Dream Town, page 20
“So you’d have no idea why someone would want to kill her?”
Green took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “She did her work—she’s a good writer—but that was it. No intrigue as far as I knew.”
“I understand she flew with you here sometimes.”
Green took another drink and set the glass down. “For someone who doesn’t know me, you sure know a lot about me. Why don’t I like that, Archer? Tell me.”
“I wouldn’t like it, either. But that’s what I was hired to do. Did she stiff the casinos on some debt? She tell Meyer Lansky to get out of her face?” added Archer, referring to one of the leading mob bosses in Vegas.
“Lansky would have no reason to even know who Ellie Lamb is.”
“So no reason why anyone here would want to see her dead, then?”
“I’m a film producer, Archer, not the mafia. You’ll have to snoop somewhere else.”
“I’m sure you want Lamb back safe and sound. She’s working on a lot of scripts for you.”
“There are a lot of writers in LA. Ross Chandler, the eager beaver kid in the seersucker you just saw? He could step into Lamb’s shoes if need be. He costs a few dollars more but so what? They’re a dime a dozen.”
“He’s a lot younger than Lamb. Why is he more expensive?”
Green gave him a “come on” look. “Lamb is a skirt, Chandler wears pants. Comprende?”
“Does that rule include Cecily Ransome?”
Green fidgeted. “No, I’m not including her. She’s got what most Hollywood hacks don’t.”
“What’s that?”
He glanced sharply up at Archer. “Depth. Now, is there anything else?”
“I saw Bernadette Bonham yesterday. You do business with her husband, Peter?”
“I do?”
“That’s what she said.”
“What does a wife know about what her husband does, Archer, I mean, really?”
“You speaking from experience?”
“No, actually, I’m not. My wife is the unfortunate exception to what otherwise is a good rule.” He paused for a moment and seemed to look right through Archer. “Why don’t you have drinks with us tonight? Nine o’clock. Right here at the Copa Room. I’ll put your name on my reservation. They put on a good show. Now, I’ve got business to attend to. Little Tony!”
The big man came over and escorted Archer away. When he turned to look back, Bart Green only had blue eyes for Archer.
Chapter 42
IN HIS ROOM LATER, ARCHER CALLED the number Steve Everett had given him and left a message that he would not be flying back that night. He showered and put his clothes back on after sending them out to be pressed. He looked out the window and saw that Vegas had turned on its best neon for the night’s entertainment. Greens and purples and oranges and reds in various shapes and sizes loomed up in the darkness like electrified ghouls looking for victims. And, in a very real way, they were, only the blood they sucked out of their prey was all green.
He took the stairs down to the bar, had a scotch and soda and a bite of dinner. He watched the gambling crowd get greased up for their nighttime ambitions of throwing their hard-earned money right into the flusher. And they all did it with impressive smiles if not downright glee, he noted. Curious animals, human beings.
At nine on the dot he entered the Copa Room. It was large and grand, with a stage at one end. Archer had heard it was a replica of the Copacabana in New York. The ceilings were high and painted a garish greenish blue except for a strip of orange by the stage. The light fixtures were gold-plated with multiple bulbs set in a circle. The tablecloths were white and the chairs were upholstered in red. There were about five hundred people in the room, he calculated, and they were dressed to the nines, with white dinner jackets the most popular cover for the men. That made it look like all the waiters had gone on strike for the night and were having cocktails and watching the show with the paying customers.
On stage were the Copa Girls, as one of the valets had told him they were called. Their outfits were the same shade of red as the seats, but the ladies looked far nicer wearing them than the chairs did. They danced and sang to the accompaniment of an orchestra, and it looked like everyone was having a swell time.
He was escorted to Green’s table, which was close enough to the stage to see the performance easily enough but far enough away to carry on a conversation. At the table were Green, the young screenwriter, Ross Chandler, and the two giggling sisters, who were now outfitted in flimsy pale blue dresses that looked closer to lingerie. Chandler wore a white tux jacket, while Green was dressed far more informally in a dark blue rayon jacket, slacks, and an open-collared shirt. He held a cigarillo in one puffy hand.
Archer greeted everyone and then looked for Little Tony. He spotted him on the periphery staring at Archer like he had personally killed the man’s entire family. Archer sat down and ordered a whiskey and soda, then pulled out his pack of Luckys and lit up. His drink arrived less than a minute later.
“Nice, efficient place,” he said to Green, who was staring at him with serpent eyes.
“Yeah, it is,” answered Chandler, who had his eye on Mitzi, who had her eye on Archer. Gayle just stared into her drink like she could see her reflection and was checking her lipstick.
When Gayle looked up at him, he could see her pupils were swollen like a full moon, and he wondered what barbiturate she was on.
“So, I hear you’re a writer for Mr. Green?” said Archer, pulling his gaze from Gayle and depositing it on Chandler.
“That’s right. I got my degree from Columbia and jumped on a train west. Where else should a writer want to be these days? Writing in LA for the pictures is where it’s at.”
