GROUNDWATER FULL VERSION

GROUNDWATER
The Novel

PART ONE

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Note: this book should be required reading for students in
High School or Collegiate level Environmental Science programs

By: Michael M. Hobby, Hydrogeologist

Copyright, 2008, Michael M. Hobby
All Rights Reserved

Rock

Mark Houser knew better, had known better since childhood, especially as a teenager. It was hounded into him at home by dad and in an endless stream of media during his high school years. Hell, it was even pounded from the pulpit by preachers and exploited by politicians out to aggrandize themselves with their congregations or constituents.
Yeah, he knew better than to speed. But under the right pressure, anyone will succumb . . . and under the worst circumstances, right? Always the worst of circumstances!
“I hate these concrete highway dividers they string through construction zones!”
But only the inside lane was clear enough to maintain 85 mph. Any other time, he’d use a lane away from the dividers after dark. The problem was, he had assured Doreen that he wouldn’t be late for Tim’s tenth birthday party. He’d missed it completely last year, had to leave town on a moment’s notice. It had been among the most cherished traditions in her family as a child, and now was one of theirs.
The party was planned to begin at 6:30 pm. Now, at 7:00, pitch-dark except for a sea of headlights focused dutifully on the road ahead, he was still fifteen minutes from the Woods exit. Woods was one of many gated communities west of Houston.
“When a geologist is logging a bore hole,” he would remind her, “he can’t just walk away from the drill rig.”
The hole drilled this afternoon was critical; it required germane geological data from every five feet of depth. The geologist gathers soil or rock cuttings continuously pushed out the top of the hole by the rotating auger, examines them, and notes the type of sediments at that depth. Is it sand, silt, clay, etc.? Each soil sample collected has to be laid out in the sun on a small plastic baggy to dry, and the data recorded on the all-important Drill log upon which everything that occurs on-site afterward will be based.
“He can’t just walk away.”
They should’ve completed that damned hole by 4:30 easily, but the rig was acting up, the auger bouncing off a layer of very hard, calcium-rich caliches 43 feet down. It was having trouble penetrating that layer. The foreman had shut down the rig.
“Just for a few minutes,” he’d mumbled in a reassuring manner, as if he actually believed himself.
All drillers know how irritated geologists become standing around waiting for rig problems to be corrected. They were there to do science, not nursemaid worn-out equipment.
The “few minutes” soon stretched into more than an hour . . . as usual.
“You guys should tow this pile of junk a mile out to sea,” he’d yelled to be heard above the roar of the welder, “Dump it atop an artificial reef, so at least it can contribute to the quality of near-shore fishing!”
By the time the rig was adjusted, the caliche penetrated, and the hole completed to sixty-three feet where Mark had determined they need drill no further, it was already 6:00 pm Bagging and labeling the now-dry samples took until 6:30. Only then had he leapt into his new Land Rover and headed for home, soon averaging 85 mph.
As he ran the gauntlet of heavy traffic, it was tough to maneuver without any lane markers painted yet on the new asphalt to his right. The endless concrete snake of three-foot high dividers on his left made it that much more hectic. He could imagine Tim sitting at the dining table with the seven friends attending his party. The table would be spread meticulously, all of the accouterments in place. Doreen was fastidious about such things. No doubt, Tim was mesmerized by the pile of gifts in front of him, anxiously trying to divine what was hidden beneath each brilliantly colored design of wrapping paper, stunned by the colorful, flowing bows. He was even now surrounded by a chattering milieu of tiny guests, trying to remain patient.
“And Doreen is becoming anxious,” he thought.
By now, the situation must be growing tense indeed. Mark applied even more determination to the pedal.
From around the curve ahead, two cars from the opposite direction suddenly appeared, ignoring his frantic blinking for them to dim their lights . . . this just as a car was passing on his right much too close.
“How can anyone need to drive faster than I’m going?” he blurted out.
The high-beams from the two vehicles fused in a blinding wash of halogen blaze, and he couldn’t see the dividers! For an instant, he couldn’t see anything. He clutched the steering wheel more tightly.
He first knew he was in trouble when the front wheel made contact, heaving the left front several feet into the air as the tire rode up the divider’s sloping side. The car pounded back down with tremendous force, generating a hard lurch to the right. Time moved into slow motion.
“I’ve got to hold it!” he thought.
But instead, it veered wildly across the right lanes at a precarious angle, narrowly missing two other cars. The tearing screech of raw rubber against newly rolled asphalt was all around him as he approached the far right edge of the highway.
“You have to correct it!” he told himself, pulling hard to the left, careening within a hair’s breadth of a semi. The foghorn volume when the trucker sounded his horn further unnerved him. Just when he thought he’d stopped skidding and straightened the Rover, he realized his speed was so great, momentum was edging him off the asphalt, beyond which only a few feet of poorly compacted gravel separated him from a looming, twenty-foot-high cliff, created when the roadway was cut.
“I can’t let this happen,” his mind raced, “I’ve got to stay on asphalt till I can slow down.”
He applied more brake, easing the steering wheel to the left. It seemed to be working until the rear of the Rover spun to the right and off the edge. Time speeded up again.
“Turn into the slide or you’ll flip the vehicle!” shot into his mind.
Turning into this one would put the Rover completely onto the gravel, inches from the jagged rock, still at high speed. But he had no choice. There were only two options: flip the vehicle or leave the road entirely, possibly losing the last shred of control. He glanced at the speedometer: down to sixty-eight.
The gravel was unstable. In the haunting light of the vehicles behind, the Rover’s dust chased him like a grotesque, dirty cloud. His foot was still instinctively on the brake, causing the rear of the vehicle to swerve, jerking him farther to the right. He felt he was being bisected by the clutch of the seat belt. The force ripped one muscled arm from the steering wheel, causing the other to pull sharply toward the cliff as he righted himself. At that tiny, telling moment, the icy grip of panic seized him. Time dropped into low gear again, but yielded no advantage. It slowed only to mock his folly, to let him witness-vividly-instant by instant, the consequences of ignoring when he knew better. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the speedometer while trying to pull back toward the pavement: down to fifty-four. Then came the first horrid grinding of the cliff grating the right rear; rock versus metal, man versus the elements from which he so warily secludes himself. But they were always there. The rock was always there, waiting for the slightest mishap. It had been there long before the first geologist studied it, and would still be there long after the last geologist was gone. No one knew that better than he.
“How ironic . . . ” he stoically mused, “for a geologist to be confronting rock on its own terms.”
But he was, now merely the protagonist in a macabre, terrestrial drama brandishing a dreamlike quality, rock ripping into his life with a vengeance as though he’d personally offended it.
Almost immediately, it was the right front against the cliff.
“Is this the end? Am I going to die?” He wondered. The entire world seemed to turn upside down, assailing him with ghastly cacophonies: A refrain of crashing metal mimicking cymbals in the hands of a madman, a chorus of smashing glass flung against his face, the trolling of searing pain from the muscle and bone of his left shoulder. As his mind fogged over, he buried his bloodied face within cupped hands. Doreen and Tim’s faces flitted into view. Then . . . nothing.

“Mr. Lucky,“ he heard a male voice announce. “If you hadn’t been wearing your seat belt, you’d be in worse condition than your car.”
Mark had opened his eyes with effort; the eyelids seemed glued together.
“So, how is our pilot today?” The male voice asked.
Blurry at first, he tried to focus upon the man in the white coat who must be a doctor.
“Pilot?” It was difficult to find humor in the pejorative, or speak through his parched, dry throat.
“Not so well,” he responded, agony cloaking his features. “My left shoulder’s killing me . . . can I have some water?”
“I’m not surprised; your shoulder is black as night.”
“How am I?”
“Other than fracturing your left collar bone, bruising the joint in your shoulder, and giving yourself a serious concussion, I’d say it wasn’t your time to go.” He poured a cup of water and steadied Mark. “The ice is melted, but its wet . . . Careful, Buddy, not so fast.”
Mark sucked down the water like his first breath after contests in the pool as kids, seeing how long they could stay under.
“Has Doreen been here, my wife? Does she know?”
“Is Mrs. Houser here?” The doctor asked the nurse.
“Not at the moment, Doctor; She had to go home. The babysitter couldn’t stay any longer.” Pitying Mark’s expression, she added, “Don’t worry, she’s hardly left your bedside during the past four days.”
“Four days!” Mark almost shouted, “Four days?”
“Every bit of it,” the doctor replied. “What happened out there?”
“ . . . I did something I shouldn’t have and my number came up.” He really didn’t want to remember. “Was anyone else hurt? My God, can you give me something for the pain in my shoulder?”
“Fifty Demerol,” the doctor whispered aloud to the nurse, “every four hours if he needs it.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Mark said as she hurried off, “I hit a divider in that construction zone before the exit to Woods. I lost control, angled to the right across the highway, hit a cliff, and flipped. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“It looked impressive on the Late News a few nights ago.”
“It was on the News?”
“You know how people enjoy things like a guard rail thrust through the front window of an upside down vehicle, penetrating half its length. Yours looked totaled. Miraculously, it didn’t run through you, or you’d have been totaled as well.”
“I couldn’t re-enter the roadway . . . loose gravel . . . and I was driving much too fast.”
“I don’t think any other car was involved, so you needn’t worry about a string of nasty lawsuits plaguing your life for the next five years. I have a feeling your insurance is going up, though.”
The nurse returned with the painkiller “Let’s turn you a little on your side, Mr. Houser.” A few seconds later, he could at least contemplate that the pain would back off.
“I’ll check on you later, Mark,” the doctor said, updating his chart. “Try not to aggravate that shoulder.”
“Thanks again.” Suddenly, Mark became aware of a myriad of colors around the room.
“Flowers . . . so many.” He said, as the nurse pulled the sheet back over him, and laid the call button and T.V. control at his side.
“You must have a great many friends. It’s hard to navigate among all of these arrangements. Your wife and son are adorable. She’s spoken of you quite a lot. Just push this button if you need me. Push this one to watch the TV.” She patted Mark’s good shoulder. “Try to get as much sleep as possible.”
“I think I’ve slept enough . . . four days!”
“You have a point.” she smiled.
It seemed to him like it had only been a second ago. As the Demerol began to take effect, the pain subsided, and his thoughts ventured. When had Doreen first heard? What happened at the party? Had Delta Geotechnical been informed? Yes, someone at the office would have seen the news, read it in the paper. Doreen would have called them. He had forgotten to ask the doctor how long before he could return to work. He began drifting toward sleep. He would obtain his answers when he talked to Doreen. She would bring Tim with her when she learned he had regained consciousness.
He wasn’t certain how long he’d slept, but he remembered crying out, the nurse rolling him over for another injection, and being walked, IV bags in tow, to the toilet and back. The afternoon sunlight peering through the window was reminiscent of the blinding halogens of the oncoming cars at the onset of his debacle. When he reawakened, it was night, and he felt less pain. Doreen and Tim sat next to his bed, asleep in their chairs, Tim clutching two unfamiliar “guys,” one in each hand. The birthday party had enriched his collection. Seeing them close by soothed Mark's bruised ego. Doreen’s pained expression caused by the discomfort of the chair touched him. Observing their countenances in the semi-darkness stimulated fond memories.
They had met during graduate school, he aspiring to become a geologist, she pursuing a Masters in Journalism under a full scholarship. A Florida girl who had grown up in the Keys and completed her undergraduate work at the University of Miami, Doreen had a seductive smile that seldom left her face. Upon meeting her the first time, he had succumbed to that smile. Sitting in the cafeteria, he had overheard her conversing with two other graduate student mates at an adjoining table. He was impressed by her intelligence and strong opinions about politics as they argued the fine points of controversial issues. She had noticed him smiling.
“You’re a good-looking hunk.” she had said before turning back to her friends. Stricken, he had chewed slowly so they finished at the same time, and as her friends left, he engaged her in conversation. They had clicked. Completely different programs and busy schedules barred seeing each other often, sometimes for days, but it was sufficient to discover that, more than anything else, she wanted to become an investigative reporter in a major news organization.
Mark had been raised in El Paso. He’d spent many a weekend in the Sierra de Juarez mountains south of the Juarez border crossing. In his teens, he had come to know every rock formation and fossil series in that triple-over thrust like the back of his hand and always had a deep bronze tan from long days spent in the desert sun. Motorists passing through west Texas and New Mexico saw only dry, desolate, desert, but to him it abounded in life; not merely the paleobiology of the fossil record, but the rich desert fauna and flora most people missed. He amazed his cousins when they visited during summer vacations by taking them fossil hunting and exploring among the various formations, showing them how to tell one stratum, one layer of rock, from another by the kinds of fossils it contained. They were dumbfounded when he literally ran down mountain slopes, knowing just which boulder or rock to land on with each stride, just how to turn his foot to keep from dislodging it or tripping. He was strong. He didn’t lift weights; he didn’t like the look, but he was solid muscle from head to foot. He already knew he wanted to become a geologist while most of his classmates were still undecided about their choice of career. Hanging out south of the border, he also learned the difference between good Tequila and the junk, and the succulent bliss of cabrito-roasted, baby goat-with fresh salsa he had enjoyed both in the restaurantes and purchased from the street vendors of Juarez.
He and Doreen had dated during their last year of graduate school, and spent almost an entire summer biking on his Harley in the Basin and Range province before their marriage in Las Vegas a year later. He was impressed with her seeming interest in anything and everything. She insisted upon digging out fossils side-by-side with him, and tolerated no condescension, demanding unvarnished explanations of what they found. During the evenings, as music and news from some distant station flowed from a portable shortwave, he built a campfire, and they’d sit outside the tent in the moonlight, discussing the day, or planning their activities for the next. By the by, he realized he missed her evening chow whipped up over the campfire when they opted for a restaurant. Most of all, he was fascinated by those deep brown eyes, eyes that sparkled with intelligence, warm with passion. Her wavy hair had been close-cropped at the base during school, but had since overflowed the shoulders of a curvy, five-foot, eight figure, a mere inch shorter than his. She once told him she wished her breasts were larger, but he had assured her that they were more than adequate for his needs. A developing love led to marriage, with Tim following a year later.
As a mother, Doreen proved to have mystical abilities, like finding anything he or Tim had misplaced, be it a geologic report left in the den, or a shoe hiding under the far corner of Tim’s bed. No amount of effort could inculcate Tim with the importance of remembering where he’d left them last. Such intuitive force was a solid asset for the tough profession she’d chosen. Any investigative reporter who lacked it would find themselves editing copy again soon enough. Everyone said the boy looked like his mother, but Doreen knew his major interest was being with Mark, wanting to be just like him. While he was still in diapers, Mark began a tradition of taking him on an out-of-town trip one weekend every month, which he called Boy’s Night. By his tenth birthday, Tim knew more about geology and science than any other ten-year-old around. On Boy’s Nights, they‘d check into a remote motel in an old mining town, or one near interesting geological formations, or a site Mark knew had easy to find fossils. There, they’d have dinner together, afterward getting a good night’s rest. Sleep usually ended early the next morning with Tim nudging Mark, dressed in one of the little khaki outfits Doreen had made for his “treks across the veldt” with dad.
“Hurry, Dad, let’s get started exploring!” He was all boy! Occasionally, they’d just hit the local Game Town and stuff quarters until the place closed or they ran out of money. Or they might go see a movie Tim had heard about. A hallowed trip by the market to load up on treats always preceded returning to their motel and lying side by side on the bed, watching cable until they fell asleep from a sugar low.
As the years passed, Boy’s Night became as traditional as Santa Claus and Apple pie, and Mark looked forward to it as much as Tim. Doreen used those opportunities to catch up on her reading. If she wasn’t researching some story or issue, there was always a new historical romance, or a novel by Clancey, Grisham, King, or Crichton she’d hadn’t settled in with yet.
One afternoon the previous year, as the family left for a weekend at the lake, Tim had seemed especially quiet. Both Mark and Doreen had noticed and made eye contact, neither having a clue. Later, Tim leaned over the front seat between them and asked with great poignancy,
“Dad, is Boy’s Night true?”
Mark returned Doreen’s puzzled look.
“What do you mean, Son?”
“I was telling Tommy about our last Boy’s Night, and his big brother said it wasn’t true . . . he never heard of Boy’s Night, and his dad never went anywhere just with them. I called him a liar. Boy’s Night is true, right Dad?”
Mark glanced at Doreen, soft tears working their way down her face. It was a spiritual moment for them as parents.
“Tim, it’s true in our family,” she explained, “but not all families know about it, so it might not be true for them.”
Tim sat back reflecting on the matter. Claiming there was no such thing as Boy’s Night was like telling other kids there was no such thing as a Tooth Fairy. Mark had felt very proud at that moment, the way he had always imagined a father should feel. Now, Tim was a vigorous ten-year-old, busy figuring out the world, sleeping beside his mother in the chair-being big-helping keep watch on Dad.
“And to think,” Mark thought as he watched them sleep, “There wouldn’t even be a Tim . . . Doreen and I would never have met . . . if the ominous wind of U.S. politics hadn’t interrupted my career plans, blowing them away.”
Mark had the highest grade point average in the entire Geology department at Tulane University in New Orleans, a department of more than 300 majors, the majority hoping to be offered a position with one of the big Gulf Coast oil companies upon graduation. New Orleans’ position near the mouth of the mighty Mississippi was home to big oil; not like Houston, but its position on the Mississippi delta, actually seven ancient deltas, and the existence of many salt domes secluding oil around their perimeters was a paramount focus of the oil industry. Louisiana was a major oil and gas producing state, and being an Exploration geologist was just about the hottest career opportunity around. Each year, the major with the highest GPA received the coveted New Orleans Geological Society scholarship; coveted, because the NOGS award meant offers from the local big oil companies, the majors. Mark had offers from both Gulf and Texaco before the end of his junior year, and his future held great promise. Following graduation, he would move in a single leap from the student dorm and a lifestyle in which his economic survival was rooted in a diet of red beans, rice, and Polski Kielbasa sausage to a fine apartment with the money to enjoy New Orleans the way it was meant to be enjoyed.
The great old city had an uncontested reputation of the best food in the country. Tourists joined the locals at the crab shacks along the shores of Lake Ponchartrain or gathered around a wash tub of boiled crawfish dumped on spread newspapers. New Orleans had the best seafood, the best French and Cajun cuisine, and the finest okra gumbo made anywhere in the world. Everything would change following graduation. The used telephone company truck with six-ply tires that hadn’t gone flat for four years would be traded in for any make and model he desired. He’d pay off his college loans and enjoy the rewards of sacrifice and ambition. Then, without warning, the government targeted the very industry for which he had prepared himself so well. Its weapon: the Windfall Profits Tax.
The idea that gasoline had always been cheap and should always stay cheap was firmly rooted in the American mentality. As graduation neared, oil prices had risen sharply, lingering at $32 per barrel. At that price, alternate energy sources had become economically feasible. Every energy savant knew that $32 was the transition point, the boundary condition where alternate energy sources could be produced economically. Dozens of industries and hundreds of projects to produce gas from coal, oil from oil shale, alcohol from fermented vegetation, and many others were underway. Energy independence was projected by the year 2000. Everyone in the industry knew that there was enough natural gas under the state of Louisiana alone to run the entire nation for three hundred years! . . . clean-burning, easily liquefied, natural gas. It was deep, but it was there, and it would have changed the future of U.S. politics, and certainly U.S.- Middle Eastern history, if the political will had existed. It didn’t. Just as Mark was about to enter the industry as an Exploration geologist, congress passed the tax. Under the rules, existing oil reserves were defined as “old” oil. “New” oil from new discoveries, the kind the exploration geologist searches for, would be taxed more punitively than old oil. A clever twist of the rule defined imported oil as old! The industry sat back and pondered congress’s message. It took about sixty seconds to get it.
”Import oil; build energy dependence.”
In exchange, the Saudis agreed to lower the price, open the spigot, and let the crude flow. The price of oil and gasoline tumbled, and people kissed the soles of the politician’s feet. The year of his graduation, the domestic industry contracted as the majors scrambled into a series of mergers. Those with good market position but low reserves merged with those having a less favorable position but large reserves-old oil. There were fewer companies, but the survivors had a better balance of market versus reserves. The rest? They would import. Imports took up all slack in U.S. production. No alternate energy research could continue with oil at $18/bbl. It wasn’t economically feasible any longer. Energy independence became a vanishing dream with every annual rise in imports. Most graduates never saw their dreams of working in the oil industry materialize. Of course, the public perception was that the “greedy” oil companies had gotten a well-deserved slap from the government, and good Ole congressman X had voted for it.
“What a great man indeed!”
Mark had been stunned. The very government that provided the college loans to obtain his degree from one of the world’s great universities had destroyed the future of that profession, but still left him fully obligated to repay every dollar. Still, he was luckier than most. He had watched the development of a new field of geology, Hydrogeology. “Hydro” means water, and the hydrogeologist’s arena is groundwater. If it’s clean, public health is maintained, but if it’s contaminated, health can be degraded. Any source of contamination constitutes a threat to the public health. Little else is more important than clean water.
At the same time that it destroyed Exploration geology, the government fostered an explosion within the specialization of Hydrogeology. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency became acutely aware that eighty percent of the two million underground storage tanks beneath the corner gas stations and elsewhere weren’t just storing fuel and chemicals; they were also leaking it-sometimes lots of it-into the soils in which they were buried. The problem was severe and promised to become much worse, because almost all stations had more than one tank buried underground, which caused electrical currents to flow between them, accelerating corrosion rates, much like a steel-hulled ship would quickly disappear beneath the sea without zinc plugs attached that will preferentially dissolve into the seawater rather than the steel hull. As the soil surrounding the underground storage tanks becomes saturated, the fuel moves down, often coming into contact with the water table. And since groundwater has both a direction and a velocity, the floating fuel moves down gradient along with the groundwater. Because fuel is less dense than water, it floats on the surface. This floating fuel is referred to as Free Product. Sometimes, the owner was unaware he had a problem, and the free product had been accumulating undetected for years. It could be several feet thick, or, it might be nothing more than a visible sheen on the surface of a water sample collected from a monitoring well. It might be groundwater with gasoline dissolved into it, or it might be pure, floating fuel filling the space between soil particles thirty feet thick or more above the surface of the groundwater, depending entirely upon local geologic conditions and the type of fuel. Mark had heard of one such mass beneath a railroad yard in El Paso during a visit to his parents.
The area of the groundwater surface affected by floating or dissolved fuel is referred to as the plume. Some plumes are very small and localized, maybe twenty-feet wide and forty feet long in the down gradient direction if one was viewing the groundwater from above. Others were found to extend for hundreds of feet, and in extreme cases, for miles in the direction the groundwater was moving. Moving plumes sometimes encounter city or private water wells used to supply drinking water. Plumes grow wider and wider as they move down gradient. They’re generally pear-shaped, the big end of the pear pointing down gradient, in the groundwater flow direction.
But there is an even bigger and much more serious problem. Gasoline isn’t just distilled oil! It may contain up to twenty-six percent of added chemicals; chemicals added to boost the octane, keep the carburetor clean, or to improve the degree of combustion of the gasoline, reducing harmful vapor in the car’s exhaust, increasing miles-per-gallon. The problem is, these additives are carcinogenic. If ingested by humans, they can cause cancer. The big ones are a group of chemicals collectively referred to as BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethyl Benzene, and Xylene). They don’t just float on the groundwater. They dissolve into it, thereafter moving down gradient as fast as the water itself. This dissolved plume usually extends much farther down gradient than the free product plume, because the latter’s movement is hampered by the drier soil it moves through above the water line of the water it’s floating on. Much of it adheres to the soil particles along the way, remaining behind. Nothing hinders the dissolved plume. When the water is withdrawn and drank, the carcinogens go to work.
At first, the public had trouble comprehending how small a quantity of these contaminants can cause cancer. To help them grasp the danger, it was occasionally explained that if 7.6 billion golf balls, representing benzene molecules, were stretched between the earth and the moon, as few as 38 of them, a mere five parts per billion, could cause cancer!
As soon as Mark confronted his fate as an unemployable exploration geologist, he applied to Texas A&M and was accepted into the hydrogeology graduate program. Hydrogeologists were quickly becoming more esteemed than any other specialization within the field of geology. They were in demand, “because more than anyone else, they understand the mechanics of how geology and groundwater interact. They are the mystics capable of addressing what has now become the subject of a national panic: contaminated groundwater.” he had read.
As he gazed upon Doreen’s face, he wondered what life would have been like if the political winds had not blown him to Texas and to Doreen. At that moment, she stirred, opened her eyes, and for the first time in four days, they met Mark’s.
“Hi, Baby! How do you feel?” She asked, rising and moving toward him in the shadows. Her embrace was cautious, gentle. “I’m so glad you’re back; I’ve missed you desperately. I couldn’t see your handsome, green eyes, nor hear your voice. For a while, we were afraid . . . ”
“I love you, Doreen. I feel terrible I missed the party. “
”Forget the party, Baby. Everything was fine, and Tim understands you were trying to get there.”
“I’ll be out of here in no time. It’s a nightmare I want to forget.”
They held each other like shipwreck victims clinging to a floating mast after the ship has disappeared beneath a dark sea.
“Everyone’s asking about you; the phone hasn’t stopped ringing. Jess at Delta may have set the record. He said if . . . when you came out of it, to tell you they put Doug on the Convention Center site, for you not to worry about anything except getting well. They’re already missing their best hydrogeologist!”
Mark tried his best at a convincing smile, but his shoulder demanded attention.
“Could you ask the nurse to give me a pain shot, Hon? My shoulder’s killing me.”
Doreen darted out of the room, returning with the nurse. After giving Mark the injection without drawing the curtain, she replaced an empty IV bag, and left the room. Mark looked so pitiful to Doreen, lying there with black eyes, a swollen lip, and cuts marring his face. The ugly lump beneath the left side of his scalp had shrunk somewhat, but it still terrified her.
“We don’t have to talk just now,” she whispered.
“I want to talk, to hear your voice; it’s sweet to me.” She kissed him passionately, needing to touch him, to feel his breath against her cheek.
“Our moms have been network operators. After I called them, they must have contacted everyone they know. Can you believe the lovely flowers? You’re loved Mark! I want this to end. I want you home.”
“You’re more precious than all these flowers.”
“How can he be so sweet in his horrible condition,” she wondered? He looked like a terminal accident victim.
Enough had been said for the moment. Against hospital rules, she lifted the sheet, maneuvering her body against Mark's, avoiding the side with the blue-black shoulder and an IV in the arm.
“I can feel your heart beating, Baby.” she said. But he was gone . . . somewhere beneath the shroud of the injection. That was okay; he wasn’t feeling any pain. She laid quietly, absorbing his smell. His masculine voice had been reassuring.
Following report and shift change at midnight, Mark’s nurse entered the room. She found him sleeping peacefully. Snuggled against him was the sweet woman she had visited with over the last four days, learning she was a reporter at the Houston Chronicle. Sleeping in the same bed with a patient clearly violated hospital rules. Curled up in a chair nearby was their handsome little son, half-smiling in his sleep.
“What the hell,” she thought to herself, and left the room quietly.

