The Golden Lane

By Linton Morrell

In this, Volume III of The Golden Lane trilogy, General Clive Colin O'Reith faces certain ruin if he cannot reverse the declining oil production of his oil company. He is in his fifth decade. His sexual power is dwindling, all the more daunting in that he keeps two women. He can no longer enjoy a three martini lunch. A war wound is causing him to limp. He has a recurring nightmare in which he is falling. Distracted by his minor disabilities, he is drawn into a conflict in Central America. It is a scheme to obtain new oil concessions. His British business partner, a former Intelligence Officer is a friend of the Prime Minister. Expecting to get a plush oil concession, together they promote the candidacy of the exiled ex-dictator of Venezuela to become the CIA-sponsored President of 'Greater' Guatemala. General O'Reith's wife, a Wampas Baby of 1928, Best Actress Oscar winner of 1950, now a directress, is filming The Golden Lane, an oil field movie, in Lake Maracaibo. The General is her reluctant technical adviser. It all becomes unhinged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 16, 2002
• ISBN: 9781469749204

Linton Morrell

After Army Air Corps service, Linton Morrell became a petroleum engineer. He drilled and put on production oil and gas wells in the USA, Venezuela, Africa and the Middle East. This is his fourth historical novel. Today he and his wife climb in the Pyrenees with the Club Age d?Or of Biarritz.

Book preview

All Rights Reserved © 2002 by Linton Morrell

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press an imprint of iUniverse

For information address:

iUniverse

5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

This is a work of historical fiction. Some characters in this story are real. Some events are real. The plot is fictional. Resemblance to actual circumstances is coincidental. Language reflects popular usage in these times.

ISBN: 0-595-21229-8

ISBN: 978-1-469-74920-4 (ebook)

Carla, Dina and Luis.

My Son, you will learn with what little wisdom the world is governed.

Axel Oxenstierna (1583-1684)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GLOSSARY

CHAPTER I

GOLD ON THE MALHEUR RIVER

It was one of those lazy days in mid-August in Los Angeles. Summer’s heat was broken. The clouds were fleecy and white. The Pacific Ocean was calm. Rain was forecast for later in the day. O’Reith arrived at his 39th floor penthouse office in the Casinghead Tower on Sepulveda Boulevard at the dot of nine o’clock. His cosmetician, Sharon Mills, was waiting to fix his face. In fewer than five minutes she had him looking like a matinee idol. Knowing he would be punctual, his secretary, Sally, had the reports ready, stacked up, with London on top, then Caracas, then Jakarta, the normal order. Except for the space covered by the reports, his vast desktop reflected the sun’s rays coming through the tall window, casting shards of light on the many enlarged photographs that adorned his walls. As he sat, Sally an ash blonde with a pug nose and greenish eyes, brought him a steaming cup of coffee. She was wearing an ankle length plaid skirt and a green cardigan jacket with brass buttons that gave a merry, up-beat impression. After carefully placing the coffee on its stained doily, she adjusted the venetian blinds to deflect the sun.

Sipping his coffee, he grimaced, reflecting that age was taking its relentless toll across the board. At fifty-six he was down to one cup of coffee in the morning, no booze at lunch, a single martini at six and a tiny glass of wine with dinner. He hadn’t tasted Calvados or Cognac in years. On the plus side, his erotic appetite was still strong, if not as urgent and impetuous of years gone by. Although no longer as handsome as he once was, with Mills keeping him touched up, he could still turn the heads of the higher class Hollywood hopefuls, as ubiquitous now as they were during the glamorous thirties and forties, when he was in his libidinous prime. He still continued to get a steady stream of carefully crafted propositions, some discreet, some, rather glaring. All of them, he tactfully and graciously declined, careful not to incur the scorn of a pretty girl. O’Reith was well aware of his womanizer instincts. He knew it was next to impossible to resist temptation under certain circumstances. However, he had recognized early in the game that unrestrained lust was an addiction every bit as insidious as booze and gambling. Having seen many a man brought low by it, he had suppressed his horns.

He had been living with two women since the end of the war. For a decade he was smug in the knowledge that keeping them both satisfied, was a romp. In Los Angeles with Helen it was Pussy Supreme. With Maxine in Paris, it was a French Dip. But now although he did not like to face up to it, he could no longer do justice to either of them. If it were not for a heavy travel schedule that gave him the occasional breather they would both soon learn how limp his dick often was.

Although he thought about it a lot, he still had not formulated what today would be called an ‘exit strategy’. But soon, something was going to have to give. His peter was already giving and he needed, with ever-increasing frequency, a time of recuperation. Settling in, watching the graceful Sally depart, her hips swivelling, her skirt swirling around her graceful legs, he turned to the reports. In London, Tia Juana light 31º API crude oil was steady at $2.91/bbl. He was always nervous about the London oil prices. Jersey’s Jack Rathbone had pulled the plug two years ago with a surprise fourteen-cent/bbl reduction in the price of Ras Tanura Export. That jarred O’Reith. Ninety percent of the company’s income came from the sale of Tia Juana Light oil to Standard Oil Company up in San Francisco, under what was then known as an ‘evergreen’ contract, i.e., one with no formal expiry date. In effect since the Casinghead Company began running crude out of the Punto Fijo terminal back in 1957, it had a price adjustment clause based on the Ras Tanura posting. So when Jersey cut, so did Standard Oil. It was a 100,000-bopd stream laid down into steel storage at the Standard Oil refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, good money even at the reduced price. But the possibility of further cuts worried him. The company was OK all the way down to $2.30/bbl. Below that, well…

