Broach frowned. “That sounds risky. All ultimatums do.”
“Oil Drum’s selling, we’re buying and we have the customer’s leverage. After he finally agrees, we’ll haggle about the time. We’ll suggest eight o’clock and he’ll come back with nine or ten. We’ll let him win because unless he has time to scout out the meeting place, he won’t show and who could blame him for that?”
“Interesting,” Broach said. “Will you be going alone?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s occurred to me that if you don’t go alone, then you’ll have to share this—” He touched the carryall. “— with somebody else.”
“I won’t be going alone,” Georgia Blue said, rose and picked up the carryall.
Broach also rose. “Who’re they sending with you?”
“Durant,” she said. “But he and I won’t be sharing anything.”
She turned then, strode to the door, the carryall in her right hand, opened the door, looked back, smiled and left. Jack Broach judged it to be another perfect exit.
Georgia Blue walked south on the west side of Robertson Boulevard, moving with long quick strides until she came to the rented Ford. She walked with the blue money bag in her left hand, her right one thrust deeply into her new over-the-shoulder Coach purse that contained
the .38-caliber revolver she and Overby had bought from Colleen Cullen.
After reaching the Ford, she opened its front curbside door, tossed in the carryall, got quickly into the car, closed the door and locked it.
Durant started the engine, glanced over his left shoulder, then pulled out of the metered parking space and asked, “How’d it go?”
“Fine,” she said. “He was very interested in what he called the mechanics.”
“Translated, I’d say that means: are you going alone or with somebody?”
“He also said that if somebody does tag along, I’ll have to share this.” She patted the blue moneybag.
“And you said?”
“I said Durant is coming with me but he and I won’t be sharing anything.”
Durant grinned, then chuckled. She frowned slightly and said, “That must be the first laugh you’ve had in a month.”
“There haven’t been any funny parts until now.”
“Not even when you and the movie star were getting it on?”
He gave her a quick, not quite surprised look. “Were we now?”
“She was obvious about it, even if you weren’t. But then you’ve had years and years of experience. I don’t think anyone else noticed except Otherguy. Anyway, she’s rather nice. I think I like her, although I still can’t believe she’s all that famous.”
“She made it big during the last four or five years.”
“Then perhaps I should go see some of her pictures.”
“You don’t have to go see them anymore,” Durant said. “You can rent them on tape for two or three bucks. Play them at home on a VCR. Microwave your own popcorn. Fast-forward the dull parts.”
“Is that the chief cultural advance I’ve missed?”
“I can’t think of any others,” Durant said.
After that, they drove in silence. Durant took the Robertson Boulevard on-ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway and headed west toward the Pacific Coast Highway. Three minutes later, Georgia Blue broke the silence. “We’d better— never mind.”
“We’d better what?” Durant said.
“I was going to suggest we stop at the Bank of America in Malibu and get some money,” she said. “But then I realized we already have three hundred thousand.” She touched the carryall.
“Money for what?”
“Remember Otherguy telling you about Colleen Cullen and her lie-low bed-and-breakfast inn?”
He nodded. “Topanga Canyon.”
“I think we’d better go rent it for the night. The entire place.”
“How much?”
“She’ll probably ask ten thousand. We’ll offer her five and settle for seventy-five hundred.”
“Where’ll she be when it starts?”
“You haven’t met her, have you?”
“No.”
“When you meet her,” Georgia Blue said, “tell me where you think she should be.”
