Dream Town

Chapter 25

I’ll have to play a nurse in one of my next pictures, Archer. I mean, look at all the practice I’m getting with you.”

Callahan had washed the slash on his hand, dabbed enough peroxide on it to make the hairs on Archer’s neck stand up and salute, and then applied ointment and a bandage, winding it around his wrist and tying it off.

He had told her some of his adventures from the night, and she kept shaking her head and warning him that the next time might not be so easy for him. Yet her look was far more worried than her words.

“I didn’t think this one was easy,” he said.

“Who was the actress? I’m just wondering if that’s her lipstick on your collar.”

“She was a little loose with her affections. Comes with the drugs. I don’t remember her name. She was platinum blond and curvy and appropriately breathless.”

“Well, that narrows it down to just about everybody. You sure you can’t remember a picture she was in or something?”

“I don’t go to the movies all that often. Sort of a waste of time for me.”

“Thanks, Archer, a lot.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. Anyway, she said she was with MGM. The fixer there doesn’t know about the Jade, at least that’s what she said. She also said if they did know, they’d use it to blackmail her into a new deal, and she’d have to sleep with the studio head again.”

“And what, you’re surprised by that?”

“But if she keeps going back there, her career is going to be over because she’s going to croak.”

“Maybe she wants that.”

“She had a fur coat and a Rolls with a chauffeur and she was maybe our age.”

“At first it’s the money and fame and it’s great. But then all that takes a back seat, because they’ve all got the damn furs and a Rolls with a driver. It’s a lot of pressure, Archer. Some folks get to the top and suddenly realize they don’t want to be there. They don’t want to have to keep doing what it takes to stay there. She just might be looking for a way out. I just hope she’s breathing when she finds it.”

He flexed his injured hand and then mixed himself a whiskey and soda, and a gin and tonic for Callahan. He handed hers over and said, “But her only way out might be a grave.”

Callahan sat in a chair with one long leg elegantly crossed over the other, and sipped her drink. “She wouldn’t be the first and she won’t be the last.”

“That’s pretty tough,” he finally said.

“I know it. But I’m not a star, Archer. No one’s trying to hook me on drugs and that bondage stuff. I’m not valuable enough.”

“And if you ever get that valuable?”

“Then I’ll have to deal with it. But that’s a long road, at least for me.”

“And somebody’s taking pictures of her. I saw the camera.”

Callahan thought for a moment and said, “Maybe that’s why she keeps going back.”

“So the Jade is blackmailing her?”

“This is LA, Archer. Somebody is always blackmailing someone else.”

He looked at his drink and shook his head. “This place stinks right down to the core.”

“And still you keep coming back. And it’s not just to see me.”

“There is a certain intoxication with the place, I’ll admit that. Plus, the cases here are... more original.”

“Can’t get that same high in Bay Town? Because in a way, you’re an addict too.”

“Keep going, Liberty, I’m not nearly depressed enough yet.”

“So, Alice Jacoby goes to the Jade? But she told you she’d never heard of it.”

“The lady tonight was on drugs. Maybe she was mistaken. But she seemed pretty sure. And if so, Jacoby lied to me.”

“What would Jacoby be doing at the Jade?”

“She struck me as being pretty straight-laced, but sometimes it’s those very same ones who end up being the wild spirits.” He took out the vial he’d found in one of the rooms. “I got a pretty good idea what’s in here.” Callahan looked at it. “What?”

“Heroin. They bring it in from Mexico mostly.”

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“Sleep. I haven’t done a lot of that in the last couple days. Hey, can you do one thing for me? The gal checking people in at the Marses’ party?”

“Donna, what about her?”

“Can you talk to her and see if Lamb ever showed? I have to be really certain about it.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

She rose and sat on the arm of his chair, running a hand gently over his head, avoiding the bandaged part. “Is it really worth it, Archer? I mean, like you said, you make just a fraction of what I do standing up in front of a camera and regurgitating someone else’s words. And no one’s trying to kill me while I’m doing it. Hardly seems fair.”

“I’m reasonably good at being a PI, I enjoy the work, and I hope I’m doing a little bit of good.”

As he heard himself say these words, Archer wondered if any of them were really true.

She stopped rubbing his hair. “And if you end up getting killed?”

“Then you can miss me.”

She frowned. “That’s not funny. You’re the only real friend I’ve got.”

“Then you need to get out more.” He rose. “Go to sleep. You’re on set tomorrow. And I need my shut-eye. Things will look better in the morning.”

She stood and faced him. “How was her kiss?”

“I’ve had better.”

“Oh really? From who?”

He said, “You’ve already forgotten?”

“I didn’t forget, Archer. I plan on taking that memory with me for the long haul.” She kissed him on the cheek and left, shutting the bedroom door behind her.

Archer went over to the window and looked out.

Was it worth it?

He didn’t have a ready answer, which might have been an answer in itself.

Archer did not sleep much. Every dream he had did not end well for him.