Double, Double, Oil and Trouble

by Emma Lathen

  “You mean the luscious Jill?” Charlie accused with a grin. As usual, he had not let business interfere with a lively interest in passing female acquaintances. “You’re going to have to get along without her, John.

  “She’s giving the rainy season here a miss. And guess where she’s gone.”

  “The South of France?” The minute he spoke Thatcher realized he was missing something.

  “Baghdad! It seems Sheikh Yemen’s invitation was irresistible. Ah well,” said Charlie tolerantly, “I’m glad somebody’s getting some benefit out of this Noss Head deal.”

  Thatcher took a larger view. “Come, come,” he objected. “Let’s not forget a substantial supply of oil for Europe.”

  Chapter 20

  Twin Gushers

  Charlie Trinkam’s bon vivant attitude to life and its concomitants was an after-hours affair. From nine to five he abided by the old-fashioned precept that the simplest way to undertake a task is to get right down to it.

  When he arrived at Macklin’s office the next morning, prepared to draft the final loan agreement, he had metaphorically rolled up his sleeves and sharpened his pencil. At first, the omens were propitious. Arthur Shute presented him with a private office, a private secretary, and the latest dictating equipment. He then rendered all these aids to productivity completely nugatory by refusing to leave.

  “You’re sure you’ve got everything you need?” he asked for the fifth time.

  “Absolutely. I can lock myself in and start plugging away,” Charlie said hopefully.

  But Shute settled further into his chair and lit a pipe. “As soon as we finalize the paperwork, I propose moving forward with Noss Head and putting the Wylie deaths behind us.”

  “Then I’d better hop to it. I certainly don’t want to hold up Noss Head.”

  Charlie had intended his words as a crowbar to pry Macklin’s president from his resting place. Instead they transfixed him.

  “I am glad to hear you agree with me,” said Shute as if a great weight had been lifted from him. “After all, there can scarcely be any doubt that the important thing is the oil. From a social point of view, even from a humanitarian point of view, the sooner Europe gets it, the better.”

  “I’m all for more oil.” Charlie had been victimized before by businessmen experiencing sudden moral qualms about the profit motive. To forestall turgid elaboration by Shute, he added: “Even if someone makes a buck out of it.”

  “Exactly,” Shute beamed. “Understand, if corrective action were possible, I would be the first to insist on it. I am very mindful of the fact that Roberta Ore Simpson expected me to put a stop to these practices. But with Wylie dead, there is no alternative—except a futile washing of our dirty linen in public.”

  Charlie realized he had misjudged his man. Shute was merely following in John Thatcher’s footsteps by theorizing that Engelhart had bribed Wylie to disappear for the Noss Head negotiations. And reminding Shute that Miss Simpson had intended to stop Macklin’s employees from giving, rather than taking, bribes would be mere carping.

  “You may find a couple of flaws in your idea if you look further,” he remarked. “Have you talked this over with Cramer?”

  “I tried to,” answered Shute plaintively, making it all too clear why he was reduced to seeking solace from an outsider. “Of course, Hugo agrees with me, but nothing will get him to admit it. He simply blows up when I ask him to consider the facts. Naturally, he feels he’s under the gun because he’s the one who hired Wylie. But nobody could possibly blame him for failing to foresee what happened.”

  So much for shoving Arthur Shute out of this office and into Cramer’s. Ostentatiously Charlie began feeding a new reel of tape into his recorder. “Maybe that’s not what he’s worried about. Maybe Hugo simply doesn’t go along with you.”

  “Nonsense!” Blind to all evidence of activity, Shute leaned forward earnestly. “Just listen to what he proposes. Instead of giving Paul Volpe full authority in Europe, Hugo thinks we should both stay over here to keep an eye on Noss Head. That is simply absurd. I have to get back to Houston, and very soon Hugo will, too. On top of that, he insists we get rid of Engelhart. I admit that I’d be happy to see the last of NDW under the circumstances. But it’s foolish to rock the boat. Particularly when everything has turned out so well.”

  This blatant display of egocentricity penetrated Charlie’s glaze of boredom. Macklin had its contract. Macklin’s black sheep, together with his ill-gotten gains, had disappeared from the stage. So everything was fine.

