A Gambling Man (Archer #2)(74)

What he got were stern looks, tosses of hatted, refined heads, and sharp waves away. He headed toward Archer with not a hopeful look. Archer handed him a half dollar and the gent ambled on with a smile.

“Booze, you know,” said Dash.

“Let’s be optimistic. Maybe some soup. Surprised to see him on the rich side of town.”

“He’s doing what we’re doing: following the money. You read up on this place before you came here, Archer?”

“Not really.”

“A good shamus needs to know the lay of the land, the people who matter here. And I don’t mean that everybody doesn’t matter, but the way the world works there are two kinds of people: those with money and/or power, and those with neither one. And those with money and power have one thing in common: They can never get enough of either one.”

“Okay.”

“The Chumash people were here before any white folks. They had villages all over. This was hundreds and hundreds of years ago, you understand. Then the Spaniards came along in the 1700s to settle the area and to also fortify it. They tried to convert the Chumash to worship God; not sure how well that worked out. But what the Spaniards brought was smallpox and that came real close to wiping out the Chumash. So I guess if you can’t convert ’em, you can kill ’em.

“After that the Mexicans came along and knocked out the Spanish, and their flag flew over this town but not for very long. That’s why you have the street names you do here. Like the one we’re on, De la Guerra, and then there’s Carrillo, Torres, Alonso, Hernandez, Navarro, Gonzalez, the list goes on and on.”

“But not the most important one, namely, Sawyer,” said Archer.

“Right. Here’s how that came about. The Mexican governors gave out land grants to prominent folks around here, like the Armstrongs. They did it to make them loyal and to cultivate allies. That’s when the ‘rancho period’ started here. And those ranchos were used for cattle raising. And then they’d ship the cattle out for slaughter and the meat went all over.”

“Beth said her grandfather, Atticus, was in that business. And she also said he got out and went into real estate. And you mentioned that the Armstrongs got out of the cattle business before it all went to hell. What happened?”

“A drought is what happened, Archer, like nobody’d ever seen before. And cows drink a lot of water. Now, Bay Town and Santa Barbara and other places in the region fell to the Americans when John C. Frémont came calling with a bunch of armed soldiers. A peace treaty was signed, and this was no longer Mexican dirt. It was a dangerous place back in the Gold Rush days. Every sort of criminal type headed this way before the gold petered out. Then the Armstrong Wharf was built in the early 1900s, and that made Bay Town both a commercial and tourist town. Then the railroad came along and connected us to San Fran to the north and the City of Angels to the south. Now all things are in place for the town to really take off.”

“Armstrong Wharf, huh?”

“Atticus Armstrong built it and Sawyer made a lot of improvements to it, bringing in new cranes and warehouse space. Everybody in town knows who they owe for that.”

“How’d they make their money after the cattle business died?”

“Let’s just say the Armstrong family knew how to relieve men of their dollars, whether it be by gambling, women, whiskey, or the long barrel of a gun. Then they discovered oil and gas out there in the bay. You can see the derricks pumping and you got the drilling operations down near the pier.”

“Do the Armstrongs own that, too?”

“They have their fingers in every pie, Archer.”

Archer looked out toward the water and thought back to the night before with Sawyer Armstrong in that boat. “So the point of the history lesson?”

“If you know the history of a place, you’re not doomed to repeat the mistakes of others who came before you, Archer.”

“And what mistakes are those?”

“Thinking you can hobnob with the likes of Beth Kemper and get away unscathed. You can’t. And you won’t. And I didn’t get you that damn PI license just to see you end up in the ocean where the water’s over your head.” He looked at Archer’s injuries. “It won’t be bruises next time, it’ll be something more permanent.”

Archer kept his gaze on that very same water. “What’s this I hear about some island out there the military built and now owns?”

“Who told you about that?”

“I forget. But what’s the deal?”

“It’s a chunk of rock with no more purpose in life.”

“Okay. Mrs. Kemper told me about her mother’s plane crash.”

Dash’s manner grew subdued. “Yeah, Eleanor Armstrong was a fine woman. Tragic accident.”

“Her body was never recovered?”

“The wreckage was, but no, she wasn’t. There are sharks out there, Archer. And other sea critters that just look at a body as a meal.”

“And what caused the crash?”

“Some folks said they heard the engine cut off and the plane went into a dive. She never had a chance.”

“I guess Sawyer Armstrong was real cut up about that.”

“I’m not sure that man has the emotions of a regular person, Archer. But for now, we have a case to work.”