“No, nothing that can’t wait.”
“Well, I got a call — about an hour ago. He’s in town.”
Durant didn’t have to ask who he was. “Where?”
“The Beverly Wilshire.”
“Let me guess. He wants a breakfast meeting.”
“What else?”
“When?”
“Nine tomorrow. He started by suggesting seven, then eight, but I worked him down to nine.”
“He just couldn’t let it alone, could he?” Durant said.
“Did you expect him to?”
“No. Not really. Well, I’m going to have to let Eddie have my car, so you’ll have to pick me up.”
“Ah, shit,” Wu said. “I’ll have to leave by seven, then.”
“What time does Randall Piers usually come by here with those dogs?”
“Between five-thirty and six. Why?”
“I thought I’d invite him in for a cup of coffee tomorrow morning and see what he can tell me about the guy that he sold his record company to.”
“Vince Imperlino?”
“That’s right,” Durant said. “Vince Imperlino.”
Chapter 14
Eddie McBride’s toilet kit, which was now contained in a small plastic bag, consisted of a razor, a hairbrush, a comb, a toothbrush, and a bar of soap. There was no shaving cream, mouthwash, deodorant, aftershave lotion, or toothpaste. Eddie McBride brushed his teeth with salt when he had it; with nothing when he didn’t.
He put the toilet articles into the shopping bag that sat in the middle of the floor of Room 611 at the Seashore Hotel in Venice. Almost everything McBride owned in the world was in that shopping bag — except his car. He worried about the car for a moment, the 1965 Mustang convertible, because he was convinced that it would become a classic in just a few more years. But since he wasn’t at all sure that he would be around quite that long, McBride said good-bye to the car with a silent Fuck it, picked up the shopping bag, and moved to the door.
He paused to make sure that nothing had been forgotten. He was leaving behind no television set or radio. They had been pawned long ago. He examined the room once more and then went out the door of Room 611 for the last time with everything he had acquired in thirty-one years — the entire McBride estate, contained now in a Safeway shopping bag that held one jacket, three pairs of slacks, five shirts, some underwear, a pair of shoes, some socks, a passport, an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps, a dozen Xerox copies of a map that purportedly told where a stolen $2 million was hidden. Tucked up his rectum in an aluminum capsule was the rest of the McBride fortune, the $875 that remained from the thousand that he had been paid for his time by Durant and Wu.
McBride had taken a risk, a quite calculated one, by coming back to his room. But after he had talked it over with Durant they had agreed that the police would almost certainly not be waiting for him. Whether Solly Gesini would have someone waiting was the chance McBride would have to take. It had seemed unlikely. With a mind like Solly Gesini’s in charge of the hunt, McBride’s room could well be virtually the last place that any trackers would come searching for him. Nobody’s gonna think I’m that dumb McBride had told Durant. Not even Solly.
McBride made it down in the elevator and out the door of the hotel without incident. A block away he climbed into Durant’s Mercedes, placed the shopping bag on the seat beside him, and drove off. Forty minutes later he was knocking on the door of Otherguy Overby’s apartment.
Overby opened the door and inspected the man who stood there with the shopping bag in his hand. They stared at each other for a moment, searching for common points of reference, and found them in a kind of mutual recognition. McBride would become Overby in another ten years — if he lived that long.
“You’re McBride, huh?”
“Check.”
“What the hell does that mean — check? You’re McBride or you’re not, yes or no. I don’t need any of that cutesy check-and-double-check shit. I’m too old for that.”
“Okay, I’m Eddie McBride, unless it makes your piles hurt.”
“Yeah, well, come on in, I guess.”
Overby stepped back to let McBride enter. Carrying his Safeway shopping bag, McBride went in, put the bag down, and looked around, allowing his gaze to pause only for a second on the girl who sat in the overstuffed chair wearing nothing but green bikini panties, a can of beer in her hand.
“Jesus,” McBride said, “just like the Hilton.”
“The Hilton would like that fancy luggage of yours.”
McBride looked around some more. “At least it looks right at borne here.”
“Well,” Overby said, “that’s Brenda. This here’s Eddie McBride, my new assistant.”
McBride looked at him. “I am, huh?”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“What do I do — assist you across the street?”
“That’s pretty big-time stuff,” Overby said. “We’re gonna have to see how you work out first.”
McBride nodded agreeably as though to signify that thus far the exchange of diplomatic protocols had been both extremely frank and highly productive. He changed the direction of his nod so that it took in Brenda.
“Who’s that?”
“Like I said, that’s Brenda.”
The girl waved her beer can. “Want some of my beer?”
McBride shook his head, rejecting both the girl and her offer. “Brenda looks like she might have a lot of friends. And friends talk a lot.”
Overby frowned. “Yeah, that wouldn’t be too good, would it?”
“No.”
“I guess maybe I’ll have to explain things to her.”
“Explain what?” Brenda said.
Overby moved over to Brenda. He looked down at her for several moments. “You never heard of any Eddie McBride, did you, sugar?”
The girl shrugged. “What’s an Eddie McBride?”
“Get rid of her,” McBride said.
Brenda pouted. “I don’t wanta go home. I just got here.”
Overby turned to McBride. “You wanta fuck her first?”
McBride shook his head. “I don’t take wet ducks,” he said. “Get rid of her.”
Overby turned back to the girl. “Brenda,” he said.
“What?”
“Out.”
The girl put her beer down and got up. “You got some real weird friends, Otherguy, that’s all I gotta say.” She started toward the door, but paused when she reached McBride. She put her hands on her hips, arched her back, and thrust her crotch up against McBride’s, rotating it slowly. Her mouth was open, and she let her long pink tongue run slowly around her lips.
“You got any idea what you’re missing?” she said.
McBride stared at her coldly for a few seconds, not responding to the bump and grind of her pelvis. After another moment or two he said, “Go wash your feet, Brenda.”
The girl stopped her efforts and, pouting again, moved quickly to the door. She opened it, then turned back to look at Overby. “You know what, Otherguy?”
“What?”
“You suck.” With that she was gone, carefully slamming the door behind her.
Overby sighed. “She lives across the hall.”
“Handy.”
“You want a beer or something? I’ve got bourbon.”
“Beer’s fine.”
Overby moved across the room to the kitchen alcove and opened the refrigerator door. “You known ’em long?” he said as he took out two cans of beer.
“Who?”
“Durant and the Chinaman.”
“Not long. Have you?”
Overby didn’t answer until he had handed McBride a can of beer. “About nine years. Maybe ten.” He popped his beer open and tossed the top at an ashtray. He missed. McBride opened his can and placed its top in the ashtray, then bent down and picked up Overby’s top and placed it beside his own.