‘Then you’ve got to go, Oz.’
I nodded. ‘You’re right, but I’m not going alone. If I turn up on Maddy’s doorstep and ask her for those photos, one, she’s going to know who I am and how I relate to Harvey, two, no way will she hand them over in a month of February twenty-ninths. She’ll twig and she’ll send an image straight to the tabloid of her choice. But worry not, I’ve thought it through and I have a plan, a most ingenious plan.’
‘What’s that?’
‘She’s not going to send them an image. She’s going to hand it over.’
16
Dylan had done some more clothes shopping since I’d seen him last. He turned up for our meeting in a pale blue Columbus polo shirt and a pair of light tan slacks, with a pair of French-made Vuarnet sunglasses, the brand I’d advised him to buy, perched back on his head. He’d trimmed the beard until it looked more like designer stubble; for the first time since that day he’d been shot in Amsterdam, he seemed pretty much like the guy I’d known so well in Scotland.
‘Nice get-up,’ I remarked, as we stepped outside to a waiting taxi.
‘Glad you like it,’ he replied. ‘Most of it went on your tab in the hotel. Not the shades, though: couldn’t get them here.’ Christ, he was even sounding like the old Dylan.
‘How did you last so long in the police force?’ I asked him. ‘How come nobody saw through you long before they did?’
‘I was never bent, Oz, not until I got involved with that bloke, and in the kidnap. And they never saw through me then either. It took you, you clever shit, to figure out that I was in on the operation. I was on my way to Bali, and to a pile of money, until you stepped in.’
I looked at him as the taxi drove off, heading for L’Intempo, in Le Meridien. ‘Mike, you’d never have seen any of that money. You’d have wound up buried under a banyan tree or some such.’
He glanced at me slightly scornfully. ‘You think?’
‘I know. There was someone else involved in your plot: they were pulling your string all along. You were expendable, mate, and once you were well away, you’d have been expended. Your function was simply to disappear, and to carry the can, all of it and everything in it.’
‘How do you know all that?’
‘I traced the third person; she told me all about it.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Look me in the eye,’ I challenged, ‘then say that.’ He didn’t need to: he knew me well enough to know that I was telling it as it was, or had been. ‘Who was she?’ he asked quietly.
‘Your pal’s sister.’
‘He never had a sister.’
‘That shows how much you knew. Smart copper, eh?’
I’d knocked some of the rediscovered brashness out of him; that pleased me, quietly.
‘What happened to her?’
‘Much the same as was going to happen to you. She’s no longer with us.’
‘Jesus.’
I smiled. ‘And here you were thinking you’d been a criminal mastermind. Pinocchio, pal, that’s who you were, but now you can go back to being a real boy again. Be careful telling lies, though: your nose couldn’t do with being any longer than it is. I tell you, the Dutchman who shot you, de Witt, he really did save your life.’
‘Maybe I should go to Holland and thank him,’ Dylan murmured, unsmiling, as he rubbed the side of his chest.
‘Best not, Benny,’ I said. ‘Best not.’
We sat in silence until the taxi arrived at the hotel. I paid off the driver and led the way inside: L’Intempo was quiet, since it was still not long after midday, but as I glanced around I saw a tennis player, a French singer and two racing drivers, one of whom I know since he’s a fellow Scot. I gave him a wave as we were shown to a table with a sea view.
‘Let’s get the business over with,’ I said. I opened my document case and took out the contract that Roscoe had supplied and that Audrey had produced. It was drawn up in the name of Elmer Productions, a company I’d set up with a view to getting involved in deals like this one. This was its first venture. The name? That’s a play on Mrs Susie Blackstone’s maiden surname, Gantry, and the 1960 movie that won Burt Lancaster an Oscar.
‘Read that,’ I told him. ‘It sets out the deal we discussed, on the basis of the offer I made, more or less.’
‘More or less?’
‘Just more, actually. I’ve put you in for three per cent of budget and DVD sales, and for two per cent of net profits once the film’s recovered its costs, and is in profit by twenty million dollars.’
‘Who gets the rest?’
