I stared at him, and had to make an effort to keep my voice down. ‘Mike, Benny, cool it,’ I hissed at him. ‘Are you seriously saying that you’re going to write a book about you kidnapping Dawn Phillips?’
‘Sure. You’ll be in it too, and Miles. But don’t worry, you’ll all be so heavily disguised that you’ll be undetectable as real people.’
‘But we’ll know, Mike, we’ll know.’
He stared at me dead-pan, and then his face cracked into a smile. ‘Gotcha!’ he exclaimed.
‘You bastard. You’re buying the lunch for that.’
‘It was worth it, just to see your face. Don’t worry, Oz, I’m not that crazy. My next book’s almost finished, in fact. It’s based on some of the stuff I did when I was under cover, and it’s going to be good.’
‘What will the DEA and the like say about that?’
‘They won’t give a shit, as long as it makes them look like the good guys.’
‘Let me see a manuscript when you get it finished.’
He grinned again. ‘Okay, but it’ll cost you more than a hundred thousand.’
We settled down to lunch, a salad, followed by sea bream. I’d given myself a hard workout in the gym that morning, so I’d earned it. As we finished a bottle of El Preludi, I turned to the next item on my agenda.
‘A friend of mine’s in trouble,’ I told him. ‘And I’m going to help him.’
I explained Harvey’s predicament, without naming him, but I could tell early on that Dylan had guessed who he was. It wouldn’t have been like him not to have got himself up to date with my life before our meeting.
‘Sounds like your friend’s in for an embarrassing time,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘The woman’s already dropped a broad hint that she has this time-bomb waiting for him and that she’s waiting to pick her moment. As soon as she gets a whiff that you’re on her trail, she’s going to let it off.’
‘Exactly. So she must never suspect that I’m after her.’
‘Then how are you going to get these negatives off her?’
‘I’m going to buy them. . or, at least, someone is, on my behalf. Maddy, the woman, is going to have a visit from a tabloid journalist, looking to dig the dirt on her ex, who’s about to get a very big appointment. He’s going to offer her money for everything she’s got on him, and if she has photos to back it, so much the better. She’ll produce the goods.’
‘What if she only produces prints?’
‘Then it’s no deal. The tabloid’s paying for an exclusive. It can’t take the chance she’ll flog them somewhere else. The money will be for everything she’s got.’
‘How much?’
‘A hundred thou, sterling.’
‘That should get her attention.’
‘I reckon.’
‘So who’re you going to get to play the part of the journo? If it’s an actor, it can’t be anyone she’s likely to have seen on telly, or in the movies. And if she’s a serial actor shagger, like you say, that makes it even more difficult.’
‘As always, Mike, you get straight to the heart of the problem.’ I leaned across the table. ‘Tell me, since you didn’t make it to Bali, how do you fancy a trip to Singapore?’
17
I hadn’t been certain that he’d agree. He’d done more role-playing in the five years gone by than all but a few people do in a lifetime, and some of it had been downright dangerous, especially the stuff he’d done after his near-death experience in Amsterdam. If he’d said, ‘No, thank you very much, I have a nice uneventful life in New York now, and I’d like it to stay that way,’ I wouldn’t have blamed him. I’d have been disappointed, though, because it would have forced me to revert to Plan B, Primavera as the journalist, and I’m sure Susie would have balked at that, however cosily they seemed to be getting along.
But he didn’t let me down. He grinned, and it was like being back in the Horseshoe bar. ‘I’ll call it a research trip,’ he said. ‘You never know, there might be a book comes out of all this.’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘As long as the names and circumstances are changed to protect the guilty, I don’t care.’
‘Only one condition,’ he added. ‘We don’t go anywhere near Thailand. I was there under cover, and it would be dangerous for me to go back.’
I accepted that: if events took us in that direction, I’d hire local talent and leave him behind in Singapore.
The trip was taking shape, but I wanted to go out there with as much information as I could, no loose ends untied. Madeleine had moved on from Harvey to Rory Roseberry, having done a quick low-flying mission over Ewan Capperauld. Rosebud had been chopped in favour of Sandy Wilde, from whom she had moved to Barton Mawhinney, dumped in turn when he shopped her to Sly. Her last known sighting since then had been with Tony Lee.
Her sexual itinerary was pretty much mapped out, but I wondered whether there had been any other detours along the way. There was no more I could get from Ewan, Rory or Bart, but Sandy Wilde was a source of information as yet untapped.
As soon as I got back to my office from lunch with Dylan, I called Sly Burr. He didn’t know who Wilde’s agent was, but he undertook to find out. It took him less than an hour. ‘He’s with Porter and Green,’ he told me. ‘They’re internationaclass="underline" they got offices in London, New York, LA and Sydney. Big outfit, too big for the likes of Sandy, I’d ’ave thought, but people are always surprising you.’ He gave me their London number, and filled me in on their top people.
I called it straight away, and asked to be put through to the executive who handled Sandy Wilde’s account. The receptionist was efficient: she took less than two seconds to tell me that he had gone back to Australia. ‘I know that,’ I replied. ‘But that wasn’t what I asked you. It’s midnight in Sydney: I want information now.’
‘What’s your interest in Mr Wilde?’ she asked.
‘I’m a producer, Elmer Productions. I’m starting to cast a movie project and he’s been suggested for a part.’
‘I see.’ It sounded as if she was deciding whether or not to brush me off: I decided to push her.
‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘put me through to Jez Green. I don’t have time to be fannied about.’
I’d given her my icy, authoritative voice, the one I’d developed playing Douglas Jardine in Red Leather: it worked as well on her as it had on his team. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘I was just checking our files. Mr Wilde’s account executive was Alanah Day. I’ll put you through to her, Mr. . er?’
‘Gantry.’
I held the line, listening to Sir Elton singing about a porch swing in Tupelo, and wondering if he was being paid for it, until he was cut off in mid-chorus (pity, I like that song; I reckon Peachtree Road is his strongest album in years) and replaced by a slightly tired female voice, so languid that I wondered if she’d had a liquid lunch. ‘Mr Gantry,’ she drawled, ‘Aimee says you have a part for Sandy Wilde.’
‘He’s been put in the frame,’ I replied obliquely. Unusually for someone whose fortune is built on pretence, I try to avoid telling flat-out lies.
‘You’ll have to go a long way to audition him, darling. He’s gone back to Oz.’ I said nothing. ‘You know Oz, as in Oz Blackstone. Down under.’ She gave a small squealing laugh. ‘Oz Blackstone, down under,’ she exclaimed, awake all of a sudden. ‘I should be so lucky.’
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I said. ‘Can you put me in touch with him?’
‘Afraid not,’ she replied, the drawl returned. ‘We’ve dropped him.’
Bugger it! I thought. ‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I’m not at liberty to say.’ She fell silent. I thought she was waiting for me to come back, but I was wrong. ‘Listen,’ she murmured confidentially, ‘I shouldn’t do this, but Sandy’s an all-right guy and if you’ve got something for him, I’m not going to stand in his way. This is the last personal number I had for him.’ She recited a phone number with an Australian prefix. ‘It’s a mobile. He may still have it, he may not; it’s all I can do for you.’
‘Thanks, Alanah,’ I told her. ‘I appreciate it. A tip in return: don’t waste your time having wet dreams about Oz. He’s no use in the sack. . or so his wife told me.’