King Con (32 page)

Tommy took the piece of equipment out of Steve
Bates’s hand and looked at it. “What the hell is it?” he said.

“It’s a flow meter,” Steve said. “We use it to determine velocity of fluid. We use all kinds a’different ones. That one yer holdin’ is a positive displacement unit, but we got turbine units and electromagnetic flow meters … depending on what we’re tryin’ to determine.” As he spoke he was looking at the gun in Tommy’s hand.

“I don’t give a shit about any of that. How much oil is down there?”

“Hard to say,” Steve said. “Dr. Clark thinks we got a major pay zone. I like t’keep my estimates on the conservative side.”

“Like what?”

“We hooked up the PD meter, that’s yer Positive Displacement meter, to the flow meter. We can estimate gross volume, using a flow rate formula. According to that test, seems like we got a pretty big pool down there. Could be half-a-billion barrels or more … maybe much more.”

“The size of that stratigraphic trap is huge,” Beano interrupted. “Covers almost six hundred acres. Only reason we missed it ten months ago is that our original seismics misidentified the site. We were off by half a mile. The field we were looking for is actually a little south of where we were doing the seismic shots, but by slant drilling, we got into the main trap.” Beano was so excited when he spoke about it, his eyes were flashing. He was believing his con and selling it.

“You say you need more money to control the company? How much?” Tommy asked, nibbling at the bait.

“Used to be we needed maybe ten million, but I think, with the price fall on the stock, we could control it with five or six,” Beano said, “providing the S.E.C. doesn’t freeze the stock on us because of erratic fluctuations.”

“Five million
plus
my million you already invested?” Tommy asked.

“That oughta do ‘er,” Steve Bates said, and took the diving air-flow meter out of Tommy’s hand. The rule was you never let the mark hold a prop too long.

“How do I know this is all on the level?” Tommy asked, his eyes narrowing.

Beano looked at Steve hopefully. Steve finally exhaled and moved over to the small safe, kneeled, and dialed a combination. He pulled open the door and grabbed several long metal canisters that were stored inside on racks. Each canister had a glass window. Steve held each one up to the light, reading the label before finding the one he wanted.

“The fuck is all this?” Tommy said.

“Side core samples,” Beano explained. “This is how we finally hit the pool. Take a look at this.” He took one of the cylinders from Steve and handed it to Tommy, pointing at the window in its glass side. “This core sample was from sixteen hundred feet down. You can see from the brown color that we’re already getting discoloration from the oil shale. That means the porosity of the top soil has absorbed the oil at the roof of the trap. That’s why I think this is a full trap with a lot more than half-a-billion barrels,” Beano insisted.

Tommy took the sample tube and stuck it in his pocket.

“You must leave that here,” Beano said, alarmed. “It’s part of the drilling record, eventually it will have to go to the F.E.R.C.”

“Hey, asshole, ain’t you figured out yet who’s in charge? I’m gettin’ my own geologist. I’m gettin’ this checked. You’re not dealin’ with some chucklehead here.”

Beano and Steve exchanged nervous looks.

“Okay. Let’s say for now, I’m interested,” Tommy went on, “so let’s go take a look at this field.”

Victoria had followed them to the warehouse in Livingston and watched as everybody got out and went inside, leaving Dakota and the bodyguard in the limo. She had parked the Winnebago up the street, then checked on Roger, who whimpered when she touched his hind end. “Sorry, honey, but it’s not bleeding, so that’s good.” Then she moved to the back of the motor home and got the spandex dress that she had worn at the jewelry store out of the small wardrobe closet. She grabbed the plastic heels and started to change.

She knew she would have to find a way to disable the gorilla standing guard if she intended to rescue Dakota. The man was huge, and she was afraid that unless she distracted him, she could never control the situation. She decided that the sexy dress might give her some added advantage. She had been remembering a Trenton street villain she’d prosecuted several years ago. He was a 120-pound creep who was actually a collection agent for a loan shark. He had put hundreds of slow-pays in the hospital using a simple trick. He would wear leather gloves, and inside the palm of his right glove, he would hide a flat, curved, heavy metal sap. He would disable his victims with one slap to the side of the head. Her E.N.T./M.D. expert witness had testified that a sharp hard blow to the ear, even by a 120-pound man, could easily explode the capillaries in the inner ear, causing the victim to lose all of his equilibrium.

