A Gambling Man (archer, #2)

The second installment in the Aloysius Archer series is set in the late 1940s. Aloysius Archer, a World War II veteran not yet thirty, rides a bus west toward California. Archer served time in prison for a crime he considers himself essentially innocent of and completed his parole in Poca City, where state police detective Irving Shaw encouraged him to become a private investigator and recommended him to veteran PI Willie Dash in Bay Town, California.

Archer stops in Reno, where an elderly man named Robert Howells asks for protection from gambling-debt enforcers. Archer declines. That evening, at a casino owned by restaurateur Max Shyner, Archer meets Liberty Callahan, a singer and dancer who dreams of Hollywood. They bet together at the roulette wheel, win, and Archer splits his roughly four-thousand-dollar payout evenly with her. As they leave, they find thugs beating Howells in an alley. Archer fights off two using aluminum knuckles, and Callahan draws a revolver to stop the third.

Howells owns a rare 1939 Delahaye Model 165, a bloodred French convertible his late son received after saving a soldier's life during the war. Archer negotiates to buy the car. During a test drive, Howells's creditors chase them and open fire. Callahan takes the wheel while Archer disables the pursuing vehicle with gunfire. They complete the title transfer the next morning.

Archer and Callahan drive west through California's mountains. Callahan reveals that her parents are dead and her brother and cousin were killed in the war. Archer shares his prison history and plan to apprentice with Dash. Three armed men ambush them and demand the car. Their leader confesses to killing Howells. In the ensuing gunfight, Callahan kills one attacker, and the dropped shotgun discharges and kills another. Archer spares the leader's life. Deeply shaken, Callahan and Archer overnight in Coalinga, pretending to be newlyweds to secure a room.

They arrive in Bay Town, a coastal California town divided by Sawyer Avenue, named for its wealthiest citizen, Sawyer Armstrong. Archer meets Dash, a short, broad-shouldered man over sixty who wears a toupee. Dash offers Archer a position operating under his existing PI license. Their meeting is interrupted by Douglas Kemper, a wealthy politician running for mayor, and his campaign manager Wilson Sheen. Kemper has received a blackmail letter: He must drop out of the race or details of an alleged affair with Ruby Fraser, a singer at the Midnight Moods burlesque theater, will go public. Kemper denies the affair. Dash privately tells Archer that Fraser is a pawn, not the mastermind.

They interview Fraser at Midnight Moods, a faux-castle venue built by Armstrong. Fraser denies any affair; Dash notes signs of drug use. They visit Beth Armstrong Kemper at the family's enormous hilltop estate, built by her father as a wedding gift. Beth is guarded, expresses uncertainty about her husband's faithfulness, and shows little interest in helping the investigation.

That evening, Archer drives Callahan to Midnight Moods for a job audition. When Fraser fails to appear, Callahan fills in and earns a standing ovation, winning a job. Armstrong then has his bodyguards Hank and Tony beat Archer in a basement room, warning him never to question Beth again.

Afterward, Archer and Callahan find Fraser's body in her room. Her throat has been cut, but there is no blood at the scene, indicating she was killed elsewhere and moved. Archer calls the police anonymously, and they flee. Unable to sleep, he walks to the wharf and sees Armstrong's boat arriving. Beth drives up, argues with her father, and leaves. Archer follows her to a diner, where she reveals her father learned of the murder through Police Chief Carl Pickett.

The investigation expands. Archer discovers a man-made island three miles offshore, built by the Navy during the war and recently sold to Stearman Enterprises, with Kemper listed as chairman. The company is named after the Stearman 75 biplane in which Beth's mother, Eleanor Armstrong, died in a crash two years earlier. At the offices of the firm surveying the island, Dash and Archer find architectural mockups for "The Golden Rock," a massive casino complex. The island sits in federal waters beyond California's jurisdiction, exploiting a legal gap that permits land-based gambling. The mayor controls ferry permits from shore, making the office essential to the scheme.

At Midnight Moods, Archer observes Wilma Darling, Kemper's office manager, lure Sheen to a room adjacent to Fraser's old room. Through a ceiling crawl space, Archer discovers bloodstains confirming Fraser was killed there before her body was moved. Darling seduces Archer at her bungalow that night. The next morning, Sheen is found stabbed to death in the same room. Archer realizes Darling diverted him to create her own alibi.

Archer confronts Darling and learns she received money and threatening instructions to lure Sheen to the room. He deduces she has been selling drugs and fingered Fraser as the blackmail patsy. Meanwhile, he learns that former mayor Benjamin Smalls drowned under suspicious circumstances shortly after visiting the island.

Pickett arrests Kemper for both murders, citing planted evidence: cufflinks in Fraser's room, a bloody shirt, and eyewitnesses claiming to have seen Kemper with Fraser. With Sheen dead, Kemper has lost his only alibi. That same night, Archer finds Earl, the building's elderly elevator operator, murdered, and Dr. Myron O'Donnell, a physician who treated both families, shot dead in his office. The only missing files are the medical records of Sawyer, Eleanor, and Beth.

Dash explains the significance: Eleanor and Sawyer both had Type A blood, but Beth has Type B. Two Type A parents cannot produce a Type B child, proving Armstrong is not Beth's biological father. Dash theorizes that Andrew Smalls, Armstrong's former business partner who supposedly hanged himself, was Beth's real father, making Beth and Benjamin Smalls half-siblings. Obsessively possessive of Beth, Armstrong has systematically eliminated anyone who grew close to her: Andrew Smalls, Eleanor, Benjamin Smalls, and now Douglas. Armstrong has also been blackmailing Alfred Drake, Kemper's mayoral opponent, using knowledge of Drake's homosexuality, which was then illegal under California law, to ensure Drake would approve the casino as mayor.

Archer drives to Ventura and confronts Darling with the full evidence against her. She draws a hidden Derringer and fires twice, missing. Archer shoots and kills her in self-defense. At dawn, Drake shoots himself rather than serve as Armstrong's puppet. Armstrong's men then attack the officers guarding Kemper and abduct him from jail. Callahan is also taken from Midnight Moods. At a local hospital, Dash obtains duplicate blood-type records the killers overlooked. Beth identifies "the Cliffs," Armstrong's remote mountain retreat, as the likely location where the hostages are held.

Archer and Dash drive up the mountain in a storm. Inside the cabin, Armstrong holds Kemper and a badly beaten Callahan, flanked by Hank, Tony, Pickett, and Sergeant Prichard, a police conspirator. Dash bursts through the back door firing a tommy gun. As Armstrong aims at Archer, Beth, who followed them up the mountain, shoots her father through the chest, killing him.

In the aftermath, Dash threatens the conspirators with murder charges to secure their silence. Pickett and Prichard resign and leave town. Beth inherits Armstrong's estate, while Douglas becomes mayor unopposed. The casino project dies. Dash pays Archer $1,000 and submits his PI license application with a strong recommendation. Archer visits Callahan, who is packing houses nightly at Midnight Moods and plans to stay a year before pursuing Hollywood. They acknowledge the bond forged through shared danger and retreat together into her bedroom.