Dream Town, page 33
And that was when Archer stepped out, gun in hand.
Green froze when she saw him. Then she raised the bat but he raised his gun, and that battle was quickly over.
“What the hell are you doing here, Archer? You broke into my house. I’m going to call the police.”
“Don’t bother. I’m going to call them. Then you can explain what your dead pilot is doing in the trunk of your Packard.”
Green had her back to the broad windows and Archer took a moment to glance over her shoulder.
That was when he saw something that hadn’t been there before. A boat was tied up to the dock. And it wasn’t the boat he’d seen earlier.
A voice barked, “Drop the piece, Archer, and both of you get down here. Now.”
Archer and Green looked toward the stairs.
Darren Paley and Little Tony were halfway up them. With guns pointed and expressions radiating serious business.
Chapter 71
ARCHER AND GREEN WERE FORCED TO SIT side by side on a lovely couch, the beauty and costliness of which Archer ignored since twin guns were pointed at his head.
Bernadette Bonham was perched on the arm of an upholstered chair. She was wearing the same clothes Archer had seen her in the previous night. She looked haggard and scared, but also a bit triumphant as she gazed at Archer, as though he had never amounted to much of a challenge.
Paley sat across from them; Little Tony stood to the man’s left.
Archer said to Bonham, “So, is this where you tell me ‘c’est la vie’?”
In answer she took out a Gaulois Bleu cigarette and lit it with a chromium-plated lighter with the initial B on it. She followed this with a tiny smile. “Say what you want. What will it matter? I will tell you. Nothing. It matters nothing. And you will, I think, tell no one anything ever again.”
He noted the initial on the lighter and said, “You know, you’re not really Mrs. Bonham.”
“She’s his widow,” interjected Paley.
“No,” said Archer. “She’s not.”
“And why not?” demanded Bonham.
“Because he was already married and never got divorced. That makes him a bigamist and your marriage illegal and nonbinding. A sham. But hell, ‘c’est la vie.’”
“You have no idea of what you are talking about,” she retorted.
“I have every idea. Your husband’s real name was Nathaniel Sommers. He married Eleanor Lamb a long time ago.”
“Ellie! This is insane what you say!” exclaimed Bonham.
“You really didn’t know he had married your little school friend?”
“This is a lie.”
“No, this is all true. You knew he was married before, only he lied to you about his first wife dying. He courted and married Lamb. He worked for the State Department. He got transferred to South America. He went there to set up house for himself and the missus. Only he did a runner instead. They never divorced, so she’s the widow, not you, in case you were thinking of inheriting everything—which I wouldn’t advise.”
Bonham glanced nervously at Paley, who only had eyes for Archer. She spat, “Peter would never marry someone like her. She is ugly.”
“Well, he did. He married her in France, same as he did you. Maybe there are multiple other women out there he walked down the aisle with. Of course it didn’t last long with Lamb.”
“I do not believe any of this.”
“Lamb was blackmailing him with the fact of their marriage. That’s why they were arguing at your party. It had nothing to do with property lines, but you already knew that, because you told me you didn’t believe it, either.”
Bonham shot Paley another glance.
Archer continued. “But you had your old pal Paley waiting in the wings, so maybe you didn’t care what was going on with your ‘hubby’ and Lamb. Or maybe he’d been cheating on you with other ladies and this was payback time.” Archer turned to look at Green. “And here you are, partners with Bonham in the dope business. Drinking at Paley’s trough, to use his words. Gee, Bernadette, here Paley was trying to figure out who Peter was screwing him over for, and you couldn’t even find out that it was Mallory Green. It’s a wonder Paley didn’t slit your throat for gross negligence.”
Bonham shot Paley another, far more nervous glance.
“That wasn’t her job and dames don’t know business,” Paley said. “She introduced me to her husband, but business is strictly between the men. I never mentioned what was going on to Bernadette because my rule is simple: If you don’t have to know, then you won’t know. And I didn’t even know where, when, or how the stuff was coming in. Bonham was no dummy, he saw to that, and I knew he told Bernadette nothing, either. And Bernadette just likes the nice things the dope business can bring, right, honey?”
“This is true,” she said, but Archer noted the lady didn’t look nearly as confident now. “And I think Peter would slip sleeping pills into my drink on certain nights. I would wake up in the morning and there he would be next to me, smiling and so attentive. But it made me think: What is he doing during the night that he does not want me to know?”
“Well, now you do know,” said Archer.
“I know nothing about any dope business,” said Green.
Archer looked at her incredulously. “Then there’s a trunk here full of heroin that’ll knock your socks off, lady.”
Paley eyed Green. “Even this stupid PI’s got your number.”
“Yeah, Paley, so stupid I found Bonham’s body where you left it. The cops got an All Points out. It’s over.” He glanced at Tony. “You hitched your ride to the wrong pony, Little Tony. You should’ve stuck with the mob.”
“None of that matters, Archer,” said Paley, plucking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it up with his free hand, while holding his gun on Archer. “So what if she’s not married to the guy? And cops will do what cops do. We won’t be around to catch.”
