Black Oil, Red Blood

Chapter 33



The fresh outside air calmed Delmont down some. He threw his cigar on the ground and stamped it out, then pulled out his cell phone and took a look at the display. The old battle-ax had been ringing his phone all morning. There were fifteen missed calls, all from her. She probably wanted the inside scoop on what was going on with PetroPlex. She just hated it when she couldn’t be the fount of all the town gossip.

When the phone rang again and interrupted his mini-outdoor getaway, he felt a surge of anger. Sixteen calls in the space of an hour was too much. He’d pick up the phone and let her have it, and then when he got home tonight, he’d reconsider making that accident happen after all. A man just couldn’t live under constant badgering like this. It was unnatural.

Delmont jammed his finger down on his cell phone receiver without bothering to look at the caller ID and started yelling. “Listen here, woman! I ain’t got time to talk to you right now!”

“Can it, Delmont, this is Fitz.”

Delmont cleared his throat. “Oh,” Delmont said. “You again. What is it this time?”

“Dick Richardson just walked into my office and went ape, wanting to make some kind of a deal.”

“Get outta here.”

“No, I’m serious. The guy had the nerve to try to call in his poker favor. Now! In the middle of all this!”

Delmont raised his eyebrows. “What’d he want?”

“He wanted me to call the dogs off Chloe and Cameron. Can you believe that?”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I wish I were.”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I would have laughed him right out of my office, but then he started talking about how he had a whole lot more tapes than the ones he gave to Gilbert. He said if I didn’t lay off Nash and Taylor and start taking responsibility for all this garbage that he’d release the additional tapes and make things a whole lot worse for me than they already are. The he rushed me. What was I supposed to do? I shot him.”

“Right there in your office?”

“Well, where else was I supposed to do it? He attacked me!”

Delmont swore. “I thought I told you, no more bodies!”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. If it makes you feel better, that fool Nash came in after him, but I didn’t shoot him. Somebody else had already shot him in the foot, so he was easy to take down. If he doesn’t lead me to Cameron Gilbert, though, I can’t say that I won’t shoot him in a more fatal location.”

“Do it in another town, okay?”

“We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m going to get rid of the body. Your friend Chief Scott is flipping out about this. I need you to try to calm him down.”

Delmont pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit up. “I already talked him off a ledge once this morning. I ain’t gonna promise I can do it again. And anyway, what about me? You keep things up like this, and I’m gonna need somebody to calm me down real quick.”

“Look, don’t worry about it. You take care of things on your end, and I’ll take care of them on mine.”

“You better,” Delmont said, and hung up. He turned around and headed back for the office.