“Maybe.”
“Like to share your suspicions?”
“Depends,” Stallings said.
“On what?”
“On what happens to Georgia,” Stallings said.
Artie Wu tugged at his right earlobe as he seemed to examine something that was just beyond Stallings’s left shoulder. “You think I’ve sent Georgia down the path to temptation rather than redemption, don’t you?”
“You sure as hell’ve pointed the way.”
“Then why would I send Quincy with her?”
“That stumps me.”
“How does Quincy seem to you—compared to five years ago?”
Stallings considered the question. “He’s turned sour and about as remote as the moon—although he never was what I’d call a bucket of laughs.”
“And Georgia?”
“She’s moved to the outback of remote.”
“What I’ve done,” Wu said slowly, “or what I hope I’ve done, is to send them on a cure together.”
“A cure that can get ‘em both killed—if they don’t kill each other first.”
“But the interesting thing is, Booth, they both know what I’m doing and neither objects.”
“Maybe the cure will take and maybe it won’t,” Stallings said. “But as long as I know you’re not setting Georgia up, I’ll go along.”
“I’m very fond of Georgia,” Wu said. “You know that.”
“Ever been stuck on her?”
“No,” Wu said. “But then Agnes was already—present.”
“Durant was once,” Stallings said. “Stuck on her.”
Wu nodded.
“So was Otherguy.”
Wu moved his shoulders just enough to form a slight shrug.
“And now me,” Stallings said.
“You’re a lucky man, Booth,” Wu said, paused, then asked, “About what you said earlier?”
“About who killed Rice?”
Wu nodded. “Is it a hunch?”
“More notion than hunch.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —174
“Notions are good, too,” Wu said with a couple of judicious nods.
“Need anything?”
“Money, but I’ll cash a check at the bank for five thousand.”
“Want me to tag along?”
Stallings shook his head and rose.
“May I ask what you think you might come up with?”
“What about a signed confession?”
“That’ll do nicely,” said Artie Wu.
Voodoo, Ltd. —175
Thirty-six
The three of them were following the Salvadoran housekeeper and the flop-cared rabbit up the stairs to Ione Gamble’s office when the 7-year-old shepherd-Labrador began its charge.
Otherguy Overby, bringing up the rear, turned just in time for eighty-two pounds of dog to spring and slam into his chest. A second later Overby found himself in a sitting position on the stair’s fifth step, the shep-Lab licking his face and emitting yelps and whines of joy and delight.
Overby finally grinned, gave the dog a rough hug, pushed him away and said, “How the hell are you, Moose?” The dog replied with yet another wet lick, rested his head on Overby’s knee and gazed up at him with what seemed to be total adoration.
It was then that Ione Gamble appeared at the top of the stairs and asked Durant, “What happened?”
“Your dog just took out your new bodyguard,” said Durant and quickly introduced Gamble to Georgia Blue.
After the introduction, Gamble stared down at the back of Overby’s head and called, “Are you okay?”
Overby rose slowly, turned around even more slowly, looked up at Gamble and said, “I’m fine.”
“Godalmighty,” she said. “It’s Otherguy Overby himself.”
Overby smiled up at her—a little wanly, Durant thought— and said,
“Howya doing, Ione?”
“You’ve met, I see,” Georgia Blue said.
Ione Gamble nodded, still staring down at Overby, whose faint smile had now almost faded away. “The first time was in seventy-four,” she said. “I was eighteen and Otherguy was what—thirty-three?”
“Thirty,” Overby said.
“As I said, thirty-three, and he was going to make me a star. Well, he did get me my first job—leading an iguana by a rope over to Cal Worthington in one of those ‘My Dog, Spot’ used-car commercials.”
“You had to start somewhere,” Overby said.
“And the next time?” Georgia Blue said.
“Ten years later.”
“Eleven,” Overby said. “Eighty-five.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —176
“Okay. Eighty-five. I’d just bought this house and had to do a picture in London. I needed someone to house-sit and a friend recommended what she called ‘this perfectly marvelous house-sitter.’ So I said okay, send him around. Well, who shows up but Maurice Overby, House-sitter to the Stars.”
“Tell ‘em who saved the house, Ione,” Overby said.
“You did. The firemen ordered him out because a fire was sweeping up the canyon. But Otherguy stayed on the roof all night with a garden hose and nobody got hurt and nothing got burned. But when he left six weeks later, my animals pined for him so much, especially Moose here, that they’d hardly eat. The bastard had alienated their affections and I had to pay him fifty bucks every Sunday for two months just to come over and play with ‘em for an hour.”
Overby shrugged. “Animals like me.”
“If you don’t want him as bodyguard,” said Durant, “just say so.”
“How long will I need one?”
“Two or three days, if that.”
“If he stays more than three days, my animals will fall for him again.
On the other hand, Otherguy’s mean and crafty and ought to make an okay bodyguard. So let’s go on in the office and you guys can have a beer or something.” She looked back down the stairs at Overby. “You, too.”
Ione Gamble indicated the way to her office, which Durant already knew. He led the way, followed by Georgia Blue. When Overby reached the top of the stairs, trailed by Moose, Gamble looked over her left shoulder to make sure Blue and Durant were inside the office.
She then turned back to Overby and said, “You going to give me a hug or not?”
After he gave her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, she said,
“Why didn’t you tell them you knew me?”
“It was a long time ago, Ione.”
“Something told me to ride you a little. Was I right?”
He nodded. “As always.”
“How are you—really?”
“Couldn’t be better,” he said, and intuition told Gamble that Otherguy Overby, for once, was probably telling the truth.
No one wanted a beer at 10:45 in the morning so the Salvadoran housekeeper served coffee to everyone except Gamble, who, seated behind her Memphis cotton broker’s desk with the flop-eared rabbit in her lap, stuck to diet Dr Pepper.
After a sip of the soft drink, she looked at Durant and said, “I talked to Howie Mott. He called forty-five minutes ago and told me the blackmailer wants a million dollars for the Goodison tapes. I asked Voodoo, Ltd. —177
him what I should do and Howie said he’s against paying blackmail in any form. But it’s my reputation at stake and it has to be my choice.”
“That’s a nonanswer,” said Overby, who was sitting in the businesslike armchair with Moose curled up at his feet.
“No, it’s not,” Gamble said. “Howie said that before I decided anything I should find out from Jack Broach if I can even raise a million dollars in cash by five this afternoon. If I can’t, he says the question of payment is moot.” She paused. “Academic?”
“Or irrelevant,” Georgia Blue said. Durant, sitting next to her on the chintz-covered couch, agreed with a nod.
“Well, I called Jack and asked if it was possible and he said just barely, but I’d have to take a beating on some of my stocks and bonds and all my annuities. I told him to go ahead. Of course, he wanted to know what to do with a million in cash. I told him Howie said a Ms.