“Omigod, Archer, he sounds like everybody’s worst nightmare.”
“Yeah, he does,” said Archer quietly as he cut into his steak.
“Don’t you get scared sometimes?”
He glanced at her to find the woman gazing worriedly at him. “Everybody gets scared, Liberty. I’m no exception and I’m no hero coming in to save the day, either. They make those up in your business, not mine. I’m just one guy hitting the bricks and trying to grab the end of a firecracker fuse and see where it’ll lead me before it blows up in my hand.”
“That’s a pretty good line, Archer. Maybe you should write for the movies.”
“All I want to do right now is find Eleanor Lamb and Bender’s killer. That’s plenty.”
Callahan slid a forkful of mashed potatoes into her mouth. “Do you think anybody else might end up dead?”
“I wouldn’t bet against it.”
“Including Ellie?”
“I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s been long enough that I’m more likely to find her body instead of her breathing.”
Callahan slowly put her fork down and turned to him, taking his hand. “Archer, what would you say if I got you a screen test with Jack Webb for Dragnet? Would you go?”
He looked at her with a bemused expression. “And how exactly would you do that?”
“A guy I know knows a guy who knows Webb. That’s how this town works. With your looks and experience and how you carry yourself, Archer, you could be a star in no time.”
“You mean by being a fake cop solving phony crimes and reading off lines somebody else wrote for me to say?”
“Well, you’d make a lot more money and nobody would be trying to kill you for real.”
“Is that where all this is coming from? You’re worried I might get hurt?”
“You’ve already been hurt, Archer,” she snapped. “And almost killed, twice, or three times just in the last few days. I lost count.”
Archer sat back and drank his coffee. “There’s a price to be paid for everything we do in life, Liberty.”
“But in your line of work the price you pay is pretty damn high for what you get back.”
“I’m not knocking what you do for a living. I’m proud of you. You’re good at what you do and you work hard. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but you wearing a toga in some Roman flick with a bunch of fake lions, how does that help anybody? John Wayne pretending to be a soldier taking out Nazis doesn’t get rid of the real bad guys.”
“But it does give people hope. I mean, that’s why they shot all those wartime pictures showing us winning.”
Archer’s face darkened. “That’s true. But the real soldiers won the war. And it’s not about hope. This whole town is based on a fantasy and the fuel for the whole damn thing is money. But when someone dies in my line of work the blood isn’t fake, and they don’t get back up when the director calls ‘cut.’ They stay dead. So if I can keep that from happening to one person then my payoff is pretty good from where I’m sitting. I’ll pack my lunch and my gun and go back the next day and try to do it all over again. And if that means I have to take on the likes of Darren Paley, I will. I don’t want to be John Wayne looking tough and being anything but. And besides, I never learned how to ride a damn horse.”
He lit up a Lucky and blew smoke out the open window.
“You’ve been saving that up for a while, haven’t you?” she asked, side-eyeing him.
“Maybe I have.” He looked over and saw that his words had had a crushing effect on the woman. “And now, I’m going to walk some of it back.”
“What?”
“Remember when we were driving through the mountains to Bay Town?”
Her eyes widened at this. “How can I ever forget, seeing as what happened.”
“You said you needed something else besides talent to make it in Hollywood. You said you needed—”
“—the It factor, yeah. The camera has to find something in you, something maybe you don’t even know you have.”
“Well, you have it, whatever it is. Plus the talent and everything else a star needs. Every room you go into, you light it up like a bonfire. Everybody turns to look. You can talk a cop out of a felony arrest, because I’ve seen you do it. You walked into Midnight Moods and took it over. I know Monroe is coming on like nobody’s business, but you can be bigger than she’ll ever be.” He nodded at the Packard. “More legendary than Hepburn even.”
“Oh come on, Archer. I’m—”
“I’m being serious here, Liberty! So just listen up.”
And Callahan closed her mouth.
“You can have this town in the palm of your hand. If you want to.” He suddenly gripped her hand. “But I saw that woman at the Jade made to feel like she was worth nothing. And she was a star, Liberty. Right at the very top. And they were chewing her up and spitting her out.”
Her big eyes opened wider and seemed to peek into Archer’s soul. “So you’re wondering why I’m working so hard to get there?”
He stared at her for so long, he almost forgot to answer. “Yeah. I am.”
She glanced over at the old Packard where two Hollywood legends sat coiled around one another. “Everybody has to get to where they have to look in the mirror and say, ‘Is it really worth it?’ ”
“And do you know what your answer will be?” asked Archer.
“I think it’s one of those things where you won’t know the answer until you absolutely have to ask yourself the question, for real.” She looked at him. “But what you just said now makes any answer I have to give... a little easier.”
They kept holding hands and staring out the window at the darkened sky.
Chapter 37
Archer dropped Callahan off at her place and hit the road. He arrived in Bay Town before eleven o’clock. He had a one-bedroom apartment near his office, which was located in a dilapidated building but the rent was next to nothing. He slept a full eight hours, showered and shaved, and dressed in clean clothes. Then he packed what he needed, had breakfast at a diner around the corner, and walked out feeling a lot better about things.
He walked into the offices of Willie Dash’s Very Private Investigations at nine sharp.
Connie Morrison hadn’t changed in the three years he had known her. Professional, efficient, blond hair parted with precision, she greeted Archer with a smile and said, “He’s waiting for you.”
Archer hung his fedora on the wall hook and headed to see Willie Dash.
The man was sitting on a Murphy bed that was in the down position from the wall. He had on a pair of reading glasses and was studying a newspaper.
An unopened bottle of scotch was on the table next to him.
Dash was in his midsixties, about five-seven, burly, and barrel-chested with a face of flint but a charming manner lurking right below. He had a brain with more in it than any man Archer had ever met, and fine-honed, crime-busting instincts to match. When Archer had first met him, Dash had worn a black toupee that was about as fake-looking as one could purchase or make. He had now become resigned to wearing his baldness publicly. His jowls were lengthening with each passing year, but the mind was still sharp and so was the tongue.
“Sit, Archer,” he said without glancing up. “Just been reading some stories about crime in LA.” He took off his glasses and looked over at Archer as he settled onto the edge of a faux-leather davenport. “And you seem to be right in the middle of it. And I got a call from Jake Nichols late last night. Said you went to see him.”