Nothing Ventured

by Roderick Price

  “In the future I am wondering if we could all discuss our concerns here together so that they can be addressed, and not try and settle this while you guys are taking a piss together.”

  “Now Martin, you need to just settle down and watch your language,” said his boss.

  “No, I don’t need to settle down and I don’t need you, of all people, telling me to watch my language. You know what our plans are for this project and you’ve already seen the pipeline schematics. You signed off on the compressor plan. If you guys have already decided this in the john, why am I up here wasting my time?”

  “Martin,” the President interrupted, “we haven’t decided anything. We were just talking about how big of a bet this is for a company of our size. I’m not sure we, or our investors, are ready for it. Most of them own our stock because they know we are one of the most cost-efficient in getting oil out of the ground in North America and the Gulf, and this is a big step up.”

  “It’s not any bigger than the step we took two years ago when we partnered on the Tamarron deal, and you guys were okay with that. If we’re going to be respected in the industry we’ve got to show we can do these projects. This is a good project and you guys know it. The only difference I see is that you were pushing the Tamarron project,”—now he was staring squarely at his boss—”and I’m pushing this one. That’s the way it always is, right? You guys play big dog and hold court over us here today like you’re some kind of kings or something, and we peons sit around and wait for your holiness to bless us with your opinion.”

  “Now Martin, you’re way out of line. I think that’s enough. The guys at this table have all earned their place here.” It was the President and he was suddenly red in the face.

  “Oh bullshit. I’m a better engineer here than my boss and you know it.”

  “Let’s not put your boss on trial here, okay? I’m just saying that we’ve all worked really hard to get where we are okay? It’s nothing personal,” said the President.

  “You know what? It is personal. The only reason we did the Tamarron deal and don’t seem to want to do this one, is Tom probably licked your ass until you said “yes” and I’m not going to do it. I’ve made more money for you and Basin Oil than you can believe. And it’s not getting me anywhere, okay? Trust me, after a while it is personal and I’m not going to keep putting up with it.”

  “Martin, you’ve got a lot at stake here to be saying things like this. I know you’re going through some tough times at home, but why don’t we just move along and wrap up the presentation?” said the CFO.

  Martin looked around the table at his team. Most of them sat in rapt attention listening to the discussion. A couple of them had slid down in their chairs and were drawing distractedly on the paper pads in front of them.

  “You know, I don’t think you need me to wrap up the discussions. I’m going to ask Lynn to come up here and take you through the final slides. I’ve got some thinking to do. If I’m not the right guy to help build this company, maybe it’s time for me to stop pounding my head against the wall. I don’t give a shit whether you do the project or not, but I’m not going to keep sitting here busting my ass for you guys and not get any respect for doing it. Now if you will excuse me gentlemen, I am through for the day.”

  Martin’s boss looked over at the President shaking his head.

  “I am sorry for that. I know Martin is under a lot of stress lately. Lynn, maybe if you could get up and complete the discussions with us we can move on.

  To the group, it had seemed like an inevitable outburst from Martin, a really good guy who felt like he deserved a place at the top and wasn’t getting it. It was no surprise that he had finally snapped and told management exactly how he felt. But people were shocked by his anger directed not only toward his boss but the President. He hadn’t actually quit either, he just walked out and said he was going to think hard about things. From what his boss had said, it sounded like Martin was going to have to do some serious apologizing. They felt sorry for Martin and sorry that this had all turned out so badly for him.

  Martin, meanwhile, did not have to pack his briefcase; it was ready to go behind his desk. Martin didn’t have to check around the office, either; he had everything he needed. He stormed out of his office, slamming the door behind him and stomped past Anita down to the parking lot. In twenty minutes, Martin was poolside at the Houstonian.

  Just for fun, earlier in the morning, he had even packed his swimsuit in his briefcase. Ordering a vodka rocks from the pool attendant, he reclined comfortably on the lounge chair, soaking up the mid-afternoon sun. On a scale from one to ten, he was giving himself a ten. It had really helped that Tom, his boss, had been the one to start picking the deal apart. That had made it all the more believable, natural, and frankly easier for Martin to seem to lose his cool. He knew his colleagues would be calling him, to try and coax him back. He had guessed that Tom would be indignant at first, probably looking for the chance to make him crawl back, but then would kindly ask him to return because Tom needed him.

