I knocked on the door and heard a grunt and turned the knob. Pantley was lying on the bed, arms behind his head, his chest a thicket above his undershirt, his stumpy legs protruding like bandaged logs from his boxer shorts. The television was on, a rerun of “The Love Boat.” A pint of bourbon was open on the table beside the bed, and a plastic glass still held the dregs of the last shot. Next to the glass was a tin of Spanish peanuts. The room smelled of ointment liberally applied, and the white sauce oozing from between Pantley’s toes told me what it was.
“I thought you was someone else,” Pantley growled when he saw me. “Unless you got my money you can get the fuck out.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Pantley. You’re the one who’s getting out.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“I don’t know anything legal that would.”
Pantley ignored the barb. “You give your brother my message?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it’s like I said. You’re leaving town.”
“Not till I get my money, I’m not.”
I sat in the chair beside the door. “Where do you come from, Pantley?”
“California. Why?”
“North or south?”
“Gardena. Why? What’s the difference?”
I opened my wallet. “Here’s two hundred bucks. That’ll get you back to LA on the next flight. Your business here is finished.”
“What do you know about my business, fuck-face?”
“I know what my brother told me,” I said. “I know he hired you to come here and deprogram his son.”
“I call it countercondition.” Pantley’s smile was as sour as the smell of his room.
“Whatever.”
“And you don’t think he needs it, huh?” Pantley challenged, rising off the bed like the recipient of a miracle. “I bet you think what I do is barbaric, criminal, unconstitutional, huh? The whole smear.”
“Something like that.”
“You know anything about the cults in this country, friend? You one of those thinks Jonestown was an accident? Huh? Wise up, friend. They’re all prisoners and the only way to get them back is to jerk them out of their brainwashing environment and stash them away for a few weeks and toss some counterconditioning at them till they get back some sense. Sometimes it’s too late, sure, but I never give up till I’ve taken my best shot. Now, I come here to take care of the Tanner kid and I ain’t leaving till I do. You don’t have my money, you can hit the door.”
Pantley’s face flooded with his speech. He drained the plastic glass to quench his thirst, then splintered the glass and tossed it to the floor to punctuate his point. “Someone’s already taken care of the Tanner kid,” I said.
“Who? Schmidt? Did they bring that creep in on this?”
“Not Schmidt. Someone killed Billy. Person or persons unknown. I’m wondering if it could have been you.”
Pantley thought it over while I listened to a commercial for something called Weedban. It apparently killed weeds and farmers, too, if they weren’t careful. “So the kid’s dead, huh? What’d he do, try to make a break and they stopped him? Made it look like an OD? That’s their usual trick, types like that.”
“Types like what?”
“This WILD cult he was into.”
“Where were you two nights ago, Pantley?”
Pantley made a fist and hit the wall. “I don’t have to tell that to you or anyone.”
“You will if I tell the sheriff who you are and why you’re in his town.”
“Hey. I got a schedule to meet. Three days from now I’m supposed to be in Philly to snatch a kid from the Church of the Perpetual Rise. Know it?”
I shook my head.
“Drink steers’ blood and eat cabbage. Pray lying on their backs with their feet in the air. Had this kid for six years. Six feet tall, weighs a hundred and twelve pounds.”
Pantley shook his head at the lunacy of it all. From the noise coming from the TV it sounded like the Love Boat was sinking. “You still haven’t answered my question,” I said to Pantley. “What I want to know is if you tried a little counterconditioning with a rope, maybe drugged Billy and slipped it around his neck and over a limb and tried to make him see the light with the aid of a little terror. Maybe things got out of hand. You stretched the rope too tight and crushed his throat, then tried to make it look like suicide to cover up. Is that the way it went down, Pantley? You don’t answer me, I go to the cops.”
Pantley rubbed his lips, then scratched his balls. “Hey. Why would I be here if that’s what happened? You want to know where I was two nights ago, ask the waitress at that hotel uptown there, the blonde. Named Darlene, I think. She and me spent the night right here watching a Kenny Rogers movie on the tube. Desk clerk out there probably knows it, too. Gave me a fishy look this morning, the fucking fag. In fact, when you come in here I thought it was her. Supposed to come by after work.”
I sighed. I hadn’t really thought Pantley was the one, and now I thought it even less. “Okay, Pantley,” I said. “I’m going to check back here tomorrow. You’d better be gone, to the Perpetual Rise or wherever.”
“Not till I get my money, friend. The deal was half in advance. Five grand. It’s not my fault the kid is dead. I showed up on schedule and I want my bread.”
“The two hundred’s all you get.”
“Fuck you, buster. Use the door. Tell your brother I’ll see him real soon.”
“I better not hear you’ve said one word to Curt, Pantley. Not one word.”
“Yeah? Or what?” Pantley rolled to his side and drank deeply from the bourbon bottle, emptying the pint.
