Stallings nodded thoughtfully and then spoke more to himself than to Overby. “Piers and Ploughman. Piers, Ploughman.”
“No connection.” Overby said.
“There was in a poem a long time ago.”
“When?”
Stallings tried to remember. “About six hundred years back.”
“You jacking me around again?”
“No.”
They drove on in silence until they neared the Third and Fourth Streets off ramp that led to downtown Santa Monica. It was then that Overby asked, “You really a Ph.D. like that son-in-law of yours claims?”
“I really am.”
Overby nodded comfortably, as if the last few pieces had clicked into place. “After I talked to him, what's his name, Mott, I went down to the Malibu Library and checked out that book of yours,
Anatomy
of Terrorism.”
“Anatomy of Terror,”
Stallings said, unable to resist the correction.
“Yeah. Right. Well, I read it. Most of it, in fact, but then I quit about three-quarters through. Want to know why?”
“Not really.”
“Because I couldn't figure out whose side you were on.”
“Good,” Booth Stallings said.
Stallings disliked Billy Diron's house the moment he saw it. He was offended by its Disney-like mock-Tudor design and its tinted mullioned windows. He thought its weird eight-sided blue swimming pool was awful. But what bothered and dismayed him most of all was its total lack of trees and greenery.
Yet Stallings couldn't fault the view. The house was built on a high sloping bluff. A thousand feet away and a hundred feet down were miles and miles of Pacific Ocean. The view was from Trancas on the right to Santa Monica on the left and then out to Palos Verdes, Catalina and beyond. Stallings knew it was a view most could only dream of and of which few would ever tireâunless they developed an aversion to ninety-seven shades of blue.
Standing beside the Mercedes in what he took to be the courtyard, Stallings looked from ocean to house, back to ocean and then at Otherguy Overby. “He hasn't got any view from the house,” Stallings said. “He's only got those tiny little windows the English thought up to let in some light and still keep out the cold but never do either.”
Overby nodded in agreement as he too glanced from the ocean to the house and back to the ocean. “Billy didn't want a whole lot of view. He figured it'd be a distraction.”
“From what?”
“His music.”
“He's a musician?”
Overby cocked his head to the left, the better to study Stallings. “You never heard of Billy Diron?”
“No.”
“What about Galahad's Balloon?”
“I'd guess it's a rock group. But that's a guess from someone who no longer sings his country's songs.”
“That's like guessing the Rams playâ” Overby broke off when he heard the unmistakable whine of a Volkswagen engine. He turned toward the noise, clamping his lips into a stern line and folding his arms across his chest. A certain amount of forbidding crept into his eyes.
Both men watched the open white VW cabriolet speed around the corner of the house too fast, skid on the used brick paving, and buck and shudder to a stop when the woman driver applied the brakes but forgot to throw out the clutch. Stallings saw that she was young, quite young, no more than twenty-two or twenty-three, and rather pretty once he got past the spiky silver hair and manic eyes.
The man who sat next to her in the passenger seat was older, at least thirty or even thirty-two. He had a journeyman surfer's tan, more ripe-wheat hair than he really needed, and jittery blue eyes so pale they seemed almost bleached. The man's gaze flitted about, darting straight ahead to Overby, right to Stallings, left to the house and then back to Overby where it hovered with a hummingbird's bold resolve.
The woman opened the car door and got out. She was barefoot and wore half a blue T-shirt that just covered her breasts and ended eight inches above her navel. She also wore skimpy white shorts that hadn't been washed in a while. The wind had made a mess of her spiky'silver hair. But even with the bird's-nest hair and the forest creature eyes, Stallings thought she could pass for a standard Hollywood beauty if only something would iron the sullen rage out of her
expression. He thought he knew what that something might be.
As though feeling Stallings' gaze, she looked at him but directed her question to Overby. “Who the fuck's he, Otherguy?”
“Nobody.”
“He's somebody. Everyone's somebody.”
“He isn't.”
