Voodoo Ltd qd-3

by Ross Thomas

  “Bank of America, right?”

  “Security Pacific.”

  “The one on Wilshire just off Doheny?”

  “The one just off La Cienega.”

  “Thanks very much. I’ll try Mr. Corrigan later.”

  She used GTE information to get the Security Pacific branch phone number. Her call was answered by a recorded actor’s voice that started giving her instructions about which numbers to tap if she wanted to know her checking account balance. Georgia Blue broke the Voodoo, Ltd. —113

  connection and called GTE information again. After lowering her cold Secret Service tone to freezing, she told the operator she wanted to speak to a human voice, not a recorded one, at the Security Pacific branch. The operator gave her a different number.

  When it was answered by a live female voice, Georgia Blue said, “I’d like to speak to one of your new business officers about opening a commercial account in the mid six figures.”

  She was quickly transferred to a Mr. Davidson, who wanted to know how he could be of assistance.

  “This is Georgia Blue. I’m vice-president of Wudu, Limited, an American-owned, London-based consulting firm. We’re in the process of opening our L.A. Branch and we’re looking for a bank. One of your customers mentioned yours.”

  “Which customer?”

  “Jack Broach.”

  There was a slight hesitation before Davidson said, “I see. Is your company also in the entertainment business, Ms. Blue?”

  “Good God, no. We’re security consultants and awfully good at putting an end to chain-store shoplifting and such. But our real specialty is designing programs to prevent industrial espionage.”

  “How do you spell Wudu?”

  Georgia Blue spelled it and added, “Our address in London is Eight Bruton Street, Berkeley Square, London west one. We bank with both Westminster and Barclays. Our initial deposit with you would be a quarter of a million. Sorry, that’s pounds, not dollars.”

  Davidson’s tone grew noticeably warmer when he said, “I’m sure we can provide what you need. Like to drop by this afternoon?”

  “This morning’s better for me.”

  “What time?”

  Georgia Blue looked at her $36 watch. It read1 9:22.””Eleven-thirty?”

  “See you then,” Davidson said.

  Only Booth Stallings was in the living room when Georgia Blue entered it seven minutes later. He was reading the editorial page of the Los Angeles Times but looked up and offered her the hard-news section.

  She shook her head and said, “I don’t know the players.”

  “Same old crowd.”

  “How goes the war?”

  “We’re being brave. They’re being cowardly.”

  “That’s good. What’s it about?”

  Voodoo, Ltd. —114

  Stallings looked at her but she seemed genuinely curious. “Some say oil,” he said. “Others say it’s about stopping naked aggression and restoring democracy in Kuwait.”

  “Since when was Kuwait a democracy?”

  “Since the war started.”

  “How long will it last?”

  “Until the first or second week in March. This country can’t stomach a long ground war with lots of dead American kids. So we’ll get it over with, pack up and go home, have ourselves a nice patriotic orgy and leave the Middle East pretty much like we found it—except for a bunch of dead Iraqis.”

  Georgia Blue seemed to tire of the war talk because she glanced around the room and asked, “Where is everybody?”

  “Wu and Durant went off to track down the guy who drove that limo.

  Otherguy’s off on Otherguy business.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m in reserve.”

  “I need some more money.”

  Stallings nodded. “How much?”

  “A couple of thousand. I’ve got one dress, one pair of shoes, and it looks like rain.”

  Stallings reached into a pants pocket and brought out a large roll of $100 bills. “I didn’t ask what for; I asked how much.” He counted out twenty $100 bills, paused, counted out five more and handed them to Georgia Blue.

  “You’re sweet,” she said.

  “Given a choice, I’d rather be sexy than sweet.”

  “We’ll see about sexy tonight.”

  “Sounds like a real date.”

  “It is.”

  Stallings rose. “You going into town?”

  “Need a lift?” she asked.

  “To Santa Monica and Wilshire. That’s where Budget rents its fancy cars.”

  “What’re you getting?”

