by Jan Smolders
The guard at the front offered valet parking, but Frank refused and was summarily banished to a far-off lot with his Altima. “That’s what I get for being parsimonious,” he quipped. Mary and Frank knew they were out of their league at the Greenbrier.
“This quarter-mile walk is a blessing for my joints anyway,” Frank said as they made their way from the car to the hotel. “Let’s try the check-in desk first. They’re not supposed to give room numbers of guests to strangers, but who knows?”
Mary didn’t comment. She admired Frank’s optimism and drive. And generosity. She felt he was here much more for her than for himself.
At the desk a short, smiling man wearing the name tag “Sergio Winters” welcomed them with a broad smile. “Mr. and Mrs. …?”
“We’re not checking in,” Frank said, smiling back. “I’m here to meet one of the participants in the Interoga conference. I’m a member as well, but not attending this particular event. I’d like to briefly meet Mr. Jim Duncan, an old acquaintance of mine. I assume he’s here. Would it be possible to call his room for me?”
Sergio looked left, at the colleague next to him, and answered without checking his desktop, “Duncan…Greenbrier policy doesn’t allow me to confirm that Mr. Duncan is a guest. We have special security for the time being, too. The conference….”
Frank turned to Mary and mumbled, “Struck out.”
“Since you know him, we could just wait around and have a drink or snack. Try our luck,” Mary suggested.
Sergio winked for a nanosecond.
“Okay. But let’s stay close to the desk, Mary.” Frank pointed at a small table nearby.
“Why?”
“For the view.” He and Sergio exchanged brief, knowing looks.
She frowned. “The view” was a collection of elderly ladies with a few men mixed in, having tea or coffee at the numerous small tables spread out over the immense black-and-white checkered lobby floor. This space was called the “Upper Lobby” as was posted at the entrance. It was aristocracy as she imagined it. On one side a bar welcomed guests. It carried the name “Lobby Bar.”
They sat down. She took her iPhone. Frank kept throwing glances in Sergio’s direction.
Ten minutes later the colleague next to Sergio stood up, pointed at her watch and disappeared.
Sergio walked up to Mary and Frank, looking discrete, carrying a folded sheet of paper. “Mrs. Duncan is Cuban, right?” he said, while checking the immediate surroundings.
Frank and Mary nodded.
“My mother, too. The Duncans should be back around two, I guess. Mr. Duncan and some of his friends like to read newspapers here in the afternoon. If you find him, don’t mention me. Just say you supposed he was attending the conference. It wouldn’t be a lie, would it?”
“It wouldn’t.” Frank smiled.
“Okay, then. I suppose this is yours,” Sergio said as he handed the sheet to Frank.
Frank looked at both sides. Mary noticed it was a blank sheet of stationery.
“Thank you,” Frank said, a rascal smile on his face. He folded it.
“Con mucho gusto, my mom would say. And good luck.”
“May I ask you for an envelope?”
Sergio seemed pleasantly surprised. “Sure. Please come with me, sir.”
Frank carried his light blue trophy when he returned from the desk. He sat down and furtively took out his wad of twenty-dollar bills. He unobtrusively slipped three of them into the folded sheet that still lay on the table. He paused briefly as an older male guest wearing a red jacket and supported by a cane—and a younger woman—hobbled by and tossed him a smile. Then he inserted the sheet into the Greenbrier jacket and winked at Mary. “I’ll catch Sergio later.”
They patiently watched the comings and goings and took turns to peek, from a short distance, into the exclusive, stuffy Lobby Bar where a famous chandelier hung. It had been used in the production of the movie Gone with the Wind.
Their stomachs complained on and off, but neither Mary nor Frank could afford to leave their spot for a snack: they assumed prices would be exorbitant anyway, and, worse, they might miss Duncan. Frank insisted that Mary be with him at any time. “I need you with me,” he insisted. “I want Duncan to have to look you in the eye. Noredge has suffered too much. You have.”
Except for a couple of quick trips to bathroom they stuck to Frank’s plan. Powerbars and two small bottles of water had to appease their stomachs. No morning golfers had turned up in the Upper Lobby by two o’clock.
