“Good.”
“How’d I do?”
“You were perfect.”
“I tried to put a lot of menace into that second line: ‘Then who the fuck’s that?’ I started to say, ‘Then who the fuck’s she?’ but that sounded too stilted, don’t you think?”
“It was exactly right,” Overby said, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket. “She still watching us?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’m going to give you an unsealed brown envelope. Inside is three hundred in twenties. I want you to count it, but inside the envelope. Take your time. Then I want you to give me a nod.”
“Just a nod?” the man said. “No line?”
“No line.”
“I think I can put a lot into that nod.”
“I know you can,” Overby said and handed him the brown envelope.
At 1 P.M. Overby treated himself to a pre-lunch martini at a Manhattan Beach bar and grill he had once frequented when financial reverses in 1985 had forced him to become “House-sitter to the Stars.” The fortyish bartender-owner slid the drink over and said, “I got a little something that might interest you, Otherguy.”
“Yeah, what?”
With his elbows now on the bar, the owner looked left, right, then at Overby. “Some London TV biggie’s in the market for videotapes—
homemade stuff. I hear he’s offering fat money.”
“You mean homemade porn?” Overby said, looking at his watch. It was 1:05 P.M. And exactly two and a half hours since he’d left the poker club in Gardena.
“More like true confession stuff is what I hear,” the owner-bartender said. “Stuff like, ‘I killed the wife, the kids and the dog and now I’d like to show you where I buried them.’ “
“I’d watch that,” Overby said.
“All you really need is a camcorder and a script.”
“And maybe an actor,” Overby said.
“You want the phone number?”
Overby nodded.
The owner wrote it down on a beer coaster and slid it to Overby. He glanced at it and saw it was the 456 number at the Rice house in Malibu.
“Ask for Mr. X,” the owner-bartender said. “And don’t forget I’m still paying dues to SAG.”
Overby tucked the coaster away in a jacket pocket and said, “You done anything lately?”
“Got a commercial coming up next week.”
“I may be in touch,” Overby said, finished his martini, placed a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and left.
Twenty-six
At 11 A.M. that day, Georgia Blue had called Jack Broach to suggest they have lunch. He quickly agreed and recommended a currently popular Alsatian restaurant on Sunset in Beverly Hills. After they agreed to meet at 1 P.M., Broach called a prospective client and cancelled their lunch date. This caused the prospective client, a moody actor, to accuse Broach of fickleness. Since the actor’s career was going nowhere, Broach cheerfully pled guilty to the charge and hung up.
Arriving at the Alsatian restaurant fifteen minutes late, Georgia Blue gained an immediate audience as she followed the maitre d’ to Broach’s table. Most men looked at her face, most women at her clothes. Then all of them, or nearly all, noticed the white streak of hair and the long sure stride and her obvious indifference to their curiosity.
They were still watching when she reached Broach’s table. By then Broach had decided that the stares and speculation were worth more than all the commissions he might have earned from the moody actor, who hadn’t worked in eight months anyway.
Georgia Blue didn’t apologize for being late. After she was seated, Broach asked if she would like a drink. She asked for a glass of the house red, if there was such a thing. When the drinks came, she glanced at the menu and ordered the special cassoulet, which Broach guessed was at least three thousand calories. He ordered soup and salad.
After the waiter left, she sipped her wine, smiled at Broach and said,
“Did that nice Mr. Davidson at Security Pacific call you?”
Broach nodded.
“I hoped he would.”
Suspecting he was supposed to ask why, Broach decided not to ask and see whether silence would provoke elaboration. It didn’t. Instead, Georgia Blue sipped more wine, glanced around the room and said,