‘I do, and Miles, and any investors we bring in. Don’t quibble about it: it’s what Roscoe Brown would have got you if he’d been negotiating for you. I know this because I asked him.’
‘What if I’d had someone better than him?’
‘That person doesn’t exist. . although, come to think of it, neither does Benedict Luker, so maybe that idea isn’t so far-fetched. No, read it, then sign it, Mike. It’s a good deal. That and the added value in book sales will make you a millionaire.’
He signed it without reading it. I took that as a sign of friendship, and wished that I hadn’t upped the advance to the full hundred thousand, taking a chance that eventually I’d get Miles’s half back. His eyes widened when he looked at the cheque I pushed across the table, and then he did look at the contract. ‘It’s only an advance,’ I reminded him. ‘Mind you, when you tell your publisher that I’ve optioned it, your sales will go up straight away, and you’ll get a UK distribution deal.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like my guardian angel. Blue Star Falling hasn’t even earned out its advance in the US yet.’
‘I know: I checked with the publisher. I know what your advance was, but it’ll be bigger on your next one.’
‘That’s good to hear. You’ve helped me in another way this morning, although you don’t even know it. My next book: it’s a version of another true story; my own, the kidnap, me getting shot and everything. What you said about there being a third person involved, it’s got me thinking. I knew there was something lacking and that. . It’s the missing ingredient, isn’t it? It makes it all hang together. Thanks, Oz.’
I stared at him, and had to make an effort to keep my voice down. ‘Mike, Benny, cool it,’ I hissed at him. ‘Are you seriously saying that you’re going to write a book about you kidnapping Dawn Phillips?’
‘Sure. You’ll be in it too, and Miles. But don’t worry, you’ll all be so heavily disguised that you’ll be undetectable as real people.’
‘But we’ll know, Mike, we’ll know.’
He stared at me dead-pan, and then his face cracked into a smile. ‘Gotcha!’ he exclaimed.
‘You bastard. You’re buying the lunch for that.’
‘It was worth it, just to see your face. Don’t worry, Oz, I’m not that crazy. My next book’s almost finished, in fact. It’s based on some of the stuff I did when I was under cover, and it’s going to be good.’
‘What will the DEA and the like say about that?’
‘They won’t give a shit, as long as it makes them look like the good guys.’
‘Let me see a manuscript when you get it finished.’
He grinned again. ‘Okay, but it’ll cost you more than a hundred thousand.’
We settled down to lunch, a salad, followed by sea bream. I’d given myself a hard workout in the gym that morning, so I’d earned it. As we finished a bottle of El Preludi, I turned to the next item on my agenda.
‘A friend of mine’s in trouble,’ I told him. ‘And I’m going to help him.’
I explained Harvey’s predicament, without naming him, but I could tell early on that Dylan had guessed who he was. It wouldn’t have been like him not to have got himself up to date with my life before our meeting.
‘Sounds like your friend’s in for an embarrassing time,’ he said, when I had finished. ‘The woman’s already dropped a broad hint that she has this time-bomb waiting f
or him and that she’s waiting to pick her moment. As soon as she gets a whiff that you’re on her trail, she’s going to let it off.’
‘Exactly. So she must never suspect that I’m after her.’
‘Then how are you going to get these negatives off her?’
‘I’m going to buy them. . or, at least, someone is, on my behalf. Maddy, the woman, is going to have a visit from a tabloid journalist, looking to dig the dirt on her ex, who’s about to get a very big appointment. He’s going to offer her money for everything she’s got on him, and if she has photos to back it, so much the better. She’ll produce the goods.’
‘What if she only produces prints?’
‘Then it’s no deal. The tabloid’s paying for an exclusive. It can’t take the chance she’ll flog them somewhere else. The money will be for everything she’s got.’
‘How much?’
‘A hundred thou, sterling.’
‘That should get her attention.’
‘I reckon.’
‘So who’re you going to get to play the part of the journo? If it’s an actor, it can’t be anyone she’s likely to have seen on telly, or in the movies. And if she’s a serial actor shagger, like you say, that makes it even more difficult.’
