Jack Broach leaned forward with a new and rather earnest expression that Georgia Blue decided was his standard you-can-trust-me-on-this look.
“I’m in the talent business,” he said. “I find it. Nurture it. Package it. Sell it. And sometimes I have to decide when it’s no longer marketable. That makes me an assessor of sorts. And my first assessment of Hughes and Pauline Goodison was that they were standard star fuckers with a short line of bullshit. By the end of my one and only hour with them and Ione, I’d reassessed them as two very sick fucks.”
“You told Gamble that, of course?”
“I couldn’t quite bring myself to second-guess her defense counsel.”
“Howard Mott.”
Broach nodded.
“He recommended the Goodisons?”
“More or less.”
“Either he did or he didn’t.”
“Mott heard about them,” Broach said, “then checked them out and hired them through a most reputable London agency. Everyone Mott talked to in London assured him the Goodisons were a blue ribbon pair.”
“Who recommended Mott to Gamble?”
“She asked me to find her the best criminal defense lawyer in the country. I ran five of them past her and she chose Mott. I told her she’d made a wise choice.”
“You still believe that?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“I don’t understand your question.”
“Sure you do,” she said. “You recommended Mott—among others.
Ione Gamble retains him. He hired the Goodisons and suddenly everything goes to hell. My question is: do you still think she was smart to pick Mott?”
“Smart has nothing to do with it. Ione feels comfortable with Howie Mott. She trusts him. He’s also a damn fine lawyer with impressive credentials.”
“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”
“Why?”
“They usually stick up for each other.” Blue paused, looked slowly around the large room, as if pricing its contents, then came back to Broach with another question. “What do you do for Ione Gamble besides give her advice?”
“I’m her best friend.”
“What’s it cost her to have you as best friend? I don’t want the dollar amount, just the percentage.”
“I’m her agent, business manager and personal attorney. For that she pays me twenty percent of her gross income. My friendship is free.”
“You handle her investments?”
Broach nodded.
“Is she broke, comfortable, rich—what?”
“Her net worth today would have made her rich ten years ago. Now it just makes her extremely comfortable.”
“What caused the breakup between her and William Rice the Fourth?”
“No idea.”
“Guess.”
“If Ione can’t guess, I sure as hell can’t.”
“Anything wrong with her?” Georgia Blue asked. “By that I mean is she psychotic, HIV-positive, drug-addicted, sexually deviant, alcoholic or suffering from any mental or physical maladies that could affect her career?”
“What the hell’re you talking about?”
“Blackmail,” Georgia Blue said. “Well, is she?”
“No.”
“Think she killed him—Rice?”
“No.”
“Who do you think did?”
“No idea. None.”
“Why do you think the Goodisons did a flit, bolted?”