“Here’s what,” I said. “I’m from California, too. A member of the bar of the state. A lawyer. And the minute I hear you’ve been harassing Curt for money or anything else, the next person you see will be a process-server. I’ll slap you with a civil suit, ask for fifty grand in actuals and a million punitives, then haul you into a lawyer’s office somewhere in Van Nuys and take your deposition for about ten days, then serve about three hundred interrogatories and a subpoena duces tecum for your documents, and one by one I’ll drag out of you every single little deprogramming adventure you’ve ever had, chapter and verse. It’ll be real interesting to me, and I bet even more interesting to some law enforcement agencies around the country. And all the while it’ll be costing you a hundred bucks an hour in fees to the lucky lawyer you pick to defend you. Now, you want to go through all that or you want to catch the next plane to Gardena courtesy of my two hundred bucks?”
Pantley frowned and swore and thought it over. Then he raised his hand from his crotch and smiled peaceably. “You win, friend. This time. Business is good and getting better so I don’t need the aggravation. But maybe we’ll meet again.”
“I’ll look for you the next time I genuflect,” I said, and opened the door to leave. The face in front of me belonged to the waitress who had worried about my buckwheats. She was startled, then confused, then embarrassed. She flopped inside her uniform like bait in a bucket. I patted her shoulder and told her to have a good time. She was still searching for a word when I rounded the corner at the end of the building.
I was halfway to my car when I noticed a man get out of a blue Fairmont and walk up the steps to the level above me. The look of the man and the car he drove convinced me it was the guy who had been following me around town the day after I arrived in Chaldea. I waited to see which room he entered, then climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. He opened the door himself, and raised his brows when he saw me. The brows were thin and gray, the lips full and red and feminine. “Yes?”
“I’m Marsh Tanner.”
“Yes?”
I was certain he knew me, but he gave no sign of it. And he was far more at ease than I was. “Who are you?” I asked.
“What business can that possibly be of yours?” He started to close the door, still bland, still unperturbed. I began to w
onder if I’d made a mistake.
“You were following me all over town the other day,” I said quickly, and put my foot in the door. “I want to know why.”
He gave the situation some thought. “I suppose I should explain,” he said a few seconds later. “Why don’t you come inside?”
The man stepped back and I entered a room identical to Pantley’s except for the odor and the array. This one was neat as a new car. I finally spotted a two-suiter and a toilet kit and an historical novel that indicated someone was actually staying there, but otherwise it was all motel.
The man walked to the octagonal table in the corner beneath the swag light and sat in one of the orange chairs. His clothes didn’t seem to wrinkle even when he sat in them. I took the chair across from him. “My name is Kinsey Beech, Mr. Tanner, and you’re quite correct. I was shadowing you the other day.”
“Why?”
“Just to see what you were doing. To see whom you saw, more precisely.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
“I’m a vice president of Cosmos Petroleum, Mr. Tanner. Does that explain my interest?” Beech smiled with tasteful extravagance.
“Are you still in the bidding for the farm?” I asked.
“Very much so. Perhaps I can ask what your inclinations are in that regard? Our understanding is that yours is the key vote in the matter.”
“You English, Mr. Beech?”
“Cornwall. Shed everything but the accent.”
“How much did you pay my brother Matt to change his mind?” I asked quickly, over the gleam of his sunny smile.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said, how much did it cost you to change Matt’s mind? Two days ago he was all in favor of selling out to an agribusiness consortium for as much front money as he could get. Now he’s a human dipstick. The only thing that could have changed Matt’s mind that fast is cash. And the only place it could have come from is you.”
Beech’s smile remained fixed. “Are you proposing a similar arrangement for yourself, Mr. Tanner? Assuming you have assessed the situation correctly?”
“You don’t know me at all, Mr. Beech. Has the cash been paid?”
“I don’t think it’s in my interest to disclose that.”
“Which means it hasn’t. Contingent on signing the lease, I’d guess. So if I were you I wouldn’t count on getting more than one vote, Mr. Beech. I don’t think the others are going to be too thrilled that Matt tried to cut himself a private deal.”
Beech nodded and clasped and unclasped his hands. “Perhaps I was precipitous. Your brother talks an exceedingly good game. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect Australian ancestry. But no matter. Cosmos does offer a potentially enormous profit to you and your siblings, Mr. Tanner. Perhaps you’d care to listen to my proposal.”
I shrugged. “Why not?”
“Indeed. Basically we offer thirty dollars an acre as a signing bonus plus a four percent royalty per barrel. In exchange for all surface and subsurface rights over a ninety-nine-year lease.”
“Both surface and subsurface?”
“That is correct.”
“Which means you can block any other use of the property that’s a potential obstacle to your rights. Which could include almost anything.”
“My understanding is that the law is not precise on the rights of the underlying fee interest as against the grantee of surface mineral rights, so your analysis may be incorrect. But we have no desire to engage in litigation, Mr. Tanner. I’m sure you’d find Cosmos quite reasonable as to a parallel usage of the plot.”
“So you say.”
“Indeed.”
“Why not just take the petroleum rights and leave the surface out of it?”
“Because of the potential for interference with our drilling program, Mr. Tanner. Drilling costs are enormous already; they approach seventy dollars a foot in some regions. We’ve found that unrestricted access to the surface is essential in instances such as this in which the geology is not at all precise. There are indications of a stratigraphic trap below the little creek bed, and sufficient millardarcies, but the soundings are quite ambiguous. It’s one of the reasons so little drilling has been done in this part of the country.”
