Voodoo, Ltd.

Twenty-one

During what Georgia Blue later called the Colonel Sanders Seminar, Booth Stallings’s report on the old actor’s two sightings of Ione Gamble’s roadster caused what should have been a stunned silence. And it would have been if a heavy surf hadn’t been hammering the beach just below the huge living room where Wu, Durant, Overby, Blue and Stallings were dining on $73 worth of Kentucky fried chicken.

Booth Stallings, the designated provisioner, had bought the chicken at the local franchise and served it without apology just before Wu and Durant reported on their hypnotism session with Ione Gamble. This was followed by Georgia Blue and Otherguy Overby with reports on their respective meetings with Jack Broach, the agent, and Richard Brackeen, the dirty-movie man. Blue and Overby then spelled each other in the telling of their joint encounter with Colleen Cullen at her lie-low bed-and-breakfast inn.

Stallings made his report last, smiled at its effect, dipped a hand into a bucket of chicken, withdrew a drumstick and gnawed it while waiting to see who reacted first.

It turned out to be Artie Wu, who, after shifting around in the big dark red leather chair, cleared his throat and asked, “You say this Mr. Cleveland’s an actor?”

His mouth still full of drumstick, Stallings only nodded.

“How old is he?”

Stallings chewed some more, swallowed and said, “About ten years older than I am, which places him right on senility’s front stoop.”

“And you also say the sheriffs investigators weren’t as much interested in what Mr. Cleveland said as they were in how much he’d been drinking?”

“The guy’s a pacer, Artie. I’d guess he didn’t drink much more the night he saw Ione Gamble’s car twice, if he did, than he would any other night.”

“His memory’s unimpaired, then?”

“I didn’t say that. He admits he can’t exactly remember his one line to Vivien Leigh in Gone With the Wind. But he told me to an inch how high this house is and to a penny what it cost him to sue Rice because of it.”

Durant had been standing at the huge window, staring at the lights of Santa Monica. He turned, dropped a chicken bone into an empty KFC bucket and said, “Maybe you didn’t take Ione Gamble back far enough, Artie.”

“Maybe I didn’t,” Wu said.

“But maybe the Goodisons did,” said Georgia Blue, who again was seated on the long couch with Stallings, a bucket of chicken between them.

Wu looked at her, smiled slightly and said, “Is there more, Georgia?”

She first patted her mouth with a paper napkin, then said, “Pure speculation.”

Wu sighed. “Pure or impure, let’s have it.”

“Okay. Ione Gamble told you she didn’t let the Goodisons hypnotize her, right?”

Wu nodded.

“Did you find it difficult to put her into a deep trance?”

“No.”

“Let’s say the Goodisons are as adept as you are.”

“Let’s say they’re more so.”

“Then can we assume the Goodisons might’ve hypnotized Gamble during their second session with her — the one where nobody else was present — without her realizing or remembering it?”

Wu only nodded.

“And while in a deep trance could she have told them about her two trips to Rice’s house — providing, of course, there really were two trips?”

“Let’s pretend there were,” Durant said.

Georgia Blue agreed with a nod. “All right. On her first trip, she’s already smashed. She shoots Rice after an argument, goes home, drinks some more and passes out. When she wakes up, she’s suffering from a blackout and remembers nothing — except that she’s still mad as hell at Billy Rice.” Georgia Blue looked at Wu again. “Is that possible?”

“Barely.”

“Then it’s also barely possible that Gamble gets so mad at Rice all over again that she drives back out here, shoots the Chagall instead of Rice, finds him dead, but still doesn’t remember shooting him earlier. She dials 911, blacks out for the last time and wakes up remembering nothing.”

“You’re guessing that the Goodisons, at their second session with her,” Durant said, “got every word down on tape, right?”

Georgia Blue nodded. “Maybe even on videotape.”

Durant turned to Wu. “Well?”

Artie Wu examined the high living room ceiling for a long moment. “Ione’s extraordinarily easy to hypnotize. As for them taping it—” He broke off, brought his gaze down and looked at Durant. “But you weren’t talking about that, were you?”

“No,” Durant said. “Because if they did hypnotize her, they damn well taped her.”

“If we assume they did tape her,” Georgia Blue said, “then we’d better assume the Goodisons are going for blackmail.”

