Dream Town

Chapter 30

Archer didn’t know what the First National Bank of Malibu looked like, but the second resembled an In-N-Out Burger restaurant, including the red-and-white-striped awnings on three sides. But the bank was far bigger than the In-N-Out Archer had visited in Baldwin Park, California, while he was there on a case. The food wasn’t bad and it was cheap, and Archer thought the place might make a go of it.

He parked in front and could see through the plate glass four women at desks working away like dutiful bees. There was a drive-through teller on the left side and two more tellers inside. There were three cars in the drive-through, four cars in the parking lot, and five people standing in line at the inside tellers, waiting to do their banking business.

Commerce was just flowing in this place like a high tide coming in.

Behind a glass wall in one corner sat a big desk with a walrus of a man in a burgundy rayon suit that managed to somehow look faded. He was in his forties and certainly well-fed. He was well-groomed, too, although Archer wasn’t sure whether the man’s hair was actually his or was simply on loan from the bank at a competitive interest rate. Next to the desk was a brass spittoon that did not look ornamental. Here it was 1953 and people were still spitting their tobacco instead of driving it into their lungs.

Archer wasn’t certain where they kept the safe, but every bank had one, which was why they kept getting robbed.

Archer opened the door, causing a little bell to tinkle.

The women all looked up and smiled uniformly, apparently in accordance with strict bank protocols, while the walrus glanced his way once and then returned to scrutinizing the pages of the Wall Street Journal, as though his personal fortune was all wrapped up in there.

Archer approached one of the women and took out the check. “I had a question about something having to do with this.”

He showed it to the woman. She was in her late twenties, brown-haired, doe eyes the same color, and with a serious, attentive look, as though one day she wanted to be seated where the walrus was. The woman next to her was a cool, clear-eyed blond gal with ambitions of her own, though her glimpse of cleavage where her sweater zipper had slipped down showed she was coming at the path to a better life from another angle than her coworker.

Doe-eye looked at it and said, “What seems to be the problem? Were there insufficient funds to cover it?”

“No, I actually haven’t tried to cash it. You see, Miss Lamb already paid me, but then this check came in my mail and I wanted to return it to her.”

The woman looked at the address on the check, and her confused look deepened. “Well, she just lives right up in Las Flores Canyon.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve been there. But she’s not there and the police won’t let me in.”

“The police!”

“Yes, apparently they found a dead body in her house.”

Having obviously overheard this, the walrus put down his paper, rose from his desk, adjusted his cuffs, massaged the knot on his tie, and headed ponderously over.

“Can I help you?” he said in a smooth voice that Archer took an instant dislike to. As a teenager he’d bought a car from a guy who sounded just like that. And the car’s transmission had failed as soon as the thicker oil the guy had poured into the gearbox to mask the failing gears clogged everything. When Archer had gone back to get his money, the gent disavowed all knowledge of the vehicle, Archer, or the existence of any known connection between them.

“I hope so,” said Archer, smiling because he felt he had to at the moment. He explained things again.

“A body?” said the man, who had introduced himself as Horace Mincer, the bank branch manager. “I’ve seen nothing in the papers.”

“It just happened recently, and they’re probably putting the kibosh on the reporters doing their snooping. Do you know Miss Lamb?”

“Well, yes, I mean, as a customer of the bank, I do.” He looked at the check. “What did Miss Lamb need with a detective agency anyway?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

Mincer shot him a glance. “Well, what do you want us to do about it, fella?”

“I was wondering if you had another address for her where I could drop it off or mail it?”

“She has an office somewhere in LA, I believe. She’s a secretary or something for a big film schmuck.”

“I tried there. They haven’t heard from her and they’re getting quite worried. And she’s not a secretary. She’s a very talented writer for the movies.”

The man looked at Archer like he was trying to feed him a line that could not possibly be true. “Is that right?”

“Goodness,” said Doe-eye. “She’s gone missing?”

Mincer glanced sharply at her, as though trying to determine from which planet the woman might have fallen into his bank. “Right, this way, Mr....?”

“Archer.”

“Right. Better to discuss this in private.”

“It always is.”

The man gave him another stupid look that made Archer wonder if he could even add numbers much less provide cogent information.

They settled behind the glass wall and the man took out a cigar from his desk drawer, sheared off the end with a pinky knife, lit up, and puffed on it, his cheeks performing like fireplace bellows to get the ignited end going.

Archer watched him do this and looked him over once more. In the fellow’s forty-plus years of living, Archer came away with the conclusion that the gent had possibly stopped maturing around the age of twelve.

Mincer put his wingtips up on the desk, blew out smoke, and then tacked on a stupid grin. “Now that we’re away from the little girls, give me the straight dope on this, buddy.”

“Come again?”

He held up the check and then dropped it on his desk. “Who in their right mind turns down free money? You say the lady paid you twice? Okay, you keep both payments and she can ask for the overpayment back. What kind of nut volunteers to do it?”

Archer pretended to be offended as he picked up the check and put it away in his pocket. “This kind of nut. Plus, I get the rep of cheating my clients, how long do you think I’d be in business?”

“Okay, okay, don’t get all sore. It’s no skin off me.”

“What can you tell me about Lamb?”

“Why?” Mincer asked.

“She’s missing, as I said. I’d like to find her.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Is she a good customer?” asked Archer.

“No problems that I know of.”

“She bought a nice house up in the canyon, then did a big remodel. Put in a pool and everything. You people hold the mortgage on all that?”

Mincer put his feet on the floor and swiveled to face Archer with the expression of a man about to do some business of his own. “Technically, we’re not supposed to talk about this stuff with third parties.” He hiked his eyebrows in a crude show of silent communication.

“Well, speaking for interested third parties, how much does it take to get around technicalities in this place?” asked Archer, reaching into his jacket pocket for his wallet.

Mincer glanced at the quartet of ladies, several of whom kept shooting darting glances their way. “Not here. Let’s go for a walk.”

“I’m all for fresh air.”