‘As always, Mike, you get straight to the heart of the problem.’ I leaned across the table. ‘Tell me, since you didn’t make it to Bali, how do you fancy a trip to Singapore?’
17
I hadn’t been certain that he’d agree. He’d done more role-playing in the five years gone by than all but a few people do in a lifetime, and some of it had been downright dangerous, especially the stuff he’d done after his near-death experience in Amsterdam. If he’d said, ‘No, thank you very much, I have a nice uneventful life in New York now, and I’d like it to stay that way,’ I wouldn’t have blamed him. I’d have been disappointed, though, because it would have forced me to revert to Plan B, Primavera as the journalist, and I’m sure Susie would have balked at that, however cosily they seemed to be getting along.
But he didn’t let me down. He grinned, and it was like being back in the Horseshoe bar. ‘I’ll call it a research trip,’ he said. ‘You never know, there might be a book comes out of all this.’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘As long as the names and circumstances are changed to protect the guilty, I don’t care.’
‘Only one condition,’ he added. ‘We don’t go anywhere near Thailand. I was there under cover, and it would be dangerous for me to go back.’
I accepted that: if events took us in that direction, I’d hire local talent and leave him behind in Singapore.
The trip was taking shape, but I wanted to go out there with as much information as I could, no loose ends untied. Madeleine had moved on from Harvey to Rory Roseberry, having done a quick low-flying mission over Ewan Capperauld. Rosebud had been chopped in favour of Sandy Wilde, from whom she had moved to Barton Mawhinney, dumped in turn when he shopped her to Sly. Her last known sighting since then had been with Tony Lee.
Her sexual itinerary was pretty much mapped out, but I wondered whether there had been any other detours along the way. There was no more I could get from Ewan, Rory or Bart, but Sandy Wilde was a source of information as yet untapped.
As soon as I got back to my office from lunch with Dylan, I called Sly Burr. He didn’t know who Wilde’s agent was, but he undertook to find out. It took him less than an hour. ‘He’s with Porter and Green,’ he told me. ‘They’re international: they got offices in London, New York, LA and Sydney. Big outfit, too big for the likes of Sandy, I’d ’ave thought, but people are always surprising you.’ He gave me their London number, and filled me in on their top people.
I called it straight away, and asked to be put through to the executive who handled Sandy Wilde’s account. The receptionist was efficient: she took less than two seconds to tell me that he had gone back to Australia. ‘I know that,’ I replied. ‘But that wasn’t what I asked you. It’s midnight in Sydney: I want information now.’
‘What’s your interest in Mr Wilde?’ she asked.
‘I’m a producer, Elmer Productions. I’m starting to cast a movie project and he’s been suggested for a part.’
‘I see.’ It sounded as if she was deciding whether or not to brush me off: I decided to push her.
‘Tell you what,’ I said, ‘put me through to Jez Green. I don’t have time to be fannied about.’
I’d given her my icy, authoritative voice, the one I’d developed playing Douglas Jardine in Red Leather: it worked as well on her as it had on his team. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she said. ‘I was just checking our files. Mr Wilde’s account executive was Alanah Day. I’ll put you through to her, Mr. . er?’
‘Gantry.’
I held the line, listening to Sir Elton singing about a porch swing in Tupelo, and wondering if he was being paid for it, until he was cut off in mid-chorus (pity, I like that song; I reckon Peachtree Road is his strongest album in years) and replaced by a slightly tired female voice, so languid that I wondered if she’d had a liquid lunch. ‘Mr Gantry,’ she drawled, ‘Aimee says you have a part for Sandy Wilde.’
‘He’s been put in the frame,’ I replied obliquely. Unusually for someone whose fortune is built on pretence, I try to avoid telling flat-out lies.
‘You’ll have to go a long way to audition him, darling. He’s gone back to Oz.’ I said nothing. ‘You know Oz, as in Oz Blackstone. Down under.’ She gave a small squealing laugh. ‘Oz Blackstone, down under,’ she exclaimed, awake all of a sudden. ‘I should be so lucky.’
