A Gambling Man (Archer #2)(7)

Callahan took a sip of her cocktail and said, “I’m going to Hollywood. That’s what you do if you want to be in the movie business, Archer. Ain’t you heard of that place?”

“I don’t go to many movies. Never saw the point. They’re not real.”

“Well, that is the point.”

“If you say so.”

“Life is crap, Archer. You go to the movies to get away from that for a little bit. Get some pixie dust thrown on you for a precious two hours.”

“And when the two hours are up and the pixie dust falls off, your life is still crap.”

“Boy, it must be fun walking in your shoes,” she observed.

“But then you go back to the movies for more pixie dust, right?”

“Yeah, so?”

Archer said, “So you’re an addict. Might as well be smoking reefer. Movies are about making money. And putting butts in seats. No butts in the seat, no autographs, no maids, and no newspaper pics.”

She frowned. “Thanks for popping the one dream I have.”

Archer sipped his highball and tapped a finger against the tabletop. “We all have dreams. Point is, what are you going to do about it? Just going to the place doesn’t seem like enough. I’ll bet it’s chock-full of people wanting to do the same thing as you.”

“I know that. I need to take some classes and work on how I walk and how I talk.”

“You can already walk and talk. And dance, too, and sing. I’m witness to that. You do it pretty swell, in fact.”

Surprisingly, her frown deepened at this compliment. “But there’s a lot more to acting than that. You have to have what they call the ‘it’ factor. The camera has to love you. It has to capture something in you that maybe even you don’t see. That’s how a star is made.”

“Heard that a bunch of actors fought in the war. Hank Fonda, Clark Gable. Lots.”

“Oh, poor Clark Gable. Wasn’t it awful what happened to his wife, Carole Lombard?” said Callahan. “That plane crash after she was out promoting war bonds. Her mom was with her but didn’t like to fly. She wanted to take the train back. Lombard wanted to take a plane to get back to Gable faster. They said she and her mom flipped a coin. Her mom lost and they took the plane. And it flew right into a mountain.”

“Yeah, I heard about that while I was overseas. Damn shame.”

“So you fought?”

Archer shrugged. “Sure, like most everybody else.”

“I worked in a factory making bombs.”

“Dangerous work.”

Callahan took a moment to pull a Camel from a pack she slid from her purse. She held out the smoke for Archer to light, which he did, using a box of matches he took from a stack next to a green glass ashtray overflowing with smoked butts. The air was thick with so much smoke Archer thought a fog had materialized inside.

She cupped his hand with hers as he lit the Camel. She glanced up at him as their skin touched, but he wasn’t looking at her, with good reason. He waved the match dead and plunked it with the other wreckage into the ashtray. Then he sat back and watched her smoke. She did it well.

She said, “One girl I knew at the factory got killed in an accident. And I lost a brother and a cousin in the war. One in Germany and one in France. They’re buried over there. I want to make enough money to go see their graves and put flowers on them,” she added, her expression growing even more somber, but her eyes lifted to his. “You lose anyone in the war?”

“Just almost myself.”

“Right,” she said, apparently disappointed by this.

“So Hollywood then?” prompted Archer. “Your dream?”

“Yes. And don’t give me a hard time about it,” she added in a pouty voice that Archer didn’t much care for. Women, he’d found, did that to move men one way or another.

The dealer suddenly barked, “Hey, lovebirds, you gonna bet or you gonna give up your seats, ’cause that’s the choice you got to make. And do it before I die of old age, will ya?”

Callahan looked at the man with an expression that gave Archer pause. It was akin to a snake sizing up its next meal. He didn’t like it, but he could understand it. With a slow, methodical, full-of-meaning motion, she pushed her remaining chips onto twenty-two black.

“You sure about that, honey? Just that one bet,” said the dealer, giving her an eye back as though to evaluate her mental acuity.

Turning to Archer she said, “It’s the year I was born, 1922. And I like black better than red, always have.”

Archer slid all of his roulette chips next to hers.

She jerked so violently her Camel came close to hitting her in the eye.

“Archer, that’s too many chips for a single ride on the wheel. Soften the blow with other bets on white, black, even, odd. Don’t be a dummy, spread the risk.”

“Lady’s talking smart,” said the dealer.

Archer finished his highball and sensed the others at the table watching him, wondering whether he was mad, rich, just stupid, or all three. “Thing is, I didn’t earn it. I just followed a guy over at the craps table and got out before I lost it all. For me, it’s free money.”

“Ain’t no such thing, buddy,” barked the dealer.

Archer eyed him. “You in the business of not taking bets, buddy?”