The Sure Thing (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  So that's what I did, starting with my being hired by Audrey and ending with the conversation I'd just had with Banners—leaving out, needless to say, any comments I'd then made about birth times or anything in that general area.

  When I finished, Morraigne was silent for several seconds before declaring mildly, “I don't give a damn what Trappman says, there's oil down there. Not any fifteen or twenty barrels a day, either. More like five hundred a day, if not better."

  “This, uh, instrument of yours, Dev, do I understand that it's supposed to indicate not only the presence of oil or gas, if any, but how much is present?"

  “Within limits, yes.” He ran a hand through his thick black hair. “I can determine absolutely if hydrocarbons are present in sufficient quantity to justify drilling, and I can estimate the quantity of the reserves, and probable daily production, with a margin for error of approximately twenty percent. Now, obviously, a well's production doesn't decline nicely and neatly, in accordance with a mathematical formula, and costs of production, other factors, may also vary widely. But with that understood.... Do you understand me to here, Shell?"

  “Yeah, I guess so. I just don't get the point yet."

  “OK, here's the point. Let's say—just to pick some figures out of the air for an example—that I survey a site and conclude a well drilled to the optimum depth should produce a hundred and twenty barrels a day, with production declining say five percent a year during the first ten years of its operation. That would mean total production for the ten-year period of ... three-five-one-three-eighth-five-point-plus ... three hundred and fifty-one thousand, three hundred and eighty-five barrels of crude. Assume a possible twenty percent error, and production could be as little as two-eight-one thousand one-oh-nine barrels and it might be as much as four-two-one thousand six-six-three, but almost surely it would be between those extreme limits."

  I made no comment at all for a little while.

  Then I said, “That's a little difficult to believe, Dev—quite a bit more than a little. Not merely those last production figures, if that's what I heard, but that you can absolutely determine, as you put it, if hydrocarbons are present."

  “I've been doing it,” he said easily. “I've been associated with investors in at least twenty successful wells this past year—five in a row drilled by Trappman Oil and Gas Company rigs, since the Roman well. But, I know. Nobody does believe it—yet. Except for me and a very few other people, that is. They will, though, you better believe it. I'm going to make believers of a lot of people.” He flashed that white smile at me again. “Including you, Shell, if necessary."

  I smiled back at him. “It may be necessary eventually, assuming it's possible. Twenty wells in the last year, huh? No misses?"

  “I ... missed a couple. Two. I'm still not sure exactly why. Sometimes there are faults, cracks in the earth.... I'm working on it."

  “Yeah. Well, I'm just working on my job, too, poking here and poking—well, at those speedy figures you just rattled off, for example. It was an impressive performance, but I'd expect you to be pretty well prepared with facts and figures about production and X barrels times Y dollars, and alla-kazam—”

  “You mean the example I just gave you? No, that was off the top of my head, merely as clarification of my point. I didn't figure it all out last night, or last month, in case I got a chance to say it.” He smiled. “I suppose that's what you meant."

  “It is."

  “I sometimes forget that what's second nature to me, mathematically speaking, surprises most people.” He uncrossed his long legs, crossed them again the other way. “You wouldn't know it to look at me, I suppose, but when I was a kid I was supposed to be a prodigal lad, the numbers genius, mathematical super-whiz. I could add columns of six-digit figures in my head, multiply, divide, extract square roots—not without limit, but with ‘unbelievable speed and accuracy,’ as some then said. Hell, as I say myself, for that matter, I can still do it."

  “Are you trying to tell me that you figured out in your head, just a minute or so ago, that starting with a hundred and twenty barrels a day, decreasing that initial production five percent a year, over zilch number of years, it adds up to ... whatever it was?"

  “Sure."

  “Yeah, easy to say, but if the first year is one-twenty barrels, the second year is five percent less or ... six less, I hope ... or a hundred and fourteen barrels, right? And the third year the amount would be decreased by five percent of a hundred and fourteen, not of a hundred and twenty—"

  “Sure. Of course, production doesn't go along at an even keel for three hundred and sixty-five days and then, whop, suddenly drop five percent the next day. But I had to figure it that way, or I couldn't do it. And that is the way I figured it."

