Getting Somewhere

by Eric Hodges

CHAPTER 10

  THE SET UP

  The day started slowly for Alice, she had no place to go. Bob went off to the shop to keep up normal appearances and Wheeler assured him nothing was going to happen during the day. Wheeler did, however, ask him to gas up the shop truck and close up promptly at five. Bob was getting to understand Wheeler’s odd motivations and didn’t ask why, he just agreed and left.

  Alice brought more coffee and the two of them planned a bit longer at the kitchen table.

  “Is there anything on for today, Wheeler?”

  “I’m trying to figure out how we get a look at the balance sheet for the casino, I want to know if it is making money. Any ideas?”

  “We could break into the accountant’s office and rifle the files?” She said it as a question but the grin canceled her credibility. “You’re the great researcher, how about the internet?”

  “We can’t get the numbers by just entering names and dates” Wheeler said, searching both his inner and outer memory banks. Both shelves were bare but there was a tickle of something else, maybe an instruction. He would just pay attention and let it come in when it wanted to arrive.

  “What about Davies and Wix” Alice pressed on “what do they do with the money? If they are tapping the casino, and probably working other schemes, there has to be more money than we saw last night. They can’t just put the money in their savings account at the bank, can they?”

  “I think you’re on to something.” Wheeler didn’t know why but Alice’s idea had a ring of truth that intrigued him. “What do they do with the money? It goes into the back door of the office, but then where?” They were both staring out into space now and not getting much traction.

  Wheeler was staring but his mind was on a forked path, one fork was the unanswerable money question and the other fork was the urge to go, to be somewhere. He realized the tickle he sensed a moment ago had grown while he wasn’t paying attention and said “Get your stuff, it’s time to go.”

  Alice blinked herself back into the room and replied with a confused “Huh?”

  Wheeler collected her and they were off in the VW headed into Eaton. He was pleasantly enjoying the drive because there was no rush. Alice asked “Where are we going? Do you have a lead on the money?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It feels like it is something else but it’s related. I’ll know before long, we’re almost into town.” He drove in on Main Street, the only way in, and pulled down the side street to the parking place they used to watch the bakery truck unload. “This must be it” he said, settling into the quiet now that the engine was turned off. VW didn’t make the most hushed of car engines.

  Alice looked out the windshield to the back of the buildings viewing the single vehicle, a black Chevy Suburban with tinted windows. It reminded her of the FBI trucks from the cop shows on television. “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  “I don’t know yet but it will probably come in or go out of the back door to Davies and Wix, right there” he punctuated his sentence with an imaginary thumb and finger gun. As if right on cue, the back door slammed open and Walt Carter stomped out the door, huffing over to the Suburban. Even from this distance, Alice and Wheeler could tell he was very angry. Walt climbed in behind the tinted window and in seconds he was racing out of the parking lot and heading away from the VW.

  When it was quiet again Wheeler broke the silence “I guess you were right about Davies and Wix.”

  “About the money? What did I say?”

  “No, not about the money, the schemes. If they were involved with Walt in a scam, maybe they are now scamming Walt.” Now Wheeler was on a roll. “Money greases all kinds of squeaky wheels and old Walt’s wheels sure look squeaky to me and he's getting no grease.”

  “I agree with that, but what is the scam and how do we prove any of this, one way or the other?” Alice was doing an admirable job sleuthing the facts, but there was still something missing. They had little to go on.

  “Let’s think about this” Wheeler began “We have Walt desperate to redo his loan, there is a hazy trail of timing linking all three of them to the casino and there is cash coming out of the casino into Davies and Wix.”

  “You realize we don’t really know any of this?” Alice reminded him.

  Wheeler jumped into action, starting the VW and putting it into gear in one fluid motion and said “Let’s go” as he pushed bus up to breakneck legal speed, out onto Main Street toward the casino.

  “Do we know any of this?” Alice asked, wondering if she had struck a chord.

