"No, Brooks. Ten dollars."
Brooks slumped back, sighed, then rose and said, "Enough bullshit." He joined Clendon on the sofa and established eye contact just like every other auger salesman Clendon ever knew.
"Clennie, you won't be dealing with grandmas and drunken blanket asses. Certain software which Boyd-Tek deals in is rare and valued. I decided to hire you after you told me on the phone about the Leikens deal. I want to hear the details."
"I want to settle one small point first. Salary."
"Of course." Brooks smiled. "You'll work on commission. It should average about two thousand a week before taxes. Depends on the job. The figure I'm quoting is based upon your first assignment."
"I can negotiate a better figure soon?"
"Of course. Tell me the deal on Leikens."
Clendon began. "At the height of the oil boom, the summer of '80, Cobb was certain that somebody was stealing oil from our 'Darko basin wells down in Caddo County. So I was sent out to check our properties and compare the slip jars and the stick readings with the truck barrelage. It was way off, by thousands of barrels. That's nearly $30 a barrel in those days, so you figure up our losses.
"A wildcatter down there named Otto Leikens, who everybody thought was just off the boat from some village in Europe, had also bought a rusty old refinery outside Minco and was cracking gasoline out there and selling it to the cheap self-service gas stations that had sprung up like Johnson grass and were running some of the majors out of the retail business even during the boom. I checked around and nobody could figure out where Leikens was getting all his crude. If you hung out at his refinery, you'd see all these oil trucks coming and going, painted with the logos of local production companies. It all looked as legitimate as Ivory soap. Seemed obvious to me that Leikens was just stealing it from some of the production wells down there.
"During the boom, production companies were sinking wells faster than rabbits have babies, and there were hundreds, and nobody could keep track of it, I don't care what the Corporation Commission publishes, and none of the yahoos down there cared anyway. So working on the premise that theft was indeed occurring, and on a scale beyond our ability to respond, I had to take large-scale decisive action. I had the asphalt loading bays around all of the on-site storage tanks belonging to Cobbco sprinkled with phosphorescent dust-- you know, the kind of stuff they stamp your hand with at bars to show you've paid, but you can't see it unless you put it under ultraviolet light.
"I called the Caddo County sheriff and told him what I'd done, and could he please stop a few of these Leikens' trucks on some traffic or safety inspection premise and check out their tires for the glowing stuff? He agreed to, and Brooks, I thought his fee was reasonable, considering the other kickbacks going on down there. Sure enough, some trucks showed up with glowing tires in the next few days, so we went to a judge and got a search warrant and a stakeout and they busted Otto Leikens. His trucks were all bogus. He made bail and skipped the state. I got a bonus from Cobb and my own personal Cobbco Cadillac."
Brooks had listened by hardly blinking or breathing. When Clendon finished, a grin flooded over Brooks's face.
"I honor men of great cunning," he said and nodded his head. "You should have been an adviser to the President, but the pay wouldn't be as good."
After lunch at Harry's Bar and Grill, Brooks gave Clendon an address and told him to make a pick up.
"They'll know what to do when you get there. Just show them my card." Brooks gripped Clendon's shoulder. "Last thing. Your job for me has to be held in secret. I signed a security clearance when I worked on defense contracts. I require the same for work done at Boyd-Tek. I won't ask you to sign any formal written document, but you have to swear."
"When there's a gusher, everybody gets a little greasy."
They shook hands and Brooks smiled again. According to his map, the address was a side street in West Hollywood off Melrose Avenue. Clendon cut through Beverly Hills. Palm trees clustered along the boulevards. A long row of bank buildings watched over the gardeners driving through in pickups. There was a smell in the air that reminded Clendon of freshly printed currency, but he didn't know what it was.
The neighborhood was an island of manicured green lawns and boxy white stucco houses, surrounded by a sea of glass towers. The address was a small house where a white Lincoln limousine was parked in the driveway. "No Parking" signs stuck up everywhere, so Clendon parked five blocks away.
As he walked back to the address, he broke a light sweat under the cloudless sun, and decided that he needed darker, polarized sunglasses. A man that Clendon figured was Mexican ran a loud leaf blower over the sidewalk. The house with the Lincoln glowed white and had roses growing by the front porch. A sprinkler system fizzed onto the green grass that smelled of fertilizer. Clendon took out his Boyd-Tek card and rang the door bell.
