“Like what?” she said.
“Like the one Mr. Z paid a hundred thousand pounds for.”
“What’s that in American?”
“About a hundred and eighty thou.” He looked over his shoulder again and dropped his voice into a confidential murmur. The woman leaned toward him. “There was this murder that happened in London two years ago,” Overby said. “A guy comes home from a business trip to the States and finds his wife and mother-in-law with their heads chopped off.”
The woman’s eyes went wide. “You got all that on tape?”
Overby sighed, looked over his shoulder again and said, “Of course we haven’t got it on tape. What we’ve got is a home-video tape of the killer confessing and then turning on the gas and sticking his head in the oven. We left his confession pretty much the way it is but edited the oven scene down to six or seven seconds—just long enough to make impact.”
“Who was it?” she asked.
“Who was what?”
“The killer?”
“Yeah, well, it was the husband. He was in Washington, D.C. Bought or stole himself an American passport, flew the Concorde both ways, chopped their heads off with an ax and got back to Washington before anybody knew he was gone. Then he flew economy-class back to London thirty-six hours later, discovered the bodies and called the cops. Perfect crime, perfect alibi.”
“Why’d he kill ‘em?” Cheyne Grace asked.
Overby decided to go with the standard motive. “Money, what else?
His mother-in-law was kind of rich and his wife was her only heir. So Voodoo, Ltd. —123
he kills the mother-in-law first, makes his wife fix them both something to eat, then kills her an hour later. The autopsy proves the mother-in-law died first and that means her daughter inherits everything. So the husband inherits it all from his dead wife. The mother-in-law left a real nice little place down in Torquay near the water and that’s where the husband taped his confession and then stuck his head in the oven.”
“How much did he inherit?” Cheyne Grace asked.
“It was about four hundred thousand pounds,” Overby said after deciding to make it less than a million.
“Who’d you buy the confession tape from?”
Overby smiled for what he thought must be the first time in three hours. “That’s confidential.”
She nodded her understanding, then said, “That drowning-the-baby thing. I just made that up.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah, but this guy I know does know lots of weird people, know what I mean?”
Overby only nodded.
“So how do we contact you—in case he’s got something?”
Overby recited the 456 number of the William Rice house. “Four-five-six,” Cheyne Grace said, impressed. “That’s Malibu.”
“It’s Mr. Z’s place,” Overby said. “But don’t ask for him, ask for Mr.
X.”
“That’s you, isn’t it—Mr. X?”
Before Overby could reply a big hand landed on his left shoulder. He jumped, then looked up and around at a man who was well over six feet tall and wore a tightly belted tan bush jacket, dark aviator glasses, a pigskin hat with its brim turned down and a beard that had been growing for at least three days.
The man spoke in a low rumble that was half-accusation, half-threat.
“You said you’d be alone, man.”
“I am,” Overby said.
“Then who the fuck’s that?”
Overby looked at Cheyne Grace and shrugged an apology. “You mind?”
“No,” she said, rising quickly. “Not at all.”
When she was gone, the man sat down at Overby’s left and said,
“She’s still watching us.”
“Good.”
“How’d I do?”
“You were perfect.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —124
“I tried to put a lot of menace into that second line: ‘Then who the fuck’s that?’ I started to say, ‘Then who the fuck’s she?’ but that sounded too stilted, don’t you think?”
“It was exactly right,” Overby said, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. “She still watching us?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m going to give you an unsealed brown envelope. Inside is three hundred in twenties. I want you to count it, but inside the envelope. Take your time. Then I want you to give me a nod.”
“Just a nod?” the man said. “No line?”
“No line.”
“I think I can put a lot into that nod.”
“I know you can,” Overby said and handed him the brown envelope.
At 1 P.M. Overby treated himself to a pre-lunch martini at a Manhattan Beach bar and grill he had once frequented when financial reverses in 1985 had forced him to become “House-sitter to the Stars.” The fortyish bartender-owner slid the drink over and said, “I got a little something that might interest you, Otherguy.”
“Yeah, what?”
With his elbows now on the bar, the owner looked left, right, then at Overby. “Some London TV biggie’s in the market for videotapes—
homemade stuff. I hear he’s offering fat money.”
“You mean homemade porn?” Overby said, looking at his watch. It was 1:05 P.M. And exactly two and a half hours since he’d left the poker club in Gardena.
“More like true confession stuff is what I hear,” the owner-bartender said. “Stuff like, ‘I killed the wife, the kids and the dog and now I’d like to show you where I buried them.’ “
“I’d watch that,” Overby said.
“All you really need is a camcorder and a script.”
“And maybe an actor,” Overby said.
“You want the phone number?”
Overby nodded.
The owner wrote it down on a beer coaster and slid it to Overby. He glanced at it and saw it was the 456 number at the Rice house in Malibu.
“Ask for Mr. X,” the owner-bartender said. “And don’t forget I’m still paying dues to SAG.”
Overby tucked the coaster away in a jacket pocket and said, “You done anything lately?”
“Got a commercial coming up next week.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —125
“I may be in touch,” Overby said, finished his martini, placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and left.
Voodoo, Ltd. —126
Twenty-six
At 11 A.M. that day, Georgia Blue had called Jack Broach to suggest they have lunch. He quickly agreed and recommended a currently popular Alsatian restaurant on Sunset in Beverly Hills. After they agreed to meet at 1 P.M., Broach called a prospective client and cancelled their lunch date. This caused the prospective client, a moody actor, to accuse Broach of fickleness. Since the actor’s career was going nowhere, Broach cheerfully pled guilty to the charge and hung up.
Arriving at the Alsatian restaurant fifteen minutes late, Georgia Blue gained an immediate audience as she followed the maitre d’ to Broach’s table. Most men looked at her face, most women at her clothes. Then all of them, or nearly all, noticed the white streak of hair and the long sure stride and her obvious indifference to their curiosity.
They were still watching when she reached Broach’s table. By then Broach had decided that the stares and speculation were worth more than all the commissions he might have earned from the moody actor, who hadn’t worked in eight months anyway.
Georgia Blue didn’t apologize for being late. After she was seated, Broach asked if she would like a drink. She asked for a glass of the house red, if there was such a thing. When the drinks came, she glanced at the menu and ordered the special cassoulet, which Broach guessed was at least three thousand calories. He ordered soup and salad.