“Eight tomorrow morning. By then I’ll’ve figured out a way to set up a screening.”
“What if I gotta get in touch with you before that—in case something comes up?”
Oil Drum chuckled again. “Nice try,” he said and broke the connection.
Georgia Blue waited for Overby to hang up before she replaced the kitchen wall phone and returned to the living room. She was wearing the jeans and a white sweatshirt she had bought that afternoon during a seven- minute shopping spree at the Gap on Wilshire in Santa Monica. On her feet were a pair of sockless dark blue Keds that were also new.
Overby was frowning at the phone console when Blue sank cross-legged to the floor, looked up at him and said, “How’re you going to work it?”
“What?”
“The fuck-him-over.”
“Won’t be easy. Not old Oil Drum.”
“Oil Drum,” she said. “I like it. Why d’you think he altered his voice?
Because he thought you might be taping him?”
“Or that I might recognize it.”
“Did you?”
“No. Did you?”
“No,” she said. “But it must’ve been Hughes Goodison’s voice asking Gamble those questions. And that could mean the tapes’ve been sold or stolen or the Goodisons have taken in a new partner.”
Overby frowned. “He didn’t even mention blackmail, did he, Oil Drum?”
“No.”
Overby frowned again, obviously concentrating until the frown disappeared, replaced by his hard white grin. “If I was them, the Goodisons, I know what I’d do. I’d collect as much as I could from Ione
Gamble and then use somebody else, somebody like Oil Drum, to peddle the videotape to the highest bidder.” He nodded comfortably at the scheme and said, “Very rich and very nice. It’s got, you know, symmetry.”
“Oil Drum would handle both the blackmail and the videotape sale?”
Georgia Blue asked.
“Sure.”
“Then the Goodisons would never see a dime, would they?”
“Of course not,” Overby said. “They’re amateurs and too much money’s up for grabs. What they should’ve done is got in and out for a quick two hundred and fifty K. If they’d done that, they could already be spending it somewhere nice.”
“What did you think of the tape?” she asked.
Overby shook his head dismissively. “It’d been doctored by somebody who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. Take that question Goodison asked Gamble about how she felt after Rice dumped her and she said she wanted to kill him. Then Goodison asks,
‘Did you?’ and she says, ‘Yes.’ That was all spliced together by somebody in a hurry.”
“They must have something else they’re banking on.”
“Sure they do,” Overby said. “They got the videotape. Audio’s simple. If you know what you’re doing, you can make it say damn near anything. But video’s different because it’s lip-synched and then there’re the expressions and eye movements and body language and all that to worry about. But if you find yourself a real good cutter, the best, you can still do a hell of a lot with videotape.”
Georgia Blue stared up at him. “You already have it all planned out, don’t you?”
“What?”
“The Otherguy angle.”
Overby examined her for several moments before he shook his head.
“Not this time, Georgia.”
“Bullshit.”
Overby shifted in his chair and studied her some more before he said, “How long’ve we known each other?”
“Half my life.”
Overby ran the years through his mind, added them up, then nodded in agreement. “I’m gonna give you some advice and that’s something I seldom do because I don’t like it when people give it to me. Okay?”
She shrugged.
“If you’re thinking of setting up a sideshow, Georgia, that’s fine—as long as it doesn’t affect my cut. Just make sure you don’t get Durant pissed off at you. All that stuff you pulled in Manila and Hong Kong’s still eating at him and he’s just waiting for you to give him an excuse.
If you get him really pissed off, even Artie can’t stop him. So if you’re considering a solo, think about Durant.”