A short Japanese man about fifty opened the door and looked Clendon over. Clendon presented his card. The Japanese man took it, looked that over, and said nothing. Clendon removed his sunglasses and smiled. A drop of sweat dripped off his forehead into his right eye, making it sting. He flinched and began rubbing it. The man still said nothing, but raised one eyebrow.
Clendon cleared his throat. "I'm making a pick up for Boyd-Tek."
"Ahhh," the man said.
He nodded and shut the door in Clendon's face. Thirty seconds passed. Clendon rang the bell again. The Japanese man opened the door again the same way and peered at Clendon. The man held the Boyd-Tek card in his hand. Clendon pointed at it.
"Boyd-Tek," Clendon said loudly. "Boyd-Tek!"
The man flinched. "Boyd-Tek!" he said, and nodded his head up and down and bowed slightly and Clendon bowed slightly back. The man smiled and motioned for Clendon to follow him into a small living room.
"Do you speak English?"
"Engrish? No, no." The man kept smiling, showing strips of gold on his front teeth. "Boyd-Tek."
The man waved for Clendon to sit on a green plaid couch and then disappeared. Clendon wiped the sweat off his forehead with his bare hand. A Latina who weighed two hundred fifty pounds walked in, the Japanese man following her. She was wearing a blue muumuu and Tony the Tiger house slippers. The Boyd-Tek card was clenched in her hand. She stopped and looked Clendon over.
"Buenos dias," Clendon said.
She dropped the card to the floor.
"Cut the phony Spanish, gringo. What are you selling?"
Clendon stood.
"I'm not selling anything. I'm here from Boyd-Tek."
"My husband doesn't speak English. Now what do you want? I'm missing All My Children."
"Boyd-Tek sent me."
"Who the hell are they? I don't like letting strangers in my house."
"Uhh, maybe there's been a mistake," Clendon said and offered the smile that had cemented oil deals in Caddo County. "May I use your phone?"
"What the hell for?"
Was Brooks setting him up for some practical joke? He glanced around the room for a hidden video camera.
"What are you doing? Casing us out?"
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but I didn't catch your name. I'm Clendon Lindsey. Mrs.-- ?"
He held out his hand.
"Did you know my husband was lightweight judo champion of Japan in 1957? Do you know what I'm saying?"
Clendon's offered hand hung in the air until he raised it to scratch his chin. He decided maybe he also needed a new razor.
"Where are you from?" she asked. "Georgia?"
"No, ma'am. I'm from Oklahoma."
"Huh."
"I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, but I want to say one more time that I've been sent to this address by Boyd-Tek, an international high tech corporation, to make an important pick up. If you would check the address on the back of his card, I'm sure I'm at the right place, so maybe the company sent me here by mistake."
"Hachiro!"
Hac
hiro nodded and shuffled as she spoke rapid Japanese and he bent over and picked up the card. She snatched it from him and read the back.
"This is our address," she snapped.
"See? A simple, honest mistake. I apologize for the inconvenience and I'll be heading off now and let you get back to your program."
The woman gave Hachiro a command in Japanese. He bowed to her while she steamed back to her television room, then he pointed Clendon towards the door.
"Who drives the limo?" Clendon asked as the door swung open and the outside light hit his eyes.
Hachiro smiled and nodded his head in tiny head bows.
"Can you take me for a spin?" Clendon asked.
He slid his sunglasses on and stepped out the door. Hachiro kept up the head nodding.
"Say, your wife is a mucho tough hombre. I thought in Japanese families the man wore the pants."
Hachiro's move was quick. His right foot thumped Clendon's balls. Clendon took a step off the small porch and crumpled to the fresh cut grass.
"Fuck you, buddy. You leave now or I do it again."
Hachiro slammed the door.
* * *
Clendon found a pay phone four blocks away. Tricia answered and put him through.
"Clennie! Babe! How'd it go? Did you get it?"
"What was this, Brooks, initiation?"
"Clendon, you sound irritated. Did you have any problems?"
