After a while he looked up and I swear he turned green. He put his hand on my arm, then was standing beside me laying a buck on his check. He said: “You don’t mind, kid, if I duck? If I beat it the back way? It’s better they not find me here! I mean, it’s better you and I not be seen talking together!”
With that he was gone. Outside, there were voices, and then, through the window, coming into the place I saw White, Branch, Dasso, and four or five of the guys who had been at the house that first Saturday afternoon, when I was a gentleman and a scholar and a good judge of liquor, besides being an all-American back and a bass singer.
23
They jammed a couple of tables together, out in the middle, and I leaned back where I wouldn’t be seen, but couldn’t help hear, though God knows I didn’t want to be there, and would have ducked out with Rohrer, if I could. They ordered sandwiches, and talked along, and it turned out Branch was working for Luxor now, and had cut out the booze, and had Dasso under him. They all made quite a lot over him, but anybody could tell this mob was really being steered by White. Then pretty soon one of them, a guy named Perrin that sang bass in the choir, but had a property next to Mendel’s with four or five wells on it, opened up, and who he was talking about was Mr. Jack Dillon, and what he had to say about the gent was slightly hot. He talked like he was just hashing it over once more, what had already been said somewhere else, maybe in the Luxor offices, if that was where they met before they came here, and was toning it down a bit so as not to string it out too long. I’d hate to hear him when he was really putting in the fine points. He kept wanting to know why I wasn’t indicted and sent to Folsom prison, because, he said, “if ever a son of a bitch was guilty as hell that guy is, just as much as any arsonist they’ve got in there now, and in some ways as much as any murderer.”
For some reason, White, the one he was talking to, put it up to Branch: “Have you explained to him, Jim, how that is?”
“I’ve tried to, Mr. White.”
“Perrin, it can’t be done.”
“Why not?”
“Matter of law.”
“Isn’t ruining our oil field against the law?”
“The law says ‘willful negligence,’ ‘willful destruction of property,’ ‘willful failure to use caution and care’ — and that stops us. If he’d been on speaking terms with Dasso, if he’d given him a chance to have that blowout preventer opened up and put in order, if he’d once rung Jim Branch about it, then we’d have him, because if he was informed, and failed to act, he’d be nailed for the whole trip. As it is, no court would sustain an indictment. What’s more, even if we could get an indictment, sustain it, and convict in court, I’d be against it.”
“But my God, Mr. White—”
“What good would it do you?”
“Isn’t that some good, to put him behind bars?”
“And your fire going on all the time?”
On that, there was a long time when nobody spoke, and I could hear lunch being served, and some of them, at least, eating. Then White went on: “The law governing oil development is lax, it certainly is. If you ask me, nobody ought to be allowed to touch a spoonful of mud around a well without a license, and I’d make it as hard for a man to get a super’s ticket as a license to skipper a ship — and for the same reason: lives and property are at stake, and he’s responsible. But they didn’t ask me, and we’ve never gone after that much law for fear we’d get ten times that much, and the fact is, no license is required. That puts it on the criminal side, and unfortunately being a goddam fool is not a crime, not when this supreme court we’ve got gets through with it. And furthermore, once you indict him, maybe he skips. And if he’s not here to do something about her, she’ll still be aburning come New Year’s Day. That’s what we got to remember. It may be your pool but it’s his fire, and he’s the one that’s got to put it out.”
“Yeah, but when?”
“If I can get to him, I’ll try to find out.”
Two or three more guys came in, that I’d never seen before, and Jake took their order. Then he came over with my check. All of a sudden a chair scraped, and Perrin was standing there looking at me. “Oh hello, Dillon, so it’s you. Well you been sitting here. What you got to say?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Come on, you—”
I got up and he squared off, but Dasso jumped up and grabbed him and I could see Dasso hadn’t forgotten the punch I’d given him there by the well. White kept looking at me with a little smile. Then, after Perrin sat down, he said: “Well, Dillon, as they say, you asked for it. If I’d known you were there I suppose I’d have laid off a little, just as a matter of manners — but I didn’t know it, and said what I really thought — and I suppose you heard it. Yes?”
“Sure.”
“Well... what about it?”
“The fire you mean, or what you think of me?”
“Why... the fire.”
“I thought that’s what you meant.”
“Listen, Dillon, if it’s a question of what I—”
I stepped over, and he stopped, but I didn’t take any satisfaction in it, even if I had shut him up. “... O.K., the fire. My fire, I think you said. What about it?”
“What are you doing about putting it out?”
“Well — am I? If it’s my fire, what the hell have you got to do with what I’m doing? Maybe I like a fire. Maybe it’ll come in handy to light my cigarette with — of course I don’t smoke, but for a lighter like that I could learn. Maybe I think it’s pretty.”
“Listen, Dillon, cut the comedy and get down to bedrock. That fire’s on your property, that’s true — or Mrs. Branch’s property, but we understand you’re rather high in her counsels now, as they say. Just the same, it’s a community affair, and a damned serious one, so don’t think it’s just a private show of your own, to crack jokes about.”
“O.K., let the community put it out.”
“Hasn’t the community responsibility, with regard to the fire department and all, been explained to you?”
“Why don’t they put the fire out?”
“They’ve tried. They’ve tried everything they have the legal right to try. They’ve tried foam, and they’ve tried fog. They’ve done what they can. The rest is up to you.”
“You mean, where fifty firemen flopped, I can go out there and tell it to stop and it’ll stop? Say, I’m good, ain’t I?”
“Dillon, you’ve got to shoot that hole!”
“Why don’t you shoot it?”
“I’ve told you, stop trifling! You—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, WAIT A MINUTE!”
It was one of the guys that had just come in, and he got up and stared at White, who called him Mr. Mace and asked him what was on his mind. “Listen, Mr. White, I’ve been sitting here, paying attention to what’s been said, and I’d like to ask that question too: Why don’t you shoot it?”
“What are you trying to insinuate, Mr. Mace?”
“I’m not insinuating, I just want to know.”
“... Mr. Mace, my bank is not in the oil business, or in the business of putting out fires. We’re in the business of discounting paper on proper security, and whether you believe it or not, our only interest in this is getting our security, which is the property that has been pledged for these various loans, back on its feet again, so it’s good instead of bad!”