Росс Томас - Voodoo, Ltd.

“Some memory, huh?” Glimm asked.

“Remarkable,” Durant said.

It was just after the Goodisons began their course of study, Arliss said, that Hughes began looking into ways he and his sister could become certified hypnotists and discovered the requirements were surprisingly lax. He also learned of schools of hypnotism where the course lasted only forty hours — followed by sixteen hours of supervised practice. He and his sister could even attend classes at night and, once all courses were completed, hang out their shingle as certified hypnotists.

“And that’s exactly what they did,” Arliss said.

“Tell ’em about their gimmick,” Glimm said.

She nodded. “Right. Their gimmick, as Mr. Glimm calls it, was to open a lose-weight, stop-smoking clinic — except they didn’t call it a clinic. They called it a workshop and their success rate was about what it is for most such places — anywhere from fifteen to twenty percent, if that. But one boasts about successes, not failures, and Hughes and Pauline were quite good at self-promotion. They worked up a fairly witty lecture-cum-demonstration, wisely keeping it to fifteen minutes, and offered it free to civic and professional groups that met weekly or monthly. They sprinkled their act — I suppose I should call it that — with generous dollops of psychobabble and lots of audience participation. Pauline was especially clever at choosing those in the audience who were most easily hypnotized.”

“Real operators, huh?” Glimm said.

“But so far very small-time,” Durant said.

“Just wait.”

“Opportunity knocked or banged on their door,” Arliss said, “when a woman detective, who happened to be a heavy smoker, attended one of the professional women’s meetings, although I don’t remember which one.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Glimm said.

“The detective signed up for the Goodison’s stop-smoking program and even joked that if they didn’t make her stop smoking, she’d arrest them for fraud. But after only two sessions she did stop smoking, apparently forever.”

“Why apparently?” Wu asked.

“Because I haven’t seen her in several months. The detective was working on a rape case when she met the Goodisons. The victim was a seven-year-old girl who suffered traumatic memory loss and couldn’t or wouldn’t say who’d attacked her, although the detective had begun to suspect Uncle Ned.”

Arliss poured herself some Evian water, sipped it and said, “The detective and the Goodisons were chums by then and she asked them if they’d done much work with children. They said children were often the most receptive subjects — which obviously didn’t answer the question. The detective then asked if they’d be willing to hypnotize a seven-year-old rape victim suffering from traumatic memory loss. This time Pauline admitted they’d never done anything quite like that but very much wanted to cooperate with the police in any way they could.”

“You’re putting in too much detail,” Glimm said.

“I like detail,” Wu said, smiling encouragingly at Arliss.

She had another sip of Evian water. “The detective had by now struck up a kind of silent rapport with the seven-year-old girl, who hadn’t said a word since her rape. But sometimes she’d nod or shake her head to the detective’s questions, which is more than she’d do for her parents or anyone else. So after getting the parents’ permission the detective explained everything to the child, then went to her masters and told them what she had in mind. After a certain amount of bureaucratic bump and shuffle, it was decided to give the Goodisons a try, providing a doctor was present.”

“I thought the Metro cops had their own hypnotists,” Durant said.

“They do,” Arliss said. “But they’re all male coppers. In any event, Pauline — with brother Hughes as backup — hypnotized the child, who regained both speech and memory and promptly named her dad as the rapist.”

“Well, now,” said Wu because Jenny Arliss had paused, as if expecting comment or exclamation.

“Then what?” Durant said.

“Then the story was leaked by someone,” she said. “The police still don’t know who, but I always suspected Hughes. The tabloids had a perfectly marvelous time. Hypnotized Tot Says Daddy Raped Me. Stuff like that. The tot’s name was never mentioned, nor were the names of her parents — until much later. But the names of Hughes and Pauline were all over the papers and that’s when I swooped in and gathered them up.”

“When did all this happen?” Wu said. “A couple of years ago?”

“Just about. Since then, the Goodisons have opened four more lose-weight, stop-smoking workshops, the police’ve consulted them repeatedly and they’ve given ever so many interviews and made any number of television appearances.”

“You’re what — their agent?” Durant asked.

“No. Help! signed them solely for foreign representation on a just-in-case basis. That’s how we sign all our clients. We neither charge them a fee nor take a percentage of their gross because the employer always pays our fee.”

“Which is how much?” Wu asked.

“Twenty-five percent on top of what our client gets,” Glimm said.

“Sounds profitable,” Wu said, opened a beer, poured himself a glass, had two swallows and said, “I’d like to hear about California now — and how the Goodisons went missing.”

“Okay,” Glimm said. “But first I wanta mention a couple of names because, if you recognize them, it’ll save a hell of a lot of time and explanation. The names are Ione Gamble and William A. C. Rice the Fourth. Ring any bells?”

Durant said, “Jilted Actress Slays Billionaire, Cops Claim.”

“What about you?” Glimm said to Wu. “You up on it?”

“I’ve kept abreast,” Wu said. “It would’ve been difficult not to.”

“Then you know she claims she got drunk and blacked out and can’t remember anything. You know about that, right?”

“We know,” Durant said.

“You know about her auditions?”

“For what?” Wu said.

“For criminal defense lawyers,” Glimm said. “She flew ’em in from all over, guys with big reputations. Then she picks one from Washington, D.C., who she says is the smartest man she ever met and I’ve gotta agree with her there. She picked Howard Mott. Know him?”

Wu looked at Durant, then said, “I don’t think we’ve ever actually met, have we?”

“No,” Durant said. “We haven’t.”

“But you know who he is?” Glimm said.

Wu nodded.

“Well, Mott and I’ve done business before so I wasn’t all that surprised when I got a call from him. I was in Frankfurt and he was in L.A. Santa Monica, anyway. He tells me he’s representing Ione Gamble and wants me to tell him about Hughes and Pauline Goodison. So I tell him to call Jenny here in London — or I’ll have her call him. Mott says he’s in a hurry, so I give him her number and he calls her. She’ll tell you what happened then.”

Durant and Wu looked at Jenny Arliss. She stared at Wu first, then shifted her gaze to Durant and said, “Mr. Mott rang and grilled me for thirty minutes or more about the Goodisons. I gave him some telephone numbers to call, including several at the Metropolitan Police. Two hours later he rang back and said he’d like to employ or retain the Goodisons to help Ione Gamble recover her memory. I was curious as to why he’d pick them when southern California is brimming over with all sorts of hypnotherapists, reputable and otherwise. So I asked him.”

“What did he say?” Durant asked.

She looked away for a moment to stare at the portrait of Agnes Wu and the two sets of twins. She then looked back at Durant and said, “Mr. Mott wanted to engage a hypnotist — in this case, a pair of them — whose discretion would be guaranteed. He then asked if Help! would guarantee the Goodisons’ silence or discretion, whatever. I told him of course — that we guarantee the discretion of all our specialists. We then settled on a fee and—”