"West Coast Platform Drilling," Beano said, and he looked out the window for Roger. He knew if the little terrier hadn't attacked Tommy, he would be dead. He saw blood on the pavement where Roger had fallen and prayed Roger-the-Dodger was alive. Then Beano looked back at Dakota and took stock of where they were. He knew it was up to him to keep them alive. He had to stay focused.
The plan had worked. Tommy seemed hooked, but in a good scam, the sharpers weren't supposed to get hurt. He looked again at Dakota. He didn't like the color of her complexion.
In the motor home, Victoria had tried to perform first aid on Roger. She found an Ace bandage in the bathroom. She put a clean washcloth on the wound and then tried to wrap the bandage as tight as she could to stem the bleeding. Then she carried Roger over to the sofa and carefully laid him there. "I'll take you to the vet as soon as I can," she told him, but she knew she also had to stay close to Duffy and Beano. She didn't know if the other shot had hit one of them. She couldn't lose Dakota. Victoria had been distressed by the sound of her voice.
Then she had seen Tommy and the two huge bodyguards leading Duffy and Beano up the ramp. She grabbed the camera and focused on them as they walked up under the overhead light in the marina parking lot. She got three good shots of Beano and Duffy with Tommy by the car before they got in. In one shot Beano turned toward the lens, smiled, and put his arm around Tommy. She snapped the shot before the little mobster knocked Beano's arm off.
As the limo pulled out of the parking lot, Victoria put the big motor home in gear and followed with the headlights out. She wasn't sure what she was going to do. This was not going exactly the way Beano had described. She looked back at Roger, who was lying on the sofa, his chin on his paws, looking up at her. He seemed to be asking, "What now?" A question she couldn't answer.
Then the limo turned onto the freeway and headed northwest, toward Modesto.
Victoria Hart, who had once been voted the "most organized"' in her senior class, who since law school had never made an important move without planning it and mapping it out meticulously, now blindly followed the black stretch limo up onto the freeway. She knew she had no chance to plan anything. With her heart beating frantically, she gripped the steering wheel in desperation and decided this time, she would just have to go with the flow.
Chapter Twenty-Three.
THE WEST COAST PLATFORM DRILLING COMPANY WAS in a warehouse district in the small town of Livingston, twenty miles southeast of Modesto. The sign on the corrugated tin building was freshly painted and showed a derrick with oil shooting out of the top. In the fenced yard were rolls of cable and used parts. A roof light threw its glare across the enclosed parking lot. The limo pulled in and stopped. It was 10:15 P.M.
Beano looked over at Dakota, who had her eyes closed now and was breathing with difficulty. Her head was tilted back, resting on the back seat; her skin color was pasty.
"You gotta take her to a hospital," Beano said.
Tommy looked over at Dakota for a long, speculative moment. "Why?" he finally said.
"She looks horrible. Something's wrong with her."
"Are we talkin' about the same cunt who put something in my drink so I'd pass out, so you two fucks could run the table on me at my own club and get my brother so pissed he starts cussing?"
"She needs to be looked at," Beano insisted.
"Hey, Dr. Dipshit, or whatever your fuckin' name is-"
"It's Douglas," Beano said stubbornly.
"You called the tune, Douglas, this is the fucking music. Now let's go see this asshole." He grabbed Beano and pushed him out of the limo. As Beano passed in front of Dakota, she opened her eyes and they exchanged looks. Beano didn't like what he saw there.
They were all out of the limo. Only Keith was left behind with Dakota. They moved to a side door of the corrugated metal warehouse. Beano knocked; Duffy was standing right behind him.
"Donovan, it's me. It's Dr. Clark and Dr. Sutton," Beano yelled, and in a minute, the side door was unbolted and Steven Bates was standing there, wearing old coveralls with W.C.P.D. stitched on the pocket. He was wiping his hands with an old rag and looking warily out the slit in the door at Beano and Duffy.
"Dr. Clark, Dr. Sutton." He nodded; then his eyes shifted to Tommy and the two wide-bodies behind him. "Who are they?" Steve asked.
Tommy moved in front of Beano and stuck the automatic in Steve's face. "I'm your new drilling partner."
Steve looked down at the barrel of the 9mm SIG-Sauer and swallowed hard, dismay on his sun-reddened features.
"Inside. We ain't havin' this stockholders' meeting in the street. Let's go." And Tommy pushed Beano and Duffy into the warehouse. Jimmy Freeze and Wade Summerland came in last and closed the door.
The inside of the warehouse had been carefully dressed by Steven. He had leased the building and rented everything. Two large portable water pumps with metal derricks that were used for agricultural field irrigation were on rolling pallets in the center of the warehouse floor. Even though they were water pumps, they looked enough like oil derricks to fool the uninitiated layman. Steve had helped the deception by labeling one OIL PUMPING UNIT C, the other OIL PUMPING UNIT J. He had rolls of cable strewn around and a forklift parked in plain view. A small safe was conspicuous in the corner. Everything was on a two-week rental from a farm supply company just two blocks away. The hand props he had rented from a dive shop in Modesto.
"What the heck's this?" Steve Bates said, as he looked down at the gun in Tommy's hand.
"You ain't askin' the questions, Joe Bob, you're answerin' 'em. I wanna hear about this od field you found in Oak Crest."
Steve Bates looked warily at Beano, then at Tommy. "There's no field," he stammered. "That's just a buncha dry holes. Wish t'heck we'd a'hit something, by God."
"Forget it, Donovan," Beano said. "He's seen all the graphs, the seismic shots. We told him everything."
"You told him?" The betrayal in Steven Bates's voice was nothing short of Shakespearean.
"Let's try and get past that, Donovan. The fact is we need more money anyway. We can't control this thing with just a hundred thousand shares. We're outta dme." Beano pushed his glasses up on his nose.
Steven Bates looked at Beano and then his eyes slid back to Tommy. "I don't know what he's talking about," he said, but his voice was hesitant now.
"Then lemme put it in line for you," Tommy said. "I wanna see this field in Oak Crest and you buncha pricks is gonna take me there tonight. How far away is that?"
"'Bout an hour," Beano said.
"Dr. Clark," Steve said, "this was a tight hole. How could ya tell 'em?"
"I didn't have a choice. He followed us back from Sabre Bay. He found everything. He's got the stock certificates. Besides, I think we should take him as a partner. We're better off letting him in on this. Believe me, we can't control it ourselves anyway."
Tommy glared at Beano. "I'm not in on anything yet, asshole. I'm on a fact-finding mission, and I'm tryin' t'get my million dollars back. So far, all you got from me is some mild interest. If I don't get a lot more info in the next few hours, I'm gonna cash in these stock certificates, get my money back, and you guys are all deader than junkie luck." He thumbed the hammer back and pointed it at Steve. "Are we straight?" Steve nodded. "Then keep talkin'."
"The Fentress County Petroleum and Gas Company stock is falling," Steve Bates said. "We bought it at ten, it's already at eight. The rumor is out that Fentress County can't make their bank payments. Their cash flow is too low. Buncha big stockholders are already calling for a meeting in San Francisco at the main office. They wanna liquidate the company. It's hit the street already that they're in trouble. Even if you cash in those hundred thousand shares, you're not gonna get back much more than seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars."