126
Cal Rainey was waiting at the airport when Marcel came through the gate. The thin Texan walked toward him with an outstretched hand. “Welcome to Dallas, Mr. Campion.”
Marcel smiled as he took his hand. “It is good to see you again, Mr. Rainey. I apologize for arriving so late but unfortunately I was detained on other business in Boston.”
“That’s O.K., Mr. Campion. All the arrangements have been made. As soon as you get your luggage we’ll leave from the ranch. Mr. Horgan has placed his private plane at our disposal.”
Marcel looked at him in surprise. “I thought we were to meet here in Dallas. I have asked a friend to fly down from Los Angeles to meet me.”
“No problem, Mr. Campion. Mr. Horgan has said that any friend of yours is welcome at the ranch. We’ll just send the plane back for him. When is he expected?”
“About midnight.” Marcel looked at his watch. “That’s only about two hours; perhaps we could wait for him?”
“As you wish, Mr. Campion. In that case let’s head for the bar.”
The headwaiter bowed. “Good evening, Mr. Rainey.” He led them to a small table. “The usual?”
“Right,” Rainey said, then looked at Marcel.
“Pastis,” Marcel answered automatically. Then he noticed the confused look on their faces. “Pernod and water.”
He looked at the Texan after the waiter had brought the drinks. “Now, tell me exactly what arrangements have been made.”
Rainey took an appreciative sip at his bourbon. “Mr. Horgan thought that the meetings had better be held at his ranch over the weekend. He’s already invited the other interested parties. Dallas is still very much a small town, and word gets around.”
Marcel smiled. One of the first things he had learned was that there were no secrets that could be kept if someone was really interested enough in discovering them. Still, the precaution was a good one. The less people knew about it the better. He sipped at his pastis and leaned back. It was good to be able to stretch after the long hours on the plane. He glanced around the room. “Is there a telephone here? I’d like to call home.”
“There’s a row of booths just outside the door.”
Anna was upset when he got through to her. “What are you doing in Dallas? I thought you were in Boston.”
“Something special came up. I didn’t have time to call before I caught the plane.” He could not tell Anna what he planned to do. She would immediately report it to Amos.
“How are the children?”
“The twins are fine, but I think young Amos is coming down with a cold.”
“Did you call the doctor?”
“What for? It’s only a cold.”
Marcel shook his head. Despite their wealth, her father had done his work well; Anna was as penurious in personal matters as Amos. “If he has a fever, call the doctor.”
“He has no fever,” Anna said sullenly, “and I’m keeping him away from the girls.”
“Good.” Marcel couldn’t think of anything more he had to say to her. “How’s the weather?”
“Raining. When are you coming home?”
“About the middle of the week.”
“Where can you be reached if Daddy has to talk to you?”
Marcel was silent for a moment. “I’ll be moving around. Tell Amos I’ll call him.” He hesitated. “And you, too.”
Marcel walked thoughtfully back into the cocktail lounge. There was no doubt in his mind that Anna would be on the telephone to Amos the moment after he hung up. It was a good thing he was not staying in Dallas. It would take the old man that much longer to find out what he was doing. And by that time it would be too late for Amos to do anything about it.
“That’s the ranch off there to the left,” the pilot said. “The landing field is about a mile and a half beyond.”
Marcel looked out the window. It was a dark night and he couldn’t see much. But there were a few lights and he could make out the faint outlines of the house. He straightened up and checked his safety belt. It was tight.
He glanced toward Fat Cat on the seat next to him. Fat Cat was sleeping, his head leaning back against the seat. In front of him were Dax and Gislle d’Arcy. Rainey occupied the seat next to the pilot in the six-place Bonanza.
He should have been more specific over the telephone. Then Dax wouldn’t have brought the actress. But he hadn’t dared. There was no telling how many extensions there were in Speidel’s house. But perhaps it was just as well. With Giselle around, few people would guess the real purpose of the visit. It would seem more like a social weekend.
