Dream Town

Chapter 59

Archer drove out to Malibu. The sky was clear, the sun warm but not too warm, the humidity nonexistent. And still Archer was sweating. The investigation was close to getting out of control and he had just lost for the time being the one man who had given him a decent shot to bring this case home.

He stopped at a gas station and phoned the county cops. Two pass-throughs later and Phil Oldham came on the line.

“Heard on the wire about Willie and Chinatown. How’s he doing?”

“He’s going to make it, but it was close. Too close.”

“You were there?”

“I was. How’s the Bender case coming? Got the killer yet?”

“Why should I spill to you?” Oldham said brusquely.

“No reason that I know of other than we’re both trying to get to the same spot.”

“We’ve made some progress. We fished his car out of the ocean.”

“I heard. You know a guy named Darren Paley, manages the Jade Lion in Chinatown?”

“Is that why you two were there?”

“Do you know him?”

“I know of him. Is he involved in what happened to Bender?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. And you might want to patrol the western half of the Malibu beaches, say around one to four in the morning.”

“For what?”

“What do you think?”

“Smuggling? What?”

“The usual,” replied Archer.

“You seen this action?”

“Maybe I have. And it’s not just dope.”

“What else?” asked Oldham.

“Try people on for size.”

This seemed to get Oldham excited. “I want you to come in and make a statement and tell us what you know.”

“Why? I heard you boys weren’t working extra hard to get Bender’s killer.”

Oldham didn’t answer right away. “Who’d you hear that from?”

“Is it true?”

Again, Oldham didn’t answer right away. “Where are you?”

“Seventy-six station in Malibu.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Eighteen minutes later the old Plymouth lurched into the parking lot of the gas station and Phil Oldham rolled himself out.

“Let’s walk,” he told Archer.

They headed to the beach. It seemed to be a popular spot for confidential talk, thought Archer.

The tide was coming in, so they kept to high ground as the breakers covered their discussions and the seagulls fought against the wind in making their dives for mealtime.

Oldham looked even pastier than before, his clothes grungier, but his eyes were bright and alert, and the man looked pissed.

“Your source was right,” he said as they walked along. Oldham’s hands were shoved deep into his pants pockets and the remains of a stogie rolled around in his mouth. “Soon as we pulled the car from the water I got assigned to another case.”

“You can’t just sweep a corpse under the rug.”

Oldham shot him a glance. “Can’t you, Archer?”

“I thought you county cops were immune from the LAPD disease.”

“Says you.”

“No, says you.”

“Then maybe I was wrong.” Oldham turned and hurled the stogie toward the water.

“I promised Bender’s widow I’d find out what happened.”

“I checked into Bender. He was a good guy, but he had a lot of unpaid bills. They were threatening to take the house.”

Archer stopped walking and looked at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. I guess he’d borrowed big against it when his business wasn’t doing too good. He couldn’t make the mortgage payments. They were foreclosing on it.”

“But his widow still has the house.”

“That’s because the debt got paid off. I didn’t dig deep enough to find out how. I didn’t have the chance.”

“But this sort of changes things.”

“How?”

Archer looked off for a few moments and studied the breakers coming in. “Even good guys can make bad choices when things get desperate.”

“How do you mean?”

Archer continued to stare out at the rising ocean. And in that moment certain things seemed to come together with startling clarity. “How much was the mortgage on Bender’s house?”

“What? Oh, about five grand, something like that.”

“No private dick is going to make that running down regular cases in a couple of weeks.”

“What are you getting at, Archer?”

“Like I said, good guys make bad choices when they get pushed.”

“You talking about Bender?”

“I’m talking about all of us.”