Broach’s reaction?”
“I’ve been hoping he would’ve called Ione Gamble by now,” Blue said. “Or her lawyer, Mr. Mott. Or maybe even you. Apparently, he hasn’t.”
“Come on, Georgia,” Durant said. “Did he say, ‘That’s one hell of an idea, Ms. Blue’—or ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and don’t want to know’—or even, ‘You’d better watch your mouth, lady’?”
“What he did,” she said, ignoring Durant and speaking directly to Wu, “was sign the check, add a twenty percent tip, smile and say,
‘We’ll have to do this again very soon.’ ”
“When did the lunch begin and when did it end?” Wu asked.
“It didn’t begin until one-fifteen because I was late and it ended at two.”
“Where’d you go then?” Durant said.
“Shopping. I bought some things at Saks and some jeans and a sweatshirt at the Gap. I also stopped at a store in Santa Monica and bought a pair of blue Keds. Then I drove home, arriving here around four forty-five or four-fifty. Otherguy was already here.”
“Did you tell him about Jack Broach?” Durant asked.
“Not a word,” Overby said.
Stallings was still frowning at Georgia Blue when he said, “If I got it right, you offered to kill the blackmailers, singular or plural; retrieve the stuff they were blackmailing Gamble with, and provide both of these services for a flat fee of three hundred thousand dollars, right?”
“Wrong,” she said.
Voodoo, Ltd. —156
“Let me, Georgia,” Artie Wu said. “What she did, Booth, was exactly what I asked her to do: check Jack Broach out all the way. What she discovered is that he and his agency are in rotten financial shape. Just how rotten we can judge from his reaction, or lack of reaction, to Georgia’s intriguing suggestion. He didn’t reject it out of hand. He expressed no indignation. He didn’t even remind her that, as a lawyer, he’s an officer of the court—nor did he threaten her with the cops. To me, his silence speaks or even shouts of interest—although an understandably wary interest because he may’ve suspected a setup or entrapment or even that Georgia was wearing a wire.”
“There’s more to it than that, Artie,” Overby said. “You or Quincy told me Broach handles all of Gamble’s money, right? I mean he’s her agent, business manager and personal attorney. He looks after her investments, pays her bills—credit cards, charge accounts, insurance premiums, mortgage payments, utilities—everything—and maybe even keeps her personal checking account topped up at around five or ten thousand dollars. In fact, she doesn’t have to even think about money.
I mean ordinary money. All the money she has to worry about is if they’re going to pay her two, three or five million to act in their next picture. Right?”
Wu nodded.
“Let’s suppose Broach has made some bad investments for her and maybe even for himself. Say he shorted some stocks and now has to cover his shorts. Or maybe he’s even dipped into Gamble’s assets to get himself out of some other kind of bind. But he wasn’t worried about it because his number one client was about to star in and direct a megabucks picture and marry its billionaire producer and never worry about money again—not that she’s had to worry about it lately.
Then all of a sudden Billy Rice is killed and Gamble is arrested and Jack Broach finds himself scrambling to raise money for bail and lawyers and hypnotists. And to top it off, here comes some blackmailer demanding a million or so. The only one not pressing him for money yet is Gamble herself. So when Georgia comes up with her goddamned elegant no-risk plan that offers him a chance to write off seven hundred thousand of what he borrowed from Gamble—okay, stole—
he doesn’t say yes, he doesn’t say maybe, but he sure as hell doesn’t say no.”
Booth Stallings, wearing a frown, stared at Georgia Blue and said,
“I’m really curious about Broach’s reaction to your offer. How’d he take it? Like it was merely another offer from some reputable member of the nation’s burgeoning service economy?”
Artie Wu smiled and said, “What did you say to him, Georgia? You must’ve rehearsed it.”
“He said he was no criminal defense lawyer, but the best of them had told him that blackmailers never quit. All I said was, ‘They do when they’re dead.’ And that’s when our lunch came to its sudden end.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —157
“Perfect,” Wu said. “Absolutely perfect.” He looked at his watch.
“Booth and I can discuss ethical nuances in the morning. But it’s getting late and Quincy and I still must meet with Enno Glimm and Ms. Arliss. Then at eight tomorrow morning Oil Drum, our putative blackmailer, is due to call. Perhaps we should gather at, say, seven for breakfast.” He looked at Stallings. “What may we expect in the way of breakfast, Booth?”
“Coffee, juice and Egg McMuffins.”
“Excellent,” said Wu as he rose.
“Before we go,” Durant said, “I have two questions for Georgia.”
She hesitated, then shrugged, and Durant said, “What made you suspect Jack Broach was broke or nearly so?”
“I spotted three fake Daumiers hanging in his office.”
Durant nodded thoughtfully. “That’s a good answer. My other question is: why tell us about the offer you made him? If you hadn’t, you might’ve walked away with three hundred thousand tax free.”
“No matter what I say, Quincy, you won’t believe it.”
“That’s also a very good answer,” Durant said.
Voodoo, Ltd. —158
Thirty-three
They decided to walk the three quarters of a mile or so from the Rice house to their meeting with Enno Glimm at the Malibu Beach Inn.
They walked because Wu claimed it would burn off most of the Chinese dinner’s calories. He then confided that after the meeting with Glimm he planned to replenish the burned-off calories with two Big Macs, a small chocolate milkshake and possibly an order of French fries.
Durant was only half listening to Wu’s thoughts on diet when he noticed the black sedan parked one hundred feet or so up from the Rice house. He noticed it not because of its make, model or color, but because long ago he had decided you should give long odds that four grown men sitting in a parked car at night are intent on either arrest, robbery or mayhem.
The sedan’s four doors flew open when Wu and Durant got within ten feet of the car’s left front fender. Four white males all dressed in black stepped out. None was more than 30 and all wore matching black pants, running shoes and sweatshirts. Even their baseball caps were black.
When Wu and Durant reached the car, the two who had emerged curbside took up posts to Durant’s left. The second pair had popped out of the car on the street side and hurried around its front, heading for Wu. When they drew near, Artie Wu smiled and said, “Buenas tardes, señores,” which caused the closer man to hesitate just long enough for Wu to kick him in the testicles. The man hissed and bent over, clutching himself.
Durant, his eyes on the other pair, turned parallel to a knife thrust, grabbed the knife hand by the wrist, found the key nerve with a thumb and squeezed. The man yelled, dropped the knife and sank to his knees. Durant released the wrist, kicked the man in the head, scooped up the switchblade and threw it at the second man, who was trying to tug something from his right hip pocket.
The hilt of the switchblade struck the man in the chest, then fell to the concrete with a clatter. The man looked down, as if to make sure the knife blade really wasn’t embedded in his heart. Before he could look up, Durant slammed his cupped palms against the man’s ears.