Wu nodded and inhaled some of his cigar. “And this was when, two months ago?”
“Just about,” Piers said.
“You’d better tell them about the other thing she told you,” Ebsworth said to Lace.
She nodded. “Silk said that we should look into how the Congressman’s wife felt about guns.”
“Did you?” Durant said.
“I hired some private detectives,” Piers said. “They learned that back in 1947 when the Congressman’s wife had been six. years old, she found her father’s service pistol. A forty-five automatic. He tried to take it away from her. It went off and blew his brains all over the bedroom wall. Ever since then she was frightened of guns. She was more than frightened. They terrified her.”
“You told the Pelican Bay cops about this?” Wu said.
“Ebsworth did,” Piers said.
“I took a copy of the report,” Ebsworth said, “and drove down to Pelican Bay and personally handed it over to the chief of police, a guy called Oscar Ploughman. I sat there and watched him read it. When he was through he made me a nice little speech about how much he always liked to meet a public-spirited citizen. Then he very politely told me that he would take the report under advisement and that perhaps it might be better if I went back to L.A. and waited until I heard from him. I’m still waiting.”
Durant took a Pall Mall out of his shirt pocket, looked at it regretfully, and lit it.
“You trying to quit?” Piers said.
“Not really” Durant said. “I just go through a bit of self-loathing every time I light one.” He purled some more smoke down into his lungs, blew it and said: “So what you’re saying is that both the Congressman and his wife were probably murdered; your sister-in-law may or may not know who did it, but thinks she’s in trouble; and the Pelican Bay cops may or may not be sitting on their hands. Is that it?”
“Roughly,” Piers said.
“What do you want us to do about it?”
“Find her.”
“Why don’t you use private detectives? We’re not in the people-finding business.”
“I know. That’s why I want you to do it. I tried private detectives. They got close, she found out, and she made me call them off.”
Artie Wu blew a smoke ring. “If we find her, what then?”
“You’d ask her to set up a meeting between her and Lace. Anyplace Silk says, anytime.”
“And if she won’t?” Wu said, and blew another ring.
Piers looked at his wife. Lace Armitage sighed and picked up the letter opener again. “If she won’t, she won’t. But I’ll give you a letter — which will be part begging, part personal entreaty from one sister to another. Family stuff. I think I can make it strong enough so that she’ll agree to see me.” Lace paused. “I hope I can, anyway.”
Piers looked at Wu and then at Durant. “Now I’ll mention money, all right?”
“All right,” Durant said.
“One month of your time, twenty-five thousand dollars. If you find her, another twenty-five. If she agrees to the meeting a total of seventy-five thousand.”
Durant stared at him and then smiled slightly. “You can afford it, can’t you?”
“That’s right,” Piers said. “I can afford it. But I don’t throw money away. Finding Silk is awfully important to both me and my wife.”
Durant looked at Wu. “Well?”
Wu grinned. “I’m a miner, I’ll go down.”
“What does that mean?” Piers said.
“Probably yes,” Durant said.
“You don’t want to talk it over?”
Durant shook his head, another slight smile on his face. “We have a rule never to talk it over when somebody offers us twenty-five thousand dollars for a month of our time.”
“By the way,” Wu said, “will it be cash or check?”
Piers nodded at Ebsworth, who rose, moved over to Durant, and took a check from the breast pocket of his jacket. He looked at the check as though to make sure that the amount was correct and handed it to Durant, who glanced at it, nodded appreciatively, and then looked at Piers.
“You’re taking just one hell of a chance,” he said.
Piers nodded. “As I told you this morning, I sometimes go into things that are just a bit dicey.”
Durant shook his head, not bothering to hide his disbelief. He shifted his gaze to Wu. “Have you got any ideas about how to find a strayed sister-in-law?”
Wu thought about it for a moment. “Maybe we’d better start in Pelican Bay.”
“We know anybody useful there?”
Wu thought some more, reached into his hip pocket, and brought out a small black address book. He leafed through it for a moment, then stopped, smiled happily, and looked up at Durant. “Otherguy Overby.”
“Well, now,” Durant said.
“Is that someone we should know about?” Piers said.
“I’m not sure,” Durant said. “We first met Otherguy where — in Manila?”
“Yeah, Manila,” Wu said.
“He was always just a couple of jumps ahead of the law, but when the cops sometimes caught up with him, he always managed to blame it on some other guy. The San Francisco cops hung the name on him, and now he hardly answers to anything else.” Durant looked at Wu. “What’s his real name — Maurice?”
“Uh-huh,” Wu said. “Maurice.”
“Is he a thief or what?” Ebsworth said.
“I suppose he’s stolen a few things in his life,” Wu said. “But mostly he’s a hustler who tries to work a medium-size con. He’s also a dedicated gossip. That’s what we’ve sometimes used him for. Information.”
“Do you think he might know where Silk is?” Lace Armitage said. Durant put his drink down and rose. “No, but he might head us in the right direction. You said something about a letter.”
Lace nodded. “I’m going to write it tonight. I’ll get it to you tomorrow. Will ten be all right?”
“Ten’s fine,” Durant said.
Wu rose, went to the huge window, and stared out at the distant glitter of Santa Monica. He turned to look at Piers, who was also up now. “We’re a long shot, you know.”
Piers thought about it. “Ten to one, at least.”
“Probably more.”
“Probably.”
“When the banks open tomorrow, I’ll be there with your check.”
Piers studied Wu for a moment. Then he smiled. “If you weren’t,” he said, “I’d start worrying about my judgment.”
Chapter 8
Salvatore Gesini, the moneylender, didn’t like to drive. Despite having lived for the past thirty years in California, where driving is a minor dogma laid down in the public schools, Gesini drove the way that they still drive in his native Manhattan — nervously, irascibly, grimly.
Usually, Gesini had one of his older catamites chauffeur him around, but none was in attendance at Mr. Wonderful’s when the call came that Friday morning, so Gesini had climbed into his Oldsmobile 98 and driven off, grumbling to himself about how the fuckers were never around when you needed them.
A short, squatty man of fifty-five, Gesini was almost remarkably ugly, with a bald head and a squeezed-together face in which nothing seemed to fit. The bulging brown eyes were too near the huge, waxy triangle of a nose that hovered over the sweet little rosebud mouth. And the mouth was so round that it always seemed in danger of rolling off the ledge-like chin which, even freshly shaved, was invariably blue with beard.