A Gambling Man (Archer #2)(38)

“Of course I don’t. Just as I know that all men who are tried and convicted aren’t guilty. But it’s the only system we have. Fact is, I’m not concerned with the past, Archer, yours or mine. I look toward the future.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“With a possibility, nothing more and nothing less.” He bent over and worried at the hole in his sock, tucking the little toe out of sight before straightening. “What do you know about the detective business?”

“What Lieutenant Shaw taught me.”

“Which was?”

“Listen, ask questions, don’t believe anything is true unless you can corroborate it, and don’t trust anyone.”

He nodded approvingly. “That’s a good start. Irv knows his way around an investigation, that’s for sure. He said in his letter that you saved his life.”

“He did the same for me.”

“And you have a good war record.”

“I did my bit.”

“Care to talk about it?”

“No.”

He nodded approvingly again. “I fought in the First World War, the one that was supposed to end any future ones, right? Basically living in holes and only climbing out of them when the Army felt it had to show it was doing something, giving folks their money’s worth, so to speak.” He slapped his right leg. “Got some metal here they never took out. But I was one of the lucky ones. Left a lot of good buddies back there.”

“I can understand that,” said Archer, sipping his drink and letting it go down as slow as possible.

“What else?” asked Dash.

“That fingerprints can do a man in and the police check for that. That honest people lie all the time when they’re in a jam. And that sometimes it’s the last person you suspect who did the deed.”

Dash put his glass down, sat forward so his toes were touching the planks once more, and said, “Now, this possibility I’m talking about.”

Archer hunched forward and settled in to listen.

The buzzer on the desk phone sounded off like a warning shot across the bow.

Dash moved across the space with surprising speed and snatched up the phone. He listened for a moment and said, “Give me one minute, hon.”

He put the phone down, stepped into his brown wingtips, which were set next to his desk, and rapidly put his collar and bow tie in place before slipping on his jacket and pinching his cheeks. Next he opened a desk drawer, slipped out something hairy, squirted on its underside something wet from a bottle on his desk, and then plopped a black toupee on the top of his bald head. He fussed over it in the slanted shaving mirror on his desk until he came away satisfied with the look. To Archer the thing looked like a baby skunk without a stripe.

“Put the Beam away in that cabinet over there, Archer, and hoist up the bed.”

Archer quickly did so and said, “What’s up, Mr. Dash?”

“The possibility, Archer, the possibility has just walked in the door.”





THE DOOR OPENED AND THERE appeared Morrison looking breathless from her three-foot walk from desk to door. She stepped to the side and said, “Mr. Douglas Kemper and Mr. Wilson Sheen.”

Two men walked past her and into the room. She hastily closed the door, but Archer did not hear her trademark heel clatter going away. He glanced at Dash, who was staring at the door and apparently thinking the very same thing.

Dash moved slowly across the room to greet the men. Where he had been frenetic seconds before, Archer could see the man was now all cool, calm, and as collected as a preacher about to dispense an easy dose of religion and then follow that up with an ask for money.

“Gentlemen,” he said, shaking their hands. He motioned to the sitting area across from his desk. “Please, sit. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, tea?”

Both men shook their heads, dutifully marched across the room, reached Archer, and stood there, each sizing him up.

Dash said, “This is my associate, Mr. Archer. Just in town from working with the police in another state on a very important investigation. His former boss there is a good friend of mine and a fine police investigator. Archer will be truly helpful to me in this matter. And his discretion is legendary.”

Archer returned his attention to Kemper and Sheen, looking them over as he shook their hands. Kemper was in his late thirties, an inch shorter than Archer, trim, good-looking, and well groomed. Elegant was the descriptive term that came to Archer. His shoulders were narrow and his hips narrower still. His grip was a dishrag clench—whether that was for Archer’s benefit or the man did that with everyone, Archer didn’t know. He had a dark pencil mustache that matched his hair, which was slicked and parted and rode on his head like a flat crown. His eyes were green and his manner seemed bored, as though what he was here for held no particular interest.

He was dressed immaculately in a dark blue double-breasted worsted wool suit framing a starched gray shirt so sparkling it looked like liquid chrome. His muted red-and-blue-striped tie was double knotted and held against his throat by a gold collar pin. He looked soft but maybe wasn’t, was Archer’s conclusion.

Wilson Sheen was a different sort altogether. He was around five-eight and overweight with a bulging gut that preceded him everywhere. He had broad shoulders and hips to match. His suit was light brown, single-breasted, with a dim blue shirt and a dark brown tie that rode uncomfortably against his meaty neck like a tree leaning into a hurricane. His pants were cuffed and pleated, and his shoes were scuffed fore and aft. His manner was as intense as Kemper’s was indifferent. His ice-blue eyes raked across Archer. He drew in his nostrils like a scent dog. Archer took an instant dislike to the man and then reprimanded himself. What would Irving Shaw say? Let it play out. Don’t judge on emotion. Let the facts rule.