by Ross Thomas
“To find the Goodisons,” Wu said.
Glimm nodded vigorously. “Dead, alive or in between.”
“What’s Howard Mott think?” Durant said.
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” Glimm said. “What matters is what I think. Mott’s her defense lawyer. He’s paid to think she’s innocent. I don’t care if she is or isn’t. What I care about is finding the Goodisons. And as far as I’m concerned, guessing time’s over. I want you guys out in California and I want you to either find them or find out what happened to them. You do that and maybe I can salvage something.”
“Then I suggest we talk money,” Wu said.
“Go ahead. Talk.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —39
“You pay all expenses.”
“If itemized.”
“Some will be. Some won’t be.”
Glimm thought about Wu’s assertion, then nodded and said, “So far, so good.”
“Our fee is seven hundred and fifty thousand, regardless of outcome,” Durant said. “We want two hundred and fifty thousand now, the same amount two weeks from today and the balance when it’s over. If your outfit emerges from this without stain, we want a guaranteed bonus of another two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Dollars or pounds?” Glimm asked.
“Dollars.”
“The bonus would jack it up to an even million. But I never paid a bonus in my life and I’m not gonna start with you two. I pay my help well, but if they don’t deliver, they’re out. The same goes for you. I’ll pay you two hundred and fifty thousand now, two hundred and fifty thousand two weeks from now and, if I get out stain-free, you get the other two hundred and fifty thousand. If I come out dirty, you’re cut off at five hundred thousand—plus that twenty-five-thousand-quid advance. That’s the end of the dickering. Yes or no?”
“I think yes,” Wu said. Durant only nodded.
Glimm looked at Jenny Arliss. “Cut ‘em a check for the two-fifty.”
“We’re leaving for California tomorrow, so we’d like it this afternoon,” Wu said.
Arliss glanced at her watch. “Then you and I had best share a cab to my office.” She pushed back her chair and rose.
Artie Wu, again beaming, also rose and walked swiftly around the table to help Arliss into her coat.
“That woman detective,” Durant said to Arliss. “How do I get in touch with her?”
She finished buttoning the coat before she replied. “Why would you want to do that?”
“She might know something useful about the Goodisons.”
“She won’t talk to you.”
“Why not?”
Jenny Arliss started to reply, changed her mind, picked up a yellow pencil from the table, wrote something on one of the pads, ripped off the sheet, handed it to Durant and said, “Find out for yourself.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —40
Nine
The address turned out to be a flat over a chemist’s shop in Shirland Road on the northern edge of Paddington and, weather permitting, within walking distance of where Durant himself lived. After paying off the taxi, he read the names that had been printed with different ballpoint pens on two cards thumbtacked above a pair of doorbells.
The name on the left was Joy Tomerlin. The name on the right was Mary Ticker. Durant rang the bell on the right.
Moments later it was answered by a woman’s voice, made tinny by the intercom. “Yes?”
“It’s about the Goodisons, Hughes and Pauline.”
“Not interested.”
“My name’s Durant. I’m a friend of Jenny Arliss. She gave me your name and address.”
“American, are you?”
“Right.”
“Sure you’re not some bloody reporter?”
“Positive.”
“Well, come up, then.”
The unlocking buzzer rang and Durant went through a thick glass door and up a flight of stairs to a small landing where a pair of doors gave entry to the front and rear flats. The front flat was Mary Ticker’s.
Durant knocked and the door was quickly opened by a lean, not quite gaunt woman in her late thirties who wore a thick wool pullover, gray pants and a melancholy expression. A cigarette burned in her left hand.
She had very dark blue and possibly bitter eyes that had developed what Durant guessed to be a nearsighted squint. Her hair was light brown and thick and cropped short to the point of indifference. She also had a red nose, pale wide lips and prominent cheekbones, which saved the face from plainness. She had to look up at Durant, but not as much as most women, and he guessed her height at five-foot-nine or -ten.
