“It’s your scenario.”
“You tell her you’ll have to sell or hock everything to come up with a million. She says fine, do it. Could you raise a million, Jack — in cash?”
Broach said nothing.
“Well, could you raise — say, three hundred thousand? I think you could. So what you do is raise the three hundred thousand and tell Ms. Gamble the million’s ready for the go-between. You then hand me the three hundred thousand and I eventually hand you or Ione Gamble the incriminating material along with a guarantee that the blackmailer or blackmailers won’t ever bother her again.”
“What if they ask for less — say a half a million?”
“The price is still three hundred thousand. I don’t haggle.”
“What good is your guarantee?” he said. “I’m no criminal defense lawyer, but the best of them tell me blackmailers never know when to quit.”
“They do when they’re dead,” said Georgia Blue.
Twenty-seven
The two-room, $350-a-day suite Howard Mott had rented was on the fifth floor of a ten-story hotel on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. The suite’s living room, now turned into an office, afforded a view of the ocean and the long, long narrow strip of green grass lined with tall palms that was called Palisades Park.
Often encamped beneath the palms was an assortment of throwaway people, whose current euphemism was “the homeless.” These consisted in part of the deranged, the jobless, the muddled, the addicted, the dispossessed, the senile — plus a variety of other mendicants who ranged from journeyman panhandlers to novice bums.
Santa Monica, a notoriously softhearted town, had at first pitied and tolerated its homeless, even supplying them with shelter and hot meals. But the city was wearying of its burden and now hoped, maybe even prayed, that its permanent underclass would migrate elsewhere, ideally to some spot far, far away such as Wyoming or Alaska or even Palm Springs.
As Wu and Durant turned the corner of Broadway and Ocean Avenue, heading for Mott’s hotel, they were set upon by a band of alms seekers. After he and Durant ran out of money, Wu ducked into a bank and returned with fifty dollars in one-dollar bills. He gave roughly half of them to Durant and by the time they reached Mott’s hotel six blocks later, Wu had three ones left; Durant had none.
Howard Mott guided Wu and Durant past his two secretaries, who were busy at their word processors, and into the bedroom, where Booth Stallings sat, drinking coffee, on the edge of the remaining twin bed.
“Want some?” Stallings asked, indicating his cup.
Before Wu or Durant could answer, Mott said, “I think they’d prefer a beer, right?”
Durant said, “If it’s no problem.”
“It’ll only take a couple of minutes,” Mott said. “Maybe three.” He left the bedroom, carefully closing the door behind him.
“I think Howie doesn’t want to hear what maybe he shouldn’t hear,” Stallings said.
“And what’s that, Booth?” Wu said.
“I rented you guys a new car — a black Mercedes sedan, the 560. It’s even got a telephone. I also gave Rosa Alicia Chavez a certified check for two thousand dollars along with the sympathy of the Independent Limousine Operators Association. She was most grateful and told me she’ll never forget the two guys who killed her intended. She especially won’t forget the big fat one she called ‘el chino grande.’ ”
“How’d she describe me?” Durant said.
“Tall, dark and mean-looking.”
“What’d she say about the Goodisons?” Wu asked.
“All her late fiancé told her was that both Goodisons are locos and that he picked them up by prearrangement at the bed-and-breakfast place in Topanga Canyon, then drove them to a motel in Oxnard. She didn’t say which one because he didn’t tell her. I found Oxnard on the map and it’s about thirty miles up the coast from Malibu. I called its Visitors’ Bureau and they told me they have a couple of dozen motels.”
“What about Otherguy?” Durant said.
“When last heard from, he was spreading the word about the booming new market for home videos of people doing awful stuff they shouldn’t. He said he’d begun at a poker parlor in Gardena and was working his way back.”
“Oxnard,” Wu said to Stallings. “Why don’t you and I run up there this afternoon and check out some motels?”
Stallings nodded and was about to add something when the door opened and Howard Mott came in with three open bottles of Mexican beer. He kept one for himself, served the others to Wu and Durant, then asked, “Who wants to go first?”
“Why don’t you?” Durant said when everyone was seated — Mott behind his desk, which occupied the space where the missing twin bed had been, and Wu on the bed next to Stallings. Durant half sat on the windowsill.
Mott took a long drink of beer from the bottle as if he were parched, then said, “We have a problem. The sleaze media’s staked out Ione’s house and she has to go to the dentist.”
“Sounds like a job for Jack Broach, super agent,” Durant said.
“He’s having a long lunch with your Ms. Blue — or so his secretary says.”
“I take it this isn’t just Ione’s regular six-month checkup?” Wu said.
“It’s an impacted wisdom tooth that has to come out before it develops an abscess,” Mott said. “She’d drive herself but they’re going to give her sodium Pentothal to knock her out. The dental surgeon insists somebody has to drive her home and Ione insists somebody trustworthy has to be on hand to monitor her babbling while she’s under the influence of what she calls ‘the truth serum.’ ”
“When’s her appointment?” Durant asked.
“Two.”
“I’ll drive her, if her car’s out of impound.”
“It is,” Mott said.
Durant asked, “What else, Howie?”
“They traced the murder weapon — that Beretta semiautomatic — to its previous owner, which turns out to be Paramount Studios. It was stolen from a movie set there nine years ago. Fortunately, Ione didn’t do anything at Paramount that year.”
“What movie was it?” Stallings asked.
“A TV pilot that none of the networks picked up. Something called The Keepers. I have copies of the script and the names of everyone in the cast and crew. I have a videotape of the pilot itself and I’m told that everyone connected with it who’s still alive is being questioned by the sheriffs investigators.”
“Could I get copies of everything you have?” Stallings said.
“Ask Mary Jo,” said Mott.
“She the blonde?”
“The brunette.”
Wu rose. “Anything else?”
Mott nodded. “Enno Glimm.”
“He called?” Durant said.
“No, but Jenny Arliss did. She and Glimm’re flying in late tonight. But there’s no need to meet them because she’s arranged a limo that’ll whisk them out to the Malibu Beach Inn, which she thinks’ll be quite convenient for all concerned.”
“She say why they’re coming?” Durant asked.
Mott nodded. “She says Glimm wants to know how you’re spending his money.”
The paparazzi had gathered at the northwest corner of Seventh Street and Adelaide Drive in Santa Monica. They had arrived in three vans and five cars and positioned themselves less than a block from Ione Gamble’s house. Durant, with Gamble beside him, backed out of her driveway in her almost new Mercedes 500SL roadster and started around the curve where the photographers waited. Durant automatically counted the number of what he thought of as the opposition, if not the enemy, and came up with seventeen — five of them women. Six were armed with camcorders and the rest had one or more 35mm cameras. They were uniformly young, uniformly scruffy and, Durant decided, about as congenial as sea gulls.