Reunion

It felt good to be reporting back to Delta Geotechnical. As Mark parked his rental car in the lot, no one recognized him. He had mixed feelings, anxious to get back to work, but knowing there would likely be jokes at his expense. He felt as if returning after an unauthorized six-week vacation. Recovery had been slow, but steady; his shoulder and collar bone healed, although there was one point in the arc when he raised his left arm that still returned a painful complaint. The doctor had assured him that this, too, would gradually disappear over the coming weeks.
“Joint and ligament damage requires time to heal, Mark.”
He had to be careful how he slept on his left side, but he had been cleared to return to work. To his surprise, he wasn’t greeted with a flurry of jokes or even requests to tell the long version of what had happened to him, “and give us all the morbid details.” Everyone seemed to sense that he wanted the entire affair left in the past. Besides, Delta was behind schedule and the geologists were too busy to spend much time on anything impertinent. There were smiles and waves, all sincere, but not the type that hamper.
Mark was the Principal Hydrogeologist at Delta, and his absence had put that much additional pressure on everyone else. They were exultant to see him back. Jess Remington, owner of Delta, met him almost at the door with a tight, heartfelt handshake. Jess was a big man . . . not fat, more like a steel-reinforced Swede sailor Mark had seen drunk in a longshoreman’s bar in Charleston, South Carolina years before. Jess didn’t get drunk, not very often. He towered over everyone at Delta. He denied lifting weights, but everyone doubted his assertions enough that a kitty was established by the geologists for the first person to prove he did. It was already more than $300, but no luck for anyone yet. He had a friendly face, and the girls in the office said he was really just a huge Teddy Bear.
Mark knew differently. Some time ago, an angry client had stormed into the office with his first monthly invoice, asking where Accounting was. He immediately went in yelling at the top of his lungs that Delta was “a bunch of damned thieves” and be damned if he’d pay a cent of the wretched thing.
“It’s all a scheme set up by lawyers and politicians to put everyone in business out of business, by sucking them dry. Twenty-three thousand dollars for one month’s work? If you think you’re milking me for a quarter of a million during the next year, you’re full o’ crap, all of you. If the government wants to clean it up, they or their tree-huggers can pay for it!”
Marlene, head of Client Billing, tried to calm him by attempting a point-by-point explanation of the bill. But it wasn’t any particular item he was raging about. It was sheer, out-of-control, frothing contempt for a political system that could enact environmental legislation that set up a successful, mid-life businessman admired by his community, and suddenly convert him into a criminal by definition. Then, without trial or sentence, require him to pay for the environmental remediation of his site, turning a deaf ear as he was systematically ruined financially and viewed with suspicion by the community. It wasn’t any single item. It was the entire experience.
Having but recently returned to work after burying her mother, Marlene was much too fragile to confront such behavior or language, and had already begun to cry when the door to Accounting flew open like a charging bull had crashed through it. Jess walked up to the man without saying a word, grabbed him by the collar, almost lifting him off the floor, and pulled him, cursing and trying to break free or make contact with a barrage of fists, to his office. Practically everyone in the company saw it, Jess walking along almost without effort, dragging a hysterical client through the middle of the office, then down the hall. They also heard the door slam with enough force to surely pop the hinges loose. The man was still yelling, but clearly outmatched by Jess’s thundering voice, which seemed to have a calming effect on the fellow. Afterward, the yelling stopped, and about two hours later, the incongruent sound of two men laughing emerged. The client and Jess came walking calmly down the hall, Jess’s huge arm around him like he was a visiting brother he hadn’t seen in years. They spent the last ten minutes before coming out telling lawyer jokes, a favorite pastime of Jess’s.
“What's five-hundred lawyers at the bottom of a lake?” they heard Jess ask, as they were coming down the hall.
“Tell me.”
“A good start!”
As they passed through the big center area, no one dared look in their direction except Mark, who got an embarrassed look from the client when he caught his glance.
“We’re off to lunch,” Jess announced as they were leaving together, “on Delta.”
Jess was like that. He seemed able to handle any situation and wasn’t afraid of anything-nor anyone. Yet, he genuinely cared about every employee and never failed to show it. Strangely, the client paid the invoice, and every statement that followed it. Delta kept the account, and Marlene was surprised by a beautiful card of apology embedded in a dozen roses, attached to a box of gourmet chocolates!
“God, I’m glad to see you back and looking so fit,” Jess said. “I don’t see any scars on your face. When I visited your room the next day, it had bloody wounds covering it like a teen with pimples.”
“Well, most of the small punctures from flying glass looked horrible with blood leaking out, but they healed quickly. The worst ones are on my scalp, but now that they’re healed, you can’t see them for the hair, and the lump’s gone. I had another I was pretty worried about on my left eyebrow, swollen and hard as a rock for weeks, but the hair grew back over it and it shrunk. You can feel it, but you can’t see it.”
Jess rubbed the spot with the tip of his big index finger.
“Yeah, you’re right, I can definitely feel it, but you have to know it’s there to notice it. Boy, talk about charmed; seeing you walk in like nothing ever happened has a weird aspect. You must have an important purpose, Mark. We were having morbid thoughts when we saw your Rover upside down with a guard rail through it. The next day was the quietest this office has seen in a long time. And now, here you stand!”
“I’m ready to dig in, Jess. I don’t even like remembering it. It’s a bad dream to me now . . . no, more a nightmare.”
“I guess so.” Jess empathized, placing his big hands on Mark’s shoulders. “Doug is anxious to see you. They’ve run into problems at the Convention Center site. He thinks the former consultant got the groundwater gradient wrong . . . reversed, in fact. Also, some of the water samples had carbon tetrachloride at concentrations off the chart, but only in a very restricted area. In the area caddy-corner from the Chronicle building, the same thing happened, but it was Stoddard solvent.”
“Do they know if a Dry Cleaners ever operated near the carbon tet’ shows?”
“He’s got Mel down at county checking on it, but I haven’t heard any feedback yet. He put the entire file on your desk before leaving this morning . . . said you could talk about it after you’ve had a chance to review the data collected to date. Some of the other guys need your help on a few things too. It’s your call, but I’d suggest hanging close to the office today and clearing up their problems. You can go directly to the Convention Center site from Woods tomorrow. It’ll be a shorter drive. I saw you wince when I put my hands on your shoulders. Maybe you should go a little slow at first, instead of at your normal pace.”
“It’s my left arm; sometimes, for no explicable reason, it just goes limp for a second, like dead meat. Then it’s like it hadn’t even happened. Don’t worry, Jess, the doctor said it’ll be fine . . . really!”
“Mr. Remington, there’s a call for you on line two,” a familiar voice rang from the intercom. “I’ll take it in my office, Della,” Jess said in his gruff voice. Dropping his hands from Mark’s shoulders and heading down the hall toward his office, he glanced back as he walked.
“I’m available if you need me.”
“Sure,” Mark responded.
He made his usual daily round through the office, getting through the greetings and helping each geologist with snags and various issues pertaining to their site investigations. Most Delta geologists had little or no training in Hydrogeology, so they made the classic errors that resulted from lack of a thorough understanding of the principles involved in a groundwater investigation. He remembered how during graduate study he was constantly surprised. Often, he’d have disagreed with the instructor on how groundwater behaves or actually interacts within the soils if someone else had made such claims, because it seemed contrary to logic. There weren’t enough hydrogeologists to go around these days, so most mid-sized firms like Delta employed geologists who once aspired to work in the oil industry, but had settled for whatever they could get. Unlike Mark, they had not taken the step of a graduate degree in Hydrogeology, so they were dubiously qualified, often weak in the cognate subjects by which the power of hydrogeology is crucially supported: chemistry, especially biochemistry, physics, especially the physics of fluid flow through porous media like soil or rock, and biology, especially microbiology. Of course, some of them were much better than the rest. Site investigations followed a somewhat standardized approach, so with the guidance of a trained hydrogeologist, they eventually became as valuable as their paychecks suggested.
After lunch, he settled into his chair and began a review of data obtained from chemical analysis of samples obtained from soil borings and monitoring wells collected from the Convention Center site. Delta hadn’t worked there in the beginning. The first consulting company had been fired by the owner, and no one seemed to know why. Afterward, the client had visited with Jess, subsequently giving the required site-investigation project to Delta. The city purchased the property because it needed a bigger facility not too far from the city center. The site was large enough, and close enough, to seem perfect. But it had come at a very high price, and the purchase had been a football in local politics for over a year before the city council negotiated a staggering 207 million dollars. It was owned by one, Randle Ted Gangley, a name the public was generally unfamiliar with, but was associated with questionable activities in the minds of some. The file contained virtually no information of this nature, but it seemed to Mark that the work completed by the first company had been spotty and poorly organized. It appeared to have had only one objective: complete the mandated assessment while performing as few tasks as possible. The city’s contracts contained a standard environmental contingency clause in all real estate purchases. If found to be environmentally impaired in any way, the city could withdraw, or, at its option, allow the seller to mitigate the offending impairment at his own expense. This clause wasn’t unusual at all, except for the huge pile of money at stake; 207 million was a lot of dough.
The six-square-block site consisted of many smaller property acquisitions all bundled into one whole. When first reviewed environmentally, a number of abandoned underground storage tanks, referred to as USTs in the industry, were discovered on widely separated areas of the six-square-block site. The EPA had mandated that all USTs in operation across the entire nation-those with chemicals or fuel in them-had to be pressure-tested annually. The pressure test involves pumping air into the tank to a certain pressure, then watching it for a time to see if the needle drops on the pressure gauge. If it does, the tank is presumed to be leaking and fails the test. When that happens, it has to be closed. Closing a metal UST means emptying it, digging it up, and replacing it with a double-walled fiberglass variety, assuring a long service life without corrosion-induced leaks, which are called releases. And by law, releases must be reported to the state within 24 hours of discovery.
The real money for the environmental industry is not in the removal and replacement of leaking USTs, although that segment of the industry was initially on a roll. There are only so many USTs in the country, despite the large total. During removal of the majority of USTs, contaminated soil is encountered. This is logical, since failure to pass the pressure test indicates it has corrosion holes that have generated releases. After a release is reported to the state environmental agency, a case number is assigned, and the case is given to one of the regulators, usually called Case Officers or a similar acronym. The owner receives a letter from the case officer citing violation of environmental regulations, and at that point an entire sheaf of regulatory requirements, federal and state kicks in. The requirements are highly technical and the letter will refer to numerous regulations the owner is required to comply with to remediate the problem, IE, define its vertical and horizontal extent and clean it up! All work must be under the supervision of a state-certified geologist, environmental manager, engineer, or whatever a particular state calls these wizards. That’s when the phone rings at Delta Geotechnical and other companies. They are trained professionals who work by the hour and have an hourly rate charged for every hour they work on a particular project. A regular geologist might have a billing rate of $75 to $100 per hour, a beginner fresh out of college, $50. A hydrogeologist will cost more, primarily because he can accomplish more in less time. The firm’s Principal hydrogeologist has the highest rate. Mark’s time was billed out by Delta at $150 per hour. The simple tasks are generally assigned to those with lower rates, particularly those services requiring many hours to perform. The review work is done by more highly qualified personnel, and the design of work plans, drilling programs, and evaluation of the whole is within the provenance of the Principal hydrogeologist. Hydrogeology is a science with the explicit purpose of solving problems. Site characterizations are expensive; drilling soil borings, installing groundwater monitoring wells, pulling samples, chemical analysis of soil and water samples; all of these activities are expensive, and the total cost is on a par with the legal costs of important cases.
If it works properly, the process is good, not only for the professionals, but especially for the owner of the property who has one hell of a yoke fastened around his neck by the government. Confused, financially threatened, defensive, angry, and plagued by a sense of helplessness, the owner watches his bank account shrink as the invoices arrive every month and must be paid. If it doesn’t work properly, as when the owner is irascible, or the professionals are too distant from the human consequences of the process from which they derive their living, things can go awry.
Mark shifted in his chair. Sitting as he usually did irritated his shoulder. It was two o’clock already. As he thought about the history of the site investigation, he realized that apparently things had gone awry between the owner of the Convention Center site and the previous environmental company. Mark saw that little had been accomplished beyond removal of the tanks, excavation and landfilling of more than a thousand tons of diesel-contaminated soil, and the installation of a few monitoring wells installed with no discernible overall plan. The first round of groundwater samples hadn’t turned up anything, which seemed remarkable to Mark, since upon removal of the tanks, the surrounding soils were contaminated in every case. Further, free product had been visible beneath each. It looked suspicious . . . very suspicious. The analytical laboratory that processed the samples was reputable, the same one Delta used. So how could the samples not be contaminated with groundwater at only 40 feet below the surface, more or less? Mark looked at the survey data for the monitoring wells, since Doug had told Jess he thought the groundwater gradient indicated on the previous company’s site map was incorrect.
When a gradient turns out to be incorrect, meaning that the groundwater is said to be moving is such-and-such a direction, when it actually is flowing in a different direction, it usually means that either the surveyor screwed up, or there’s a local geological feature skewing the data. Invariably, more wells are needed to determine the gradient accurately. Most surveyors did good work, but some were sloppy. Monitoring wells are just PVC plastic pipes, called casings, usually with either a 2-inch or 4-inch internal diameter. These PVC pipes are inserted into a bore hole completed by a drill rig. First, the location is determined and the hole is drilled while the geologist completes the well log, indicating the type of soil or rock being penetrated during the drilling, and the depth at which each change in soil type is encountered. He is also careful to note the depth at which contact with the groundwater is made. This is not difficult, because the soil cuttings being pushed out the top during drilling suddenly become damp, then wet. Groundwater has been encountered. When the hole is complete, which means that the deepest samples being brought up by the auger don’t exude the smell of gasoline or diesel or whatever the contaminant is, the drilling is stopped, and the bottom of the hole is noted on the drill log. PVC pipe, which comes in ten or twenty foot lengths that can be screwed together to assemble a casing of any desired length, is inserted into the hole. One or more of the sections of casing will be “slotted,” meaning that the factory made dozens of narrow, horizontal slices-cuts-all the way through the casing, The slots are placed very close together, one above the other, arranged in vertical rows around the casing. The “slot section” of the casing, usually five or ten feet in length, is placed such that when the casing is standing in the hole, half the open slots will be above the surface of the groundwater, and half beneath it. Groundwater can pass through the very narrow slots and enter the well, but sand grains cannot. The annular space, the empty area between the casing and the side of the bore hole, is filled with sand of a particle size slightly larger than the width of the slots cut in the casing, so, “duh,” only water can enter the well. This sand is poured around the casing until it’s filled the hole to within two feet or so of the surface of the ground. The remaining foot or two is filled with cement. After the cement dries, the excess casing left sticking up into the air above the ground is cut off, and a cap is placed over the top of the open casing to prevent debris from falling into the completed well. The well is assigned a name, like MW-1 for the first monitoring well drilled and so forth, and the process is finished for that particular well.
Since the surface of the earth, the ground, is seldom perfectly flat, after the tops of the wells are cut off, it’s seldom the same distance down to the groundwater when a measuring tape is lowered down inside the wells to measure the depth to the water table. This is of course partly because the groundwater is higher on one side of the property than the other . . . that’s why it’s moving (down gradient). More often than not, the topography varies across the site. If for example, there’s a five-foot high hump in the middle of the property, the top of a well installed in the middle will be five feet farther up from the groundwater than the others. To determine the correct depth to the groundwater at any well location, the tops of the well casings must be professionally surveyed, so that the difference in elevation from the top of any well compared to other wells can either be added to or deducted from the measured depth to the groundwater. This makes it obvious that correct surveying is an absolute essential; otherwise, the data will appear unintelligible.
Mark removed the survey report from the file and examined it. It looked professional enough, so maybe the problem lay elsewhere. He looked at the clock. It was after four and time to leave for the day. Tonight was special, because he had promised Tim he would take him out for a hamburger, just him and Dad. He would talk with Doug tomorrow and see what had prompted his concerns.