  “The hell you say."

  “The hell I don't. First year one-twenty a day, second year one-fourteen, third one-oh-eight-point-three, tenth year seven-five-point-six-three, or down to a little over seventy-five barrels a day by then."

  “Dev, I could screw that up nine times out of ten doing it with an adding—or subtracting?—machine, so don't try to tell me—"

  "You could. You could, Shell. With me, it's automatic. I don't visualize numbers on a mental blackboard, I just think the problem or related numbers and know the answer. It isn't anything I learned how to do, by the way, I'm just able to do it. Always have been, as far back as I can remember. Which is, now, a help to me in interpreting the figures and indications produced by my Holaselector, needless to say."

  “Dev, you seem like a nice enough fellow, but I'm goddamned if you're going to snow me with—"

  “Instead of that first example I threw at you, assume initial daily production of five hundred and fifty barrels, declining progressively from four percent the second year to let's say fifty percent in the eleventh and the following two years—"

  On he went, with an even more complex series of mathematical gibberish than the first time, winding up with what he referred to as daily production at the end of the thirteenth year, assuming no remedial work had been done on the well in the meantime, translated that from barrels into tons and into dollars, assuming varying prices per barrel of crude, plus finally a jaw-breaking figure that he alleged would be total production and total income received during all thirteen years.

  “Dev,” I said numbly, “how would I know? I do hand it to you, however, for being able to say all that without chipping a tooth. But that still doesn't...."

  I paused, thought a moment, then said happily, “OK, brain. What's three hundred and twelve times four hundred and sixteen?"

  Without the slightest hesitation, he said, “One-hundred twenty-nine thousand seven-hundred ninety-two.” He spoke rapidly but in an odd, jerky rhythm, and the tone of his voice was flatter, more mechanical, than it normally was.

  “Try some more, if you must,” he said. “Nothing larger than six digits, though."

  “Just hold it a shake, OK?"

  I'd dug out my pen and notebook, was busy writing the numbers down—first the figure he'd given me, 129,792, before I forgot it, then my 312 with 416. After a while I said, “Let's see ... nine and eight is seventeen, seven and carry one ... and there's a nine ... got it! One-two-nine-seven-nine-two. How ... did ... you ... do ... that?"

  “I don't know. I told you—"

  “How did you do that? What kind of trick—what's four thousand eight-hundred and ninety-nine times eighty-two thousand seven-hundred and eighty-six? Quick now, quick—"

  He looked over my head, or past it, for about a second, not more than that because he interrupted my last “quick” by telling me the answer. I wrote it down, along with the figures I'd given him, and started multiplying furiously but after screwing it up the first time decided I would check this out later, at my leisure.

  “Well, that's close enough,” I said. “For now. And that's very ... interesting. But let's get back to where we were, OK? Now ... where were we? Got it—I was wondering, if you've got something as good as w
hat you've been describing to me, why aren't all the big oil-company wheels hammering on your door, simultaneously beating each other over the heads with clubs—?"

  “If I'm so smart, why ain't I rich, huh? Well, if you build a better mousetrap, people who want to kill a lot of mice have to be convinced, first, that your mousetrap is better. Then they've got to be willing to pay me what it's worth—or, to put it differently, what I'm worth. For the last year I've been working on that little problem, and I've some reason to believe I will be rich before many more months roll by. Richer than Gulbenkian, for a start."

  “Who's Gulbenkian?"

  “He's dead now. They used to call him Mr. Five Percent, because he got a five-percent royalty on production from a great many wells in his time, amounting to many, many millions of dollars and pounds and guilders and pesos for Gulbenkian. He comes to mind because that's part of my price for locating fields, pointing out drilling sites—five percent off the top."

  “So you get nothing from dry holes."

  “There aren't going to be any dry holes."