Then traffic started picking up. More and more pants sporting all colors of the rainbow made their entry, steps short, speed mature.
Seated at a table about twenty feet away from Sergio, Mary and Frank kept a close eye on him.
“I wonder whether he’s had a chance to check the blue envelope in his pocket,” Mary murmured.
“It should buy us a little help, maybe a hand up or a quick index in our direction. I would recognize Duncan, but I might miss him in one of the arriving clusters.”
“Right. A little,” Mary replied, her eyes trained on two jewelry-laden matrons parading by. In no mood for optimism, she resumed their earlier conversation about the situation in Noredge. “The damage has been done, Frank. We may score a little victory, maybe get Mike booted out of town, but Supren will continue. We’ve got Alpha and Beta. Soon we’ll have to welcome Gamma, Delta and so on. Once they reach Omega they’ll start all over again with Alpha1, Beta1. We’re doomed.”
“A mini-Oklahoma in a few years, the whole deal. Earthquakes….”
“What boring names for those wells! Alpha. Beta. No imagination. Is it too much effort for these frackers to spruce things up a little?”
“Yeah. Well, some companies do. Enerplus has a Mars and a Plato, and a Porky Pig! Hell, why not a Pluto or some nice-sounding girl’s names?” Frank quipped. “Like Venus—”
“Or Doyle’s ‘Linda,’ the one before Susan,” Mary said scornfully. “Or was it Galinda?” she elbowed him.
Frank guffawed. “Yeah?” He raised his hand. “Wait! Galinda? Could it…?” He had his mouth open. “Were Mike and Duncan talking about—?”
“A well? Wow! Google!” Mary grabbed her iPhone.
“Look for Galinda and Viola. Quick!”
“Yes, sir!” She had already started.
He vigorously tapped the table with his pen.
The tapping stopped. He said, his voice hushed, “That’s him. Him.” He pointed his index, hand resting on stomach. “The yellow pants. Baby shit color.” He jumped up. “Stay here. Keep your eyes on me.” He exhaled deep. Steps clearly forced, but measured, he headed toward the man in yellow, who now was only twenty feet away from Mary.
Frank greeted him. “Mr. Duncan? Frank Anderson.”
For a couple of seconds the man seemed puzzled, checking Frank’s plain polo shirt and faded jeans. He frowned. Then he produced a huge smile. “Of course! Our man for Colombia,” he said loudly. “How are things in…?”
“Noredge.”
“Yes. I’m bad with names.”
Frank waved it off. He glanced for a split second at Mary, his eye roll telling her, “He’s bad with names. Yeah. We already know that.” He turned back to Duncan. “I see. So, you may have forgotten the name of that guy with the Vietnamese wife too.”
A young woman walked by, a crying little child on her hip. Onlookers across the room looked on, apparently wondering how much the Greenbrier had lowered its standards.
“What? Vietnamese wife?” Duncan acted puzzled.
“Never mind the name. How much did you pay the guy to run that dirty water tanker off the road in Carrollton?”
The Texan shot Frank an angry stare. “Carrollton? Pay? What is this? Are you nuts? Buzz off! I’ll—”
“You may not know that guy’s name. But I bet Mike Doyle does,” Frank mock
ed.
Duncan’s mouth fell open but he seemed to recover almost immediately. “Doyle? What Doyle? Out of my way,” he grumbled angrily, “or—”
“Here!” Mary shouted as she ran to Frank and showed him her iPhone screen. “My apologies, Mr. Duncan. Here it is, Frank! Galinda! Pennsylvania…disaster for the Viola Company…terrible mismanagement with cruel, lasting consequences…the well plugged…Galinda! There’s more.” She felt like jumping up and down.
Frank looked incredulous. Then jubilant. “Galinda? he said. “You heard that, Mr. Duncan?”
The big Texan turned crimson red. “Get lost!”
Why didn’t we think of this earlier? Cloning Galinda. Cloning Galinda. In Noredge. A bad, dirty Galinda in Noredge. Another one. But why? Mary wondered inwardly as she enjoyed seeing Duncan’s lips quiver.