Outside on the front porch, Doreen gave Tim a kiss on the cheek and a squeeze, and told him to have fun eating hamburgers with Dad. She gave Dad an even better kiss, and an even tighter squeeze.
“You two enjoy yourselves,” she said, “I’m making a supermarket run while you’re out. Do you need me to pick up anything special?”
“That Ben-Gay’s been working well at night, and I think it’s mostly used up. You could buy some more of that. Do we still have some ice-cream left?“
Doreen gave a smile that almost erupted into a laugh. Neither Mark nor she could credibly be called ice-cream “junkies,” but there was nothing that could ruin Mark’s day like a bowl of cheap ice-cream. Doreen was a master when it came to shopping, just like her mother. He was actually fond of his mother-in-law and her of him. Marie never learned to drive, and Doreen’s father always carted her everywhere. More than once, during a visit, he had made a point of telling Mark how much he hated waiting around a store while his wife shopped. Mark had sent him a copy of Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus the following Christmas.
Doreen actually complained about having to shop, but Mark suspected she was fibbing. She was always stashing away an entire case of this or that she had bought at a true bargain price. But when it came to ice-cream, she dropped her guard. It had to be the very best. Mark demanded that whole milk and cream be the first two ingredients. Of course, there were occasional bargains even among the different brands of gourmet-quality, ice-cream, and she rarely missed them. They both loved almonds too, from Smokehouse to whole, unsalted ones. Mark was a junkie when it came to grapes: green grapes, red grapes, black grapes, seeded or seedless. It didn’t matter. He could pluck and consume a two-pound plastic mesh lot as they enjoyed a DVD movie in the evening after Tim had gone to bed. Sure, he’d pay for it later, but, what the heck?
“Any particular flavor?” she toyed.
“You decide. We’ll see you in a couple of hours. If one of those restocking clerks makes a pass at you, tell them you’ve got a jealous husband!”
“Don’t worry, handsome, I’ll let ‘em have it right in the old smackeroo!”
They laughed, then Mark and Tim walked down the sidewalk toward the car, Tim doing his best to take the same size steps as Dad.
They always made a private trip “for us guys only” to Bob’s Old Fashioned Country Burgers during the middle of the month. Mid-month was the time to plan the next Boy’s Night only two weeks away. Boy’s Night was serious business, and required the taste of their favorite old-fashioned hamburger to get them in the proper mood. Tonight, Tim had an idea he’d been “thinking about for some time” he said with great maturity and all the gravity of a 50-year-old:
“How about going to Mexico and buying some cool stuff, Dad?”
“Cool” and “Neat” were Tim’s favorite two adjectives these days.
“That sounds great, Tim, but don’t you think we should invite Mom along for a trip that special?”
Tim looked like he’d just seen his father’s face on one of the FBI wanted posters in the Post Office.
“She won’t care Dad . . . this is a Boy’s Night! No girls can come on Boy’s Night, not even Moms and Grandmas! You know that!”
Mark wondered for an instant what he had gotten himself into when he’d started the Boy’s Night tradition years ago. But a tradition’s a tradition, and Tim was growing more sophisticated every year. It was too late to cop out now.
“And we can stuff on cabrito and salsa, and bring a bunch back to share with Mom,” Tim mused. “She loves barbecued baby goat as much as us guys. She’ll be so . . . oo happy when she finds out where we’re going!”
“Oh yes,” Mark said wryly, “she’ll be jubilant. I can see her face right now.”
As they settled with great commitment into their huge burgers and fries, there was the working out of the crucial details of this trip Tim had been thinking about “for some time.” After awhile, Mark became aware that Tim’s inexhaustible stream of constant conversation had actually stopped. There was a god. He was just sitting there, unconsciously stuffing fries into his face while staring at his Coke container without a word.
“Got a fly in your Coke?” Mark baited.
“Look, Dad, look at my straw; the Coke inside the straw is higher than the Coke in the cup outside the straw. How can it do that?”
Mark was pleased by the observation.
“That’s caused by two different forces, piezometric effect and capillary attraction.”
“Piezo and capillary what?”
“Now don’t let simple words throw you! Look. Here’s a kindergarten-level drawing. It’s just a 4-inch wide tube and a 2-inch wide tube standing next to it. Simple enough?”





“Yeah . . . “
”Piezometric effect causes a liquid to stand higher in a narrow tube than inside a wide one. Most people don’t know that. The narrower the tube, the higher it stands inside it than outside it. Notice that the water is higher in the skinny well than in the fat one?”
“Yeah.” Tim said, looking at the drawing.
“But the water outside them is the same height. That’s the Water Table underground!”
“Cool”
“Bingo! Now you can understand piezometric force! Those wells are piezometers we install at every site to find out how far down the water table is, and in which direction the groundwater is flowing. It may only flow down gradient a few feet per year, or it could be moving several feet per month.”
“Piezometers?”
“Yes. The other force is similar. Remember when the nurse at the hospital pricked the tip of your finger and squeezed out a drop of blood, then touched the end of that teeny glass tube to the drop of blood?”
“That hurt! She squeezed too hard.”
“Yes, but remember how the blood just went inside that tiny little tube all by itself?”
“Yeah . . . I liked that!”
“Liquid will try to move up the sides a wide tube, too, like your cup, but can’t climb as far as it can in a teeny tube. Gravity won’t let it”
Tim leaned forward. He wanted to know why the Coke was higher inside that straw.
“Here’s your answer about the straw: the Coke is attracted to the plastic . . . you might say they like each other . . . like the blood liked the capillary tube. So it climbs up inside the straw higher than it does outside it.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
“Well, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but like your blood moved into the capillary tube in spite of gravity, the liquid moves higher inside a narrow tube like your straw than it does in a wide one like the Coke cup. It works the same way.”
“I’m keeping this straw to show Tommy; he doesn’t know about piezometers!”
Mark laughed; Tim was clutching the straw like a treasure map with satisfaction blanketing his countenance. They put their trash in the bins and returned home.

The Fax

Doreen punched the alarm. It was still dark outside. Time to get showered, dressed, wake and dress Tim, and have breakfast together. Then she would drop him off at school two blocks away and arrive at the Chronicle by 8:00 am. Tim could walk to school-he walked home-but since she passed it on her way, it had become a habit to drop him off. It was the time between the alarm and her first cup of coffee she enjoyed least. On weekends and holidays, Mark joined them for breakfast as a family, but during the week, his schedule was such that she awoke him with a cup of black coffee on her way out the door. This had been their routine for years. They often met for lunch if the logistics were suitable, and there was a golden rule that the family ate dinner together every evening-always.
When Mark was offered the position at Delta Geotechnical, they had relocated to Houston, the city of glass towers, especially the west side. They lived out in Katy the first couple of years; cheap rent, and an option to buy at rock bottom. After the Windfall Profits Tax, the economy in Houston collapsed, and there were vacant houses on almost every block. Soon after getting settled in, she applied to the Chronicle and was offered a position as a Copy editor. Her dream was to become a reporter, but opportunities were difficult and there was seldom an opening. She met often with Lou McCoy, Metro editor, expressing her desire. Eventually, he funneled a few mediocre assignments her way to see if she “had the grit,” as he liked to put it.
“In my opinion, being a reporter requires great character. A reporter without ethics is a menace to society.” Lou told her. “Read this article and tell me what’s wrong with it.”
Then he’d toss a copy of the paper to her, his comments written in the margins of the newsprint, errors of fact circled in red. This practice continued for some months. One afternoon, she pressed him particularly hard.
“Lou, I’m serious about being a reporter. Give me the chance, a tough assignment. I’ll prove I can do it.”
Lou stared at her with an almost sympathetic glance. Then he pulled a page from the Metro section and handed it to her, pointing to a certain article.
“This is pure crap! Gurdjieff was right. With few exceptions, beginning reporters are immature scatter brains.”
“Gurdjieff?” Doreen inquired.
“Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. Have you read his Meetings with Remarkable Men?”
“I haven’t.” Lou walked to his bookshelf and pulled down a bright yellow paperback, holding it forth as though offering a pearl of great price.
“If you want me to trust you with a chance, read it, and pay attention to the Introduction. If you can convince me that your journalism will be above his remarks–and really mean it–I’ll give you a serious assignment, and we’ll go from there.”
She did read Gurdjieff and upon returning the book to Lou, swore that she would stand apart from the decrying attack on journalism Gurdjieff’s Persian had made. Lou kept his word and began giving her serious assignments. She performed so well that, rather than continuing the provisional status, he began to feel the risk of losing a very talented woman. He thus increased the importance of her assignments. Over time, she became daunting enough that he moved her into investigative journalism, where the really tough assignments are found.
That’s when their combined income allowed them to afford to move to Woods, a coveted, up-scale, gated community with pools, tennis courts, a baseball diamond, basketball courts, two clubhouses, and two pro golf courses weaving through the community. It was a place with facilities seldom used, because both the husband and wife usually had to work, just to afford the accouterments.
Doreen’s aunt was an avid, award-winning golfer and Doreen became drawn in by admiration at an early age. Mark had played a lot during his college days, but following an initial flurry after they first moved to Woods, their jobs became so demanding that they rarely found the time these days to hit the greens more than once or twice a month on a Sunday. They constantly reassured each other that it was just a temporary inconvenience.
She loved being an investigative reporter as much as Lou loved Butterscotch pudding. He was one of those almost-sixty two types who hadn't yet realized the days were passed when they could get away with a Porterhouse every night. In Lou’s case, everyone else could tell just by looking at his gut, and the way one side of his white shirt was always out of his belt. No one presumed to suggest that he purchase shirts from the Big and Tall men's store which were long enough to span the distance around his middle, and have enough shirt left to tuck in properly. He was still living in the days when his hair was fiery red instead of mostly gray, and he still worked like he did. One thing he kept fine-tuned however was his healthy Irish temper, which made him a man to be reckoned with, as various individuals at the Chronicle had the misfortune of discovering from time to time.
This particular morning, she found a stickup note in the center of her chair back, asking her to see him as soon as she arrived.
"We received an interesting fax last night, and I think you should follow up on it,” he had scribbled.
It had been written at her desk, because there were cigarette ashes on the floor. She felt about cigarettes like she felt about the smell of some of the ethnic bars she occasionally visited, investigating newsworthy incidents on the east side. After sweeping the ashes and tossing them into the trash basket by her desk, she went straight to Lou's office, finding the door wide-open.
"There she is," he said as she entered, "How’s Mark?"
"He started back at Delta yesterday, and it’s the happiest he's been for weeks."
"And Tim?"
"He‘s his usual, bubbling self. He’s convinced Mark to drive them to Mexico next weekend."
"Are you going along?"
"Oh no! It's a Boy’s Night," she said, smiling.
"That's quite a nice trip to miss out on, isn't it?" Lou mused.
"I could look at it that way, but I just consider it’s two guys making their monthly cave trip."
"Cave trip?"
"Yes, you know," she said, "Men are from Mars, . . . "
" . . . and women are from Venus," he finished her sentence. “Yes, I've read that. I don't know if I go along with it. I guess it works for some people. Take a look at this."
He handed her a sheet of paper he'd been turning in his hands since she walked in. Doreen read it, then read it again. It was short and to the point.
The Convention Center deal is dirty. Gangley bought the critical two hold-out votes to get it passed by the City Council. They were paid $250,000 in cash, each. The public should know.
That was it. Lou had circled the number of the sending fax at the top of the page.
"What do you think, Lou? Is there any truth to it?"
"Well, I'd believe it about Gangley. I know it was Merrill and Goshen who held out and the deal wouldn't have gone down without their having switched their votes. Merrill is as greedy a lawyer as I've ever met, so that's probably true. Goshen . . . I've got a problem with that. Reiny Goshen is a friend, and I've always thought of him as a man of integrity. You know, he used to be a news man?"
"Really? I’d never have guessed; he seems too detached to be a reporter, doesn’t appear to be that strong. He’s more of a team player."
"It was a very long time ago when he lived in Michigan . . . not a reporter, but very much a news man. Have you noticed he’s always taking notes during council meetings? Hmm . . . I've got a problem believing Goshen could be corrupt. Maybe whoever this is just means Merrill and one of the later ones to change their mind . . . No, it couldn't be Goshen."
"Well, maybe you could ask him if he knows of anything shady about the deal."
"I wouldn't go that far. I don't think it's him, but I also wouldn't risk tipping off anyone about this lead. Of course, it's useless unless you can identify who sent it and get something more than an allegation. If not, it'll just have to be filed away for another day."
Doreen knew he would say that; she knew how careful Lou was.
"I'm about to shake the tree and see what falls out," she said, turning to leave.
"Oh, and Doreen . . . " he called after her, "you know to keep this between the two of us for a while?"
"Of course, Lou - It's on the down low!"
Within an hour, she had run down the originating fax number. It belonged to a Mail Boxes, Inc. Clever; that meant there was no way of discovering who had sent it. But she called, hoping for a serendipitous break. They occasionally came along. A woman named, Claire told her that she only worked mornings, that "John" got in about 2:00 in the afternoon and closed the place at 8:00 pm. The time the fax was sent was 7:58 pm.. This person definitely didn't want to be discovered. She determined to visit John after dinner tonight. It was only about twenty minutes from Woods.
There was an artichoke feast that evening in the Houser home. Doreen's mother lived in central California near the coast and proudly shared the best artichoke dip recipe Mark had ever tasted. They maintained absolute loyalty to it. Tim was just as avid an artichoke fan as they were.
"Did you talk to Doug today? I know you were planning on it."
Mark leaned back, rubbing his stomach as a gesture of approval for the great dinner Doreen had made.
"Yes, I went straight to the site this morning and met him there. I had questions of my own after reviewing the file. The previous company incorrectly determined the groundwater gradient, and there . . . "
"I know all about groundwater gradients, mom!" Tim blurted out, "Dad taught me how to do that last night, right dad?"
"Right, Tim, and I'm sure you would have done a better job than they did. Besides, there are some other problems too: anomalous lab results, too few monitoring wells. They were on that site for almost a month, yet when they left, they never submitted so much as a one-page report to the state Case officer. I don't know how they got away with that, but I've designed a new piezometer grid. One of the things they did was use four-inch casing for two of the piezometers, but only a one and one-half inch for the third one. You just don’t do that. Groundwater will stand higher in the narrow well than in the other two. After you measure the depth down to the water table, it could give the impression that the groundwater was flowing in the opposite direction."
"How would it do that?" Doreen asked.
Tim’s ears had seemed to grow larger when the word, piezometer, came up.
"Water stands higher in a 2-inch diameter well than in a 4-inch. Even if only two feet apart, the water would be a couple of inches higher in the 2-inch, maybe more. No geologist would fail to know that, unless he was green or a wood-head. But Clarke, the first consultant, installed one and a half-inch tubing, which magnifies the effect even more. Suppose there's only a half inch difference in groundwater elevation between the peizometer at the end of the site where the release occurred, and the one farthest down gradient. If they just took the depth to water, the groundwater elevation in the one and a half-inch well which was actually down gradient would be higher than in the four-inch one which actually was up gradient. They would contour the groundwater moving in the wrong direction. So I just ordered another series, and I gave the responsibility to Doug. He’s thorough, and he doesn't make mistakes, not that serious. The water sample results from the last company all came back clean, but I don't see how they could, because you can just stand in the general area and smell the contamination. It's not like it's diesel that sticks to the soil. We're talking BTEX in gasoline and dry-cleaning chemicals, both of which are highly soluble in groundwater. We found them in our first round of new samples. The concentrations came back sky high. There are lots of unanswered questions about the work Clarke Environmental did there.”
“Would it surprise you if I told you that Lou assigned me to follow up on a possible story concerning the Convention Center deal?" Doreen asked.
"You're kidding! Does he know I'm working on the project?"
"No, and I didn't mention it. He might have given it to someone else on the basis of conflict of interest. In fact, I have to leave you sweeties for an hour or so to talk to a man about twenty minutes from here. I hope you don't mind?"
Mark shook his head, "No." He hardly heard her ask. He was so deep in thought about the possible implications of owner corruption on the one hand, and site data that appeared to have been deliberately manipulated by Clarke Environmental on the other.
"I wonder . . . " He muttered.
"I'll see you when I return," Doreen was saying.
The place was open, and sure enough, a “John Quince” was on the job when she inquired. The janitorial service was already scurrying about, cleaning in the back, and a clerk was busy restocking paper in the copiers.
"Hi, I’m Doreen Houser from the Chronicle, and I need to ask you a few questions about an individual who was in your store late last night, probably the last customer you saw. He or she sent a fax from your machine to our newspaper, and we couldn't make it out very well, so I need to talk to them about what it said."
John gave no reaction indicating he felt anything negative and certainly didn't feel threatened himself. He stood quietly, his chin in his hand, rubbing his beard, as if deep in thought.
"The last person in, huh?"
"Yes, the fax was sent at 7:58 pm, just two minutes before you closed."
John suddenly looked up, a little embarrassed.
"What?" Doreen asked, anticipating information.
"Well, to tell you the truth, I already had closed. You know, had the key in the lock and turned. Nobody hardly ever comes at the last-minute. But this lady made eye contact with me and started pointing at her watch and beating on the door. You see, this big clock on the wall here was in full view of me and her, so I decided to let her in."
"So, it was a woman?"
"Yeah, kind of attractive woman. But once she was inside, she acted like she didn't want me to even look at her, you know, head down, never looking you in the eye. But I got a good look at her. After all, I was nice enough to let her in. I wasn't intending to bother her, or anything like that."
"What was she wearing? What did she look like?"
"Jeans and a sweater. Maybe thirty-five to forty, but not wrinkled up or anything. Actually, she had on makeup and looked pretty good for her age, not fat or anything like that, you know."
"Was she wearing a ring?"
"Goodness, I don't think I would even have noticed something like that. I'm married, you know, so I wouldn't notice anything like that."
"This guy isn’t all that bright," Doreen thought to herself, "How tall was she? Was she as tall as you?"
"Uh, well, maybe just almost as tall as me. I'm 5 feet, 8 inches tall, you know."
"Not as tall as you? So, she was about five, seven?"
"Probably, something like that. She had red hair."
"She did? What shade? I mean, was it bright red or dark red?"
"Oh, bright red, and lots of curls. She has it cut short, you know."
"That's good. Your memory is coming back."
"Yes, and she wore real red high heels, the kind with little bitty tips on them. And she wore black stockings."
"I thought you said she was wearing jeans. How could you see her stockings?"
"Well, they were jeans, but they only went to like, you know, the middle of her legs, her lower legs."
"I see. What color were the jeans and the sweater?"
"They were normal blue, you know. The sweater was red, but not the same color as her hair."
"A redhead with red heels and a red sweater. That’s a weird combination," she thought.
"That's pretty much all I can remember," he said, "Does it help?"
"Oh, yes, very much. Listen, John, here's my card. If she happens to come in again, will you call me on my cellular immediately, and just say something like, ‘Doreen, how are you? It's John?’ Could you do that? I would appreciate it!"
"Sure; glad to be of help, you know."
Doreen shook his hand and left.
“A redhead between 35 and 40, with a not-too-sophisticated taste in clothing,” she rehearsed to herself.
Halfway home, her cellular rang. She answered, and a familiar voice said very nervously,
“Doreen, how are you? It's John."
"She's there now? In your store?"
"Uh huh, well I'd better go. I've got a customer. Bye now."
Doreen stopped so abruptly that she skidded into the curb. Turning around, she drove as fast as she felt was safe trying to get back. It should only take about eight or nine minutes. What a break! She was there in eight minutes, slowed down as much as possible without looking suspicious, and rode past the storefront very slowly. The woman was still there, paying John. She pulled over and stopped, leaving the engine on, but she turned the headlights off. She waited. A moment or so later, the woman emerged, entered a Cadillac parked almost directly in front of the store, and began driving. Doreen ducked as she passed her, then sat up. She didn't want to be obvious or the woman might spot her. If she didn't know she was being followed, she might lead her right to her home. As Doreen started to pull out, she heard a loud screech of brakes and stopped immediately. Another car almost hit her. Why hadn't she noticed it?
"Watch it, bitch!" A sinister voice shouted.
She realized why she hadn't seen the car. Its lights weren't on. Now, she was nervous. That car was driving slowly, and if she passed it, the mean man might think she was putting him down in some way.
"How can I get around him," she wondered, "I can't lose this woman."
The redhead’s car was in full view not that far ahead, so she would just wait for the guy to turn somewhere, then close the distance. It occurred to her that, actually, he was a shield. The woman wouldn't even see her car until the other moved away. She took care to keep a respectable distance behind the mean man, just the same. Why would he drive at night, knowing his lights were out? How stupid! He must be drunk. It made sense. Eventually, she followed her all of the way to Clinton, where she turned east toward Galena Park.
This was weird. Every time the woman turned, the car in front of Doreen turned too.
"Bum luck," she thought, passing Loop 610, waiting for him to turn off somewhere. He made her nervous. The guy was driving an old green Dodge, a model from the '70s. The right rear was smashed in. That was probably what took out the light circuit. But suddenly, she noticed his lights were all on.
“Maybe it wasn't about being stupid,” she began to think after the woman made another turn, and the man followed her. Following her?
"Oh, my god. That's exactly what he's doing. That's why he had his lights off until they blended with heavier traffic . . . so she wouldn't notice his car"
But if that were true, what must he be thinking she, Doreen, was doing following him? Suddenly, she grew frightened. She reached for her purse, pulling out a pen, and jotted down the number on the license plate. She was losing her nerve. What if he had a gun or something? What if he took a shot at her? What if . . . ? She turned at the next block, leaving the cars moving ahead. It was too nerve-wracking. She turned left again at the next block, back toward Clinton at the next, and began again to look for them. She couldn't spot either in the traffic, so she steadily speeded up, expecting to catch up with them soon, but traffic was heavy. Somewhere after Loop 610, she had turned off. They must have turned into Galena Park during her maneuver off of Clinton, and back! Darn!
"You were gone quite a while. I was beginning to get worried," Mark said as she walked into the den. Mark and Tim were watching a football game, one of their favorite Martian activities. "You look shaken. What's happened, Honey?"
He stood, and walked to Doreen.
"God, hon., have you been crying?"
She put her arms around him, and held on, especially tight.
"I just got a bad scare a little while ago. I'm all right now, but hold me for a minute, okay?"
"You poor thing," Mark said, sitting her down next to him, holding her. He didn't ask anything else. She'd tell him after she calmed down.
"Would you get me a beer?"
"Of course, I'll be right back."
Later, after Tim was in bed, she told him everything. Mark listened intently, without comment.
"This is like a movie," he thought to himself, “a real mystery story."
"There will be a fax in Lou's office tomorrow morning,” Doreen said, “I'd bet on it. I’m anxious to see what it says."
"We'd better sleep on it. You've been through an ordeal, and it shows. Why don't we go to bed?"
They laid close, Mark holding her, her nose buried in the soft hair of his chest. The curve of the side of her body was against him, the soft skin silky in the near darkness.
"What a woman," he thought.