  “I doubt that Dan Corey—and a few other people before him that I've heard of lately—would agree with that statement."

  That comment didn't appear to bother him. Or, rather it seemed perhaps to bother, but not to anger, him. “Yeah, Corey, that was too bad,” he said. “Unfortunate. Before that job, the Corey Number One, I was still working on the Holaselector, improving it—and I made that clear to the people who, at that time, lost money drilling where I thought they should, you understand."

  He paused, leaning forward in his chair, dark blue eyes fixed on me. “I didn't take any money from them, went on spec, for a small percent of their working interest—"

  “How about Gippy? You have that kind of deal with him?"

  “That's right.” He nodded. “Now, about Dan Corey, the only trouble then was I thought my instrument was perfected, but I discovered there were still adjustments required before I could be sure of the difference between fresh and salt water."

  “I don't get it. Even if your instrument could tell one from the other—which I gather you're saying it couldn't—what difference would it make?"

  He smiled slightly. “Sometimes, quite a lot. In Corey's case, the difference between a producing well and a dry hole. We were drilling in Kern County, up past Bakersfield, and ran into a little oil and a lot of salt water—you can hit water damn near anyplace, not just along the coast there, but we found so much in the structure there was simply no chance of completing a commercial well, so it was abandoned. You see...."

  He paused for a second or two, then went on, “I, that is, my instrument, confused the higher specific gravity of salt water—higher than fresh water, that is—with the even lower specific gravity of oil. The specific gravity of fresh water, the standard, is one, salt water one point oh four, and the oil, say, point six or point seven, and I identified the oil but missed a bit on the salt water. Hell, I don't want to get too technical, but to sum it up my instrument gave me a false indication at that time, and I spent a year overcoming the difficulty—which I did overcome, of course, so it's no longer a problem. That was, I'll admit, a highly instructive episode for me."

  “Pretty instructive for Corey, too, wouldn't you say? About seventy thousand dollars worth of instruction?"

  The first small flicker of annoyance marked Morraigne's handsome face, and he gazed at me silently, black brows knitted together. Finally he said, “Yes, it was painful for both of us. Even more painful for me, whether you realize that or not."

  “OK,” I said. “You had a problem, and worked it out. How do you know there aren't other problems you've not discovered yet?"

  “No.” Morraigne shook his head. “No. I've worked all the bugs out. It took a while, I'll admit, but the Holaselector is perfected now. I've demonstrated that to my complete satisfaction—and soon perhaps to the satisfaction of many others."

  He got up, started pacing a few steps in one direction and then the other, hands clasped behind his back. “Look Shell, what I've done isn't a miraculous breakthrough creation of a whole new science. I've simply taken what's known about the laser, holograms, sympathetic vibrations resonance—including some of Nikola Tesla's researches into resonance and vibration that aren't widely known but should be—added, I'll admit it, some brilliant concepts of my own, and developed what I have named the Magnesonant Holaselector."

  “Couldn't you have named it a Jolly-Dandy Oil Finder or something less jaw-breaking? With a little easier name, you might sell a million of ‘em—"

  “My present intention is to sell only one, along with my personal services, so it matters little what I call it."

  I opened my mouth to comment upon that—and left it open. But did not comment. Strolling in from the back of the house somewhere, naked as the day she'd been born not a terribly long time before, came Mary-Lu Josephine Petrushka Hot-Diggety, carrying a brimming-full martini glass in her hand. The glass was so full that she had to move slowly, with considerable care, kind of bent over a little with one hand outthrust and holding the cocktail, her other hand cupped beneath the glass to catch any intoxicating drips, and I can state it as a fact that she was an arresting sight.

  She walked right past me, almost close enough to molest, and up to Morraigne, who was still standing, but not now with his hands clasped behind him.

  He gazed fondly upon her, as one beumused, and said, smiling, “Ah, you're a free soul, aren't you, little Melinda?"

  “I made you a martini,” she said. “Before I got in the tub."