Victoria searched the motor home and finally found a white golfing glove in one of the drawers. She slipped it on her right hand. It was loose but it sort of fit. She kept looking in the drawers for some tool Beano might use for roofing scams or to make the wheelchair dice brackets. She found a toolbox in the outside storage
compartment. Inside was a small metal rasp for filing wood. It was about four inches long and one inch wide, and it weighed almost two pounds. She shoved it down into the glove. The metal file stuck out too far, but maybe, with the purse over her arm, the huge bodyguard wouldn’t notice. She hoped he wouldn’t be near the car, and that she wouldn’t have to use it. She’d been a state junior tennis champion and her forehand was awesome, but she’d never actually hit anybody before. Her Prosecutor’s brain instructed her that this would be a felonious assault and battery. Then she remembered the troubling sound of Dakota’s voice and pushed all those thoughts away, grabbed her purse, and moved out of the Winnebago. She hurried up the street until she got to the fence that bordered the warehouse. She could see that the bodyguard had left the front door of the limo open for air and that his big leg was dangling out, his foot tapping on the pavement as he listened to country music radio. Tanya Tucker was singing about a lost love.

“Hey!” she called out to him.

In a second Keith stuck his head out and saw Victoria standing there, looking through the gate. “Hi,” he said, getting out of the car and moving over to her, smiling.

“My car broke down. I need a phone. … Can I use the one in your limo?” she asked. “I’ll pay for the call.”

Keith eyed her platform heels, the micro-mini exposing her sexy legs. He grinned and moved closer.

“You’re too cute to be out here walkin’ around alone,” he leered, turning on his NFL groupie-catcher smile. Keith was feeling horny; just being close to Dakota had got his juices flowing, but he knew if he touched her before Tommy said okay, he would end up dead. This girl was a whole other story.

“Gate’s over here, come on, I’ll let you in,” he said.

She followed him along the fence until they got to the gate, and he let her in. “‘Course, I can’t really let
you use the phone in the limo,” he leered, “but that wasn’t what you had in mind anyway, was it?”

“Yes,” she insisted, “my car broke down.” She was sizing him up. He was huge, six-four at least, and over 250. She wondered if the little Trenton street villain had ever used his glove sap on a mountain of gristle like the one towering over her.

“How ‘bout we have some fun?” he said, grabbing her and holding her shoulders with both hands.

“Slow down, honey,” she said as he pawed at her. She was within striking distance now, as he fumbled to open the front of her dress. Almost without thinking, she swung her right hand, a powerful forehand winner. The two-pound rasp caught Keith Summerland smack on the left ear. He let out a howl, went backwards, and dropped to his knees. She stepped back in horror and for a brief moment watched as he held his head, moaning. Then she stepped around him and ran across the asphalt toward the limo, pausing on the way to kick off the damn platform shoes. Victoria reached out and opened the back door and peered in at Dakota. She looked horrible: A light film of sweat covered her swollen bruised face.

“Oh, my God,” Victoria whispered, “what did they do to you? Can you walk?”

“Don’t know,” Dakota said. “Pull me out.”

Victoria reached in, took Dakota’s hand, and pulled her out of the car, then walked with an arm around her, steadying her as they left the lot. Dakota glanced over at Keith. He was struggling to get to his feet, dizzy and totally out of it. He didn’t see them leave.

“Let’s go,” Victoria said, hurrying Dakota away and up the street to the Winnebago. “I never hit anybody before,” Victoria added.

“Good … start…” Dakota mumbled. Once they got into the motor home, Victoria settled her on the sofa
next to the wounded terrier. Dakota was looking at Victoria with new respect.

Twenty minutes later, Victoria found the small, one-story Livingston Hospital. The E.R. attendants took one look and got Dakota on a gurney, rushing her into Emergency while Victoria picked up Roger-the-Dodger and carried him gingerly inside. She filled out the admitting slip for Dakota, using her own mother’s maiden name, Barker. Then she got a nurse to take a look at Roger.

“What happened to him?” the sympathetic woman asked. “He looks like he’s been shot.”

