Don’t be naïve enough to believe that by paying this money you’ll get the photographs back. We’ll retain them in order to protect our interests, and ourselves. Arrangements will be made so that, should anything happen to Prim or me in the future, they will automatically go global.
Mrs Blackstone, you may not want to go along with this for your husband’s sake, but for that of your children we recommend that you do.
I looked at the address strip again. Yup, he’d sent it to Susie too.
I took a deep breath and opened the attachments; they took a while to download, but they were what I had expected, and feared. Under the influence of the drug, I looked as if I was on Planet Ecstasy, putting on the performance of a lifetime. You couldn’t see Prim’s face, of course: the pixels had been scrambled. Mine, however, was all too clear, and not just my face. The tabloids would go mental . . . but not nearly as crazy as Susie.
I closed the images and deleted them, then went back to the message and sent a reply.
Okay. Sit tight.
When that was done, I sent Susie a mail; no text, just an attachment. Then I turned back to my friends. Liam had his impish look about him, but Everett was stone-faced: he could see his movie, his investment, and much of his business reputation heading up in smoke.
‘Give me a minute,’ I asked them. ‘I have to speak to my wife.’
I left them there, went into my bedroom and phoned Susie. I reckoned it was about four in the morning, even she would be asleep. Let her be anywhere, I thought, except sitting staring at her computer.
My small prayer was answered. She was awake, but she’d been in the toilet. ‘What is it?’ she asked, abruptly. ‘Wouldn’t your dad call me this time?’
‘Love,’ I told her. ‘After “Will you marry me?”, this is the second most important thing I’ll ever ask you. Do you love me, with all your heart, as I love you?’
I waited, until finally she said, very quietly, ‘Yes, you silly bugger, of course I do.’
‘Then I want to ask you to do something for both of us. When you open your e-mail you’ll find another message from Wallinger. I want you to delete it, unread; all of it. You’ll also find one from me; it’s an audio file. I want you to play it. Will you do that, love, please?’ I was aware that I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care.
‘If you say so, of course I will.’ I heard a great sigh explode out of me; no doubt she heard it too. ‘Just tell me what’s up.’
‘I’m the new Loch Lomondside village idiot,’ I replied, ‘and we’re being blackmailed.’
‘Who’s blackmailing us?’
‘Primavera, and her partner in crime.’
‘You mean all that was a lie?’
‘Yup, designed to sucker me in and knock me down. She took me, every step of the way.’
‘Then move over, idiot, because I bought it too. Have you caught them?’
‘One down, one to go: I still have to find the guy, though, and I’m not sure how to go about it.’
‘Don’t let her go, Oz,’ Susie warned me. ‘I want to see that cow again.’
‘Then get over here. I know you don’t like to, but leave the kids with Ethel and come out here.’
‘Bet on it,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way.’
Chapter 29
I was grinning when I rejoined Liam and Everett, but by that time nothing was going to surprise them. ‘I need a doctor up here,’ I announced. ‘I want blood and urine samples taken before all of that drug leaves my system.’
The giant nodded. ‘Sound idea. I’ll make that happen.’
‘Then I want the rest of the contents of that bottle analysed, and fingerprints taken from it, and the two glasses; their contents should be tested as well. I want to prove that her in there handled it as well as me and, if possible, I want to prove that she added the dope after she’d poured her own.’
‘Sounds to me that you want the cops,’ Liam suggested.
‘That’s the last thing any of us want, until it’s absolutely necessary. But I need to be ready if it comes to that. I need sworn affidavits taken from us all. If this does blow up on me and those photographs hit the press, I want to be able to fight back as hard as I can. Maybe it won’t get that far. Prim doesn’t scare easily, but if she sees herself winding up in jail, that might make her back off.’
‘Oz, you’re not going to throw her in the slammer.’
‘Liam, my son, for five million quid . . .’
He grinned. ‘Okay, I take your point.’