  “So I—see,” he said. “Well, I'd love a little, little martini, but....” He glanced at a watch on his left wrist. “I've an important appointment, dear, and I'll need a very clear head for it."

  I thought possibly he was referring to this conversation with me, but he went on, “I'm expecting a call this afternoon, my dear, and if it were not an extraordinarily important meeting I shall be attending, I would decline not even your most extravagant whim. So, I shall take a gin check. But let me suggest that you offer this chill delicacy, produced with your own hot little hands, to my enthusiastic friend, Shell Scott there, creeping up behind you."

  I wasn't creeping at all. I may have been leaning forward a little, but no fair observer would have claimed I was doing anything else suspicious.

  Melinda—or whoever the hell she was—turned around and advanced toward me, moving in that cute way she had, and said, “Would you like it?"

  “Well...."

  “It's a real good one. I didn't put any vermouth in it."

  “I'm glad to hear it. I think. Well...."

  “At least take a sip, then it won't be so full anymore."

  “That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. At least, I've heard a lot of things that made less sense. Well...."

  “I'll hold it for you, while you sip it. All rightie?"

  “All rightie,” I agreed.

  She moved just a bit closer, holding the brimful glass close to my lips, and I leaned forward to slurp a little, unfortunately noticing about mid-slurp that, behind this crazy tomato's back, Dev Morraigne was halfway through silently cracking up.

  “Oh, you took too much," the gal said. “Oh, it's coming out your nose."

  “Why don't you go soak your head—soak all your nice things—in the tub?” I asked her. Asked her, after I got what felt like the olive and pimiento out of my nostrils.

  “You aren't used to drinking much, are you?” she asked sweetly.

  I dabbed at my eyes with my handkerchief. “Not like this, no."

  “You want the rest?” she asked, holding the martini glass, and what was left in it, toward me.

  “Sure. I'll pour it in one of my ears this time."

  I took the glass, and she held one arm up stiffly, elbow pressed against her side, and wiggled her fingers gaily at me. Then she turned and gave the same friendly little wave to Morraigne, and walked out the way she'd come in.

  When he was about through laughing
, I said to Morraigne, “Well, that was fun, but let's get back to this doodlebug of yours—"

  I stopped, not because he said anything, for he didn't, but because right then I lamped the sudden angry expression on his face. He flushed even darker under his tan, the lips thinned, and he started to speak but didn't. He whirled around, clasped both hands behind his back again, then spun and stalked to his chair, sat down slapping both hands against his knees.

  “Doodlebug,” he said finally.

  I had prior to this moment carefully refrained from using that term, having been informed by both Gippy and Cynara that to do so would not produce a wonderful reaction in Devin Morraigne. They had spoken truly. And I imagine I would have continued to refrain from using the forbidden term if it hadn't been for the just concluded distraction.

  After a few more moments of silence I said, “Sorry about that, Dev. I don't really know whether your dingus works or not, but I didn't intend to refer to it as a—"

  “Dingus is OK,” he said sourly. “Maybe not swell, but better than—” He scowled. “Listen, I guess over the years I've become sensitized to that goddamned word. Every time I hear it, I salivate like a Pavlovian wolf. I can still see the kindergarten dropouts looking at me and snickering and making finger circles around their heads. That bloody word—well, it implies—chicanery, fraud, or at best, self-deception...."

  He let it trail off, nodded a couple of times, as though carrying on a silent dialogue with himself, glanced at his watch, then nodded again and looked at me. “Shell, my suspicious detective friend—or mayhap foe—would you like to see how a real zippety-doodah” ... he closed his eyes, winced, went on ... “doodlebug works?"

  “Be interesting, I suppose. But I probably wouldn't know if it was working or not, unless it showed me a picture on television."

  “Between commercials,” he said. “I understand. We know where truth is today, don't we? But I'd like to show you what my Holaselector does, in the field. You'll have to take my word for it that I know what it means when it does what it does. That makes a lot of sense to you, I suppose."