Nothing Ventured

by Roderick Price

  “Hi, sorry I’m late. Soccer scrimmage tonight was supposed to be for an hour, but it ran over and I had to wait.” It was Liz. Martin’s estranged wife. Liz.

  “No problem. I just got here and ordered us a glass of champagne. Hope that’s all right,” said Hilton.

  “Champagne, how nice. What’s the special occasion?”

  “Well two things really. For one thing, I had a very profitable day. More importantly, I’m spending dinner with a beautiful woman. To you.” Hilton raised his glass, his fat gold Rolex peaking from beneath his sleeve.

  She raised her glass in return. Hilton was looking very nice tonight. Great suit. Navy, double breasted, her favorite. She could tell he’d had a long but apparently rewarding day. “Here’s to you, too,” and she put the glass to her lips sipping the champagne. Placing her glass back on the bar, she noticed her lipstick marks on the glass. “So, what made it such a rewarding day?”

  “Oh, nothing special, I guess. You know, I’m to the point where I mostly just manage people these days, but today one of my key guys was out, so I had to get my hands dirty.” Hilton smiled to himself. “Yeah, I had to do a little ass kicking today. Kind of good to know you haven’t lost your touch.” Hilton looked again at Martin’s wife, smiling back at him.

  She smiled back at him and picked up her glass. “Here’s to not losing your touch.”

  Hilton smiled and clinked his glass against hers. “To not losing your touch.” He drank down the rest of his champagne, watching her lips through the bottom of her glass. He had arranged this date more than a week ago. Even though the French were in town, he told them he had dinner plans. A lot of times the French didn’t even head out for dinner until nine. Now he smiled again at the irony of it all and waved the bartender over for another round. It was less than an hour ago that he was putting a gun to Martin’s head. Now he reached out with his left hand and gently brushed Liz’s hair back from her face and then ran his hand slowly down the side of her face and over the bare shoulders of her black spaghetti-strap dress. She could have pulled away from him or given him a knowing look, but instead she sat motionless and looked back into his eyes as he ran his hand over her shoulders and down her back.

  The maître de led them to a booth in the corner that Hilton had picked out earlier. He slid in next to her and ran his hand up her thigh. This was all about power. Money and power. Beating the shit out of Martin and leaving him to grovel around on the floor in handcuffs had been one thing. Now, just an hour later, Hilton was sitting in a dark bar, feeling up Martin’s wife.

  CHAPTER 41

  “So, there is oil underground. A lot of it?” asked Governor Conlan.

  The governor had been out sailing on Lake Mendota with one of the insurance executives from Milwaukee. It just so happened that this insurance company had not only been one of the largest donors to the governor’s last campaign, they also kept a large yacht at anchor down by the Edgewater Hotel. You could walk from the Capitol steps to the dock in five minutes. It wasn’t even a very exclusive thing anymore to go out on it for an afternoon cruise or an evening dinner. State senators, representatives, the attorney general, almost everyone that worked in the Capitol referred to the boat by the name that had been cleverly painted in forest green script across the stern, “O’Fishal Business.” It got a lot of use when the legislature was debating health care reform, or when the Wisconsin Insurance Commission was doing rate reviews, and of course, when an election was nearing. When her secretary had been told that the governor was out on “official business” for the rest of the day, Taylor called one of the governor’s aides on his cellular phone, and about an hour later the boat was docking back at The Edgewater. They took an empty conference room at The Edgewater.

  Conlan began, “So it’s a huge oil find. And it’s under state land?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” said Taylor. “All we know is that some guy called from the Department of Energy in Washington and was looking for some old digital tapes that could show whether or not there is oil underground. It’s crazy. Apparently, they are seismic tapes made back during the Great Depression. We really don’t know for sure exactly where the oil is or how much.”

  Rick Amery was there. “But Dr. Reich here, just said that the tapes showed there was a lot of oil underground. Isn’t that what you said Dr. Reich?” Reich was dean of the School of Geology at the University of Wisconsin. Texas and UPenn were the top-rated schools in the US, but Wisconsin was rated a respectable seventh.

  “Well I only looked at one tape this morning, but yes, it definitely showed evidence of a major oil field underground.”