Everett picked up the nearest phone and started giving orders. Within half an hour, the house physician had taken samples of my blood and piss. Half an hour after that detectives acting for the GWA’s lawyers had taken formal statements from the three of us, and had taken a computer disk with Prim’s confession on it.
‘Hey,’ said Liam, just as they left. ‘Shouldn’t the doc have taken a sample from her as well?’
‘He’d have got it all over his shoes if he’d tried. Anyway, she’s been tied up in that wardrobe for so long she’s probably given one by now.’
I was on my way to release her when the phone rang. It was Susie: she’d listened to the audio file, and she was firing off fifty rounds a second. ‘She drugged you! The bitch drugged you! Get the police, Oz.’
‘We don’t need the limelight, if it can be avoided.’
‘How much do they want?’
I told her.
‘Five mi . . .’ She gasped. ‘Five fucking million! Get the police, Oz, no arguments!’
‘I will, if I have to. But, Susie, you’re forgetting something. There’s a kid involved.’
‘Come on, she invented the kid.’
‘No, Tom exists.’
‘What makes you so certain?’
‘Because he was on that plane to Minneapolis; we checked, remember. I’ve had Mark re-interview the private investigator she said she hired, and verify the passenger list.’
‘Maybe he was someone else’s: the man she’s working with, he could have a child.’
‘Susie, Prim’s had a child.’
‘How do you know for sure?’
I told her as discreetly as I could: ‘The same way I can look at you and know you have.’ She understood.
‘If you’re not going to call the police, how will you handle it?’
‘I’ve got two days to find the guy and get those images off him. Either I scare Prim enough to call him and tell him to quit, or I have to locate him.’
‘Shouldn’t we pay them, to be on the safe side?’
‘No chance in hell. She thinks she knows me so well; maybe she does, up to a point, but she’s wrong about that.’
‘To protect the kids, then?’
‘From what? Janet’s not four yet and Jonathan’s a baby. Ultimately it’s their fortune I’d be giving her. She can dream on.’
‘But how will you find the man, if she doesn’t help you?’
‘There’s one lead I can follow, one link I might be able to run down. Let me get on with it; it’s getting late here.’
‘And early here. Go on, then. Love you; see you soon.’
I hung up, went to Prim’s room and released her. She swore at me, then headed straight for the bathroom. When she returned, I took her through to the living area, where the guys were still waiting.
‘Hello again,’ said Everett, ponderously. She glared at him as if he was a five foot bellboy, rather than a seven foot plus ebony giant.
‘Here’s the deal,’ I began, as she sat. ‘Tell me who and where he is, and we’ll all be nice to you.’
‘Five million,’ she retorted.
‘Not a chance.’
‘Fuck off, then.’
‘Do you know how long you could get in this state for feeding me that drug? Everett’s lawyer says thirty years to life.’
‘You’re not going to do that.’
‘It’ll cause me pain, but I’ll get over it.’
‘You’re bluffing.’
‘Try
me.’
‘I will.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘You want me to play it the hard way, fair enough, but how about a wee clue?’
She looked at me scornfully. ‘You certainly don’t have one right now.’
‘Help me, then. What’s the link between you and Paul Wallinger? Not your pal, the real one.’
‘Why should there have been a link? He was just a name we picked.’
‘No, he wasn’t. You knew who he was and you knew where he was. You told me so yourself, remember. You said that when you found out I was going to Santa Fe, you decided that you had to make your move right now. Know what I think?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I think your buddy needed to adopt an identity, because I know his real one. You chose Wallinger’s because you knew that he wasn’t suddenly going to appear on the scene, other than as an extra in a zombie movie. So, you know what I’m going to do?’
‘Thrill me.’
‘I’m going to speak to his agent, the guy who put him in the Albuquerque gig.’
‘He didn’t have one by then,’ she shot back, then tried to choke off her words, as if she could.
‘Thanks. So you are beginning to co-operate. That might get you a couple of years less, if your attorney plays his cards right.’
