“Nobody is.”
Georgia Blue turned to stare at Durant, then looked quickly away.
“So you and Ms. Blue—”
“Better call me Georgia.”
“So you and Georgia will buy the tapes from the blackmailer with my million dollars?”
“You tell her, Georgia,” Durant said.
“When it’s all over,” Georgia Blue said slowly, “we plan to hand you the tapes and also your million dollars and possibly even the blackmailer.”
Ione Gamble seemed to shrink back in her wooden swivel chair.
“Possibly?” she said, almost whispering the word.
“It’s possible the blackmailer will be dead.”
Ione Gamble shrank even farther back in the chair, as if to get as far away from Blue and Durant as possible. She stared down at her desktop, stroked the flop-eared rabbit, as though for reassurance, then looked up at Overby and said, “I don’t really want to hear any more, Otherguy.”
Thirty-seven
It was 2:42 P.M. When Georgia Blue began counting the $300,000 in Jack Broach’s Beverly Hills office. There were thirty bound packets of currency stacked on his eighteenth-century French desk, each packet containing $10,000 in hundred-dollar bills. Blue stood, counting silently. When done, she carefully packed the money into a dark blue nylon carryall she had bought at a Sav-On drugstore for $8.95 plus tax.
Broach sat behind his desk, not speaking until she zipped up the carryall. He then smiled and said, “One million exactly, right?”
Georgia Blue sat down in a chair in front of the desk, stared at him for a moment, then said, “Exactly.”
“A receipt in that amount might prove useful someday.”
“Useful to you, not to me.”
“I thought it worth a try.”
She shrugged. “Anything else?”
He leaned toward her, forearms on the ornate desktop, the well-cared-for hands clasped, a look of what seemed to be genuine interest, even curiosity, on his face. “I’d like to know how it’ll work—the mechanics of it.”
“The details,” she said.
He nodded.
“That’s normal,” she said. “Most people become curious when they find themselves in a mess like this for the first time. They ask who-does-what-and-when questions—probably because so much money’s involved.”
“It does spark the curiosity,” Broach said.
“All right. Here’s how it’ll work. When Oil Drum calls later this afternoon—”
“Oil Drum?”
“It’s our name for the seller because of his electronically distorted voice.”
“I see.”
“When he calls—”
Again Broach interrupted. “Who’ll be taking the call?”
“Artie Wu. I’ll probably listen in on an extension. Quincy Durant might also listen in—or he might not.”
Broach nodded, satisfied.
“Anyway,” she said, “after Oil Drum calls, he’ll be told the money’s ready.”
“The million?”
“The million. We’ll then settle on where to make the buy. It’ll be a quiet, out-of-the-way place.”
“What kind of place?”
“A place where he can count the money in private and where I can check out the tape on a VCR.”
“You have such a place in mind?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Sorry.”
“Of course,” Broach said. “Security.”
“Common sense,” said Georgia Blue. “Artie and Oil Drum will dicker about the place. Oil Drum’ll turn our first suggestion down and we’ll reject his alternate proposal. Artie’ll then recommend the place we wanted all along and make it clear that unless Oil Drum agrees, the deal’s off.”
