The only question Swinson asked was “How can I help, Archer?”
Archer gave him a short sketch of the case and provided Mallory Green’s address in Lake Tahoe. He asked Swinson to get someone out there to keep the place — and Green, if possible — under surveillance.
“Some really bad guys are involved in this, so everybody needs to watch their backs. I’ll have money sent up by Western Union to cover your fees.”
“Don’t worry about that, Archer, consider this one on the house. For Willie.”
He got back into his Olds and drove off, Chinatown his destination. He found the alley where the shooting had taken place. The cops had obviously come and gone, because the place was deserted. Archer got out and, one hand on the butt of his gun, walked down the alleyway. It was full of doors and windows and passageways, lots of means of getting in and out. When he cleared the alley, there was the Jade, right across the street. The truck must have done a quick turn into this alley, passed the shooters, and kept going while they came out from hiding to fire on Archer and Dash.
In the daylight the Jade didn’t look overly menacing; it just looked cheap and gaudy. Inside was not a den of iniquities but a place where people did awful things to each other, exploiting weaknesses all humans had to varying degrees, wrapped around a bar serving one type of drink that, if it didn’t kill you, might, ironically, make you swear off booze for life.
He closed his eyes for a moment and imagined a scantily clad Samantha Lourdes bound to a bedpost so men halfway around the world could get their jollies. And then his mind pulled a dirty trick on him and transposed Liberty Callahan’s face over Lourdes’s. He opened his eyes and thought he really might be sick.
You need to focus, Archer, like Jake told you to. You think you’re taking down Darren Paley acting like this? Right now you couldn’t take down a sixteen-year-old punk running numbers for a buck a bag.
He retreated to his car, climbed in, and drove off.
He got back to Wilshire and became immediately bogged down in traffic. In the distance he thought he could hear a PA system in use and some sort of message echoing across all of LA.
In frustration, he finally parked his car and started to walk, making much faster progress on foot. He finally discovered that the PA system was attached to the roof of a station wagon. A sign was plastered on the sides of the car, which was crawling at a turtle’s pace.
REDS ARE EVERYWHERE. BE VIGILANT. BE ALERT. AND INFORM ON TRAITORS.
And that was what the man holding a mike in the car was reciting over and over again through the PA system.
Archer spotted a traffic cop at the next intersection and pigeonholed him.
“What’s up with that?” he asked.
The man in blue grinned. “Uncle Joe’s in town.”
“Uncle Joe?”
“Senator Joe McCarthy. He’s speaking at the Ambassador tonight.” He lowered his voice and said with a sour face, “This town is full of reds, buddy.”
“Is that right?”
“Half the movie people would line up to kiss Stalin’s ass.”
“Joe Stalin. He and McCarthy have the same first name. That’s kind of funny.”
The cop looked shocked. “What, are you drunk?”
“Smell my breath, nothing on it.”
“McCarthy is trying to save this country and he should start right here. Commies all over.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Hell, the union takes real good care of us.”
“Right. Unions. You might want to take that up with Karl Marx.”
“Who?”
Archer just had a sudden, jolting thought. “What time tonight is ‘Uncle Joe’ speaking?”
“Seven.”
“Thanks.”
“You going?”
“Maybe. But I might get my hair cut instead. You have to have priorities these days.”
Archer strolled back to his car, got in, and turned around.
He was heading to the Ambassador. But not to get a seat to hear Uncle Joe.
He had just had an improbable thought. It probably wouldn’t pan out. But if it did, today would be a helluva lot better than yesterday. Not that any day wouldn’t be.
He had a phone call to make first. And a question to ask. He could do that at the hotel. And then he’d take the automatic elevator all the way up again.
Right to Hell.
And all this time, I thought it was the other direction.
Chapter 63
Archer knocked on the door of the penthouse, and a few moments later the same young maid answered. She eyed him cautiously.
“Hi, I’m Archer. I was here yesterday.”
“Yes, sir,” said the woman, who did not open the door any farther.
“I’m here to see Mrs. Mars again. Can you let her know I’m here?”
“She is not seeing anyone today.”
“So she is here?”
The woman looked uncomfortable. “She does not want to see you.”
Archer took out his notebook and a pen and wrote two words on the sheet of paper. He ripped it out, folded it over, and said, “Show this to her. But don’t peek.”
“No, sir, I won’t. Please wait.”
“Oh, I will.”
A few minutes passed before the door was flung open with such force that it slammed into the wall. Gloria Mars stood there outfitted in a light blue dressing gown with a sheer lacy robe over it. Her hair was down and her hackles were up. She had a drink in one hand and Archer’s note in the other.
She flapped the note in his face. “What the hell is this?”
“Can I come in, or do you want everybody to hear?”
She stood there silently for so long that Archer wasn’t sure what her answer would be. Then he wondered if she had a gun hidden in the lace.
She finally stepped back and waved him in.
“Nice day clothes,” he noted, glimpsing her exposed cleavage before she pulled her robe tighter.
“I was fighting a headache and I was almost there and then you and your damn note showed up.”
“Where do you want to talk?”
She led him into a small room off the dining room that didn’t have a bed or liquor cabinet in sight. Mars settled herself primly in one chair while he sat in another. She held up the slip of paper.
“Explain this,” she ordered, and it was clearly a command.
“Karl Marx. He was a German political writer.”
“That’s like saying Michelangelo was a house painter.” She balled the paper up and threw it at him. “What did you mean by it?”
“You have Marx’s collected works, three books about Lenin, and one by Trotsky.”
“They were in a locked armoire, you fink!”
“You know what we PIs are like. Just can’t trust us.”
Mars let out a soft groan and drained her drink. “I was afraid that might come back to haunt me.”
“Not from me it won’t.”
She shot him a glance. “Okay. Then why are you here if not to blackmail me?”
“I’m not the blackmailing type, Gloria. I’m here to tell you that Joe McCarthy is speaking at the Ambassador Hotel tonight at seven.”
She looked at him blankly. “You must be joking.”
“Nope. There’s a sign in the lobby and a helpful cop told me this town is full of reds. And that made me think about what you told me about Joe McCarthy when I met you the first time. You said the SOB’s time was running out, something to that effect. You’re clearly not a fan.”
“I don’t like wannabe authoritarians who lie in order to destroy people who disagree with them. In that regard, I despise Stalin, too. Are you a fan of McCarthy’s? Or are you not political? So many people aren’t in this town. They apparently don’t have the guts.”