Wilkes

During lingering shoulder problems, the Sportster had gathered dust, an affront to any Harley man worth his leather. Mark had missed warm wind against his face and the soothing thunder as the ribbon of highway unrolled. Blue sky and a dazzling, Texas sun enhanced his ride west, the zephyr tossing his brown hair. He rehearsed his questions for Clarence Wilkes: Why had Clarke excavated virtual craters, massive volumes, across much of the Convention Center site? Only a fraction of that amount had been contaminated even in the immediate areas of the diesel leaks. Why inch-and-a-half diameter casings down gradient and four-inch piezos up gradient, behind the release? It just wasn’t possible Clarke’s Principal Hydrogeologist was ignorant of the illusion that would result when they measured the depth to groundwater in those wells. It had to be a deliberate attempt to subvert the State-mandated investigation by making groundwater to appear to slope in the opposite direction. The sample results would come back free of contamination. Of course. They were from clean wells! Clearly, the impetus was to elude the cost and delay of a cleanup. He’d figured out Clarke’s motive for that one. It was corrupt, unforgivable for any environmental scientist. But why the craters?
Down shifting, Mark leaned to the right and rolled the Sportster into the parking area fronting Mick’s Sports Bar. Hearing a Harley, students from the college across the way turned their heads to leer. It was irresistible. Mick’s was jammed. Frenzied shouts and curses from Oilers fans hovering in front of giant screens stood out above a hundred conversations. He scanned for Clarence.
Wilkes was an envious geologist. He couldn’t stand working for beans at the state as a case officer when his counterparts working as consultants in industry firms were knocking down big dollars. Most geologists aimed at industry unless they had mediocre GPAs or craved the security of a bureaucracy. State Case Officer jobs usually attracted science majors with degrees in biology or another cognate science. Consequently, they tended to be weak in geology-almost by definition-especially hydrogeology. They often misunderstood one or more technical aspects of consultant proposals. Yet one had to treat them with a degree of deference because they nonetheless wielded the power of the state. This irony made for interesting cat-and-mouse relationships between consultants and case officers.
Mark and Clarence had become friends when he worked as a case officer, because Clarence was a geologist. He confided during a discussion of one of Mark’s work plans that he was leaving his state regulatory career to join Clarke Environmental, because he couldn’t get anywhere on state pay.
“You won’t be the first, but there’s one factor you should consider before making that leap,” Mark had cautioned.
“What factor?”
“Often, the shock of the industry workload is too much for regulatory minded individuals, and they end up going back. They like the short hours, extra holidays, and relative ease of state employment.”
“I’m different.”
Clarence was different. He had been a year with Clarke and showed no signs of regret. The payments on his new Corvette would have precluded a low salary again at any rate. Today’s meeting was arranged when Mark contacted him a few days before and invited him to meet for wings and pizza at Mick’s, their favorite haunt in the past.
“We’ll get caught up, Clarence.”
“I’d sure as hell enjoy that, Mark. Count me in!” Clarence said.
“Good, I’ll see you then. I also have a few questions about the Convention Center site data we inherited from Clarke I’d like to ask you about.”
“I’ll look forward to noon, Thursday!”
Mark thought he had detected an unmistakable thread of suspicion in Clarence’s voice when he mentioned questions about the Convention Center data. Clarence knew something, and Mark wondered what.
As he glanced around the crowd watching the Oiler’s game, he could barely hear Clarence calling out above the high-spirited crowd.
“Over here, Mark!” He’d gotten a pitcher of Miller Light earlier, and was already relaxed. He’d also been lucky enough to secure one of the high round tables where they used to perch. They shook hands, smiling at the hysterics of the sports huddle.
“No fair,” Mark retorted, dragging one of the high-backed stools from an adjacent table, “you got a head start.”
“Pour yourself a mug, Bro.,” he said, an unfiltered Camel dangling from one side of his lips, “It’s good and cold! I heard you pulling into the lot before I saw you. I’m surprised to see you riding again so soon. How’s that shoulder?”
“It still bothers me-a lot. I only rode fifteen miles, and it’s throbbing right now. I have to recondition it for biking. Sometimes, it seems out of whack in some way, but the doctors tell me the x-rays are normal.”
“If they say it looks normal, why do think it’s out-of-whack?”
“I happened to be lifting some boards the other day while I was cleaning the garage. All of a sudden, without warning, my hand just let go and a surge of pain shot down my arm. It was the craziest thing, because I had no control over it.”
“So I take it, your saying it wasn’t that your fingers slipped. Your arm just ‘turned off,’ so to speak?”
“Yes. That’s exactly it. The rest of the time, it’s completely normal. It has me buffaloed.”
“Sorry to hear that, Buddy,” Clarence said, sympathetic, “I know how much you love that Harley. Isn’t it taking a risk riding it if at any moment, your hand could let go?”
“I’m assuming it’s a freak thing, and just needs to be worked out by use. But you’re right.” Clarence didn’t reply immediately, considering Mark’s response.
“When I stop,” Mark continued, “I nudge it into neutral. If I was in gear, holding the clutch in and it happened at just the wrong moment . . . “
”You could be thrown like riding a two-wheeled bronc . . . You’ll be all right. Like you said, you just need conditioning.”
“Thanks for your concern, Clarence, and the advice, and the beer! I’ll get the grub.”
“Clarence laughed. “Yeah, I’ve missed the hot victuals here, the girls and the wings!”
Mark motioned for the waitress and ordered the platter of Hot & Spicy Buffalo wings.
“So how’s the job with Clarke going? I saw from the shine on your ‘Vette, you’ve got enough left over after the payment to buy wax.”
“Cute,” Clarence said, “Very cute! I see the accident didn’t affect your sense of humor.”
Mark laughed. “It’s looking good, as deep as hand-rubbed lacquer.”
“No brighter than your Harley. Sure your shoulder’s not throbbing from polishing it?”
“Could be.”
“I’ve wanted a Vette since I could pronounce the word. Like a Harley, owning one isn’t just a statement; it changes how others relate to you in interesting ways.”
“The wine-red finish, and that reworked, leather interior. Wow! That had to set you back.”
“It wasn’t as much as you’d think. I took it south of the border. That leather’s fresh, thick by comparison to the thin stuff you normally see in sports cars. It really is hand-rubbed. You should smell that interior!”
“Good for you, Clarence. You’ve made the jump from state to industry, regulator to consultant!”
“I’m still jumping. I was jumped three times last week.”
“Low battery? Cops?”
“Hell, no! Being single, I’ve plenty of money now. Everything in that car is in top condition. It wasn’t cops, either. I bought a radar detector that’s advertised to detect them before they detect me. So far, it’s lived up to the claims, by only a hair’s breadth a couple of times.”
“The new thing is a laser beam, so I’d watch it.”
“No, I was referring to women.” Clarence chuckled.
“Women?” Mark had a blank expression.
“You asked me what I meant by jump.”
“Oh,” Mark laughed, “ I get it! . . . three times?”
“Like magic . . . “
Clarence paused, “Ma’am, could you bring us another pitcher-Miller Draft? I never saw anything like it, Mark. I always knew women liked sports cars and bikes same as men, but good grief! I had no hint about the effect. I take a gal out, and the next thing, I’m in bed with her. I’m forty, and I get all I want, young ones, too. They’re very different from the girls I grew up with,” he said, lighting another Camel.
“Maybe not that different,” Mark said, “I recall pregnant girls dropping out of High School, and usually, one of the athletes or popular boys with hopped-up cars was involved. Girls probably aren’t that much different, just more honest, like nipple rings and tattooed ankles.”
“It’s more than that, though. I read, or heard on a talk show that Vettes are Freudian symbols, and I think that has a lot to do with it. You know what I’m talking about. It’s the same with Harleys.”
“Oh yes. Freud aside, Doreen and I have made some interesting use of the seat on my bike!”
Clarence laughed, “Yeah, like trying to get it on in a Vette!”
“I hope you’re using protection. Even those young girls could be HIV positive. You have to be careful, and you darn sure don’t want a paternity suit, even with an industry salary.”
“Usually, I don’t need protection.” He leaned closer to Mark’s ear. “I find, if I very gently push down on the back of their heads after we make out a while, most of them don’t resist, especially if we’ve had some refreshment first. If I put it in their face, what else are they going to do when that moment comes?”
“You’re a menace, Clarence,” Mark said, laughing, “like Phantom of the Opera; they can’t resist the Vette villain’s will!”
“So, are you and Doreen still getting along well?”
“She’s great. And with Doreen, I don’t need anything else.”
“You never miss strange?”
The server arrived with an enormous platter heaped high with steaming wings, the second pitcher and two fresh frozen mugs.
“Put your money away, Mark. Today’s on me! That way, we’ll have to do this again soon, cause you’ll owe me.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she said to Clarence. Then she turned her head, smiling at Mark.
“Take her, for instance,” Clarence said as she walked away, “She’s cute, strange, and was enamored with you. Doesn’t that make you itch just a little?” He began attacking the wings.
“Not in the least,” Mark replied, joining the feast, “To be really honest, Clarence, I never did like the idea of being a bachelor playboy. It’s such a predator on time and energy. Frankly, I’d be depressed with your lifestyle. No offense, but it’s too lonely for me. Having a passionate wife who’s also your best friend is my favorite lifestyle. Harley or not, I guess I’m traditional in some ways.”
“That’s okay if you can find it, but most marriages don’t last. You just end up with a wench after your paycheck and a bunch of kids to support that you never see. Besides, it’s boring in bed after a while.”
“That’s bleak, Clarence! There are a lot of good women out there. I’m not bored.”
“Most men are. That’s why they’re out for strange.”
“I think it’s more complicated than that. I’ve been close to several breakups where another woman was involved. Some fellows are just jerks, but sometimes the guy wasn’t getting his fantasies fulfilled by his wife. That’s unfortunate, but it’s still the guy’s fault. He can fairly well predict that kind of problem by getting to know her before buying a ring. If there are going to be boundary conditions he can find a gal who isn’t hung up.”
“Unless she lies, or turns out to be a disagreeable, moody bitch that turns him off.”
“I’m lucky, I guess. I also have a wonderful son I wouldn’t give up for anything.”
“I want to find someone like Doreen someday, Mark, but for the moment, I’m loving it.”
“Hell, some gal’s going to snare you like a rabbit in that Vette. You’re a straight-up fellow. She’ll steal your heart.”
Clarence put out his cigarette, looking at it blankly, as if distracted by thought.
“Isn’t life great Mark? We’re friends, we both have what we want, and we’re enjoying beer and wings at Mick’s!”
“Yes, it is. It never seemed more precious than it did when I realized an accident was unavoidable. I remember wondering if that was it, if my ticket was about to be punched.”
“I wondered about that, what must have flashed in front of you.”
“Just Doreen and Tim’s faces. That was it.”
“GOD!”
After the wings were gone, Mark decided this was the opportune moment to address the questions which prompted the meeting. He opened the folder he had laid to the side after arriving.
“Clarence, I brought these data from the office. Contrast your groundwater gradient with mine.”
Clarence examined the two site plans in silence, but Mark noticed the skin on his face and neck turning red. Momentarily, he blurted out,
“I had nothing personally to do with that charade, Mark.”
“How could you not be aware of it? Come on, Clarence, level with me . . . off the record. It’s important for me to know.”
“How much do you think you know?”
“I know no hydrogeologist could accidentally design a piezometric well grid that gives the impression the groundwater is flowing in the opposite direction from what it really is; not unless his degree has Podunk University across the top! He’d have to be a dumb NUT, and Clarke doesn’t run that kind of operation. We both know that. It was deliberate. When I looked at the site, I asked myself ‘why?’ . . . and worse yet, why would anyone misdirect the installation of monitoring wells at a thousand dollars each in the wrong direction . . . up gradient, behind the release? Have a look at my little detective drawing. Do you see the water standing higher in the 2-inch well than in the 4-inch right next to it? Really basic hydrogeology, Clarence, wouldn’t you agree?”
“My degree doesn’t say Podunk University, as you well know, Mark! But frankly, your recognition of that ruse is prescient. I doubt there are that many hydrogeologists who think in terms of forces and chemistry from day to day. Things get routine.”
“Notice the line pointing to the 4-inch well I drew next to the 2-inch? By drawing the dotted waterline from the top of the water in the 2-inch to the top of the water in the 4-inch on the left side, you tilt the water in the wrong direction. If you had a 4-inch instead of a 2-inch, it would tilt in the correct one, the dashed line!”
“I get it, Mark! Once you point it out, well . . . of course. But it’s still prescience. So, tell me, what reason for this clever, not-so-obvious trick did you come up with?”
“There are only two possibilities if we rule out the Podunk U. geologist: Either the consultant is trying to run a big tab on the client by wasting time in the wrong direction before “discovering” the correct one, necessitating another battery of monitoring wells and more billed hours of his time, or, and this is where my nose is sniffing: he doesn’t want to document the dimensions of the plume; he’s trying not to find it when he knows it’s there! When they pulled the tanks, Free Product was standing in pools in the bottom for Christ’s sake and oozing from the walls of the excavations! When you see that, you know good ‘n well it must have soaked down to the groundwater unless it’s way down there, and it’s not at that site. The depth to water is just forty feet! Clarke wouldn’t allow his professionals to generate fees dishonestly by doing the former, so why would he place wells up slope from the contamination, knowing he wouldn’t encounter it, because the contaminated groundwater is flowing down slope in the opposite direction?”
“Yeah, that is a problem, isn’t it?” Clarence said, being coy.
“So he must have taken a bribe from Gangley, been paid not to find groundwater contamination, or to dramatically minimize it. That way, the clean up would be limited to excavation of the contaminated soils, which they did immediately after pulling the tanks. There’s no other conclusion in this instance. That’s why I called you, Clarence.”
Clarence stared at Mark in silence for a moment. Mark knew he was weighing the odds of losing his job against lying to a friend.
“It’s strictly between us. I’m not even noting it, but I need to know for other reasons so I can do my job correctly, with as little mystery as possible.”
“This has to stay off the record,” Clarence said, “I mean that! If you use the information in a way that damages Clarke, I’ll never forgive you. He’s a good man, one of the best.”
“My lips are sealed. Bring me into the loop.”
“I was sitting in my cubicle a couple of months ago; you know how they all open toward the center, and Clarke’s office is in full view on the other side, glass-walled. If he wants privacy, he has to close about five sets of blinds, which he almost never does.”
“I know the layout. What about it?”
“I’d never heard of Gangley. At least I don’t remember having heard of him until that day when he walked into Clarke Environmental. Here was this biker dude, I mean right out of the movies, man, and he had two huge men with him, bodyguards I guess, each carrying an upscale bag that looked something like a flight bag.”
“Why had they come? What were they there for?”
“I had no idea, not at first. When Clarke saw them, he appeared to recognize Gangley; he came out and they shook hands. Apparently, Clarke had spoken to him previously when Gangley called, asking for an appointment. He didn’t seem surprised to see him, no disgruntled expression or other negative reaction.”
Clarence poured himself and Mark another mug, and lit another Camel.
“Okay, so then what happened?”
“Clarke took them into his office, and . . . check this out: Gangley’s thugs-that is what they looked like-they began closing all of the blinds. That was weird! Everyone else in the open area traded expressions too. I wasn’t the only one who thought it was awkward. They were in there for over an hour, and when they left, the two sidekicks didn’t have the bags with them. Gangley and Clarke were talking and laughing like brothers or best friends, and after Gangley left, Clarke announced loudly, ‘We just picked up the Convention Center project!’
“Everyone cheered, and soon we were out there on site, doing our thing. Clarke took care of that deal personally though, something I haven’t seen him do before, but I assumed it was because it was such a huge project and he didn’t want any mistakes. Later, he gave Razorback-we call him that, cause he’s from Arkansas-a site map limiting the number of monitoring wells to install, and marking the exact locations and even the monitoring well designs. That’s also unusual; monitoring well design is so standard.”
“What about those huge pits to groundwater all over the site spanning broad areas where there clearly were no indications of contamination? What was their reason for that? Was it a backfill source for later use during construction, or what?”
“I honestly have no idea, except that it was during those excavations that something started troubling Clarke. We got the groundwater gradient map completed with the reversed gradient as you know, but it wasn’t apparent to anyone at the time. In retrospect, it should have been obvious. Then suddenly, Clarke comes in one morning and announces that we are to turn in all materials related to the Convention Center, I mean down to copying the computer files, turning them into him, and ordering that we erase them from our systems. That was the big giveaway that something very unusual was going down . . . another pitcher, please,” he shouted to the waitress.
“I don’t need any more. The reason I’ve downed so much this early is that I don’t have to return to the office. But you’re going back, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. This is upsetting stuff to dredge up, and I’m getting the feeling I should never have agreed to this meeting. Sorry to say that, but this could ruin Clarke and affect everyone on the payroll.”
“I like the hell out of you, Clarence. I don’t know how to increase your comfort level except to say that you have my word of honor, genuinely! If I know what happened, it’s better, because I won’t be poking around. That could cause problems.”
“Yeah . . . you’re right, I guess.” He lit another Camel before even finishing the one he was smoking.
“You really are rattled, aren't you,” Mark said. “Why do you think Clarke backed out?”
“Conscience; I know it for a fact.”
“How?”
“Because the next day after he called in all of the work materials, Gangley came back to the offices, and he looked very angry.”
“Did he have the two guys with him?”
“No, he was alone. He went marching into Clarke’s office unannounced, but Clarke didn’t seem all that surprised. There was an exchange, under their breath at first, but it grew louder. Then, right in front of the entire office, with the blinds wide open, Clarke handed those two carry bags I mentioned earlier back to Gangley. I supposed it was the site materials . . . but Gangley wouldn’t take them! He shouted something, I mean, shouted, then turned to walk out. Without warning, Clarke abruptly threw one of the bags at him from behind . . . threw it hard. It almost knocked Gangley off his feet! When he recovered, he grabbed it to use as a shield, because Clarke had a firm grip on the other one and was about to smack him with it.”
“That must have been some dramatic crap!”
“Bone jarring! I never saw Clarke act like that. You have no idea, but of course, not a person in the office was looking directly at them as of that point. They were afraid Gangley might come after them on the way out, if he spotted them leering.”
“Heavy stuff . . . go on”
“Well, have you every seen two grown, angry men swinging heavy leather-canvass bags, like they mean to KILL with them? It’s frightening! I panicked. Everyone was in a state of panic. Some of us were wondering if we shouldn’t jump Gangley, but Clarke had started it by hurting him with that bag to the back, so . . . what to do, right?”
To keep Clarence from getting distracted, Mark handed the server the cost plus tip for the pitcher as she arrived with two new mugs, and reneged on not drinking any more draft. His blood pressure was up listening to Clarence’s tale. The fog from a continuous string of Camels was irritating, but he was willing to pay the price for the gems escaping Clarence’s lips along with the smoke. Clarence stood, excusing himself to the Men’s room. Mark thought he sensed him wavering a bit. He pondered the drama just shared. This was the type of interview Doreen would have liked to conduct. Clarence returned almost immediately, his face flushed.
“Are you sure you didn’t get this plot from a suspense novel?” Mark asked. “It’s gripping.”
“Swear to God, every word’s true, even the part I’m about to tell you,” he said, climbing back onto his stool, “They were smacking those bags with tremendous force, when all of a sudden, Clarke’s ripped . . . and hundreds, maybe thousands of bills went flying all over the place. I’m talking hundred-dollar bills, here!”
“Wow!”
“When it broke, Clarke paused just long enough to look through the glass at the rest of us, and Gangley caught him upside the head, knocking him to the floor. Then he threw the bag down on him, and as he left, slammed the door so hard the glass broke, sending shards all over the place. While he was exiting, not an eye looked directly at him. Everyone was terrified! As soon as he was out the front, one of the girls ran over to the door to see if Clarke was all right.”
“Was he?”
“Apparently, because he was standing back up, but he told her to ‘get the blank out,’ and began closing all of the blinds. No one else dared to approach that door. I certainly wouldn’t have! The side of his face was swelling. I saw that much.”
“What did he say when he came out?”
“He didn’t. I guess he was embarrassed. He was still in there when the last person left for the evening. The next day, he didn’t come in until three in the afternoon. Some Door company showed up during the morning and replaced the door. That was it. That’s all I know.”
“And he never said anything about it?”
“He didn’t, and no one ever dared mention it again. The next thing I knew, I heard you guys had the project, so I figured Jess was offered the carry bags next.”
“No way! Jess isn’t like that. He wouldn’t take a bribe from Gangley or anyone else. He built Delta brick-by-brick, and he wouldn’t let anyone tear it down. Second, I’m doing a standard site investigation, and he hasn’t hinted at varying it in any way. I guess Gangley just dropped one of the balls he was juggling, a big one.”
Rising to leave, Mark assured him their discussion would never be disclosed with Clarence’s name attached to it, or in a manner that would disparage Clarke Environmental. He thanked him for the information.
“Just the same,” Clarence warned, “You be real careful if Gangley’s around. That man is dangerous, and he’s got the bucks to grind his way to wherever he wants. I’m serious, Mark, don’t take any of this lightly.”
“I’m totally sensitized, Clarence. Thanks again.”
“Sure, and it’s good to see you on your feet again after that horrible accident. You’re lucky to be alive.”
“Thanks, Clarence, I’m taking off now. I have the information I needed.”
“Aren’t you going to help empty this pitcher?” Clarence asked, lighting at least his eighth Camel.
“I don’t think so, but thanks!”
They shook hands, and Mark watched Clarence pour another mug as he stopped off at the Men’s himself. When he came out, instead of leaving, he returned to the table.
“Forget something? Got another question?”
“No, my friend, but I thought of a conversation I overheard outside the mall while waiting on Doreen to pick up a Lay-away some time ago. It came to mind while I was in the Men’s room.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t think you’ll be offended. I’d hate to see anything untoward happen.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“While I was waiting on her, there were some young girls sitting on the steps talking, three of them, I think. I was behind them sitting on a bench and they didn’t realize I was there.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, one of them, a ’large’ girl, was saying something to the other two about having gotten genital warts in her mouth!”
“You’re conning me, now.”
“No, I’m not. What if she gave you head? You could end up with warts on your sausage! That would seriously dampen your lifestyle. It’s just something to think about, that’s all. I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah, take care of yourself.” Clarence said.
Mark could tell from his expression and the silence that followed that Clarence would be preoccupied with that prospect for a while. He could imagine him pulling a magnifying glass and flashlight out of the glove compartment in the heat of passion, and asking a girl to open her mouth for a close inspection before nudging her head down! He laughed til it hurt.