  “How big is it?” asked the governor.

  “That’s very hard to say governor. I’ve only looked at one tape, but it looked very promising.”

  “Promising,” said the governor, “what’s promising? Is there a million dollars of it, a hundred million, what?”

  “It’s impossible to tell…” said Dr. Reich.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just give me a number?”

  “Governor, the man is telling you he really isn’t prepared to give out a number yet. Before word of this gets out, we need to perform due diligence.” Taylor frowned at the man as the governor moved to the edge of his big wing-backed chair.

  “Just be quiet for one minute, Taylor, and let the man talk. This is a great break for my re-election campaign and I’m not going to let six months of your bullshit ‘due diligence’ take it away from me. You need to lighten up. Ever since that refinery expansion deal you’ve been a pain in the ass and I’m getting sick of it.” Taylor, flushed with rage, fought to hold her tongue. The governor looked back at the professor.

  Conlan was direct, “You know I control funding to UW Madison, and your geology department, right?” He paused.

  “The underlying structures are both very broad and very deep. The geophysical images, just the range that I looked at this morning, have hydrocarbon sands that are as large as any ever found in North America, with the possible exception of the North Slope.”

  “And the number is….”

  “The field could easily be worth ten billion dollars, maybe more. And yes, almost all of what I looked at is under state-owned forest land.” Taylor shook her head and stared at the ceiling as the governor whooped for joy.

  “Ten billion! Ten billion dollars? Are you out of your mind?” said the governor.

  “The find would be huge by North America standards and cause a short-term shakeup in oil prices. As you may know, governor, only every ten years or so is one of these giant oil fields discovered. They are called “elephants.” One was found in Abu Dhabi in the Middle East about six years ago. The Sultanate is about the size of Rhode Island and over the last six years it has produced over one hundred billion dollars of oil from its reserves.”

  “Right,” said the governor barely containing his enthusiasm, “and we were sitting right here on top of the damn tapes until we stumbled onto them, right?”

  “Your voters may not find it especially flattering to hear you say that we ‘stumbled onto them,’ governor.” It was Amery, and the governor shot him a dirty look.

  “Right, right, I know. Jesus, Amery, I’m not going to tell anybody we stumbled into something. Let’s see, we need to say we were undergoing a strategic review or something. Let me think about that. Ten billion dollars, maybe more. How soon can you look at the rest of the tapes?”

  “We can look them over tomorrow and see if the other six are consistent with the first one. The tape is in very good condition but it’s on a rare, obsolete format that takes us a few hours per tape to convert.”

  Taylor smiled to herself as she recalled Martin talking with such enthusiasm at the super-fast new digital translator he had used back in Chicago. These guys were the kiddy corps.

  “So on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. I could hold a press conference,” the governor said.

  Taylor jumped in, “Jeez governor, give them until next week. What
difference will a few days make? On something this big we have to have all of the facts.”

  “Taylor, again would you please just shut up. This is my baby now. If my memory serves me right, you are appointed by my administration, and you serve at the discretion of my administration.”

  “So, if I disagree with your approach, you’re going to fire me?” Taylor asked intently.

  “We’re not saying we would fire you, we just need you to be a team player,” said Amery, the governor’s campaign finance lead.

  “I won’t stand in your way on this governor. I’m not sure I could even if I wanted to, but if someone asks me, I’m going to strongly remind everyone that I believe we should proceed with extreme caution until we know the size, the location and the characteristics of our discovery.” Taylor was being stately, judicious, careful.

  “Fine,” said the governor, “if someone asks you, it’s fine with me if you ask for caution. Tell them all you want about the need to take time on this. I just don’t want you running your mouth at my press conference on Thursday.”

  “Fine.” Taylor gritted her teeth.

  “And between now and then I want a lid on this—not a word to anyone. If I found out somebody even talked to their mother about this I’m coming after them. Got it, everybody? Research, that includes you, too. Lock down your department if you have to.” He saw everybody nod in agreement, except Taylor, who was staring out the window, seemingly bored.

  “Get it Taylor?” He asked.

  “Yeah got it. I only talk to my mother on Sunday nights anyway.” Taylor was smug.