The Caracas report confirmed that they were running ten strings of rotary tools, six on Lake Maracaibo and four land-rigs drilling infield wells in the Perija foothills. All were operating routinely. Nothing on fire. No crown accidents. No stuck pipe. Equally comforting, there were no riots in Maracaibo. None of the employees were under arrest or detention and there were no rumors of a golpe de estado. In short, things were the way he liked them, routine. His only worry was the ongoing US game of chicken with the USSR over Cuba. A war in Cuba would be close to home.

The Jakarta report was OK too. The three rigs in the Medan Basin were cutting ditch without complication. The natives were not restless. Piracy in the Strait of Malacca was in remission. Crude oil liftings from the Bali terminal were normal.

He was booked out of Los Angeles International Airport that afternoon for Idlewild on TWA. After a the night at the Waldorf Astoria he would catch the Pan American daylight flight to Paris, a 707, around ten a.m. Maxine would meet him at Orly in the Citroen limousine. In past years he could hop off the plane, drive to their flat in the rue de Surene and into her arms for a quick roll. Now he had to have a restorative nap. Maxine understood. With Monique off to school, she would lie quietly beside him until he had recovered his strength and he could make love to her in a proper way. Now that Monique was on the way to becoming a fetching young lady, Maxine lived for his caresses, her garden, and not much else. As he often did in reverie, he rose to stretch his legs and went to one of the clerestory windows with a view of downtown Los Angeles. Looking down on the sunlit city, his mind was on Maxine. He thought about her so hard that he could even smell her scent…

Employees entering the lobby of the Casinghead Tower at eight o’clock went straight ahead to the elevators under the watchful eye of the desk clerk. Vendors, job seekers and visitors were only welcome after nine. The clerk checked them in, gave them name tags and sent them up to their appointments. Also coming into the tower after nine o’clock were the clients of Alice Ridley, Master Astrologist according to her business card. Her small suite of offices was at right angles to the elevator bank. On the beige wall next to her door was an umbrella-sized, chrome plated circle. Divided into 30-degree segments with a bronze smiling sun at the center, between it and the circumference were the 12 signs of the zodiac. Above the main entrance, STAR SIGNS in musical looking letters beckoned the believers. A few half and quarter notes in chrome steel on the door conveyed the impression that the world of astrology was a cheerful one.

Alice Ridley, a peroxide blonde of 44 going desperately on 35 was five feet five in high heels. Her round face, perfectly made up by that same Sharon Mills who had a few minutes later, attended General O’Reith up on the 39th floor, invariably smiled the permanent Hollywood smile. Ridley was fashionably thin and wore black woollen dresses usually. Her jewellery was heliocentric and she always wore at least one Virgo ring, sometimes two in keeping with her star sign. She looked prim. The most sought after astrologist in Los Angeles, her single most important client was Helen O’Reith, wife of the oil magnate. They were pals.

Ridley’s claim to fame was that her forecasts were rooted in medieval astronomy. She could and did quote those Renaissance stargazers with regularity. Beyond that she proclaimed that one’s true star sign was that of the time of conception, not birth. In her astrological theory, the star sign of birth was a secondary contributor. Thus a nominal Leo was a cloistered Scorpio. A Virgo, a cloistered Sagittarius and so on. She could therefore advise her clients that they had dual personalities. Since 99% of them were in the motion picture industry, they snapped it up. Also, approaching astrological prognostication from the time of conception gave Ridley the opportunity to discreetly delve into the client’s past. It did not escape her notice that many of them were born prematurely, to say the least, some of them a year or two prematurely.

Over the years, rumors about her origin swirled. It was said she had once run a call girl ring, that she had many movie star lovers of both sexes, and that she was of lowly origin. The truth was that she was a graduate of Hollywood High School. She had been a Wampas Baby Movie Star of 1928, in the same gaggle of beauties as Helen Huntington Simpson, who was a Pisces. Ridley had married a B-movie idol, divorced him as his caddish behavior ruined his career and thereafter had the normal number of affairs that a Hollywoodian had. For some years now, she had been sleeping by herself. Helen Huntington Simpson became Helen O’Reith in 1929, husband of a Calitroleum Corporation toolpusher. She returned to the Silver Screen only after her husband had gone to war. By the time he returned in 1945, she was an Oscar winner and Alice Ridley was her astrologist. The two women had been swapping gossip for 35 years.

La Ridley had played small parts in a few motion pictures, none of them memorable and she had never been much of a cinematic success. She drifted into the newspaper business, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Variety and most recently, The Yellow Peril. She was still a stringer for this latter scandal sheet and her columns were read religiously by her clients and those who wished they could afford her astronomically high fees. The truth was that she had all the clients she needed and routinely turned down requests for appointments, even some big ego nouveau riche actors and actresses. The only way a newcomer could get into her appointment book would be through recommendation by Helen O’Reith.