The pilot pressed a button on the panel in front of him. Immediately the lights flashed on at the field below. “Radio signal,” the pilot said laconically. “Puts on the landing lights. Saves keeping a man on duty all night.” He reached up and began to crank down the flaps. “Y’all’s belts good and tight?”
Marcel felt the slight tremor as the wheels hit the ground, and a moment later they were taxiing smoothly toward the hangar. The pilot took the plane right inside before he cut the engine. In the sudden stillness his voice seemed very loud. “A car will be here in a minute to take y’all up to the ranch. I hope you folks enjoyed your flight.”
By the time they got off the plane, the station wagon was waiting. The driver got out, a slim man dressed in cowboy garb. “Welcome to the Horgan Ranch, folks,” he called pleasantly. “Y’all just get into the wagon and have yourself a drink while I get your luggage.”
Marcel followed the others to the car. Just behind the driver’s seat there was a completely equipped little bar. Rainey was already pouring them drinks by the time he got there.
“I’ve never seen a car like this, even in Hollywood,” Giselle said.
“I reckon you won’t see one like this anywhere else, ma’am.” Rainey smiled. “It was built especially for Mr. Horgan by the Cadillac people.”
Giselle looked at Marcel and smiled. “These Americans,” she said in French. “They will never cease to amaze me.”
Marcel returned her smile with an expressive shrug of his shoulders. He felt much the same way.
Marcel heard a soft knock at his door just as he came out of the bathroom. “Who is it?”
“Dax.”
He opened the door and Dax came into the bedroom. “I thought we’d better talk. What is this mysterious thing that’s so important I had to come down here?”
Marcel pulled out a package of cigarettes. He held it toward Dax, who shook his head and took out a thin cigar. Marcel held the light for him, then himself. After a moment he went to the door and opened it. He looked out. The corridor was empty.
His voice dropped to a whisper. “Offshore oil.”
Dax looked puzzled. “What?”
“In the water,” Marcel explained, “the Gulf of Mexico. Off the shores of Texas and Louisiana. They found oil in the ocean bed.”
“What’s that got to do with us?”
“Horgan had the idea, but the others froze him out. He was angry, so he sent a team of geologists off to Venezuela. And now they have come up with what they think may be an even greater strike.”
“I haven’t seen anything in the papers. How come you know about it?”
“From the captain of one of my tramps. He was down there trying to pick up a cargo and they offered him a charter. The money was good so he grabbed it. They played it real cute but he’s no fool. It didn’t take him long to figure out what they were up to. As soon as he told me I put Cal Rainey on it. It took him only two days to confirm it. That’s why we’re here.”
“Why me?”
Marcel looked at him. “Don’t you understand? The oil shelf probably runs down the whole coast. The only country in South America that hasn’t got a mineral-rights development deal with the oil companies is Corteguay.”
Dax looked at his cigar. “So that’s it. You want the mineral-rights concession?”
“What would I want that for?” Marcel asked. “I’m not in th
e oil business. That’s for Horgan and his associates. What I want is the transportation of all that oil, not only from that one field but from their wells all over the world. I figure it’s worth it to them for the Corteguayan development rights.”
“El Presidente is no fool. He will know what those rights are worth.”
“He’ll get the same deal from Horgan that he would from anyone else. Besides, there is one extra if he’ll play it my way. A shipping line that is truly Corteguayan-owned. No outside partners. No Hadley, no Abidijan, no De Coynes, no Greeks. Just the three of us.”
Dax had long since passed the age of illusion. His world was very different from the one in which his father had believed. And even with all the stealing, more managed to finally find its way down to the people than ever before. There was only one flaw in the whole idea. “Where will the ships come from?”
Marcel smiled. “Yesterday I closed a deal with the American War Surplus for one hundred and thirty surplus tankers.”
Dax took the cigar out of his mouth and let his breath out slowly. He could make a guess at the cost. “And what do you do with them if you cannot make this deal?”
