Dream Town

Chapter 39

The funeral service was sparsely attended, and Archer kept watch out for anyone whom Bender didn’t recognize. He knew that sometimes people responsible for the deaths of others came to the funeral looking for things helpful to their cause. But Mrs. Bender reported no strangers.

After seeing the body in the coffin, Archer noted that the mortician had done a good job covering up the wound that had killed the man. However, Cedric Bender looked deflated, as though his life’s ending had sent much of himself elsewhere.

Later, at the gravesite, a minister said all the religious words required during such an occasion and then the coffin was dropped into the hole and everyone left, as everyone always did after a funeral, except for the deceased.

Archer drove Mrs. Bender back home and left her there with a hundred extra dollars of his own money in her pocket, funds he said had been collected through a group of PIs who had known and respected her husband.

He backed out of the driveway as she stood at the screen door contemplating the rest of her years living alone amid the stench of the fruit and nut groves. A gun fired and a life totally transformed.

Find the son of a bitch that did this to my husband.

Yes, ma’am.

He drove back to LA, and, using a fake name, checked into a cheap motel in Silver Lake, north of downtown Los Angeles. Just like many things in this area, its name was a fantasy. There was no lake. There was a reservoir named for the politician who helped in its creation. Archer left his bag there and drove straight to the airport.

He asked enough people to finally find where he needed to go. And from what he was told, he might just be in luck.

He walked over to a small, low-slung building with fuel pumps out front. There he found a man in his forties dressed in overalls and a greasy snap brim hat, who looked over the invoice Archer showed him.

“Oh, yeah, sure. The Greens’ Beechcraft. Real nice machine. Seats six, plus two pilots, but they only got the one. You know Mr. Green?”

“I know his wife.”

“Do you now, feller? Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I take it you don’t care for Mallory Green?”

He rubbed his bristly mustache. “Let’s just say I like the quiet lady types who do what they’re told and who respect the rule of order in a household with the man at the head. That sure as hell ain’t her.”

“She said I could fly to Las Vegas in the plane, but maybe it’s already there or coming back this way with Mr. Green?”

“No, it’s here.” He pointed to a distant building and said, “That’s where they keep it. Pilot’s name is Steve Everett. Good man. Loves that plane. Dotes on it, you could say.”

Archer thanked him and headed on to the distant building. He found Everett under the Beechcraft’s fuselage with a wrench tugging on a bolt. He was a small, lean man in his midthirties, with pomaded jet-black hair and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. He wiped his palms off on a rag and shook Archer’s hand.

“Nice plane,” said Archer, looking over the twin engine Beechcraft with the dual tails.

Everett smiled and patted the plane’s skin. “Flew one as a trainer during the war. Army Air Force called it the C45.”

“I was infantry but we flew some. Can’t say I loved it.”

Everett grinned and lit his smoke. “Best place for me is up there in the clouds. No problems, no nothing except you, your ride, and God.”

“So, Bart Green is a nice guy to work for?”

“Sure, sure. And it’s a sweetheart job. He flies mostly to Vegas. Easy-peasy.”

“He’s in Vegas now?”

Now Everett’s expression became more guarded. “Who wants to know?”

“Mrs. Green wanted me to fly up there to talk to him about one of his writers who’s gone missing.”

“What writer?”

“Eleanor Lamb.”

“Black hair, little, skinny number with glasses?”

“Yep. You know her?”

“She’s flown to Vegas with us before.”

“Really? Is she a gambler?”

“Don’t know. I just fly ’em there. I don’t party with them. I go to a bar, have a few beers, pull a few slot machine levers, check out the show gals.”

“So is Green still in Vegas? ”

“He is. Was going to come back today, but I got a call pushing it back.”

“So what about flying me up there? Can you do that?”

“I’d have to get permission. This baby costs money to fly.”

“Why don’t you call Mrs. Green? Her husband doesn’t know me from Adam.”

“Okay, just sit tight and I’ll see. It’s a nice day to fly so I wouldn’t mind getting up there.”

He was gone a few minutes and when he came back he said,

“Be ready to go in about an hour. Mrs. Green gave the okay on you.”

“Does she use the plane much?”

“Oh, yeah. But they never fly together. As I said, Mr. Green usually goes to Vegas and I don’t think Mrs. Green cares for the town much.”

“He have a regular place he stays out there?”

“Used to be the Desert Inn, then the Sahara, that opened about three months ago. But as of two weeks ago the Sands is his new favorite. Just opened in December. They got the Copa Room there. That’s where he’s staying now. Mr. Green likes all the new-new, if you get my meaning.”

“Does he gamble?”

“Oh, yeah, big roller. I hear he loses a lot more than he wins, but the guy is printing money in this town, so who cares?”

I do, thought Archer.