Ridley had three assistants, all female, all over forty and all with at least a speaking acquaintance with the film industry. Their primary functions were to advise clients and prepare for them elaborate yearbooks of daily advice. Complete with ersatz illuminated manuscripts of the 15th Century, these tomes were of ornate tooled-leather that could be locked with a tiny gold key. Ridley charged a grand a copy for these gaudy masterpieces of idiocy.

As for Ridley herself, in addition to preparing an elaborate personal prognosis for Helen, she had to pass judgement on any scenario that la O’Reith contemplated making into a movie. This was something of a challenge. If she signed off on a scenario that evolved into a clinker, she could be in hot water. She solved this often-perplexing problem by including among her various recommendations, a series of caveats. Finally, Helen would never, ever, cast anyone, male, female or transsexual, for one of her movies if Ridley found fault. Helen studied Ridley’s annotations carefully, took her cast recommendations seriously and consulted with her husband about possible changes to both the scenario and the cast. O’Reith, seeing through it all, invariably gave Helen sterling advice without in any way, damaging Ridley’s image or casting aspersions on her opinions, many of which he thought were frivolous. He wanted both women to be happy. He would never be a source of friction.

***

His interphone light came on. It was Sally. Ready for the mail, General? she asked cheerily.

Yeah Sally, bring it in, he answered, jarred back to reality. At the top of the pile was a letter from Ted Schaeffer in Maracaibo. It read: Dear General O’Reith:

I expect that you are somewhat surprized to hear from me and to tell the truth I feel a bit guilty asking you for help again after all that you have already done for Mandy and I. Everything is clicking along OK down here. We have a house full of boys on one side of the street and a house full of girls on the other side. When I hear them laughing and giggling, see them clean and jerking around in their freshly pressed uniforms, I feel as one with our Maker. To think that not long ago they were street urchins and now they are proper kids getting a good education. Mandy is teaching psychology at The University of Zulia and practising clinical psychiatry at the Hospital Coromoto. She’s happy as can be and the old ‘green snake’ is hiding deep in his hole. I have been a good boy too. I go to Mass every day wearing my white satin alb and all the rest of the get up. The old Cuban Trio, a bit older, heavier and greyer are out in front and you would surely enjoy seeing the entourage in action as we swing down the street to St. Sulphide. Even though it is small and still smelling of paint, it is one of our Lord’s nicest churches and for a tenth parallel place of worship, I don’t know how you could beat it. McLarssen recruited a couple of trumpet players, a tuba player and a couple more drummers. So we have a full-fledged sacerdotal band although sometimes, the hymns have a kind of Dixieland rhythm. McLarssen is a credit to the sodality. He has a good ‘street’ going and we make a lot of noise. We have a few tough cookies but they are real Christians too, many of them sons of the soil and you would be proud to stand with them. McLarssen is a swell fellow and I don’t think I could make it without him.

What I need your help with is ordination. I went to see the Bishop of Caracas and he turned me down cold. Even his attitude was bad. He told me I didn’t have any business saying Mass. He was surprised that I hadn’t been run out of the country. The Church is sure as hell not like the government. You can’t wirework those Vatican babies. When I told the bishop that I was married to Mandy, I cited her good works thinking maybe that would soften him up. He reared back, rolled his eyes and rang his bell for his acolyte. He was red in the face and his eyes were staring and I thought he was going to pop his cork. So they threw me out and said don’t come back and I don’t plan to. Well, sir, General O’Reith, without valid Holy Orders, I am kind of up a creek. I got a nasty letter from the bishop and when I showed it to the monsignor here at the Maracaibo Cathedral, he told me that if I didn’t get ordained pretty quick, he would have to blow the whistle on me and maybe even shut down St. Sulphide. He said I was going to have to enter a seminary and get checked out on the duties and responsibilities of a certified priest-of-the-line. He added that being married to Mandy didn’t help matters at all. He said that it was just his opinion, but he doubted if any seminary in the country would take me because of my age, past indiscretions and other lapses that, unfortunately, are all on the record one place and another, several of them in the Los Angeles Times. So I am stuck. I remembered that your gin-drinking pal, Sir George P. McDonough was pretty close to the late Pius XII, bless his saintly soul. I thought maybe he was equally well connected to the present Holiness, Pope John XXIII and if he were, maybe he would put in a word for me. What would be nice would be to be privately tutored here at St. Sulphide and then certified out as a regular Mass-saying, hymn-singing priest. The monsignor said my chances would be better in the Eastern Rights Church inasmuch as they permit priests to be married. He said it was a little irregular to have an Eastern Rights priest in Venezuela but anyway, it was an option I ought to have a look at. What do you think sir? Would Sir George lobby me through? If he would, I would be grateful. Mandy sends her regards and says that if you get into any kind of difficulty that she can help with, just give her the nod.

