For The Death Of Me (14 page)

‘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 for 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, ‘Aimée 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.

‘This report you're doing?' he asked. ‘Who's it for?'

‘I can't tell you that,' I replied, very sincerely.

‘Well, whoever it is, you tell him that if he's crossed Maddy in any way, he should be in fear of his life, or at least of the bits of it that he loves.'

I thanked Sandy and wished him well. Before I hung up I had him give me all his contact details; I told him it was in case I needed a formal statement from him, but the truth was that I felt sorry for him and intended to do what I could to revive his career. I was pretty sure that when Miles Grayson heard the story, he'd want to help him too, and a good word from Miles is the Aussie equivalent of a papal blessing.

I decided I had to call my brother-in-law to give him an update on my progress. When I told him where Dylan and I were going he announced that he would be picking up our costs . . . as if I'd have allowed it. When I told him what Maddy had done to Sandy Wilde he fell silent for a while.

‘I may not be able to sort this by being nice, Harvey,' I said. ‘In fact, I really don't want to. I promise you that I will protect and preserve your reputation, but after what I've learned about this lady, my strong inclination is to crush her like a nut.'

18

We left on Friday morning. I didn't enjoy it, but I knew I couldn't just send Dylan out there alone and hope. I didn't trust him that much; in fact, I barely trusted him at all. I tried again to talk Susie into coming with us, and leaving the kids with Ethel, Audrey and Conrad, but she still wouldn't have it.

‘I'll trust you not to make another drama out of it,' she said. ‘Your idea's sound, and Mike's the ideal guy to play the part of a duplicitous sleazeball. Get the business done and get home as quick as you can.'

Audrey had booked us on Lufthansa; we could have gone KLM, through Amsterdam, but I didn't even suggest that to Mike. Officially he might be dead, but in my experience the security guys there are real sharp bastards, and I didn't fancy taking even the outside chance that one of them might recall a face from the past, especially if he saw it alongside mine.

There's no quick flight to Singapore, even in first class. When we took off, I popped a couple of melatonin pills, not just to help me sleep on the flight but to minimise the jetlag when we got there. For some reason, melatonin isn't encouraged in the UK, but you can buy it everywhere else in the world.

Even with a couple of hours' sleep I had time to watch three movies, before the information system told us that we were flying down the Malaysian coast and beginning our descent towards Changi Airport. It was mid-afternoon when we touched down and began the long taxi to the gate. I looked out and saw blue skies, acres of grey tarmac and some very modern terminal buildings.