  “A Mercedes for Wu and Durant.”

  “What happened to their Lincoln?”

  “I guess the cops are looking for it by now.”

  “Sounds like progress,” Georgia Blue said.

  “Yes,” Stallings said, “doesn’t it?”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Voodoo, Ltd. —115

  She dropped him off at Budget’s fancy rental car place that seemed to offer everything from Miatas to Lamborghinis. Ten minutes later she was back in Neiman-Marcus, where she bought a bluish-gray silk and wool suit and a pearl-gray Aquascutum raincoat. The same woman who had sold her the Anne Klein dress wanted to know if she’d ever been a model. When Georgia Blue said she hadn’t, the woman said that was too bad because she could have been big-time. “I mean very big-time.”

  Georgia Blue entered the Security Pacific Bank at 11:28 A.M. Three minutes later she was sitting beside the desk of Harold Davidson, who introduced himself as the branch assistant manager. Davidson had a long big-chinned brown face with shrewd dark eyes and a mouth with corners that hooked up at the end, giving him a smile that apparently wouldn’t go away. Although not yet 40, he didn’t have much hair but still had the big gawky frame of a college basketball player who wasn’t quite quick or tall enough for the pros. Davidson helped her off with her raincoat and hung it carefully on a hatrack that held no hats.

  Georgia Blue suspected it had never held any.

  “London,” Davidson said after she was seated and he had lowered his six feet three inches into his chair.

  “London,” she agreed.

  “Sort of like London out there today, isn’t it? The rain.”

  “I don’t know,” Georgia Blue said. “For the past five years I’ve been Wudu’s permanent representative in Manila.”

  “The Philippines,” said Davidson, cocked his head to the left, let his smile grow a little and asked, “Was Wudu by any chance in on the hunt for the missing Marcos billions?”

  “Let’s just say I performed various tasks for Mrs. Aquino’s government.”

  “And now you’re in L.A.,” Davidson said. “Found yourself some offices yet?”

  “No, but we’ve temporarily leased a house in Malibu through a real estate man called Phil Quill, who’ll probably handle our office space.”

  “Quill,” Davidson said. “Phil Quill. That somehow rings a bell.”

  “He used to play football for Arkansas.’

  “All-American, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t follow football.”

  Davidson nodded understandingly. “I think you said Jack Broach recommended us.”

  “I said he mentioned you.”

  “He a client of yours?”

  “No. But we’re indirectly doing some work for a client of his, Ione Gamble. I want to emphasize that neither Mr. Broach nor Ms. Gamble Voodoo, Ltd. —116

  is our client. Our only client in this particular instance is Enno Glimm.”

  Davidson was impressed. “The Camaraderie! Glimm?”

  Georgia Blue nodded.

  Davidson picked up a pen and pulled a notepad closer. “Just what kind of banking services will you be needing, Ms. Blue?”

  “The usual. Mostly, we’ll want you to handle a fluctuating payroll of anywhere from ten to seventy employees. You’d issue the bimonthly checks and see to the state and Federal withholding plus the usual FICA and SDI
stuff. It’ll all be routine although sometimes we might require sizable amounts of cash on short notice.”

  At the mention of cash, Davidson put down his pen and said, “May I ask if you know Mr. Broach personally?”

  “He and I had a meeting yesterday.”

  “How did he . . . seem?”

  Georgia Blue stared at him for several seconds before she said, “I don’t understand the question. If you’re asking about his health, he seemed fine. But that’s not what you’re asking, is it?”

  “Jack Broach is an old and valued customer,” Davidson said. “But when you mentioned Enno Glimm, I thought you might’ve been assessing the Broach agency for a possible buyout, merger or even an infusion of capital.”

  “Enno Glimm has no interest in the Broach agency.”

  The corners of Davidson’s mouth almost turned down. “I see.”

  “We’re a small firm, Mr. Davidson. But if you want our business, you’d better level with me. Is Jack Broach and Company broke—or just suffering from a temporary case of the shorts?”

