Dream Town

Chapter 46

Paley will have a dozen witnesses swear he was never in Vegas tonight,” Dash said to Archer. “So that’s a dead end. And word is he’s wired tight to Lansky and some other big boys, so the cops will be more hindrance than help. The mob pays way better than the government.”

They were on a United Airlines night flight back to LA from Vegas. Archer glanced out the window as the prop plane wended its way over mountain ranges and valleys and back to Southern California. He still felt the suffocation of being in that burlap sack. He had barely been able to get on the plane, because he sensed the fuselage walls reaching out to crush him.

The stewardess had brought him some ice, which he’d applied to his head and his chin.

One more hard knock to the head, and I might just be done.

When Dash and two other men had cut him out of his burial cloth, he’d asked Dash how he’d come to even be there. Dash had told him that as soon as he’d learned Archer was in Vegas, he’d gotten the next flight out. Before he left, Dash alerted two veteran PIs who covered Vegas and had worked with Dash before. They had picked up Archer’s trail at the Sands, seen him disappear with Little Tony, and then had been quick enough to spot two men loading Archer into a sack and placing him into the trunk of a Plymouth. They had followed, and when the men had stopped and were about to finish off Archer, they’d stepped in with guns firing. Dash figured he winged one of the guys, but they had both gotten away.

“What about Little Tony?” asked Archer.

“Guys like him don’t do the grave digging. He’ll claim he doesn’t know what you’re talking about. He works security for the casino, you looked suspicious. He took you aside and talked to you and then let you go on your way. Anything happened after that, he knows nothing about and he’ll have witnesses to back that up.”

“They could have killed me inside the casino,” Archer had pointed out.

Dash shook his head. “No way Paley would do that. Shots fired, blood spilled, evidence all over? Even the cops couldn’t look the other way on that. And Paley isn’t gonna disrespect the likes of Meyer Lansky and Moe Dalitz and their kind by using a brand-new property like the Sands for a personal execution site; that costs the mob money. Sure, Paley is a sadistic prick. But mobsters like Lansky have a hundred Paleys on the payroll. It would be a slaughter and Paley knows it. So they get the drop on you at the casino, then knock you out and do the deed in the middle of nowhere. They just didn’t know the middle of nowhere would be so populated.”

“Paley seems to believe there’s another party getting some of his dope.”

“That’s interesting. What else?”

Archer filled Dash in on this and also all he had learned about Green, Jacoby, and Mars.

“So the three guys are gambling addicts and Mars also likes the ladies and the booze.”

Archer nodded. “And they’ve all been able to cover their debts. But Green seemed to have fared better than the other two. He still gets to play at the adult table.”

“And Mars? How’d he cover his markers?”

“I forgot to tell you that part. The casinos put the touch on Gloria Mars.”

“And Simon Jacoby?”

“His wife said his business was going gangbusters, so maybe that’s how he covered his. And he inherited their big house and maybe some cash along with it.”

“Now, I know Bart Green is a big-time producer, but two million bucks of gambling losses? No way that’s all coming from the man’s business pocket.”

“I agree. And the Bonhams are involved with Paley somehow. At least the wife is.”

“With a guy like Paley, you never know who he owns.”

“So, do we go to the cops?”

“With what?” exclaimed Dash.

“Let me play out a theory for you, Willie.”

“Fire away.”

“A guy is at Lamb’s house when I call. He answers the phone. I go out there, see Bender’s car, stumble over Bender’s body, and somebody blackjacks my skull. I wake up, find a Wheeldex card in Lamb’s house with the Jade Lion mentioned on it and a name, Jonathan Brewster, which is code for scarface Darren Paley. I call the cops. I head west so I won’t run into them and hit the beach. On the sand I trip into smugglers carrying crates up from a boat. On the very day that Bender is killed! I tussle with a guy and get away. In Lamb’s office at Green and Ransome I find Jade Lion matchbooks. Alice Jacoby swears she’s never been there when I show one of the matchbooks to her, but I have a witness who swears she’s seen Jacoby there. You follow so far?”

“You’re doing fine, Archer. Keep going.”