“Hemingway’s in Cuba,” noted Green, taking a sip of some weird-colored concoction. “And Faulkner’s back in Mississippi after trying his hand at screenwriting and not liking it one bit. CBS just broadcast a documentary on him last month about his life in Oxford. And he did win the Nobel Prize. And Hemingway probably will, too.”
Chandler seemed worried for a moment until Green smiled. Relieved, he said, “Hey, they’re serious novelists. I’m just writing for the movies.” He glanced at Archer. “I mean, you know?”
“No, I don’t know. But do you like it?” asked Archer.
“I like it.” Chandler glanced at the buxom Mitzi. “A lot.”
“You know Eleanor Lamb?” asked Archer.
“Sure.”
“Archer,” said Green. “Not now. If you want to interrogate the boy, do it on your own time. And, Ross, get up and let Archer have your seat. I want him closer to me.”
Chandler immediately stood and seemed surprised that Archer took his time, stubbing out his smoke and taking a sip of his drink before rising.
He sat next to Green, while Chandler immediately struck up a conversation with Mitzi.
Archer pointed to Green’s glass. “What’s that stuff?”
“A specialty liquor that I’m fond of. Would you like to try one?”
“No, I’m good with what I have.”
“I made some inquiries about you after you left.”
“And?”
“And you have a good reputation.”
Archer glanced at the stage as one of the Copa Girls, with a slit right up the front of her skirt, commenced a solo. She had good pipes and nice legs, which in Vegas could make you a star. “Nice to know. But I could’ve told you that.”
“You also met with my wife.”
“I could’ve told you that, too.”
“So why didn’t you?” Green said sharply enough for Chandler, Mitzi, and even sky-high Gayle to look over at them.
Archer scooped up a handful of nuts from a bowl and put one in his mouth. “You never asked, and I never volunteer information if I don’t have to.”
“And would that include flying up here in my plane?”
Archer studied the man for a moment. So it was his plane. “Your wife gave the okay, which I was told she could. It was the fastest way here so I could talk to you and cross you off my list.”
“What list?”
Archer ate another nut and sat back. “Were you in LA on New Year’s Eve?”
“What’s it to you?”
“A man died and Lamb went missing then.”
“Why would I kill a guy I didn’t know or make a writer of mine disappear?”
“I’m listening.”
“Okay, I think we’re done here. Finish your drink and be on your way.”
“You like the Jade Lion in Chinatown?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Lamb apparently liked it. And the guy who manages it, Darren Paley? I hear he has Vegas mob connections.”
“I see you have some of your drink left. I think I asked you to finish it.”
Chandler leaned over and said, “You better do what he says, buddy.”
Archer didn’t take his eyes off Green. “For starters, my name’s not buddy. The Jade’s got a drink that’ll sear your insides. Regulars there swill it like it’s nothing. Amazing what people can work up to if they really want something, and I’m not just talking about booze.”
Green looked at Little Tony and gave him the high sign. The giant began lumbering over.
“You’re handling this all wrong, Archer. You know that, don’t you?” said Green.
“Maybe I am,” conceded Archer. “But then maybe so are you.”
Green wagged his head. “You don’t even know what you don’t even know.”
“Ever heard the story of the frog and the scorpion?”
“It’s probably the basis for a quarter of the movies ever filmed.”
“Well, the way I see it, maybe you’re the frog. You built something good, you’re chugging along, just want to get to the other side. And here comes Paley. He’s a free rider. He sees something good, too. He makes himself indispensable to you. But on the flip side, at a certain point, that doesn’t make you indispensable to him.” As Little Tony was arriving at the table Archer leaned over and said, “And where did gorilla boy come from? Courtesy of the mob and Darren Paley? If so, what do you do about it?”
That got a reaction from Green all right.
Archer turned, smiled at Little Tony, and said, “Hey, what a coincidence, Little Tony, I was just leaving. ’Night, ladies.”
Mitzi wouldn’t look at him now. She gazed fearfully at her lap. And Gayle was too far gone into the drug abyss to do much of anything except look pouty and dazed.
As Archer left, he turned and saw Green whispering something to Tony.
That was good, he thought. And that was also bad.
And that was the PI business in a nutshell.
Chapter 43
ARCHER SAT ON A STOOL AND STARED into the mirror behind the bar to watch for Little Tony trying to sneak up on him. He knew he had taken an aggressive posture in the Copa Room, and made perhaps some unjustifiable leaps of logic. But the fact was, the odds of Lamb’s turning up alive were decreasing by the minute. And he was tired of walking in circles. And a good man was dead and his widow wanted someone held accountable.
And so do I.
He had no idea if Bart Green was connected to whatever Darren Paley was doing at the Jade. That was why he’d voiced that possibility to Green with the frog-and-scorpion fable. A scorpion needs to get across a river but can’t swim. So it enlists the aid of a frog. At first the frog is reluctant, afraid that the scorpion will sting it. The scorpion tells the frog that it wouldn’t sting the frog because then they would both die. So the frog lets the scorpion hitch a ride. Halfway across the scorpion indeed stings the frog, who is astonished. When the frog tells the scorpion that now they will both die, the venomous creature simply confesses that it couldn’t help itself. It’s just its nature.
