Росс Томас - Voodoo, Ltd.

Durant interrupted. “What do you mean ‘guarantee’?”

“She means we’ll indemnify any loss Ione Gamble takes because of the Goodisons,” Glimm said. “Which could be a great big bundle.” He paused to stare at Wu. “That’s why I want ’em found.”

After nodding pleasantly, Wu looked at Jenny Arliss and said, “You were talking about their fee.”

She said, “I rang Hughes and asked whether he and Pauline would fly to Los Angeles and hypnotize Ione Gamble for one hundred thousand dollars plus expenses. He almost went into a fit but accepted, of course, and they left the next day.”

“Then what?” Wu asked.

“A week later I had a call from Mr. Mott, who said the Goodisons had had three sessions with Ione Gamble. After the third session, they rang Mr. Mott at two in the morning to report a serious problem, but refused to discuss it over the phone. Mott told them not to stir, that he was coming right over. He was in a Santa Monica hotel and they were in the Bel-Air Hotel. I understand it usually takes twenty or twenty-five minutes to get from one to the other. Mr. Mott made it in less than twenty. But the Goodisons had already vanished.”

“Have they been heard from since?” Wu asked.

“Mott got a call from the brother,” Glimm said. “He said it was nothing but gibberish.”

“So what’s worrying you — blackmail?” Durant said.

“Exactly,” Glimm said.

“There’s no proof of it,” Wu said.

“Yet,” said Glimm. “Look,” he continued. “Maybe they’re blackmailers or maybe they aren’t. Or maybe they’ve been kidnapped and somebody else is the blackmailer. I could maybe this and maybe that the rest of the afternoon. But maybes aren’t answers, are they?”

“If it is blackmail,” Wu said, “who pays — you or Gamble?”

“I do,”

“You could wiggle out of it,” Durant said.

“Sure,” said Glimm, “but the word’d get around, wouldn’t it? I’d lose all my clients and spend the rest of my life kicking myself because I didn’t fork over a lousy million bucks. And when I wasn’t kicking myself, I’d be talking to lawyers about how to wiggle out of the ten or fifteen million Ione Gamble’s suing me for. But I don’t wanta do any of that, which is why I’m hiring you guys.”

“To find the Goodisons,” Wu said.

Glimm nodded vigorously. “Dead, alive or in between.”

“What’s Howard Mott think?” Durant said.

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” Glimm said. “What matters is what I think. Mott’s her defense lawyer. He’s paid to think she’s innocent. I don’t care if she is or isn’t. What I care about is finding the Goodisons. And as far as I’m concerned, guessing time’s over. I want you guys out in California and I want you to either find them or find out what happened to them. You do that and maybe I can salvage something.”

“Then I suggest we talk money,” Wu said.

“Go ahead. Talk.”

“You pay all expenses.”

“If itemized.”

“Some will be. Some won’t be.”

Glimm thought about Wu’s assertion, then nodded and said, “So far, so good.”

“Our fee is seven hundred and fifty thousand, regardless of outcome,” Durant said. “We want two hundred and fifty thousand now, the same amount two weeks from today and the balance when it’s over. If your outfit emerges from this without stain, we want a guaranteed bonus of another two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“Dollars or pounds?” Glimm asked.

“Dollars.”

“The bonus would jack it up to an even million. But I never paid a bonus in my life and I’m not gonna start with you two. I pay my help well, but if they don’t deliver, they’re out. The same goes for you. I’ll pay you two hundred and fifty thousand now, two hundred and fifty thousand two weeks from now and, if I get out stain-free, you get the other two hundred and fifty thousand. If I come out dirty, you’re cut off at five hundred thousand — plus that twenty-five-thousand-quid advance. That’s the end of the dickering. Yes or no?”

“I think yes,” Wu said. Durant only nodded.

Glimm looked at Jenny Arliss. “Cut ’em a check for the two-fifty.”

“We’re leaving for California tomorrow, so we’d like it this afternoon,” Wu said.

Arliss glanced at her watch. “Then you and I had best share a cab to my office.” She pushed back her chair and rose.

Artie Wu, again beaming, also rose and walked swiftly around the table to help Arliss into her coat.

“That woman detective,” Durant said to Arliss. “How do I get in touch with her?”

She finished buttoning the coat before she replied. “Why would you want to do that?”

“She might know something useful about the Goodisons.”

“She won’t talk to you.”

“Why not?”

Jenny Arliss started to reply, changed her mind, picked up a yellow pencil from the table, wrote something on one of the pads, ripped off the sheet, handed it to Durant and said, “Find out for yourself.”

The address turned out to be a flat over a chemist’s shop in Shirland Road on the northern edge of Paddington and, weather permitting, within walking distance of where Durant himself lived. After paying off the taxi, he read the names that had been printed with different ballpoint pens on two cards thumbtacked above a pair of doorbells. The name on the left was Joy Tomerlin. The name on the right was Mary Ticker. Durant rang the bell on the right.

Moments later it was answered by a woman’s voice, made tinny by the intercom. “Yes?”

“It’s about the Goodisons, Hughes and Pauline.”

“Not interested.”

“My name’s Durant. I’m a friend of Jenny Arliss. She gave me your name and address.”

“American, are you?”

“Right.”

“Sure you’re not some bloody reporter?”

“Positive.”

“Well, come up, then.”

The unlocking buzzer rang and Durant went through a thick glass door and up a flight of stairs to a small landing where a pair of doors gave entry to the front and rear flats. The front flat was Mary Ticker’s. Durant knocked and the door was quickly opened by a lean, not quite gaunt woman in her late thirties who wore a thick wool pullover, gray pants and a melancholy expression. A cigarette burned in her left hand.

She had very dark blue and possibly bitter eyes that had developed what Durant guessed to be a nearsighted squint. Her hair was light brown and thick and cropped short to the point of indifference. She also had a red nose, pale wide lips and prominent cheekbones, which saved the face from plainness. She had to look up at Durant, but not as much as most women, and he guessed her height at five-foot-nine or — ten.

“Detective Ticker?” Durant said.

She examined him carefully, head to foot and back up again, then shook her head and said, “No.”

“But you were Detective Mary Ticker?”

She nodded.

“I’d like to talk to you about the Goodisons.”

“Why?”

“They’ve disappeared.”

Her instant smile was happy, even delighted, and displayed a lot of well-cared-for teeth. Then it vanished, as quickly as it came, but not before it had softened her face and erased some of the bitterness from her eyes. After the smile was gone and the bitterness back, she said, “Perhaps you’d best come in and tell me the juicy bits.”

The sitting room was small and cramped and focused on a large television set with an attached VCR. Opposite the set was a kitchen alcove and just beyond it was a closed door that Durant guessed led to the bedroom and bath. Three easy chairs were drawn up to the TV set. In front of the center chair was a low table just the right size and height to hold tea and supper trays, which Durant suspected it did. The walls, he noticed, were papered with climbing pink roses interrupted here and there by inexpensive prints of rural scenes that Durant thought looked like Devon. A mirrored armoire served as a closet, and four pine shelves attached to a wall held a collection of china cats. A real cat, a fat calico, slept in one of the easy chairs.