  “Not from Engelhart’s point of view,” he felt obliged to remonstrate.

  Shute stared. “I don’t see why not. He got what he wanted.”

  “How’s that again?”

  But Shute was talking to clarify his own doubts, not to dispel the confusion of others. “And while I may concede Engelhart’s mercenary guilt, I refuse to go further. I can tell that Hugo is playing with some wild fancies for which there is no foundation whatsoever. Why does he insist on looking for trouble? It’s not as if we didn’t have a perfectly good explanation at hand. Mrs. Wylie was part of the plot from the beginning. She killed her husband, thinking that would clear the way to over a million dollars. When it didn’t, she became depressed and killed herself.”

  At the beginning of his speech, Arthur Shute had been feeling his way from word to word. By the end, his voice was ringing with conviction.

  “I remember your trying to sell that one the other night to Livermore. It didn’t go over with a bang.”

  “That was different. I didn’t understand what was going on, then.” Shute was undismayed. “It’s been a real help, thrashing this out with you, Charlie. And it’s a relief to know that you see it my way. When I came in here, I wasn’t really certain in my own mind. After all, you can be ninety percent convinced of something, and still welcome another person’s opinion. Especially when it’s someone whose judgment you respect. I can truthfully say that I value give-and-take before coming to a decision. But now that I know you agree with my policy, I can regard the whole thing as settled.” At last he was rising from his chair and heading for the door.

  “Any time, Arthur,” Charlie growled, turning on his recorder and beginning to dictate at top volume in order to discourage any postscripts.

  Charlie should have finished his draft by noon. Thanks to Macklin’s president, he was late. Fortunately a patch of unusually free-flowing thought compensated for most of the damage. As a result, by one o’clock, he had not only corrected the typescript, he had even had time to diagnose why he and Arthur Shute had been at cross-purposes. Mellowed by these twin victories, he accepted Paul Volpe’s luncheon invitation. He was halfway through his tankard of ale before he noticed that his companion did not share his sense of well-being.

  “Nobody lets me alone,” Volpe answered, upon being challenged.

  “It doesn’t seem to be their strong point.”

  “Macklin’s bad enough, but now Betsy’s gone crazy. You remember all that business about going to have tea with Francesca and trying to pump her?”

  Charlie nodded. “Sure, you were there when she was telling me.”

  “Well, that wasn’t enough for Betsy. When she found out the police hadn’t uncovered a clue to the money in Dave’s apartment, she decided to have a stab at his office. So she called the switchboard and told them she was coming in to see if the office needed any redecorating for me. While she was there, she went through the drawers and the file cabinet and everything else she could find. Of course, she didn’t come up with a thing.”

  “So what’s the big deal?” Charlie asked. “Does Betsy want a million dollars to become one of the beautiful people?”

  Paul Volpe refused to be flippant. “No, that’s not it. But she’s got this bee in her bonnet about how I ought to have Dave’s job. When Hugo only came through with a watered-down version, she was burned up. All right, so I was burned up, too. But Betsy has to have a brainstorm. She figures that if I can help Macklin
recover its money, they’ll promote me out of gratitude. Why the hell can’t she leave it to me? I can manage a promotion without digging up any buried treasure. On top of that, I finally got it out of her why she’s always poormouthing Dave. You’ll never guess why!”

  “I won’t?” asked Charlie, confident he already knew.

  “It seems Dave made a pass at her the first time he visited us in Rome. And Betsy’s still steamed up about it.”

  Paul thought he was retailing wildly improbable behavior, but in the face of Charlie’s lack of response, he became defensive. “I thought women were supposed to be flattered by that sort of thing. I know damn well that when one of those Italian counts propositioned Betsy, she giggled about it for days.”

  Charlie Trinkam knew that women untouched by a suitor may regard him kindly. A wife whose loyalty to her husband is threatened, however momentarily, is likely to blame her tempter. And the stronger her marital affection, the more unforgiving her reaction. But he had no intention of exposing Paul Volpe to these depths.

