Whoever designed the Broach Building had been fond of small Roman arches, because Georgia Blue passed beneath three of them to reach the blond receptionist. After Blue gave her name and stated her business, the receptionist murmured into a telephone, then smiled at Blue and said Mr. Broach would see her presently. Georgia Blue tried but failed to recall the last time she had heard an American substitute
“presently” for “soon.”
After declining the receptionist’s offer of coffee, tea or Perrier, Blue waited in a chrome and leather chair, unconsciously plucking at the hem of the dark gray Anne Klein dress she had bought at Neiman-Marcus earlier that day with much of the $1,000 in walking-around money Booth Stallings had given her. She then had spent most of what was left on a pair of Joan & David black pumps and was surprised to learn she now wore a 7-A shoe instead of a 7-AAA, which was her size when she had entered the Mandaluyong prison.
Blue wore the new shoes and dress out of Neiman’s, using a shopping bag to carry away the outfit she had bought at Rustan’s department store in Manila. Just before reaching the parking lot where she had left her rented Ford, she dropped the shopping bag into a trash bin.
After waiting sixteen minutes in the Jack Broach & Co. reception area, Georgia Blue got to watch a female motion picture star of the second or third magnitude make an unescorted exit. Two minutes later a young black kid of 22 or 23, wearing a T-shirt, raggedy jeans and $13,000 worth of Rolex on his left wrist, was ushered to the exit by two white males in their thirties who tried very hard not to look as if they were fawning over him.
And finally there was the face that made the nineteen-minute wait almost worthwhile. For it was a face from her childhood, but one now thickened and lined and crimsoned by age and sun and probably too Voodoo, Ltd. —84
much whisky. The golden hair had thinned and turned white, although the walk was still that same slithering lope and the back had stayed rake-handle straight. The old actor glanced at Georgia Blue, caught her staring at him, gave her his crooked, slightly mad grin—which he should have copyrighted—then winked at her and was gone.
Jack Broach rose, wearing a smile, and quickly came around the desk that could have taken some eighteenth-century French craftsman at least a year to build. But it was not until he was completely around the desk that Broach greeted her warmly by name and urged her to try the couch that was placed beneath what he called “the three little Daumiers.”
Blue turned, gave the three pen-and-ink sketches a glance, turned again and sat down. Once they were seated, she on the couch, he in a too-tall wingback chair, Broach said, “Instead of answering your questions, I’ve almost decided either to hire you or talk you into signing a representation contract.”
“How sweet,” Blue said, much as she might have said “bullshit.”
Broach touched his forehead just where his widow’s peak began and said, “That streak—it’s real, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“It must be, because you don’t need it.”
Georgia Blue smiled slightly, waiting for the next question.
Broach’s right hand again strayed to his hairline. “How long did it take to turn? A year? A month? What?”
“Overnight,” she said.
“Good God, what happened?”
“I was sent to prison. In the Philippines.”
Broach seemed more fascinated than shocked. “For what?”
“For five years.”
“I mean—”
She didn’t let him finish. “They said I killed someone. I said I didn’t.
My sentence was commuted a few days ago.”
“Not exactly a pardon, right?”
“Not exactly.”
“And before all that?”
“I was a Secret Service agent.”
“I didn’t think they had woman agents.”
“Neither did the Treasury most of the time.”
“And now you’re working for my client.”
“I work for Wu and Durant.”
“Wudu, Limited,” he said. “Catchy.”
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“Easy to remember anyway.”
“They must have hired you right out of jail.”
“They had someone waiting for me as the prison gates swung wide.”
“Then you must’ve known them before.”
“Not necessarily—although I did. Know them before.”
Broach leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers under his nose and studied her for several seconds. Then he folded the steeple, put it away and said, “Know what I do for a living? I provide intensive care for ailing egos. And it’s extremely rare to run across one that apparently doesn’t need any.”
“What about Ione Gamble’s ego?”
“Remarkably sturdy.”
“What do you do for her mostly?”
“I offer advice.”
“Did you advise her to hire hypnotists?”
“That was her defense counsel’s suggestion, although I went along with it.”
“Did you meet them—the Goodisons?”
He nodded.
“And?”
Jack Broach leaned forward with a new and rather earnest expression that Georgia Blue decided was his standard you-can-trust-me-on-this look.
“I’m in the talent business,” he said. “I find it. Nurture it. Package it. Sell it. And sometimes I have to decide when it’s no longer marketable. That makes me an assessor of sorts. And my first assessment of Hughes and Pauline Goodison was that they were standard star fuckers with a short line of bullshit. By the end of my one and only hour with them and Ione, I’d reassessed them as two very sick fucks.”
“You told Gamble that, of course?”
“I couldn’t quite bring myself to second-guess her defense counsel.”
“Howard Mott.”
Broach nodded.
“He recommended the Goodisons?”
“More or less.”
“Either he did or he didn’t.”
“Mott heard about them,” Broach said, “then checked them out and hired them through a most reputable London agency. Everyone Mott talked to in London assured him the Goodisons were a blue ribbon pair.”
“Who recommended Mott to Gamble?”
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“She asked me to find her the best criminal defense lawyer in the country. I ran five of them past her and she chose Mott. I told her she’d made a wise choice.”
“You still believe that?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
“Sure you do,” she said. “You recommended Mott—among others.
Ione Gamble retains him. He hired the Goodisons and suddenly everything goes to hell. My question is: do you still think she was smart to pick Mott?”
“Smart has nothing to do with it. Ione feels comfortable with Howie Mott. She trusts him. He’s also a damn fine lawyer with impressive credentials.”
“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”
“Why?”
“They usually stick up for each other.” Blue paused, looked slowly around the large room, as if pricing its contents, then came back to Broach with another question. “What do you do for Ione Gamble besides give her advice?”
“I’m her best friend.”
“What’s it cost her to have you as best friend? I don’t want the dollar amount, just the percentage.”
“I’m her agent, business manager and personal attorney. For that she pays me twenty percent of her gross income. My friendship is free.”
“You handle her investments?”