So Paley was the scorpion for sure, and Green maybe the frog, which made his surname spot on. But then again, maybe Archer was totally off base and hunting in the wrong direction. There was a point in every case he’d worked on where he’d had enormous self-doubt about what direction to go in, or whether he would ever solve it. He was at that point right now, which was why he was sitting here drinking his way to viable answers.
He was surprised when Ross Chandler entered the bar and came to sit next to him.
“Wow, that was some powwow you two had back there,” he began.
“You should see me when I really get worked up.” Archer lit a Lucky and took a swallow of his martini. “Tell me about Eleanor Lamb.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything and anything you got.”
“She’s a good writer, one of the best.”
“You have much interaction with her?”
“Not too much. I did help her on a rewrite of a script for Paramount. Ellie does female roles really well. And Cecily helped on that one, too. All I did was play messenger boy, really.”
“Ransome and Lamb, they get along okay?”
“They seem pretty tight, actually. Going out to lunch and dinners. Working late. Cecily would run out to Malibu a lot to work over the weekends with Ellie.”
Archer tapped ash into a glass ashtray and stared at his drink.
Chandler said excitedly, “It must be fun and dangerous doing your job.”
“Yeah it is, but never at the same time. When was the last time you saw Lamb?”
Chandler ordered a whiskey and thought about the question until it came. “She was in the office the day before New Year’s Eve.”
“She ever talk about having a friend she was reconnecting with out in Malibu?”
“Not that I recall.”
“You ever heard the name Bernadette Bonham?”
“No, who is she?”
“Just a gal. What’s the story on the sisters? Why are they here with Green? Are they his little playthings?”
“No way! They’re his nieces.”
Archer side-eyed him. “Come on, for real?”
“I thought the same thing, but they’re his younger sister’s kids. She died a while back and he takes care of them. Gives them money, flies them here.”
Then he might want to start taking care of Gayle’s pill problem, thought Archer. “Okay. Tell your boss if he wants to continue our conversation I’m staying here tonight.”
“He’s going to be gambling tonight.”
“Hell, pal, we all gamble every minute of every day.”
Chandler left. Archer ordered another drink and carried it to the real reason they built the Sands.
The casino.
Chapter 44
ARCHER MADE THE ROUNDS, from the one-armed bandits, to the roulette wheels, to craps and poker, and every other game of chance the place offered. Along the way he greased the palms of employees who looked like they might know things of value. After several dry runs he was directed to a medium-height, wiry fellow with a brown handlebar mustache and matching eyebrows. The man was standing guard in a hallway reserved for what he called the “out-of-town big rollers.”
“Half of Boston and most of New York is in there,” he muttered to Archer, after money passed hands.
“What about LA?”
“They got their own room.”
“What about a man named Bart Green?”
“He may as well have his own room.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Not for the casino. I worked all over, friend. And I been watching Bart Green lose for years now at some of the biggest joints on the Strip. They love him.”
“How much are we talking about here?”
The man eyed his empty hand.
Archer filled it with a sawbuck, and he watched Alexander Hamilton disappear into the man’s pockets, as his eyes roamed the floor. “Shouldn’t be telling you this stuff.”
“What stuff?”
A tiny smile lifted the mustache. “He’s laid down markers all over town. If I were to add them up, I bet we’re talking over two million bucks just in the time I’ve seen him around.”
Archer let out a low whistle because he couldn’t help it. “And he made good on it?”
“What do you mean made good on it? He’s still breathing, right? Do you know who owns this town? Not people who let you walk away from your debts, that’s for damn sure. You can enjoy all the perks. But when you bet and lose, you gotta pay. That’s all ten commandments rolled into one, least for the sons of bitches who run these places.”
“Where’d he get that kind of dough?”
“He’s a big film guy. Didn’t you know that?”
“He’s a film producer. I didn’t think they made that much scratch. And that’s on top of all his other bills. And he’s got a big place in Beverly Hills. And his own plane.”
“What can I tell you, buddy? He pays what he owes. Else he ain’t producing no more movies, or no more nothing.”
“The casinos don’t forgive any of it?”
“You really are a choir boy. Forgive? What, you think God lives here or something?” He tacked on a snort.
“What’s his game?”
“Blackjack and poker, and he sucks at both. But he’s addicted. It’s an illness.”
“Where does he play?” asked Archer.
“Upstairs. Private room. Just a handful of big rollers.”
“Any chance of me getting in there?”
The eyebrows lifted. “You got a twenty-five-thousand-dollar stake? ’Cause that’s what it takes to play in that room. Either cash or certified bank check. Or else it’s a no-go, Kemosabe.”
“I’ve never even seen twenty-five grand all at one time.”
“You and me both, brother.”
“Does he play with a guy named Simon Jacoby?” asked Archer.
“No. Not in that room.” He pointed to one of the poker tables. “That’s Jacoby over there. On the far left. Poor, pathetic slob that he is.”
Archer eyed the man in a brown suit with broad shoulders and a thickening girth.
“Does he lose big, too?”
“Hey, it’s not like I keep a scoreboard on every Tom, Dick, and Harry that comes here.”
Archer passed him another sawbuck and got a flick from the brown mustache.