Marcel took out another cigarette and lit it before he answered. Then he waved the match out and looked at Dax somberly. “I’ll kill myself,” he said quietly. “Because if I don’t make this deal I have no other way to pay for them.”
127
It was after seven o’clock in the morning when Dax came down dressed in an old shirt and a faded pair of Levi’s. He went through the empty dining room to the kitchen. None of the other guests were down yet.
Fat Cat looked up as he appeared in the doorway. “Come in,” he said, his mouth full of food. “This one, she knows how to cook.”
The Mexican woman simpered and smiled.
“Later,” Dax said. “I thought we’d try some of their famous horses before breakfast.”
Quickly Fat Cat shoved in a last mouthful of food. He got to his feet, sticking a toothpick in his mouth. He smiled at the cook. “Esta muy bien. Mil gracias.”
She flashed a shy smile at him. “De nada.”
He walked over to Dax. “What time is lunch?” he asked from the doorway. “With cooking as good as this, I don’t want to be late.”
“Twelve o’clock.”
“Bueno.” Fat Cat let out a satisfied burp. “I shall be here.”
They went out into the bright morning sunshine through the kitchen door. Fat Cat squinted up at the clear blue sky. “It will be hot today.”
Dax didn’t answer. He led the way toward the stables just behind the kitchen. Three hands were in the corral, putting a saddle on a skittish young mare. The two of them went over to the fence and leaned over it. Each time one of the hands approached the animal she would turn, her ears flat back against her head, her teeth bared.
“The mare she is a very nervous one, no?” Fat Cat called pleasantly.
The men glanced at them, then at each other. They did not speak. One of them moved toward the mare, but she spun away from him.
“Why do not you cover her eyes?”
Again the hands glanced at them, pointedly silent.
“I thought we might take some horses out,” Dax called.
This time they all paused in what they were doing and looked at Dax. They studied the old shirt and the faded Levi’s before one of them answered, a faint tone of contempt coming into his voice. “Mistuh Horgan doan allow no greaser servants to ride his horseflesh.”
Fat Cat glanced quickly at Dax. Dax’s face gave no hint of his feelings; only his eyes were suddenly dark and angry. “Not even that one?”
The three men looked at each other, then a grin came to their faces. The one who had answered turned toward Dax. “If’n you can git the saddle on her you’re free to ride her.”
“Thank you,” Dax said politely. He placed two hands on the top railing and vaulted over.
Fat Cat bent down to crawl through, but it was no use. He was too big. When he straightened up he saw the grins on their faces. Angrily he put his foot on the bottom rail to climb over. The rail broke under his weight.
He stood there looking down at the broken rail while their shouts of laughter echoed in his ears. When he looked up, a pleasant smile was back on his lips. “I think I better use the gate, no?”
He opened the gate and came into the corral. “Your fences are not made for the weight of men. They must be made for boys, no?”
“Not men like you, Mex,” the youngest of them said.
“I am not Mexican, señor,” Fat Cat said in a dignified voice. “I am Corteguayan.”
“Same thing,” the hand holding the saddle said, “all them greaser countries.”
Fat Cat turned toward him, his eyes beginning to glint dangerously deep in their layers of fat. Dax’s voice kept him from answering. “Take the saddle, Fat Cat.”
Silently Fat Cat took the saddle, while Dax walked around to the head of the mare. The man who had given it to him picked up a lariat and began to twirl it idly. Dax picked up the mare’s lead rope. “You men go back to the fence,” he said pleasantly, “you are making her nervous.”
Silently the men drew back against the fence. Dax began to whisper softly to the animal in Spanish. “You are the most beautiful of mares.” Horses and women. They were all the same. They loved flattery. He kept on talking to her softly, singing her praises, until at last she allowed him to take her head against his chest his arm shielding her eyes. He nodded to Fat Cat.
