“The Jade Lion. And she met up with a guy that works there and—” On this Archer stopped because he had caught sight of a man on a movie poster who looked familiar. He was staring so hard that Ransome finally turned to look. “What?”
“That poster. The craggy guy with the scars on his face.”
“That’s Raymond Massey. That’s the movie poster for Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. Why?”
“He just reminded me of the guy Bonham met today.”
She turned to face him with a pair of peaked eyebrows. “I seriously doubt that Raymond Massey works at a bar in Chinatown.”
Archer had a thought. “What was Massey’s character’s name in that movie?”
She thought for a moment. “Mortimer, no, that was Cary Grant’s character. Jonathan, Jonathan Brewster was Massey’s character.”
“Yeah, I thought you might say that.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“What was Massey’s role in the film?”
“A maniacal killer on the run from the cops. Even though the movie was a screwball comedy. Of sorts. Grant was really ham-handed in it, overacting and such, which he freely admits. But it made a lot of money. The movie was based on a Broadway play of the same title. In the play Boris Karloff was Jonathan Brewster, and Massey patterned his character and his face after Karloff.”
“And the scars?”
“The doctor he traveled with — Peter Lorre played him in the movie — had performed surgery on Massey’s character to change his appearance. Lorre’s character was a drunk. The result was a monstrous face full of scars.”
“My, my, how art imitates life.”
“What’s the name of the scarred man who met this Bonham woman?”
“I’m going to have to find that out. But the thing is, Lamb had the name ‘Jonathan Brewster’ in her Wheeldex at her house in Malibu with ‘the Jade Lion’ written under it.”
Ransome immediately saw his point. “So Jonathan Brewster was her code name for this scarred gentleman at the Jade? That way if anyone saw her Wheeldex...?”
“They wouldn’t know who she was referring to unless they were well up on their movies. And from what I’ve seen, you’re being kind calling him a gentleman.”
“So you really think Ellie’s been to this place?”
“Oh, I think so. And I think she knows Scarface, too, at least in some way. And if her neighbors the Bonhams know him as well?”
“Do you believe this could be connected to her disappearance?”
“Right now, I wouldn’t bet against it. I just have to figure out how it’s connected.” He took a swallow of his club soda and lime. “I met Mallory Green earlier today. She said Bart is in Vegas. On business?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He doesn’t really communicate his schedule or plans.”
“Does he like to gamble?”
“What makes you ask that?” she said.
“Why else does anyone go to Vegas?”
“I don’t know if he gambles or not. Our relationship is pretty much restricted to filmmaking.”
“He has his own plane and pilot?” said Archer.
“Yes.”
“You ever been up in it?”
“No, I’m not keen on flying, actually. Well, Archer, I can’t say I’m overwhelmed with what you’ve found out so far.”
“I’m not overwhelmed by it, either. But try this one on. Lamb paid nearly seventy-three grand for her place in Malibu, including the renovations.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“And she didn’t take out a mortgage. She paid for it all in cash. Any idea where it might have come from?” asked Archer.
Ransome looked genuinely surprised. “No. We pay well. But not that well.”
“If you did, I was going to try and get a job at Green and Ransome. Thanks for the time and nonalcoholic drink. I could almost get used to them. Almost.”
He rose. She didn’t.
“What’s your next move?” she asked.
“As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the second to know.”
Chapter 35
Archer picked up his developed prints and the negatives and made a phone call from a pay phone in a Rexall drugstore. The man he was calling was named Jake Nichols. And what the man didn’t know about Chinatown would barely fill a baijiu tumbler.
He was a former PI turned barkeep. Five years ago he’d been shot by police — accidentally, they’d said — while he was looking into a mob-backed gambling ring operating out of Chinatown. Turned out the coppers who pulled the trigger, and their immediate superiors, were actually all in with the mob boys. And when this was conclusively shown, Nichols had gotten a large payout from the city, large enough to buy his own bar. But not large enough to make up for the fact that the rest of his life would be spent without the ability to take a walk whenever he wanted.
The place was called, what else, Jake’s. It was west of Central Avenue near Little Tokyo. On the ground floor of a three-story building, the bar wasn’t too big or too small; Archer considered it just right. On the top of the building was a large billboard for the RCA Company. He’d been introduced to Nichols by Willie Dash. Both men had formerly served as agents with the Bureau of Investigation, now known as the FBI, before going over to the private investigation side.
Archer parked out front and walked in and was immediately greeted by a familiar voice.
“Archer, don’t tell me. Willie can’t snag a fifth of his favorite bourbon in that cow pasture you call home, and he sent you all the way down here to get one from yours truly.”
Archer smiled as Nichols came wheeling around the bar. He was a tightly packed man around sixty with white hair cut military style and mostly black sideburns, creating an interesting, bifurcated look. His face was tanned and leathery even in January, and his forearms — heavily muscled from propelling himself for the last half decade — were revealed by rolled-up sleeves.
His dead legs were covered with a dark blanket. A stogie was settled in one corner of his thin mouth. Despite his grin and good-natured barb, he seemed to be in pain and was. One bullet was still tethered near Nichols’s spine. He would take it to the grave.
The bar wasn’t your typical bottle joint. It looked like one you might find in Morocco or certain out-of-the-way places in Italy, both of which Archer had been to while in the Army. Jake’s was always packed at serious drinking time, which would be in about an hour, Archer calculated, and the clientele was as diverse as the city, which was not the norm. And there was no pub crawling going on. When you came to Jake’s you stayed at Jake’s for all your drinking.
“He says he can never find liquor like you have here.”
“And he never will, because I’m not revealing my sources to that old son of a bitch.” He propelled his chair up to an empty table. “What can I do you for?” asked Nichols as Archer sat down across from him.
Archer answered by pulling the photos out of his pocket and sliding them across. “Guy’s at the Jade Lion. You know who he is?”
Nichols immediately turned serious and studied the photos before looking up at Archer. “Who’s the dish?”
“Bernadette Bonham. Lives out in the canyons of Malibu with her husband, Peter. She just flew in from Paris. Told me she was going home. She went to the Jade instead after we had an interesting conversation about a case I’m working.”
Nichols slid the photos back to Archer. “What do you know about the Jade?”
Pocketing the photos, Archer replied, “They only serve one kind of drink and it’ll nearly kill you unless you’re Chinese. And they have cameras in the bedrooms taking pictures of famous people doing not-so-nice things. And they have sandy crates hidden around the place that once might have held heroin. And it was by the grace of God that I didn’t take my last breath there the other night.”