“All Points is tough to beat. Feds will be involved, too, because of the dope. And the slave operation,” added Archer. This wasn’t true, yet, but Paley didn’t have to know that.
He shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about no slaves.”
“Sure you do—half your staff at the Jade probably came that way. Profits go way up when you don’t have to pay your ‘employees.’”
“Again, it doesn’t matter. We’ll be out of here in a few hours.”
“How is that?” asked Archer. “The road’s being watched, though I know you have a boat. But boats are slow, and when the lake ends the boat has to stop.”
Paley looked at Green. “We’re leaving in the lady’s plane. It’s parked at a private airstrip near here.”
“The pilot’s dead,” Archer pointed out.
Paley said, “I was in the Army Air Forces. Got my private pilot’s license. I can fly anything.”
Archer sucked in a breath because he did know that. Jake Nichols had told him.
Paley turned to Green again. “And you’ll be going with us.”
“Why?” she said with an alarmed expression.
“Because I want to drop your body over the ocean in the middle of the night on the way to South America.”
Green stiffened and looked like she might be sick.
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to shoot you first. You’ll never know it when you hit the water. I got some compassion.”
“I think we might be able to work something out,” she said hoarsely.
“You horned in on my business to pay your prick husband’s gambling markers. And now you have to pay for that. And I never forgive a debt. Archer here knows that, right?”
Archer said, “You hired Bender to find out about who was horning in?”
“Paid him damn good money and he came through in the end.” He glanced at Green. “He had pictures of this bitch and Peter Bonham with the truck and on the beach where the dope came in. Then he ran down who she was. Never would have figured a dame for being in this business. I admit that one threw me, all right. And Bart Green’s lady on top of it.” He eyed Green again. “If I had any inkling your hubby was involved in this, I’d kill him, too. But in his report Bender said it was all you. Don’t matter. Without the dope money to pay his gambling losses, Bart’s history. The boys in Vegas will see to that.”
Archer said, “But when I saw you in Vegas you had no clue who was taking some of your dope.”
“That’s ’cause I just got Bender’s report. He must’ve mailed it before he got whacked. It told me everything. That’s why I’m here. To take care of this lady. I just got you as a nice, little bonus.”
“So who killed Bender, then? My take is Peter Bonham.”
“I’m thinking the same. He must’ve found out Bender was on to him. He kills him and dumps the problem in another house.”
“Yeah, but not a random house. You didn’t know about Eleanor Lamb’s involvement in blackmailing Peter Bonham over his bigamy?”
Paley shook his head and eyed Green. “All I know is this bitch screwed me.”
“And she wouldn’t have killed Bender and dumped his body at Lamb’s house because that could have messed up her dope business.” Archer glanced at Bonham. “And that’s probably why your bigamist hubby came back early from France. He got wind of Bender and decided to take care of him. I wonder how that happened.”
She shrugged. “I say nothing.”
Archer was about to say something but then stopped. A thought had just occurred to him and he wondered why it hadn’t before. It had been staring him right in the face all this time. He just hadn’t put the pieces together. He hoped he had a chance to see it all through. From the looks of things, he was going to carry this latest deduction to the grave.
Then another thought hit him. They had taken his gun, but not something else. While everyone was looking at Bonham, he lowered one hand next to his side and felt the object in the side pocket of his coat. He moved his finger around slowly until he felt it. Then he pushed against it and held down the talk button on the walkie-talkie.
Archer next looked at Green and said loudly, “Only you pretended you were the one to hire Bender. You’re a much better actress than you give yourself credit for. You had me fooled with your little seizure act when I told you Bender was dead. Then you hired some goon to break into Bender’s office in case I went down there to check. That way I would think someone had taken his case files on you and whatever else he had showing you had hired him. Of course there never were any files. But your goon missed an invoice for plane fuel that led me right to you and Bart, only I didn’t know all the curves it would throw me along the way. And I don’t know if Bender had made copies of his report and photos for Paley. Probably not, because he knew the guy was scum and Bender didn’t want a reminder of what he’d done for the money.”
Green said wearily, “I suppose I should have hired a better goon.”
“But I had figured it was screwy as soon as I went down there to look at his office. The reports you gave me, supposedly from Bender? They were all typed.”
“So?”
“First, your husband wasn’t having affairs. Your pilot mentioned beautiful ladies flying around with Bart, but those were his nieces. And what I found out in Vegas showed he was no ladies’ man. So the reports you gave me were wrong. And Bender didn’t have a typewriter or a secretary. All his other reports were handwritten. That’s because you typed those reports, which was one reason they were so vague. You were just making it up.”
“I think you chose the right career, Archer,” she said bitterly.
“Short though it might be,” interjected Paley with a malicious look.
She looked at him and said, “Mr. Paley, you can have it all. Every shipment. I’m done.”
“I know you’re done because I say you’re done. And I have other plans, in another country. I got my stash. I can live like a king.” He looked at Little Tony. “Chitchat’s over.”
Paley rose and pointed his gun at Archer. “You first.”
Archer thought back to what Samantha Lourdes had told him about Paley: He wouldn’t miss the second time.