  Going over his plans, Martin had actually picked this day more than two weeks ago. Now with his eyes closed, replaying the series of exchanges, he tried to gauge the effectiveness of his little tirade. He might have pushed it a little too far, but he was pretty sure that if he really wanted to stay at Basin Oil, he could apologize, swallow his pride and keep his job. Even more importantly, if he suddenly announced that he was leaving, no one would be the least bit surprised. He sipped his drink purposefully, in the afternoon sun, and then set it down on the side table, walked over to the edge of the pool and dove in. He glided smoothly under the water, feeling it slide past him evenly and silently before emerging. He glided over to the far side of the pool and peered up toward the blue, cloudless sky. Perfect.

  CHAPTER 34

  Taylor had thought it odd that Martin had his golf bag with him—it was the middle of winter in Chicago. He could’ve been coming back from a vacation break and just connected in the airport. Maybe after the conference he was taking a few days in Arizona or Florida. After breakfast, they had lay on the big, overstuffed couch, dozing in each other’s arms while the warm morning sun poured in the windows. Taylor awoke with a start, jumped off the couch and ran to get ready. She was speaking in twenty minutes and had not yet even checked in for the conference. In ten minutes, she had kissed Martin gently on the cheek and agreed to meet him again around seven. She would speak and politely attend the other sessions in the afternoon and then go to the closing day press conference.

  Martin was instantly up and moving as soon as the door clicked shut. The API Conference turnout was so big for this conference that they had to move it down to McCormick Place, just a five-minute taxi ride away. From the conference bulletin, Martin knew there would be more than three hundred vendor booths and nearly five thousand attendees meandering among the exhibits. He had called Geovision ten days earlier since it was one of the older geophysical vendors that he had never done any business with. He got the name of one of the technicians who would be attending the conference. In a call to the man, he had identified himself as a research assistant in the geology department at the University of Texas. He indicated he needed to transfer some large digital files to old format, sixteen-millimeter digital tape. Would Geovision have a digital converter at the conference that he could try out? It was a bit of an odd request to go from modern format to an ancient format that had become obsolete nearly forty years ago. But yes, Geovision had a new conversion machine that could translate more than forty formats and ran at speeds ten times faster than their earlier model. And yes, it would be fine to bring the digital master disk and the tapes by at the conference and they could run them through.

  Martin got dressed, grabbed his golf bag and took a cab to the Exhibit Hall. Walking directly to the restroom he entered the handicap stall and took the travel cover off his golf bag. Inside were the tape canisters and master disk which he had carefully covered in bubble wrap
and stacked one on top of the other for the flight up. He also had one aluminum alloy transport carrier for digital plotting. There had been no other obvious way for him to transport the tapes and because of their digital nature they needed to be protected well for the trip. He carefully removed each of the canisters and placed them one by one in an oversized UT Longhorns duffel bag and then headed out into the Hall carrying his now empty golf bag in one hand and the duffel bag in the other. Finding one of the bigger, more active booths, he nonchalantly walked over to the back corner of the exhibit and quickly slid the golf bag under the fabric. Then he shouldered the duffel bag and headed for booth 228, Geovision. In less than fifteen minutes, the technical geek at Geovision had loaded the master disk and written out more than two gigabytes of data onto the seven sixteen-millimeter tapes. The guy was talking to another customer at the time too, so there wasn’t a lot of discussion between the two of them. As each tape filled up, Martin would place it carefully in the bag and thread the next one, making sure to use a fine cotton cloth to keep the tape clean and his fingerprints off the casing. As soon as the transfer was complete, Martin took the last tape off the tape drive, grabbed the master disk and disappeared back into the crowd.

