Hollywood is an All Volunteer Army (23 page)

“Premature ejaculation does not seem to be one of Tim's problems.”

“I hope you've noted that in his file.”

“He's a good boy, he is, really. He knew he had to stay on your tail, no matter what. Which he did, finally calling from a call box once the limo came to this location. I immediately called Roee, of course, and we got up here just as quick as we could.”

“And where is here?”

“Hertfordshire,” Roee answered. “Little village called Welwyn. Nice little house, white, two story, probably only ten years old. Couple of acres in the back, mostly lawn, bit of woods. Neighbor next door has horses. Very pleasant.”

“Would you like me to buy it?”

“It seems restful.”

“Speak for yourself.”

George groaned.

“Stuff something in his mouth and tie him up would you?”

Roee and Hamo did so as they asked me what all this was about.

“I'm not sure. Except it seems that the banking business in England has taken a bit of a thuggish turn. What do you know about this guy, Hamo?”

“Pye? He's the top man at L&B—highly competitive, of course. Married Boyle's daughter, but that was to be expected, I suppose. Has worked aggressively to make L&B an international concern, obtaining influence for the bank outside of the UK. Known to make rather outrageous promises and claims, but often delivers. Gotten much press here, magazine covers, major profiles. We, meaning the British, both love and hate him, as we often do the successful. Consummate snob, but of a new sort. Comes from a middle class family. Dad was the manager of a cinema in Birmingham. Mom was a nurse working for National Health. So, he has, I suppose, earned the right, rather than just inherited it. If you don't count his marriage into inherited wealth.”

“Ever been rumored that he had connections with characters like this one,” I said, indicating the American.

“No. That comes as a bit of surprise.”

“Any hint of illegal activities? Insider trading, anything like that?”

“No. Known as a good citizen.”

“Well,” Pye was certainly a man to muse on, “I suppose he just saw too many gangster movies at his dad's cinema as a child. Seems he wanted the Corfu-Olympic deal all to himself. Wanted to get our sources of financing out of me, kill me, and pick up the pieces in the disarray. Does that sound logical?” I asked Roee.

Roee thought for a second. “Seems extreme. There's an ulterior motive in there somewhere. Maybe he had a fairly large personal commission riding on setting it all up? Maybe it was pride? He was on the verge of failure.”

“Yes,” Hamo said, “he hasn't failed too often. If it had gotten out, it would have been, I suppose, a bit of tarnish on the family silver. Reputation may mean a lot to him.”

It was Pye's time to groan. He regained consciousness and opened his eyes. The little blue beads reflected fear as they stared at the three of us. “How—”

“Shut up!” I shouted down to him. “I've heard enough from you.” I turned to Roee and Hamo. “Now the question is, what are we going to do with these two?”

“I suppose we can't kill them?” Roee asked.

“I think both Hamo and I would vote against you on that idea.”

“Two against one,” Hamo said.

“But he was going to kill you,” Roee protested.

“A momentary lapse in his basic ethics, I'm sure, due to the negative influence of the dream of wealth. We are all probably susceptible to it. There but for the grace of Goddamn-good-sense go I. But it is a problem. For we certainly don't want him reporting back to Sara Hutton that we are lawyers with defenses beyond litigation.”

“Well, the git here,” Hamo said, “we can take back to London and dump in an alley in Soho. I'll bet you he's just a thug for hire Pye picked up. Probably doesn't know too much about the rest. He'll know that I'll be keeping my eye on him, so I think that neutralizes him.”

I turned to Pye. “Does that sound good to you, Pye? Don't answer, just nod your head.” Pye did so. I sat back down on the kitchen chair, bringing myself down to his level. “Now what about you? You know, the proper blow to your head, a blow located along the strictest of scientific methods, could fairly incapacitate you, without killing you. Just the proper amount of brain damage and you could still function, but you would have very little memory left—and absolutely no sense of self. Which has benefits as your self is not one I would think one would want much of a sense of.”

“Look—”

“Shut up!” I screamed it into Pye's face, spraying spit. “Do not speak to me! I'm angry. Have some Goddamn sensitivity to that!”

I stood up and calmed myself. “Sorry, gentlemen. Some errant protein in my brain, I suppose. Well, I'm at a loss. Do you have any suggestions?”

Roee and Hamo considered the matter, both studying Pye intensely, which fairly unnerved him. Finally Hamo gave up with a gesture of defeat, but Roee stroked Pye's face and said, “He looks like he needs a shave.”

I looked and confirmed the fact. “Yes, indeed, he does, but I'm not really concerned about his appearance right now.”

“Nonetheless,” Roee said as he picked up Pye, put him on his feet, pulled his right arm around to his back and yanked up. Pye grunted and squealed simultaneously. “He's going to have a shave. Where's the bathroom?”

Pye said nothing. His lips were literally sealed with fear.

“Would you please give him permission to speak?” Roee requested.

“Speak, Pye.”

“Upstairs,” Pye squeaked.

Roee roughly pushed Pye forward, out of the room, into the hall and up the stairs. Hamo and I followed. When we all got into the bathroom, Roee let Pye go then trained his Browning Hi-Power 9mm automatic at him. “Get out of your clothes. Except for underwear,” Roee said.

Pye did so. He wore boxer shorts with real boxers on them.

“Shave,” Roee said.

Pye reached onto a shelf and brought down an electric razor.

“Oh, no,” Roee said and slapped the electric razor out of Pye's hand with the Browning, startling Pye. “No electrics. Real men don't use electrics. Don't you have a real razor?”

