Little Tony moved exactly four feet away, Archer noted. He said to Green, “How’s Vegas? Casino treating you all right?”
“What casino treats any gambler all right?”
“I hear they tear up Sinatra’s chits so long as he keeps singing and bringing his buddies along.”
Green half lowered his sunglasses to reveal a pair of deep-set blue eyes. “They do. But I can’t sing like Sinatra.”
“I see you were working on a script.”
“Might as well. I’m writing this whole trip off to the business.” He took a long drink from his long glass. He wiped his lips with a paper napkin with the Sands logo on it and said, “Mind telling me how you knew I was here?”
“Confidential sources, but they turned out to be good ones.” Archer wasn’t about to tell him that he had used the man’s plane to get here. That might earn him a headlock and attempted drowning in the pool by Little Tony. “Lamb told me someone was trying to kill her. Then she vanished. I’ve been hired by your partner to find Lamb.”
“Cecily? Really?” Green didn’t seem to believe this. “So you’ve spoken to her?”
“I’ve spoken to a lot of people.”
“You mentioned a homicide?”
“Guy found at Lamb’s house. Somebody put a bullet in his brain. PI from Anaheim named Cedric Bender.”
Archer waited for a reaction to this. He didn’t expect the man to do what his wife had, but he was hoping for something. But he didn’t get it.
“If Ellie already had a PI why did she want to hire you?”
“I don’t think Bender was working for her.”
“Who then?”
“You’ve got no ideas on that?”
“Why should I? Sure, Ellie works for me. But we aren’t close friends.”
“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.”