Your friend, obedient servant, fellow in the Lord and hopeful future member of The Society of Jesus. Theodore Lamont Schaeffer

O’Reith smiled, shook his head, muttered, Jesus! Little Ted a Jesuit! He sighed, thinking that, after all, anything was possible. If anybody could help Ted, it would be George. The Church was a tough nut to crack even for those with proper credentials, not that there were all that many who wanted to, but Ted did and he had his reasons. John XXIII had been Papal Nuncio to the newly liberated France in the summer of 1944. George had stayed on as Bishop of La Roche Guyon for some weeks after the late Erwin Rommel’s 15th Army had packed up, something to do with unfinished counter-intelligence business. It was at that time he became acquainted with the future pope. If George could be a bishop, why couldn’t Ted be a simple parish priest? Of course, George had once been a simple parish priest in Ireland, duly ordained and in due course, summarily unfrocked. But for the war he would have never been recertified or resanctified or what ever it was that allowed him to occupy the See in La Roche Guyon. Ted, with no religious background to speak of, no Eucharistic pedigree and not much character if the truth were told, was going to have a hard time of it. Still, George could work miracles where papal politics was concerned. When it came to squeezing benefices out of the curia, he was a past master. So if Ted were determined to press ahead in his quest for priesthood, he, O’Reith, would support him to the limit. He pushed the button for Sally and when she came in, he said, Sally, copy Ted’s letter for Sir George and put a note from me on it asking him to see what he can do. And underline that part about the Eastern Rites. That looks to me like it’s his best shot.

Yes sir, Sally replied. I wanted to read it when I saw it was from Ted but I didn’t. Thought it might be too personal.

Or that you’d blush, O’Reith replied bluntly. Sally, you have my permission to read any letters that come in to the office. As for this one, copy it for Alan too. Alan Prescott, one of O’Reith’s lieutenants was Sally’s husband. When their kids were toddlers, ‘Aunt Mandy’ and ‘Uncle Ted’ had baby-sat for them. After a long spell on the lake, when they wanted to go downtown Maracaibo and kick up their heels, having someone reliable to look after the kids was a godsend. Alan and Sally thought the world of the Schaeffers even though, little by little, over the years, they found out things that had they known them at the time, they would never have trusted their kids with them. But all that was water over the dam. Sally was a mature woman now, not the starry-eyed ingenue that went down to Venezuela in 1948 with her drilling foreman of a husband.

He’s such a sweet little dear, Sally said. I know he was a royal pain in the you-know-what for you for many years. I’ve heard all those stories about how he tried to derail your career and Mr. Blake’s too. I know you exiled him to Maracaibo. But even if he is a rascal, he always treated us swell. When Alan came back from Hammelburg Prison with that terrible head wound, Ted took him under his wing and that made a difference. So I don’t care what kind of trouble he’s in, I hope you can get him out of it.

Well, I can’t Sally, but George probably can, O’Reith answered, laughing. "And I don’t hold any grudges. Everyone has some good in them, even Hermann Goering but I sure as hell don’t know what good that son-of-a-bitch had in him." Goering had dealt him more misery than any other human being on the face of the earth. If he was burning in hell, that suited O’Reith just fine. Although he personally had never laid eyes on the portly Air Marshal, he had done bad business with his underlings in the Luftwaffe for four cold, miserable years. He was reminded of it every time he grasped the heavy silver handle of his ebony cane to lever himself out of his chair. If O’Reith needed a further reminder of those bitter years, behind him on the wall was an enlarged photograph of the fated B-17 Okie from Fenoki, coming off the target at Big B, looking great, all four props turning up 2,500 rpm, the only thing wrong was that the cabin was completely sheared off.

With an effort he caned himself up to his feet and limped over to the clerestory window that looked out on Hollywood and the hills beyond, his favorite site for meditation and reflection on an uncertain future. This constant pressure on crude oil prices was of major concern. The Casinghead Company refined less than 5% of daily offtake. Gasoline and lubricating oil were sold only in California and Nevada at a dozen outlets, two in San Diego, eight in Fresno and two in Las Vegas. As a small independent, it was a struggle for import quota, so necessary just to feed the tiny San Diego refinery. So, out of a total stream of around 150,000 bopd, 10,000 was refined into products in San Diego, 100,000 sold to Standard Oil and the rest, some 40,000 bopd went to the London spot market in direct competition with Middle Eastern avails. What O’Reith needed was a refining and marketing alliance with a European oil company that would allow him to fully realize the value of the crude oil. Competing with the Seven Sisters, his days were numbered. Sir George P.

McDonough, the company’s strategic thinker, knew this as well as he did and was burning the midnight oil to rectify matters. That he could do this and attend Ted Schaeffer’s simple needs at the same time was a tribute to his remarkable imagination.

O’Reith, a Capricorn, standing in his midnight blue tuxedo, a white silk shirt, a black bow tie and a monocle, gazed out at Holmby Hills. His black, patent leather shoes, ‘fancy dancers’ as the rough hands would call them, were polished to a high gloss. He was six feet tall, when he stood straight, increasingly difficult for him to do, trim, and resembled Adolphe Menjou, the long ago matinee idol, whom he admired both as an actor and as a brother army officer.