The Strategy

Without stopping by her office first, Doreen walked straight to Lou’s, holding her breath in anticipation. She was certain Lou would be sitting there with a second fax. Her heart throbbed to know what it contained. She wasn’t disappointed.
“Good morning! You got my message, I see,” Lou said.
“Actually, I haven’t been to my office yet. I knew there would be another fax; that’s why I’m an hour early. I didn’t think you’d be in yet.”
“You’d have to get up very early to arrive before me; I’m up with the roosters! How did you know there would be another fax, Woman’s intuition?”
“No, I saw her sending it!”
“You what . . . her . . . what are you telling me? Do you also know what’s in it?”
“No, but I can’t wait to see.”
“Well, go ahead and read it; then I want the long version.”
She grabbed it anxiously, and read:
You didn’t put it in the paper. This is bigger than you think, and it’s true. Here’s more: The mayor was paid half a million in cash by Gangley. Now will you do a story? Where’s your public conscience?
Looking up, she realized she and Lou were staring at each other in disbelief.
“You believe this lady?” She asked. “She obviously knows nothing about how the newspaper business functions and even less about Investigative reporting.”
“Right now, I’m more interested in knowing how you know it is a lady.”
“An unbelievable run of luck, Lou. Last night after dinner, I left Mark and Tim at home to run over to the Mail Boxes, Inc. place we traced from the number on the first fax. It’s less than half an hour from Woods. I wanted to talk to the evening shift fellow, John Quince. When I arrived, he remembered the last person there night before last because he had locked the front door a few minutes early, thinking no one else would be coming. She stood outside banging, pointing to her watch, so he had to unlock the door again to let her in. You wouldn’t forget someone you met under those circumstances. It turns out, she’s a thirty-five to forty-year-old; a redhead who doesn’t know the first thing about dressing even though she drives a nice Cadillac.”
“He knew that?”
“No, but I’ll get to how I know.”
Doreen related the entire series of events the previous evening as Lou listened in amazement.
“My, you’re the luckiest reporter,” he said as she concluded, “and you’re probably fortunate you turned off when you did. Whoever he was, he was certainly tailing the lady. If she’s being watched, she’s potentially in danger, perhaps physical danger.”
“That means we have to find her somehow, but not push her further into harms way doing so.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Lou mused, “We know she’s watching the paper, because she was upset that her fax tip didn’t trigger a story. She probably expected to find it on the front page. We also know that she’ll be looking in the paper this evening, hoping to see it.”
“So, where does that leave us?” Doreen asked.
“Suppose we put a little message surrounded by a border right in the lower left or right corner of the front page which invites her to contact us?”
“You mean something like,
Dear redheaded Fax Friend. Need to speak with you confidentially before we
can run the story. Will protect your identity. Please call Doreen or Lou at 555-1446?,Doreen asked.
“Yeah.” Lou said, “that wording will do, except I’d leave out redheaded. You’re telling her we know what she looks like.”
“True,” Doreen agreed. “We can get in the Late Edition.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Lou . . . oou, I was a copy editor, remember?”
Lou laughed, “Guess I can’t see you as anything but an investigative reporter any longer.”
“I’m on it!” Doreen said, darting out.
Lou sat reflecting upon the previous night’s drama.
“Isn’t that something,” he thought to himself? They had grown so involved in that redhead, they had never discussed the implications of the mayor taking a $500,000 dollar bribe!
“Hell, this is getting damned exciting.”
Of course, he knew nothing Mark had uncovered.

Nancy Herrick, Chief of Accounts Receivable at Gangley Enterprises, tossed her red curls with the curling brush, put on her outfit for the day, and fed ”Muff.” The Chow-Chow was her only companion at home. It normally took her about half an hour to arrive at Gangley Tower, but if traffic was bad-and it often was in Houston-it could take forty-five minutes or more. She’d been at Gangley for eleven years; she had gotten the job when she was an ambitious twenty-eight-year-old. As she drove along in the Cadillac left by her late husband, she ruminated how life had changed during the past year. Losing Greg while still a relatively young woman had been very difficult for her and for their only child, Nadine. He was a charming man, a caring husband and father, and their life together had been good for eighteen wonderful years. Now, she was thirty-nine, widowed for more than a year.
“I feel so lonely,” she thought. She wished Nadine was there, or she could visit her. They had always been so close. “At least I had her near me the week after I discovered Greg dead.”
Greg had died in his sleep only days before the party she planned for his fiftieth birthday. During the two days before Nadine arrived from far away Ohio State, Nancy had almost lost it. After Nadine returned to school, the loneliness was so intense, Nancy had entered therapy. It had helped her adjust–somewhat-to living alone. Her and Muff.
The first decade in the accounting department had been a good-paying, dream job. The previous year, she’d stumbled upon a stack of documents Mr. Gangley had started through the shredder, unaware that they became jammed only two inches in after he left the room. The shredder was in the Media room midway between her office and Mr. Gangley’s, and she was entering as he left, and heard the shredder’s motor straining.
“Executives are so impatient,” she said, “always trying to feed too many sheets at once.”
She pulled them out to clear the machine, and was re-feeding them a few at a time when her eye caught something that caused her to pause. It was a sheet of handwritten names jotted by Gangley, apparently during a series of telephone conversations. That in itself was nothing remarkable had it not been that some of the names had a large sum of money written beside them. Some of the amounts were lined through and a larger or smaller amount jotted to the right. They were mostly big names: City Council members, the Mayor, a Harold Moss at the State Department of Environmental Quality, someone by the name of Roger Clarke, and several others she didn’t recognize. The amounts beside the names totaled more than two million dollars, and instructions like cash, wire to Panama or Cayman account, suggested this was a series of clandestine transactions. It was during the time that Gangley was pushing the city to purchase a six-block area from him for construction of Houston’s new Convention Center site. Suspecting it was a list of payoffs, she folded the particular sheet, shoved it into a pocket, shredded the remainder and returned to her office. There, she could study it more carefully.
The City Council members were of particular interest. George Merrill just happened to be Gangley Enterprises’s Principal Counsel and Mr. Gangley’s principal golf partner. Edith Laurel had been a virulent opponent of the deal, yet had suddenly switched her vote at the end without explanation. The Mayor had been a vocal but ambivalent influence affecting the decision. In initial television interviews, he had opposed it, but afterward, occasioned highly favorable statements which helped secure the purchase.
Gangley had acquired an expansive, six-square-block area slowly during the previous three years, and not without difficulty. It was during that acquisition phase that he and Mr. Merrill became so closely associated. Nancy had overheard him telling Merrill he had more than 38 million invested before demolition even began. Having overseen the cost accounting, she knew the demolition had required an average of seven million per square block for five of the six, and more than 13 million to level the block where the old twelve-story, Harper Building stood. Gangley had referred to it colorfully as “Dinosaur crap piled twelve stories high,” and it had to come down. That meant a total investment of more than 86 million to end up with six, completely empty, square blocks, every structure razed, ready to build on; no mean feat that close to Houston’s pulse! So of course, she reasoned, a couple million in bribes was nothing to him by comparison. To him, it was just part of the cost of doing business. To the recipients, it represented a small fortune.
“They all took the money,” she exclaimed aloud. That was obvious.
“I wonder if we have had previous dealings with any of these names I don’t recognize,” she thought, thinking that perhaps one of the regular accountants in the accounting pool had files on one or more of them. She ran a name search on every Gangley account. There were no matches. She went back five years, ten. No record.

