Росс Томас - Voodoo, Ltd.

“I have some news.”

“Good or bad?”

“I’ll let you decide,” Wu said. “The blackmailer called.”

“Ah.”

“He disguises his voice with some kind of electronic device.

Otherguy calls him Oil Drum.”

“Because he sounds like he’s talking from the bottom of one,” Mott said.

“Exactly,” said Wu, happy as always when a bright mind required no explanation. “He wants to sell Ione video- and audiotapes of her confessing under hypnosis to the murder of Billy Rice. The price is one million. He wants — I should say demands — a yes or no by five P.M. today.”

“You know she can’t raise a million that quickly, Artie. So what are you really calling about?”

“A proposal.”

“I may not give you a reply.”

“Perhaps, but I propose that you call Jack Broach and tell him Ione needs a million in cash by four P.M. today and why. Then merely listen to what he says.”

There was a very long pause until Mott asked, “You think Jack, instead of saying, ‘Impossible,’ will say, ‘Okay, fine,’ don’t you?”

“Should he say yes or, ‘Okay, fine,’ tell him Georgia Blue will be picking up the money.”

“All by herself?” Mott said, then quickly added, “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Wu said nothing and there was another long silence that Mott ended when he asked, “What’s going on, Artie? Nothing specific, please.”

“Something that might exonerate Ione.”

“Might?”

“That’s as specific as I can get,” Wu said. “But there’s one thing you must do and that’s to give Ione some sense of progress. Simply call her and say that Durant and Georgia are dropping by to bring her up to date and introduce her to her new bodyguard.”

“Who is?”

“I’m not quite sure yet.”

“The hell you’re not.”

“Bear with me, Howie.”

Another very long pause was followed by a grunt from Howard Mott, who then changed the subject and asked, “How was Enno Glimm?”

“Nervous,” Wu said. “He offered us an additional five hundred thousand to keep him all the way out of it and get Ione off the hook. Then he flew back to London.”

“Artie,” Mott said.

“Yes?”

“I really don’t need to hear everything,” Mott said and broke the connection.

Wu recradled the phone, frowned at it for a moment, then turned to Stallings. “What d’you think, Booth?”

“I think your phone pal Oil Drum not only stole the tapes but also killed the limo driver, Mr. Santillan, then did in the Goodisons and tried to run over you and me at the motel in Oxnard.”

“How very neat,” Wu said.

“It’d be even neater if he also killed Billy Rice,” Stallings said.

“Except he didn’t,” Wu said.

“No.”

“But you think you know who did.”

“Maybe.”

“Like to share your suspicions?”

“Depends,” Stallings said.

“On what?”

“On what happens to Georgia,” Stallings said.

Artie Wu tugged at his right earlobe as he seemed to examine something that was just beyond Stallings’s left shoulder. “You think I’ve sent Georgia down the path to temptation rather than redemption, don’t you?”

“You sure as hell’ve pointed the way.”

“Then why would I send Quincy with her?”

“That stumps me.”

“How does Quincy seem to you — compared to five years ago?”

Stallings considered the question. “He’s turned sour and about as remote as the moon — although he never was what I’d call a bucket of laughs.”

“And Georgia?”

“She’s moved to the outback of remote.”

“What I’ve done,” Wu said slowly, “or what I hope I’ve done, is to send them on a cure together.”

“A cure that can get ’em both killed — if they don’t kill each other first.”

“But the interesting thing is, Booth, they both know what I’m doing and neither objects.”

“Maybe the cure will take and maybe it won’t,” Stallings said. “But as long as I know you’re not setting Georgia up, I’ll go along.”

“I’m very fond of Georgia,” Wu said. “You know that.”

“Ever been stuck on her?”

“No,” Wu said. “But then Agnes was already — present.”

“Durant was once,” Stallings said. “Stuck on her.”

Wu nodded.

“So was Otherguy.”

Wu moved his shoulders just enough to form a slight shrug.

“And now me,” Stallings said.

“You’re a lucky man, Booth,” Wu said, paused, then asked, “About what you said earlier?”

“About who killed Rice?”

Wu nodded. “Is it a hunch?”

“More notion than hunch.”

“Notions are good, too,” Wu said with a couple of judicious nods. “Need anything?”

“Money, but I’ll cash a check at the bank for five thousand.”

“Want me to tag along?”

Stallings shook his head and rose.

“May I ask what you think you might come up with?”

“What about a signed confession?”

“That’ll do nicely,” said Artie Wu.

The three of them were following the Salvadoran housekeeper and the flop-cared rabbit up the stairs to Ione Gamble’s office when the 7-year-old shepherd-Labrador began its charge.

Otherguy Overby, bringing up the rear, turned just in time for eighty-two pounds of dog to spring and slam into his chest. A second later Overby found himself in a sitting position on the stair’s fifth step, the shep-Lab licking his face and emitting yelps and whines of joy and delight.

Overby finally grinned, gave the dog a rough hug, pushed him away and said, “How the hell are you, Moose?” The dog replied with yet another wet lick, rested his head on Overby’s knee and gazed up at him with what seemed to be total adoration.

It was then that Ione Gamble appeared at the top of the stairs and asked Durant, “What happened?”

“Your dog just took out your new bodyguard,” said Durant and quickly introduced Gamble to Georgia Blue.

After the introduction, Gamble stared down at the back of Overby’s head and called, “Are you okay?”

Overby rose slowly, turned around even more slowly, looked up at Gamble and said, “I’m fine.”

“Godalmighty,” she said. “It’s Otherguy Overby himself.”

Overby smiled up at her — a little wanly, Durant thought — and said, “Howya doing, Ione?”

“You’ve met, I see,” Georgia Blue said.

Ione Gamble nodded, still staring down at Overby, whose faint smile had now almost faded away. “The first time was in seventy-four,” she said. “I was eighteen and Otherguy was what — thirty-three?”

“Thirty,” Overby said.

“As I said, thirty-three, and he was going to make me a star. Well, he did get me my first job — leading an iguana by a rope over to Cal Worthington in one of those ‘My Dog, Spot’ used-car commercials.”

“You had to start somewhere,” Overby said.

“And the next time?” Georgia Blue said.

“Ten years later.”

“Eleven,” Overby said. “Eighty-five.”

“Okay. Eighty-five. I’d just bought this house and had to do a picture in London. I needed someone to house-sit and a friend recommended what she called ‘this perfectly marvelous house-sitter.’ So I said okay, send him around. Well, who shows up but Maurice Overby, House-sitter to the Stars.”

“Tell ’em who saved the house, Ione,” Overby said.

“You did. The firemen ordered him out because a fire was sweeping up the canyon. But Otherguy stayed on the roof all night with a garden hose and nobody got hurt and nothing got burned. But when he left six weeks later, my animals pined for him so much, especially Moose here, that they’d hardly eat. The bastard had alienated their affections and I had to pay him fifty bucks every Sunday for two months just to come over and play with ’em for an hour.”