"No problems if I was wearing a jockey strap with a cup."
"You didn't get it." There was a long silence. "You did have a problem?"
"Yes."
Clendon told him the story and Brooks laughed.
"I want you to meet me in one hour at Palisades Park in Santa Monica," he said. "Far north end, by the picnic tables. Right above the beach."
Clendon got there in fifty minutes. At the north end of the park there were joggers, high rise condominiums and few parking places. The air smelled of the ocean and the same scent of new currency as in Beverly Hills. As Clendon drove by, he saw Brooks leaning against the railing at the edge of the bluff and talking to a tall blond man with huge ears. They were looking towards the ocean. Clendon turned on the next street and spotted a place to park about half way up the block. He parked and locked, then walked back as fast as he could.
Brooks stood coolly in the shade of tall trees. When he saw Clendon, he waved him over to the railing. The man with the big ears was gone.
"Hey, it's that cunning landman, Clendon Lindsey!"
"Who was that guy you were talking to?"
"Who?"
"A few minutes ago. I saw you and him right here when I drove by, and you weren't discussing surfing conditions."
"Clennie, relax, buddy. Just a business associate. I have to make a lot of contacts. That's why you and I are meeting in the park." Brooks smiled. "And I like it here."
He gazed at the ocean and pointed towards it. The late afternoon sunlight was turning the surface of the water a molten silver.
"Do you like sail boats?"
A residual ache hung in Clendon's testicles.
"Cut the bullshit for once, Brooks."
"Clendon, your landman cool is slipping away from you. One set back in the big city and you're ready for a fishing pole at Guthrie Lake."
"Those people at the house in West Hollywood never heard of your damn Boyd-Tek, Inc."
"You didn't talk to Mr. Winston? You were supposed to talk to Mr. Winston."
"You didn't tell me to talk to Mr. Winston."
"I didn't?" Brooks frowned.
"Who's Mr. Winston?"
"Mr. Winston has what you as a Boyd-Tek rep were supposed to pick up."
"Which was?"
Brooks sighed. "Software." He put his arm around him. "Was the Lincoln limo there?"
"Yes. Parked in the driveway."
"So Mr. Winston was there. You just didn't get to him. His chauffeur and bodyguard wouldn't let you. They're very cautious. See, you just learned something about security."
"I'll head back over there right now and straighten this out with Mr. Winston."
"No. Something more important has come up. It needs to be handled right now and I want you to handle it."
"If we're drilling another dry hole, I'm gone."
Brooks handed Clendon another Boyd-Tek card with a different address written on the back.
"It's in Beverly Glen. Today is Friday and it's payday."
"Tell me the password this time."
"There's not any. They're expecting you." Brooks inhaled deeply. "Ahhh. . . Smell that? It smells like money, doesn't it?"
"What is it?
"Eucalyptus trees. We're standing in a eucalyptus grove."
* * *
In the BMW's trunk was a locked, dark gray Samsonite briefcase for a man named Adolfo. Clendon had both hands on the wheel as he drove eastbound on San Vicente past tree-shaded mansions and joggers along the grassy median. The joggers made him nervous. He would rather stop for a pitcher of beer and some table shuffleboard, but he didn't pass any roadhouses.
On Brooks's advice, at Bundy Clendon cut over to Sunset and began winding through sharp, landscaped curves at fifty and sixty in a bumper to bumper race with a Jaguar and a Porsche. Traffic began to stagnate at Beverly Glen, but Clendon made a hard left and started up the Glen behind a silver Rolls Royce. The road ascended and narrowed. Jungle growths and entangled leafy trees hung over the road. Sunlight gushed through gaps in the bougainvillea. Palm trees disappeared.
Behind the shrubbery and walls, houses hid from the sunshine. About four miles up, Clendon turned onto a twisting asphalt street. It was short, not more than two blocks. The houses were pushed away from the street behind tall trees and wild bushes. There was an English manor house, a pagoda, and a gabled Queen Anne. Adolfo's house looked like a small Gothic cathedral and was overwhelmed by rose bushes. It sat at the very cul of the cul de sac. Its driveway was empty.