When O’Reith first worked in this building, it was called the Calitroleum Tower. His office had been a tiny cubicle down on the tenth floor with Sally out in the hallway that connected with Vincent Barkett Blake’s office, not much larger. He was then a drilling superintendent, newly promoted up from the ranks of the toolpushers, fresh from the Venezuelan green jungle. Blake had been the Drilling Manager. In those days, the 39th floor had been a petroleum stratosphere he never expected to reach. Much smaller then, like a hatbox sitting on the corner of a tall filing cabinet, the penthouse reflected the philosophy of the company founder Harvey Holmes Halliday. A small cloud-kissed office, tidy and neat, to discourage loitering by his cronies. Atop the hatbox penthouse that faced Sepulveda Boulevard was a huge clock set five minutes fast to Pacific Standard Time that could be read as far away as Hollywood and Vine. When Vincent Barkett Blake succeeded Halliday as chairman in 1951, he expanded the 39th floor penthouse across the entire roof. O’Reith tracking Blake, became president of the corporation and had helped Blake to sell the company to The Standard Oil Company of California two years after Halliday died. Later Standard Oil put the tower on the market. O’Reith bought it, renamed it, and now ran the company from the expanded penthouse office complex. When he was in Paris, he operated from a small office in a building he owned in the rue de Surene.

He had struggled long and hard to become a big dog. Now that he had become one, he made the most of it.

While he pondered his next move, Sally continued standing quietly at his side until he again became aware of her presence. When he turned and looked up at her, she said, General O’Reith, Gimp Flagherty is out in the lobby waiting to see you. He has something on his mind. Sally, forty and still good-looking after three children, projected sensuality with her every jiggle. She continued to excite O’Reith as much now as she had years ago when she was one of the legion of pretty girls from back east out to make it big time in Hollywood. But she didn’t get anywhere and in 1944, married her childhood sweetheart, Alan Prescott, a field artillery officer home on leave. When Prescott returned from POW camp a wounded man, O’Reith had helped Sally nurse him back to good health. For many long months, a depressed and despondent Prescott had nearly driven Sally to the abyss. O’Reith had steadily and patiently prevented her from going over the edge. So the two of them were closer than anyone in the company ever suspected. Sally, in her subtle ways, never let him forget that she would give him anything he wanted. But Prescott was O’Reith’s vice president in charge of production and however much he might want to make it with Sally, he would never undermine Alan in that way. He said, Sally, see if the gimpster has a business card. If he does, let me look at it before you show him in.

She swiftly went to fetch it. It read:

O’Flagherty & Smith

Waterwell Drillers

510 Stockdale Highway

Bakersfield, California

Telephone OX3 5678

Without his glasses, he couldn’t read it so he returned to his desk, removed his useless monocle, eased into his chair, put on his spectacles and studied the card. He laughed softly and said, Sally, the gimpster has put the ‘O’ back into his name. That’s a good sign. He must have some of his self respect back. How does he look?

Pretty good, Sally replied giggling. She had worked for O’Reith so long that she knew exactly how he ticked and was happy to see the animation return to his angular features. She knew he had been down in the dumps about something. Then she added, He stands much straighter. His color is good. He’s wearing a tan shirt with white satin piping around the collar. French cuffs with diamond studs. Rhinestones around the pockets. Expensive looking ivory corduroy pants. He has a wide leather belt with a big brass buckle showing a drilling rig. String tie. Red Nocono cowboy boots that probably glow in the dark. Big black Stetson angled down over one eye. Best of all, he’s quit stammering. At least, almost.

How do I look? O’Reith asked. His vanity was legendary. Should Sharon touch me up before the gimpster comes in?

Sally, beaming mischievously, looked him over carefully, came around to stand beside him, flicked some imaginary lint from the lapels of his tuxedo coat and said, You look just scrumptious.

He was about to ask her to show the gimpster in when she caught him off guard and kissed him long and wet. Then she mussed his black hair, saying, You definitely need for Sharon to come in. I’ll call her.

Along with the penetrating kiss that glaringly lip-sticked his mouth, he got a monumental erection which was not going to subside before Sharon arrived. He thought of putting some papers in his lap but with a woman of her perspicacity, it would be pointless. It annoyed O’Reith that no matter how one tried to conceal one’s private matters and despite the lengths that one would go to compartmentalize conflicting aspects of one’s life, one could not fool the valet, the chauffeur, the cosmetician and of course, the doctor. Virtues and vices were all too apparent to one’s servants. So Sharon would just have to see what there was to see. The important thing right now was that Gimp O’Flagherty didn’t see anything in O’Reith’s face that would suggest time was taking its toll and that he might be losing his grip.

Sharon had him fixed up in a couple of minutes and Sally was showing the gimpster in even as Sharon departed. O’Reith rose from his chair, let the lame man come around to him, shook his hand, patted him on the back and led him to a black leather, richly upholstered sofa in a corner of the office beneath a huge wedding photograph of his son and Blake’s daughter.

Clyde, by God you’re looking good! O’Reith gushed in his most optimistic melodic tenor. I must say I’m pleased to see you. When was the last time? In Denver at the courthouse? You were the expert witness in that McLarssen lawsuit. What a hard time those two gave me! Well, I hope you got a good fee out of it

Clyde O’Flagherty was string bean thin with a nervous hatchet face suggesting that he expected to be served papers momentarily. His slate grey eyes blinked often and suspiciously and he had a recurring twitch. He was always looking back over his shoulder. He could have passed for the character actor John Carradine. He began, ’Twarn’t then, Mistuh O’Reith, I mean Jin’ral O’Reith, sir. It was when Clearwater and I went in to the water well drilling business. I come in to ask you for some work and you tuk me to see Mistuh Larry Teague. Me and Clearwater drilled a dozen wells for that new refinery a-building down near San Diego. Right good little water wells they wuz, too. That Mistuh Teague is a prince of a man to do business with, even if he is a little sawed off codger. And I wanted to tell you again that I appreciate the way you treated me too. I’m glad there ain’t no bad blood between us after that courtroom scene. I hated to hev to say what I hed to say. But there ‘twas. I never did badmouth the Calitroleum. I just tole the truth.

