It was a police car, with the single roof light on and the siren cranked to an ear-numbing pitch — a one-note, one-instrument orchestra performing a banshee of a song with a troubling melody.
Archer slid out a Lucky Strike from a fresh pack and lit up as he continued to peer out and wonder what all the fuss was about. Ambulances he understood. But that coupled with a police car was disturbing.
The next moment he crushed the smoke out on the windowsill as both the ambulance and police car pulled up to the front of the Derby. He saw uniformed men leap from the patrol car, and men in white smocks and pants jump out of the ambulance. He slipped on his clothes and shoes, grabbed his jacket, and ran out of the room. He took the stairs two at a time to the lobby. He burst out of the fire door and saw that the lobby was half full of onlookers and a handful of anxious guests, some still in their pajamas.
He heard the elevator ding and watched the car ascend to and stop at the third floor.
Archer ran over to the front desk, where there was a different clerk, a young man with narrow shoulders and a pockmarked face.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
The young man was pale and his eyes were large with fear. “They found somebody out in the hallway bleeding like crazy.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know. A maid found him.”
Archer ran back to the stairs and sprinted up to the third-floor landing. He caromed out into the hall and looked in both directions. He saw nothing but heard something. He ran to his left and around the corner, where he stopped abruptly.
The police and ambulance men were gathered in a small knot around someone lying on the floor. Archer hustled over there to see. One of the officers heard his approach, whirled around, and put up a hand. “Stay back, this is police business!”
However, he had moved just enough for Archer to see who it was. Irving Shaw was lying there covered in blood.
“What happened to him?”
“Get out of here, sir,” said the uniformed officer sternly, his face flushing red and the words catching in his throat. His partner turned, put his hand on the butt of his service revolver, and added, “Now.”
Archer staggered back to the stairs, stumbled up them, and made it to his room before collapsing on the bed.
Shaw was wounded, or maybe dead. He had seen blood all over the man’s shirt front. He didn’t know if he’d been shot or stabbed or what, but it had to be one of them. He slowly sat up and covered his face with his hands. He felt sick and dizzy. He imagined he was back in combat and they were being called up to attack yet another enemy position, in an endless stream of them. Men would be praying, puking, writing letters good-bye, making sure their dog tags were on, even finalizing last wills and testaments on preprinted papers the army had conveniently provided, and for which your fellow soldiers were your witnesses and you theirs.
He got up and stumbled over to the open window, sucking in the fresh air like it was a gaseous version of Rebel Yell. He leaned out the window as more police stormed into the hotel, including pudgy Bart and long-legged Jeb.
As his thoughts cleared, Archer started to focus on what he needed to do. He and Shaw were supposed to talk this morning about how to get to the truth. Now it would be up to Archer to do so alone. And maybe he had some ideas of his own.
Archer hustled down the stairs and out the back door of the hotel, avoiding the growing crowd in the front lobby.
Shaw had left his big Buick parked on a side street. Archer climbed into the driver’s seat, popped open the glove box, and slipped out the keys. He had seen Shaw put them there the night before. He started up the Buick, geared it into reverse, made a U-turn, and drove off in the opposite direction to avoid all the activity at the front of the hotel. He came up on the main street two blocks from the hotel in time to see men carrying out a stretcher with Shaw on it, the sheet up to his neck.
But not over his face, so he’s not dead, thank God.
Archer watched this until the rear doors closed on the ambulance. He took a whiff, and the scent of the man, imprinted in every pore of the Buick, came rushing into his lungs. A good man with maybe a bad ending. It could happen to any of us, Archer knew. Against enormous odds, the lawman had survived all those bombing missions fighting for his country only perhaps to come back and die in a two-bit hotel in Poca goddamn City.
And someone might’ve tried to kill him because he was looking for the truth and trying to clear my name at the same time.
This thought gave added fire to Archer’s mission, not that he needed it. Avoiding a short drop with a rope around the neck should be incentive enough for any man, he thought.
He hung a left and drove out of town; his destination was Marjorie Pittleman’s. Jackie and Ernestine had gone there, presumably with the loot from the safe. And he needed to find out why. And that also might provide a clue as to where the women had gone. And, most important, something had occurred to Archer that might lead him to the truth. Ironically, it was due in part to something Shaw had told him: It was a two-way street with the women. He was attractive to them, and they could, in return, bend him to their purposes.
He made it there in good time, parking the Buick down the road a bit and finishing the journey on foot. It was early enough that he could see no one out and about yet. The gates were chained shut, but he quickly clambered over and dropped to the ground inside.
From a crouch, he looked right and left, feeling back in his role of an Army scout.
He was not concerned with the main house but flitted off to the left. He reached into his pocket and felt for it. He had not only taken Shaw’s car; he had also popped open the compartment under the dash and taken the man’s Smith & Wesson .38 Victory piece. Archer was hoping for a triumph of his own right about now. He could sure as hell use it.
He got the lay of the land while hunkered down and checked his watch. He imagined folks would be up and about soon. This assumption paid off when he saw Manuel come around a corner of an outbuilding with a bucket of something in hand.
He rose from his hiding position and approached the man, who stopped abruptly when he saw Archer.
“Hello, Manuel, how’s doing?”
Manuel looked confused by this greeting.
“Doing?” He held up the bucket. “I am working.”
“Got a question. Maid in the house named Amy?”
“What about her?”
“How long has she been working here?”
“Why?”
“I’m thinking of asking her out. I think she likes me.”
Manuel smiled. “She is very... friendly.”
“Yeah, I could see that. So how long?”
“Not long. Maybe six months.”
“Any idea where she is now?”
“At this hour, probably in her room getting ready for work.”
“Where is that?”
Manuel eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
Archer patted his pocket where the gun was. “Got a present I want to give her and then ask her out. Don’t like to let grass grow under my feet. Another fella might cut me out.”
Manuel smiled again in understanding, nodded, and pointed to his left.
“The maids live in little cottages behind that barn. Amy’s is the last one.”
Archer pressed a dollar into the man’s callused hand. “Thanks, friend, you have no idea how much that helps me.”
“Good luck.”
“I think I’m going to need it.”
Archer hustled to the row of little one-room dwellings and reached the last one.
He knocked on the door and a girlish voice said, “Who is it?”
Doing a reasonably good impression of Manuel’s baritone, Archer said, “Mrs. Pittleman needs you right now, Amy.”