“Six months,” Wu said.
The woman turned to her computer, tapped out some numbers, studied them briefly, turned back to Wu with a cool smile and said,
“You’re in luck. Three-four-seven-two just came vacant this afternoon.”
Wu turned to Stallings with a broad smile. “Hear that, Frank? It’s available. Old three right, forty-seven left, two right.”
Stallings gave him a sly look. “Wanta see it first. Wanta make sure everything’s all hunky-dory.”
“Zip up, Frank,” Wu said, turned back to the woman and whispered,
“How much for six months?” He put a finger to his lips. She nodded and wrote a number on a pad, then turned it around so Wu could read it. The number was $100 per month plus tax.
After glancing at Stallings, who was now engrossed in pulling his zipper up and down, Wu reached into a pocket, brought out some crumpled bills and handed the redheaded woman $700.
Wu whispered, “I’ll pick up the change later.”
She used a whisper to ask, “What’s wrong with him?”
Wu smiled sadly and whispered, “Just age.”
She handed over a key along with a photocopy map of the container’s location and, no longer concerned that Stallings could hear her, said, “I’ve got a granddaddy just like that.”
The color of the storage container was green and there was nothing in it. Stallings and Wu wandered around inside for a few minutes, but there was nothing to see, nothing to pry into. When they came out, Stallings said, “Well, what d’you think, Reverend?”
“Two things,” Wu said. “One, Ione Gamble’s going to be hearing fairly soon from whoever was driving that black Caprice. And two, you’d better zip up your pants.”
Thirty-one
Otherguy Overby, seated in the late Billy Rice’s big port-wine leather chair, picked up the console phone just before its third ring, said hello and heard an electronically distorted male voice say, “Mr. X, please.”
“Lemme get to the other phone,” Overby said and sent a look and a nod to Georgia Blue, who rose from the long living room couch and hurried into the kitchen. Overby, staring at his watch, noted that the time was exactly 5:03 P.M. When he heard her pick up the kitchen’s wall phone. It was then that Overby said, “That’s better,” into his own phone and, in turn, was treated to a bass chuckle that, sounded like tired thunder,
“Put somebody on the extension, did you?” said the man with the distorted bass voice. “Well, that’s fine. Means you’re careful.”
Overby made no response and let the silence build. While waiting, he decided the caller’s altered voice sounded as if it were coining from the bottom of a steel oil drum. The caller was in no hurry to end the silence because it went on and on until the reverberating voice finally said, “I hear you’re interested in videotapes.”
“Depends,” Overby said.
“On what?”
“On quality.”
“What’s the quality market’s top price?”
“For prime stuff,” Overby said, “up to a hundred thousand pounds—
about a hundred and seventy-five or eighty thousand U.S.”
“Listen,” the distorted voice said.
First, there was a very soft click—much like the sound a mercury light switch might make. Then a male voice with a pronounced British accent said, “Tell me your name.”
A woman’s voice that to Overby sounded either sleepy or tired said,
“Ione Gamble.”
After a too-long pause, which Overby blamed on incompetent splicing, the British-accented male voice asked, “When you learned Billy Rice wasn’t going to marry you or let you star and direct his Bad Dead Indian picture, how did that make you feel?”
There was only a slight pause this time before the woman’s voice said, “I wanted to kill him.”
“Did you?” the male voice asked.
“Yes,” said the woman who claimed she was Ione Gamble.
After a final soft click, the caller’s distorted voice rumbled up out of the oil drum again. “Like the quality?”
“Seemed a little short.”
“That’s just a taste, a sniff,” said Oil Drum, which was the name Overby had now given him. “I’ve got forty-nine and a half minutes of stuff just as rich. Maybe even richer. Interested?”
“Could be,” Overby said, “if it’s really on video and not just audiotape and I get to screen it first.”
“I’ll get back to you,” Oil Drum said.
“When?”
