be is smart . You’ll get a deal. No jail time. And your story is memorialized for all to see if need be.”

“You swear?”

“So long as you’ve been square with me on your involvement, yeah, I swear. I’ll fix it with the DA. Now go pack a bag and we can drop you off at the bus station after we go by my office. Memory serves, there’s a southbound bus that leaves in about two hours that stops in Long Beach. You give me your sister’s phone number and I’ll be in contact. Okay?”

She nodded dumbly.

Archer went with her while she packed a bag, then they drove to Dash’s office. He had phoned Morrison from Midnight Moods and she was already there, waiting.

Archer looked at Morrison, all efficiency and professionally outfitted at this time of night, and wondered if she just waited by the phone all night for a call from Dash to say he needed her.

Dash and Dawson wrote out what she was willing to say, and Morrison typed it up in triplicate. Dawson signed three times and Morrison notarized all of them.

After that they drove Dawson to the Greyhound terminal.

She said, “Since I signed that paper, will you still need me?”

“We’ll have to see how it plays out. If it goes to trial, I’ll personally come and get you.”

They watched her get on the bus ten minutes later.

Archer said, “So, we can bring it all down with her affidavit?”

“Not even close, Archer. He said, she said. And unfortunately Armstrong’s words will carry far greater weight than a dame who runs a burlesque.”

“So why’d you have her do it?”

“Every little bit helps, and it was a way to scare her into getting to a safe place.”

“That was good of you, Willie.”

“I don’t have much good in me, Archer. But when it does come out, it feels pretty swell. Can I take another pull on your flask?”

Archer handed it to him. After Dash gave it back, Archer stared down at it as something occurred to him. An awful something. He said, “Look, I just had a thought and need to run it down. You going to be okay?”

“When Pickett and his clowns finish there, I’m going back to the doc’s office.”

“Why’s that?”

“To figure out why somebody needed to kill Myron O’Donnell.”

Archer looked all over Midnight Moods until he found the old gent. He was the one Wilma Darling had pointed out to him the night they’d been having a drink on the terrace. He had the same lovely young lady sitting in his aged lap. Archer asked his questions and got his answers, which he grimly accepted as they proved his forming hunch correct. Then he drove straight to Wilma Darling’s bungalow, where he confirmed that the Ford coupe was gone and the place was empty. Next, he pulled out his map and saw the general direction he needed to take. He figured forty minutes if he made the Delahaye get real excited.

He kept the pedal to the floor, and thirty-eight minutes later he pulled into Ventura. He stopped at an all-night dance club — where people seemed to be having a good time without getting murdered — and asked for directions to his final destination. The bouncer actually knew the address and told Archer how to get there.

“That’s Wilma’s place,” said the man, a beefy gent with a bald head and hands the size of watermelons.

“ Her place?”

“Yeah. Hey, you one of her customers?”

“Customers?” Archer said, puzzled. Then he quickly recovered and said, “Yeah, yeah, I am. Any idea where she is?”

The bouncer’s friendly features fell away as it was clear he did not believe Archer. “Forget it, mac, just forget it. Now beat it, I got work to do.”

He walked away, leaving Archer deeply disturbed.

The house was a one-story stucco with a red tile roof and enough plants, trees, and flowers to hide it from its neighbors. Its backyard was basically the ocean. A storm was drifting in, as Archer had found storms often did around here. It was like the Pacific wanted the coastal residents to be as wet as it was.

The Ford coupe wasn’t in the carport. The porch light was on, and that was it for illumination at this time of night. He pulled the Delahaye farther down the road and out of sight of the house. He got out and flitted back up the quiet street. He chanced looking in the mailbox and pocketed a couple of pieces of mail he found in there, which told him a lot, although the bouncer had already done that. He next circled back around, jumped a fence of the house next door to hers, and traversed the backyard, where the smell of charcoal from a recent cookout competed with the eucalyptus trees for dominance of his nostrils. Although he could still smell his sweat and the stink of fear that went along with it.

Archer squatted down behind the fence separating Darling’s place from her neighbor’s.

He waited for a few minutes there, reconnoitering the land in front of him. Finally satisfied, he gripped the top of the wooden fence and easily propelled himself over, landing in the wiry grass of Darling’s yard. He threaded his way up to the back door and tried the knob. It was locked. He didn’t have Dash’s lockpick kit, but he had a pocketknife. The blade was enough to push back the simple latch. The next moment he was inside and on the wrong side of the law, where Archer was getting to be more comfortable than was probably good for him.