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.