Passersby slowed down, intrigued by the commotion. Several seemed to know Duncan and mumbled in low voices.
“Galinda! You want to read it for yourself, Mr. Duncan?” Frank asked scornfully. “Here’s a picture.”
Mary noticed wide eyes in the circle that had formed around the threesome.
Duncan started moving in the direction of the front desk.
Mary and Frank followed him.
The oil honcho turned around, looking livid. “Get away from me. Bad things can happen to nosey tree-huggers.” He lightly touched his hip pocket for a second, his voice low but his eyes speaking volumes.
“Huh? You’re threatening me? For asking you a question?” Frank taunted him.
Mary’s phone rang. Joe? “Hold on, Joe,” she said hurriedly. “Wait! Wait!”
Duncan moved closer to Frank and breathed, standing inches away from him, “See this?”
Mary, dumbstruck, saw him point his gun at Frank, his hand at hip height and covering most of the weapon.
Frank shouted, “A gun!”
A guard ran to the scene, weapon drawn. “Hands up!”
Frank raised his hands.
Mary, legs trembling, hurried a few steps away but remained on the phone, concerned and panicky. She kept talking to Joe, her voice hushed, her phone touching her lips, “Okay. I repeat. You okay, kids at school. Correct? What? …Doyle wanted to kill me? Kill me? Correct?” She felt her legs weaken.
Duncan tried to slip his gun into his front pocket but the guard thundered, “Drop it! Hands up!”
The Texan looked destroyed as he dropped his weapon into a fauteuil. He had to have friends in the small crowd that observed the scene.
“Come with me, hands up, both of you,” the guard said. He picked up the weapon and motioned Frank and Duncan into a corner close to the desk.
Mary followed within a few feet, shaken and now half-whispering into the phone, “Okay, Joe. You’re all safe. Yes…a knife…the police…Principal Summers…I see. I’ll call back in a minute. What? Yes, I’m okay…yes, a gun, but okay! Don’t worry. Call you soon…a few minutes. No, no. I’ll call. Love you. What? You told him what? …Carrollton and Beta? You did? My God! …yes, I’m okay. He did what? ...Doyle was forced to…the police heard too? …Duncan? Viola? Call you back…yes, right away.” She cut the call.
“What’s going on?” The guard looked very annoyed as he questioned both men. “This is the Greenbrier, you know.”
Mary hurried closer and blurted, pointing at her phone and then at Duncan, “He caused two serious environmental disasters for the people in Ohio. In Noredge and in Carrollton.”
Frank’s head jerked back.
The guard stared at Mary, eyes wide, then a deep frown.
Duncan shouted, “I did not. Not! How could I? Crazy. I never—”
“Mike Doyle did and you paid him!” Mary shouted. She nodded at Frank.
The guard gestured for calm.
Duncan fired back, “Horseshit! You have no proof! Who’s that bloody Dole? Never heard of him.” His jaw was shaking. His hands came down.
“Doyle,” Mary said.
The guard blinked.
Frank smiled. “Never heard of him? I know you took him off the Viola directory, but you were overheard talking to him.”
Duncan looked bewildered. “Impossible!”
“By two people in Noredge. About Galinda.”
Duncan’s eyes froze. He appeared close to slumping down.
The guard pursed his lips.
“That Doyle just confessed you paid him for the dirty job, Mr. Duncan!” Mary interjected. “Mike Doyle. To the police. In Noredge. At my house. My husband confronted him.”
“Huh?” Veins in Duncan’s temples were ready to burst. “Pure crap!” he yelled.
Mary pushed her phone under Duncan’s nose. “See this, sir? My husband just called me. Doyle stormed into my house with a knife. Less than a minute later, the police showed up. They said Doyle had come from the school. Where I work. He’d looked for me there first. The police—”
“The school must have alerted them,” Frank interjected, sounding overly enthused.
Mary looked at him askance and nodded, slightly irritated.
The guard frowned and motioned with his hand that Mary should continue.
“The police found my man hands up, a knife at his throat. Mike Doyle’s knife.”
“He had to have gone berserk.” Frank added, studying the guard’s face.