“I go to the Jade. I stumble over crates with sand all over them. I find a vial with heroin under a bed there. Then I roust Bernadette Bonham at the airport and she immediately flies to Paley. I get fingered by the gal at the Jade as being the guy running around the place that night. Then Paley gets Little Tony to snatch me, and Paley asks me if I know why his shipments are getting short-changed. I don’t, and then he tries to kill me.” He stopped and looked at his partner. “Okay?”

“Okay what? I have no doubt Paley is selling dope. But we can show absolutely no ties between Paley and what you saw on the beach that night. And we have no proof it’s even dope running that they’re doing down there.”

“I think the crates I saw at the Jade were full of—”

“There are a lot of sandy crates and heroin in LA. And a DA could give a shit what you think. You’re up against some big muscle, Archer, and you can’t bring a slingshot to a war. The mob can afford the best lawyers in the business. By the time they finish with you, your ass will be in jail for dope running.”

“But Bernadette Bonham knows Darren Paley. For me that ties what happened on the Malibu beach to the Jade. And it’s not a big leap from there to Bender’s murder in the canyon. And Lamb disappearing. She was scared because maybe she knew something. Maybe she knew about the dope running.”

“And maybe I’m the Queen of England, only I can’t prove it. And Bonham knowing Paley is not a crime.”

Archer sat back and closed his eyes. He knew Dash was right. He had no connection between what he’d seen on the beach that tied into either Bender’s murder or the Jade Lion and Darren Paley. He opened his eyes. “Okay. Let’s go back to square one. Why would Alice Jacoby lie about the Jade?”

“Maybe you need to ask her.”

“Maybe I do. But what about Paley? Do I have to go around with eyes in the back of my head?”

“He’s going to lie low for a bit. He’s got to after what happened tonight.”

“So his boys will tell him about messing up tonight?”

“Are you kidding, Archer? Those boys are probably halfway to Mexico by now. They were just a couple of punks hired at the last minute to do the deed. They won’t even know Paley was calling the shots. That way no stink floats back to him. But Paley will know they screwed up, and if he can catch them he’ll put them in the same hole they were supposed to dig for you. But he’ll have heard the bad news by now. And he’ll have to step back and think about his next move. Which means we got some breathing room.”

“Sounds like a checkers game.”

“Chess, Archer. You play checkers for fun. You play chess for keeps.” Dash handed him a slip of paper. “Liberty’s new address and phone number.”

“Thanks.”

Dash waved to the stewardess and ordered them two bourbons on the rocks.

Archer drained his in nearly one gulp.

“Rough night.”

Archer glanced at Dash, who had a funny look in his eyes. “I know it was a close shave, Willie, too close.”

“It’s not like you did anything too wrong, Archer. Sure, you shouldn’t have let Tony get the jump on you. But in our line of work, you can do things perfect ninety-nine percent of the time, and that last percent puts you in an early grave.”

“Like Cedric Bender?”

“Yeah, like him. So, you still in?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Let me tell you something. When I was with the Bureau we did a raid on one of Capone’s booze operations. This was during Prohibition, you understand. And it was Chicago, so we were playing on Big Al’s home field. The raid went sideways because we got some bad information from a stool pigeon. And then I let one of Capone’s goons get the drop on me. He was one second from drilling a bullet right here.” Dash pointed to the spot between his eyes. “Then my boss, a guy named Melvin Purvis, who was a crack shot, nailed him. That night I was even closer than you were to being dead. After that, Purvis, who was a hell of an agent and taught me a lot, pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted to keep going. Sure, the possibility of getting killed is part of being a federal cop, but a man is still a man and when you get right to the edge, it can change you. And Purvis knew that.”

“Change you how?”

“Make you indecisive, unsure of yourself, hesitate when hesitation just can’t happen. And Purvis wasn’t asking because he was worried about me. He was asking because he was worried about his team. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, Archer. And if I couldn’t carry my weight anymore, that could lead to other agents being killed. That’s what Purvis was getting at.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“I told him thanks for saving my bacon, and I’d be glad to do the same for him.”

The men looked at each other for a significant moment.

“Thanks for saving my bacon, Willie. And I’ll be glad to return the favor if I need to.”

Dash grinned, cuffed Archer on the shoulder, drained his bourbon, put his seat back, and slept the rest of the short flight.