  Not a lot of Martin’s colleagues knew it, but today’s writing devices such as this, engraved a small microcode signature on the outgoing digital which enabled you to determine the time, date and actual physical device that had completed the transfer. If anyone ever started asking questions, an expert would eventually trace the machine back to Geovision, and would even know that the transfer was made at this conference. If they were lucky, they would find the technician and he would even remember doing the transfer for some guy who was supposedly from the University of Texas. Martin had lost some sleep worrying about somebody tracing these tapes back to the big machine at Basin Oil. But now the tapes were untraceable. He would sleep more soundly thinking about anyone who tried to link some student at UT, with Geovision, and then with Martin. The Geovision guy never even got his name or card. He returned back to the big booth and again picked up his golf bag and headed to the restrooms at the opposite end of the Expo, keeping his head down, pretending to read a handout from one of the fluids companies. At the end of the hall he ducked into a new set of bathrooms and carefully wrapped the new tapes and canisters. Then he layered them in one on top of another and crumpled up the duffel bag into a plain brown bag and dropped it into the trash can on the way out. He then took a taxi back to his hotel and dropped off the golf bag with the valet and checked in. A quick call to Anita confirmed that he had no messages and things had remained quiet as usual back in Houston. He had missed Taylor’s speech, but he proceeded over to the conference and registered, then went out of his way to generally stay in the lobbies and be seen. After grabbing a handful of vendor flyers, koozies, caps and a fairly nice shoulder bag giveaway, he watched patiently for the occasional associate from Houston, who Martin would saunter over toward and with whom he would exchange meaningless pleasantries. Word would be back to Houston tomorrow, that so and so had seen him at the conference; yeah, the weather had been nice but cold, and why didn’t they have the damn thing in Phoenix or Scottsdale this time of year? It was important for Martin to be normal, to be seen and to be suffering through another ho-hum conference with the rest of them.

  At five, he headed over to his hotel and changed into his running clothes and a wrinkled, maroon windbreaker. Martin took off for a run south down the lakeshore. He ran easily and slowly on his way down to the yacht basin, stopped a couple of times at stoplights to catch his breath and wait for a break in the traffic. He ran easily down along Lincoln Park down to the Observatory, a gentle north wind at his back nudging him along. When he turned to head back, the wind seemed to stand up to meet him. Biting into his cheeks and cutting into his eyes, the wind sent tears steadily running from the corners of his eyes that glanced back off the shoulders of the windbreaker before dropping to the pavement below. Clenching his bare hands tightly in the pockets of his windbreaker, he lowered his head and charged into the wind, knowing no one or nothing would stop him. Every quarter mile or so, a rogue wave would crash in over the bulkhead, sending a shower of icy mist over him. He felt his heart pumping strongly and surely. He could feel each surge of blood up the arteries in the side of his neck giving him warmth, strength and peace even as the wind rose up to meet him. Calmly, as he considered those he knew and those he loved, he found himself different. From this day on, decisions would be easier. He was angry and determined, and from now on he would not let anyone stand in his way.

  Back in his room, he turned on the hot shower and sat down on the shower stall floor with his razor and shaving cream. He let the shower fall squarely on his back, intermittently closing his eyes and leaning over backwards as the water cascaded onto his face. He applied the shaving cream generously over his early-evening beard and then vigorously soaped the rest of the body, as the shaving lather did its job. His shave was close and smooth, then he took the bottle of body wash and poured it over himself before rinsing off and dressing for dinner. Exactly at seven he called Taylor’s room and asked if she could pick him up for dinner. He explained that for appearance purposes he decided he better check into his hotel, and since she had a car, he had made reservations at Morton’s for dinner. She was running a little late, but when she pulled in to pick him up, he was standing curbside by the valet, and for some reason he asked her to unlock the trunk so he could throw his clubs in the back. Morton’s was really a man’s place, with those big steaks and huge servings of Caesar salads with anchovies and sautéed mushrooms. Taylor was in her element in such a place. Although it was packed, he had requested a small booth for them, and with Frank singing “Come Fly with Me” in the background, they could talk for hours in complete privacy.