She had always been loyal to Mr. Gangley. As she’d worked her way up the ladder in the accounting department over the years, she’d heard of occasional, “off-ledger” transactions, but had never seen evidence of any. Since becoming Supervisor, there was nothing strictly illegal that she knew of . . . until the shredder incident.
Most of the employees presumed there were illegal dealings because of the thugs he always had around to “bid his doing,” as he called it. Her reasoning was simple: he paid her salary, so loyalty was both her Christian duty and an apropos obligation. When she was employed, the Personnel Director had told her neither to forget, nor ever ignore, that above all else, Mr. Gangley valued loyalty. He wasn’t a religious man, she was certain of that; but loyalty was like a religion to him. That implied the need for it, which in turn suggested that there were dealings no one but Mr. Gangley and those most loyal to him knew of. She had also learned early on that the size of the coveted, year-end, Holiday Bonus was how Randle Ted Gangley confirmed his respect for you. Base salaries at Gangley Enterprises only crept up slowly, with negligible, incremental increases. Yet, if you were effective, beginning with hard work, you could count on that Holiday Bonus being significant . . . sometimes notably significant. It was a riveting pair of corporate policies. If you were an unremarkable employee, so was your pay, and you were doomed to remain low on the corporate ladder. On the other hand, if you were remarkable and were promoted into the hierarchy, hard work was a given. You were weighed in a different balance: You either were fiercely loyal, or stood a good chance of having to learn the correct spelling of encyclopedia. The overwhelming majority of Gangley employees were paragons of hard work and loyalty.
She had occasionally noticed him admiring her cleavage, and once, not long after the death of his wife, she felt he was about to hit on her, but he never had. Indeed, he had treated her with respect throughout her career. The dream aspects of the job had faded last year, not because she discovered the document in the shredder, but something else . . . something that left her hating Gangley with the same intensity she had admired him, and determined to hurt him in the worst way.
It was late on a Friday evening about two months after burying Greg. She’d stayed late to organize and bind a sheaf of reports associated with the Convention Center property, when Gangley happened by her office. Almost a hundred small parcels: buildings large and small, service businesses of all sorts, gasoline stations, shops, etc., had been acquired to make up the consolidated six-block site. The myriad tasks and details connected with the deal had imposed an enormous, continuing workload upon the entire staff, especially the supervisors, and she was a supervisor.
“You don’t work by the hour, Nancy,” he said, stepping inside, “yet you always stay when it’s important to me. When was your last salary review?”
“Lawson increased me from thirty-two, five to thirty-three last year,” she said.
“Without your husband’s income, that can’t be adequate. Is it?”
“I paid off the home with his life insurance, and my car. As far as everything else, I get along okay.”
“Thirty-three thousand isn’t enough for a supervisor with your commitment and years with the company. I’m increasing it to forty!”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Gangley! You don’t how much this means to me.” It meant the difference between living payday-to-payday, and having a life.
“Call me, Randall from now on,” he said. “Your office is too close to mine, and your position too vital, to address me as, Mister.”
He returned to his office. Later, when leaving, she passed his door, and he spoke again.
“It’s been a long day for me too,” he said, after acknowledging the extra time she’d put in that evening. “I’m going to have a drink at the club. Why don’t you join me, bring me up to date with what’s going on in your life?”
She thought it a nice gesture. The Chamber was close–only a stroll across the street and down a few doors. Having just had a salary bump seven thousand large, it seemed rude to decline conversation related to “ . . . what’s going on in your life.” Her acceptance was buoyant, rather than guarded. She had, after all, known the man for more than a decade.
They ordered drinks, spoke briefly about Nadine’s excellent academic performance at Ohio State, how pleased Nancy was and how she’d missed her since the wedding, and other matters of interest. Most men that Nancy knew would have considered such conversation a waste of time, if not drivel. Gangley seemed sincere. Feeling comfortable with him, a quid pro quo seemed in order. Even after a decade in his employ, her familiarity with his background was devoid of detail. No one else knew much, either, not that they’d shared with her, at least. Why not venture inquiry?
“Randall, if you really don't mind me calling you that, I want to ask you about something.”
“What might that be?” Sipping his third Gin and Tonic, he appeared forthcoming, relaxed.
“I always thought you were from Chicago. Lawson told me you were from Detroit. Where did you grow up, and how did you come to head Gangley Enterprises? Other than the Real Estate Division, I have scant back story, especially of your childhood and early life.”
Gangley considered her for a moment, contemplating how much he should divulge.
“I grew up on the streets of Detroit, Nancy . . . the bad part of town; that’s what Lawson’s referring to. I didn’t have what you’d call a nurturing childhood. If I was to begin with my earliest memories, a rating chart of my mother would look like the Dow for 2002 or October of 2008, and my old man, that sorry you know what, he’d get bombed on liquor, not beer or wine; always the hard stuff. Then he'd come home at all hours, and I’d hear them rolling around on the floor, fighting. She was Bulgarian, strong as an ox. That’s the only thing that kept him from killing her, I think. About the only positive thing I remember is the day he came home, having just gotten a raise at his union job-he was a Teamster. He was so proud. He said, ‘I make a-nickel-a-minute!’ Everything went downhill from there . . . as I recall it. The one time I felt close enough to him to express the fear I felt lying in bed in the dark, listening to them, he blew me off, claiming he was simply defending himself. He could have been telling the truth; I’d seen her knock the crap out of him, witnessed that more than once. But I knew for a fact that he had let her have it a couple of times. Those were the worst nights, the ones he was most drunk, when he’d come into my room and beat the holy crap out of me after a drub with her. The last time I saw him, he was in one of his rages.”
“He whipped you?”
“Used whatever was handy at the time. That night I saw him last, he used his belt. Not whipping me, because it wasn’t leather, it was elastic, with a brass buckle and a brass tip on the other end. He was pulling it back, and letting go, popping me with the end. That hurt like hell, and I was screaming much more than usual. It left hellacious bruises everywhere it thumped me, took weeks to go away, too.”
“God, have mercy, Randall! You mean, like popping someone with the end of a tower, like a whip?”
“You get the picture. She came in after I’d lost count, grabbed the nearest thing she could hit him with-my aluminum baseball bat-and smashed him across the back. At first, he was so angry, he went for her, but when he got close, she’d hit him again. It was like a replay, until I got past them and ran out of the house and down the street. I think she knocked him out. An ambulance came and took him away a while later. I watched from behind a neighbor’s hedges down the block. I saw the police come too, but I guess after hearing what had happened, they didn’t do anything to her. They just left and drove slowly around the block a few times, looking for me.”
“How did he act toward you after that?” Nancy asked, concerned.
“He didn’t. I never saw him again.”
“She didn’t kill him?”
“No, she told me he was in the hospital more than a week. He came by one day while I was at school, took some things, and left.”
“Did she remarry, or were you raised without a father?”
“She would have, but wasn’t an attractive woman: big bones, lardy ass, all that and too lazy to do anything about it. Men took advantage of her low self-esteem, a steady stream of them, none worth a hoot. The only reason I don’t think of her as a prostitute is she didn’t charge. She was just a whore and paid little attention to me.”
“I’m sorry you had to live through that, Randall. I can’t imagine it. My parents’ relationship was so solid, and they were so good to us. What about your siblings? Just from what you’ve told me so far, I feel I know you much better.”
“I just spoke more words to you than my old man ever spoke to me at one time. My father wouldn’t marry her unless she got rid of my two half-brothers. She didn’t want to . . . at least that’s what she told me . . . but she did; gave them to her ex.”
“Didn’t she try to get them back after your father left?”
“In her condition? Shoot, she didn’t even pay any attention to me half the time.”
“Does she still live in Detroit?”
“Keep this to yourself . . . I mean it . . . she doesn’t live in Detroit. She lives in an institution in Oklahoma, hopelessly insane. She contracted syphilis, and I guess she didn’t know until she started going blind . . . maybe she just didn’t care; probably had ADD, but they knew very little about it in those days. I ended up in a series of Foster homes, beginning at age eleven. In Detroit, foster parents weren’t well off, and most were in it for the state and county money they got out of it. I ran off twice. The first time, they picked me up within a week. When I was sixteen, I ran again, but I knew not to stay in the area by then. I went to Chicago, got a job in a slaughterhouse, and learned about meat.”
“Meat?”
“Yeah, a lot about it. The income from G-sales, the check from Montana I receive every month, is from a cattle ranch. That’s the reason I maintain my twin-prop. I fly there occasionally to see how things are going, scan the herds from the air.”
“So that’s what that account is. The name is so nondescript, I had no idea!”
“It comes from a Montana ranch I started with a partner who’d worked in the slaughterhouses for years before I arrived in Illinois. We worked together on the floor, and all he talked about–for eighteen months-was how we were stuck in the middle between the beef ranch and the supermarkets. He convinced me to pool resources and go for it.
“It was in a shambles when we bought it at auction. Beef prices had hit a five-year low, and we worked our asses off just to stay afloat. Neither of us wanted to go back to Chicago. Have you ever been to Montana?”
“No, Greg and I never visited the Northwest.”
“If you had, you’d understand. It’s the most beautiful place on earth, not because of ranching. That’s not my bag, but the look of the mountains.”
He paused for a moment, remembering. Nancy could almost feel the energy he emanated.
“Someday, if I ever decide to act out my fantasies about retiring, that’s where I’d prefer to be put in the ground. Anyway, when the price floor rose for beef, we took in a third party, a money guy. He and my partner loved the ranch; I hated it by then, and they knew it. We formed an agreement-a perpetual lease of my one-third interest- and I’ve gotten a percentage every year since. I used that to get set up here in Houston. I worked for a company that bought and sold oil leases the first couple of years. After learning the ropes, I made a discrete income doing it on the side for myself, and eventually went completely on my own. I got in at just the right time. That was the beginning of Gangley Enterprises. The real estate boom during the ‘80's is what made me. I got into the income tax avoidance game, had doctors and other cash cows buying into office buildings and other properties as tax shelters. I got a piece of every deal, some on a continuing basis. I like steady revenue, not pops. When the government closed the loophole, Houston went dead for a while, and I gathered options. I bought what’s now Gangley Tower back then . . . It had a 20% occupancy rate and the builder was on the ropes. The bank even accepted a heavy loss to get out from under it.”
“You were in the right place at the right time, for sure. You also were shrewd approaching opportunities.”
“Oil always comes back, Nancy; sooner or later. When Houston recovered, I started unloading the ones I controlled first to build cash. Then I began exercising the options purchased from the owners of the big buildings . . . that chapped their rears. They were all too eager to sell the option when the places were on their backs just to get enough cash to keep the utilities on for what few occupants they did have, or to avoid the bank taking it over. But when occupants started pouring back in, and I showed up with them, they watched me make a killing from the sale later. Several owners tried to back out, getting the banks to argue that the options were illegal or had no force, because they hadn’t underwritten them. They actually called me a chump or a sucker for forking over the cash back when they needed it so badly. It was like war for five years, one I fought mostly in the courts with Merrill’s genius. For those who had called me a chump, it was settled out of court in a more medieval way.”
Gangley had moved to doubles, and his eyes began to take on a strange look that made Nancy think it was perhaps time to leave The Chamber.
“Being from Detroit, it was a mistake to try to rip me off. Those months in the slaughterhouses made me very comfortable around flesh and blood. No one rips me off and gets to brag about it.”
Nancy thought better of asking what he specifically meant by the latter remark.
“Thanks for sharing so much with me, Randall. For the first time, I feel like I know you. Maybe we should leave now? I know how Gin sneaks up on me. My heart goes out to you for the horrible childhood you suffered. Foster children are so vulnerable, and so often deprived of love and nurturing when they need it most, during the tender years. But what am I doing telling you?”
She’d had only three drinks, her limit. She felt the buzz. During the same period, he’d worked through six, including two doubles, yet seemed unphased. As they walked back to the Tower, they continued talking and laughing. It was a very pleasant experience. He walked her to her car, and waited for her to leave before turning away.
“A perfect gentleman,” she thought.
When she turned the key, nothing happened. It couldn’t have been deader if someone had stolen the battery. Had they? Gangley looked under the hood, found nothing obvious, then offered to take her home. It was late and chilly. She didn’t want to wait around in the dark for a mechanic to come, and she didn’t trust taxis late at night, so she agreed. Indeed, she was glad he was there. Gangley Tower was in a safe area of town during the day, but at night, lots of bad things happened to people caught unawares. One could never be certain that a mugger or rapist wasn’t lurking in the shadows, or hiding behind a nearby car, waiting to jump you. Houston had its poor and criminal elements too, even in boom periods.
Gangley’s excess became noticeable almost immediately. He made a precarious turn, turned the wrong way twice when she was giving him directions, and swerved once, almost hitting the side of a parked car. When they arrived at her home, she felt relieved, even lucky. She was also worried about him getting home with his Seville STS in one piece. Should she offer him a cup of coffee, strong coffee? She invited him in for a cup. He accepted, embarrassed she was aware of his condition.
Other than Muff, it was just the two of them in the house, her and the boss. She kept the conversation going, trying to delay him until he had two strong cups. Then he rose as if to leave, and she shook his hand, thanking him again for the lift. He thanked her for the coffee as he stood in the open doorway, looking at her warmly. Then, suddenly, he closed it, turned and embraced her, his lips on her neck. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that until he placed his mouth over hers, sucking her lips in, and lowering his hands to her buttocks, pulling her very close. That was the moment she realized he wanted more than sentimental affection. He wanted something more accommodating, perhaps baleful, and he wanted it on the spot apparently.
“Randall, I can’t. I’m fond of you . . . I am, but I’ve just buried my husband, and I . . . just can’t, not yet. I’m not ready for a new relationship.” But Randall didn’t stop clutching her.
“I want you, Nancy,” he said, and moving his left arm firmly around her trim waste, began unbuttoning her blouse behind her back with his right hand. Fear ran through her like a flood, and the first casualty was her confidence that Randall Ted Gangley was a gentleman.
“Randall, No, I mean it,” she said, pushing hard against him, “I don’t want this. Stop!”
She panicked, realizing she was as helpless as a fly caught in a spider’s web. He was the spider, and she was the fly, about to watch helplessly as its insides were sucked out, leaving a shrunken, decrepit shell. She couldn’t free herself from his tight grasp. She had seen a talk show once about rape and date rape.
“If you intend to resist,” the commentator had said, “you have to be willing to inflict harm on the assailant.”
She thought of trying to kick him in the groin with her knee, but in the position he held her, it was awkward. His lust had overtaken him because of too much Gin. What would be the consequence if she tried to gouge out an eye or something equally horrid?
“My God!” she thought, when he unsnapped her bra and slipped her blouse over her shoulder, “I’m in real trouble here!” One bra strap was dangling halfway down her arm, and her left breast fell out. Embarrassed, she began frantically trying to jerk away.
“Stop it! Stop it, Randall!”
“I know why you invited me up, Nancy. Just relax. Don’t lose your nerve now. I know you need it as much as I do. I want to feel your body against mine. I want to give you pleasure.”
“This isn’t pleasure! I beg you to stop. You’re trying to rape me. Think how you’ll feel tomorrow. Stop!”
Her shouting seemed only to buoy his conviction that he was actually doing her bidding. She tried to speak calmly, with reason.
“Randall, you’re being self-indulgent. I know you’re used to having things your own way, but try to realize how horribly wrong this is, and what a terrible thing you’re doing.”
Unflinching, he picked her up, carried her to the sofa, and laid her with her back against it, half sitting, half slumped down, like a child watching Saturday morning cartoons. His weight pressing her body down, he held her wrists with his hands. Both breasts now protruded in full view, still proud at thirty-nine. Viewing them, Gangley became even more inflamed. She twinged with pain as he sucked one of the long-denied nipples and the end of her breast deep into his mouth, encircling it with his tongue. He transferred her left wrist to his other hand, so that both were tightly gripped behind her back, leaving his right hand free.
“Randall, if you do this, I’m reporting it. Please stop . . . please!”
They might as well have been rehearsing lines from a dialogue. To her protests and pleas, he replied over and over: “It’s okay, Nancy”, “You like it rough, like to resist, don’t you?”, “That’s okay. We both need it.”, “I want you, too!”. His repetitions grated upon her like a scratched, 78 rpm record in the old days when there were record players.
Within moments, her skirt and stockings were off, and he had worked her panties down to the ankles. He paused, momentarily, looking at her fully exposed body. She trembled as his eyes moved down her full length. She sensed a switch had been thrown, or a lever pulled in his mind: his smell changed; passion seemed to exude from every pore. He was mad with lust, and it was happening. Oh, yes! Regardless of what she said . . . or what she did. Sick with futility, she went limp.
When he felt her relax, Gangley slowed his pace. She lay like a dead woman’s corpse as he French-kissed her, sucked the skin of her neck and bosom, and feasted upon as much of the ends of both breasts as he could draw into his mouth. When he began moving down, Nancy descended into a daze of shock and terror, that awful place only a rape victim knows. Now, he was spreading her legs apart, his head between her thighs, tasting and fondling her with his tongue. No detail of her anatomy went unexplored as timelessness first enveloped, then pervaded her mind.
“You’re as sweet as honey,” he said.
“We’ll forget this ever happened if you’ll just stop now. Please respect the ten faithful years I’ve worked for you and don’t do this.”
If he heard her at all, the words were too distant, lost in space, like much of her sanity. She might as well ask falling rain to return to the heavens.
“Nancy, I want you to enjoy it too; It’s important to me,” he said. Grasping the back of her head in his hands, he thrust his tongue into her mouth as she felt him simultaneously penetrating her. Slowly . . . ever so slowly . . . he moved, deep inside her. He wasn’t in a hurry. Every slow motion thrust brought bliss to him, and horror to her. The Gin postponed, but couldn’t prevent, the inevitable. Like an imaginary, approaching thunderstorm, the pace increased . . . deeper . . . stronger! Thunder drew nearer, rumbling louder. Demons viewed from the shadows until it overtook them. In an explosive thunderclap, her sky fell as he lurched in orgasm. Her body quaked, shaken by undercurrents of violence during ravenous maneuvers. His childlike moaning at the end left her barren of feeling.
He stayed for a while, still inside her, still throbbing. When he had fully relaxed, he rolled off.
“God Nancy,” he declared, leaning against the back of the sofa beside her, “God, I’m taking you along on my weekend Harley trips.”
Harley trips? So he could use her like a slut for his own pleasure every weekend? She felt like a dirty rag in the bottom of a smelly garbage can. She had been raped by Randle Ted Gangley. He felt no shame and actually helped put her clothes back on, kissing her intermittently.
“What does he think just happened?” she asked herself.
He had it his way; she had a hellish nightmare, betrayed by a man she once admired. That admiration now metamorphosed into hatred. He had the audacity to sit and chat while enjoying another cup of coffee before leaving. At one point, she was sure he was coming back for more, but he left.
As soon as he was out the door, she locked it, bolted across the room to the phone, dialed 911, and reported she had just been raped. The operator said she was sorry, but the crisis counselor normally pulling that shift had called-in sick.
“Stay on the line, you poor thing! I’ll transfer you to a woman police officer; a male wouldn’t understand, and it would be embarrassing for you. She’s been here a long time. I’m sure she can help you.” The voice of a seasoned, street-hardened woman came on the line.
“I’ve just been raped!” Nancy shouted.
“Calm down, Miss! Is the assailant still there?”
“No, he’s gone, and the door’s locked.”
“Where are you, now?”
“On my sofa, in the living room.”
“You were raped in your home?”
“Yes, and he wouldn’t stop, no matter what I said or did!”
“Have you ever seen the assailant before?”
“Yes, he’s been my boss for more than a decade. I can’t believe he would rape me!”
“How did he get into your house?”
“I invited him in for coffee, because we shared drinks at the club, and I was concerned he could have an accident. A couple of cups of strong coffee, and I felt he’d be fine.”
“Wait a minute! You’re telling me that you were out at a club having drinks, you drove together to your home, and you invited him in?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t like it sounds. My car wouldn’t start, and he brought me home. He had too much to drink, and I was concerned.”
“Uh huh”
“Well, it’s the truth! This wasn’t planned. If my car had started, we would have both just gone home.”
“So, tell me how it happened. Don’t leave anything out, and don’t exaggerate. I know you’re upset; I can tell from your hysteria, but talk to me, and try to stay calm. You invited him in-what time was that”
“Around eight.”
“And how long have you known this man?”
“More than ten years . . . ”
“And he’s never made an advance to you before?”
“No, that’s why I trusted him. I thought he . . . ”
“Did he slap you around, punch you in the stomach, throw you to the floor or any violent act?”
“Rape is a violent act, lady!”
“Darling, I know that. I’m trying to determine if he was brutal, that’s all. You need to calm down.”
“No, he didn’t do any of those things. He kissed me, then raped me.”
“Kissed you? Were there any witnesses? Do you have any bruises? Is there evidence of a struggle?”
“No, none of that.”
“Okay. Tell me how it happened, one step at a time.”
Nancy related the entire event, leaving out the most vulgar details. Her head hurt as she relived the experience.
“I presume you’ll be quitting your job there?”
“I can’t quit my job. I just got a raise, a big one. Its not about my job, quitting would just hurt me. I’ve already been hurt enough by being raped!”
“Who gave you the raise?”
“Mr. Gangley did.”
“Ma’am, it sounds to me like this man thought you two were on a date, especially when you invited him into your home. You set yourself up for this kind of thing to happen. In a way, you set him up too. You were careless. You knew he had too much and wasn’t himself. That’s the reason you let him in, invited him in. I wish I could tell you how often I get this kind of call. Let me give you some advice- good advice-get a therapist and get over it. His lawyers would tear you to pieces in a case like this.”
“I’ve got his semen in me. I can prove he raped me!”
“No, that only proves intercourse. So what? Thousands of people all around us are having intercourse while we’re talking on this telephone. Big deal! He would say you invited him in, turned him on, it was your idea, and that you’re just angry because he didn’t ask you to marry him or a dozen other stories.”
“I want him arrested. He raped me. It’s as simple as ‘no means no!’ Don’t you understand that?”
“I’m afraid I do, Honey. Let me ask you, did you enjoy it when his head was between your thighs? Did he suck or just lick? Did he put his tongue in you? Did it turn you on when he licked your anus?”
“You insensitive low life. How dare you ask me filthy questions like that? You make me sick!” Nancy screamed into the phone.
“Ma’am, you can’t even confront those questions with a strange woman over a telephone line. You’re much too delicate. You need to understand that if you take this man to court, his lawyers will ask you every one of these questions in open court, and some a lot worse. By the time they get through, with you having been out with him, inviting him into the privacy of your home with only the two of you there, they’ll have the jury convinced that you raped him. Maybe you hoped to get another nice promotion. Lots of women sleep their way to the top, and not just in the movies. They’ll fry you. I’ve seen very nice women like you destroyed on the stand by scum-bag lawyers. If you insist, go to the hospital and have the semen sampled, then come down and file charges. We’ll have to follow up, but your life will never be the same again, I can promise you that. It’s up to you, Ma’am.”
Nancy slammed down the phone, sat down, and cried for a long time.
The hefty raise showed up on her next paycheck. It didn’t seem related to the rape; if her car had started, there wouldn’t have been a rape. If he had just come to her the next morning, begged her forgiveness, admitting he had drank too heavily, misunderstood her kindness as signals for coitus, maybe, with time, things could return to normal. There were extenuating circumstances: She made key mistakes that night. She could have been merciful if he had just validated her feelings. It would have helped assuage the indignity she felt.
But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, the next day, he came into her office without so much as a “Hello” and closed the door. Locking it, he came around behind her desk, and smiling, placed his arm around her shoulder, pulling her head against him. She jerked back, fearing he was about to unzip his fly. She didn’t know what to say.
“Sorry . . . I thought we were a number.” He said, looking hurt.
“A number?” She replied, giving him a disgusted look.
He turned and walked out of the office much more quickly than he had entered, without looking back. After that, she got the cold shoulder. Having raped her, and finding she wasn’t willing to accommodate him every day “No thank you very much,” he lost interest.