Clendon swung a U turn and parked facing Beverly Glen. A hint of honeysuckle floated past on the ocean breeze lifting up the glen, followed by the smell of eucalyptus. It was very quiet. Clendon took the briefcase from the trunk and carried it in his sore right hand.
Iron door knockers hung from stout double doors. A sign read "Push," so Clendon pressed the intercom buzzer. He waited, then buzzed again, said, "Hello," and put his sunglasses in his shirt pocket.
Both doors swung open. Beneath a vaulted ceiling in a long hallway stood a barefoot Latina in hot pants and a Raiders T-shirt. She was younger than twenty and had a body like a bag full of bobcats. Behind her was a bird bath with a running fountain.
Clendon held out his card.
"Boyd-Tek."
She took the card, glanced at it.
"Come on in. I'll tell Adolfo. I'm warning you-- he's kind of in a hurry." She had a slight Spanish accent. "Follow me."
Lined along the hallway were life-sized marble statues. At their feet were labeled bronze plaques: Santa Monica, Saint Francis, Father Junipero Serra, and on and on. Clendon counted a dozen. He didn't know whether to kneel and pray or become a missionary.
The vaulted hallway ended in a round room sixty feet across. The room had a spiral staircase in the center. The girl ascended it and said again to follow her. On the second floor Clendon trailed after her down a long, carpeted hallway. She led him into an enormous white room with white divans and white carpeting. A white recliner was pulled up close to a big screen projection television that was loudly tuned to Family Feud. The man in the recliner was laughing at the show.
"Adolfo, business," she said, and gave him the Boyd-Tek card. Then she smiled at Clendon as she sprawled on a white divan, her smooth brown legs relaxed and opened. Clendon's eyes lingered on her for too long.
"Who's the new mule?" Adolfo asked and turned off the sound of the TV with the remote.
Clendon stared at Adolfo sitting in his recliner. Adolfo had on a long black C
her wig, false eyelashes, cherry red lipstick matching a cherry red dress that looked made of silk and stopped at the knee, and black fishnet hose. A layer of face powder couldn't hide the ink-black two day stubble pushing through it. His dress looked fitted for his broad shoulders. A black automatic pistol rested in his lap. He had one hand on the television remote control and the other on the armrest.
Adolfo looked Clendon over, too, and when he finished he smiled, faintly, and even more faintly licked his lips.
Suddenly, Clendon had to piss.
"I'm Adolfo."
He held out his hand to Clendon like a woman. Adolfo's forearm was thick and hairy. His fingernails were polished cherry red.
Clendon glanced at the girl, who had a perverted glint. He shook Adolfo's hand and glanced around as if asking for a place to sit. It wasn't offered so he remained standing.
"What's your name?" Adolfo asked in an accent basted with Spanish gold.
"Clendon."
"That's a sweet name. Irish?"
"Welsh."
"My wife is Irish. This is my daughter, Sue. She's half-Irish. I'm a full-blooded Mexican, which means I'm three-eighths Indian."
"I'm one thirty-second Cherokee," Clendon said. "And full-blooded American."
"Ah, so we are fellow bloods. Where are you from, Tennessee?"
"Oklahoma."
"Oklahoma. So, blood, let us start our business. May I have the briefcase?"
Clendon handed it to Adolfo who placed it on his lap.
"Clendon, I have to ask you to sit over there."
Adolfo pointed to a white sofa across the room that faced his chair. Clendon nodded and sat there.
"Sue, the key," Adolfo said.
Sue left the room. Adolfo turned the volume back up loudly on Family Feud. From Clendon's acute angle on the divan, shadowy, colorless shapes filled the screen.
"Name a famous bank," Richard Dawson said.
A buzzer sounded.
"Wells Fargo!" a contestant shouted.
"Let's see Wells Fargo!"
A bell clanged.
"Yes! You have control-- "
When Sue returned with a single briefcase key that dangled from a long black ribbon, Adolfo shut the television's volume back off. Sue sat on another white divan. Adolfo opened the briefcase and looked inside. Neither Sue nor Clendon could see the inside of the briefcase. Adolfo then slammed it and locked it.
"Yes. Sue-- "
Sue took the briefcase and left the room.
"Damn commercials," Adolfo said and kept the volume off.