A Gambling Man

Chapter 28

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.

Archer had flown on the military version of the DC-4 during the war. That brought back memories of a harrowing flight in dense fog that resulted in a crash landing in which not everyone had survived. But since it was World War II, the grunts who did survive got off and took up the fight once more as though nothing remotely unnerving had happened. He had never really cared for riding in planes after that.

He crossed Sawyer Avenue going toward the ocean, and he could see what the soda jerk girl had meant. Even the dogs looked healthier over here, as did the flowers, trees, and bushes. And the sidewalks held not a scrap of paper or other trash. People were clothed in nicer duds. The price tags of the cars cruising along became elevated, pickup trucks and old, dented Fords were replaced with Coupe de Villes, Eldorados, and chromed Buick Roadmasters that looked big enough to live in. The shop fronts were classier and catered to a clientele that obviously had money. Archer had passed one beauty parlor on the other side of Sawyer. It was dingy with two cracked vinyl chairs, a dirty window, and two old women in their housecoats getting their hair dyed a color he didn’t recognize offhand. He had already passed four beauty parlors on the ritzier side of Sawyer, and each one was nicer than the one before, where each well-heeled patron was greeted at the door with a smile, a handshake, and a symbolic kiss on the behind.

Archer slowed down for traffic and then stopped in front of a shop selling furs. He peered through the front glass and saw a hostess in a long pale green gown and silver shoes catering to an old woman and what looked to be her twenty-something granddaughter, while a tall young woman modeled an ankle-length mink coat. Both granny and granddaughter looked enthralled at the prospect of draping the remnants of dead things over themselves.

He next passed the Mayport Hotel, which Kemper owned. It was six stories high and had twin columns out front, along with a top-hatted doorman in full faux military regalia. A long, pristine burgundy awning was stenciled with the hotel’s name in fancy swirls and loops of calligraphy. A cabstand out front was doing a brisk business. Tall windows were on the street side, and an oak revolving door near the end of the left side of the hotel invited folks into the Mayport Bar and Lounge for libations, live music, and good times, or so the sign said. Through one window Archer could see women in stylish hats and dress gloves having what looked to be a refined tea in the main dining area.

He kept driving and turned left and then right before reaching Idaho Avenue. It was a trim street, shadowed and cooled by a canopy of overhanging trees. The road here transformed from asphalt to cobblestones, and the Delahaye bumped uncomfortably over them. A policeman was on the corner telling traffic where and when to go, and Archer waited his turn until the uniformed gent sent him on his way with a sharp wave of a white-gloved hand.

He’d seen six prowl cars on the other side of Sawyer Avenue and not one on this side. As though the rich didn’t commit crimes, thought Archer. Yet, he also knew that those with lots of money didn’t do it in the open with a gun or knife or a fist like a workingman might employ. They did it in the shadows four layers removed from the actual dirty deed, and nobody came after them because they could afford the best lawyers, knew all the judges, gave to charity, and had good teeth.

He parked in front of a ten-story limestone building that was as neat and refined as the street.

THE KEMPER BUILDING, the gold wall plaque outside read. Archer thought Kemper might operate all his myriad businesses out of this place and then he probably rented the rest of it to other tenants. The receptionist took his name and request and got on her sleek telephone switchboard to call up to Douglas Kemper’s office. With that done, she sent him on his way with the suite number on the very top floor.

He eyed the marquee in the lobby, and it showed that the place was fully leased, to businesses with impressive-sounding names. Overcoming his fear of enclosed spaces, Archer rode an automatic elevator car up to the top floor. It had been a bit easier to beat his phobia this time, because the elevator was mostly all glass wrapped in chrome. He thought Earl from Dash’s building might go crazy riding up and down all day in the thing. And he assumed at night that one might get some unsettling reflections. He, for one, didn’t want delusions occurring at a hundred feet in the air.

But then again, they probably exist at street level, too.