She moved several steps closer to Overby who still stood guard, arms folded, eyes implacable, his mouth all set to say no.
“I wanta go in and get my shit,” she said.
“I work for Billy, Cynthia, and Billy says you don't go in.”
Cynthia Blondin's wide unpainted mouth twisted itself into what began as an ingratiating smile but ended as a snarl. “I gotta have it, Otherguy.”
“It's gone,” Overby said. “I flushed it down the john. Just like Billy said to.”
“You fuck.”
Overby nodded his indifferent agreement.
“The lady thinks you're lying, Ace,” said the man in the car as he opened the door and stepped out, his lower body concealed by the car door.
Overby glanced at the man without curiosity. “Who cares what she thinks?”
“I do,” the man said as he stepped around the car door and aimed a short-barreled five-shot revolver at Overby. “She goes inside.”
Overby first studied the pistol, and then the man's face. After that Overby turned and walked slowly to the rear of the Mercedes sedan, produced a key and opened the trunk lid. He reached into the trunk and brought out a tire iron. Stallings wondered if the tire iron came as standard equipment with a Mercedes and decided it didn't.
Holding the tire iron down at his side in his left hand, Overby walked over to the man with the pistol. “You better take Cynthia and get in the car and leave,” Overby said. “I think maybe you better drive.”
“You've just about cost yourself a knee, fuckhead,” the man said and pointed the pistol at Overby's left knee.
Overby brought the tire iron up fast and smashed it into the underside of the man's right wrist. The man yelped as the pistol flew up and out of his grasp and landed at Stallings' feet. Stallings bent down, picked it up, examined it briefly, and then aimed it at the man who now stood, slightly bent over, left hand clutching his right wrist.
“Go get her what she wants, Otherguy,” Stallings said.
A surprised Overby stared at Stallings. “Why?”
“Because if you don't, she'll be back, and I don't want her here.”
Overby thought it over, acquiesced with a nod to superior logic, turned and entered the house. Cynthia Blondin took two happy dance steps toward Booth Stallings. “Who're you, Pops?” she said.
“I'm Daddy Goodtimes,” Stallings said, looking not at her but at the man with the injured wrist who had now straightened up and was gently massaging the hurt wrist with his left hand.
Cynthia Blondin giggled happily. The man with the hurt wrist glowered at her. She giggled again. The man turned his uncertain gaze on Stallings. “I want my piece back.”
Stallings replied with a head shake and a slight smile.
“Bet I can take it away from you.” This time there was no smile when Stallings again shook his head no.
The man took a slow hesitant step toward Stallings who cocked the revolver, pleased with the ominous sound it made.
“Old fart's gonna shoot you, Joey,” Cynthia Blondin said and again giggled. “You'll shoot him dead, won't you, Pops?”
“You bet,” Stallings said.
The man with the hurt wrist started to say something else but stopped when Overby came out of the house, still carrying the tire iron in his left hand and, in his right, a small brown paper bag that was folded over into a packet and wrapped with two rubber bands. Overby stopped in front of Cynthia Blondin who bit her lower lip, staring greedily at the packet.
“I want you to listen to what I'm gonna say, Cynthia. You listening?”
She nodded, not taking her eyes from the packet.
“Billy doesn't want you back. He doesn't want to see you. He doesn't want to talk to you. If you've got something to say to Billy, call Ritto and Ogilvie and talk to Joe Ritto. Am I getting through?”
“Gimme my shit, Otherguy.”
Overby sighed and offered her the packet. She took it with both hands, gently, carefully, as if taking a baby bird from its nest. She turned then, humming something, and hurried toward the driver's side of the Volkswagen.
The man with the hurt wrist started toward the passenger side, changed his mind, and turned back to Stallings. “You really ain't gonna gimme my piece back?”
“No,” Stallings said.
The man nodded sadly, turned again, and climbed into the car. Cynthia Blondin, now holding the packet in one hand as if it might shatter, opened the driver's door. Before sliding behind the wheel, she looked at Overby who stood, tapping the tire iron against the palm of his right hand.
