"How? We'll never get these bolts off and it's gonna be rank in there. Crude oil is very rich, organically speaking. It smells terrible."
"Open it up," Tommy repeated. "I wanna see the oil."
Finally Steve stepped forward. "We can get these here bolts loosened, I think. They're three-fourths of an inch. I think most tire irons is three-fourths. We could use the lug wrench outta the trunk."
They sent Jimmy Freeze down to get it. He returned a few minutes later with the lug wrench. He and Steve went to work unbolting the hatch. It was slow going, but they all took turns, except Tommy, and twenty minutes later they had it off. It was now three-thirty in the morning. They lifted the metal plate off the big cistern and set it'to the side of the opening. Tommy leaned over and sniffed at the hole. "Don't smell nothin'," he said.
"You'd have t'climb down," Beano said nervously.
"If there ain't no fucking oil down there, you're one dead fucking geek."
"Maybe they found it and drained it," Beano stuttered. "You can't just kill me if it's empty."
"Watch me," Tommy promised.
"The tank's ladder is right here, inside to the right of the opening," Steve pointed out, to change the subject.
Tommy looked at Jimmy Freeze. "Go down there an' get me some oil, Jimmy."
"Ahhh, Tommy, how come it's gotta be me?"
"'Cause I said so, and I wanna keep my eyes on these assholes."
Jimmy took the decanter and the glass and slowly lowered himself over the side and found the ladder with his toes. They watched while he disappeared down into the cistern. There was a deep bonging every time he kicked the side of the cistern with the toes of his shoes. They could hear him coughing and then they heard him swearing. A few minutes later, Jimmy Freeze reappeared at the opening of the cistern. "There's a bunch of it down there, filled almost halfway up." His eyes were watering from the fumes.
"This is a thirty-thousand-gallon reservoir; that's fifteen thousand gallons in there," Steve said.
Then Jimmy lifted the crystal decanter up and set it down by Tommy's feet and climbed out of the cistern. Tommy picked up the decanter and looked at it in the moonlight. It was half filled with crude oil.
"Son-of-a-bitch," he said, looking at the black gold.
"I told ya. When are you gonna believe me?" Beano said.
"Right after I get this analyzed," Tommy said.
The oil in the cistern had been brought up from Santa Barbara. Steve had bought it from an offshore rig. When Tommy sent it to a lab, he would be told it was high-quality, 90 percent pure crude with no shale content. Of course, there wasn't fifteen thousand gallons in the cistern. There was only fifty. Since oil is lighter than water, all they had to do was float the fifty gallons of crude on top of Carl Harper's water supply. There was only six inches of oil floating on top of fifteen thousand gallons of water.
They put the stopper on the decanter and climbed back down to the ground. Once they were all back in the limo, Beano looked over at Tommy. He could see it wasn't going to be necessary to take him to the little oil office in the morning and run him through that maze. The ugly mobster was hooked. He kept looking at the oil in the decanter. He would pick it up out of the decanter rack every few minutes, hold it in his hands, look at it again, and smile. "Okay, you guys, I'm in."
"How much of this is ours?" Beano said. "We still haven't discussed an equitable stock distribution."
Tommy looked over at him as if the thought hadn't even occurred to him. "How's sixty-forty?" Tommy said, a small smile on his face. "Of course I get sixty, you guys run the technical stuff and get forty."
"This is fucked," Duffy said.
"No, it's not. We'll get forty percent of billions of dollars," Beano said. "Come on, Dr. Sutton. This is better than we could have hoped for, trying to make it the other way, stealing from Las Vegas." Beano shoved his glasses back on his nose. "You got a deal," he said to Tommy, but then added, "You better hurry though. The S.E.C. could shut this stock down and freeze trading on the company any day."
"I can be back here with the money in less than a day," Tommy said, stroking the decanter of oil on his lap like it contained a magic genie.
"Good," Beano said.
Tommy nodded to Wade, who put the car in gear, and they headed back to Fresno where his jet was waiting. On the way, Beano looked at Tommy intently again.
"The fuck you always starin' at me for?" Tommy growled.
"I know all about you and your little brother," Beano said. "You probably have to go ask his permission to take his money."
"I don't ask nobody's permission for nothing."
"I heard he was the boss," Beano insisted. "He makes all the decisions."
"You heard fucking wrong," Tommy snarled.
Duffy thought Beano had played it perfectly, by being reluctant to do what the mark wanted and then being forced to agree. Tommy was sure he was getting the truth. When Tommy finally ended up with the oil in his hands, he was convinced because his own insistent questions and demands had led him to it. Now he was sold and ready to plunge. In the old days once a mark was hooked on the con, the sharpers would always send him home to get more money. It was called "The Country Send."
*
PART SIX
"The Devil can quote Scripture."
– AN AMERICAN PROVERB
Chapter Twenty-five.
THEY LEFT TOMMY AT THE FRESNO AIRPORT. HE GOT on the big red and white, three-engine Challenger jet. Beano and Duffy watched with Wade and Jimmy Freeze as the plane thundered off the runway and lifted into the pale morning sky.
Beano took off his glasses again and wiped them on his tie. He turned his geeky smile on Jimmy. "Said he'd have the money in a day," Beano said happily and slid his glasses back up on his nose. "Very exciting. Very exciting, indeed."
Jimmy grunted, turned, and along with Wade got back in the limo and pulled out, leaving Duffy and Beano standing there. Beano immediately bagged the goofy grin and the thick tortoise-shell glasses which had been giving him a headache. He dropped them into his pocket.
"Tommy fell for the moose pasture hook, line, and decanter," Duffy grinned, watching the plane until it was out of sight.
"Come on. We've gotta see about Dakota and Roger." They called for a rental car to be delivered to the Spanos Executive Jet Center. A yellow Caprice arrived twenty minutes later, and they drove it back to the houseboat at Mud Flat Marina.
Victoria and Roger were sleeping in the Winnebago at the far side of the parking lot when Beano knocked on the door. She let them in, and Roger-the-Dodger wagged his tail, even though he was too weak to stand.
Beano moved over to the dog, kneeled, and patted him gingerly on the head. "You got him. I was afraid he was dead," Beano said. "Where's Dakota?"
"Hospital in Livingston," Victoria answered. "Tommy really beat the shit out of her. They had to remove her spleen."
Beano winced as he listened to the rest of the details.
"You can pick him up," Victoria said, pointing at Roger after they'd finished exchanging information. "He likes being held. Just watch out for his right hind end. He's missing a few centimeters back there."
Beano picked the little terrier up into his arms and cradled him. "Thanks, buddy," Beano said to the dog. "I screwed up on Tommy. If you hadn't taken a piece out of his neck and bought me a few seconds, I'd be one dead grifter."
Roger tried to wag his tail as Beano cradled and hugged him gently.