“Detective Ticker?” Durant said.
She examined him carefully, head to foot and back up again, then shook her head and said, “No.”
“But you were Detective Mary Ticker?”
Voodoo, Ltd. —41
She nodded.
“I’d like to talk to you about the Goodisons.”
“Why?”
“They’ve disappeared.”
Her instant smile was happy, even delighted, and displayed a lot of well-cared-for teeth. Then it vanished, as quickly as it came, but not before it had softened her face and erased some of the bitterness from her eyes. After the smile was gone and the bitterness back, she said,
“Perhaps you’d best come in and tell me the juicy bits.”
The sitting room was small and cramped and focused on a large television set with an attached VCR. Opposite the set was a kitchen alcove and just beyond it was a closed door that Durant guessed led to the bedroom and bath. Three easy chairs were drawn up to the TV set.
In front of the center chair was a low table just the right size and height to hold tea and supper trays, which Durant suspected it did.
The walls, he noticed, were papered with climbing pink roses interrupted here and there by inexpensive prints of rural scenes that Durant thought looked like Devon. A mirrored armoire served as a closet, and four pine shelves attached to a wall held a collection of china cats. A real cat, a fat calico, slept in one of the easy chairs.
“Do sit down,” Mary Ticker said as she lowered herself into the chair by the small table. Durant thanked her and sat down in the chair not occupied by the cat. Mary Ticker lit a cigarette from the butt of the one she was smoking. Durant counted seven ashtrays scattered about the room.
“I thought the Goodisons cured you of that,” he said.
“The cure didn’t take, did it?” She made a small gesture with the cigarette. “Mind?”
“No.”
“Tell me about their vanishing act.”
“I don’t know much,” Durant said. “All I know is that they flew to Los Angeles to hypnotize Ione Gamble—then vanished.”
“Must of been a bit of money in that.”
“Quite a bit.”
“Where do you fit in?”
“My firm’s been hired to find them.”
“What’s your firm?”
“Wudu, Limited.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s a small firm.”
“That what it does mostly, go look for people gone missing?”
“Sometimes.”
“What’s it do the rest of the time?”
Voodoo, Ltd. —42
Durant only smiled.
“Jenny hire you?”
“Her boss did.”
“The German bloke?”
Durant nodded and, after a long silence that was accompanied by a frown and three drags on her cigarette, Mary Ticker said, “They’re bent, you know.”
“The Goodisons?”
“Mmm.”
“How bent?”
“They killed their mum and dad, they did. In Malta. Poisoned them for a flat in Hammersmith and a few thousand quid insurance money.”
“But you can’t prove it.”
“They’d be locked away if I could.”
“I thought you and the Goodisons were friends.”
“That what Jenny sa
id?”
Durant nodded.
Mary Ticker inhaled more smoke, blew it out and said, “That was before.”
“Before what?”
“Before they made a fool of me.” She ground out her cigarette in an ashtray, taking her time, mashing it down hard, enjoying its destruction. “You care for a drink—whisky?”
“Thanks.”
“Water do? There’s no ice.”
“Water’s fine.”
She went to the kitchen alcove, poured the drinks and served them.
Durant noticed that his was paler than hers. She took a swallow, lit yet another cigarette with a disposable lighter and said, “It didn’t happen all at once.”
Not sure what she was talking about, Durant raised an eyebrow and said, “No?”
“They played me along. Very clever they were. Know how I really quit smoking?”
“Hypnotism?”
“That was all pretend on my part. I never went into a trance. Afraid to. But after the second session I stopped smoking just to please dear Hughes and sweet Pauline. I fancied them, the pair of them.”
“Anything come of it?”
“At first it was just a bit of kiss and cuddle, the three of us, with them pretending shock and shame, then leading me on and on ‘til I did it.”
Voodoo, Ltd. —43
“What?”
“Got ‘em some police work.”
“The rape case?” Durant said.
She nodded. “Jenny told you about that, did she?”
