Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

He told about how he’d had to drain his own tanks and whatever he had, but the battalion chief had been decent to him, letting him run his stuff into my sump, so he could burn the gasoline a little bit at a time, while they foamed everything but one corner. “But — we’re standing still. Not doing a thing. Does that mean anything to you, Mr. Dillon?”

“No more than the rest of it. Fact of the matter, I’ve reached the point where one more thing closed down is one more thing, that’s all.”

“A wonderful time to buy a refinery.”

“A—? For who to buy?”

“You, maybe.”

“How would I buy?”

“You could get the money.”

“Off those trees that got burned up?”

“Off something else that’s burned up.”

“I don’t get you.”

“That dame would let you have it, Mr. Dillon.”

“... Has she got it?”

“She could have.”

“I doubt if she’s got enough.”

“What you got to go on? To doubt on?”

“She’s hard hit too, you know.”

“Kid, I said it’s a wonderful time to buy a refinery. Have I got to say more? Listen, my owners are up against it. They’re doing no business and they got to do business or they’re sunk. I mean they owe money. I mean there’s a certain community builder of this locality, that might answer to the name of White if somebody happened to look him up, that’s accommodated them to the tune of quite a few thousand bucks, and he’s been reasonable, I’ll say that for him. Him and his bank. But the more reasonable they were, the worse it is now. I mean, the result of all that reasonableness has been that nothing has really been paid off since 1929. We got notes, they all got notes, that have just dangled, with a little chopped off them now and then. But at least we were working. But now that goddam thing is running wild, it’s burning and nobody knows when it’s going to stop. These gassers, they go on for months sometimes before they shoot ’em or tap ’em or they cave in or whatever makes ’em quit. I mean, they’re really little volcanoes all by themselves, and nobody knows what’s going to happen, or when. Boy, they’re scared, and White’s no help. He’s scared too, and he’s putting on the heat. They need dough, and any reasonable amount—! How do you know she can’t afford it? I’m telling you, it’s a wonderful time to buy a refinery!”

It was the first it had entered my mind, the idea that if you had a hole in the ground that was running wild and on fire at the same time, there might be a way to make something out of it. Later on, I polished that idea up, and as I’ve told you, hit the jackpot. But not that day, even to rise one inch to the bait. He shook his head and said: “Kid, I like you, I see things in you only an old-timer would have eyes for, and I’ve felt it, it’s in the cards you should get this teapot I work for. With that property of yours — assuming those wells are not injured and I don’t think they are — and this little pop-goes-the-weasel I’ve got, we could have the snuggest little business around here. And you don’t even hear me, you don’t even know what I mean.”

After a while he looked up and I swear he turned green. He put his hand on my arm, then was standing beside me laying a buck on his check. He said: “You don’t mind, kid, if I duck? If I beat it the back way? It’s better they not find me here! I mean, it’s better you and I not be seen talking together!”

With that he was gone. Outside, there were voices, and then, through the window, coming into the place I saw White, Branch, Dasso, and four or five of the guys who had been at the house that first Saturday afternoon, when I was a gentleman and a scholar and a good judge of liquor, besides being an all-American back and a bass singer.

They jammed a couple of tables together, out in the middle, and I leaned back where I wouldn’t be seen, but couldn’t help hear, though God knows I didn’t want to be there, and would have ducked out with Rohrer, if I could. They ordered sandwiches, and talked along, and it turned out Branch was working for Luxor now, and had cut out the booze, and had Dasso under him. They all made quite a lot over him, but anybody could tell this mob was really being steered by White. Then pretty soon one of them, a guy named Perrin that sang bass in the choir, but had a property next to Mendel’s with four or five wells on it, opened up, and who he was talking about was Mr. Jack Dillon, and what he had to say about the gent was slightly hot. He talked like he was just hashing it over once more, what had already been said somewhere else, maybe in the Luxor offices, if that was where they met before they came here, and was toning it down a bit so as not to string it out too long. I’d hate to hear him when he was really putting in the fine points. He kept wanting to know why I wasn’t indicted and sent to Folsom prison, because, he said, “if ever a son of a bitch was guilty as hell that guy is, just as much as any arsonist they’ve got in there now, and in some ways as much as any murderer.”

For some reason, White, the one he was talking to, put it up to Branch: “Have you explained to him, Jim, how that is?”

“I’ve tried to, Mr. White.”

“Perrin, it can’t be done.”

“Why not?”

“Matter of law.”

“Isn’t ruining our oil field against the law?”

“The law says ‘willful negligence,’ ‘willful destruction of property,’ ‘willful failure to use caution and care’ — and that stops us. If he’d been on speaking terms with Dasso, if he’d given him a chance to have that blowout preventer opened up and put in order, if he’d once rung Jim Branch about it, then we’d have him, because if he was informed, and failed to act, he’d be nailed for the whole trip. As it is, no court would sustain an indictment. What’s more, even if we could get an indictment, sustain it, and convict in court, I’d be against it.”

“But my God, Mr. White—”

“What good would it do you?”

“Isn’t that some good, to put him behind bars?”

“And your fire going on all the time?”

On that, there was a long time when nobody spoke, and I could hear lunch being served, and some of them, at least, eating. Then White went on: “The law governing oil development is lax, it certainly is. If you ask me, nobody ought to be allowed to touch a spoonful of mud around a well without a license, and I’d make it as hard for a man to get a super’s ticket as a license to skipper a ship — and for the same reason: lives and property are at stake, and he’s responsible. But they didn’t ask me, and we’ve never gone after that much law for fear we’d get ten times that much, and the fact is, no license is required. That puts it on the criminal side, and unfortunately being a goddam fool is not a crime, not when this supreme court we’ve got gets through with it. And furthermore, once you indict him, maybe he skips. And if he’s not here to do something about her, she’ll still be aburning come New Year’s Day. That’s what we got to remember. It may be your pool but it’s his fire, and he’s the one that’s got to put it out.”

“Yeah, but when?”

“If I can get to him, I’ll try to find out.”

Two or three more guys came in, that I’d never seen before, and Jake took their order. Then he came over with my check. All of a sudden a chair scraped, and Perrin was standing there looking at me. “Oh hello, Dillon, so it’s you. Well you been sitting here. What you got to say?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Come on, you—”

I got up and he squared off, but Dasso jumped up and grabbed him and I could see Dasso hadn’t forgotten the punch I’d given him there by the well. White kept looking at me with a little smile. Then, after Perrin sat down, he said: “Well, Dillon, as they say, you asked for it. If I’d known you were there I suppose I’d have laid off a little, just as a matter of manners — but I didn’t know it, and said what I really thought — and I suppose you heard it. Yes?”