‘Attorney, is it? You’re turning into a Californian, Oz.’
‘I may buy a house there; my accountant says I should.’
‘You won’t be able to afford to, minus your five million.’
‘Actually, honey, you’re wrong, but that’s academic, because you’re not having it.’
‘If you fancy the consequences, so be it. I’m out of here.’ She rose from the couch, but Everett reached out a huge paw and shoved her back down.
‘News for you, honey,’ he boomed. ‘You’re not just messing with him, you’re tangling with me.’
‘You can’t keep me here.’
I shrugged my shoulders and lied a little. ‘I don’t have to. I can hand you over to the FBI as a material witness.’
‘In what?’
‘Their investigation of your accomplice for fraudulently obtaining a US passport; John Wallinger called them in this afternoon.’ I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure that he had, but I took a chance. ‘These days, with international terrorism and everything, they take that as a helluva serious offence. So here’s the way it is: you either stay here, incommunicado, under our guard all the time, or you go in the bin.’
She smiled; I knew she was going to hardball to the end. ‘Oz, you can’t guard me. You’re going to be busy finding my friend, remember.’
‘Who said I was going to be your jailer? We’ve got just the man for the job. You know big Jerry Gradi, the Behemoth, our co-star who’s in chickenpox quarantine? Well, he and his family are in suites five and six, one floor down. Sally, his wife, was a wrestler too.’
Her smile faded and her eyes narrowed. ‘I remember Jerry; I also remember saving his life in Barcelona. He owes me; he won’t keep me prisoner.’
‘He will,’ said Everett, ad-libbing like the true pro he is. ‘He’ll do it to keep you from going to jail, and he’ll do it because, as much as he does owe you, he owns a part of the company and he stands to lose out if what you do shafts our project.’
Prim glared at him and held out her wrists. ‘Slap on the cuffs then,’ she snapped, then glared at me. ‘But I’m still not telling you a bloody thing.’
Chapter 30
Liam and I searched her room before we put her back in it. We found a cell-phone, which I confiscated; I checked it, but after she had used it, as I was certain she had, constantly, to keep her partner in touch with what was happening, she’d deleted all the numbers she’d dialled. We also found a small clear glass bottle, which I was fairly sure had held the GHB. I pocketed that to send to the lab.
But we found nothing else, no hint of the identity of the mystery man, only her passport, some papers from Fairmile and Company, the books I’d bought her and some boarding stubs from our flights.
When she was safely tucked up in bed or at least lying on it in a monumental huff I went back out to play my only card.
I retrieved Roscoe Brown’s home number from my list and called it, feeling so grateful that when I’d suspected him of being the spy in my camp, I hadn’t gone blazing into him.
‘My hero!’ he exclaimed, as he answered. ‘What the hell was that action in San Francisco? Did you bribe the guy? Your price has gone up another three million after that, and nobody’s arguing.’
‘It may go down to zero very soon, if I drop a ball I’m carrying.’ I explained the problem to him and heard him deflate.
‘I need to ask you about one of your clients, Roscoe. I know you keep us all confidential, but this is important to both of us. It’s a guy by the name of Paul Patrick Walls, in reality Paul Wallinger.’
‘Who?’ Roscoe asked; not a good sign. I repeated both names.
‘Ah, him. Oz, he’s been gone for years. He got silly with Miles Grayson a few years back, and he paid the price, as does everyone who bad-mouths Miles. I only kept his name on my list to fatten it out. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know what he’s doing.’
‘I do. He’s in a permanent vegetative state in a clinic in New Mexico. But that’s beside the point. When he was on your list, can you recall any particular buddy he had, anyone he was close to?’
I’ll swear the sound I could hear on the phone was Roscoe scratching his shiny black head. ‘PP Walls,’ he muttered. ‘PP Walls.’ He lapsed into silence. ‘Yes, there was one client he was close with. They looked alike so that led to their bonding in a way. PP did some doubling for this guy, when he was reasonably big. The Nickster, Nicky Johnson.’
