“I’m no rent-a-cop.”
“You are now,” Durant said.
Overby started to protest again, but changed his mind, slumped back in his chair and glowered at anyone who looked at him. A new silence began that was ended by Georgia Blue’s amused laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Overby demanded.
“Artie’s funny,” she said. “Everybody gets a nanny. Artie watches Booth. Quincy watches me. And Ione Gamble watches you.”
Wu gazed at her with a fond smile and asked, “Should we have taken a vote on who does what, Georgia?”
“A secret one?”
“Of course.”
“Who’d count the votes, Artie?”
“I would,” he said, still smiling. “Who else?”
After Artie Wu tapped out Howard Mott’s telephone number, he listened to the rings while looking at Booth Stallings, now the last one left at the old refectory table. “You didn’t say much during discussion period, Booth,” Wu said.
“Believe I said, ‘Please pass the salt.’ “
Before Wu could continue, Howard Mott answered the phone with a grumpy “What is it?”
“It’s Artie Wu.”
“You woke me up. If I sound testy, it’s because I am.”
“Late night?”
“I dictated till three. Maybe three-thirty.”
“I have some news.”
“Good or bad?”
“I’ll let you decide,” Wu said. “The blackmailer called.”
“Ah.”
“He disguises his voice with some kind of electronic device.
Otherguy calls him Oil Drum.”
“Because he sounds like he’s talking from the bottom of one,” Mott said.
“Exactly,” said Wu, happy as always when a bright mind required no explanation. “He wants to sell Ione video- and audiotapes of her confessing under hypnosis to the murder of Billy Rice. The price is one million. He wants—I should say demands—a yes or no by five P.M.
today.”
“You know she can’t raise a million that quickly, Artie. So what are you really calling about?”
“A proposal.”
“I may not give you a reply.”
“Perhaps, but I propose that you call Jack Broach and tell him Ione needs a million in cash by four P.M. today and why. Then merely listen to what he says.”
There was a very long pause until Mott asked, “You think Jack, instead of saying, ‘Impossible,’ will say, ‘Okay, fine,’ don’t you?”
“Should he say yes or, ‘Okay, fine,’ tell him Georgia Blue will be picking up the money.”
“All by herself?” Mott said, then quickly added, “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”
Wu said nothing and there was another long silence that Mott ended when he asked, “What’s going on, Artie? Nothing specific, please.”
“Something that might exonerate Ione.”
“Might?”
“That’s as specific as I can get,” Wu said. “But there’s one thing you must do and that’s to give Ione some sense of progress. Simply call her and say that Durant and Georgia are dropping by to bring her up to date and introduce her to her new bodyguard.”
“Who is?”
“I’m not quite sure yet.”
“The hell you’re not.”
“Bear with me, Howie.”
Another very long pause was followed by a grunt from Howard Mott, who then changed the subject and asked, “How was Enno Glimm?”
