$200 and a Cadillac

XXI



Victor wouldn’t shut up.

Tom spent the whole afternoon listening to him carry on about the kinds of people who lived in places like Nickelback. “The only reason a person lives out there is because they’re up to no good,” he would say, in various forms. “Everyone is either armed or on drugs, or both,” was another of his favorites. Yet despite his conviction that they “had to be prepared to deal with the problem themselves,” Victor agreed to stop in and enlist the help of the local police as soon as they got there.

The sheriff’s office wasn’t hard to find. When the two-lane road through the desert finally came to an end at the only intersection with a stoplight for a hundred miles in any direction, there was only one brick building that looked like it could be a government office. It held the entire city government and still only had two floors. The police station had its own entrance on the ground floor. The police cruiser parked out front gave it away. They stood in the parking lot for a second, stretching from the long ride. Finally, Tom said the only thing he could think of to say. “Goddamn, it’s hot,” and then, after looking in both directions a minute more, he added: “This place is a dump.” Victor agreed it was.

They went into a small reception area with a high counter and some ratty furniture for waiting around while the local government worked at its usual brisk pace. The room smelled of industrial cleaner and the lighting flickered, ugly and florescent. A young cop stood behind the counter filling out paperwork. He looked up when they came in. “Help you?”

“I hope so,” Victor said with a smile, doing his best to look like a friendly and concerned citizen. “We’re here to see the sheriff, if he’s in. We’re from Southern Petroleum.” Another big smile, teeth and all.

“He’s got somebody in his office now, but I’ll go see if he can see you.”

The kid disappeared through a doorway and they were alone in the waiting area. Tom studied the notices on the bulletin board. They were the usual kinds of things: facts about employment law, a picture of a missing dog, an announcement that the next city counsel meeting would be held on the twenty-sixth. Tom wondered what they would have to discuss at the city counsel meeting. Burning the place down and starting over, perhaps? He was about to make a joke about the city counsel meeting to Victor when the young officer returned.

“You can go on back. Just go straight on through, all the way down the hall.”

Tom followed Victor around the end of the counter and through the doorway. The hall wasn’t very long. They could hear voices at the end, coming from an office. Victor paused at the doorway and poked his head inside. The sheriff sat behind his desk and the other guy stood on the opposite side of the room. The talking stopped for a second and Victor filled the silence by saying, “Sorry to interrupt, Sheriff, your deputy sent us back.”

“Oh, I was just leaving anyway,” the other guy said. Victor smiled at him too, not knowing who he was, although, in Victor’s assessment, he didn’t look like a cop. “I guess I’ll just leave this with you,” the man said, and held out a large backpack with dirt and scuff marks all over it. “I’ve gotten everything I can off of it, so you don’t have to worry about losing any evidence now.”

“Thanks, Paul. I’ll just keep it with all the other stuff in my unsolved mysteries file.” Paul and the sheriff both laughed. Then Paul set the backpack on the desk and made like he was leaving.

On his way to the door, he said, “Wish I could be more help. But there just wasn’t anything on it. I think the dent in the frame is the only thing of any value.”

The sheriff continued sitting. He turned the backpack over once or twice, reflecting on it. Victor could see what Paul was talking about, a deep curve in the metal tubing of the frame. Without thinking, he blurted out, “Looks like someone took a baseball bat to it.”

The two men just stared at him. The sheriff smiled and rubbed his fingers along the indentation. “I suppose it does, but that only narrows it down to about a hundred million bats in the world.” He grinned back at Victor, wondering who the hell he was and what he wanted. Then Mickey stood and leaned across the desk, sticking out his hand. “Okay, Dr. Kramer, thanks for bringing this by. Let me know if you think of anything else on this.”

Paul shook Mickey’s hand and headed for the door. “Will do, Sheriff. See you at the game?”

“I’m sure you will.” Mickey watched Paul squeeze by the two guys in the hallway. The two guys were obviously from out of town. The first guy, the smart one with all the opinions, came right in and stuck his hand over the desk. “Victor Jones, Chief Security Officer for Southwest Petroleum. This is my assistant, Tom Crossly.” He motioned back behind him at the other guy.

Mickey shook the outstretched hand. Victor’s grip struck him as a little too firm, too aggressive, trying too hard to make an impression. Mickey released his hand first, letting Victor feel good about himself, and then remained standing behind his desk with his hands on his hips. “What can I do for you folks?”

“Well, we’re up here because of an oil theft.”

“Oh?”

Victor knew he had the sheriff’s attention. Any crime involving the town’s major employer was going to grab him, as it would any small town cop. “It seems we’ve got ourselves some folks who think they’re real clever.” Victor pulled back the chair in front of the sheriff’s desk and prepared to have a seat. “But they’re not clever enough, if you know what I mean?” Victor raised his eyebrows as he sat.

