“Some of them look familiar. Should they?”
“A few of them.”
“I haven’t seen a movie in five years. Did I miss much?”
“It depends on what you like.”
“Ironic ones with lots of talk.”
“You haven’t missed anything.”
“What do you like about your business, Mr. Broach?”
“The money. The deals. And now and then the people and the product.”
“I take it you’re still Ione Gamble’s best friend?”
“I certainly hope so.”
“Then you should know I’m to be her go-between.”
“You’ll go between what or whom?”
“Between her and whoever’s going to blackmail her.”
Broach leaned back in his chair and studied Georgia Blue. Finally, he said, “If there were any blackmail attempt, I’m sure she would’ve talked to me about it.”
“She doesn’t know about it yet.”
“Who do you think or suspect is going to blackmail her?”
“Hughes and Pauline Goodison.”
“And what exactly would you do as Ione’s go-between?”
“Buy back stuff that could ruin her reputation and destroy her career.”
“Then you have my blessing.”
“Good. Now we can talk about money.”
“The money to pay the blackmailers.”
“Yes. That money.”
“If the Goodisons are the blackmailers, you’re talking to the wrong guy. You should be talking to Enno Glimm.”
“Because he’s guaranteed to indemnify her against any damage or loss the Goodisons might cause?”
“That’s what the contract says.”
“But we only suspect the Goodisons are the blackmailers,” Georgia Blue said. “What if they’re not? What if they’re perfectly innocent?”
“Then why did they disappear?”
She shrugged. “Maybe something or somebody made them disappear. Until you prove the Goodisons are the blackmailers, I don’t think Mr. Glimm will pay anything.”
“Which means Ione will have to come up with the money.”
Georgia Blue nodded.
Jack Broach tasted his drink for the first time, then set it aside as if he had no intention of picking it up again. “How much money are you talking about?”
Staring at his left eye, Georgia Blue said, “I’d guess a million.”
“That’s why you paid my bank a visit, right?”
She then began an examination of his right eye and said, “We need to know if there’s enough to make the payoff.”
“And is there?”
“Mr. Davidson was very circumspect.”
“Do you think there’s enough?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She ended her eye examination, drank the rest of her wine, smiled at him and said, “The Daumiers. In your office. I mean the fake Daumiers. The moment I spotted them I wondered why a guy like Jack Broach would hang fake Daumiers on the wall. My answer: he had to sell the real ones because of hard times in Hollywood.” She rested her elbows on the table, leaned toward him a few confidential inches, smiled again and said, “You are broke, aren’t you, Jack?”
“Am I?”
She straightened, shrugged and looked over his right shoulder at something that might have been halfway across the room. “I could sniff around some more. But to save time I could also have Howard Mott tell Ione