“Tell Billy,” she said. “Tell him I'll always love him and I'll always care for him and that I wish him all the success in the world.”
“Okay,” Overby said.
Cynthia Blondin slipped behind the wheel, gently placing the packet in her lap. After starting the engine she leaned her head out and called to Overby, “You won't forget?”
“I'll tell him,” Overby said. “Billy likes stuff like that.”
Cynthia Blondin nodded, backed the car around until it faced the drive, ground the gears twice and drove off. Just as the car reached the corner of the house, the man with the hurt wrist twisted around and used his unhurt hand to give Stallings and Overby the inevitable finger. Overby waved goodbye with the tire iron, turned to Stallings,
indicated the revolver and said, “You want to keep it?”
“What for?” Stallings said, handing it over.
A relieved Overby said, “Now what?”
“Now? Well, now we'll go inside and talk about Wu and Durant.”
Booth Stallings sat at the large round table in Billy Diron's elaborate kitchen and watched Overby make two canned corned beef sandwiches. He made them with the quick economical moves usually learned in either a delicatessen or an institutional kitchen. Since he suspected Overby would starve before working in a delicatessen, Stallings decided not to ask for the name of the institution in which he had trained.
Overby served the sandwiches on two plates, each containing exactly seven potato chips and three slices of dill pickle. Stallings had watched him count out both the potato chips and the pickles. To drink were two more bottles of San Miguel beer.
After Overby sat down, Stallings took a bite of the sandwich. Between the slices of dark rye he found not only corned beef, but also several leaves of Boston lettuce, a thick slab of Bermuda onion, and a dressing of mayonnaise and two kinds of mustard that Overby had carefully measured out and blended together.
After Stallings swallowed his first bite of sandwich, he said, “Tell me.”
“What?” Overby said.
“How old are they?”
Overby tried to recall. “Well, Artie must beâ”
“That's Wu, right?”
Overby nodded. “Arthur Case Wu. He must be around forty-four now, but it's kind of hard to tell about Durant on account of there was never any birth certificate. But Durant thinks he's about the same as Artie. Forty-four. Around in there.”
“What else?”
“Well, they were both raised in this San Francisco Methodist orphanage, ran away when they were fourteen, wound up at Princeton for a while, and they've been partners ever since.”
“They went to Princetonâto college?”
“I never got that quite straight. Artie went on a scholarship and Quincy sort of went as Artie's bodyguard.”
“Dear God,” Stallings said. “Their specialty is what exactly?”
“This and that. But most of the time they probably do pretty close to what you'd want 'em to do.”
“I haven't said.”
“Maybe you should.”
“I'll get to it,” Stallings said and ate some more of his sandwich, washing it down with the Filipino beer. “They married?” he asked.
Overby produced one of his sly grins that displayed no teeth. “To each other, you mean?”
“To anybody.”
“Durant's not married and fools around. But Wu's married to this lady from Scotland, and by lady I mean she's got some sort of thoroughbred bloodlinesâeighteenth cousin to the Queen twice removed or somethingâwhich suits Artie just fine on account of he's still pretender to the Emperor's throne.”
“Emperor?” Stallings said. “What emperor?”
“The Emperor of China, who else?”
“Sweet Jesus.”
“He's even got genealogical charts and everything. He also figures if there were about two revolutions, three wars and maybe ten thousand
deaths of just the right people, his oldest twin boy could be both King of Scotland and Emperor of China.”
“He has twin sons?”
“Twin sons
and
twin daughters. Cute kidsâor were the last time I saw 'em. The girls are younger than the boys.”
Stallings slowly poured more beer into his glass and tasted it. “He's not ⦠obsessed with this emperor thing, is he?”
Again, Overby smiled slyly. “Artie figures he's the last of the Manchus.”
“How about a straight answer?”
