The Dryline. Jack Grubbs
out a huge breath.
The phone rang. Great timing.
“Tom Seiler.”
Don said, “Hey, compadre. I’m just checking out how you’re doing. How’re you doing?”
Doodling circles on the paper, Tom replied, “Good time to call. I’ve got a question.”
“Fire away.”
“Assuming that my changes in your design leave us with a robust system, would a production run last sixteen hours a day?” Tom changed his doodle circles to horizontal lines beneath his mathematical calculations.
Don sensed Tom was looking at the payoff to a solid system. “At a minimum.”
Tom concluded the questioning. “How about an average of three barrels an hour and eighty dollars a barrel as the price?”
“You’re probably low on all estimates. I predict the ‘up’ time, the product flow, and the cost will be more once we get the final system in operation.” Don gave a thumbs-up to Cindy then asked Tom, “Can you FedEx the plans to me? I’d like to see them and then send them to Permian Machining in Odessa.”
“I’ll fax the small drawings right away and send the large ones tomorrow. I’ll also attach them to an e-mail. If they look good to you, I’ll send final hard copies to you and Permian. If there are any problems we can solve it by tomorrow with little time lost. Paige will have run an analysis of its strength by then.” Tom added, “I’m also sending you a marketing drawing for Joe Blow. I won’t send that to Permian.”
Don, pleased with the progress, replied, “OK, sounds good. Gene Starrett at Permian gave me an estimate of a little more than two weeks to complete the prototype. We should have something by mid-February. I’ll come back to Texas for a couple of days so we can oversee what’s going on. Send it tonight and I’ll get back to you tonight.”
Tom added, “With two hours’ difference in time, I’m not going to answer any more phone calls. After I fax and e-mail you, I’m going to bed.”
“Right. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
They hung up. Tom took fifteen minutes to package the drawings and send out his e-mail message. He attached the drawing files to his e-mail message and inserted actual drawings into the holding rack on his fax machine. The first drawing in the buffer was the conceptual design for marketing purposes; the others had all the technical details. Tom sent everything to Don.
The next morning Tom checked his e-mail before heading into Houston. The subject heading for the third message in the queue read:
Don’t open this e-mail—plans are perfect—send them out
Seventeen
Monday Afternoon,
February 1
San Antonio, Texas
Vic Bolton—at least, that was his name while in Texas—found the address and phone number via the Yahoo! browser. An hour later he pulled into the parking lot at the Red Tree Plaza in Windcrest on the northeast side of San Antonio. The small strip mall had seen better days. A beauty school had been taken over by Marshall’s, and behind blank facades, numerous units were vacant. The Children’s Medical Clinic, a Szechuan Chinese restaurant, a branch of the Gibraltar Bank, a check-cashing facility, and an insurance company still managed to scrape by… along with a small income tax company: Gardner Tax Consulting. Vic waited about five minutes until a sixtyish woman walked out of the office door with Taxes Need Not Be Taxing stenciled in coral-blue letters. Vic quickly exited the car and caught her just as she started to open the car door.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” He spoke pleasantly.
The woman turned around, clearly nervous and untrusting. He picked up on her nonverbal cues.
“I don’t mean to startle you, but I noticed you just came out of the Gardner Tax Office.” Vic smiled in an attempt to allay her fears. “I’m hunting for a tax consultant and I just wanted to know what you think about their services. I’ve lived in San Antonio a grand total of three weeks and need to find a good accountant.”
The woman gave a quick sigh of relief and did a complete turn-around. Not only did she feel secure about answering Vic’s question, she wanted to tell him the story of her life.
“Oh, they’re the best. We always get back much more than we think we should. My husband and I use her for both our personal and our business taxes.”
Vic asked, “You mentioned ‘her.’ Who is ‘her’?”
“Nancy. Nancy Gardner. She owns the business. Actually, I think it’s only her and a secretary. We heard about her from a friend and let me tell you…”
It took ten minutes for Vic to disengage from Elvina Ackerman and her life history. He finally succeeded and, in the process, ascertained that Nancy Gardner was not your average tax consultant. She was good—really good. So good, in fact, that she might be a little bit of a crook. At least he hoped so.
Vic spoke with four more customers. Their comments were identical. More money saved than they thought possible. She might be a Robin Hood sort of crook, thought Vic. I think we have something here.
Vic, new name and all, walked into the office just short of five o’clock.
Eighteen
Monday, February 15
En Route to Odessa, Texas
It’s a virtual dogfight during high traffic hours at Dallas’s DFW airport. Don struggled against a crowd either unaware of or oblivious to his disability; no one gave a shit. A twenty-year-old kid hit Don in the back, knocking him into the Skylink.
“Hey, stupid, use your brains.” He lifted the cane quickly, then thought better of smacking the rude jerk. He wasn’t sure whether he was glad or not that no one would assist him. He did know that he would have been offered help in days gone by.
The new Skylink monorail was far better than the sadistically designed Airtrans system that tortured passengers for decades. Don held on tightly to the vertical pole support as Skylink carried him from Terminal C to Terminal B, slowly shifting his attention to the misfit who had jostled him so rudely. A red, hooded sweatshirt hung loosely over his torso like a cover on a barbecue grill. The hood had been pulled over a black baseball cap straddling his head at an angle and sporting a white, stitched peace sign. Beneath the sweatshirt billowed puffs of faded blue-and-white boxer shorts. His jeans started far below the crack of his buttocks and ended in lumps on top of sandals. Don guessed the kid hadn’t seen a bathtub since the day he was born. The scene became picture-perfect when Don focused his eyes on an olive drab knapsack with Chinese signs and a sketch of Chairman Mao. Don assessed the written words, arriving at the conclusion that it was a Chinese message reading Screw America. Don’s thoughts ran rampant. So this is the human condition. This pissant loser will profess, “Peace to the world, America is the great Satan,” while giving homage to an asshole who murdered thirty-five million Chinese. The little shit is sucking everyone dry at the expense of the American taxpayer.
So went another trip through the bowels of the DFW Airport.
American Eagle flight 3479 from Dallas touched down at the Midland International Airport, located between Midland and Odessa, on time at 1:05 p.m., an hour after Tom landed in the Grumman Tiger. Don had been up since one o’clock in the morning California time. Tom greeted Don at the walkway exit. They shook hands and turned toward the main terminal area.