A Gambling Man (Archer #2)(62)

He stood and then staggered a bit. She grabbed hold of him.

“You sure you’re up for this?”

“No, but I’m going to do it anyway because according to Sawyer Armstrong, I might not get another chance.”

“Hey, why isn’t that jerk Willie Dash out here helping you? What a bum.”

“He’s not a bum. He’s also not a well man.” He laid the ice and cloth on the table. “Now come on.”

They headed up the stairs and reached the top floor, which was empty at this hour.

“How come she has to live all the way up here?” asked Callahan.

“This is the hired-help section. According to Mabel Dawson, girls here work their way down.”

“Hey, do you think they expect me to live up here, too?”

“No, you’ll get a palace with your own bathroom at sea level, remember?”

“Oh, right. Hey, how come you know so much about negotiating contracts?”

“I knew what Ruby Fraser was making here. I doubled that amount and added fifty on top for good measure, and nicer lodgings.”

“Well, aren’t you a smart one, but then you are a college boy.”

“I studied prelaw in college. Even worked for a lawyer during the summer. Got to see the law up close and personal.”

“So you wanted to be a lawyer.”

He lit up a Lucky and blew out smoke. “I was a lawyer, of sorts. Back in Poca City.”

“What’d you do there?”

“Kept myself from being hanged.”

“That’s funny, Archer.”

“It wasn’t funny at the time.”

Archer led the way down the hall to Fraser’s door. He knocked but no one answered.

“She doesn’t seem to be here,” said Callahan, staring at the door. “Maybe she’s off doing another show. Like Dawson said, they keep performing until around two-ish.”

Archer knocked harder. “Ruby, it’s Archer. We need to talk.”

There was still no answer.

He said, “We can look for her downstairs and then ask around. Maybe she’s doing another number, like you said. But I’d like to leave a note inside her room.”

He tried the door. It was unlocked. He pushed it open and walked in.

Callahan nervously followed. “Archer, I’m not sure we should be doing this.”

“It’ll be fine.” Archer turned on a table lamp and took out his notepad and pen, only he found that in the skirmish with Hank and Tony, the point had been broken off his pen. “Check in the kitchen for something to write with. I’ll look in the bedroom.”

Archer walked into the tiny bedroom and noted that the bed was made, but the room was messy with clothes and shoes everywhere. He found a pen in the nightstand next to the Gideon Bible and had turned to leave when Callahan filled the doorway like a tsunami coming right for him. Her face was drained of all color and she looked like she might be sick.

“What is it?” he asked sharply.

She stepped aside and pointed to her left with one hand while holding her stomach with the other. “In there,” she said, her voice brimming with dread.

Archer raced past her and into the kitchen.

The room was illuminated by a single overhead bulb. But Archer could see enough.

Ruby Fraser was all dressed up, probably for her big number tonight. She was sitting in a chair that was pushed back against the wall. Her head was slightly tilted back, her long legs splayed out in front of her, and the woman’s wide eyes were full upon Archer. Still, she could not see him.

Ruby Fraser could no longer see anything.

He gingerly stepped forward and bent down so he could ascertain more closely what had killed her. It wasn’t difficult. Her throat had been cut so brutally that he could glimpse white bone through the fresh opening. The cut disappeared around both sides of her neck and ran along the back to nearly her spine. Another six inches and she would have lost her head entirely.

The woman had not been killed here. There was no blood on the floor, table or walls, though the front of her dress was coated with it, transforming white to crimson.

He felt her wrist. It was ice cold. He checked his watch. It was ten to twelve. If she had done her show at ten, and it had taken a half hour or so, how could she be killed, moved, and cold as ice barely an hour or so later? He lifted her arm. It moved freely. He replaced it exactly where it was.

“Don’t do that, Archer. Don’t touch her, it’s . . . not right.”

He turned to see Callahan staring dully at the dead woman from the doorway.

“She was really pretty,” said Callahan in a hushed voice. “And really young.”

“Yeah, she was,” said Archer, taking a few steps back.

“Poor kid. Who could have done this?”

“What I want to know is how could somebody move a dead body in here and nobody see it. The lack of blood shows she was killed somewhere else.”

Callahan still looked like she might be sick. “What do we do now? Call the cops?”

“There’s a phone booth right off the front entrance. I’ll make the call from there.”

“Will you tell the police who you are?”

“My morals say yes, my survival instinct says no.”

“I always go with survival.”