“A little.”
Mary Ticker finished her drink in two swallows, then said, “Let’s call her Alice.”
“The little girl—the one who was raped.”
“Sodomized. Made her bleed something dreadful. Parents horrified and panicky, not knowing what to do. They finally rang Paddington P.S. And I caught it.”
“That’s where you worked—Paddington Police Station?”
She nodded. “I got Alice to hospital and didn’t let her out of my sight. Stayed right with her while the doctor made his repairs, her lying there, facedown, not making a sound, half in shock, not even crying. The doctor let me hold her hand. She was seven then, going on eight.”
“Jenny Arliss said she couldn’t or wouldn’t talk.”
“Not a word, not a sound. Didn’t even shed one tear. But when the doctor was all done, she gave me a weak little smile that broke my heart.”
“When did you tell the Goodisons about Alice?”
“That same night—after I got her home and tucked up in bed and made sure her mum and dad were half-sober and her uncle was there to pitch in if mum and dad passed out.”
“That was Ned, wasn’t it? The uncle.”
The stare she gave him was cold, level and unforgiving. A true cop stare, Durant thought. “Jenny tell you Ned’s name?” she asked.
Durant nodded.
“Sometimes she speaks out of turn.”
“Let’s get back to the Goodisons,” he said.
“I needed to tell someone about Alice so Hughes and Pauline and me had supper at this Indian cafe where they do a nice curry. When I told them about Alice, they were proper shocked or acted like they were. And then, I don’t know, I suppose I brought it up about them hypnotizing Alice to see if she’d say who did it.”
“How’d they react—the Goodisons?”
“They were always a foxy pair. They’d been hammering me to get
‘em some police business and now, when I offer it, they go all modest and say they’re not sure and perhaps they need more experience and silly things like that ‘til I find myself almost begging them to do it.
First they say no; then, well, perhaps, and finally they say yes. To Voodoo, Ltd. —44
celebrate we all go to their flat in Hammersmith and do a lot of kinky sex stuff.”
“Then what?”
“Next day I talk to my governor at Paddington P.S. He’s cool to the idea, but I keep after him and finally he warms up enough to say maybe—providing a doctor’s present. It takes near a week to bring him around and every evening I’m spending as much time as I can with Alice, who’d started humming.”
“Humming what?”
“Songs. She’d lie there and hum one song right after another. But she wouldn’t say anything. Not a word. Her mum and dad’re still into the gin and her Uncle Ned’s flitting about, oh-dear-me-ing it all and trying to keep things tidy.”
“How old were the parents and Uncle Ned?”
“All in their early thirties. Why?”
“No reason,” Durant said. “Just curious.”
“Well, we set a date for the session, but the Goodisons want to talk to Alice’s mum and dad first. So we all meet at a cafe where Pauline and Hughes explain what they hope to do, keeping it nice and simple.
But mum and dad start fretting about how much it’ll cost and I keep telling them not to worry, that Paddington P.S. is paying the bill. After I finally drill that into them, they cheer up and are off to the nearest boozer. And that’s when I take the Goodisons over to meet Alice and Uncle Ned. That’s also where I leave ‘em because I have to get back to the station.”
Mary Ticker held up her empty glass and asked, “Care for another?”
Durant said, “Yes, thanks, I would.”
After she came back from the kitchen alcove and handed him his drink, she swallowed some of her own, sat back down and said,
“Where’d I leave off?”
“The Goodisons were with Uncle Ned.”
“And Alice,” she added. “It was two or three days later when they did the hypnotizing in mum and dad’s sitting room. Present are me and another PC, the medic, mum and dad, Uncle Ned and the Goodisons, of course. Pauline puts Alice into a trance in less than a minute and a minute later Alice is saying it’s her dad who buggered her.”
“You believed her?”
“Course I did,” she said. “Well, you never saw such a commotion.
