Читать книгу The Dryline - Jack Grubbs - Страница 24

Fourteen

Wednesday Noon,
January 13

New York City

Raw, sleet-pocked rain sliced into Bart’s face from scudding gray clouds into which building facades disappeared along East Twentieth Street. He pulled the collar of his overcoat as tight around his neck as possible, but not tight enough to keep cold droplets of water from seeping down his back. His attention drifted among the unrelenting chill, the squeegee sound of leather shoes in contact with ice water, and the ultimate finish line—the entrance to the Gramercy Tavern, still fifty feet away. City politicians call it the Big Apple, the financial center of the world, and every other title that might be bestowed upon New York City; they forget to call it cold and miserable in the winter. January through March is absolutely awful.

He entered through two sets of double doors, unbuttoned his coat for the waiting check girl, and smoothed back the unkempt hair straddling the sides of his head. He needed a drink. The warmth of the wood-burning oven buoyed his spirits. He glanced around, quite impressed with the arched entrances to individual rooms, gentle-yet-impressive pastel murals, brown draperies, and the soft lighting of candles and copper sconces.

“Well, hello, stranger. Looks like you could use a drink.” Elizabeth Harker approached Bart with both hands outstretched. The perfectly symmetrical face. Her soft, dark brown hair fell perfectly onto her shoulders. A stunningly beautiful woman, Liz stood an inch taller than Bart. She leaned forward, turning her head to accept his perfunctory kiss.

Bart Miles kissed her on the cheek and quickly asked, “Liz, my dear, how can you stand this weather? Give me Texas or give me death.”

En route to the maître d’ Liz flicked her hair playfully. “Weather’s bad at times, but what a city. Come with me, I have a favorite spot.”

Light music played in the background while Liz and Bart traversed from catch-up pleasantries to the real business at hand. A Catena Zapata Malbec wine for Liz and Belvedere on the rocks for Bart. Liz ordered the portobello tart with goat cheese and Bart decided on the leg of lamb sandwich. By the time the second round of drinks arrived, the pleasantries had ended and Bart and Liz were locked into Don Seiler and an oil extraction device.

“How has it played out so far?” Liz asked as she took a bite of her mushroom and chased it with the wine.

Bart held up a finger and continued chewing. He swallowed, ran his tongue over his teeth, and then answered. “The first thing we did was to get one of our people on the inside. That project turned out to be rough around the edges, but he has their confidence now. He’s already running the crew. It was a good choice.” He reached for his drink.

“What do you mean ‘rough around the edges’?”

Bart set the glass down and looked at Liz matter-of-factly. He needed to protect himself and parsed his words deliberately. “Someone was taken out. All the way out. Our insider took it upon himself to go to extreme measures. Could have been dicey, but the situation is over. No problem. Let me continue.”

Neither Bart nor Liz showed concern for the dead.

Over the next several minutes Bart described what had taken place: they removed a worker and replaced him with the inside contact; they forced the Donelam lawyer to retire and replaced him with a lawyer of Bart’s choosing; and preparations to take full ownership of the extraction system were on schedule. All topics were addressed with enough specificity to ease any of Liz’s concerns. The service at the Gramercy Tavern was superb to the point of distraction. Bart had to stop talking on several occasions as the well-dressed waitress saw to their every need. The water glasses, barely a sip taken, were removed and replaced with new ones. A second waiter cleared the china and silverware, and then scraped off virtually non-existent breadcrumbs. A new set of dessert silverware was placed in front of each diner with just-in-time perfection. Each round of drinks calmed their souls and whetted their appetites just enough for each to select the pumpkin-spice upside-down cake with cranberries and quince. Bart had a little extra dessert of his own to share with Liz.

He sliced into the cake, plucking a morsel from the plate and plopping it in his mouth. “This is superb. Now, where was I?” He looked down at the plate to find his next bite.

“You were starting to tell me about your return on investment.” One should not talk with one’s mouth full, but there are important exceptions to every rule.

“Yeah, right.” He wiped his mouth, looked around to see who might be listening, then told her, “Liz.” A short pause. “This could be billions.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Billions? You’ve got to be kidding. Billions?”

“Billions. We just need the patent. We can lease individual units by the thousands for a flat fee, plus a percentage of revenues from each barrel of crude.” He finished off his current drink. “Every time the price of oil is raised, more people will jump at this thing.” He leaned forward as far as possible, his eyes twinkling like a kid in love. “We’ll let Texaco, Shell, BP, and the others make their fortunes, but their per-capita payoff will pale to ours. The higher speculators and the fuckers in OPEC raise the price, the happier I’ll be.” He started to lean back, then recovered. “And, as you already know, I don’t forget friends. Especially the one who laid this in my lap. We’ll go offshore with the money and there will be a bank account for you. Liz, we’ve seen oil go from thirty dollars a barrel to one hundred and fifty. It’s back down some right now, but over the long haul it will keep going up.” Bart smiled at the cake. It smiled back.

Liz looked flush. She had no idea what a small touch of revenge could bring her. She pictured Tom Seiler. Suck it down, you son of a bitch.

She took a large, controlled breath. “Have you had any contact with either of the Seiler brothers?”

“No, none. I deal with the front guy. He’s an overbearing loudmouth who’s pretty smart in some ways and dumb as a board in others. His problem is that his bluster clouds his common sense. That’s good for us. As for Seiler, he’s strictly on the design side of their enterprise.”

Bart changed the subject, more out of curiosity than anything else. “That guy Seiler has stuck in your craw since the Barry Colter incident. This is more personal than anything else, isn’t it?”

Liz hardened like steel, carefully measuring her words. “You’re damn right. He stuck his nose into Barry’s lawsuit and drove Barry insane.” She swallowed another slug of her wine. “You remember the Vioxx verdict? It was for 253 million dollars for the wife of a guy who already had heart disease. Barry’s case was for the same amount. It’s also the amount given to some New York Yankee baseball player. Go figure. But, more to the point, Barry actually had grounds for such a suit. He went after the trucking industry. He wanted to make a major statement before tort reform in Texas would screw every trial lawyer in the state. Seiler destroyed him.” Liz stared cold daggers into Bart’s eyes. “And I was nothing more than fucking collateral damage.”

Bart remembered rumors much differently than what was being said. He let it go.

She continued. “I’d like to see the bastard dead.” Holding the stem between thumb and forefinger she tipped the bottom of the glass from one side to the other, watching the small amount of remaining liquid slosh back and forth. Her eyes burned holes in the table. “But that would be too simple. This is only the first step. His sister lives in San Antonio; she’s next on the list. I’ve got someone digging into her history right now. Daughter, son, grandkids, they’re going to pay for the unadulterated shit Tom Seiler put me through.”

Bart realized he had bitten off far more than he cared to chew. He changed the subject back. “Well, all I can say is that you’ll end up with an unexpected windfall that will make you very rich and very happy.”

A final round of drinks and thoughts of her financial gain to be taken from the Seiler family mellowed Liz’s mood. She had cleared her schedule for the remainder of the day. She found Bart Miles very unattractive, particularly compared to Barry Colter. But her emotional state had flip-flopped. As a matter of fact, she was having a wonderful time.

She looked at Bart and thought, Oh, what the hell?

“Bart, my hotel’s five blocks from here.”