Dream Town

Chapter 32

Archer next drove to LA International, which was west of Inglewood and expanding at a rapid clip. What had once been a bean field was now one of the busiest airports in the country, operating twenty-four hours a day with planes regularly rising aloft from a flat basin and into the embrace of the prevailing trade winds.

As he was parking he watched a four-prop Continental plane land on the runway and come to a stop a bit farther down the tarmac. He wondered if the Greens flew their plane out of here or maybe out of Lockheed Air Terminal. Or maybe they had their own strip behind their mansion in Beverly Hills. The rich apparently did everything differently.

After questioning a couple of people he found the man he wanted to talk to, who oversaw parking at the airport.

He was of medium height and wearing a gutter-dented gray Stetson fedora covering curly silver hair. His vein-flecked nose and overly ruddy cheeks spoke of the man’s fondness for the bottle. He stood at the doorway of a little building that was hardly big enough for him to stand inside. He looked Archer over as he asked his question.

“The Bonhams, you say?”

“Yeah, they live in Malibu. They flew to France about a month ago and left their car here.”

“So what do you want to know then?”

“Is it still here?”

“What’s it to you?”

Archer produced his PI license and a fin. The man ignored the license and focused on the $5 bill, which Archer knew was good for at least two quarts of his favorite.

“I’m a curious guy.”

“You say they’ve been gone a month?”

“That’s right,” replied Archer.

“Well, they didn’t drive here then.”

“Why not?”

“Because the airport don’t let folks leave their cars here that long. They don’t have the space and they don’t want the trouble if something happens to somebody’s car. You got thieves in this town, you know.”

“Yeah, I heard that. But I was told they drove here.”

“They might very well have, only I’m saying they didn’t leave their car here that long.” He suddenly grinned, showing all of his teeth, both real and false. “But there are lots of places around here you can leave your car for that long. Feel free to check them out and ask your questions.”

“Come on, was that really worth five bucks?” asked Archer, frowning.

The man made a show of folding the bill and putting it in his pocket. “It was to me.”

“Where can I find out if the Bonhams actually went to France?”

“Information desk in the terminal, they can help you.”

“Thanks. And if I come back with more questions, does the five still hold?”

“We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

Archer grinned and looked around at the shower stall digs the man called home. “I can see why you got the big title and snazzy office.”

“One’s born every minute, sonny.”

“Yeah, they are. Pardon me while I go suck my thumb.”

Archer found out that the Bonhams had indeed flown from LA to Idlewild Airport in New York with stops in between. And from there they had flown on an Air France Super Constellation to Paris, via Canada and Ireland. The transatlantic portion of the trip had taken a total of eighteen hours. They had arrived in Paris on December 2.

And then Archer got the whizbang follow-up that almost made him bite his tongue.

“And then returned here on December thirtieth,” said the pert, efficient woman behind the counter.

“Returned?” said Archer. “Peter and Bernadette Bonham came back on the thirtieth?”

The woman looked at her records. “No. According to this, Peter Bonham came back alone on a Pan American Airways flight from Paris to New York, and then he took a United flight here.” She looked farther down the page. “Oh, that’s a coincidence.”

“What is?” asked Archer, who was still trying to process what she’d already told him.

“You’re here asking questions and Mrs. Bonham is flying in today. Her plane from New York lands in about an hour.”

Archer asked for and received the flight number. He tipped his hat and slipped the woman a Lincoln, which she’d deserved far more than the parking lot man had. After that, he headed to the airport bar to have a drink and wait for the Stratocruiser airliner to touch down in the land of glitter and dung.