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I said. ‘Can you put me in touch with him?’
‘Afraid not,’ she replied, the drawl returned. ‘We’ve dropped him.’
Bugger it! I thought. ‘Why?’ I asked.
‘I’m not at liberty to say.’ She fell silent. I thought she was waiting for me to come back, but I was wrong. ‘Listen,’ she murmured confidentially, ‘I shouldn’t do this, but Sandy’s an all-right guy and if you’ve got something for him, I’m not going to stand in his way. This is the last personal number I had for him.’ She recited a phone number with an Australian prefix. ‘It’s a mobile. He may still have it, he may not; it’s all I can do for you.’
‘Thanks, Alanah,’ I told her. ‘I appreciate it. A tip in return: don’t waste your time having wet dreams about Oz. He’s no use in the sack. . or so his wife told me.’
I thought about waiting until next morning, Australian time, before calling Wilde, but I decided that if one of us was going to be disturbed at midnight, it might as well be him, so I dialled the number. It took around fifteen seconds to connect, but only five to produce an answer.
‘Sandy,’ a voice snapped. ‘Who the fuck is this?’
I switched identities. ‘My name’s Dylan,’ I lied. (Okay, sometimes I can’t avoid it.) ‘I’m calling from Monaco.’
‘Monaco?’
‘Yes, it’s where I’m based. I’m doing a background report on someone, and your name’s come up.’
‘Who?’
‘A woman named January, Madeleine January.’
I heard an intake of breath on the other side of the world. ‘You want good stuff, or do you want bad stuff?’
‘Bad stuff will do?’
‘That’s fine, ’cos there ain’t any other kind with that. .’ (I have to tell you that here Sandy used the C-WORD.) ‘I used to have a career. Now I don’t and it’s her fucking fault.’
I hadn’t been expecting this. ‘How come?’
‘I met the. .’ (He used that word again.) ‘. . in Edinburgh. She was with some small-time Scots bit player with a spot in the show I was in. She worked on the PR side. She made a play for me; all over me, she was. She told me she was hacked off with the other guy, but that she fancied me rotten. Normally, I don’t pitch for women, but this one really turned me on. I took her back to London with me, she got a job with an agency and everything was great for a while. Then it started to stall. She started staying out
nights; I got suspicious, but she laughed it off. Finally I started staying out nights; I got close to a guy on my show, got back to my old style. I didn’t tell her, though: I wasn’t sure how she’d react, but I knew it wouldn’t be good. She’s a strong woman and I didn’t fancy losing any important bits. So I decided that the only way was for me and Byron to come back down here. I left her, just like that. My agency played ball, they came up with a great part in a TV show, and Byron got a gig in Les Mis too, out front of the chorus, billing, everything. We were top of the world, man, like Cagney, and then it all went up in flames, just like him.’
‘How?’
‘The part I had in the show, I played an outback hunk, a real stud. I was a big hit, and I’d just signed a recording deal, the kind I’ve been after all my life. Then some pictures appeared in a scandal sheet down here. No warning, no nothing. I woke up one morning and there they were. Me and Byron, naked, nothing left to even an Aussie’s imagination. That was that. The show dropped me, the record contract was torn up, my agency blew me out and, to top it off, Byron got fired too. You know where I am right now, mate? I’m between shows in a fuckin’ gay club. That’s all the work I can get.’
‘That’s a sad story, but how does it relate to Madeleine January?’
‘Are you fucking thick?’ No, I’m not, but I wanted him to tell me the whole story, for the tape on which I record all my phone conversations. ‘I don’t know how she got those pictures, but she got them. Maybe she snooped on us herself, for she was a good photographer, or maybe she paid someone to do it, but she was behind it, no question.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I know, because after it’s all done, and Byron and I are sitting at his place. . we were discreet, Mr Dylan, we didn’t live together. . still in shock, I had a call, on the very fucking phone I’m talking to you now on. It was Maddy, and you know what she said? She said, “Gotcha!” in the most vicious, scary voice I ever heard, and then she hung up.’
‘Jesus!’ I whispered, and not for Sandy’s benefit.
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