Dream Town

Chapter 35

Archer picked up his developed prints and the negatives and made a phone call from a pay phone in a Rexall drugstore. The man he was calling was named Jake Nichols. And what the man didn’t know about Chinatown would barely fill a baijiu tumbler.

He was a former PI turned barkeep. Five years ago he’d been shot by police — accidentally, they’d said — while he was looking into a mob-backed gambling ring operating out of Chinatown. Turned out the coppers who pulled the trigger, and their immediate superiors, were actually all in with the mob boys. And when this was conclusively shown, Nichols had gotten a large payout from the city, large enough to buy his own bar. But not large enough to make up for the fact that the rest of his life would be spent without the ability to take a walk whenever he wanted.

The place was called, what else, Jake’s. It was west of Central Avenue near Little Tokyo. On the ground floor of a three-story building, the bar wasn’t too big or too small; Archer considered it just right. On the top of the building was a large billboard for the RCA Company. He’d been introduced to Nichols by Willie Dash. Both men had formerly served as agents with the Bureau of Investigation, now known as the FBI, before going over to the private investigation side.

Archer parked out front and walked in and was immediately greeted by a familiar voice.

“Archer, don’t tell me. Willie can’t snag a fifth of his favorite bourbon in that cow pasture you call home, and he sent you all the way down here to get one from yours truly.”

Archer smiled as Nichols came wheeling around the bar. He was a tightly packed man around sixty with white hair cut military style and mostly black sideburns, creating an interesting, bifurcated look. His face was tanned and leathery even in January, and his forearms — heavily muscled from propelling himself for the last half decade — were revealed by rolled-up sleeves.

His dead legs were covered with a dark blanket. A stogie was settled in one corner of his thin mouth. Despite his grin and good-natured barb, he seemed to be in pain and was. One bullet was still tethered near Nichols’s spine. He would take it to the grave.

The bar wasn’t your typical bottle joint. It looked like one you might find in Morocco or certain out-of-the-way places in Italy, both of which Archer had been to while in the Army. Jake’s was always packed at serious drinking time, which would be in about an hour, Archer calculated, and the clientele was as diverse as the city, which was not the norm. And there was no pub crawling going on. When you came to Jake’s you stayed at Jake’s for all your drinking.

“He says he can never find liquor like you have here.”

“And he never will, because I’m not revealing my sources to that old son of a bitch.” He propelled his chair up to an empty table. “What can I do you for?” asked Nichols as Archer sat down across from him.

Archer answered by pulling the photos out of his pocket and sliding them across. “Guy’s at the Jade Lion. You know who he is?”

Nichols immediately turned serious and studied the photos before looking up at Archer. “Who’s the dish?”

“Bernadette Bonham. Lives out in the canyons of Malibu with her husband, Peter. She just flew in from Paris. Told me she was going home. She went to the Jade instead after we had an interesting conversation about a case I’m working.”

Nichols slid the photos back to Archer. “What do you know about the Jade?”

Pocketing the photos, Archer replied, “They only serve one kind of drink and it’ll nearly kill you unless you’re Chinese. And they have cameras in the bedrooms taking pictures of famous people doing not-so-nice things. And they have sandy crates hidden around the place that once might have held heroin. And it was by the grace of God that I didn’t take my last breath there the other night.”

Nichols took all this in and then relit his stogie. When he spoke his voice was low. “There’re lots of bars and dives in and around Chinatown, Archer. Not as many as there were in Old Chinatown, but they’re getting there. Hell, my place isn’t that far away from it. But the Jade is in a class of its own. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.”

Archer nodded. “I saw that for myself.”

“To answer your question, the man in the photo is named Darren Paley, and he is bad news all around. Dangerous as hell. Done time for some really bad stuff and came out way too soon, probably because of money changing hands, and he’s now doing even worse stuff. They said he’s killed more people than he has fingers on both hands.”

“And the cops just look the other way? I thought the LAPD was cleaning up its act.”

“They are. But they have to pick their battles, and low-hanging fruit brings faster headlines. Paley is a cobra sheathed in armor. The cops go after him, they need to be ready for war. And he’s got mob ties. That complicates things. It always does.”

Archer told Nichols about the actress and what he had seen going on there.

He nodded before Archer was finished. “Blackmail to a tee. Unless she gets other ‘famous friends’ to take the bait, she gets outed. It’s been done before and it works great.”

“And if all of these people get outed?”

“Film business takes a hit, city takes a hit, LAPD takes a hit. Why the hands-off on the Jade makes sense. Plus, they figure if you’re stupid enough to get yourself in that kind of jam, you take your own medicine and don’t look for rescue from the official machinery.”

“You seem to know a lot about this,” said Archer.

“Oh, didn’t I mention? The mob-backed gambling ring guy I was nosing around on that got me stuck in this contraption for life?”

“Darren Paley?” said a slack-jawed Archer.

“I couldn’t prove anything back then and he skated free. And the dirty cops were all over it providing him cover. But it was Paley all right.”

“Where’d he get all the scars?”

“Paley grew up rough and tumble back in Chicago; it’s made him hard as steel. Among other prison stints, he got sent to the pen at Joliet on a murder charge, but it got overturned and he walked free after a year. He was only eighteen. He’s got no heart and ice in his veins. He’ll kill someone one minute and forget it the next. He was a hero in the war. Shot down twenty-some Luftwaffe planes when he was with the Army Air Corps. When that wasn’t a thrill enough for the guy, he got his orders shifted and took his battle to the dirt with the regular Army. Word was they’d have to pull him off Krauts after he’d already killed them because he kept beating and shooting and knifing them. He got thrown out of the army in 1944 for stealing guns and ammo and selling it. The brass didn’t court-martial him because he was such a ‘hero’ in combat and they didn’t want the bad press. Then he jumped right into bed with the mob. This was up in Vegas. He was doing the gambling ring operation on behalf of the Vegas mob, who didn’t want to leave all the illegal dollars to the local boys. Later, he moved here full-time, and now he’s running the Jade. Never turn your back on the man, because he’ll stick a very large knife in it.”

“What’d he do for the mob in Vegas other than run a gambling ring down here?”

“Knee and back breaker for Lansky, Siegel, Cohen, and boys like that. And he was really good at his job. He moved up quickly. They were probably sorry to see him go. But my thinking is they’re still connected at the hip. That’s my spiel on Paley, now talk to me about your case.”

Archer went on to explain about Lamb’s disappearance and the dead Cedric Bender being found at her home.

“I actually met Bender a couple times,” said Nichols. “I didn’t know about his death. He was a good egg. Square and straight.”

“County cops seem to be keeping it under wraps. And they haven’t been to Lamb’s place of business yet, either.”

“Sounds like they got orders to slow-walk this. You got other angles to work, Archer?”

“A few. Hopefully, one will pan out. Anything else you can tell me about Paley?”

“He’s got plenty of smarts. Enough to get some of the solid action.”

“So he might have partners in all the stuff at the Jade?”

“My guess would be yes,” replied Nichols.

“Well, he was talking to the lady from Malibu. They obviously know each other. She said her husband has lots of businesses.”

“And maybe one of them is the Jade,” said Nichols.

“Well, they’re not paying the electric bill and the hired help off one kind of booze.”

“Blackmail, selling dope, and making stag films bring in a nice living. What’s next on your to-do list?”

Archer looked at his watch. “Having dinner with the prettiest girl in town, and I can’t be late.”