“She agreed to pay, I hope?”
“She told Goodison she needed time to raise the money and he gave her four days.”
“Let’s get all the times straight,” Wu said—again to Durant. “You picked up Gamble when?”
“We left her house at about twenty ‘til two and arrived at the dental surgeon’s at two straight up. Her wisdom tooth was out by two-twenty. It took another ten or fifteen minutes for the Pentothal to wear off in the recovery room. But before it did, I decided to find out how effective a truth serum Pentothal really is and asked her if anyone’d borrowed her car New Year’s Eve. Or if she’d gone out to Billy Rice’s house twice that same day and night. Or if she’d shot him.
She answered no to everything.”
“Why’re you so sure it was exactly three-thirteen when Goodison called Ione Gamble?” Wu said.
“Because when I picked up the extension I looked at my watch,”
Durant said.
Wu decided to examine the ceiling. “Goodison calls Gamble at three-thirteen and is dead by four- thirteen.” He brought his gaze down.
“Can any of you make something out of that?”
When no one spoke, Wu looked to his left and said, “You’re next, Georgia.”
Her face was expressionless and her tone neutral when she said,
“Jack Broach’s company is nearly bankrupt.”
Artie Wu leaned back in his chair at the head of the table, clasped his hands across his belly, smiled contentedly and, around his cigar, said, “There’s more, I trust.”
“There is,” she said. “I checked with Broach’s bank first and they’re not happy with his business. Then Broach and I had lunch in Beverly Hills. During lunch I told him why I thought he was almost broke and, after the coffee came, I made a suggestion.”
“I bet you did,” Durant said.
“Let her tell it,” said Overby.
After a shrug from Durant, Georgia Blue stared directly at him and said, “When I finished telling Broach why I thought he was broke, I asked him what would happen if Ione Gamble told him to raise, say, one million in cash to pay off a blackmailer. Could he or couldn’t he, yes or no? He said nothing, not a word, which didn’t really surprise me. So I said all right, if he couldn’t raise a million, could he raise three hundred thousand? If yes, he could tell Gamble that the million
in cash was ready for her go-between, me. In exchange for the three hundred thousand, I offered to hand over all incriminating blackmail material along with a personal guarantee that the blackmailer, singular or plural, would never bother her again. Broach said he didn’t have much faith in such guarantees because he’d always heard that blackmailers never quit. I said they do when they’re dead.”
There was a long silence. During the silence, Otherguy Overby’s slight smile widened into his white hard grin. Durant stared at her without expression—except for the thin compressed line his lips made.
Artie Wu nodded several times, as if to himself. Booth Stallings poured himself a cup of lukewarm tea, added sugar and drank it down, staring at Blue over the rim of the cup.
Ignoring them all, Georgia Blue picked up her chopsticks and used them to transfer the last dim sum to her mouth. She chewed slowly, almost thoughtfully, swallowed, put the chopsticks down and used a napkin to pat the corners of her mouth. She then leaned back in her chair, smiled politely, as if there had been a lull in the conversation and she was now waiting for someone to say something interesting.
Artie Wu ended the long silence with a question. “What was Mr.
Broach’s reaction?”
“I’ve been hoping he would’ve called Ione Gamble by now,” Blue said. “Or her lawyer, Mr. Mott. Or maybe even you. Apparently, he hasn’t.”
“Come on, Georgia,” Durant said. “Did he say, ‘That’s one hell of an idea, Ms. Blue’—or ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about and don’t want to know’—or even, ‘You’d better watch your mouth, lady’?”
“What he did,” she said, ignoring Durant and speaking directly to Wu, “was sign the check, add a twenty percent tip, smile and say,
‘We’ll have to do this again very soon.’ ”
“When did the lunch begin and when did it end?” Wu asked.
“It didn’t begin until one-fifteen because I was late and it ended at two.”
“Where’d you go then?” Durant said.
“Shopping. I bought some things at Saks and some jeans and a sweatshirt at the Gap. I also stopped at a store in Santa Monica and bought a pair of blue Keds. Then I drove home, arriving here around four forty-five or four-fifty. Otherguy was already here.”
“Did you tell him about Jack Broach?” Durant asked.
“Not a word,” Overby said.
Stallings was still frowning at Georgia Blue when he said, “If I got it right, you offered to kill the blackmailers, singular or plural; retrieve the stuff they were blackmailing Gamble with, and provide both of these services for a flat fee of three hundred thousand dollars, right?”
“Wrong,” she said.
