A Gambling Man

Chapter 26

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.”

“Didn’t know that,” said Dash, giving the woman the once-over in a single glance.

Archer drank from his Manhattan. “Nice,” he said. “Thank you.”

Dash eyed her closely. “Heard you were ill recently. Appendicitis. You’re looking fine now.”

“How did you know?”

Dash glanced at Archer before saying, “Myron O’Donnell is in my building. He happened to mention that he performed the operation.”

“He was my mother’s doctor, too. And many years ago he saved my father’s life after a car accident. That’s how I came to use him. He’s a fine surgeon.”

As soon as she finished speaking, her look hardened like wet cement solidifying. “Now, to business.”

“You know why we’re here?” said Dash.

“In a general sense, yes.”

She sipped her drink and then placed it on a doily set on the timber mantel. “But please feel free to enlighten me as to particulars.” She picked up a cigarette case from a side table, clicked it open, and extracted a cigarette. Then she placed it into an ivory holder, which she also took from the case, and ignited the end with a platinum lighter that had sat next to the case. She replaced both exactly where they were before.

A careful, measured woman, Archer observed. Who likes things just so. At least the things she can control. He wrote this impression down.

She blew smoke out and picked up her drink, taking another sip.

Dash said, “Some of this may be troubling to hear.”

“Much of what I have to deal with is troubling, Mr. Dash. And people like you and your associate do not get called in when things are not troubling, do you?”

“I appreciate that you understand the situation.”

She took another puff of cigarette and a sip of her drink. “I’ll understand it even better when you tell me the particulars.”

Archer took another swallow of his drink and eyed the room once more, this time with a nuanced approach.

Everything in this place is for show. He eyed Kemper. Maybe including the woman.

He didn’t write this down; he didn’t have to.

Dash laid it all out for her, piece by piece, regurgitating everything that her husband had earlier told them, including his denials of a relationship with Ruby Fraser.

Kemper took it all in and drained the rest of her drink, then turned and started toward the table as though to make another but seemed to think better of it. It was the only moment of indecision Archer had seen in the woman. And from that glimpse he considered the possibility that she actually might be human, with real blood flowing through her thin veins.

She returned to face them in front of the fire, which now seemed to Archer somewhat metaphorical. She perched on the leather-topped fender surrounding the fireplace opening.

“Have you talked to your husband about this... matter?” asked Dash.

She took a moment to finish her cigarette and tossed it, minus the holder, into the fire. She dexterously rolled the ivory holder around and around between her thumb and index finger. “Not really, no. Douglas is running for mayor, I’m sure you know.”

“Which makes the matter even more delicate, and the timing suspicious.”

The cornflower eyes focused on him with an astonishing degree of severity. “Mr. Dash, you are not a fool, I take it?”

“My worst enemies would accuse me of a lot, and they would be right, but being a fool is not one of them. I’ve seen too much of life and suffered through quite a bit of it. It strikes foolishness clean from you, least it did for me.”

“Then do not intimate that the timing of the election makes this accusation scurrilous.”

“Now that’s a fifty-dollar word,” replied Dash.

“And the only one that comes to my mind to fit the situation.”

“Then you believe that your husband did have an affair with Ruby Fraser?”

Her angry look quickly faded. “I... I don’t know about that. I would hope not. But...”

“Did you ask him?”

“No, I didn’t.” She paused and studied her shoes. “Maybe I didn’t want to know his answer,” she added quietly.

“His political opponents would love to make hay out of this.”

“Alfred Drake most assuredly knows of it, or at least his associates do, which in politics is a difference without meaning.”

“I forgot your father was mayor here and once took a run at the governor’s mansion in Sacramento.”

Her lips pursed for a moment. Archer wasn’t sure if she was holding back a smile or not.

She said, “He won the mayor’s race by a landslide and lost the governor’s contest by the same margin.”

“Is there a lesson in that?” asked Archer.

She turned to him, her look now one of amusement. “Fame and influence are both often fickle and localized.”

“I’m sure it was a hard loss for your father,” said Dash.

“It was, if only because it was the only time he did lose at anything.”

“But Drake may be behind this blackmail attempt.”

“He may, or he may not. I have no idea, really. I actually always thought Alfred Drake was a decent man. But I think that of many people and I’ve been proven wrong before.”

“If he is the blackmailer, we could use that against him,” noted Dash.

“No one expects Drake to win, even with this allegation bubbling up.”

Archer spoke up. “Then why would your husband hire us to investigate the matter if it will have no impact on the outcome of the election?”

She graced him with a look that hit Archer somewhere between his gut and his heart. Her slender tongue slid over the pale, glossy, and full lips.

“An excellent question to which I have no viable answer. Did you ask him that?”

Dash said, “I don’t usually discourage clients from hiring me, and in our defense, we didn’t know the lay of the land yet. But what you said does give me something to chew on.”

Archer said, “So you know Alfred Drake, then?”

“I used to go to him for my teeth.” She smiled. “He’s actually an orthodontist and an excellent one. I think he did a rather marvelous job, taking out some teeth and putting braces on which straightened the ones that were left. I was hopeless as a child. My father was ready to give up on my having any sort of a social life simply because of the atrocious state of my teeth. But it was my mother who finally put her foot down and took me to Drake.”

“I hardly think anyone would have agreed with your father’s assessment,” noted Archer.

This did not earn him a second graceful smile. The eyes grew cold.

“In many ways, his observation was spot-on because people are invariably shallow, at least here. But you can know nothing of that, so don’t bother rendering an opinion.”

Archer held up a hand in a motion of acquiescence and also apology.

This also did him no favors with the woman. “You surrender quite easily, Mr. Archer. I hope you’re not as squeamish in your work. If so, my husband will certainly be overcharged.”

She turned her attention to Dash, as though now totally discounting the value of Archer’s presence. “Anything else, or can you both leave me in relative peace now?”

“Not unless you can think of anything that might help our investigation.”

“If I did, I probably wouldn’t tell you.”

“So, you don’t want to help out your husband here?”

“If Douglas got himself into this, he can get himself out of it.”

“I apologize in advance for this question, but is he the sort of man who has the wandering eye?”

“What man doesn’t?” was her reply.

“Well, I think that’s it for now, ma’am. Thank you for your time.”

She leaned over and pushed a button on the wall. Five seconds later the same man appeared to lead them out.

As they were leaving, Archer put his notepad and pen away and glanced back at Kemper.

She caught him looking and said imperiously, “Something on your mind, Archer?”

“Nothing wrong with having that second drink now. It might taste better at this point.”

“And why is that?” she asked in a disinterested tone.

“You got your piece off your chest and didn’t stumble once over your lines. I’d clap in appreciation except I’m holding my hat.”