Devil's Claw

by Valerie Davisson

  “Then what’s the problem? Why isn’t that enough evidence that this piece of property belongs to me?”

  “Because, being the only living heir—the only one anyone knew about,” he added, “she was given all her father’s property when he died, completely legally, including lot 429. Since neither of you tried to sell the property before now, the issue of title never came up. No one knew about you.”

  Felix nodded for Gary to wrap it up.

  “Unless we can convince her to release her claim, which I highly doubt—she hasn’t budged so far—you’ll have to fight it out in court,” Gary said.

  Scott fumed, unable to absorb this news fully.

  Twenty years ago he would have been excited to learn he had a sister, even a half sister, but not today.

  What he felt today was sick. He didn’t have the resources to fight it out in court. Or the time. He’d be broke and his dream project scuttled long before anything could be settled. Who was he kidding? He was already broke. The land was all he had. And he’d need an all-out win, completely clear title to the land, with no financial losses. He was going to have to make a deal with the devil.

  Felix.

  Now that the situation had been made clear to Scott, Felix entered the conversation. He had to make sure Scott was good and scared before he threw him a lifeline.

  Felix’s manner was casual, as if this were nothing but a hiccup. “I think it’s worth it,” he said. “We can fight this. Gary thinks our chances are good.”

  Scott looked up. He said “we.” A wave of relief swept through him. That meant Felix was in. Pacific Shores wasn’t lost yet. They’d have to demolish and remove the other building, but that could be done without too much expense. He did wish she hadn’t built it. It would make her claim stronger on the property, Gary explained.

  Now all he needed to know was exactly what Felix’s help would cost him. He wouldn’t accept favors, and he knew Felix never gave anything away.

  He was correct.

  After Gary gave him an estimate, depending on how long it dragged out, Scott gave up additional shares in Pacific Shores. That made him and Felix equal partners now. Gary said he’d do some more digging, see what possible negotiating points they could come up with. In the meantime, he’d draw up a new contract with appropriate language, reflecting their oral agreement, taking into account any contingencies or extra expenses incurred. It’d be ready in a few days.

  The contract may have already been drawn up. Then Felix could wait for a few days, just to make it look good, before having Gary’s office sending it out for signatures. They knew Scott had no choice.

  “We need to ramp things up a little, Scott,” Felix said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s time for you to get out front and center on this thing. Gary will handle the legal side of things. We need you to make your case with the community—make your side sympathetic.”

  “Like how?”

  “Your half sister understands—she’s been busy.”

  Felix spread some brochures and press releases on the table. “Not only did she get her center built in record time, she’s been showing up at every council meeting, Eagle Scout ceremony, and kids’ science camp program, mainly through that director of hers . . .” He turned the bottom of the press release around to look at the bottom. “Gina Richardson, drumming up public support for this Southern Sea Otter Sanctuary.”

  Scott still didn’t know what he had in mind. He couldn’t see himself at an Eagle Scout meeting, and he wasn’t a public speaker.

  “You need to get out there,” Felix said, pulling out his phone, checking his calendar. “There’s a city council meeting July 13. Gary got us on the agenda.”

  “Why even bother? Everyone’s going to love the furry little sea otter and a local celebrity artist more than a land developer,” Scott said.

  “They don’t know about the contested title,” Gary said. “They’ve supported the Southern Sea Otter Sanctuary so far—the majority of the board are environmentally inclined—but more than half of those people are small-business owners. A town like Jasper depends on tax revenue. You can make the case that your development would bring in a lot more tax dollars and business for the town.”

  The last few months had been extremely frustrating, not being able to do anything toward resolving this problem. He couldn’t build Pacific Shores and had no other projects to work on. Scott was barely scraping by financially. He could do this. He had to do this.

  Meeting over, the men stood. Gary gathered his papers, snapped his briefcase shut, and pushed in his chair. As he walked into the hallway, he turned back.

  “On the bright side, Scott, Solange Sauvage is old. We drag this out long enough . . .”

  Felix chuckled.

  Man, these guys are heartless.

  But then, given the battle he was facing, heartless is what he needed. He couldn’t afford to let the possibility of some kind of kumbaya moment of family reunion with a newly discovered half sister even enter his brain.

  Focus.

  Focus helped him survive the chaos of the last five years, and focus would see him through this. On the drive home in the car, he began to feel somewhat more hopeful. He could do this. He had to do this.

  By the time he got to his computer, so many ideas came tumbling out, his speech was practically writing itself.

  18

  Saturday, July 4, 2015

  Felix slipped up behind his wife, kissing her on the neck on his way to the fridge for a beer.

  “Querida mia.”

  This morning’s meeting had gone well, and he was home in time for the holiday.

  Celia bumped him away with her hip.

  “Smells great,” he said, leaning over the large pot of posole she was stirring.

  He looked around the kitchen. Good thing he put in that island. The women had filled every square inch of counter space. Everyone brought their specialties. Gorditas de chorizo; several different kinds of flautas with avocado cream, lime, shredded lettuce, and sliced radishes on the side; rice; beans; watermelon chunks; fresh tortillas; mango aqua fresca. Flan, Jell-O, and trays of cookies and cupcakes for dessert. Tequila for the tios. Lots of beer.

