“Understand you were in the Army.”
“Who told you that?”
“I don’t need to tell you that and I’m not. You know your way around a gun and a knife then?”
“Look, I didn’t have nothing—”
“Were you in the military, Archer?” interrupted Shaw.
“Were you?”
“Okay, I’ll play your game just this one time. I was a pilot in the Army Air Forces. Ninety-three bombing sorties over Europe, then I took my wings to the Pacific and dropped a shitload of TNT on the Japs. Loved every minute of it and was scared to death every minute of it.”
Archer judged him in a new, more respectful light. “That’s impressive. Lot more complicated flying a plane than firing a rifle.”
“I think every man who put on the uniform was impressive. You?”
“Thirty-Fourth Infantry Division. Mostly in Italy, but we did work our way to Germany eventually. Though we fought more Germans in Italy than we did I-talians.”
“Then I think you maybe had it harder than me. That was some damn tough going, I heard. Lot of those GIs never came home from that campaign.”
“Sure seemed tough going to me at the time. I liked my foxhole as much as the next man. Only we never got to spend much time there. And the Germans had damn good aim when it came to shelling us when we were hunkered in the dirt.”
“You get shot up?”
“We all got shot up. You done with me now?”
Shaw put away his notebook and pencil and gave him a bemused look. “You know your way around a gun and a knife, and you were sleeping with the dead man’s whatever on the night that he died. And by your own admission you were drinking. And all night you were maybe fifty feet from where he was killed. And you have no alibi for the time he probably died.” He paused. “So not only am I not done with you, Archer, I’m just starting.” He closed the door to 615 and made a show of locking it.
That was the first time Archer noted the white dust coating the doorknob.
Shaw tipped his hat at Archer and added, “Do not try to leave Poca City, Mr. Archer. That would not be smart. It would make me very unhappy. And you even unhappier than me.”
He walked off leaving Archer feeling like he’d just been rolled over twice by a Panzer. He bent down and looked at the doorknob and the white dust coating it. He reached out to touch it but thought better of that notion and retreated down the hall.
Archer went back to his room, picked up the flask, and drained the contents. He wiped his mouth dry, went over to the one window, and looked out at Poca City. He watched as Shaw walked out of the hotel and then stopped. The blood slowly drained from Archer’s face as he saw the man Shaw was talking to. It was the front desk clerk Archer had queried about seeing Jackie. The man was gesticulating in the direction of the hotel, while Shaw pulled out his pencil and notebook and wrote it all down. Archer thought he could see the lawman’s triumphant look from up here.
Archer sat down on the bed and started to think things through.
None of this was looking particularly good for him. The money in his pocket, the residue from Pittleman’s advance, the papers he’d taken from the dead man, all felt like lumps of white-hot coal melting him away from the inside. He knew Shaw was probably going to see Jackie next, and what would she tell him?
You didn’t kill the man, Archer.
Yet he hadn’t committed the crime he’d been sent to Carderock for, and that hadn’t stopped them, had it?
And from what Shaw had said, the motive would be clear.
I slept with Pittleman’s mistress.
I’d been drinking.
I knew how to slit someone’s throat.
But Pittleman had hired him for a job. Now he had no job, like Jackie had told the deputies. That would cut against any reason he would have to murder Pittleman. But would it be enough? Clearly not if Detective Shaw were the sole arbiter of his guilt or innocence.
He lay back on the bed and wondered if Poca City would be the last stop of his short-lived life.
Chapter 17
Later, Archer headed out. As he passed by the front desk, he looked at the clerk there who had been talking to Shaw outside.
“How you doing, brother?” said Archer.
“Better ’n you, by a long shot, mister.”
“Why’s that?” asked Archer, marching over to him. “Give me the straight dope, pal.”
The smaller man drew back, fear riding in his eyes and the shakes of his limbs.
“Don’t mean nothing,” said the man. “Just leave me be.”
“Take it easy. I mean you no harm.”
“Says you,” he replied darkly. “Tell that to poor Mr. Pittleman,” he added.
Archer wheeled around and walked outside. He took three long breaths, something he had done in the Army before every significant military engagement he and his fellow soldiers had been called up to do. He hadn’t been a superstitious person before he’d gone in the Army, but he’d damn well become one while in uniform.
Three long breaths and I came home alive.
His spirits suddenly sagged.
For prison and now this?
He had some decisions to make. There was one area of possibility. With Pittleman dead, Jackie might, despite her words, see the benefit of reconciling with her father. But would Marjorie take Tuttle to court to get the money repaid? If so, Archer wouldn’t be getting a dime from that. But maybe Marjorie didn’t know, or wouldn’t care, about the forty dollars her husband had advanced to him. Yet Shaw could use that as a motive for Archer to have killed Pittleman if he found out about it.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, Archer, so what are you going to do?
He hoofed it to 27 Eldorado Street and knocked on the door. When no one appeared, he tried the door. It was unlocked. He walked in, calling out Jackie’s name as he went. He found the woman lying in bed with not a shred of clothing on. She had a glass of something held to her lips.
“You just looking or buying?” she said, taking a swallow of whatever was in the glass.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“I’m hurting, Archer, more than I thought I would be. Come over here and do something about my melancholia.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“If I have to tell you, what good are you?”
He crossed the floor, stripped down in record time, and lay alongside her.
“That’s better,” she said, giving him a kiss.
“I feel funny doing this now.”
“Because of Hank? It’s because of Hank that I want to do it. Otherwise, I’d just be crying.”
“I thought you didn’t love him?”
“I didn’t. But I can still be sad. I’m no angel, Archer. I’m also thinking that my means of livelihood is about to come to an end. So let me enjoy the moment, damn you.”
She gripped a part of him so hard he gasped, then she kissed him roughly and they went from there.
Later, when they were done, she lay her head on Archer’s arm and stroked his flat, rigid stomach.
“You have any family, Archer, any brothers and sisters?”
“No. Just me.”
“You said you never hit a woman, Archer, like Hank did me?”
“I told you that because it’s the truth.”
“Oh come on, never? Don’t lie to me.”
“Like I told you, I never even thought about doing it.”
“Why? Because you never had sisters?”
“I’d like to think it’s because I see the unfairness of a guy hitting a gal.”
“How about your parents? They alive?”
He shook his head and stroked her hair. “They died while I was overseas. Never got a chance to say good-bye, or even see ’em buried.”