Дэвид Балдаччи - A Gambling Man

“A lady has to protect herself, Archer. You got a gun. Why shouldn’t I have a gun?”

“Under any other circumstances, I would agree with you. But I’m fresh out of understanding right now. So where is it?”

“I dumped it. It was making me nervous.”

He decided to let this pass, for now, and kept the gun pointed right at her, his finger on the trigger guard.

“So I get no points at all for screwing you? ’Cause I know you enjoyed it, lover boy. Guys can’t fake it, only the gals can do that, only I admit I didn’t have to with you.”

“Yeah, and now that I know the truth about you, I’ll be taking three showers a day to try to get the stink off.”

“A girl has to do what a girl has to do to survive, Archer. But being a man, you would have no clue.”

“I know lots of gals who get by just fine without selling drugs and helping people kill other people.”

“I never wanted to be like ‘lots of gals.’ ”

“And thank God lots of gals never want to be like you . I hope the money you got paid was worth it. And I’m betting it was a lot more than a grand.”

She hiked her eyebrows. “So where does all this leave you and me?”

“In a difficult spot.”

“You have no proof of anything.”

“That’s my difficult spot. But I just wanted to let you know that I know the truth.”

“How decent of you, Archer. I was half serious when I asked where I could get a dozen of you. Of course, you’d start to bore me at some point. See, I don’t like the shiny knights. I like the bad boys who take what they want when they want.”

“Yeah, I know all about them. And the bad girls , too, like you.”

“What a choirboy you turned out to be.”

“I tell you what. Give up Sawyer Armstrong and get a few years shaved off your sentence. He framed his son-in-law for a double murder that Kemper had no part in. Can’t let a guy like that walk the last mile to San Quentin.”

“And why not?” She ground out her cigarette on the tabletop and sat back.

“If you have to ask, any explanation I could give you would be a waste of time.”

“We seem to be wasting a lot of time tonight, Archer. But one thing I wanted you to know.”

“What’s that?”

“I wasn’t surprised to see you here. I was just faking. How’d I do?”

“I’d rate you right up there with Bette Davis. But why weren’t you surprised?”

“I was at that dance club tonight. And the bouncer’s my friend. And he told me all about you.”

She did move well, very well. The Derringer came out from a pocket on her jacket and she got off two quick shots.

Both missed.

Archer’s did not.

Darling lowered her gun and then looked down at her front. The dark green cloth was sprouting another color.

The crimson patch kept growing as she looked up at him, her facial muscles as tensed as a person surprised that she is suddenly dying can make them. A bit of blood emerged at the corner of her mouth as the internal hemorrhaging expanded upward.

She fell to her knees and glanced up at him. Her mouth moved but no words came out. Her head hit the table on the way down. It didn’t matter. She didn’t feel the impact. The dead felt nothing.

Archer looked behind him where the twin Derringer bullets had slammed into the back of his chair right on either side of him.

Part of him thought it would turn out this way. He’d only hoped that part of him would be wrong.

He rose and looked down at her. Fleeting images of their first meeting and their lovemaking raced through his thoughts. Part of him felt lucky, part felt depressed, and part of him, maybe the largest part, just felt sick to his stomach.

He left the way he had come, after wiping his prints off everything he had touched. If he could have dug the bullet out of her he would have. Now he had to be worried about getting fingered for her death.

He drove fast back to Bay Town because he knew there was more to be done.

Archer rode the storm all the way back. It looked like the entire coast of southern California was getting the same treatment. On reaching the town limits he drove straight to his office building. There were no prowlers out front, nor did he see Pickett’s big Chrysler. They must have come and gone, thought Archer.

Dawn was still over an hour away as the storm continued to rage overhead. He hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours, but he had never felt less tired in his life. Killing a person, particularly a beautiful woman with whom you’d previously slept, just did that to you, he supposed. It didn’t make him feel good or bad. He didn’t feel anything, really, and he couldn’t really handle that so he stopped thinking about it.

He entered the office building through a back entrance and crept along the first-floor corridor until he neared the elevator. He got a sight line that showed Earl’s body was no longer where it had been before. He moved forward and saw that the car was empty. He passed by it and drew closer to O’Donnell’s office. He waited, crouching in the darkened hallway, listening and watching. Satisfied that an army of cops wasn’t lurking to bash him in the head, he eased the office door open and peered inside.

Empty and dark.

He hurried through the reception area and thought to pull his gun, just in case. He had five shots left in the barrel. He hoped he didn’t need any of them. He didn’t like the exposed position he was in, but he had to find Dash, and fast.

He nearly jumped out of his shoes when he heard the voice.

“Archer, is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Dash appeared in the doorway leading into the interior hall of the office space.

Archer put the gun away.

“Where did you go?” asked Dash.

In sixty seconds, Archer told him what had happened and why.

“Okay, Wilma Darling bit the dust. She was in on it. And she was selling drugs on top of it. What a piece of work. Nice catch on the flask. But you got some exposure there when they find the body.”

“I know.”

“We’ll have to focus on that later.”

“What did you find?”

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

He led Archer into another room that was filled with metal file cabinets.

Dash turned on the light and took a file off the table in there.

“What’s that?”

“ My medical file, Archer. O’Donnell wasn’t just a friend, he was my doctor, too.”

“Okay,” said Archer, looking confused. “How does that help us?”

“Lots of good stuff in here. My age, height, weight. Medical history. Blood type. Blood pressure.” He blanched. “Not a number I want to really dwell on. But before you go under the knife, they have to know this stuff.”

“What’d you have done?”

“Ulcer surgery.”

“Yeah, Connie mentioned that.”

“O’Donnell cut out some of my gut, so most nights I eat Cream of Wheat and buttermilk.”

“Should you be drinking, then?”

“Hell, Archer, I can only get the goddamn Cream of Wheat down if I do drink.”

“So did you find anything helpful?”

“It’s what I didn’t find that was helpful.”

“Come again?”

“What I didn’t find were the medical files for Sawyer and Eleanor Armstrong, and Beth Kemper. They’re missing.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m sure they provided the same sort of information as mine does. So I sat here going over my file to see what sort of information someone wouldn’t want someone else to know. And then I had to take it a step further and see what sort of information someone wouldn’t want someone to know, when they put all three of those files together. See, it’s important to note that they didn’t take one or two of the files. They took all three and they took them for a reason. You see that, right?”