“We think so,” Durant said.
Glimm stopped looking at his hands, rose, went back to the window and again peered out at the lights of Santa Monica. He stared at them for nearly a minute before he turned, looked first at Wu, then at Durant and asked, “You two wanta make some more money?”
“How much more?” Durant asked.
“Another five hundred thousand U.S.”
“We’re interested,” Wu said.
“Okay. You’ll get the extra five hundred thousand, on top of what we’ve already agreed to, if you do two things. One: you keep me out of it. I’m not just talking no stain now. I mean no connection whatever. And two: get Ione Gamble off the hook. Prove she didn’t kill what’s his name, Rice.” He then looked at Jenny Arliss and said, “Tear up all your notes and burn ’em.”
Arliss nodded, closed her notebook, put away her ballpoint pen, looked at Durant and said, “I think we should hear a bit more about your Georgia Blue. From what you’ve said, she seems to be your weak link.”
“She’s my responsibility,” Durant said.
Artie Wu smiled slightly and nodded several times, the way he almost always did when shocked or surprised. No one seemed to notice except Durant.
“The way you guys told it,” Glimm said, “your Ms. Blue could gum up the works.”
“She’s the best there is,” Durant said. “And that makes the risk worthwhile.”
“You’re saying she’s the best woman?” Jenny Arliss asked.
“She’s the best anybody,” Durant said.
“How long’ve you known her?”
“Seventeen or eighteen years.”
“How old is she?”
“Thirty-six or — seven.”
Arliss’s left eyebrow rose. “A teenage girlfriend?”
Artie Wu slipped into the conversation before Durant could answer. “I agree with Quincy that Georgia’s the best there is. I must also stress that it was my decision that she join us. And that makes me equally responsible for her actions.”
“Except neither of you trust her around the corner, do you?” Glimm said and chuckled. He had nearly chuckled during his first visit to Wudu, Ltd., in London, and Durant had then wondered how it would sound and suspected it would be a dry scratchy noise — like something small and vicious trying to claw and bite its way out of a cardboard box. He now discovered he was right.
The chuckle over, Glimm said, “Don’t worry. I’ve hired guys just because they’re the best — even though I wasn’t sure I could trust ’em. It’s probably why I hired you two.”
“How kind,” Artie Wu said.
“We got a deal?” Glimm said as if he already knew the answer.
Durant nodded first. A moment later, so did Wu.
Looking almost satisfied, Glimm turned to Arliss and said, “Call down to the desk and tell ’em we’re checking out and to get us a limo.”
He turned back to Wu and Durant to study them carefully for almost thirty seconds before he rose, gave them a farewell nod and their final orders: “Do it right.” Enno Glimm then disappeared into the adjoining bedroom.
Durant rose and went over to Jenny Arliss just as she put down the phone. He held out his hand and said, “I’ll take the steno book.”
She handed it to him, then asked, “You don’t really trust anyone, do you?”
“Not often.”
“Good,” she said.
Thirty-four
At shortly after midnight, Booth Stallings lay propped up in bed, reading copies of documents given him that afternoon by Mary Jo something, the brunette legal secretary who worked for Howard Mott.
The first document he read was a Los Angeles Police Department report on the semiautomatic 9mm Beretta that had been stolen February 2, 1982, from the set of the television pilot, The Keepers, while it was being filmed at Paramount Studios.
Written in what Stallings judged to be standard copese, the report said the TV pilot’s property man put the gun down somewhere on the set when summoned by the director just after the day’s shooting ended. When the property man returned for the gun it was gone, as were the cast and crew. The theft was reported immediately, investigated and eventually forgotten until the Beretta resurfaced as the gun that killed William A. C. Rice IV.
The next item Stallings read was a list of the cast and crew’s names. None of the crew’s names caught his eye, but three other names jumped out at him. The first two jumping names belonged to Rick Cleveland and Phil Quill. Cleveland was the old actor who’d had a bit role in Gone With the Wind and who, in The Keepers pilot, played “Father Tim Murray, an aged priest.” Phil Quill, the Malibu real estate man arid former Arkansas quarterback, played “Joe Lambert, a compulsive gambler.” Both lived in Malibu in 1982 and listed their agent as Jack Broach & Co., which was the other name that had caught Stallings’s eye.
The L.A. County Sheriffs investigators had questioned all three men after Rice’s death. Someone had boiled the interviews down to three summary paragraphs. Broach came first, either because of alphabetical order or, more likely, Stallings thought, because of his position in the industry’s pecking order.
“Broach says his agency no longer represents either Cleveland or Quill,” the report read. “Broach also says he has only ‘a dim recollection’ of the TV pilot, The Keepers, and never visited the set. Broach says he doesn’t know if his former clients, Quill and Cleveland, are friends but doubts it because of their age difference. Broach also denies any knowledge of how his present client, Ione Gamble, came into possession of the murder weapon.”
Richard Cleveland — or Rick, as he’d introduced himself to Stallings — was next. “Cleveland gives his age as 75,” the report read. “He was arrested for DWI 3-5-72 and 8-2-84. No other priors. Alcohol noted on his breath during interviews 1-3-91 and 2-9-91. Cleveland says he played ‘a dumb old priest’ in The Keepers pilot and ‘carried a cross, not a pistol.’ He admits knowing Phil Quill and describes him as ‘a better ball player than actor and a better real estate salesman than either.’ Cleveland called Malibu Sheriffs substation on 1-3-91 to report seeing Ione Gamble’s black Mercedes 500SL parked in William Rice’s driveway at around 2300 on 12-31-90 and again at approximately 0513 on 1-1-91. Cleveland admits suing Rice for blocking his (Cleveland’s) ocean view. He says he met Rice only once, didn’t like him and isn’t sorry he’s dead. Questioned about his drinking, Rice says he is a charter member of the Malibu AA chapter and volunteered his opinion that Gamble murdered Rice ‘because he jilted her.’ He also volunteered an opinion that Gamble is a fine actress, but a mediocre director.”
Phil Quill received less space. “Quill,” the report read, “says he played the heavy in the TV pilot, The Keepers. He says the 9mm Beretta semiautomatic was used only by Jerry Tinder, who played the film’s lead role (Tinder died, New York, 3-15-88, of AIDS, according to NYPD). Quill says he is not a close friend of Richard Cleveland but sometimes sees him in the Hughes supermarket, Malibu, ‘to say hello.’ Quill is a licensed real estate broker in Malibu and says he never met William A. C. Rice IV although Rice’s attorneys retained his real estate company to provide maintenance of the Rice property in Malibu until probate is completed.”
After Stallings stuffed the reports back into the manila envelope and placed it in a nightstand drawer, he heard the soft knock at the bedroom door. He looked at his watch. It was 12:43. Stallings rose, went to the door and opened it. Georgia Blue entered the bedroom, wearing her new raincoat as a bathrobe and carrying two glasses and a bottle of J&B Scotch.