“You—you mean a straight razor?” Pye asked in confusion.

“No, a safety razor will do. I'll grant you that.”

“No, I don't use one. But—uh, but my, my...”

“Paramour.” I filled in the gap.

“He has a paramour?” Hamo asked, delighted over the idea.

“That's what he uses this place for.”

“Oh,” Hamo said. “You know you get a discount with a paramour.”

We had to stop and stare at Hamo again. We just had to.

“She probably has one for her legs. In the tub.”

Indeed she did. Hamo retrieved the disposable pink, slick looking instrument and handed it to Pye.

“I—I don't have any shaving cream.”

“Be a man,” Roee instructed. “Shave without it.”

Pye looked at him, but then started to do as he had been told. He turned on the hot water.

“No water!” Roee made it clear.

“What?”

“Shave!”

Pye began to shave. It was not smooth going. Roee moved real close to observe. Just as Pye was scraping the razor down his right cheek, Roee bumped heavily into his arm.

“Ouch!” Pye exclaimed. There was a small, bloody slice on his right cheek.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” Roee said. “Here, I've got something for that.” Out of his pocket he brought a little plastic tube of clear liquid.

“Winkle water!” I exclaimed.

“Winkle Water,” Roee confirmed. “I happened to have gotten to Petey just when he was having a two for one sale. Thought it might come in handy.”

“Very prescient of you.”

“Thanks.”

“Wh—what's that stuff?”

“The stuff that dreams are made upon,” I said as Roee applied the Winkle Water to Pye's cheek. Pye looked at all of us with disbelief firmly lodged in his beady eyes. I suppose it had all gotten a bit surreal. Then he collapsed. Roee and Hamo grabbed him on the way down to make sure he didn't hit his head on the basin.

“Another instance of the mysterious disease,” I said.

“One in L.A. One in London.”

“This is going to keep them up late at the Center for Disease Control.”

“Think we ought to have Petey give them a call.”

“Probably wouldn't hurt. They're a bit busy with other matters right now. Wouldn't want to divert their resources.”

“Would someone explain Winkle Water to me, please?” Hamo asked.

We did, as we went about the house, straightening things up.

“Who do you think will discover him?” Hamo finally asked.

“Well, when he doesn't show up at the office, I would think his paramour might think to look out here. Other than that, let's hope he has a housecleaner or a nosy neighbor. There's not much more we can do.”

“And he'll be out for four weeks?”

“About that.”

“Being found here in this love nest is going to be great fodder for the tabloids,” Hamo said. “Probably ruin his career.”

“Good,” I said. “I'm glad.”

Then we stuffed George in the boot of Hamo's car and drove the A1M back to London.

“When you left my bed last night you were more handsome than when you entered it. Now look at you.”

Lydia Corfu, in a black velvet suit over a stark white blouse with shockingly large collars and cuffs, stood in front of me in Hamo Thornycroft's office examining the various “Badges of Courage” I had been awarded early that morning. A swollen and split lip, now nicely stitched thanks to Roee's battlefield first aid skills; a rather nasty bruised area around my right cheek; a scratch down my left, unfortunately not bad enough to someday become a romantic scar, and the somewhat ragged and singed condition of my hair at the back of my head.

“A banker did this to you?” Lydia said, incredulous.

“I never could get a firm grasp on Economics.”

“If a banker is going to do this to you, what happens when we face an ex-gunrunner and drug dealer?”

“You have every right to pull out.”

“What? You think I'm one of your American women?” The examination over she sat and sipped from a hot cup of coffee and attacked a bowl of peanuts Hamo had conscientiously provided.

“American women can be very tough.”

“Yeah, yeah, back in the pioneer days. Plowing the north forty while pregnant. Pulling the wagon train themselves when the mule died. Yeah, I read all that, but your modern American woman, she spends all her days reading nothing but self-help books. Books telling her either how to be more feminine so she can catch a man, or more feminist so she can slice his balls off. She prostrates herself in front of guru books trying to figure out how to get self-esteem, or she covers herself with crystals while howling and running like a wolf while trying to get in tap with some universal consciousness, which probably doesn't have a decent thought in its head anyway. No, no, no! Life sits there before you, beautiful and ugly; wonderful and awful; comforting and frightening. You do not need self-help. You only need to help yourself! Anybody who has to read a self-help book has very little self, and is way beyond help.”

 
“So you want to stay in the game?” Roee asked. He and Hamo were in the room with us.

“Sure, why not? But it looks to me that we can't play it right away. Do you think I want to be represented by a lawyer that looks like shit?”

Roee and Hamo both turned towards me. “He is not a pleasant sight, that's true,” Roee said.

“Scary looking. I wouldn't expose him to pregnant women,” Hamo added.

“Well, I have put us on a bit of a tight schedule,” I reminded.

“How much time do you think we could spare?” Roee asked.

I thought about that. Don Gulden and Robert Pye would both be out for about four weeks. I was comfortable with that. We needed to get to Sara Hutton, get her comfortable with us, and hope for an invite into the Communion of the Golden Arse. Anything less than four weeks meant rushing the process. Unless....

“I suppose I could take a week off to heal up a little if you go in as an advance guard,” I said to Roee.

“Make the first foray. Contact Sara Hutton, explain the situation, and tell her I'm there on a preliminary basis to judge her interest. If she's interested, then it will be worth our time to bring my partner and Lydia Corfu to Los Angeles.”

“Exactly. Meanwhile, I'll convalesce at home, taking it easy and—”