  Taylor was relaxed. “So, are we going golfing tomorrow? You know I don’t even have my shoes with me.” She was showing the big smile, the one that he loved. Liz used to have that smile too, but she didn’t show it much anymore. Taylor’s speech had gone well, and the press conference even better. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours-for both of them.

  “Yeah, there’s a great course at a place called Princeville on Kauai. I bet there’s a late flight too, which of course would mean that by tomorrow morning we should be teeing off.” He found himself smiling easily and broadly back at her. They were so natural together. Everything just seemed to fit.

  “Well, I have to be back by… Friday. I believe I’ve got a huge meeting on that day.” She was still smiling. “That is, of course, not this Friday, but a week from this Friday.” The thought of spending a week in Hawaii with Martin brought all kinds of very nice thoughts into her head, all while sitting at a steak house in Chicago.

  After they had ordered, Martin turned suddenly serious. He started with a long discussion of how disappointed he was in his job. He was bitter—more bitter than Taylor could have imagined. He described in detail a series of situations at work where he had been left out of key meetings, where he had accomplished things for which others—namely his boss—had taken the credit. He had been passed over for promotion while they told him that it took time to develop. Finally, after nearly twenty years in the oil industry, they had promoted a guy two years behind him in the company as his boss. He was mad at the industry, too. For most of the last ten years they had been cutting costs, saying they needed to be more productive. Yet management seemed to be getting paid more and more every year. It was no secret that two years ago, when a major independent right in Houston had made three or four good discoveries, the President alone had made thirteen million dollars on his stock options. Most of the big oil companies had made more money in the last ten years than in any other period in history and they just kept downsizing. Now they were starting to call it “rightsizing” as if that was something different. He didn’t share it with Taylor, but even as he talked, Martin thought about secretly cashing in the retirement account he shared with Li
z.

  Martin shared with Taylor details about his marriage. Martin thought to himself that Liz was just frustrated. For a long time Liz had been supportive, telling him how he was going to get his chance. About six or eight months ago though, she would grow sullen when the topic came up. She would say very little as he would replay the injustices of the week. About four months ago, she turned in a different direction and started to suggest the problem was him. She started to say that maybe in his heart that just getting by was good enough for him, and she made it clear that it wasn’t good enough for her. She started to act different, too. Usually, if they hadn’t made love for a few days, she would wake him up when she came to bed and tease him into it. At about the same time, she started just crawling into bed after him, and just going to sleep. One day Martin actually got the calendar out and determined it had been nearly a month since they had made love. Martin told Taylor that it was about this time that Liz started dressing up more when she left the house and wearing more make up. She took a new personal training class down at the club., Martin was actually jealous of how fit she was, telling himself he didn’t have the time to work out, because of his job. And Martin had met her personal trainer, Todd—a good-looking young guy who was in perfect shape. Bad news. Some days she’d forget to remove the extra make up before he got home and to him she looked oddly out of place hanging around the kitchen with the kids, making dinner, hearing about their day and helping with homework.

  On the night she told him she wanted a divorce, it was no surprise. Martin told Taylor that he thought Liz already had a lover. Martin had stopped by the house a few times in the afternoon to see if he could catch her. He had even taken friends to lunch over at the club to see who she might be seeing. He even thought about hiring a private detective before realizing that would be just as likely to make things worse. If she wanted him to know, she would; if she wanted to keep it a secret, it would be very hard for him to find out. Now that they were separated, she was dating a fair amount. Martin had seen her out twice, but his buddies would give him a full report every time they saw her. She had even been out sailing—and God knows what else—with Hilton Sinclair on his boat down at Clear Lake. Of all people, Tom, his boss, had been eating at Landry’s Seafood House, right on the narrow cutout into Galveston Bay. Here comes Hilton in his big boat with Liz, Tom describing in detail how great Liz looked. She’s standing at the wheel, piloting the sailboat out through the narrow cut, and Hilton’s standing behind her with his arms around her, helping her steer. Tom couldn’t wait to see Martin’s face when he told him, telling him of course that, if their positions were reversed, he knew he would want to know.