  “Oh no, it’s not that,” Wheeler said, attentive to his driving. “I just got a powerful urge to lose five bucks on the slots.” He glanced over at her with a big, smug grin, knowing he had just picked her up in his whirlwind.

  “What’s at the casino?” she exclaimed, “Did you get something?”

  “All I got is that we have to be there as fast as we can” he said. “This one feels important, I hope we don’t miss it.”

  The drive was familiar to Wheeler this time, as he expertly negotiated the parking lot and pulled in trying to get out even before the bus stopped. Alice followed right on his heels and he handed her some money.

  “You stay toward the middle of the room and keep me in sight and you keep out of sight. I don’t want them to recognize you. I need to go over to the Exchange window.” Wheeler finished his instructions as the automatic doors opened. He saw the cameras and hoped they would not be a problem. Alice wondered if he had been here before. There was an exchange window at the back and she could easily hide behind the slot machines littered throughout the facility.

  Wheeler made his way through the medium crowd, the blinking machines and the people clotted along his way. He made good speed and didn’t appear to be anything but another patron looking to cash in or cash out. He got $10 in tokens and laughed to himself, thinking his $10 was real money and the cashier thought he was just a cheapskate. He appeared to wander the machines looking for the best one as he made his way toward the hallway behind the Exchange booth.

  The crowd was thin here and he had to be careful. He leaned against the wall just inside the hallway looking out toward the gambling floor giving the best impression he could be a weary gambler making heavy decisions. His true purpose was to listen down the hall to locate Walt Carter. The way Walt left Eaton, he should not be hard to find but he didn’t hear anything behind him. Wheeler moved his attention to his inner senses and then wandered away in search of another hall.

  He found the hallway next to the money exchange at the rear of the main floor. The entry doors to the hallway were between the exchange booth and another booth labeled Guest Services and Security. He approached the Guest Services counter to speak to the attractive, young woman behind the counter wearing a brief cocktail dress and too much makeup.

  “Yes sir, can I help you?” Too perky, Wheeler thought.

  “Yes, I hope so. I have some tokens that I got in Shreveport from the Watonka Reservation Casino, and I wondered if I might use them here?”

  “No, I’m sorry sir, we only honor our own tokens” she said with a smile that would melt ice cubes. Wheeler wanted to draw this out as long as he could because this was the best vantage point he could get to monitor the hallway.

  “That’s too bad, I have quite a few” he said, “I just thought Watonaka, your place, might be associated with the Watonka in Shreveport. Are they associated in any way, do you know?”

  “I’m sorry sir, I wouldn’t know” she said with that same smile. She was well practiced.

  “Do they give you people any of the heritage of the tribe and the reservation? That stuff fascinates me.” Now Wheeler was playing a passable role of wide-eyed tourist, digging for background.

  Now he could hear a commotion down the hall when someone opened a door. It stayed open and he could hear “…there has to be money, look at the crowds!” There was murmuring he could not hear, and then “I’m going to get to
the bottom of this,” there was a pause, and then a fragment “...another set of books.” Walt Carter stormed out of the open door and stomped down the hallway, away from Wheeler.

  “Thanks” Wheeler said to the Guest Services woman and quickly headed out toward the front entrance, gathering up Alice on the way.

  “I saw Walt, he still looks mad” Alice said, jogging to keep up. “Did you learn anything?”

  “He confirmed one of our theories, he is getting swindled.” Wheeler and Alice were at the VW now and Wheeler said “Let’s see where he’s going.” They followed Walt’s black Suburban back to town. The VW couldn’t really keep up but they could see Suburban in the distance occasionally. When they pulled in to Eaton, it was its normal, placid self with no sign of the Suburban.

  “Go around the side street” Alice said, pointing to the right. “Then go back down Grover Street so we can see behind the buildings on Main.” They spotted the big black Suburban parked behind the bank. Wheeler stopped on the side street to provide them with a good view and waited. Walt came out the rear entrance of the bank and walked slowly to his truck, got in and drove away just as slowly.