O’Reith had looked O’Flagherty over pretty carefully as he talked about the water wells. His ear lobe had been repaired. His cowboy boots were constructed normally. The extra bulge of his misshapen left foot was no more. His left leg was noticeably straighter too. But the biggest change was the way he talked. Although he spoke slowly and his pronunciation still revealed his humble origin, the stutter had practically vanished.

Clearly some great transformation had occurred and O’Reith was curious as to how it had happened. He said, Clyde, you don’t look like the same guy and you don’t talk like the same guy either.

O’Flagherty smiled a somewhat crooked smile that revealed substantial plastic surgery around his mouth and in the area of his jaw. Then he winked, said, Mistuh O’Reith, that is, Jin’ral O’Reith sir, you remember that Miss Ellen, the sister of McLarssen, that lay preacher who was behind the lawsuit. Well, Miss Ellen is right smart of a country girl movie actress now. I seen her not too long ago in a movie where she wuz a holy woman. It reminded me that she is too, in real life, I mean. But before that, when she got her settlement money from The Stannerd Oil, she called me on the telephone, long distance it was too, she a-being in Los Angeles and me a-being in Odessa, Texas. She said to me, she said, Mr. Flagherty, she didn’t know about the ‘O’ in my name then, your testimony helped my brother win that case against that wicked Stannerd Oil Company and I want to do right by you. I want to send you an airplane ticket. Come out to the coast right away. I’ve got it fixed up for you to see a bone and joint doctor, a plastic surgeon and a speech therapist. We’re going to get your feet and legs fixed and get your face straight, repair that ripped up ear and get rid of that stammer."

Well I tole her, I said, Miss Ellen, I thank you kindly but I am one busted up and broke down old driller. It will take a ton of money to get me fixed up right, even if they can do it. I said, Miss Ellen, that there .44 Winchester Center-Fire that went off in my pants didn’t jest blow my body apart, it done me some truly mental damage too. I said, Miss Ellen, you are a-talking to one miserable son of you-know-what. Well Jin’ral O’Reith, she just laughed and said if that wuz the case, maybe she’d better line me up to see a ‘shrink’ as well as them other specials. I didn’t know then what a ‘shrink’ wuz but soon as I got out here I found out pretty quick. In case you don’t know sir, a ‘shrink’ is one of them syk-er-eye-atrists. So she sent me the ticket and I flew out there and she met me in her little red Thunnerbird car and she drove me to this private clinic where all of those people went to work on me. She said, Mr. Flagherty, it doesn’t matter about the money. It makes me feel good to spend it doing something I know is right.

She got her money’s worth, O’Reith said.

Yes sir, she sure did and when I put the ‘O’ back in my name and I tole her that I had dropped it off because I jest couldn’t get it out of my mouth without sounding like a coyote out on the prairie ahowling at the moon, she smiled at me and hugged me close and kissed my whiskery cheek. I felt like a new man. And I wuz a new man, sir. That bone and joint man, he re-broke my leg, the one that got rolled over by a joint of 9 and 5/8 inch casing, and he straightened it out and reset it. Then he rebuilt my foot so it fits proper in my boot. He took the top joint off my ring finger and made a new big toe out of it, the one that was blowed off when I got abbreviated back years ago in the Ace of Diamonds in Odessa. The plastic surgeon took some flesh from under my arm and made me a new head for my peter and he sewed up that empty testicle sack so it didn’t drip and mess up my under drawers no more. An’ lookit my ear. Ain’t it neat lookin’ and all in one piece? He did an A number one job too except that now and then I have to shave some whiskers off the head of my dick. But my biggest challenge wuz that there speech therapist. When I first come into his little room in that there clinic he said, ‘Mr Flagherty,’ that wuz before I put the ‘O’ back on, he said,’ Mr Flagherty, I want you to think about it for a minute. Then just as slow as you can, say poise and presence’. Well, Jin’ral O’Reith, sir, it tuk me jest ever so long to master them two words. But once I had done it, we went on to the rest of it. I tole him more than once he had an impossible job. But he jest kept plugging along with me. He wuz a patient man and I wuz a patient man too and I’d just swaller me a big gulp of air and I’d jest kind of leak them words out slow and sure until I run out of air and I’d have to swaller some more. Now I do it and you can’t even notice me while I am a-doing it. As long as I don’t get excited I can do OK. So I am a somebody again now. I ain’t just a little shrivelled up mole turd a-steaming in the winter sun.

That’s great, Clyde, O’Reith said in an encouraging tone of voice. Ellen McLarssen spent her money well. I expect even the Standard Oil would agree with that.

