After he saw Overby off, Booth Stallings walked into Georgia Blue’s bedroom as she packed her clothes into a small carry-on bag. He sat on a chair and watched her fold the gray dress she had bought at Neiman’s. After it was folded and packed away, he said, “How bad was it — at the inn?”
“I got to choose between Durant and Jack Broach and I chose Durant. But Broach knew I would, or seemed to, and just walked away. Or tried. He might have made it if it hadn’t been for Otherguy.”
“What did Durant say?”
“Thank you. What else was there to say?”
She looked around the room, saw nothing else that needed packing and closed the carry-on bag’s zipper. She picked up the envelope from the bed and stuffed it into her Coach purse. She then knelt beside the bed, reached beneath the mattress and brought out the small .25-caliber semiautomatic that she had used to shoot Jack Broach high in the left arm, almost in the shoulder. “Here,” Blue said and tossed the gun to Stallings, who made a one-handed catch.
“It’s what I shot Broach with,” she said.
“Looks like an ankle gun.”
“It is.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“That day I went shopping at the Gap?”
He nodded.
“I stopped by a bar afterwards and asked the bartender if he knew where a lady might acquire some protection. He happened to have a friend who delivered.”
“Want me to dump it for you?” Stallings said.
She nodded.
“Still want to run off with me and live in fancy hotels and drink champagne till the money runs out?” he said.
She smiled. “Do you?”
Stallings knew she would go with him if he said yes and he also knew it would end badly. So he said yes silently, but aloud he said, “Not really.”
“I’ll be in New York,” she said. “If you need anything — or change your mind. Howie will have my number.”
He nodded and turned to go but turned back when she said, “Booth.”
“What?”
“I’m still sort of stuck on you,” said Georgia Blue.
By the time Stallings threw the .25-caliber semiautomatic out into the ocean and returned the Rice house keys to Phil Quill, the actor-real estate man, it was 2:47 P.M. He got in the Mercedes 500SL and drove to the Budget office in Beverly Hills, where he handed the car keys over to Gloria Ransome of the perpetually sunny disposition.
She greeted him with her usual warmth and together they went out to make sure the $100,000 car didn’t have a crumpled fender or a broken window. On the way back to the office, she asked him how his movie deal was progressing.
“We’ve got a picture,” said Stallings, who vaguely remembered somebody quoting somebody else as saying that.
After she said “wow” and “terrific” and “that’s wonderful,” as if it were happening to her instead of to him, Stallings said, “You work tomorrow?”
“I get weekends off.”
“Want to go to Tahoe?”
“You kidding?”
He shook his head. “What time d’you get off?”
“Six?” She made it a question as if fearful it might be too late.
“I’ll pick you up then. Maybe we’ll charter a plane and fly up tonight.”
“Oh-my-God!”
“See you at six, Gloria,” Stallings said, smiled and left. Outside, he crossed the street and walked down the north side of Santa Monica Boulevard until he came to a park bench, where he sat down next to a man in his late sixties or early seventies who said he was a retired film cutter. Eventually, they talked about the government and the economy and compared the just-ended gulf war with Korea and Vietnam and World War Two. The retired film cutter seemed very well informed and not at all optimistic.
When the man rose to go, he looked down at Stallings and said, “You’re not retired yet, are you?”
“Not just yet,” Booth Stallings said.