"Zat what all of this stuff is about?" Tommy asked as he motioned to all of the graphs and drawings on the table.
"Yes, those are seismic shots Dr. Sutton made. They were done over the last two years. FCP amp;G holds the mineral rights to that property in Oak Crest, they're the operator, but-"
"You're giving it all away, Douglas," Duffy wailed.
"We can't spend the money if we're dead, Harry. Can we? This man is gonna kill us." He turned to Tommy, who was now squinting again at the confusing graphs.
Duffy shook his head as Beano now looked directly at Tommy, going for the hard sell. "He's a doctor of physics, I'm a doctor of geology. We were both hired by the Fentress County Petroleum and Gas Company of Tennessee to check on a suspected stratigraphic trap near Modesto, a hundred miles northwest of here. But nobody really thought it was going to be there. All oil field exploration is a crap shoot at best, with only one in ten or fifteen fields panning out."
"A strati what?" Tommy said, his snake-mean brain struggling to comprehend.
"It's a separation in the natural rock layers in the earth's crust," Beano explained. "It creates underground caverns that trap oil. All big oil fields are a result of stratigraphic traps. Of course, the right geological substrata have to exist. We're looking for Paleozoic rock formations. Then we do what's called a three-D seismic shot. It's mildly complicated to explain, but basically, a seismic shot is accomplished when we drill a hole in the ground in the target area and then blast off a dynamite cap. The sound of the explosion travels through the rock. We trace it with sensitive geophones attached to our seismic computer; the sound waves bounce against the different rock hydrocarbons and tell us the nature of the rock and sand strata below the surface of the earth so we can graph them. Harry here is a seismic operator, a physicist; he uses his geophones to graph the hydrocarbon density to find the over-pressurized zones and then he interprets rock porosity."
"The fuck are you talking about?" Tommy finally yelled, getting angry because he didn't understand a word Beano was saying.
"What it boils down to is, we're sitting on the biggest undiscovered oil field maybe ever in the world. Bigger than Midland, Texas, or the Alaska find. It could be worth between two to five billion a year in crude E.O.R."
Tommy grabbed his arm. "Talk so I know what the fuck you're saying, you geek," he growled. "I'm fuckin' up to here with you already."
"E.O.R. stands for 'Enhanced Oil Recovery.' It's an upgraded pumping system," Beano added quickly.
"You rucking guys stole my money to buy stock in this fucking oil company?" Tommy said, returning to his first basic fact.
"But we didn't get enough money. We need three to five million. See, Fentress County Petroleum and Gas doesn't know the oil is down there, 'cause after we found it, we didn't tell them. If they did know, no amount of money could buy this company, because it would be worth billions. It's still our secret because we made a deal with the service company who was drilling the delineation well. The owner agreed to play along."
"Slow the fuck down," Tommy said, still trying to reel in the facts.
"Look," Beano said-he knew he had the hook in now and started a softer sell-"it's really simple. The oil company we work for, Fentress County Petroleum, spends millions in oil field discovery costs. People like me an' Harry are sent all over the world to find potential fields. We're sorta project managers. If we find a stratigraphic trap in the right Paleozoic rock strata, we do our seismic shots and, if we get what is known as a 'hot spot' or a 'bright spot' on our computer graphs, we notify the company and then they spend a lot of money to develop the potential field, put in pipes and cisterns. Then they hire an independent service company in the area to prove out the field. The service company drills what's called a delineation well to see what's down there. The service company Fentress hired is an outfit called W.C.P.D." Under Tommy's glare, he quickly added, "West Coast Platform Drilling Company, 'cause they also drill offshore. W.C.P.D. drilled a bunch a'holes in this Oak Crest field that were basic P an' A's."
"Knock it off with the fucking letters."
"Plugged and Abandoned. Dry holes basically, but the core samples were promising. Dr. Sutton and I found out that W.C.P.D. wasn't getting paid by Fentress County Petroleum for their work. I complained to my boss about it and the Fentress County Petroleum and Gas Company fired me. At first I thought that was very strange, because I was running the operation out here. We didn't know it then, but Fentress is going broke. That's why they fired me. They were cutting new field development to nothing. We got together with Donovan Martin, who owns the service company, and all agreed to go ahead and try and prove out the field on our own. But because I'd been fired and Donovan's service company hadn't been paid, we agreed that if we found oil we would make it a tight hole, and not tell the F.E.R.C. We-"
Tommy reached out and backhanded Beano.
"I'm sorry." Beano winced. "Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. A tight hole is a secret oil well. You're supposed to tell the F.E.R.C. if you get positive results, but we agreed not to." He looked at Tommy. "We proved the field. Our delineation well came in. It was huge. This oil find is incredible! Fentress County Petroleum and Gas is in big financial trouble. They don't know we proved the field, they're going to go out of business, and their stock is falling. We're trying to get a controlling interest before the bank takes them over. Once the bank grabs the company we're out of luck, because there'll be an army of bank examiners and-"
Tommy held up his hand to silence Beano. "So you two assholes come to my casino in the Bahamas and steal money to buy this oil company, using crooked dice?" Tommy said, getting his next basic fact.
"It was his idea," Beano carped, looking at Duffy. "Harry used to do close-hand magic. He discovered the cellophane gas. He said we could do it, it's just we couldn't get enough money from the casino to buy the company before you shut us down."
"How can I believe all of this?" Tommy said, beginning to get interested.
"We've got the oil core drilling samples. They're at the service company warehouse," Beano said. "Donovan Martin, who owns the platform drilling company, has got 'em."
Tommy picked up the stock certificates from the floor and table, then gathered up the seismic graphs, the drawings, and the glossy printed brochure. "Let's go see," he finally said. "If this is all true… you guys just got yourselves a new partner."
Chapter Twenty-Two.
VICTORIA HAD BEEN CROUCHING IN THE FRONT SEAT OF Beano's blue and white Winnebago, deep in the parking lot of the Fresno Mud Flat Marina. She had a brand-new Nikon long-lens camera on her lap and a copy of that day's Fresno Herald on the dash in front of her as Beano had instructed. She'd been sitting there for almost two hours, thinking about the last several days.
Her mind was a mixture of conflicting thoughts and emotions. She wasn't at all sure what she was doing there, but at the same time, she knew this was where she belonged. She was glad to be avenging Carol's death and to be a part of the plot to bring the Rina brothers down, but she resented her minor role in the adventure. So far, all she'd done was stand in the parking lot of the Sabre Bay Club waiting for the phone to ring so that she could give Duffy's phony credit rating, and now she was waiting in Beano's Winnebago with the new long-lens camera, waiting for Tommy to show up while Beano and Duffy told the tale in the houseboat. She could see how it worked now. The inside men were the important players in the con, there was no doubt about it. Everybody else was a shill or a lugger and performed a minor role. She was not used to the sidelines, and it bothered her. She understood that Tommy would recognize her if he saw her, but that fact didn't help. She had always been in control of everything in her life, from her pep squad in high school to moot court in law school. She had been the quarterback on the fifty or so felony cases she tried in the D.A.'s office. She was not good at holding other people's coats and was determined not to let that be her role in this situation.