Читать книгу The Dryline - Jack Grubbs - Страница 8

One

Seven Weeks Earlier,
Friday, October 30

Port Hueneme, California

Port Hueneme lies eight miles southeast of Ventura, California. Seiler Engineering occupied a four-room parcel of a multi-store building on Port Hueneme Road. Owned by Donald Seiler, the company staff consisted of two draftsmen.

Vince Bolduc—at least, that was his name while in California—parked directly in front of the office. He squeezed his way out of the car, his exit impeded by a fast-food waistline and an inconsiderate driver who parked over the stripe. The sun’s reflection bounced off the office window, slicing through his eyes and into his brain. Can’t believe I left my sunglasses in New York, he thought. Vince walked in the door.

“Hey, Vince, come on in,” said a voice from a card table in the middle of the room. Don Seiler stuck his hand in Vince’s direction without getting up. Vince walked over and gave Don a firm handshake. Elam Duquette, Don’s business partner, ignored the new visitor and ended another tale of tales.

“And then I threw his sorry ass into the pool, suit and all.” The lack of raucous laughter caused Elam to look at the source of disruption. Who the hell are you? he thought. Elam didn’t take well to someone killing his punch line.

Don spotted Elam’s irritation immediately and interceded. “Elam, say hello to an actual paying customer. This is Vince Bolduc. Vince, meet Elam Duquette.” Pointing to the two draftsmen, he added, “I think you already know Jay and Mark.”

Vince nodded and apologized. “Didn’t mean to interrupt. I just thought I’d say hello and see how the design is coming.”

“All systems go. Mark’s putting the final drawings together now. We’ll have them ready by Tuesday.” Don changed the subject. “Better than that, you’ve come across some serious serendipity. We’re having a pre-Halloween party. Got Jack Daniels to Coke and everything in between.” He pointed back to the wall behind him.

Vince looked in the direction of Don’s hand. On a desk littered with assorted paper, books, and manila folders sat a cache of Coke cans, two six-packs of beer, a bottle of Dewar’s, and two bottles of Jack Daniels. A small column of stacked plastic glasses and a bowl full of ice rounded out the bar. Two opened bags of chips and a large jar of salsa sat next to the ice bowl.

Elam had driven up from LAX earlier in the day and was four drinks into storytelling. He blew off the interruption. “Hey, Vince, wanna see a humongous fucking fortune? Look over there.” He pointed to some engineering drawings on the table to Don’s front.

Elam’s major vice was his inability to stop talking, but unlike those of bullshitters, his stories were real. Elam got up with a smile, sauntered over to the blueprint, and stuck his finger in the middle of the drawing. “This sucker is straight from the mind of my esteemed colleague, Mr. Don Hudson Seiler. With me doing the marketing and Don doing the engineering, we have a separate little joint venture known as Donelam Oil Systems—that’s for ‘Don’ and ‘Elam.’ Pretty damn soon Don can forget pissant Seiler Engineering; we’re going for the big-time. On the low side, we’re going to make us a few hundred million dollars.”

Elam laughed, partly from conviction of success, partly from Jack and Coke. He slugged down his current round and walked to the improvised bar for a refill. Elam’s blue, flowered rayon shirt hung over baggy, floor-dragging chinos like silk over cow turds. Elam was a paradox: one part commoner and one part F. Scott Fitzgerald character.

Vince glanced at the drawing. Other than its obvious long and narrow outline, there was little that he could discern. His polite smile belied an intense study of the object.

Breaking Vince’s interest in the strange mechanical system, Don grabbed his camera and announced, “Everyone get ass to elbow. I’m under orders to take pictures of the party and my unwelcome guests.”

The gaggle of testosterone muddled its way behind a drafting table and hammed it up. Don rose slowly and walked to the front of the room. He braced himself against the front door and clicked away several times.

“I did my duty.” He paused briefly, then added, “Aw, shit.” He offered the camera to Mark. “Cindy wants one of me too.” Mark took two more shots and the formal duty, at Don’s wife’s command, was finished.

For another two hours the five men engaged in a myriad of topics. Women, politics, women, sports, women, and engineering were the subjects of choice. They sang hearty rounds of outrageously bawdy songs, and by party’s end, Vince had been fully accepted as a “friend of the company.” He also knew a fair amount about a device named JETS, the acronym for Jet Extraction Technology System.

Jay and Mark left around six o’clock. Don suffered from multiple sclerosis and could not drive at night; Elam was less competent to drive than Don. The obvious choice, Vince gave both a ride to Don’s home on Millwood Circle in Ventura, where Elam was the guest for the night. Vince and Don poured Elam out of the car and guided him to the house. Vince returned for Elam’s bag and turned it over to Don’s wife, Cindy. Radiant red hair, a sincere smile, and genuine thanks convinced Vince that Don had hit the jackpot in selecting a mate.

“Join us for dinner. Elam will be fine in an hour, and I have a ton of chicken and beef fajitas,” said Cindy as a sincere invitation to Vince.

The hunger gnawing at Vince’s stomach said “yes,” but his need to put memory onto paper mandated “no.” He apologized for his quick departure, climbed into his car, and headed out of the small subdivision and west on Telegraph Road. Oblivious to the heavy traffic, Vince mulled over his impression that Don, Cindy, and Elam were good-natured, hard-working, and naive; a moral nerve tugged at him ever so slightly. He had no idea where his investigation into the whole Seiler family would take him, but he did suspect that the ultimate intentions of his employer were not good. Vince stopped at a chain Italian restaurant and, over lobster ravioli, wrote down everything he could remember about the JETS. Two glasses of wine stunted his appetite for dessert. He had a long drive back to the Marriott LAX.

The shrill ringing rattled in her head, waking her from a fitful sleep. She fumbled at the nightstand before finally grabbing the phone.

“Hello?” Her voice was slurred.

“It’s me—Vince.”

At first she couldn’t put it all together. Vince? Who? Her mind, drugged in sleep, struggled for function. Vince? The PI? She started to focus. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

Vince had forgotten the three-hour time difference. “Damn. I’m sorry, I just forgot. This can wait until tomorrow.”

“I’m already awake. What do you want?”

Vince’s pleasant thoughts about Don, Cindy, and Elam slammed shut.

“I might have stumbled onto something of significance related to this guy Seiler’s brother. Are you familiar with the term ‘stripper well’?”

Elizabeth Harker, still groggy but beginning to grasp her surroundings, focused not on stripper wells, but on the possibility that she would be able to bring incalculable grief to the person of Thomas Mannan Seiler. He had ruined her life and she would repay the favor tenfold.

“What do you think?” she said. “I’ve lived in Texas.”