She looked alarmed once more. “But why would they do that?”

  “A murder happened right next door. They’ve already talked to Danforth. They tried your place but you weren’t home. I guess your husband stayed somewhere else on New Year’s Eve, because he didn’t answer their knock the next day.”

  “Yes, yes, he must have,” she said quickly.

  “Do you know where that might be?”

  “No, I suppose a hotel.”

  “But you have such a swell place in Malibu.”

  “He might have had business.”

  “Is business the reason he came back here and didn’t celebrate the New Year with you in Paris? It’s probably a lot more romantic than Malibu.”

  She looked up at him, all manner of friendliness struck clean from her. “You ask a great many questions, Mr. Archer.”

  “I know. It goes with the job, and I like to do my job well.”

  “I think I will be leaving now.”

  “I thought you might.”

  “I need to powder my nose.”

  “I’ll watch your bag.”

  When she got back there was no fresh powder on her nose. That had just been an excuse, and the woman was sloppy with details, it seemed. He wondered who Bonham had called while she’d been gone.

  He carried her suitcase and walked her to the cabstand. He left her there after giving her his card and asking her to tell her husband to leave a message at that number.

  “I will tell him about our conversation as soon as I see him,” she promised.

  I’m sure you will, thought Archer.

  By the time she got into her cab he was in the Delahaye and took up the chase.

  The taxi did not go to Malibu. It went, instead, to Chinatown.

  And, more specifically, to the Jade Lion, which didn’t surprise Archer one little bit. When Chinatown got involved in things, it tended to stay involved.

  Chapter 34

  BONHAM PAID OFF THE CAB and walked up the steps to the front door. Archer eased to the curb a little down the street. It was too early for the Jade to be officially open for business, he knew. The doorman he’d fought before was nowhere in sight. If Archer was really lucky, he might be in a hospital.

  But another man was there. Archer saw him as he came out to greet Bonham. It was the gray-suited gent with the scars, though he was now attired in a dark blue pinstripe with a pale blue pocket square. Now he knew who Bonham had called from the airport.

  Archer popped open his glove box, snagged his Kodak camera, took aim, and fired off a few photos. The pair spoke for about a minute and then went inside. Even with his window down, Archer couldn’t hear a word of their conversation from this distance, but he knew that he and his questions were probably the number one topic.

  He drove off and headed to Green and Ransome. It was time he reported in with his client. Along the way he dropped off the film for development and paid for a fast turnaround.

  When he walked into the office he was met by Audrey, the receptionist. She was in her fifties, with a pencil stuck in her hair bun. Archer wanted to snatch it out, as though it were King Arthur’s sword in the stone, and freeing it would grant him all the answers he needed. But it was just a pencil stuck in hair, and the answers would have to come the hard way.

  “While Miss Ransome is at Warners filming today, she said if you came by to tell you that she put your name on the visitor’s sheet at the gate, Mr. Archer.”

  “Thanks. I’ll head over there now. I understand Bart Green is in Vegas?”

  Efficient now looked suspicious. “I have no idea where he is.”

  “His wife told me that’s where he was.”

  Now Audrey just blinked at him.

  “Have the cops been by to ask questions about Eleanor Lamb?”

  She shook her head but said nothing.

  “I hear Green flies up to Vegas on his own plane with his own pilot. Must be nice.”

  That got him four blinks in staccato.

  “Does he go to Vegas a lot? He likes to gamble, I take it?”

  That got him five blinks and then Audrey picked up the phone before saying, “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, but can I compliment you on your answers? They’re some of the best I’ve never heard.”

  That got him a smile with no words or blinks tacked on.

  He headed north to Warner Brothers, which was located in the southeastern tip of the San Fernando Valley in Burbank. The skies were still sunny, but with the chance of severe thunderstorms once he got there, depending on how things went with his client.

  Archer passed through the suburbs of Burbank, where the partly built middle-income neighborhoods looked like they had been stamped out by tool-and-die concerns with the goal of a dull sameness that not even the Soviets could approach. But maybe that was okay. A house was to live in, not live your life through like maybe those monied folks did in Bel Air and Beverly Hills.

  He found a parking spot down the street from the studio, which was a miracle unto itself. The guard at the gate found his name on the list and directed him to one of the soundstages. He waited until the red light went off and then rang the bell on the door. He gave his name to the woman who answered and asked to see Ransome when she had a moment.

  Ten minutes passed and Ransome opened the door and stepped out.

  “Follow me, Archer,” she said in a tone that made Archer think the woman was still in director mode.

  She strode off and he had to step quickly to keep up.

  Ransome was dressed in a man’s suit, but tailored for her shape. Instead of a tie she had a colorful scarf around her neck. Her hair danced over her shoulders and was capped by a lavender beret. She would have looked très chic on the streets of Paris, he thought.

  She led him to a series of small Spanish-style bungalows and unlocked the door of one.

  They stepped inside, where Archer found a comfortable office space and casual seating, with a full bar set up against one wall. Movie posters from old Warner Brothers flicks were in frames on every wall.

  She poured herself a club soda and lemon and asked him what he wanted.