“I don’t know. I found him outside her house. I think her boyfriend may have beaten her and shot the poor dog,” Victoria lied, wishing she was as good as Beano at spur-of-the-moment bullshit.

“I’ll get Dr. Cotton to take a look at him,” she said.

Two hours later Dakota was rushed into Emergency Surgery. Her spleen had been leaking blood into her abdomen for at least twelve hours. Her blood count and blood pressure were so low, they were life threatening.

When the doctor came out after the surgery, he looked worried. “She lost a lot of blood. She went into cardiac arrest on the table from low BP. We removed her spleen, pumped her full of plasma. She’s been stabilized, but … I don’t know …”

“How long till you can tell?” Victoria asked.

“I let God sort out the close ones,” the doctor said. “I’ve called the police. She was obviously beaten, so I’m going to need your statement. They’re on their way.”

“I’ll be glad to talk to them,” Victoria said, but she knew she had to get out of there before the police came. Once they started asking questions, they’d sense her complicity. She needed to get Roger, so she wandered the sterile linoleum corridors, asking for Dr. Cotton. She
finally found a plain-faced young woman M.D. in a doctors’ lounge, holding Roger-the-Dodger and talking softly to him. His entire back end was now bandaged in white adhesive.

“Is he your dog?” she said accusingly, as Victoria moved into the small room.

“No, my friend’s dog.”

“This dog was shot,” the doctor said angrily. “A large caliber, from the look of it.”

“Oh,” Victoria said. She wanted to get the hell out of there, so she reached out and took Roger out of the doctor’s arms.

“I shouldn’t have sewn him up. I’m a doctor, not a veterinarian, but I love animals and I couldn’t leave him like that. He needs a vet’s prescription—some strong antibiotics for possible infection,” she lectured. And then mercifully, her beeper went off. “Excuse me, don’t leave,” she said and moved out of the room.

As soon as she was gone, Victoria took Roger and carried him out of the small hospital and into the Winnebago. She pulled the motor home out of the parking lot just as a police black-and-white arrived. The old Victoria would have glanced away in fear, but the new emerging one waved confidently at the cops, then turned left and sped away into the night.

T
HEY HEARD A BANGING ON THE WAREHOUSE DOOR
and, when Steve moved to open it, he found Keith Summerland standing there with blood all over the side of his head. When Tommy saw him, he immediately moved to the door. “The fuck happened to you?”

“She hit me,” Keith said, still holding his bleeding ear. He had decided not to tell Tommy he had been away from the car, trying to put a juke on a girl whose car had stalled.

“I told ya to be careful a’her,” Tommy said. He moved out quickly and looked at the empty lot and limousine. There was no sign of Dakota. He knew if she had hit Keith and escaped, there was a chance she would call the law. “Let’s go, alla you,” he said, waving the gun.

They all moved out of the warehouse toward the limo. Tommy glowered at Keith, whose ear was still leaking blood.

“You get the fuck away from me, you dumb asshole,” he shouted at Keith. “What was you doin’? Tryin’ t’give her a feel?”

“No, Tommy, I just turned around for a minute and—”

“Shut the fuck up. Get away from me. Joe was right
to fire you. I’ll deal with you later.” Tommy pushed the huge man toward the gate. He was in a hurry to get out of there before the cops arrived.

Beano had wondered how it would be possible for Dakota to hit Keith Summerland and do that much damage. She seemed almost unable to talk, let alone knock this 250-pound monster silly. Then, as Beano was looking across the pavement, something glinted in the overhead light. When he looked closer, he saw what it was….

A plastic platform heel. He smiled to himself.
Good girl, Vicky
, he thought.

Tommy pushed him into the back of the limo next to Steve and Duffy. He made Jimmy ride in front with Wade. They pulled out, leaving Keith Summerland by the gate, still holding the side of his head and wondering what he was going to do next.

In the back seat of the limo everybody rode in silence. Beano pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked at Tommy, whose expression said nothing.

“Whatta ya looking at?” Tommy finally snapped.

“Well, sir… uh … not to be indelicate, but… uh, well, the people at the field where we’re going, they don’t know there’s oil down there, and it would be helpful if they weren’t alerted to that fact. We drilled a slim hole, like Donovan said … only six-eighths of an inch, and we capped it off ‘cause we don’t want them to know we proved the field.”