Stephen Cannell - King Con

"Donovan, it's me. It's Dr. Clark and Dr. Sutton," Beano yelled, and in a minute, the side door was unbolted and Steven Bates was standing there, wearing old coveralls with W.C.P.D. stitched on the pocket. He was wiping his hands with an old rag and looking warily out the slit in the door at Beano and Duffy.

"Dr. Clark, Dr. Sutton." He nodded; then his eyes shifted to Tommy and the two wide-bodies behind him. "Who are they?" Steve asked.

Tommy moved in front of Beano and stuck the automatic in Steve's face. "I'm your new drilling partner."

Steve looked down at the barrel of the 9mm SIG-Sauer and swallowed hard, dismay on his sun-reddened features.

"Inside. We ain't havin' this stockholders' meeting in the street. Let's go." And Tommy pushed Beano and Duffy into the warehouse. Jimmy Freeze and Wade Summerland came in last and closed the door.

The inside of the warehouse had been carefully dressed by Steven. He had leased the building and rented everything. Two large portable water pumps with metal derricks that were used for agricultural field irrigation were on rolling pallets in the center of the warehouse floor. Even though they were water pumps, they looked enough like oil derricks to fool the uninitiated layman. Steve had helped the deception by labeling one OIL PUMPING UNIT C, the other OIL PUMPING UNIT J. He had rolls of cable strewn around and a forklift parked in plain view. A small safe was conspicuous in the corner. Everything was on a two-week rental from a farm supply company just two blocks away. The hand props he had rented from a dive shop in Modesto.

"What the heck's this?" Steve Bates said, as he looked down at the gun in Tommy's hand.

"You ain't askin' the questions, Joe Bob, you're answerin' 'em. I wanna hear about this od field you found in Oak Crest."

Steve Bates looked warily at Beano, then at Tommy. "There's no field," he stammered. "That's just a buncha dry holes. Wish t'heck we'd a'hit something, by God."

"Forget it, Donovan," Beano said. "He's seen all the graphs, the seismic shots. We told him everything."

"You told him?" The betrayal in Steven Bates's voice was nothing short of Shakespearean.

"Let's try and get past that, Donovan. The fact is we need more money anyway. We can't control this thing with just a hundred thousand shares. We're outta dme." Beano pushed his glasses up on his nose.

Steven Bates looked at Beano and then his eyes slid back to Tommy. "I don't know what he's talking about," he said, but his voice was hesitant now.

"Then lemme put it in line for you," Tommy said. "I wanna see this field in Oak Crest and you buncha pricks is gonna take me there tonight. How far away is that?"

"'Bout an hour," Beano said.

"Dr. Clark," Steve said, "this was a tight hole. How could ya tell 'em?"

"I didn't have a choice. He followed us back from Sabre Bay. He found everything. He's got the stock certificates. Besides, I think we should take him as a partner. We're better off letting him in on this. Believe me, we can't control it ourselves anyway."

Tommy glared at Beano. "I'm not in on anything yet, asshole. I'm on a fact-finding mission, and I'm tryin' t'get my million dollars back. So far, all you got from me is some mild interest. If I don't get a lot more info in the next few hours, I'm gonna cash in these stock certificates, get my money back, and you guys are all deader than junkie luck." He thumbed the hammer back and pointed it at Steve. "Are we straight?" Steve nodded. "Then keep talkin'."

"The Fentress County Petroleum and Gas Company stock is falling," Steve Bates said. "We bought it at ten, it's already at eight. The rumor is out that Fentress County can't make their bank payments. Their cash flow is too low. Buncha big stockholders are already calling for a meeting in San Francisco at the main office. They wanna liquidate the company. It's hit the street already that they're in trouble. Even if you cash in those hundred thousand shares, you're not gonna get back much more than seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

Tommy's eyes were roaming the warehouse. "You use this shit to drill them elimination wells?" he asked, motioning at the equipment, his mind already racing ahead.

"Delineation wells," Steve Bates corrected him. "Yeah, them small rigs only drill a six-eighths-of-an-inch hole that we side-cement with sleeveless piping. These units are good for slant drilling or directional drilling. Once we hit oil or natural gas, we put on one a'these," Steve said, picking up a small gauge attached to rubber hosing that had been rented from the Modesto Dive Shack. The gauge was actually part of an air-flow regulator.

Tommy took the piece of equipment out of Steve Bates's hand and looked at it. "What the hell is it?" he said.

"It's a flow meter," Steve said. "We use it to determine velocity of fluid. We use all kinds a'different ones. That one yer holdin' is a positive displacement unit, but we got turbine units and electromagnetic flow meters… depending on what we're tryin' to determine." As he spoke he was looking at the gun in Tommy's hand.

"I don't give a shit about any of that. How much oil is down there?"

"Hard to say," Steve said. "Dr. Clark thinks we got a major pay zone. I like t'keep my estimates on the conservative side."

"Like what?"

"We hooked up the PD meter, that's yer Positive Displacement meter, to the flow meter. We can estimate gross volume, using a flow rate formula. According to that test, seems like we got a pretty big pool down there. Could be half-a-billion barrels or more… maybe much more."

"The size of that stratigraphic trap is huge," Beano interrupted. "Covers almost six hundred acres. Only reason we missed it ten months ago is that our original seismics misidentified the site. We were off by half a mile. The field we were looking for is actually a little south of where we were doing the seismic shots, but by slant drilling, we got into the main trap." Beano was so excited when he spoke about it, his eyes were flashing. He was believing his con and selling it.

"You say you need more money to control the company? How much?" Tommy asked, nibbling at the bait.

"Used to be we needed maybe ten million, but I think, with the price fall on the stock, we could control it with five or six," Beano said, "providing the S.E.C. doesn't freeze the stock on us because of erratic fluctuations."

"Five million plus my million you already invested?" Tommy asked.

"That oughta do 'er," Steve Bates said, and took the diving air-flow meter out of Tommy's hand. The rule was you never let the mark hold a prop too long.

"How do I know this is all on the level?" Tommy asked, his eyes narrowing.

Beano looked at Steve hopefully. Steve finally exhaled and moved over to the small safe, kneeled, and dialed a combination. He pulled open the door and grabbed several long metal canisters that were stored inside on racks. Each canister had a glass window. Steve held each one up to the light, reading the label before finding the one he wanted.

"The fuck is all this?" Tommy said.

"Side core samples," Beano explained. "This is how we finally hit the pool. Take a look at this." He took one of the cylinders from Steve and handed it to Tommy, pointing at the window in its glass side. "This core sample was from sixteen hundred feet down. You can see from the brown color that we're already getting discoloration from the oil shale. That means the porosity of the top soil has absorbed the oil at the roof of the trap. That's why I think this is a full trap with a lot more than half-a-billion barrels," Beano insisted.

Tommy took the sample tube and stuck it in his pocket.

"You must leave that here," Beano said, alarmed. "It's part of the drilling record, eventually it will have to go to the F.E.R.C."

"Hey, asshole, ain't you figured out yet who's in charge? I'm gettin' my own geologist. I'm gettin' this checked. You're not dealin' with some chucklehead here."