“Not Otherguy either.”
“So who do we cross?”
“Jack Broach and Company.”
“Jesus, you’re not back on that ‘dead blackmailers can’t blackmail’
pitch again, are you?”
Georgia Blue undid the last of the raincoat’s buttons as she rose, let the raincoat slip to the floor and said, “You still don’t quite get it, do you?”
Stallings paid no attention to the question as he stared at the perfect body, remembering it, rediscovering it and refusing to analyze his nearly adolescent surge of eroticism. Instead, he set his drink down and hurried to her. There was a brief stare of either accommodation or understanding before the kiss began—a very long and nearly savage kiss that featured clicking teeth and what Stallings thought of as dueling tongues.
When the kiss ended, both were gasping, but Georgia Blue managed to ask a question. “Well, is it?”
“Is it what?”
“Like a real date?”
“Exactly,” Booth Stallings said.
Thirty-five
At 7:59 the next morning the five of them were again gathered around the long refectory table in the dining room, waiting for the telephone to ring. The wrappings and remains of their Egg McMuffin breakfasts had been pushed into a neat pile by Otherguy Overby. Georgia Blue rose, picked up a carafe of coffee from the sideboard and warmed the cups of Overby, Durant and herself—Wu and Stallings declining with headshakes.
The telephone on the long table rang just as Blue sat back down. Wu let it ring four times before he picked it up and said hello.
The electronically distorted voice of the man Overby called Oil Drum said, “You don’t sound like Mr. X to me.”
“I’m Mr. Z, the yes-or-no man,” Wu said.
“I think you’re maybe a cop.”
“What a terrible thing to say.”
“So what the hell’re you doing at the phone number of Billy Rice’s beach house? Answer me that.”
“Mr. X and I’re also the go-between people.”
“Between me and who else?” Oil Drum asked.
“Between you and whoever buys what you’ve got to sell.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve already told your Mr. X what I’ve got to sell.”
“And now you can tell me.”
“I got audio- and videotapes of a hypnotized Ione Gamble confessing to the murder of Billy Rice. That’s what I got.”
“You mentioned a screening to Mr. X,” Wu said.
“I changed my mind. No screening.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s only one videotape and the only way you could look at it is if I made a copy and messengered it to you. But if I did that, you’d have everything I’ve got and could go peddle it for a bunch of money.”
Wu sighed. “How much do you want for your pig in a poke—a hundred thousand?”
“Now you’re wasting my time,” Oil Drum said. “I can make one call to Florida and they’ll fly a guy out this afternoon, be here by two P.M., with three hundred thousand in cash.”
“Who’re the they in Florida?”
“One of the supermarket rags.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“I want a fast in-and-out deal,” Oil Drum said. “So I figure I might as well sell it all to Gamble herself.”
“For how much?”
“One million.”
“Impossible,” Wu said.
“Okay. You just said no, so I’ll say goodbye.”
Wu spoke quickly. “How much time do we have?”
“It’s a one-day sale.”
“You can’t expect her to raise that much cash in one day.”
“Why not? Banks open at nine and close at four—some of ‘em at five or six. She’s got till six P.M. We agree to