“Blackmail’s just their first bite,” Overby said. “They’ll probably send her a copy of the part of the tape where she doesn’t talk about anything but shooting the painting and finding Rice dead. That’s the tease. Then they’ll send her the part where she tells how she blew Rice away. Okay, it’s not admissible evidence. But it could sure get the cops busy. So she agrees to pay and the Goodisons take her for every last dime including her house.”

“But they don’t stop there, do they, Otherguy?” Durant said.

“Course not. All blackmailers are greed freaks. They never know when to quit because it’s all so easy, so... effortless. Once the Goodisons squeeze Gamble dry, they’ll try and peddle a copy of their tape to one of the supermarket tabloids. And if they’ve also got her down on videotape, like Georgia says — you know, with a camcorder — they can try and peddle that to one of the sleazoid TV shows and millions can watch a hypnotized Ione Gamble tell how she shot and killed her billionaire novio last New Year’s Eve. By then, the Goodisons oughta be medium rich.”

“That how you’d work it, Otherguy?” Durant asked.

Overby gave Durant a carefully chilled stare. “That’s how guys both you and I know’d work it.”

“We should hope that much of what both Georgia and Otherguy suggest is true,” Wu said with a small wise gentle smile that Booth Stallings thought some of the smarter saints might envy.

Overby’s answering smile was two parts knowing and one part wicked. “They don’t get it yet, Artie.”

“I think Georgia does — don’t you, Georgia?”

“Sure.”

“Quincy?”

Durant only nodded.

“Booth?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“When the Goodisons attempt to blackmail Ione Gamble,” Wu said, “which I now believe they will, what’s the first thing she’ll need?”

“Money?” Stallings said.

“She’ll also need an intermediary,” Wu said.

Stallings nodded. “A go-between.”

“Who do you have in mind?” Durant asked.

“Georgia, of course,” Wu said, sounding surprised that anyone would ask.

“Of course,” Durant said, his voice flat and toneless.

“Get to the good part, Artie,” Overby said. “The money part.”

“It’s occurred to me,” Wu said, “that Wudu, Limited, of Berkeley Square, London, should let it be known it’s in temporary residence in Malibu and anxious to acquire searing, shocking and even salacious true-life tapes — video preferably, but audio in a pinch — for a worldwide, multilingual, exposé-type TV show. For the right tape, it’s prepared to pay what? Up to a hundred thousand dollars?”

“Why not pounds?” Durant said.

“Better yet.”

“What’re you going to do, run an ad in The Hollywood Reporter?” Stallings said.

“I think we should depend entirely on word of mouth,” Wu said. “And I can think of no one better to serve as our town crier than Otherguy. Any objections?”

Overby sent a glare around the room that encountered no resistance. The glare quickly disappeared, replaced by his familiar hard white grin.

“But please remember this,” Wu said. “We’re being paid to find the missing Goodisons, who obviously don’t want to be found. If Georgia’s theory is correct, and again I’ll say I think some of it is, the Goodisons will try to blackmail Ione Gamble. If they do, they’ll have to deal with one of us as the go-between. If they try to sell tapes, audio or video, we’ll’ve already made what I hope is a preemptive bid — and again they must deal with us. Would anyone like to add or ask something?”

“Who does what?” Durant said. “Spell it out.”

Wu closed his eyes briefly, then nodded at something, which Booth Stallings guessed was the order of battle. After opening his eyes, Wu looked at Georgia Blue. “As I said, Georgia, you’ll be Ione Gamble’s go-between. But until you’re needed for that job, you’ll continue looking into the life and times of Jack Broach. Otherguy, for now, will be our town crier and the putative buyer of whatever the Goodisons have to sell. Quincy and I will follow up on a couple of things, including the license number of the limo that carried the Goodisons off.”

“That leaves me,” Stallings said.

Wu gave Stallings a smile of genuine affection. “You’ll be our Mr. X, Booth — the secretive emissary from the mysterious Mr. Z, who’s retained Wudu, Limited, to scour the world for sensational videotapes.”

“In other words, I sit by the phone and wait for somebody to try and sell me something,” Stallings said.

“The answering machine can take care of that,” Wu said. “What we need is a utility chameleon — someone who can step in and play any role at a moment’s notice. I think you’re ideal. Any objections?”

“None,” Stallings said, “as long as you don’t ask me to handle a juvenile part.”