Dad goes for Alice and I have to knock him down. Mum’s screaming bloody murder or whatever silly women scream. Uncle Ned is mincing around, wringing his hands and saying, poor little thing, poor little thing over and over ‘til I tell him to put a cork in it. The other PC and the medic are trying to shut mum up and Alice just keeps babbling about all the times dad did it to her. So I collar dad and he eventually Voodoo, Ltd. —45
goes to trial and gets five years. Mum just disappears and Alice goes to live with her Uncle Ned and by then the Goodisons are halfway to being famous from all the publicity.”
“How were you getting along with them by then?” Durant asked.
“Not at all. They dropped me.”
“You ever see Alice after she’d gone to live with Uncle Ned?”
“I’d stop by sometimes when I had a moment. And I had a moment one Sunday morning. It was her birthday, her ninth, and I went by with a present. I knocked because the bell’d never worked. When no one came I tried the door and it was off the latch and I went in. I thought I’d leave my present and go. Then I heard it. A kind of moaning. It wasn’t a big flat, about like this, but on the ground floor.”
She paused to swallow more whisky and light another cigarette. She then sighed the smoke out and said, “There they were, starkers and having at it, sweet Alice and nice Uncle Ned. I went quite mad.”
“How?”
“I grabbed Alice and locked her in the bath. Then I went for Uncle Ned and broke his fucking arm, the left one. Then I swore I’d break his right one if he didn’t tell me the truth. Well, he told me the truth and I broke his fucking right arm anyway.”
“It was Uncle Ned and Alice all along, not dad and Alice, right?”
Durant said.
She gave him a weary nod. “They’d been going at it since she was five. Uncle Ned’d paid Hughes and Pauline three thousand quid to make it look real. Hughes and Pauline’d coached Alice how to act hypnotized, what to say about her dad and how to say it. Hughes got a friend to tip off the press. It was a right mess.”
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She finished her second drink, which seemed to have had no effect.
There was a cigarette burning in an ashtray that she must have forgotten because she lit a fresh one with the lighter. She blew out the smoke and said, “Nobody believed me. Uncle Ned claimed I’d broken in and assaulted him. Alice backed him up and said I’d tried to fondle her more than once. When the Goodisons were questioned they said I’d made advances to Pauline. I was allowed to resign without any fuss. It was all kept very, very quiet—especially since it was about then that poor old dad killed himself.”
She looked at Durant with her cold hard cop’s stare. “You know what happens to kiddy freaks in the nick?”
Durant nodded.
“Well, they did old dad over and over. When he couldn’t stand any more, he went to bed one night with a plastic sack over his head and never woke up.”
“You making it all right now?” Durant said.
“I work in the shop downstairs. He deals uppers and downers to a select clientele and likes having an ex-copper around in case a Voodoo, Ltd. —46
customer drops in and gets nasty when he can’t buy on credit. I’m paid off the books and, well, it’s enough.”
“What happened to Alice?”
“I never asked,” Mary Ticker said, frowned as if she’d just thought of something and said, “Any chance they’re dead?”
“The Goodisons?” She nodded. “It’s possible.”
“That’s nice,” she said with a small smile that almost made her look content, if far from happy.
Voodoo, Ltd. —47
Ten
Because of the international date line, Artie Wu’s 12:04 A.M. long-distance call on Tuesday from London was answered by Booth Stallings at 8:04 A.M. on Wednesday in his three-room suite at Manila’s Peninsula Hotel.
Wu and Stallings had not spoken to each other in five years and, consequently, there was a minute or so of what Stallings regarded as expensive pro forma greetings and salutations before Wu got to the business at hand.
“Let’s talk money, Booth, because if we can’t agree on that, there’s no point in talking about the rest.”
“Suits me.”
“The initial fee is five hundred thousand. If we do what we’ve been hired to do, there’ll be another two hundred and fifty thousand, making a total of seven hundred and fifty thousand. Out of the total, Quincy and I, as principals, will draw two hundred thousand each.
