No one wanted a beer at 10:45 in the morning so the Salvadoran housekeeper served coffee to everyone except Gamble, who, seated behind her Memphis cotton broker’s desk with the flop-eared rabbit in her lap, stuck to diet Dr Pepper.
After a sip of the soft drink, she looked at Durant and said, “I talked to Howie Mott. He called forty-five minutes ago and told me the blackmailer wants a million dollars for the Goodison tapes. I asked
him what I should do and Howie said he’s against paying blackmail in any form. But it’s my reputation at stake and it has to be my choice.”
“That’s a nonanswer,” said Overby, who was sitting in the businesslike armchair with Moose curled up at his feet.
“No, it’s not,” Gamble said. “Howie said that before I decided anything I should find out from Jack Broach if I can even raise a million dollars in cash by five this afternoon. If I can’t, he says the question of payment is moot.” She paused. “Academic?”
“Or irrelevant,” Georgia Blue said. Durant, sitting next to her on the chintz-covered couch, agreed with a nod.
“Well, I called Jack and asked if it was possible and he said just barely, but I’d have to take a beating on some of my stocks and bonds and all my annuities. I told him to go ahead. Of course, he wanted to know what to do with a million in cash. I told him Howie said a Ms.
Georgia Blue would be by to pick it up.”
“What did Mr. Broach say?” Blue asked.
“He sounded relieved and said you were very competent.”
“You have to sign anything?” Durant asked Gamble.
She shook her head. “Jack’s got my power of attorney.”
“I’d never give anybody my power of attorney,” Overby said.
Ione Gamble dismissed Overby’s comment with a derisive roll of her eyes and turned again to Georgia Blue. “You’ve had a lot of experience in stuff like this?”
“Yes.”
“Georgia used to be a Secret Service agent,” Overby said.
“Really?”
Blue nodded.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Get the tapes back. You don’t have any choice.”
“But they tell me they’re inadmissible as evidence because I was hypnotized.”
“This isn’t about evidence anymore,” Blue said. “It’s about Ione Gamble, movie star. If you don’t get the tapes back, they’ll be sold to slash-and-burn TV shows and tabloids. They’ll run tapes of you on TV
saying God knows what—maybe describing the details of your sex life with Billy Rice. And everything they run on TV will be boiled down by the tabloids into three- and four-word Second Coming headlines that’ll scream the whole story.” Georgia Blue paused, then continued. “Okay.
You’re tough and you can take it. But it’ll be an avalanche of pretrial publicity—all of it bad.”
“Maybe it won’t ever come to trial,” Overby said.
“Maybe it won’t,” Georgia Blue said.
“What you’re really telling me is that those tapes could help send me to the gas chamber.”
“That’s melodramatic,” Blue said. “What I’m saying is that they can do you no possible good and could cause you a great deal of harm.”
Gamble looked at Durant. “What d’you think?”
“I think Georgia’s right.”
Gamble seemed drawn back to Blue. “In the Secret Service you must’ve had a lot of experience protecting people.”
Georgia Blue nodded.
“Anybody famous?”
“Imelda Marcos. Mrs. Bush—when he first became Vice-President.
Some others.”
“Then you’re an expert.”
“I was.”
“Well, if I need a bodyguard, why is it Otherguy and not you?”
“You’ll have to ask Mr. Durant,” Georgia Blue said.
Gamble shifted her gaze to Durant, who said, “We don’t know that your life’s in danger. But we think it’s a possibility and Otherguy is the precaution we’ve taken. And a competent one.”
“As competent as Ms. Blue?”