  Fourth of July was an odd holiday for Mexicans to celebrate, he thought, but the kids liked the fireworks. His house was on a hill, so you could see the colorful display from the wraparound, second-floor deck better than you could see it in town. When the sun went down, everyone would be dragging their chairs up there to watch the show.

  People had been arriving all day. As he made his way up the stairs, he greeted several and looked out through the living room windows to the backyard. Most of the kids were in the pool. Young mothers kept a sharp eye on them from the shade. One grandmother leaned over to an infant, lightly tapping the top and bottom lips of a particularly adorable baby, crooning, “Da me una sonrisa!”

  The baby obliged, and all the women laughed.

  More women’s voices drifted up from the kitchen. He could hear them rising and falling, talking about food, kids, and, sometimes, their men, most of whom were in the den, anchoring couches and La-Z-Boys, beers in hand, eyes glued to the game. Soccer today, not baseball. He loved the sound of women’s voices.

  Walking through the master bedroom, Felix let himself out onto the private balcony and checked the thermometer on the side of the house. One hundred ten degrees. Dressed for the heat in khakis and a cotton shirt, he sat at a wrought-iron cafe table tucked into an alcove. Looking out on the valley, he enjoyed the view and thought about smoking a cigar. Celia didn’t like them in the house.

  He had just about decided to go inside and get one when his phone rang. It was Bill.

  “Hey,” he said, taking a long pull of his beer, then rolled the cold bottle across his forehead.

  “Felix, Bill here. How’s your Fourth?�
��

  “Good. You? You going to watch any fireworks?”

  “Yeah, we always do the boat parade. Maureen’s folks have a place near the water.”

  Felix kept up the friendship charade. Bill always pretended they were friends. Equals. But Felix knew better. Nancy’s folks lived in San Francisco. The “near the water” location Bill casually mentioned meant a multimillion-dollar Victorian right on the bay.

  Bill worked for Ester Oil, a subsidiary of a major oil company whose name you’d recognize. Felix and Bill had been doing business now for about two years, and so far, the arrangement had been mutually profitable.

  After a few more minutes of small talk, Bill got to the point.

  “So, what’s the news? You got anything good for me?” he asked. He sounded tense. Bill always sounded tense.

  “I might,” Felix said.

  He so enjoyed keeping Bill on the hook. He’d had the results from the thumper trucks in Jasper since February, before the Southern Sea Otter Center was even built.

  “Oakland was a bust—nothing substantial there. Nothing worth your time. Too deep. Too scattered. But I got a good preliminary report back from that property in Jasper.”

  He didn’t want to tell him how good yet.

  “OK, good. When can I get the final?” Bill’s voice relaxed a little.

  “I’ll send it as soon as I get it.”

  “You sure these guys are reliable? I don’t like having this many fingers in the pie.” Bill’s voice ratcheted up a notch.

  “I’m paying them enough money—no reason for them to talk,” Felix said. “Not in their best interest. Besides, you recommended them in the first place. We had to have someone who knew how to run those things. I can’t use my guys.” He was getting tired of Bill worrying about things all the time. “We’re good.”

  “OK. Let me know if we need to bump up their money,” Bill said.

  And take more of my share? “No, they’re OK.”

  He was paying the experienced drivers under the table, not Bill. As usual, he took all the risks. Bill could always claim he had nothing to do with the trucks exploring for oil without permits. But Felix wasn’t too worried anyone would even notice. To the general public, the trucks looked like any other construction vehicles driving in and around empty lots in residential Orange County. Each thumping session didn’t take very long, could be done in the morning hours, and the drivers knew to play dumb if anyone asked what they were doing.

  With a few more assurances and wishes for a safe holiday, he got Bill off the phone.

  Felix slowly pushed his thumbnail straight up through the label on the sweating bottle. Once clear, it fell onto the table, rolled into a perfect curve, quickly drying in the hot air.

  He knew Bill from college. They had been in a lot of the same classes. After Felix had to drop out to help his family, Bill went on to graduate, landing a good job at Ester. No surprise there—unless you taught college, nobody else was hiring geology majors but the oil companies. It was still that way.

  Bill came from Boston bluebloods. They didn’t exactly run in the same circles, so Felix was surprised one morning a couple years ago when Cherie said a Mr. Bill Stanton was on the line. The minute he heard Bill’s voice, he remembered him. Always tapping a pencil or shifting his feet, Bill was never at rest. He wondered what he wanted.

  They met up for lunch at Red Lyon. It took Bill about twenty-five minutes to get to the point.

  Ester specialized in oil exploration and production. Bill’s job was on the exploration end. He managed both the Central and Southern California land regions. Someone else did offshore. That’s where the new money was, but with new ways of finding and extracting it, there was still enough interest to meet Bill’s needs.

  Settling in over his Monte Cristo, he explained how in the early days, his job had been easy. Oil was everywhere. But most of the easy-to-find sources in California had been tapped out. There was still oil, but it was deeper or harder extract. That’s why fracking became popular.

