A Gambling Man

Chapter 54

“He doesn’t strike me as a man who has sold out to mobsters from Vegas,” said Dash as they drove back to town.

“He actually seems like a good guy who cares about people.”

“Like he cared about the young buck planting the bush?” said Dash.

“Thought you might have noticed that. Any rumors about him on that score?”

“None that stuck. And for a guy like Drake you’d need some hard proof, otherwise he’ll sue your ass off.”

“But you did refer to him as the tooth fairy. Or am I reading too much into that?”

Dash’s features became deadly serious. “That sort of behavior is illegal, Archer, it comes under sodomy and sexual perversion. You can go to prison for a long time for that, and you have to register as a sex offender.”

“Really?”

Dash looked uncomfortable. “Hell, some private eyes spend their careers drilling holes in walls and taking pictures of folks engaged in such... activities.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re hired by neighbors, disgruntled family members, or people who believe themselves to be the guardians of ‘morality.’ Folks went to prison and often died there or were sterilized to ‘cure’ them. My take is, if a guy’s different, so what? Live and let live.”

“Didn’t figure you’d be sympathetic to that sort of thing, Willie.”

Dash looked out the window. “Yeah, I guess I look like an old, fat son of a bitch with all the prejudices that come with it.” He patted his chest. “But my ticker ain’t just there to keep my blood pumping, Archer. Doesn’t the good book say to love thy neighbor?”

“The one I read does.”

“Yeah, well...” He lapsed into silence and ran his fingers along the car window.

“Did you ever do that sort of work, spying on people?”

Dash slowly nodded. “For about a year. And then I’d had enough.”

“So what happened?”

“None of your business.”

“Okay. But I hope I’ve proved over the short time we’ve worked together that you can trust me.”

“I don’t trust easily, Archer.”

“And you think I do?”

“You got your flask?”

Archer handed it to him and Dash took a belt, screwed the cap on, and passed it back to Archer. He settled in his seat and started smoothing down his tie.

“One day a lady comes in and hires me to spy on her fifteen-year-old nephew. She told me she just knew he was engaged in lewd behavior. But when she told her sister her suspicions, the sister was having none of it. Said she needed proof, so the lady comes to me. Later, I realized the broad just hated her sister and wanted to use the kid to stick it to her. But she was paying me money I really needed, so I took my little bag of dirty tricks and went to work. I followed the kid to this abandoned building that had the rep of being a safe place for guys who were ‘that way.’ I snuck in, got the lay of the land, figured out where he was, and drilled a hole in the wall and took my little pictures of him and another kid. I handed them over to my client, who promptly passed them over to the boy’s mom.”

“What happened?”

“The mom and dad apparently went berserk on the kid.”

“That must’ve been tough for the boy.”

“I wish that were the end of the story, Archer. See, the client wanted more evidence.”

“Why?”

“She told me her sister wasn’t sufficiently alarmed by her son’s ‘perverted’ qualities. Her word, not mine. She wanted me to go back and get even more dirt. I learned later she just wanted to rub her sister’s nose in it.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went back with my camera to my dirty little hole and... and when I looked through it there he was hanging from the light fixture. I rushed in, cut him down, and tried to revive him, but he was already dead, Archer. Only fifteen and he was dead.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, I talked to Jesus a lot after that one. After I drank enough whiskey to fill Drake’s swimming pool. Took me a year to get back to work. Pretty much lost every damn thing I had. And you know what?”

“What?”

“I got off a lot easier than the kid did.”

“I’m sorry, Willie.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Dash snapped. “I had it coming. He didn’t.”

Neither man said anything as they drove along. Dash was staring out the window and Archer kept his gaze on the road.

Finally, Archer said, “So that’s why you took a leave of absence?”

Dash turned to look at him. “You ever been so ashamed of yourself you can’t even stand to look at your reflection in the mirror?”

Archer slowly shook his head. “No.”

“Good. I hope you never get there.”

They drove back to the office building. Then they took the elevator up and settled in Dash’s office. The man poured out two fingers of Beam each, sat across from Archer, and said, “Okay, you brought up the trust issue, so let’s talk that through.”

Archer took a sip of the Beam and said warily, “Okay.”

“When were you going to tell me that you’ve been asking questions about that island, Archer?”

Archer set his drink down and leaned back in his seat. “I did tell you about the island but you blew it off. So I thought I’d go it alone. For now.”

“Okay, ‘for now’ is over.”