  Davidson frowned, started to speak, changed his mind, then changed it again and said, “I really can’t say more than I’ve said.”

  Georgia Blue rose. “Then I’m afraid we won’t be doing business after all.”

  She went to the hatrack, removed her coat, draped it over her left arm and turned to Davidson, who was getting to his feet. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said.

  She stared at him, then said, “Jack Broach and Company’s down the tubes, right?” When Davidson made no reply and looked at his watch instead, Georgia Blue said, “That’s what I thought.”

  After she turned and walked away, Davidson reached for his phone, picked it up, tapped out a number and returned his gaze to Georgia Blue’s back. Just as she walked out the bank’s front door, Davidson’s call was answered with a cheerful “Jack Broach and Company.”

  Davidson identified himself and asked to speak to Mr. Broach.

  Voodoo, Ltd. —117

  Twenty-four

  After Georgia Blue had let him out at the intersection of Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Booth Stallings made an anonymous phone call to the Santa Monica police and told the woman who answered that she could find the stolen Lincoln Town Car on the fourth level of the Santa Monica Place mall’s garage.

  Stallings then found a nearby cafe, went in and breakfasted on waffles, sausages and coffee. After paying the bill, he strolled down Wilshire until he came to a bank, where he purchased a certified check in the amount of $2,000 made out to Rosa Alicia Chavez.

  Coming out of the bank, Stallings noticed a quick-service printshop that didn’t look busy. He went in, smiled at the owner, laid two $100

  bills on the counter and said he’d bet $200 the shop couldn’t provide him with a dozen business cards in thirty minutes. “You lose,” the owner said as the $100 bills vanished into his pocket. Thirty minutes later Stallings walked out of the shop with a dozen business cards that read: “Jerome K. Walters, Executive Vice-President, Independent Limousine Operators Association.” There was also a made-up address on Colorado Boulevard in Santa Monica and some equally fictitious phone and fax numbers.

  Fifteen minutes later Stallings walked into the Budget office and identified himself as the renter of the stolen Lincoln Town Car. The clerk was a pretty young woman in her mid-twenties who seemed to be brimming over with goodwill. She told him her name was Gloria and that the Santa Monica cops had just called to say they’d found the Lincoln, practically undamaged, in the Santa Monica Place mall.

  “What d’you mean ‘practically’?”

  “Well, we had to send a locksmith and the cops are going to keep it a few days to check for prints and stuff.”

  “That’s not going to cost me extra, is it?”

  “Course not, silly.”

  “Good,” Stallings said, then frowned and added, “Look, Gloria, I’ve got my president and vice-president in from London and they aren’t exactly overjoyed to wake up their first morning in Malibu and find their wheels gone. So I think I’d better rent ‘em something that’s not so easy to steal—maybe even something foreign and fancy.”

  “We have a pretty white Bentley.”

  “Too much flash for them. What about a nice black Mercedes?”

  Voodoo, Ltd. —118

  “Well, we have a black 500SL, a black 300E and one that’s really nice, a black 560SEL.”

  “I’ll take the 560.”

  “You want full coverage this time?”

  “You bet,” Stallings said.

  On the eastern edge of Venice, Stallings got out of the big Mercedes sedan, went up the short concrete walk and onto the porch. There he knocked at the door of the brown house that was the dark twin of the small yellow one across the street and five doors down. A plump middle-aged woman in curlers opened the door.

  “Miss Chavez?” Stallings said, knowing it wasn’t.

  “Whaddya want?”

  “You are Miss Chavez?”

  “No, I’m Helen from next door. Rosa’s still all shook up.”

  “Poor Carlos,” Stallings said with a doleful headshake. “Poor Miss Chavez. We’re all so very, very sorry.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “The ILOA.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Independent Limousine Operators Association.”

  Helen from next door turned her head to call, “Rosa. Some guy’s here from the limo drivers.” She turned back to Stallings and said,

  “You better come on in.”