  “Same but the lime over the lemon. I’m working,” he added, smiling.

  They sat across from each other in leather club chairs. “Nice place,” he said. “Yours?”

  “So long as you make them money, the studios give you almost whatever you want.”

  Archer wondered what all that might encompass. “What’s the picture you’re directing?”

  “Let’s just call it Moby Dick, only from the whale’s perspective.”

  “Should be a big hit.”

  She made a show of looking at her watch. “What have you found out?”

  “You like Boleros?”

  He had asked the question to see if Sam Malloy had filled his grandniece in on their conversation. By the look on her face, the old cop had decided to let Archer play it out for himself.

  “I like it fine. Why do you ask?”

  He explained what had happened after she’d left Boleros.

  “Sam Malloy is a swell guy. He’s very proud of you.”

  “And I think the world of him.”

  “He filled me in. You went to get his advice. It was a good move.”

  “And he said I was in good hands with you.” She glanced down at his bandaged hand.

  “What happened?”

  “I just ran into a knife a guy was holding over in Chinatown.”

  She sat back in her chair, crossing one leg over the other in the most unfeminine manner Archer had ever seen a woman manage. He was actually quite impressed.

  “Why Chinatown?”

  He decided to pull out the same matchbook he had shown Alice Jacoby.

  “The Jade Lion?” Ransome said, reading the name off the cover.

  “I found a bunch of them in Lamb’s desk.”

  “And what did you find there, besides the man with the knife?”

  “I found a shot of pure fire in a glass, and then I went snooping.”

  “And did you find anything connecting Ellie to this place?”

  “Nothing directly, but I found out lots of other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll keep them to myself for now. It might be safer for you if I do.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “People will go to disgusting lengths to make a buck, let’s leave it at that. You know a gal named Alice Jacoby?”

  “I do, slightly. She works at Warners as a set designer. Good reputation.”

  “Your tastes aren’t simpatico, at least she said.”

  “Aren’t we getting rather far afield? Have you made any progress?”

  “Have the county cops been by to talk to you?”

  “No, they haven’t.”

  Archer sat back, puzzled. “Okay, have they questioned anyone else at the company?”

  “Not that anyone has told me.”

  “All right, do you know Peter and/or Bernadette Bonham?”

  “No. Who are they?”

  “Next-door neighbors of Lamb’s. I met Mrs. Bonham at the airport today. She was in France and now she’s not. Same for her hubby.”

  Ransome lazily rubbed her cheek, but her look was focused. “Why is that important?”

  “I told her about Lamb being missing and the dead body. She seemed surprised. I say seemed because I’m not sure. After she left the airport, guess where she went?”

  “I don’t like games, Mr. Archer.”

  “The Jade Lion. And she met up with a guy that works there and—” On this Archer stopped because he had caught sight of a man on a movie poster who looked familiar. He was staring so hard that Ransome finally turned to look. “What?”

  “That poster. The craggy guy with the scars on his face.”

  “That’s Raymond Massey. That’s the movie poster for Arsenic and Old Lace with Cary Grant. Why?”

  “He just reminded me of the guy Bonham met today.”

  She turned to face him with a pair of peaked eyebrows. “I seriously doubt that Raymond Massey works at a bar in Chinatown.”

  Archer had a thought. “What was Massey’s character’s name in that movie?”

  She thought for a moment. “Mortimer, no, that was Cary Grant’s character. Jonathan, Jonathan Brewster was Massey’s character.”

  “Yeah, I thought you might say that.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “What was Massey’s role in the film?”

  “A maniacal killer on the run from the cops. Even though the movie was a screwball comedy. Of sorts. Grant was really ham-handed in it, overacting and such, which he freely admits. But it made a lot of money. The movie was based on a Broadway play of the same title. In the play Boris Karloff was Jonathan Brewster, and Massey patterned his character and his face after Karloff.”

  “And the scars?”

  “The doctor he traveled with—Peter Lorre played him in the movie—had performed surgery on Massey’s character to change his appearance. Lorre’s character was a drunk. The result was a monstrous face full of scars.”

  “My, my, how art imitates life.”

  “What’s the name of the scarred man who met this Bonham woman?”

  “I’m going to have to find that out. But the thing is, Lamb had the name ‘Jonathan Brewster’ in her Wheeldex at her house in Malibu with ‘the Jade Lion’ written under it.”

  Ransome immediately saw his point. “So Jonathan Brewster was her code name for this scarred gentleman at the Jade? That way if anyone saw her Wheeldex…?”

  “They wouldn’t know who she was referring to unless they were well up on their movies. And from what I’ve seen, you’re being kind calling him a gentleman.”

  “So you really think Ellie’s been to this place?”

  “Oh, I think so. And I think she knows Scarface, too, at least in some way. And if her neighbors the Bonhams know him as well?”

  “Do you believe this could be connected to her disappearance?”

  “Right now, I wouldn’t bet against it. I just have to figure out how it’s connected.” He took a swallow of his club soda and lime. “I met Mallory Green earlier today. She said Bart is in Vegas. On business?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. He doesn’t really communicate his schedule or plans.”

