“Apparently,” Stallings said.
“Well, we put on one hell of a campaign and then he goes and dies on me Election Day afternoon.”
“Of a heart attack,” Stallings said. “Or so I read.”
“Yeah,” Overby said. “Of a heart attack. But the old bastard still won, lying in the morgue there with a tag on his toe, and if you think they really don’t tie the toe tags on, then you haven’t been to the Pelican Bay morgue where I went to make sure the asshole was really dead.” Overby gave the steering wheel a hard thump with the heel of his right palm. “But we by God won it going away — fifty-three point seven to forty-six point three — and him dead as Sprat’s cat.”
“He did have a bad heart then.”
“What he had,” Overby said, “was a yen for cupcakes — fifteen-, sixteen-year-old cupcakes. Election afternoon, right up there in the victory suite I’d already rented for him, two of ’em gave him what must’ve been one hell of a ride — his last one anyhow — because he died in the saddle, probably smiling that big yellow smile of his, and that was it for the powerful Ploughman-Overby machine.”
“And you became house-sitter to the stars.”
Overby glanced at Stallings. “I like to live well even when I can’t afford it.”
“Who got you started — in the house-sitting trade?”
“A guy I once did a favor for.”
“A guy with a name, I bet.”
“A guy named Piers who’s married to the Lace in Ivory, Lace and Silk. Remember them? The Armitage Sisters?”
“I seem to recall they sang awfully loud.”
“Yeah, I always thought they were pretty good, too.”
Stallings nodded thoughtfully and then spoke more to himself than to Overby. “Piers and Ploughman. Piers, Ploughman.”
“No connection.” Overby said.
“There was in a poem a long time ago.”
“When?”
Stallings tried to remember. “About six hundred years back.”
“You jacking me around again?”
“No.”
They drove on in silence until they neared the Third and Fourth Streets off ramp that led to downtown Santa Monica. It was then that Overby asked, “You really a Ph.D. like that son-in-law of yours claims?”
“I really am.”
Overby nodded comfortably, as if the last few pieces had clicked into place. “After I talked to him, what’s his name, Mott, I went down to the Malibu Library and checked out that book of yours, Anatomy of Terrorism.”
“Anatomy of Terror,” Stallings said, unable to resist the correction.
“Yeah. Right. Well, I read it. Most of it, in fact, but then I quit about three-quarters through. Want to know why?”
“Not really.”
“Because I couldn’t figure out whose side you were on.”
“Good,” Booth Stallings said.
Chapter Six
Stallings disliked Billy Diron’s house the moment he saw it. He was offended by its Disney-like mock-Tudor design and its tinted mullioned windows. He thought its weird eight-sided blue swimming pool was awful. But what bothered and dismayed him most of all was its total lack of trees and greenery.
Yet Stallings couldn’t fault the view. The house was built on a high sloping bluff. A thousand feet away and a hundred feet down were miles and miles of Pacific Ocean. The view was from Trancas on the right to Santa Monica on the left and then out to Palos Verdes, Catalina and beyond. Stallings knew it was a view most could only dream of and of which few would ever tire — unless they developed an aversion to 97 shades of blue.
Standing beside the Mercedes in what he took to be the courtyard, Stallings looked from ocean to house, back to ocean and then at Otherguy Overby. “He hasn’t got any view from the house,” Stallings said. “He’s only got those tiny little windows the English thought up to let in some light and still keep out the cold but never do either.”
Overby nodded in agreement as he too glanced from the ocean to the house and back to the ocean. “Billy didn’t want a whole lot of view. He figured it’d be a distraction.”
“From what?”
“His music.”
“He’s a musician?”
Overby cocked his head to the left, the better to study Stallings. “You never heard of Billy Diron?”
“No.”
“What about Galahad’s Balloon?”
“I’d guess it’s a rock group. But that’s a guess from someone who no longer sings his country’s songs.”
“That’s like guessing the Rams play—” Overby broke off when he heard the unmistakable whine of a Volkswagen engine. He turned toward the noise, clamping his lips into a stern line and folding his arms across his chest. A certain amount of forbidding crept into his eyes.
Both men watched the open white VW cabriolet speed around the corner of the house too fast, skid on the used brick paving, and buck and shudder to a stop when the woman driver applied the brakes but forgot to throw out the clutch. Stallings saw that she was young, quite young, no more than 22 or 23, and rather pretty once he got past the spiky silver hair and manic eyes.
The man who sat next to her in the passenger seat was older, at least 30 or even 32. He had a journeyman surfer’s tan, more ripe-wheat hair than he really needed, and jittery blue eyes so pale they seemed almost bleached. The man’s gaze flitted about, darting straight ahead to Overby, right to Stallings, left to the house and then back to Overby where it hovered with a hummingbird’s bold resolve.
The woman opened the car door and got out. She was barefoot and wore half a blue T-shirt that just covered her breasts and ended eight inches above her navel. She also wore skimpy white shorts that hadn’t been washed in a while. The wind had made a mess of her spiky silver hair. But even with the bird’s-nest hair and the forest creature eyes, Stallings thought she could pass for a standard Hollywood beauty if only something would iron the sullen rage out of her expression. He thought he knew what that something might be.
As though feeling Stallings’ gaze, she looked at him but directed her question to Overby. “Who the fuck’s he, Otherguy?”
“Nobody.”
“He’s somebody. Everyone’s somebody.”
“He isn’t.”
She moved several steps closer to Overby who still stood guard, arms folded, eyes implacable, his mouth all set to say no.
“I wanta go in and get my shit,” she said.
“I work for Billy, Cynthia, and Billy says you don’t go in.”
Cynthia Blondin’s wide unpainted mouth twisted itself into what began as an ingratiating smile but ended as a snarl. “I gotta have it, Otherguy.”
“It’s gone,” Overby said. “I flushed it down the john. Just like Billy said to.”
“You fuck.”
Overby nodded his indifferent agreement.
“The lady thinks you’re lying, Ace,” said the man in the car as he opened the door and stepped out, his lower body concealed by the car door.
Overby glanced at the man without curiosity. “Who cares what she thinks?”
“I do,” the man said as he stepped around the car door and aimed a short-barreled five-shot revolver at Overby. “She goes inside.”
Overby first studied the pistol, and then the man’s face. After that Overby turned and walked slowly to the rear of the Mercedes sedan, produced a key and opened the trunk lid. He reached into the trunk and brought out a tire iron. Stallings wondered if the tire iron came as standard equipment with a Mercedes and decided it didn’t.
Holding the tire iron down at his side in his left hand, Overby walked over to the man with the pistol. “You better take Cynthia and get in the car and leave,” Overby said. “I think maybe you better drive.”
“You’ve just about cost yourself a knee, fuckhead,” the man said and pointed the pistol at Overby’s left knee.