The Ad

There was a twinge, just a twinge of sympathy for Gangley after Nancy pondered the rape for a while afterward. Maybe he hadn’t approached her because he was embarrassed by her reaction the next morning in her office, or maybe, it was as basic as a lack of communication skills with women; maybe he thought pulling her cheek against him was romantic, and the cold shoulder was a defense mechanism. But he had wronged her in the worst way. He made no further personal gestures as the months passed. He was formal with her, seemed to take her for granted. She never felt clean around him after that. The twinge of sympathy evaporated, and she was left with only a desire for revenge. But how? She felt powerless. What could she do that would punish him . . . hurt him . . . as badly as he had hurt her? Absolutely nothing.
Then, she had serendipitously come upon his handwritten notes jammed in the shredder. She knew she could get him with those. She’d just bide her time until she discovered the best way to use the stuff against him. She watched the Convention Center deal go through, saw the changes in behavior a bushel basket of hundred dollar bills can induce, and now had decided it was the perfect time to tip off the press. That would surely kill the entire deal. She just had to be sure that no one knew where the information was coming from, or it would mean her job. Forty-thousand dollar jobs don't grow on trees, especially when you're pushing forty, and her regular review had pushed it to $41,000. Moreover, her last Holiday Bonus had been the largest ever, but she knew she had it earned it. It wasn't a consolation prize. She needed her job, and knew he wouldn’t dare release her without cause after what he’d done. He owed her. She devised an anonymous method of tipping off the press. She drove to a remote location and sent an anonymous fax, expecting to see allegations made the next day, perhaps on the front page. It was a big story to be sure. But when the next day came, she searched the entire paper in vain. There was nothing, not even tucked away deep inside. So in last night’s fax, she had revealed the mayor. That would get their interest, because a lot of people didn’t like him. Now, she was looking in the Late Edition. There was no front page article . . . wait a minute! In the bottom right-hand corner was a box containing a message that could only be intended for her:
Dear Fax Friend: Need to speak with you confidentially before we can run the story. We will protect your identity. Please call Doreen or Lou: 555-1446.
They had gotten the faxes and read them. They obviously needed something more. Thing was, you couldn’t trust the press; Greg always said that. But if she didn’t trust someone, Gangley would get away with violating her. She decided to talk to the Doreen lady from a public phone without revealing her identity.

Date Night was another of the Houser family traditions. They had rarely missed a week since their wedding. Their most convenient baby-sitter was Patricia, a teen next door. Normally, she got the privilege of staying with Tim. He was old enough to be home alone after school for a couple of hours, but they never left him alone on Date Nights, because they could be gone several hours, usually evenings. In the afternoon, he usually played with Patricia’s younger brother, Jimmy in one of their back yards, or equally likely, fighting video game wars.
Patricia was waiting anxiously. Doreen always brought carry-out home on Date Nights, usually fried chicken or bean burritos with extra cheese, Tim’s favorite. She also brought goodies: cookies, maybe ice cream, and some fresh fruit. It was the only night of the week Tim had access to the diet soda. The rest of the time, he was restricted to milk and juice, rigorously enforced. Consequently, Tim and Patricia looked forward to Date Nights as much as Mark and Doreen. Tim was a delight to Patricia, always surprising her with conversations she might have had with another teen. He was in every sense a kid, but more tolerable to be with to earn the money for makeup and other lusts moms soon refuse to fund. Patricia was certain that some of the kids she sat had been smuggled from hell.
“Good evening, Mrs. Houser. How was your day?”
She lied, said it had been great.
“How was your day, Mark?”
Doreen was piqued that she always called her “Mrs. Houser,” but always addressed her husband by his first name, teen or not.
“I spent most of it with a drunk guy, but I learned a lot.” Patricia seemed baffled by the answer. What could anyone learn from a drunk?
They all entered the house, and while the adults freshened up, Tim and Patricia attacked the Popeyes chicken. A few minutes later, Doreen emerged and reviewed her list of instructions and reminders with Patricia. When Mark came out, they said their goodbyes and left.
“Where to, tonight?” Doreen inquired, placing her hand on Mark’s leg.
“Joe’s Crab Shack!” he announced.
“Oh, Goody! I was hoping you’d say that.”
The Crab Shack was a half-hour’s drive from Woods, but worth every mile . . . seafood buffet, and the best gumbo available locally. The okra pieces were cut large enough, you could actually see them. It wasn’t a powdered, 50% corn starch concoction resembling brown goo mixed with rice. It was made fresh from scratch daily by a chef from Louisiana who knew the traditional recipes, and used Basmati rice. It added a nice touch.
They began with a bottle of wine, barely two glasses each, which had the effect of peaking the appetite and relaxing them. A cup of gumbo for Doreen and a bowl for Mark were usual prerequisites for assaulting the buffet. It was a romantic, sharing time, capped with a cup or two of strong coffee. Occasionally, if a hot movie was playing, they might go to the theater afterward, but usually, they were anxious to return home and continue the romantic interlude; Date Night was special, and they always seemed to end it in bed . . . early. Uninhibited, they loved exploring, still discovering new fantasies each harbored to fulfill.
Tonight was also special for other reasons; as they drove, Mark related his conversation with Clarence, including the discovery that Clarke had been on the take, but apparently had a change of heart, leading to the violent, spooky confrontation with Ted Gangley in Clarke’s office that Clarence witnessed.
“There’s one other issue I need to tell you about that’s site-related; it involves the Chronicle.”
“Whatever could that be?” she asked, her tone guarded.
“The Stoddard Solvent plume I told you about seems to be originating from the Chronicle catty-corner across the intersection, not the Convention Center side.”
“Oops,”
“Why don’t you discuss it with Lou? I need to install two monitoring wells along the side of the building inside the sidewalk. I’ll make them as inconspicuous as possible.”
“I’ll talk to him . . . his hair will probably stand up . . . that’s a liability issue! He can take the request for the monitoring wells to whomever the decision maker is.”
“They’ll shit; it’s embarrassing, and they may owe Gangley big bucks. They either have a leaking tank where they put the waste solvent from press wash-downs, or their main solvent tank is leaking. In either case, it looks like it’s been going on for a long time, so there’s no getting around it.”
“They’ll want a meeting, of course.”
“I know, just inform me of when and where; I’ll bring the graphics and site plan I’ve developed that estimate the size and depth of the plume.”
It was Doreen’s turn to surprise Mark:
“As I suspected” she began, “the fax our fax friend was sending last night was to the Chronicle. She was actually upset because we hadn’t run a front page story based upon her first fax!”
Mark laughed aloud at that one.
“Today’s fax added another wrinkle: she claims now the mayor took half a million from Gangley as well!”
“Half a million?” God, there's a lot of money in the world.
“Yes, according to her-twice what the two City Council members were paid.”
“So it goes all the way to the top?” Mark mused, as he turned into the Crab Shack parking lot.
Sipping their wine, Doreen related Lou’s idea of running a message box on the front page, and how they hoped the redhead might see it and call.
“Think it’ll work?” he asked.
“Lou reasoned correctly that she’ll almost certainly be looking to determine if the additional information about the mayor prompted a story or a teaser. There’s a good chance she’ll notice the message box, read the request for more information, and maybe call, or send a more substantial fax. We'll keep running it until she does. I moved on it; it’s in the Late Edition today.”
“So it’s on the street as we speak.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I never thought the two of us would be involved in the same case from two different perspectives,” Mark observed, “This is like a spy novel. It has all the elements, including a seductive mystery on both sides. We need to keep this on the down-low, or one or both of us could be replaced. Jess has ethics, and I think he'd put someone else in charge immediately - probably Doug. He could handle it equally well."
“You picked that up from me; I was about to say the same thing. We’re like spies from opposite camps. I love it. Don't worry about my end, though; Lou and I have already discussed the specific issue, and he's keeping me on it as long as your involvement doesn't become evident.”
“What if our handlers discover we’re sleeping together (“My name’s Houser . . . Mark Houser.”)? Doreen laughed, placing her hand between his legs. “Woo . . . oo! I’ve got the upper hand on you, Mr. Bond!”
The spy drama led to more wine than usual, and a voracious appetite for crab, oysters, and fish, all wonderful! The Crab Shack was more than a dinner together that night; it was a fantasy! They drove back to Woods still acting up, envisioning dangerous, fantastic plots centered on the Convention Center and the investigative role each enacted. The two spies pretended hot, forbidden sex with a special mystique that night.
Lying satisfied and exhausted in each other’s arms, Mark ran the tips of his fingers ever so slowly down her naked back, barely making contact.
“What if we were actually involved in a mess as wild as some of those we dreamed up tonight?” Doreen asked.
“Bond would be jealous!” he said.
They laughed, neither realizing that their boldest fantasy would wilt in comparison with what awaited them over the next four months. Around 10 o’clock the next morning after the box ran in the Late Edition, it began . . .
“It’s for you,” someone yelled.
Doreen picked up the call.
“This is Doreen Houser; can I help you?”
A very feminine voice on the other end of the line asked, “Are you the one who put the note to your ‘Fax Friend’ in the paper?”
Doreen’s heart leapt, began pounding. She had to handle this just right, or the woman might panic, and that would be the end of it.
“I hoped you’d call. I could tell you were nervous about speaking to anyone,” she said, remaining cautious.
“My husband always said ‘you can’t trust the press,’ but I felt like I should call you. I won’t give you my name or any personal information about me, though.”
“Sounds very intelligent . . . husband . . . ‘said’ (past tense) . . . is he dead, or divorce, maybe?” Doreen was jotting down every clue on the pad in front of her as the woman spoke.
“Well, I agree. You can’t trust the press; but you can trust a reporter who won’t reveal her source. That would be me. I’d never violate your trust or fail to keep a promise.”
“The judge can make you. There was a running story about a reporter who was jailed until he revealed the source.”
“Yes, but he didn’t, and it looked bad for the judge and the system. Public opinion was all on the side of a person being imprisoned without a trial. They lost big time. They don’t do that kind of thing any more.”
“If I give you the information, I’m taking a risk-a big one. How do I know you’re not the mayor’s friend, and so in the end you don’t run the story? You remember how even Mike Wallace from 60 Minutes betrayed that scientist from big tobacco to put money in his own pocket? His ethics were pretentious. How can I be sure you’ll keep your word? I don’t even know you.”
“Damned Wallace again,” Doreen thought to herself. 60 Minutes had screwed more than the scientist . . . they had screwed everyone in the news business.
“Well, why don’t we fix that? We can meet somewhere you’re comfortable with, and you don’t have to tell me your name; but I have to have something solid. Otherwise, its just hearsay, and we could be sued. We would be sued if we started claiming that the mayor and two City Council members took payoffs before buying the Convention Center property. Tell me, was Merrill one of the two council members?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the other one?”
“Edith Laurel.”
Doreen breathed a sigh of relief. Lou would be so happy to learn that his faith in his friend, Reiny Goshen, wasn’t misplaced.
“They each took $250,000, and the mayor half a million?”
“That’s right, and there were others involved, but I don’t know who they all are. I have a list of names in the handwriting of Randall Gangley; you'd have heard of him as Ted Gangley, with the amounts written next to the names. I know what I’m talking about.”
“Why don’t you fax that to me? That’s the kind of evidence we need to see.”
“You can see it, but there’s no way I would allow this document to appear or be referred to in its entirety, because certain people would know I was involved. I could lose my job.”
Having met the mean man following the redhead, she suspected this lady could lose a lot more than her job.
“Well, where would you like to meet, and . . . what should I call you?”
“You can call me Mrs. Red for now.”
“How cute” Doreen thought to herself, almost laughing audibly, “Freud would have loved it!”
“How about the Coffee Shop at the Hobby Airport? I could be there at six o’clock.”
“Bingo!” Doreen thought.
“That would be fine; I could be there at six.”
“How will you know who I am?” the woman asked.
“Why don’t you wear something red? Do you have a red sweater, or something like that?”
“As a matter of fact, I do, and I’ll have it on. I’ll see you at six.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting you. You sound like a very sweet woman,” Doreen commented.
“'Sweet as honey,’ I’ve been told.”
After hanging up, Doreen felt triumphant, and headed for Lou’s office for an update. His idea had not only worked; his friend, Goshen, was clean!
Nancy felt like she might have found a friend. She felt a great weight lift from her slender shoulders. Now, Gangley would get his. If he only knew what was about to happen, and he didn’t have a clue.
Mark arrived home, anxious to talk at greater length with Doreen about the situation surrounding the site. He noticed that Doreen’s car was gone.
“She probably had to run out and grab milk, or something to go with dinner,” he mused. But upon entering the house, the smell of food was absent. Normally, the second he entered the big front room with its cathedral ceiling, wonderful smells were in the air. Today, there were none. He found Tim in the den, playing a video game.
“Hi Dad! Mom left us a note,” Tim almost shouted.
“His adrenalin must be high.”
Tim couldn’t even take his eyes off the screen, he was so involved. Powerful things, those video games.
“It’s on the dining table.”
“Have a good day at school?”
“Yeah, great!”
Mark was sure he hadn’t actually thought about it; just gave the expected response. He walked through the kitchen to the dining room and sat down in front of the note.
Mark, I’m so sorry to break the golden rule, but you’ll understand why. There’s spaghetti in the fridge, plenty for the two of you. Microwave it four minutes, stir, then another four. Please make sure Tim has milk instead of juice. Sorry Tim, you don’t get a break just because I’m not there . . . and take your vitamins! I love you guys. Mom.
“Well, it must be very important for her to miss dinner,” he said, walking to the fridge. He retrieved the spaghetti, and followed her directions. Sure enough, it was perfect. He called out to Tim, but heard no response, so he walked to the den to terminate whatever computer war was underway. Tim soured, but the smell of spaghetti won the day, and they sat together like two hungry Italians, sucking it down as fast as they could, but only Mark got follow it with Sangria. Why not? Mom wasn’t around to reinforce manners. Examining his protruding mid-section, Mark knew he would have to spend an extra hour at the gym this week.

Doreen was feeling anxious; it was 6:15 pm and “Mrs. Red” hadn’t shown. She began to wonder if Red changed her mind at the last minute . . . had second thoughts. This had happened to her before. Having spoken with a Whistle Blower and agreeing to meet, they’d chicken out. She ordered another cup of coffee, wondering what Mark and Tim were doing.
By 6:30, she was entertaining the notion of calling Mark and driving home, when she saw her. Waving, she put on her most innocent smile, so Red would feel relaxed. They were both smiling, so Doreen relaxed as well. Red had no taste in clothing, but Doreen already liked this woman. She was much more than she seemed when John Quince first described her.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Doreen. I keep the document in my safety deposit box at the bank, and I didn’t take the extra time into consideration when I told you six pm. I’m so glad you didn’t give up and leave.”
She seated herself across the table, and told the waitress to bring her a latte.
“Well, tell me about yourself. I want to know all about you,” Red said.
Doreen realized instantly that Mrs. Red wanted to control their meeting and decided to play along. She told her about her background: about Texas A&M, about Mark and Tim, about her path upward at the Chronicle, her surprise at receiving the two faxes, and gradually worked her way up to the present. She included all of the information any woman would want to know about another.
“How about you?” she asked Ms. Red, hoping for a quid pro quo.
Nancy hesitated, then decided to tell about herself without revealing her actual identity. She told her she was an accountant, about her life with Greg, their daughter, Nadine, who too quickly became a woman, about Greg’s untimely death, and how lonely and bitter she felt after Nadine returned to Ohio State. She rehearsed how Nadine was married shortly, thereafter. But she did not reveal who she worked for, and nothing about the rape. She wanted Doreen to think that she was a public-minded woman who happened upon evidence of corruption, anxious to do her civic duty by bringing it to light without endangering her job in the process, or being found out by those she helped expose.
Doreen listened intently, trying to pick up information between the lines, but Mrs. Red was very intelligent and there was nothing between the lines, not yet. She liked her intensely, however, and realized that she had an obligation to alert her that she was already being followed by some very nasty character. If she didn’t, she would feel responsible for any consequences of her having supplied the details of the story. She decided she’d tell her how much she already knew after she had seen the evidence in the brown envelope lying on the table in front of Ms. Red.
“That’s quite a story,” she said, “I’m very sorry about your husband. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost Mark; it gives me chills just to imagine such a thing.”
“That’s very kind of you. You’re a nice person, Doreen. I’d like to get to know you, tell you the rest . . . my real name, where I fit into all of this. Maybe later. I did bring this,” she said, opening the envelope.
As she pulled out the two pages, Doreen noticed that they were stapled together at the bottom, because the top two inches had neat little cuts every eighth of an inch or so apart, evidence of the obliterating capability of a shredder. Nancy placed two fingers of each hand on the top of the document in front of her.
“You agree not to refer to this document in its present form, or to try to keep it?”
“That was our deal; like I said, I keep my promises.”
Nancy slid it across the table, and Doreen began an examination of the handwritten notes. “Good penmanship,” she commented.
“Yes, he’s very neat.”
“HE . . . hmm.” She reviewed the list of names and the amounts by each.
“Do you know who these people are?”
“Some of them; I recognized the politicians immediately. And one works at the Department of Environmental Quality, but I have no idea who he is otherwise. Roger Clarke is a mystery, and so are the other three.”
“Roger Clarke owns Clarke Environmental. They were the first company to work on the Convention Center site after environmental impairment was discovered. Later, they were fired, and Delta Environmental got the project’
The quip about Clarke Environmental stunned Nancy. “How did he have them working without a single indication anywhere in the accounting records?” she wondered, but said nothing, as this would expose her relationship to Gangley Enterprises.
“I have no idea who Slag is . . . this is interesting, ‘25K to 75K if needed, depending upon how many . . . ’ That’s kind of weird.”
“Yes, I thought so, too. I don’t know who Mac Turner is, and . . . ” Doreen visibly jumped.
“What is it?” Nancy queried, excited. You know the last one?”
Doreen couldn’t believe her eyes: Jess Remington, but it had been lined through. That could only mean that Gangley had tried to involve Jess, and he had told him to take a flying . . . Sure, there was no amount by his name either.
“Thank God,” she thought.
“Yes, Mr. Remington owns Delta, the company on the site now. But I’m sure he wouldn’t take money. The fact that his name is crossed off suggests that Gangley tried to involve him and he told him to get lost.”
“That’s the impression I got. So that leaves Slag and Turner. We need to find out who they are, don’t we?”
Doreen sensed Mrs. Red expected to collaborate with her on the investigation.
“Lou-he’s my boss-might know who Mac Turner is. He must be important, because $250,000 is a lot of money. Lou just might know. Slag . . . that’s got to be a pejorative. No telling who it is. It could even be a code name. We may not be able to discover the name behind that label. This is hot stuff, Mrs. Red. You‘ve got something, here!”
Nancy smiled; she felt proud, convinced a story was at hand.
“Of course,” Doreen was setting a trap, “there’s no proof that this is Gangley’s handwriting, not without a sample one of our experts could compare it to, maybe a copy of some letter with his letterhead and signature on it . . . ”
“Oh, I can . . . ” Nancy stopped herself.
“You work for him, don’t you?”
Nancy put her hand over her mouth spontaneously, without even realizing it. She looked hard at Doreen.
“The first one to speak next loses,” Doreen thought to herself. She waited.
“Can I trust you, Doreen? I mean, really trust you?”
“Like a sister. I like you already. You have nothing to fear with me. In addition, I think you could use a friend.”
“Nancy.”
“What?”
“That’s my real name, Nancy Herrick.”
Doreen extended her hand for a handshake.
“Delighted to meet you, Nancy.”
Nancy took her hand, and Doreen gave it a gentle squeeze. Nancy felt completely relaxed. She was ready to tell Doreen everything-except about the rape. They spoke nonstop for almost three hours, during which they consumed almost an entire box of donuts and several cups of coffee, becoming progressively more hyper.
When 9:15 pm rolled around, she had the makings of a story. Nancy was to obtain samples of Gangley’s handwriting and bring them by Doreen’s office at the Chronicle. Doreen and Lou would try to identify who the other two names were. “Slag” sounded like someone who might have a police record. They would follow up on that and Mac Turner. Lou could probably be persuaded to call his friend Goshen and speak to him off the record. When Nancy came with the samples, they would update each other and share information. Doreen said nothing about Mark’s position in all of this. She would reveal that at the proper time. They gave each other sisterly hugs before walking to the Parking Lot Transfer bus together, and spoke of other things until Nancy stepped off near her car.
As she watched her, a searing thought ran across Doreen’s conscience. She had completely forgotten the entire issue of having followed Nancy the other night until she discovered someone else was already following her . . . someone else very mean.
“God, what if he was Slag?” A chill ran through her.
“But wait,” she thought as the bus halted at her drop-off point, “I was so shaken, I totally forgot! How could I have?” She had written down the license plate! She sat, not starting the car, turned on the overhead light, and began rifling through her purse. She almost emptied it item by item before she found it. She hadn’t lost it. She had much to report to Lou and Mark.
“Mark! What must he be thinking? I should have let him know long before this late I was okay.”
She grabbed her cellular to call him. He must be very worried by now; this wasn’t like her. It’s always when you need them most that cellular phones let you down. “Low Batt,” the two words that every civilized Homo sapiens over the age of ten most hated. She drove home, not arriving until 10:30 pm, finding Mark and Tim sitting next to each other on the sofa in the den, asleep. In the background was the familiar voice of Gene Autrey from one of Mark’s old black-and-white Westerns. Carefully, she lifted Tim and carried him to his room, lovingly tucking the covers in. Returning, she was about to awaken Mark; he looked so peaceful. She turned off the TV, sat down next to him, and laid her head on his shoulder. He didn’t stir. For a few moments, a thousand thoughts raced through her mind, each screaming for attention. But gradually, they distanced themselves . . .
Sometime during the night, Mark was awakened by his bladder, disoriented to find himself on the sofa. He became aware that Doreen’s head was in his lap.
“What time did she get home?” he wondered.
Raising her head gently, he slid from beneath her and headed for the bathroom. When he returned, she had stretched out and seemed too comfortable to disturb. Mark decided to lie on the floor between the sofa and the sofa table. The lush carpet felt comforting, because he could stretch out completely, too.