Overby's frown managed to make him look both grave and highly proper. Stallings thought it must be one of his most useful expressions. “Artie knows exactly who he is,” Overby said. “More'n anybody I ever met.”
“And Durant?”
“He doesn't much give a shit who he is.”
“When'd you meet them?”
“The fourth of July in sixty-eight, Bangkok. At the Embassy reception.” He paused. “The Ambassador'd invited everybody who even looked American. Even us.”
“What were you doing in Bangkok?”
“Looking around. I'd bumped into Wu and Durant and they needed a crimp for a little something they'd decided to play off against the chief of station.”
“The
CIA
chief of station?”
“Who else.”
“So what happened?”
Overby looked puzzled. “What d'you mean what happened? We ran it and walked away with about sixty-three thousand. That was major money back then, in sixty-eight.”
“And what did he do about it?”
“The chief of station? He ate it. What else could he do? He sure
didn't go around bragging about the bad case of greed he'd come down with.”
“Were either Wu or Durant ever hooked up to Langley?”
Overby's answering shrug was a bit too elaborate to satisfy Stallings. “Is that a maybe yes or a maybe no?”
“Artie says that a couple of times they were maybe unwitting assets. But Durant always says they were half-witted assets and no maybe about it. They moved around a lot and sometimes they just took whatever turned up.”
“When's the last time you worked with them?”
“Seven or eight years ago. We went in on a deal together and we all got well.”
“Where?”
“Here. In California.”
“What kind of deal?”
“That's none of your fucking business, is it?”
They stared at each other for long moments, each searching for the other's weakness, only to find there was none. Stallings finally replied to Overby's question. “No,” he said, “I don't guess it is. Any of my fucking business.”
Overby drank some of his beer and said, “Tell me about your deal.”
“All right.” Stallings was silent for perhaps ten seconds as he edited what he planned to say. “Somebody,” he said, “and I don't know exactly who, wants to pay me half a million dollars to bribe a Filipino freedom fighter and/or terrorist to come down from the hills and light out for Hong Kong where five million dollars U.S. will be waiting for him. Or so they say.”
Although Overby's face and eyes remained calm and even impassive, his nose betrayed him with a long, long sniff as if he suddenly smelled sweet profit. After the sniff came the white, wide and utterly ruthless grin, which Stallings found curiously merry.
“You need help,” Overby said.
“I know.”
“You need Wu and Durant.”
“So it would seem.”
“You also need me.”
Stallings raised his eyebrows to register surprise. “I hadn't thought of that.”
Overby's ruthless, merry grin returned. “Like hell.”
“It's an interesting notion.”
“Where's this freedom fighter and/or terrorist of yours holed upâcentral Luzon?”
Stallings shook his head. “Cebu. Know it?”
Overby's grin grew even wider. “Lapu-Lapu land. Yeah, I know Cebu. Like my name. Not to get too commercial and all, but what kind of split are we talking about?”
“You're negotiating for Wu and Durant now, right?”
Overby nodded. “For both them and me.”
“I was thinking in the neighborhood of fifty-fifty.”
Overby's feigned disappointment took the form of a sorrowful frown. “I think we'd need just a little more taste than that.”
“It's take it or leave it, Otherguy.”
The frown went away and the grin came back. “Well, hell, half of five hundred thousand split three ways, less expenses, is about eighty thousand each, which isn't bad. Not good, you understand, but not bad.”
“I guess I didn't make myself clear,” Stallings said. “I intend to split the entire five millionânot just the five hundred thousand.”
Overby didn't try to disguise anything. The big white smile was back, never more ruthless, never more merry. “You're talking interesting fucking money now.”
Stallings didn't return the smile. Instead his eyes took on the look of someone who has dipped into the future and is dismayed by what he's seen.
“It's poisoned money,” Stallings said.
“Money's money.”
“Not this time.”
Guided only by his almost infallible con man's instinct, Otherguy Overby came up with exactly the right measure of reassurance.
“In that case, friend,” he said, “you sure as hell got off on the right floor.”