“Kind of,” Mary went on. “He cried like a baby when he was arrested. My husband screamed at him that he had destroyed downtown Carrollton and fouled the drinking water of Noredge. ‘It’s not me. I had to do it, had to do it, Viola made me do it! Duncan!’ Doyle sobbed.”
“Do it? Do what? The knife attack?” The guard sounded incredulous as he addressed Mary.
“No, sir. Creating that mess in Carrollton and the one in Noredge.”
“That bitch!” Duncan jumped in, roaring. “She accuses me but has no basis. Just a few idiotic words from this guy Doyle. He’s clearly lost it.”
“I think it’ll be your word against Doyle’s in court, Mr. Duncan,” Mary opined. “And against his bank accounts.” She checked with the guard, feeling she was out of her league.
The man used his hands signaling he wanted calm.
Duncan still fired back. “Those Supren bastards are pumping oil and gas from under our leases. Illegally. They pay off the local officials. They’re scum.”
“So, you’re saying this is your revenge, right? All that sabotage and the misery you caused is just a little revenge?” Frank mocked. “On the guys who beat you in the Doornaert deal? Or stole a few barrels of oil from you?”
The guard seemed confused.
Duncan screamed, “What? Revenge? My revenge? My sabotage? Did you hear me say that? I’m saying that Doyle, whoever he is, must be a real creep. That’s all I’m saying. A dirty thief stealing Viola gas. And a liar.”
“Mr. Duncan,” the guard said, “come with me until the police arrive.”
He turned to Mary and Frank and put his hand up. “My apologies. Let me assure you this isn’t Greenbrier fare.” He tilted his head towards Duncan, who was staring at his shoes.
“We appreciate your intervention, sir,” Mary said, still shaking.
The guard nodded.
Rocking his head, scowling, Duncan avoided the curious glances of hotel guests as he was led away.
Mary called home. “We’re both okay here, Joe! I must have scared you.”
“Okay? Whew! Good! Me too! A gun, you said? Duncan? The kids are still in school. Sonya said they weren’t told anything about the knife.”
But they’ll find out in no time. “Oh, thank God. I was so concerned. I hoped—”
“A gun! But you guys made it out of that place in one piece. Two pieces!” He sounded over the moon and triumphant. “I admit I worried a bit about you guys.”
More than a bit, she knew. “A gun, but not one shot
fired. And we netted the other crook—Doyle’s paymaster. Duncan.”
“Yeah. So we caught the big fish.”
We? “Yep. Right. We. Frank heard you. He’s got a big smile.”
She switched to conference.
Joe went on, sounding more than ready to report, “The other one, ‘big shot Doyle,’ I thought he’d shit in his pants like a two-year-old when the two agents stormed in. He fell down in the old chair, on a pile of mail!”
Mary guffawed.
“When the guy was handcuffed I told him a few truths, to his face. The police were all ears. I said he’d arranged my accident and then pulled Vince off the Beta job at Harriet’s—”
“So he could do the drilling there himself,” Frank added. “And screw up the well. Himself.”
“Hi Frank. Yeah, right, himself, while having a fling with busy Vince’s wife.”
Frank leaned closer to the phone. “And the police, what did they—?”
“They were stunned. I told them that you could give them all the technical stuff.”
Mary jumped in. “And that you don’t remember that anybody tried to run you off the road in Carrollton.”
“I did, Mary. Also that I didn’t think Doyle wanted to kill me in that spill. I don’t think that was his plan, but what do I know? And I got damn close to meeting my creator. I just said Doyle must have wanted to have that spill. Had planned it.”
“Good! And Principal Summers acted very swiftly and smartly. The agents wasted no time either. We owe them a big thanks. Them and Summers.” Her thoughts went to her firing. She knew the principal felt badly about it.
“Absolutely. Sonya called me. She sounded worried as hell. She told me that Doyle had stormed into the reception area looking out of it, brandishing a knife and screaming, ‘Where’s Jenkins, the slut? I got something for the bitch!’ They said you weren’t in. He bolted without a word. Thomas Summers called the police right away and they knew where to go, in a big hurry.”
“I’m sure Frank will call his sister right away and reassure her we’re okay, Joe.”