Nicky Fucking Johnson. Prim’s old lover. Why wasn’t I surprised?
‘Where is he now, Roscoe?’
‘Dramatically speaking, my friend, he is in the shitter, for the same reason PP was. But, hell, you know all about that. However, the Nickster has a second string he falls back on. He’s a pretty talented singer and pianist, and since his movie career went bad, he’s been doing those gigs. Not as Nicky Johnson, though; he still has vain hopes of a movie come-back. When he plays the clubs he uses his real name.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Didn’t it appear on your divorce papers?’ Roscoe really does know everything.
‘No, that was a quickie job; no names, no fuss. So what’s he called?’
‘Nichols, Johnny Nichols.’
I laughed out loud. Johnny Nichols. Jack Nicholson. So he hadn’t been taking the piss in Minneapolis after all, just playing around with his own name.
‘Do you know where he is, Roscoe?’ I asked, a little urgently.
‘Sure I do. I got him a club gig last week, starting yesterday. He’s playing Le Bistro Theatre, in the Riviera, Las Vegas. Does that help you?’
I felt a huge smile engulf my face. ‘Oh, it helps. Does it ever help! Tonight Mr Nichols is going to get the biggest ovation of his life.’
Chapter 31
Liam called the Riviera, putting on a wonderful star-struck Irish tourist act, and told the reservations desk that his aunt in Dublin had seen a great cabaret singer called Johnny Nichols the last time she was in the USA, and had told him not to come home without his autograph.
The hostess told him that it was his aunt’s lucky night: Le Bistro Theatre did four shows every evening, and Johnny Nichols was scheduled for eleven thirty. There were vacancies, and he’d be able to buy a ticket at the box office before the show.
We delivered Prim into the tender hands of Jerry and Sally Gradi . . . I saw the Behemoth through the door of their family suite: he was still covered in spots and looked a likely non-runner for even the following week . . . and headed along the Strip in one of the Bellagio’s courtesy limos. (I’d have been happy with a taxi, but Everett doesn’t fit into one too easily.)
We passed Caesar’s, Treasure Island, the Fashion Show Mall . . . too bad Prim
was locked up, I thought, she’d have loved that . . . and the Stardust, before we came to the relatively modest frontage of the Riviera. Clearly it was one of the oldest casinos on the Strip, dating back before the days of the imitation cities, but there was plenty of buzz about it when we stepped inside.
The ten o’clock show was only halfway through when we arrived: we could hear the laughter from inside Le Bistro as we went past, following the directions to the box office. When we got there I asked the woman who was on duty if she could find the theatres manager for us.
‘Can’t I help?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Well, if you’re sure?’
‘The theatres manager, please.’
She picked up a phone and pressed a button. ‘Mr Ricci,’ I heard her say. ‘There are three gentlemen here to see you.’ There was a pause and she looked at us. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name’s Oz Blackstone, the gentleman on my left is Mr Liam Matthews and our acromegalic friend is Mr Everett Davis.’ (Actually Daze doesn’t suffer from acromegaly at all. He’s just naturally enormous, but I’m chuffed that I know the word and, being an actor, I like to show off from time to time, to time, to time, et cetera.)
Mr Ricci must have recognised at least one of the names, because he came without any further argument. As soon as he saw the big man, he placed us. As the song goes, or would if he was a footballer and not a wrestler, ‘One Everett Davis, there’s only one Everett Davis . . .’.
The manager was a tubby guy in his fifties, and keen to be helpful from the off. He might have figured that he didn’t have enough security on the premises to handle us, but we didn’t care whether he was being genuinely friendly or just discreet. ‘How can I help?’
‘We’d like to see Johnny Nichols,’ I told him. ‘He’s an old acquaintance of mine. He called on me earlier today at the Bellagio, but I wasn’t able to talk to him. I’d like to catch up with him now, before he goes on.’
Alarm Call Page 26