In a moment, the saddle was in place and cinched tightly. Before the mare even had a chance to react, Dax was on her, his legs and knees gripping tightly against her sides. The mare stood there for a full second before she realized that he was on her. Then she went straight up in the air and came down stiff legged.
Dax took up the shock with his legs, all the while still speaking softly to her. She took off on a tangent down the corral, bucking and twisting as she went, but there was nothing she could do to dislodge the man on her back. At the far end she turned and began sunfishing her way back. Halfway she ran out of strength and stopped in her tracks, her sides heaving.
Dax still kept stroking her neck and whispering. After a few moments he reined her in and started back up the corral with her. In front of the hands at the fence, he turned her around until her rump was toward them, then he agilely slipped from the saddle. “You don’t have to be afraid of her now.”
They stared at him. He was still stroking the mare’s neck. “Are you callin’ us cowards?” The man’s voice was harsh, the lariat still twisting in his hands.
Dax glanced at him contemptuously for a moment, then turned back to the horse without answering. A moment later, the lariat dropped around his shoulders, pulling him roughly away from the horse. He half stumbled backward, almost fell, then caught his balance and turned.
The man holding the other end of the lariat was smiling. “Were you callin’ me an’ my friends cowards, greaser?”
From the corner of his eyes Dax caught a glimpse of Fat Cat moving toward them. With a quick gesture, he stopped him. The hand took the gesture for a sign of fear and pulled at the rope. Dax stumbled, went to his knees, and pitched face forward onto the ground just as Marcel and Horgan and several other men came into view around the house.
Marcel reacted swiftly when he saw what was happening. He still remembered the savagery at Ventimiglia. “You better stop your men, Mr. Horgan. They will get hurt!”
Horgan chuckled in a pleased voice. He was a big man. And this was his kind of Texas humor. “My boys kin take care of themselves. They’re just funnin’. They love to josh tenderfeet.”
Marcel looked at his host, who was surveying the corral with a pleased smile. He shrugged with typical Gallic resignation.
Fat Cat was leaning against the fence, and the hands had moved forward until they were standing over Dax. The man with the lariat looked down. He jerked sharply at the rope. The grin on his face froze into a look of surprise as it suddenly c
ame away in his hands, then turned into a scream of pain as Dax broke his knee with the flat of his hand. He hadn’t quite hit the ground when Dax, coming up, caught the second man with a straight arm in the rib cage.
Horgan and the others were standing more than twenty feet away but they could hear the sharp snap of the man’s ribs cracking as he collapsed. Dax began to straighten up as the third man came up behind him. But that was about as far as he got, for by then Fat Cat had him garroted with part of the rope that had fallen to the ground, and was shaking him like a terrier with a rat.
“Fat Cat!” Dax’s voice was sharp.
Fat Cat’s eyes turned toward him.
“Basta!”
Fat Cat nodded. Abruptly he let go of the man. The hand sank to his knees, gasping for breath, his face still congested and almost purple, his fingers rubbing his throat. The other two stared up in pain and horror.
“In my country, señores,” Fat Cat said in a voice thick with contempt, “even the children can take better care of themselves. You would not last one day in the jungle.”
Dax turned back to the mare, who was still standing there, her sides heaving, her legs trembling. Soothingly he stroked her neck. “Get some water for the mare, Fat Cat,” Dax said quietly. “She must be very thirsty.”
Fat Cat turned. His round, smooth face didn’t change expression as he saw Horgan and the others hurrying into the corral. “Buenos dias, señores,” he said politely.
Marcel came into the room. He was carrying a sheaf of papers under his arm. “I hope I haven’t kept you waiting, gentlemen?”
“No, Mr. Campion,” Horgan said. He closed the door behind Marcel. “If you’re ready, we can start now.”
Marcel nodded. He looked around the room. There were five men there besides himself. Dax, Cal Rainey, Horgan and his two associates, Davis and Landing, both well-known oilmen. Their faces were expressionless; they were sure of their own position, and waiting for Marcel to prove his. Marcel took a deep breath.
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