Mickey watched the performance with a mixture of interest and dread, a kind of loathsome fascination. He had seen it before: a pseudo-charismatic leader and his apprehensive and possibly dull assistant sent from the mother ship in Long Beach to demand some kind of private security detail from the local police. It was a tactic that curried much greater favor back when the town was not besieged by layoffs and desperation and the crime and cruelty that went with them.

“I guess I don’t know what you mean,” Mickey responded. After all, Mr. Jones had not said anything of substance, so far.

“Well,” Victor began slowly, turning slightly in the chair and scratching at his thigh. “For the last couple weeks we’ve been monitoring what we thought was an oil leak. Turns out it’s an oil theft right out from under our nose. We’re not sure how they’re doing it, yet. All we know is that we’ve got a problem out at the Monarch facility.”

“How do you know that?”

“Well, what we do when we have a leak is we place some kind of radioactive substance in the oil. I don’t know exactly what it is.” Victor laughed and leaned forward, “Hell, I’m just a retired law enforcement guy myself, I ain’t no scientist. But anyway, they put this stuff in and then trace the pipeline for the oil leak. You know, looking for radiation. But in this case, we had a truck full of the stuff get delivered right down to the intake yard in Long Beach. The sons of bitches are stealing the oil and selling it right back to us.”

“How do you know it’s the same oil?”

“Because we’ve only put the radiation in the Monarch facility. It’s the only place it could have come from.”

“I understand that that’s the only place radioactive oil could have come from your facility, but how do you know the oil that was sold to you didn’t come from some other facility?”

Victor was visibly confused. The guy behind him, Tom, grinned a little as he leaned against the doorway. Mickey figured he had to spell it out for Victor. Perhaps his skills had rusted a bit in retirement.

“Look,” he began, “you said that you trace leaks with radiation. How do you know other companies don’t do the same thing? That means there’s at least as good a chance that the contaminated oil came from some other company’s facility. Unless you have something more than that, I’m afraid I can’t be much help.”

Victor scratched behind his ear like he was doing a magic trick, looking for the trump card he kept back there. When he spoke again, he did it with a smile, but not a happy one. “Now Sheriff, you don’t think I’d come in here without a better case than that, do you? Hell, I’m a retired field agent. I spent twenty years with the Bureau.”

The comment struck Mickey as an overt affront and he tried to disregard it. Any agent who was any good wouldn’t retire at twenty; and one with any sense wouldn’t mention the fact at the first opportunity. Just exactly what kind of man this Victor Jones was remained to be seen, but Mickey feared he was a pompous hothead, a man with more testosterone than sense who tended to embellish his own experience.

“Well, as an experienced agent, I’m sure you can understand that I’ll need more to go on than that.” Mickey sat back down and leaned back in his chair, studying the guy. A real a*shole. Agent A*shole.

Then Mickey smiled and shrugged. “If there’s something going on, I’ll do what I can,” he said. “But we’ve had a body turn up and even a simple murder investigation is pretty taxing on the resources of a town like this.” Mickey grinned and laced his hands behind his head. “We ain’t exactly the F-B-I around here. With the layoffs and all there’s hardly any taxes being paid in this town anymore. Shit, I only have three deputies, and I can’t even afford to pay them for all the overtime they put in. Hell, we’re working all the time just to keep the meth users and the ornery drunks from killing each other in the streets. To make matters worse, two days ago we had a murder out on the edge of town. Some poor hitchhiker got beat to death.” Mickey pointed at the backpack on the desk. “As you so astutely observed.”

“Well now, Sheriff, the bank account where the money was wired is based out of the local bank here. I think that’s pretty strong evidence that the guys we’re after are right here in Nickelback.”

“I agree. But you don’t know who they are or how they’re doing it. And just because the bank is here, doesn’t mean the crime is being done here. Like I said, it could be from some other refinery where they’re also testing for a leak. This used to be a little boom town. There’s lots of oil outfits who have accounts open at this bank.” Mickey was enjoying the look of shock on the smug bastard’s face. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help, but he really didn’t have the time to deal with Southern Petroleum’s problems. And he wasn’t particularly interested in helping retired field agent Victor Jones as a matter of principle.

“Sheriff, I really don’t know what to say. We’re talking about serious felonies here. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of oil being stolen.” Victor hesitated for a second, he knew it was bullshit but added it anyway. “This is an oil pipeline we’re talking about here. This could be linked to terrorism, for all we know.” It was worth a try. No local cop wanted to be at risk for blowing something like that.

“Be careful not to hurt yourself when you stretch like that, Mr. Jones.” Mickey smiled and resisted the urge to wink at Victor. Then he let out a deep breath and placed his palms down on his desk. “Sorry I can’t do much for you, boys.” Mickey checked his watch and stood. The conversation was over. “But it’s the end of the day, after all. And besides, in this town, Thursday night is baseball night.”