“How’d you know? Were you following me?”

“If I were, you’d never know it. Reggie McKenzie is a buddy of mine. He’s a sloppy drunk, but okay when he’s off the booze. He told you all about that chunk of rock’s history. You also went to the library and looked through a bunch of materials. Sharon Aster helped you there. Nice gal, but too highbrow for the likes of me. Then you went to the town hall and did the same. Linda, the town clerk, is also a friend of mine.”

“You got lots of friends.”

“It’s not by happenstance. Most PIs cultivate them. At least the good ones do.”

“How’d you find all that out so fast?”

“I just piggybacked on you, Archer.”

“So you were following me.”

“I never said I wasn’t. Library, town hall, McKenzie, back to your boardinghouse to pick up your lady friend, and then up to Midnight Moods. I just had my cup of coffee and waited for you to show.”

“You said you were going to pick up your car and do some thinking.”

“I did pick up my car, which I used to follow you. And I did do some thinking. I was thinking about you.”

Archer smiled appreciatively. “Mr. Shaw said you were the best, Willie. And he was right.”

“I’m not busting your chops, Archer. Yes, you did mention the island, and yes, I did blow it off. And you did what I would have done — you followed up a hunch on your own. So let’s compare notes.”

Archer took out his notepad. “I found out in the real estate records at the town hall that the island was sold by the federal government six months ago to a company called Stearman Enterprises. Even though it was federal property, I guess Bay Town had to have a record of it because Stearman has its office here. The man listed on the paperwork for Stearman—”

“—was Douglas Kemper,” interjected Dash.

“Right,” said Archer. “How’d you know? I never mentioned it to the town clerk lady.”

“Great minds, Archer. Now, at the library you researched certain laws and statutes.”

Archer consulted his notepad again. “A state has all water rights up to three miles off its coast. That’s important for fishing rights and the like. The feds control everything out to twelve miles.”

“And anything beyond that is international waters,” added Dash.

“But in 1947 the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government owns all the seabeds off the California coast, even within the three miles. It’s just the water the state controls.”

“The Supreme Court? How’d you think to check that?”

“When I was in college I wanted to be a lawyer. Things didn’t pan out, but I studied some law and then worked with an attorney. I learned a lot.”

“So this pertains to the island?”

“Right. When the Navy was done with it and pulled out, the federal government assumed its rights to the island. Along came Stearman and bought those rights. I think the law really was meant to deal with oil and gas rights. You have to drill into the seabed to get to those.”

“That’s right,” agreed Dash. “But where does the mayor come into this?”

“That I couldn’t find. I mean, if the state governor has no power over that island, why would a mayor?” Archer paused, recalling a snippet of conversation. “But your buddy Reggie McKenzie did tell me something interesting. He said that about two weeks before he died, Ben Smalls took a boat ride out to that island, and McKenzie said when he came back he did not look happy.”

“Fascinating,” said Dash, his mind clearly moving at high speed.

“Beth told me that his old man, Andrew, hanged himself in his barn.”

“That’s right, he did. I wondered how you knew that when you mentioned it to Drake.”

“I also took a boat and went out to the island. It’s bigger than you’d think. And you can reach it in about fifteen minutes. And there’s something going on out there. I found survey stakes in the ground and a post with the name Lancet Surveyors and Architectural Group on it.”

Dash rubbed his cheek. “So there’s going to be a building put up.”

“Right. And there’s something else.” Archer looked at the man nervously.

“Is this where you tell me what you haven’t told me so far?”

“That night I saw Beth Kemper? I was down at the harbor. I saw a boat coming into shore close to three. It was Armstrong’s boat, and he and Hank and Tony and some other folks were on it. I’m sure they’d been out to that island. That’s what got me thinking about something like that in the first place. Beth Kemper pulled into the parking lot as they were heading to their cars. She and her old man had a heated argument. I followed her to the diner.”

“And you didn’t tell me this before because...?”

“I don’t have a good answer.”

“If you had pulled this from the get-go, Archer, you’d be looking for another job. But I know now you got the chops and the instincts. And I was clearly holding back from you, so there we go. I just got some of my own applesauce thrown in my face. Now, let’s look at this again. Armstrong went to the island. Kemper’s on the documents of the company that bought the property. Fifteen-minute ride out is pretty convenient for carrying folks back and forth who might just want to stay for a few hours and not overnight.”

“But what sort of place would that be?”

“We’ll wait until later, then go find out.”