Well sir, Jin’ral O’Reith, O’Flagherty continued, the reason I come to see you is that I want to pay her back. I think I can find a way to do it but I’ll need your help. Jin’ral O’Reith, have you ever heard of The Snake River? It’s up in Clark County, Idaho. Me and Clearwater, we got us a contract with the Dakota-Montana Sugar Beet Company to drill some water wells. They operate up in the Obsidian Valley where water is scearce. I mean s-c-e-a-r-c-e. Them people got acre after acre of sugar beet planted in that volcanic ash. They say it’s got exactly the right kind of minerals to make them sweet and juicy. Takes a lot of water, though. Up to now we’ve drilled ‘em six pretty fair little producers. Jim Dandies. We’re down in the valley, parallel with the river some fifty miles away. What we’re drilling for is Snake River water that has done percolated down through that ash into a good, clean sandstone, about two hundred feet down. Well, sir, the company moved us down quite a piece of distance to drill some water wells near the Ghost River which the Snake flows into. Them two rivers run together for about two miles and then they dump into the Malheur down south of the little town of Stibnite, which nowadays is damn near a ghost town just like that there Ghost River settlement. It’s seventy-five miles from Boise in Mormon country. That Malheur is just some big river, I tell you for sure, all a-foaming and a boiling and a-roaring down that there gulch.

At the mention of the Malheur River, O’Reith sat up. Goose-bumps were forming under his shirt, a sensation akin to that years ago in Maracaibo when Mandy Macabra jolted him with optic energy. As O’Flagherty paused for breath, he signalled for Sally and when she came in, he said, Sally, ask Carolyn Cook to come up. Then to O’Flagherty he added, Clyde, Carolyn is our chief geologist. She did some work up on the Malheur some years ago. She knows that country pretty well. I want her to hear the rest of your story. Then he smiled. That way you won’t have to tell it twice.

O’Flagherty chuckled. He said, I might of knowed you’d get out ahead of me. You already know what I’ve got on my mind, don’t you? Jin’ral O’Reith you’re as sharp today as you wuz them long years back when you wuz a-pushing tools in Crane County, Texas.

That was some time back, Clyde, O’Reith replied, beaming. This is quite a coincidence. Clark County is mineral country, of course. So I have an idea. But Miss Cook is the expert. She’ll be right up.

Carolyn Cook entered, shook hands with O’Flagherty and took a seat facing the two men on the sofa. She was forty-two, slender, with a weathered, freckled face, and thin, determined-looking lips around small, pearly teeth. Her deep set brown eyes and falcon-like nose made her look predatory. She wore a tan pantsuit with a reddish scarf around her throat and low cut brown shoes. She could have passed for Clare Trevor. If not a great beauty, her sensitive features were easy on the eyes. Over the years she had discovered several billion barrels of oil in Venezuela, North Africa, Sumatra and California. Her greatest claim to fame was her discovery of gold on the Malheur River in the early days of WWII. An outstanding exploration geologist dedicated to O’Reith, she first worked for him in Maracaibo when he was fresh out of the army and Manager of Foreign Operations for Calitropical Oil. After Standard Oil bought Calitroleum, she helped O’Reith organize The Casinghead Company and was now a major shareholder as well as Vice President of Exploration. From Enid, Oklahoma, a graduate of UCLA and a lesbian, she lived with a cheroot-smoking, dark-eyed woman from Caracas named Magaly. The two had been inseparable for 20 years. But O’Reith had heard that Carolyn had lately acquired a roving eye and ogled the hopefuls with the same lustful eyes of her male co-workers.

When Cook was settled and attentive, O’Flagherty resumed his story. Well, Jin’ral, sir and Miss Cook, when we moved that water well rig to the Malheur River, about 80 feet down it seemed to me like we wuz a-drilling on a bone. We couldn’t make no hole at all. I got tired of that. Finally I scrootched up my britches, I wuz a-wearing blue jeans. I said to Clearwater, I said Clearwater if we’re going to cut this ditch before the Second Coming of Christ we’re a-going to hev to mud this little jewel up. Furthermore we’ll hev to pick up a string of four-inch drill collars of which we ain’t got any but I know where we can rent some. Well Clearwater, he didn’t like that idea much because he is a clear water driller. But dum’ as I am, I know that the easy way to get stuck is to run drill collars in a hole where you are a-drilling with water. And since I’m the boss, my word goes. So I drove into Stibnite and I called Skinny Dillerd in Bakersfield and I tole him we need some drill collars and fast too, fast as he could get ‘em loaded out and on the road. Then I called that there Magnet Cove Barium Company which is just down the road from Skinny’s pipe yard and I ordered out a hunnerd sacks of gel and twenty sacks of Barite. When the express flat bed showed up, we made us a nine-pound mud slip and went back to drilling. We were doing a little better but not much. I wondered what the hell could be so hard so I scooped up some cuttings coming over the shale shaker and cut the mud back with water so the cuttings would drop to the bottom of the cup. I was going to take ‘em into Boise and have an expert look at ‘em under a microscope. If we were drilling quartz, I’d hev to tell them sugar beet people that it wouldn’t be no use to carry that hole any further because we wuz not going to find a drop of water. Well, when I thinned out that cup of mud and cuttings, guess what I found?

Gold flakes, Carolyn Cook said, her flat voice loaded with authority.