  “People want oil, but they don’t want us to do what we need to do to get it out of the ground,” he said between bites. “If you could just stick a pipe in there and suck up some black gold, well, it’d be great!” Bill said, his two-olive gin martini—very James Bond—loosening him up. “But that’s not the case anymore.”

  Felix made encouraging noises.

  “And the friends of the spotted owl or the striped polar bear or whatever the animal of the week is make it almost impossible for me to do my job! There are so many regulatory agencies to go through it costs a fortune and takes years sometimes just to send a couple of thumper trucks in there to see if there’s anything worth drilling for.”

  He took a healthy slug of his drink, placing it somewhat askew on the cocktail napkin.

  Felix was beginning to get the picture.

  “And here’s the kicker. We’ve already bent over backward to please these leeches. Developed new technologies that have less of an environmental impact. Hell, the thumper trucks aren’t even real thumper trucks anymore. The environmentalists were worried we’d knock little birdies out of their nests or wake up some groundhogs. Lucky for us, the new technology works. The new thumper trucks just park, weight drop, vibrate, and read the signals that bounce back up.

  “You know how it works—different waves indicate water, rock, shale, and the mother lode—oil. We can still find the stuff. We just have to get permission to get the trucks in there. There just aren’t a lot of big empty tracts of land to check out anymore. The easy pickings are gone. Now we’ve got to see what’s under and around people’s houses and businesses. No one wants us there.”

  Felix could see what Bill was getting around to.

  “That’s where you come in,” Bill said, wiping his mouth with the large linen napkin, pushing his plate back a bit, which the waiter swooped in to spirit away.

  The rest of their conversation was conducted in quieter tones. After clearing the table, the waiter brought an additional round of drinks. Bill didn’t notice he was on his third martini, while Felix was only on his second beer.

  By the end of their lunch, they’d hammered out the details of their agreement, which, when he sobered up the next day, Bill surely realized favored Felix a bit more than he probably planned originally. No formal contract. Nothing in writing. Bill needed a way to save his boss, Labovitch, the time and expense of getting permission and holding public meetings in order to send thumper trucks in to see if there was any oil worth digging for. This way, Ester could go in knowing the oil was already there.

  The company would still have to jump through various local, state, and federal hoops, but it was a huge head start and made him look clairvoyant to the higher-ups.

  Bill had explained how it worked. His bosses looked the other way. His educated guesses would easily translate into bonuses and promotions. The pittance he paid Felix was nothing compared to how much he would benefit. And he wanted the money—he was over this job. His father was one of those stalwart “make it on your own” men, so after college, he was on his own.

  Felix, the largest contractor in the area, with several satellite offices, had continual access to pieces of property being developed. Civilians wouldn’t notice a few more big equipment trucks coming and going, and the workers, who would know right away they weren’t construction trucks, would turn a blind eye if they wanted to keep their jobs.

  Win-win. It had worked well. Bill slipped Felix a monthly retainer. Felix sent in a couple of trucks at unobtrusive times. When they found something, which wasn’t often—most of the oil had already been discovered—Felix passed the information along to Bill. He made sure the reports came to him first. He didn’t want Bill stiffing him. Every positive report resulted in a bonus for both of them, although Bill’s bonus was five times bigger than what he parceled out to Felix. The company, of course, didn’t kno
w anything about Felix.

  Once he knew there was enough oil to bother with, Bill went through all the hoops to get official permissions to “explore.” Whether the oil company wound up needing to buy the land or mineral rights eventually didn’t matter to Felix. He made his money on the front end. Bill looked like Nostradamus to the higher-ups in the oil company, and Felix got his bank accounts fattened.

  Bill had a lot more to lose than Felix did. But the rewards were so much greater than the risks, it was an easy decision for both of them.

  Felix sipped his beer.

  Bill was going to shit his pants when he saw this report. He’d been sitting on it since February, waiting to see how the title dispute turned out. He may have to double his fee for this one. How this much oil in one concentrated pool had escaped previous detection, he had no idea. He finished his beer and went back inside.

  He thought about his options.

  If the title court upheld Scott’s claim to lot 429, Felix would put up the money to build Pacific Shores, and get most of the profit. That was the above-board deal. Good money and it wouldn’t take long. Properties like that sold quickly. And that didn’t preclude his doing a simultaneous deal with Bill. That was totally separate.

  He would get his fat bonus cash from Bill for passing along the thumper truck report, making Bill’s bosses happy. Once he had both those chunks of money, he didn’t care what happened to the infamous lot 429. Build, demo, drill—it was all the same to him.

  The only fly in the ointment was this sea otter center. But all was not lost. It was just a matter of timing. He just had to keep Bill from finding out about it until after he collected his finder’s fee for the oil pool.

  Bill would pull the plug on everything if he found out about the sea otter center. With an environmental nature center for an endangered species sitting on it, the oil company would never be able to touch that land, let alone drill for oil there. Even if the oil company could bribe their way past the government gatekeepers, the public outcry for the cute little sea otter would effectively kill any deal they could make.