  “Whatever it was, they said no” Wheeler commented. After they had stared at noting at the back of the bank, he continued “But you know, I have an idea, let’s throw him a life raft.”

  “Why ever would you want to do that?” Alice exclaimed, showing both shock and disbelief.

  “You’ll have to trust me on this, it is not just a neighborly task I am contemplating, it is a beginning.”

  Alice once again, said “Okay” to Wheeler’s mystery but was willing to go along with it. “Where are we going?”

  “Just relax in my German chariot and you will see at once” Wheeler said with a flourish, starting the bus and driving off.

  He drove all of three blocks, parking in the Land Commissioner’s Office parking lot.

  “Isn’t this where you have doing most of your research? What else do we need to know?” Alice said as she got out of the VW and followed Wheeler into the building.

  As they entered the building Wheeler whispered “Just follow my lead, we are planting information, not collecting it.”

  Before Alice could respond they were at the counter in front of the same young man in the short sleeve shirt and he said “Hi Alice, what brings you in here?”

  “Hi Dave, I’m here to help my friend Wheeler here do some more research.” Wheeler looked at her a moment surprised and impressed. She came up with a perfect cover.

  “Hi, I’m Wheeler. Good to see you again.” He reached over the counter with an open hand, they shook.

  “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  “I’m interested to find out what I can about oil rights to Ms. Keefer’s farm. I work for Calvin T. Boone down in Texas, he’s an oil man, you probably haven't heard of him.” Wheeler delivered his rapid fire introduction to put young Dave off balance.

  “No, I can’t say as I have” Dave stammered.

  “I’m his soil geologist and I must say, I might have found a spectacular opportunity for Mr. Boone on Ms. Keefer’s farm. Before I go any further, I must say that Mr. Boone and I would be very pleased if you would keep this conversation confidential, it avoids complications. Could you do that Dave?” Wheeler planned for this to be spread out in the community in seconds.

  “I can do that Mr. Wheeler, sure” Dave said with a hint of excitement. Poor guy, Wheeler thought, he never gets anything this juicy.

  “Excellent Dave, we really do need to keep this quiet” Wheeler continued, planting the hook real deep then setting it. “What I need to know is who owns the mineral rights below the farm? Are they specified in the land grant?”

  Dave looked away and surveyed the files, cabinets and documents to locate the original paperwork in his head. “I have an idea” he said as he walked down an aisle, ignoring them. He returned with a dog-eared folder thick with mismatched pages and placed it on the counter.

  “Let’s see, this is the oldest file I have on original grants. Back then the government issued grants that sparsely detailed plot locations, new owners and laughable amounts of money” he said as he carefully thumbed through the folder. The papers were brown, crinkly and penned by an artistic hand. “The information back then, mostly the 1870’s and 1880’s, didn’t really say what the rights were, they just defined ownership and the omission today is interpreted as full rights.” Dave was engrossed in his search and paid no attention to Alice and Wheeler. They had pushed his ‘Go’ button and he was off and running.

  “Here it is, the oldest grant deed to the Keefer property” Dave said, carefully placing the document on the counter so Alice and Wheeler could see it. It was a single page that was very official looking but had almost no content. “Notice the absence of definitions, like I was saying. This is typical of the period.”

  They all read the document, Wheeler appearing to be an expert, Dave and Alice looking on expectantly. “Excellent” Wheeler said quietly. “This is just what I wanted to see.” He turned to Alice “Ms. Keefer, I will bring the core drilling rig out immediately and find out exactly how far down we have to go” Wheeler said, making sure Dave could hear. “This whole area could be a major producer and we need to get going fast.”

  Wheeler turned to Dave “Thank you for your cooperation, Dave. Remember what I said.”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Wheeler, you can trust me.” Wheeler and Alice walked out to the bus bursting with excitement, holding back the desire to laugh out loud.

  Inside the building, Dave dialed a memorized number. “Mr. Wix? This is Dave down at the Land office.”