  Stallings went in and found himself back in the early 1960s. On the floor was a Stonehenge cotton shag rug in shades of white, red, brown and black that was a duplicate of one Stallings and his late wife had bought in 1961 at the Hecht Company in Washington, D.C.

  There was also a tweedy couch on chrome legs and a wing-back chair upholstered in a nubby green fabric. The coffee table was of oiled teak and its smaller cousin, a side table, was placed next to the green chair. Scandinavian modern thirty years later, Stallings thought as he sat down uninvited in the wingback chair.

  The young woman on the tweedy couch wore a plain black T-shirt and black jeans. She sat, her knees pressed together and clutching a balled-up handkerchief. She had a pretty oval face despite her swollen eyes, a too-pink nose and no makeup of any kind. Stallings guessed she was 23 or 24. She stared at him, sniffed and asked, “You knew Carlos?”

  Stallings handed her a business card. She read it carefully, then looked at him and said, “He didn’t tell me he’d joined anything.”

  “He only joined last month, around the first of the year.”

  Voodoo, Ltd. —119

  “And you came by to say you’re sorry he’s dead. That’s nice. I thank you.”

  “I also came to tell you about the death benefits,” Stallings said and shot a go-away look at the still-hovering Helen from next door.

  Helen said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, hon.”

  After she left, Stallings took out the certified check, rose and presented it with some formality to Rosa Alicia Chavez.

  “Two thousand?” she said with disbelief.

  Stallings shook his head regretfully, sat back down and said, “I’m sorry it’s so little, but he was a member for such a short time.”

  “So much,” she said.

  “I know this is difficult, Miss Chavez, but one of the main reasons for the limo drivers association is to look after each other and stop terrible things like this from happening.”

  She nodded, again studying the check. “You wanta ask me some questions, right?”

  “If it won’t upset you too much.”

  She looked up. “I can tell you what I already told the cops.”

  “That’d be fine.”

  Rosa Alicia Chavez talked for nearly five minutes about the Lincoln Town Car she had seen speeding away from Carlos’s house. She gave its year of manufacture, its color, its probable Blue Book value and its
license number. She then talked about the man she called “el chino grande,” and also the other one, who she said was real tall and dark and mean-looking. She described how they had rushed out of Carlos’s house, sped off in the Lincoln and what she would like to do to them—

  especially el chino grande. Stallings took notes.

  After she finally ran down, he said, “Did Carlos recendy mention any strange or difficult clients?”

  She shook her head. “Just the ingleses.”

  “The English?”

  She nodded with an expression that was a curious mixture of revulsion and fascination. “A man and a woman who tell Carlos they are Mr. and Mrs. But he tells me they look like twins.”

  “You mean brother and sister?”

  “Yes, brother and sister,” she said, shuddering slightly.

  “Did he mention their names?”

  “No, he just says he drives them to a place in Topanga Canyon and then goes back and gets them maybe a week later and drives ‘em someplace else.”

  “He say where?”

  “To a motel.”

  “In L.A.?”

  Voodoo, Ltd. —120

  “In Oxnard.”

  “Did he say which one?”

  She studied the check again, then looked up and said, “All he tells me is they’re locos and he drives ‘em to Oxnard, a motel there. You think maybe these locos are mixed up with the big Chinese and the tall guy with the real dark tan?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible, of course.”

  “So if I don’t tell you what motel Carlos took ‘em to, you’re gonna take back the check, right?”

  “No.”

  She waved the check a little, almost admonishing Stallings with it.

  “Look. If this is some kinda trick or joke, I don’t think I can stand it.”

  “It’s no trick or joke and you have our deepest sympathy,” Stallings said and rose.

  She looked up at him and said with great formality, “I thank you for coming and for the money. You’re a very nice man. Can I offer you something to drink—some coffee maybe?”

  He smiled. “Thank you, no.”

  “Can I ask one more question?”

  “Of course.”

  “How long were you a limo driver?”