  “Good,” said the governor. “Meeting adjourned.”

  CHAPTER 42

  After he had roughed up Martin, Hilton had gotten increasingly nervous. He hadn’t heard from Larry. He had always fancied he had some sort of sixth sense that would tell him when things were wrong. Larry wasn’t returning his calls. He knew that something was just not right. First thing in the morning, Hilton had told the people in accounting that he wanted to look over the expense accounts for some of his direct reports and contractors. Accounting had brought in a huge stack of personnel and payroll files. Hilton had long had Larry on the vendor list as an approved independent contractor. Prolea was actually paying Larry’s expenses. As soon as accounting left Hilton’s office, he went straight for Larry’s expense receipts. They had been processed only yesterday. He made notes of where in Wisconsin Larry was staying, where Larry was eating dinner. He also found a Hertz receipt. Larry had rented a gold Oldsmobile Aurora; a four-door. Larry would be easy to find. His work finished, Hilton left all of the files lay on his desk for two hours, while he did other business. Then he shuffled through the rest of them and called accounting to come and get them. He shared the thought with the accounting lady that he needed to keep everyone on their toes on expense reporting. Little did she know that his only purpose had been to track down Larry. On his cellular phone, Hilton had called his personal travel agent to make travel arrangements, a direct flight from Houston into Minneapolis. He asked that the bill be addressed to him personally. There was no sense in leaving a trail on this one.

  Hilton had an easy flight and drove to Iron River, Wisconsin, and had gotten to Deep Lake Lodge that evening. Only two of the cabins were even rented. Hilton found it easy to find the gold four-door Aurora in the parking lot. It was Larry’s rental car from Minneapolis. Hilton had stopped along the way and bought coffee, a bag of donuts, some microwave frozen entrees and the local newspaper. He wasn’t going out. Best to not be visible to anybody in town unless he had to be. Hilton booked a cheap room down the road at the Northstar motel. The next morning, Hilton was up at 5:00 a.m. He made coffee in his room, had a quick snack and then drove over to Deep Lake Lodge and parked up the hill. Hilton watched patiently until 8:15 a.m. when he saw Larry drive out of the resort, stop dutifully at the four-way stop, and head west on Highway 2, probably to get some breakfast.

  Once inside Larry’s cabin, Hilton worked quickly but carefully, sifting through Larry’s suitcases, a duffel bag, and a hardback Italian leather briefcase. After five minutes, he had found nothing of interest. He looked over toward a black, potbellied stove and then he saw a fat red accordion business file sitting on a hard-backed wooden chair by the kitchen table. He had missed it earlier. Careful to maintain the position and the order of the papers inside, Hilton spent half an hour reviewing document after document. He found the Michigan newspaper article about “Elephant Hunting in Michigan.” He found Martin’s business papers and checkbook that Martin had given to Larry. If all were going according to plan, Hilton would replace the materials and drift silently back out of the cabin and back to Houston. Larry would never know that Hilton had visited. But slowly, with rage building upon rage, Hilton found that Larry had, in fact, leased fifteen of the eighteen large private tracts within the borders of the state forest. But on the third page of the lease, the signatory block, where each of the old farmers had perhaps grudgingly made their mark, Hilton found that Larry had not signed these leases on behalf of the company that Martin had set up. He hadn’t signed them in Prolea’s company name either. Larry had signed these leases in his own name. They were made out to Walker Resources LLC. It was Larry Walker’s own company. Hilton knew Larry could be dangerous, but he thought he could trust him. Hilton had often employed Larry when Larry was down on his luck. Now clearly, Larry had taken this chance to double-cross Hilton and make money for himself. Hilton could get these leases fixed—he had friends who could easily mimic the signatures of the parties. Hilton put all of the papers back into the big file and wrapped it up. As long as the landowners got their money, nobody would ever know the difference. That was not the problem. Larry was the problem. Hilton had already bought out Martin. It had cost him some money, but it had been easy. Now it looked like he had to deal with Larry. Permanently. He could threaten Larry all day long, but Larry wouldn’t crack. And Larry was dangerous. Martin was a cupcake compared to Larry. Scaring the shit out of Martin and paying him off was easy enough. Hilton knew that he had to take care of this today, in a small, dark cabin in northern Wisconsin. He glanced over at the stove again, and then he saw a heavy, three-foot long, iron poker.