“Let me ask you something, Mr. Beech. Has one drop of oil ever been pumped anywhere in this entire state?”
Beech smiled his drowsy smile again. “I don’t believe so.”
“But you’re convinced it’s down there?”
“Hardly convinced. One is never convinced. But with the price of oil at thirty dollars we can afford to drill much further down than ever before, to twenty thousand feet or more. Also, this part of the state is substantially different geologically from the areas further north. This region is similar to areas of downstate Illinois in which commercial quantities of oil and gas have been found. That’s encouraging.”
“Why Cosmos? Why not Exxon or Mobil or some such?”
“That’s the oil business, Mr. Tanner. The big companies have always found it more profitable to allow the independents to take the risks. Fully ninety percent of wildcat drilling is undertaken by companies like Cosmos. Bravery does not flourish in teak-paneled boardrooms occupied by men with stock options.”
“Anything else you’d like to tell me, Mr. Beech?”
“Just to urge you to employ some calculations. At thirty dollars per barrel, and figuring a conservative pumping rate of two hundred barrels a day, you can easily learn what a four percent royalty will mean to you and your family. It is not a negligible sum. There are once-poor families in Louisiana today receiving royalty checks of twenty thousand dollars or more every month. The same in the Dakotas, or almost. The same could be true for you.”
“If there’s oil.”
“Of course.”
“And if there isn’t?”
“We both lose, but Cosmos loses a great deal more than the Tanners.”
“Maybe. Money’s always relative, Mr. Beech. Depends on what you’ve got and what you need.” I stood up. “I’ll let you know.”
Beech stood as well and presented me his hand. “I’ll be here through the end of the week. I’ve found your sister charming, by the way. A most attractive and intelligent woman.”
“I’ll tell her you said so.”
I started for the door and then turned back. “One thing puzzles me, Mr. Beech.”
“What’s that?”
“When the family met to decide what to do with the farm, my brother Curt seemed absolutely convinced there wasn’t any oil on our farm. Why do you think he’d seem so sure of it?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Beech said calmly.
“I can think of one reason,” I said.
“Yes?”
“His son might have told him. The son that lived out on the farm. The son that was murdered two days ago. You happen to know anything about that, Mr. Beech?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Tanner.”
That was all he said or did. I wasn’t sure what I expected that was different. In the end it was me and not him who looked away. I left the motel and went back to my room.
It was almost nine, which meant it was the dinner hour back in San Francisco, a good time to catch Clay Oerter and find out what he knew about some of the players in the game.
Clay was still chewing as he spoke. “Hey, Marsh. You back in town?”
“Nope. Still in corn country.”
“How is it?”
“Looks like a bin-buster this year.”
“Humm. Maybe I’ll get into fructose futures with an option hedge.”
“If you’re looking for an intelligent comment, you’re talking to the wrong man.”
“No one’s intelligent when it comes to commodities, Marsh,” Clay said with a chuckle.
“So how’s business?”
“Great. People buying left and right for no good reason whatsoever except blind faith.”
“Faith in what?”
“Who k
nows? Ronald Reagan, maybe.”
I held back a quip. “Did you check on the companies Peggy asked you about?” I asked.
“Sure. You want it now?”
“If you can.”
“Well, Black Diamond Coal is no problem. Old-line company, been around for years, mining coal and nothing else. Started out in the Midwest; then in the fifties when the shaft mines shut down they got in on some new Wyoming fields out around Rock Springs. Nothing exciting, but they’re hanging on, hoping higher oil prices will make everyone look to coal. Was a flurry in their stock back in seventy-four when the first oil crisis hit and everyone thought coal was going to be our way out, but it calmed down after no one quite figured out how to convert to coal and comply with the Clean Air Act at the same time.”
“So nothing fishy in their picture?”
“Norman Rockwell all the way. Why? You know something?”
“No. How about the other? Cosmos Petroleum.”
“There you get a different picture. Abstract expressionism, maybe pop. One of those where you don’t know if it’s art or just a crack in the plaster.”
“How so?”
“Hard to get much of a line on Cosmos, for one thing. Not very big, privately owned, so not much financial reporting required. Headed by a guy named Jones and his right hand, an English type named Beech who does most of the fieldwork. They don’t do much if any drilling themselves, farm most of their leases out on a turnkey deal. Operate something like a tax shelter, but it’s all their own funds. They’re brokers, really, more than anything, buying and selling leases on both private and government lands, hoping to hit it big. Look toward new technology, too. Synfuels. Played with some lignite fields in Texas awhile, that type of thing. Looking for the big strike like everyone else.”
“Have they hit anything at all, yet?”
“Nothing spectacular. They pumped commercially on some of their properties in Idaho on the overthrust belt a few years back, enough to finance their wheeling and dealing till now, I guess. No one knows that much about them, is the main thing.”
“Are you saying they’re shady, Clay?”
Fatal Obsession Page 16