  “I’ll bet her count was a passing acquaintance,” he said carefully. “But Dave Wylie was supposed to be your friend. Betsy didn’t like his trying to seduce her behind your back.”

  “That’s what Betsy said,” Volpe confessed, proving that great minds think alike. “Anyway, I wish she’d stop telling me how much better I’ll be at the job than Dave was. Particularly when Hugo Cramer has got different ideas.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Volpe frowned. “He’s another one who won’t let me alone. You’ve seen how it is with Klaus Engelhart. Every time I’m getting somewhere with Klaus, Hugo comes busting in and makes things ten times worse. There’s nothing wrong with Klaus. He may be a little stiff and formal, but there are thousands of guys like that in France and Italy. But for some reason, Hugo thinks I’m so wet behind the ears I’m going to let Klaus steal the pants off me.”

  Charlie was beginning to feel sorry for Paul Volpe. Unless the brass at Macklin broke down and opened some internal lines of communication, the misconceptions flying around were going to be compounded.

  “Poor old Hugo probably has something altogether different in mind,” he said.

  “Oh yeah? He may be poor old Hugo to you, but he’s my boss. And he’s not going to like this latest end-run by Shute. Nine chances out of ten, he’ll think I engineered the whole thing.” Given these sentiments, Paul Volpe did not sound half as downcast as he should have.

  “What end-run?” Charlie asked curiously. “Arthur Shute has been a busy little man this morning.”

  “There’s no reason I shouldn’t tell you. It’s going to be public tomorrow.” The grin that had been controlled so long finally surfaced. “An hour ago Shute gave me Dave’s job, the whole shebang. But don’t think it was a normal operation. Honest to God, you would have thought he was trying to hire me away from another company, he was so nervous about it. He’s breaking the news to Hugo over a steak. And he was full of hot air about how I’d stood by Macklin in the past and he knew I’d do it in the future.”

  “Son of a gun!” said Charlie to himself.

  “On top of that, he’s giving me a bigger salary than he gave Dave. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  “He’s paying you to keep your mouth shut.”

  The grin died a rapid death. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Volpe demanded with a face of stone.

  “Nothing to get uptight about,” Charlie reassured him. “Shute is scared that you spotted something or you will, and he wants to be sure it gets swept under the rug.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “Just that your esteemed president has convinced himself that Davidson Wylie bribed Engelhart to throw the Noss Head contest. And Shute is perfectly willing to kiss his million and a half good-bye, to keep it under wraps.”

  Volpe shook his head like a swimmer battling heavy seas. “But that’s plain crazy. You’ve heard Klaus. He expected to get Noss Head, and he still doesn’t understand why he didn’t. You can’t shut him up on the subject.”

  “Sure. But that’s exactly what he would say, if Shute’s little pipedream is true.”

  Volpe waved aside the objection. “Look, you weren’t here. Klaus busted his ass for NDW. You’ve gotten the wrong idea from seeing him and Hugo strike sparks off each other. Klaus made it a race right down to the wire.”

  Charlie Trinkam examined the younger man curiously. “You’ve got plenty to say about Engelhart’s probity. I don’t notice you rushing to Davidson Wylie’s defense.”

  “Dave?” Paul Volpe rasped a hand along his chin ruminatively. At last he said: “If you want to know, I can see Dave pulling a stunt like this easier than I can see him stealing the dough for himself. In fact, it would be right up his alley. Dave was a real schemer. And this way he’d be forcing Macklin to pay a whopping bribe, without the controller’s office knowing what he was up to.”

  “He’d be doing more than that,” reasoned Charlie, yielding to technical enthusiasm. “By staging a big public kidnapping he’d be forestalling any questions from the IRS or the SEC about the payment. They’d think it was a legitimate ransom. Hell, Macklin would get its tax writeoff without a quibble.”

  Paul Volpe was an engineer. He was necessarily familiar with tax deductions, but he was not overcome by their beauty.

  “I still say it’s a lot of horse water. Klaus made the most of Dave’s disappearance, and plenty of people were surprised that Hugo managed to pull Noss Head out of the bag. Besides, I suppose Shute doesn’t stop with bribery. He must think Klaus killed Dave when it looked as if he might talk.”