  Still spitting snow in the dark hours of early evening, Larry Walker saw a nice crowd of cars at Deep Lake Lodge. Just for a moment, he considered pulling directly into the upper parking lot right by the bar to avoid the walk back up the hill. Then, because he wanted to get into a more comfortable pair of pants and because he had picked up a few things at the grocery store, he relented and drove down the narrow birch-lined drive to his cabin down by the lake. The groceries did not need to go into the refrigerator. In this cold they would be fine in the back seat. But he had planned on being back before dark, and now he wanted to get everything into the cabin before it got too late. He had stopped to see one of the three remaining landowners who had not yet signed. The guy had actually invited him in. It turned out the couple’s daughter had just gotten accepted at St. Olaf’s over in Northfield, and the whole family was quietly proud. The girl had even talked about being a Pastor someday. Yet, while the girl had qualified for substantial scholarships, it seemed the family was still caught short trying to find tuition at the exclusive Lutheran liberal arts college forty miles from Minneapolis. After more than an hour of low-key visiting and coffee drinking, the man had asked Larry to propose a deal where he got enough upfront cash each of the next two years to cover tuition. While the deal for Larry was easy to do, Larry had moved very slowly and deliberately to describe and then enter the terms into the standard agreement that the man would sign. While Larry knew that a single elderly eccentric like old Mel Baker would never sign, he had held out hope for this couple and his patience had been rewarded. They had signed, and they were happy. It had been a good day.

  Going down the lane in his car, he could peer down the hill, noticing the roof of his cabin covered with a dusting of snow. In the moonlight he could still see the asbestos shingles
in a wide, red circle around the stovepipe from the old pot-bellied stove he used for heat. The steps down to the cabin were made from reclaimed railroad ties. Larry stepped carefully on each of them because they were a little slippery. He carefully looked for traction on each step before putting his full weight forward and moving to the next step. Carrying his old, leather briefcase with the stickers in one hand and the bag of groceries in the other, he slid his key into the rickety old lock and pushed the door open. Making his way into the dark cabin, the smell of a damp, cold hearth reminded him of the need to restart the fire in the old wood stove which was waiting silently for him over in the corner. Leaving the door ajar, Larry stepped toward the kitchen table, bending at the knees slightly to ease the grocery bag onto the table. From behind the door, Larry heard the slightest movement and as he turned, he felt the crush of cold steel across the back of his neck. Immediately his legs collapsed under him and he fell backward, his briefcase falling to the floor, the groceries spilling back over him like so many little Christmas packages. Taking a blow that would have immediately killed most men, he laid on his back with eyes open, his spinal column severed. A large, dark mass loomed above him as he laid motionless in terror. His instincts were to pull himself up, to crane his neck around to address his attacker, but dumbly his body lay there in an odd, glowing warmth. In wispy, fleeting moments, he recalled awakening in the morning in the mountains in a cozy, down sleeping bag in the cold morning air. He could visualize the moisture from his breathing gathered in a silvery dewy meadow across the top of his tent. Drifting in weightlessness, out through the flap of the tent, he saw the clear snow-covered peaks of the Canadian Rockies and recognized himself on a backpacking trip he had taken to the Canadian Rockies when he was just nineteen. Suddenly, his eyes focused, and he surveyed the bare wooden trusses forming the rafters of his tiny cabin that had been his home for the last few days. In the faint light, he could see where steel plates had been used to join together two-by-fours in an even line across the roof of his kitchen. Then, fighting to focus his eyes, Larry saw towering above him the familiar face of Hilton Sinclair. Hilton’s angry face was framed by those kitchen rafters. Larry saw Hilton raise up the black, roughly formed, iron poker that Larry had used to stoke the fire. As a tyrant now, with both hands clenching the weapon, with all his might, Hilton again brought down the heavy iron rod with full force across Larry’s forehead. Then everything went dark. Hilton gathered up all of the files, all of the leases that Larry had signed, anything that looked like it related to business and carried it out to his car and headed back to Houston.