  “Does he like to gamble?”

  “What makes you ask that?” she said.

  “Why else does anyone go to Vegas?”

  “I don’t know if he gambles or not. Our relationship is pretty much restricted to filmmaking.”

  “He has his own plane and pilot?” said Archer.

  “Yes.”

  “You ever been up in it?”

  “No, I’m not keen on flying, actually. Well, Archer, I can’t say I’m overwhelmed with what you’ve found out so far.”

  “I’m not overwhelmed by it, either. But try this one on. Lamb paid nearly seventy-three grand for her place in Malibu, including the renovations.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “And she didn’t take out a mortgage. She paid for it all in cash. Any idea where it might have come from?” asked Archer.

  Ransome looked genuinely surprised. “No. We pay well. But not that well.”

  “If you did, I was going to try and get a job at Green and Ransome. Thanks for the time and nonalcoholic drink. I could almost get used to them. Almost.”

  He rose. She didn’t.

  “What’s your next move?” she asked.

  “As soon as I figure it out, you’ll be the second to know.”

  Chapter 35

  ARCHER PICKED UP HIS DEVELOPED PRINTS and the negatives and made a phone call from a pay phone in a Rexall drugstore. The man he was calling was named Jake Nichols. And what the man didn’t know about Chinatown would barely fill a baijiu tumbler.

  He was a former PI turned barkeep. Five years ago he’d been shot by police—accidentally, they’d said—while he was looking into a mob-backed gambling ring operating out of Chinatown. Turned out the coppers who pulled the trigger, and their immediate superiors, were actually all in with the mob boys. And when this was conclusively shown, Nichols had gotten a large payout from the city, large enough to buy his own bar. But not large enough to make up for the fact that the rest of his life would be spent without the ability to take a walk whenever he wanted.

  The place was called, what else, Jake’s. It was west of Central Avenue near Little Tokyo. On the ground floor of a three-story building, the bar wasn’t too big or too small; Archer considered it just right. On the top of the building was a large billboard for the RCA Company. He’d been introduced to Nichols by Willie Dash. Both men had formerly served as agents with the Bureau of Investigation, now known as the FBI, before going over to the private investigation side.

  Archer parked out front and walked in and was immediately greeted by a familiar voice.

  “Archer, don’t tell me. Willie can’t snag a fifth of his favorite bourbon in that cow pasture you call home, and he sent you all the way down here to get one from yours truly.”

  Archer smiled as Nichols came wheeling around the bar. He was a tightly packed man around sixty with white hair cut military style and mostly black sideburns, creating an interesting, bifurcated look. His face was tanned and leathery even in January, and his forearms—heavily muscled from propelling himself for the last half decade—were revealed by rolled-up sleeves.

  His dead legs were covered with a dark blanket. A stogie was settled in one corner of his thin mouth. Despite his grin and good-natured barb, he seemed to be in pain and was. One bullet was still tethered near Nichols’s spine. He would take it to the grave.

  The bar wasn’t your typical bottle joint. It looked like one you might find in Morocco or certain out-of-the-way places in Italy, both of which Archer had been to while in the Army. Jake’s was always packed at serious drinking time, which would be in about an hour, Archer calculated, and the clientele was as diverse as the city, which was not the norm. And there was no pub crawling going on. When you came to Jake’s you stayed at Jake’s for all your drinking.

  “He says he can never find liquor like you have here.”

  “And he never will, because I’m not revealing my sources to that old son of a bitch.” He propelled his chair up to an empty table. “What can I do you for?” asked Nichols as Archer sat down across from him.

  Archer answered by pulling the photos out of his pocket and sliding them across. “Guy’s at the Jade Lion. You know who he is?”

  Nichols immediately turned serious and studied the photos before looking up at Archer. “Who’s the dish?”

  “Bernadette Bonham. Lives out in the canyons of Malibu with her husband, Peter. She just flew in from Paris. Told me she was going home. She went to the Jade instead after we had an interesting conversation about a case I’m working.”

  Nichols slid the photos back to Archer. “What do you know about the Jade?”

  Pocketing the photos, Archer replied, “They only serve one kind of drink and it’ll nearly kill you unless you’re Chinese. And they have cameras in the bedrooms taking pictures of famous people doing not-so-nice things. And they have sandy crates hidden around the place that once might have held heroin. And it was by the grace of God that I didn’t take my last breath there the other night.”

  Nichols took all this in and then relit his stogie. When he spoke his voice was low. “There’re lots of bars and dives in and around Chinatown, Archer. Not as many as there were in Old Chinatown, but they’re getting there. Hell, my place isn’t that far away from it. But the Jade is in a class of its own. And I don’t mean that as a compliment.”

  Archer nodded. “I saw that for myself.”

  “To answer your question, the man in the photo is named Darren Paley, and he is bad news all around. Dangerous as hell. Done time for some really bad stuff and came out way too soon, probably because of money changing hands, and he’s now doing even worse stuff. They said he’s killed more people than he has fingers on both hands.”

  “And the cops just look the other way? I thought the LAPD was cleaning up its act.”