  “Not on your life!” Charlie chuckled. “That is most emphatically what Shute does not want people believing. How could he justify his inaction? Shute’s got Francesca figured for the bloodstained villain. She’s supposed to have murdered Wylie, thinking she could latch onto Klaus and all his shekels. When Klaus didn’t see it that way, she had nothing to look forward to but the police closing in.”

  For once, Volpe did not reject his president’s theorizing out of hand. “That’s the only part of this rigmarole that makes sense. If Dave was cooking up something with Klaus, he’d need a middleman. Dave could spend all the time in the world with the Department of Energy people, because he was selling them something. But he didn’t have any excuse to hobnob with the competition. He could’ve pretended to split from Francesca so she could set up the details. I suppose if she saw enough of Klaus, she could have persuaded herself she had him hooked.”

  Charlie remembered the titian hair, the ripe charms, the assured manner. “She didn’t look to me as if she was still making elementary mistakes. I wish I’d gotten to know the late Mrs. Wylie a little better,” he said regretfully. “There is just so much to be learned from bumping into a lady at a motel.”

  “Well, there’s no point in asking me. I don’t even understand Betsy.” Volpe spread his hands wide. “I’ve got to admit it. I don’t know the first thing about women.”

  Charlie could not keep a certain measure of self-satisfaction from his voice.

  “It’s a subject that repays study,” he recommended.

  Chapter 21

  Capping the Well

  John Thatcher, meanwhile, was touching home base.

  “Mr. Thatcher, you don’t shop at a store called Free Wheeling, do you? It’s on Eighth Avenue,” Miss Corsa asked during a pause.

  Eighth Avenue had very little meaning for Thatcher in New York, and none at all in London. “No,” he said absently. “Now, once you’ve told Kendrick to revise the option clauses—”

  “I didn’t think so,” Miss Corsa congratulated herself.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Thatcher. A Miss Corsa who interrupted was a Miss Corsa gripped by strong emotion.

  “$972,” she said, giving the full dimensions of some enormity.

  “A tidy sum,” he agreed, fleshing out these bare bones. “Who is charging me $972 and f
or what?”

  This was no leap in the dark. Miss Corsa not only double-checked his bills, she double-checked his monthly statements from the Sloan Guaranty Trust.

  “Wait a minute,” he corrected himself as his numerate faculty stirred. “My grandson’s birthday! That’s it. Somehow, one bicycle led to another.”

  “And all of them ten-speed,” said Miss Corsa dispassionately.

  Whether this was a criticism of grandparents or bicycles, Thatcher did not care to inquire. “At any rate, nobody has run amok with one of my credit cards,” he said lightly.

  Miss Corsa, who believed that eternal vigilance is the price of everything, preferred to treat the subject seriously or not at all.

  “After Mr. Kendrick revises the option clauses?”

  Thatcher finished Kendrick, approved several letters going out over his signature, and dictated a memorandum for the Investment Committee.

  “And that should take care of it,” he said, ticking off the last item on his list. “I’ll be calling tomorrow morning.”

  But the Sloan also had a list. “Mr. Lancer wants to talk to you,” said Miss Corsa. “He says that it is urgent. And Mr. Bowman, too.”

  Thatcher had relaxed prematurely. He continued doing so until it became evident that Miss Corsa herself wanted a word.

  “Do you know when you will be returning to the Sloan?”

  “I’m still not altogether sure,” said Thatcher. “With luck I may be able to finish here by the end of the week. If so, I’ll fly to New York and leave Trinkam to do the signing. I can take care of the tickets at this end.”

  There was a slight hesitation, the significance of which eluded him. But Miss Corsa did not let Mr. Elliman color her response.

  “Fine, Mr. Thatcher.”

  “I assume Lancer wants to talk about Macklin?” Thatcher asked, as if it were not inevitable.

  “He did say it was urgent,” she repeated, before unbending. “I do know that he has been in conference with Miss Simpson.”

  “Tell him I’ll call back later, and put me through to Bowman,” said Thatcher decisively.