Goodbye, Willie and Connie. Goodbye, Liberty. I’m sorry, real sorry.
The ensuing gunshot flung him right back into the grit of reality.
Chapter 72
AT FIRST, IT SEEMED THAT LITTLE TONY didn’t know he’d been shot. A second later, it became all too apparent. To him. The bullet had gone into his chest and stayed there, about two inches to the right of the heart. Blood spurted out and sprayed across Green’s fine negligee and sofa like someone had let go of a fire hose filled with plasma. She screamed and jumped back, toppling over the sofa, as Little Tony fell sideways to the floor. By the startled, fixed state of his eyes, he would not be getting back up.
With a shriek, Bonham dropped her Gaulois Bleu and took cover behind the chair.
Paley calmly fired up the stairs at where the shot had come from. He fired twice more, and that was all the time Archer needed to grab the dead Tony’s weapon, aim, and pull the trigger.
Paley had a different idea, though, and he had flipped over a thick, wooden-topped table and took cover behind it. Archer’s slugs lodged in the wood. Archer glanced up the stairs to see who was up there. Had Swinson or Reid somehow gotten into the house and upstairs after hearing everything over the walkie-talkie? He couldn’t imagine how they would have managed that so fast.
He ducked down as the cracks of bullets fired by Paley whizzed by overhead.
“Oh, God, help me.”
He looked over to see Green clutching her bloody arm. Her skin and sleepwear were stained with red from the blood seeping from her wound.
Archer looked back as a window shattered.
He saw that Paley had thrown the table through one of the huge windows and was climbing into the opening and pulling Bonham along with him. Archer pointed the gun, but the only thing he would hit was Bonham in the back. And despite everything, he couldn’t bring himself to do that. His finger slid away from the trigger, even as a bullet smacked near his head. He looked up and saw the muzzle of a pistol resting on the handrail. He fired until his gun banged empty. The muzzle disappeared. He heard the sounds of running feet.
“Help me!” cried out Green.
He knelt beside her, looked at her wound, and said brusquely, “That won’t kill you. Wrap your robe belt just above the wound as a tourniquet. Now, shut up and sit tight.”
Archer searched Little Tony’s pockets and found his gun, which they had taken.
He took the steps two at a time and reached the second-floor landing. He looked back at the window and saw Paley and Bonham reach the boat they had come in. He was torn between going after them or seeing who had just tried to kill him. The latter won out.
Archer took the hall to the right when he heard a door slam down that way.
He kicked open three doors in a row and then peered inside. The fourth door he kicked open answered him with two shots. They ended up in the wall behind him because he had ducked out of the way. He was getting a little annoyed with all the gunplay. He fired two well-placed shots into the gap between the door and doorjamb. He heard a scream, and something fell.
Archer pivoted into the open doorway, his gun swiveling in front of him.
She was lying on the floor, the gun next to her.
Eleanor Lamb was dressed in striped pajamas. She was clutching her hand, and the gun was a foot away from her. She had gone back to being a curly blonde.
Archer raced over and kicked the pistol out of the way as she lunged for it.
“I’ve been shot,” she said, gripping her hand. “You shot me. My finger is bleeding.” He looked at the minor wound there.
“That’s always a possibility when you shoot at someone.”
“I’m a guest here. And I was defending myself.”
He picked up her gun. “You’re not a guest, Lamb. You’re an inmate in waiting.”
“I’ve done nothing.”
“You’re a blackmailer, a dope dealer, a killer, and a thoroughly rotten piece of work. I want to throw up just looking at you.”
Feet pounded up the stairs, and Archer ran to the doorway with two guns in hand. He pointed them both, ready to fire, but lowered them when he saw it was Swinson and Reid.
“We heard everything over the walkie-talkie, Archer, and came running,” explained Swinson. “What the hell is going on? There’s a dead guy and a lady bleeding downstairs.”
“Call the cops and an ambulance,” he told them. “And watch the bleeding lady. And especially this one,” he added, pointing at Lamb.
“Where are you going?” said a breathless Swinson.
“I got a couple more to round up.”
“You can’t keep me prisoner here, Archer,” said Lamb. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“Lady, your arrest sheet will be so long the cops are going to need a really fast typist.”
He and Swinson ran down the stairs just as Green staggered to her feet.
Archer barked at her, “You need to do two things: Give me the keys to the Packard and tell me how to get to wherever you keep your plane.”
She looked up at him in defiance. “Why should I help you?”
“Because it might be the difference between you living or dying. And in Nevada they let you pick, firing squad or hanging.”
Thirty seconds later Archer was running flat-out for the prewar Packard, dead body in the trunk and all.
Chapter 73
ARCHER WOUND UP THE OLD PACKARD and hit the road heading south toward the California state line. Paley had a head start, but he figured he could make up time in a car versus a boat. Four miles and then turn left, that was what Green had told him. And if she had lied to him, he would go back and probably shoot her in a spot far worse than she already had been.
But he should have known there was a landing strip up here. Steve Everett had described what the lake looked like from the sky, which meant he had flown directly here.