O’Flagherty’s mouth came open, his eyes bulged out big and round. His lips moved but no words came. Then he regained his poise and presence. Staring at Cook as if she were police matron, he swallowed air and said, Well ma’am, you’re exactly right on that. Gold flakes, for sure. I did-n’t tell Clearwater what I’d seen. He’s a talking man and not too sharp in the thinking department. What little thinking hez to be done in our business, I do it. That don’t mean I’m a-trying to beat Clearwater out of what could be rightly his. But if he gets to putting the word out, then there ain’t gonna be nothing that is rightly his. I figured I needed to talk to a man whose head is a lot longer than mine is and that man is Jin’ral Clive Colin O’Reith hisself. And that’s why I’m here and I’ll swear to that.

Cook said, Mr. O’Flagherty, Calitroleum Oil Corporation struck gold by accident on the Malheur quite some years back. Company was successful in keeping it a secret and mined it quietly until the ore was played out. I was just out of college and sitting the well. I saw what you did, gold flakes in the mud. But the Calitroleum mine was deeper. It was hot too. We had to squeeze off steam from time to time. It took a while to get it on production. If you struck gold at 80 feet, we can sink a shaft in no time. The temperature should be lower. We can run gold right away. Who owns the land? What about the sugar beet company; do they hold a mineral lease? Does your contract obligate you to tell them what you found? Did you stake a claim?

For a few moments, O’Flagherty was puzzled. His jaws worked but no sound emerged. Then, swallowing some air, he answered, Well, ma’am, I didn’t stake no claim. The beet company has the land leased but their man tole me that all they had title to wuz water rights. I brung along a copy of our contract with the sugar beet company. I don’t know what’s in the fine print. I ain’t never read it. The land down south is fed’ral land. I don’t know if it is leased or not.

Let me have a look at your contract, Mr. O’Flagherty, Cook said.

O’Flagherty opened his battered, brown leather briefcase and extracted a document. Cook put on her reading glasses, quickly located the disclosure clause. After reading it, she said, Your only obligation is to inform them promptly if you think there is little or no chance of finding water. Since we can’t evaluate the other unknowns, you could authorize the Casinghead Company to act in your behalf. We’ll have a title attorney, a surveyor and a land man on an airplane to Boise tomorrow morning. What do you say?

O’Flagherty thought for a minute. Looking at O’Reith, he replied, I’d go for a fifty-fifty spilt.

O’Reith said, Fifty-fifty after cost recovery, Clyde. Casinghead Company will spend whatever is required to determine the value. If it’s no good, we’ll forget about it. If we find a bonanza and it pays off big time, we share and share alike after we recover the development costs. OK?

That’s fair and square and I’ll go for that, O’Flagherty announced, slapping his pants with his open palm.

O’Reith said, Carolyn, will you negotiate a letter of understanding with Clyde?

She rose nodding and beckoned O’Flagherty to follow her. Let me copy your water well contract, Cook said. To study it in greater detail and cover all the bases. We want to be airtight.

Yes ma’am, O’Flagherty responded.

As he trailed behind her, he turned and said to O’Reith, Jin’ral I sure hope this pans out so I can pay Miss Ellen back.

O’Reith winked at him, said, I hope so too, Clyde. We’ll do our best. Say a few prayers. I’ll be out of the office for some time but stay in touch with Carolyn. She’ll get the answers we need pdq. We’ll be on our way. Wonderful to see you again especially in your ‘good as new’ condition.

O’Reith stood. As the two departed, Sally entered, curious. He told her about Ellen McLarssen giving the gimpster medical assistance and the possibility of a gold mine on the Malheur River, big deal for O’Flagherty, probably no effect on profits at Casinghead Company.

But you really can’t tell, can you General O’Reith? she suggested. It could be a The Ophir.

That’s possible, he agreed, returning to his desk and letting her help him into his chair.

O’Reith usually lunched with Vincent Blake, Vice Chairman of the company until yesterday. Blake, the top dog at Calitroleum after Halliday died, had sponsored O’Reith for many years. Now, their roles were reversed. O’Reith was the chief. Yesterday, Blake had come in, rather wearily O’Reith thought, and announced his immediate resignation. Said he was fed up with the constant bribery required to get things done both in Sacramento and Washington, DC. Blake, sixty-two, no longer had the stamina to continue. If a scandal should erupt, as happened with some regularity, both he and the company would become embroiled in a lawsuit. Once, during his term as Chairman of Calitroleum Oil Corporation, the Commerce Department had indicted him for restraint of trade. Even though the case was eventually dismissed, the stress and strain had taken its toll on him. His resignation was no surprize. O’Reith had seen the anxiety in his face for weeks. Still he missed not having him down the hall where he could go chat with him. And he missed him at lunch too. Sally left and O’Reith invited Carolyn Cook to join him as soon as she was finished with O’Flagherty.

Over the crab bisque in the executive dining room on the 35th floor, Cook told him the experts were flying to Boise in the morning in one of the company’s C-47s. Then she said, General O’Reith, can we talk about the Kavir Dome?

O’Reith continued with his soup, nodded affirmatively.

If you have a few minutes after lunch, she continued, "I’d like to show you the slides, geophysical cross sections and a velocity survey.