“Dad! Wake up.” It was Tim. “Breakfast is almost ready, and Mom said I should tell you.”
“What time is it?”
“Almost 7:00 am.”
Seven in the morning! As close as he could remember, he and Tim must have dropped off around nine last night.
“That’s the longest night’s sleep I’ve had in a while,” he mumbled, but Tim had already disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
The smell of bacon was evident as he followed along behind him.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Doreen smiled as he stumbled into the kitchen.
The eggs were crackling in the bacon grease. Nearby was a plate of sliced, ripe tomatoes, and Tim was helping by buttering the 100% whole wheat toast as it popped out of the toaster, the only wheat bread that ever entered their home except sourdough. The sun was shining through the bay windows so brightly it temporarily stung his eyes before they had a chance to adjust from the windowless den downstairs. Mark walked to the stove and put his arms around Doreen.
“Hmmm! That feels good,” she said, turning to kiss him.
“I was starting to get worried when you hadn’t called by nine . . . started having visions of you being run off the road by a green Dodge-stuff like that. Tim and I fell asleep watching a Western.”
“I know,” she said, and sang softly, “I’m back in the saddle again . . . Back where a friend is a friend.” Mark laughed. She was always poking fun at his collection of old Western videos.
“It was around 10:30 pm,” she said.
“Ten thirty?”
“I know; I felt terrible, but the Fax Friend called yesterday morning around ten, and I managed to convince her to agree to a confidential meeting at the Coffee shop in the Hobby Airport.”
“Why so far away?”
“It’s where she wanted,” Doreen answered, putting the last egg on the platter. Mark picked up the bacon and, after salting the tomatoes, they walked to the table, where Tim was already seated with a huge pile of buttered toast.
“I guess she felt like she’d be safe there. She’s extremely sensitive about possibly losing her job. We spent almost three hours talking together. I like her, and did I get a story and evidence you wouldn’t believe. I have much to tell you, but it can wait until tonight. Tim and I have to rush, or we’ll be late. By this evening, I may have a lot more information-maybe enough for a story, or at least, a teaser.”
“What was she like, this Fax Lady?”
“One of the sweetest women I’ve ever met. We became instant friends. She wants to help, but she’s afraid of losing her job if Gangley finds out she’s the source after the story breaks.”
“She works for Gangley?”
“Practically under his nose. She’s been with Gangley Enterprises for almost eleven years. She’s a shapely, thirty-nine-year-old widow who’s very lonely. Her husband died young last year and her daughter’s off at Ohio State, married. That’s a quick transition to an empty house for a woman. Her only companion is a Chow-Chow named, ‘Muff.’ She has a handwritten list of names with payoff amounts written next to each. It’s all in Gangley’s handwriting, Mark!”
“You’re kidding; That’s enough to bring them all down.”
“Yes, and a Chronicle exclusive expose bigger than anything we’ve run in a long time! This is every Investigative reporter’s Dream story. Her name is Nancy Herrick. She’s cute as a Barbie doll, but has no taste in clothing . . . unusual, because she’s sharp as a tack. It's as if she's intentionally trying to downplay how attractive she is. I did trick her into revealing that she works for Gangley. Once I had her trust, we shared everything.”
“Everything? What did she think about you trying to follow her home until you realized someone else was already following her? That must have freaked her.”
“Well, by ‘everything,’ I didn’t mean that. I intended too, but became so drawn into the outrageous nature of this story that I actually forgot until she exited the Parking Lot Transfer bus. I feel upset about it. Also, I didn’t want to mention it until I learned all there was to learn, because if she knew she was already under suspicion for some reason, I don’t think she would have told me a thing. She probably would have turned white with panic, and run out immediately. I was about to warn her to be careful right after that; I just can’t believe I forgot! I feel like I’m responsible for putting her into jeopardy, because I didn’t warn her.”
“Well, she was already being followed, so you haven’t changed her situation. You just talked to her.”
“Not exactly; she’s supposed to get some samples of Gangley’s handwriting so we can confirm absolutely that he did compose the document. We’ve got him, but I’ll definitely warn her today.”
“You’re meeting her again tonight?” Mark seemed surprised.
“I know, I’m breaking the golden rule again, and I feel bad about that.”
“Don’t; Tim and I did just fine. We ate the spaghetti, and had a great time together; right, Kiddo?”
“Sure did, Mom; it was fun. We talked about our drive to Mexico this weekend, and everything. I love Gene Autrey's horse. I want one just like it.” Doreen leaned over in her chair and ruffled Tim’s hair, then kissed him on the cheek.
“You’re both so sweet. It won’t happen again. No, she’s coming by the Chronicle during lunch with the handwriting samples. Today promises to be busy. First, I have to bring Lou up to date,” she said, as they all cleared the table and put away their plates and serving items in the sink, “there’s a list of things that each of us will have to accomplish, so we’ll split the tasks. / Tim, drink the rest of your milk. You and I have to leave soon!” Tim downed it and ran for his room.
“I’ve got a lot more to tell you. Some of it may shock you, Mark, so I haven’t mentioned it this morning.”
Tim marched in wearing his back pack, and ran out the door, ahead of Doreen.
“Bye, Dad; have a good day!”
“You too, Tim,” Mark shouted back.
“I’ll see you tonight, Baby,” Doreen said. “and I intend to forcibly exploit you, late or not!”
“Woooo, I can hardly wait; I’ll be lusting about it all day,” he laughed.
“So will I.” They enjoyed a passionate kiss, and Mark watched as she and Tim hurriedly drove away.

The Confrontation

Nancy arrived at Gangley Enterprises and went about her work as usual. However, she kept a keen eye on Randall’s door as lunch approached. Normally, he left it open and unlocked. Most of the staff on the penthouse floor left at 11:00 am for lunch, returning around noon. That’s when she would make her move. She had already copied the signature page of several documents from her own files, but she hadn’t been able to find any with something more than Gangley’s signature–other notes in his handwriting. She prepared a frivolous memo in the event someone walked by while she was in his office. She would merely leave the memo which would have explained why they had seen her there. On the other hand, Gangley’s desk was usually littered with handwritten notes from phone conversations, so it would be easy to obtain them and proceed to the Chronicle to meet with Doreen, as well as to meet her boss, Lou.
As 11:00 am approached, the staff began filing out, forming lines at the elevators. Gangley received two visitors around 10:00 am, and soon he left for lunch with them. She waited until the hall was clear, then walked casually to his office with the memo, finding the door open.
As she entered, she saw the desk in its usual condition and quickly moved to it. Gangley’s glass-walled suite was shaped like an ‘L’ on one corner of the top floor of the glass tower, just below the Penthouse floor where he lived in addition to his house in the suburbs. He hadn’t presumed to invite her up there, but she was fairly certain that if she hadn’t jerked her head back the morning after the rape when he came into her office, she’d have spent a lot of time up there by now, either on her back or her knees!
Gangley meticulously adhered to a theory that he had three roles. First, immediately upon entering, his visitors-usually clients-were in the area of his enormous oak desk, an antique for which he’d paid more than $20,000; she’d seen the check herself. Behind it was a very high-backed leather chair, impressively button-tufted, with a credenza on the side wall, as he wanted nothing blocking his view out the windows behind him. No executive accouterments were lacking. This was the area where he performed all tasks associated with his Administrator role. To the right, toward the corner, there was a low round table with all chairs alike. He sat at this table when in conversations where he wanted to present himself on the same level as whomever he was speaking with. This area was where he exercised his Communicatorr role. The view between the Administrator and Communicator areas was blocked by a stunning, built-in, 1000-gallon, salt water, invertebrate aquarium; thus, it was not possible to see one from the other, even though the entire L-shaped suite was one continuous expanse. Out of view around the corner was an equally impressive area with a conference table and luxurious seats. This is where he acted out his Negotiator role.
Nancy began reviewing the materials on the desk, collecting several pages with jumbled notes written down. Since no one discovered her, she put the memo on top of the samples, then walked to the Copy Center, midway between her office and his, where she copied the handwriting samples on original Letterhead stationary. Returning to his office, she placed them in the positions and at the angles she had found them, walked out, and moved hurriedly to the elevators. She hadn’t noticed that Neal Lawson was eating his sandwich, seated at the conference table in the Negotiator area. He started to leave when he saw Nancy going through Gangley’s papers. As Gangley’s Executive secretary, Lawson thought he knew about every deal Randall had in progress at any given time. Naturally suspicious, he stepped back around the corner until she left for the Copy Center, eased to the door, and listened to documents being copied, darting back around the corner of the suite when he heard her returning. He watched her walk to the elevator, peering down the hall.
A man Nancy didn’t recognize arrived at the elevator at about the same time from the other direction. He smelled of body odor, was unkempt in appearance, and had a very noticeable scar running from the upper left of his forehead to the right of his upper lip, and the tip of his nose was missing, the surrounded part just sewn together, bestowing a really creepy look. Even compared to Gangley’s thugs, he seemed so out-of-place that, before leaving the building, she pointed him out to the Security Desk.
“I’ve seen him in here before; I wouldn’t worry about it, but thanks for calling him to our attention,” one of the guards responded.
Nancy arrived at the Chronicle at 11:40 am quickly obtaining directions to the location of Lou and Doreen’s floor where the Metro desk was.
“Nancy!” Doreen called out when she spotted her.
They were smiling like old friends as they approached, giving each other a sincere hug after coming together.
“I’ve got them!” Nancy whispered in Doreen’s ear.
“Great . . . C’mon, I want you to meet Lou!”
She led her by the hand over to Lou’s office and entered. Lou had just stuffed the last of a tuna fish sandwich into his mouth, so he could only grunt in acknowledgment when Doreen introduced her. He quickly wiped the mayonnaise off his right hand, washed down the last bite with a gulp of coffee, and shook Nancy’s hand, motioning for them to sit on the well-broken-in, but comfortable leather sofa across from his desk.
“Sorry, Mrs. Herrick, but you caught me in the middle of lunch. Do you mind?” he asked, reaching for a large, plastic container filled with his wife’s butterscotch pudding.
“Oh, no; I’m sorry to intrude on you like this.”
“You’re not intruding at all.”
“She brought the handwriting samples, Lou”
“Wonderful,” he said, as Nancy handed Doreen eight photocopies and one actual letter on Gangley Enterprises Letterhead, with handwritten notes on it, and his official signature at the bottom.
“I’ve got some good news, too. I had a friend at DMV run that license plate. It turns out, it’s registered to a Samuel Grudge from the east side, way out in the sticks judging from the Rural Route address. Carpenter Road turns into Route 3 way out in the low, southeast area. Crummy real estate, near the old foundry by the river . . . hardly in Houston. That’s good, too, because it’s a huge environmental mess that the EPA is handling directly. We ran a number of stories about it when it was news.”
“What license plate?” Nancy inquired.
“I’ll tell you about that later,” Doreen said, touching Nancy’s knee reassuringly.
“I’ve got Jason at the precinct checking to see if he has a record, Lou offered; he said he’d call me back within the hour. So we’ll see where that leads. How about you, Doreen? Any luck on Mac Turner?”
“Zilch; he’s a complete strike-out.”
“I’m sorry I can’t stay, but if I don’t get back immediately, I’ll have some explaining to do. It was good to meet you, Lou. I hope this will get the story out. Oh, and here’s a photocopy of the shredder document. I’m trusting your promise.”
“Don’t worry, Nancy. There’s no chance.”
Nancy left the office and moved quickly toward the elevators. She exited the building and was walking toward her car, when she caught the stare of a man looking at her from about fifty feet away.
“ . . . is it possible? Yes, that is he . . . the smelly man with the scar.” And he was definitely looking at her before she caught his stare and he turned away.
Nancy panicked, turned and ran back to the revolving door entrance to the Chronicle, and walked quickly to the elevators, jumping into one that was almost full with the door still open. When she reached their floor, she walked to Lou’s office, finding he and Doreen busy discussing something. She went in, surprising them.
“Forget something?” Lou smiled, then noticed the terror on her face at the same instant as Doreen. Her lips were white, and she was panting like she had just finished a three-mile run.
“I saw a man watching me on the street outside,” she blurted out breathlessly. “He was on the elevator with me when I left Gangley Tower less than an hour ago. I’m sure he’s following me . . . What should I do?” she pleaded.
Doreen and Lou looked at each other with a mixture of shock and fear for Nancy. Lou reached for the phone.
“I’m having security go with you to identify this fellow. Get back to the first floor; I’ll have them meet you at the elevator. “
Nancy fled.
“I’m going with her, Lou.”
“Sure,” he answered.
They were met at the elevator by security, one guard already by the revolving door. Two guards accompanied them as Nancy pointed in the direction she had seen him. They ran in that direction up the block, looking hard among hundreds of people on both sides of the street, but he had disappeared.
“That almost proves he was watching you,” one of the guards reasoned, “or why would he flee when you caught him at it. Besides, what are the odds of the same man being at Gangley Tower, then here?”
“Are you certain it was the same man?” the other guard asked.
“Without a doubt. Will you watch until I’m in my car? If I don’t get back soon, it’s going to attract attention.”
“Are you sure you should go back? After all, if he was from there, and he was here, he may be back there again.” Doreen was concerned; Nancy was climbing into her car, “What choice do I have? What else am I to do? I can ask around and find out who he is if I’m there.”
“Nancy,” Doreen could wait no longer, “there’s something important I need to tell to you about–very important! We need to sit down and talk for a while about its implications, and about all of this too.”
“Call me at home, tonight. Here . . . ” She jotted her number on the back of a business card and handed it to Doreen, smiling as she drove away.
Arriving at Gangley Tower, she pulled into the garage and parked in her reserved spot. There were perks for the higher-ups at Gangley. She started to get out, but became seized with the problem of the document. She hadn’t had time to swing by Commercial Bank. It had taken too much time already getting it out of her safe deposit box and having copied it at a copy shop she passed on the way to the Chronicle. Depending on the scar-faced guy’s connection to Gangley, if any-he could’ve been some stalker or anyone-they might want to inspect her purse. She knew she was acting paranoid, but she couldn’t risk having the document in her possession. She decided it would be much wiser to leave it in the glove compartment; no risk of Gangley discovering its existence. Right now, he had no idea, so she felt fairly safe.
As she reached her office, something didn’t look right to her. After sitting and observing, she realized someone had been through her desk-every drawer-as if grazing without knowing what they were looking for. In her haste, she had forgotten to lock it when she left for lunch, now back without so much as a bite. She decided to walk down to the lounge, buy some junk from the snack machines, passing Gangley’s office on the way. The door to his office was closed, but upon returning, it was open. She looked in, prepared to utter some greeting if she saw him. There he sat, looking straight at her, arms folded, with his Executive secretary standing, leaning against the blinds which covered the glass wall nearby.
“Nancy, you’re just the person I wanted to see; come on in, take a seat,” he said, motioning.
Lawson walked over and closed the door behind her.
“Go ahead and eat. How’s your life these days?” Randall asked.
“Fine,” she said, opening a bag of chips and popping the cap on a soda, “although I miss my daughter so far away.”
“Ohio State, right.”
“Yes.”
“How’s the marriage working?”
“No problems I’m aware of. I don’t even see her except during semester breaks and such.”
“You must be very lonely,” Gangley interjected. She was certain she caught him staring at her cleavage.
“How humiliating,” she thought to herself. “He’s not just looking; the bastard’s remembering what they taste like.” God, how she hated him.
“Do you enjoy your work here?” he inquired.
“Oh, yes, I always have.”
“Well, that’s great. Is there anything you need from me? Anything I can help you with?”
“No,” she replied.
“Okay. I’ve got a question for you though, if you don’t mind my asking . . . ” He looked at her expectantly.
“Of course not; what is it?”
Randall looked at her like he could see right through her.
“What were you looking for on my desk during lunch?”
Nancy almost choked on the chip she was swallowing, and quickly washed it down with a swallow of soda. Growing nervous, she tried not to show it. How could he know about that?
“Who said such a thing?” she demanded, trying to sound indignant. Randall glanced toward Lawson.
“I did,” he said. “When you snuck in, unbeknown to you, I was around the corner over there, working at the conference table. I heard you come in, so I looked around the corner and spied you rummaging through Randall’s papers, collecting a few; I saw you take them to the Copy Room, return the originals to their former locations, and leave for lunch.” He was known for his sarcastic smile, which was at its best. Randall was studying her reaction to the accusations.
“The thing is, Nancy, I’ve been looking at what is on my desk, and I can’t see a single thing anyone would have the least interest in copying.”
She realized that could save her, and started enacting the plan she quickly pieced together while Lawson was running his mouth. He would suspect it was a lie, but Randall wouldn’t, and she could care less what Lawson thought about anything. She had never liked him. He was known as a “backstabbing son of a bitch” around Gangley Enterprises.
She looked at Lawson and said, almost shouting, “Lawson . . . you’re full of shit. I didn’t take anything from Randall’s desk! I came in to discuss a memo with him, but he wasn’t in, so I decided to wait until after lunch. I had some documents I needed to copy under my arm, and dropped them on the desk. You probably saw me picking them up.”
She waited to see if Randall would buy it.
“Presumably,” he asked, “the memo you wanted to discuss with me is on your desk?”
“Yes, is now a good time?” she asked, as if she felt no sense of jeopardy whatever. He gave her the most frightening look she had ever seen on his face. “But why such intensity?” she wondered.
“It’s a critical time, Nancy.”
She shuddered on the way to her office, with both Gangley and Lawson in tow only steps behind. She had never seen that Randall Gangley before. She was so thankful she had thought ahead and prepared the cover-up memo. As they reached her office and entered, she casually reached for it, turning to face them, acting surprised that they’d followed her.
“Here it is. I wanted to ask you about changing the filing system on the subsidiary companies, and this seems like a better approach to me. On the other hand, I didn’t want to leave it mixed with everything else and it possibly gets ignored. Lawson obviously didn’t know what I was up to, and with his corrupt mind, imagined the worst.”
Randall studied the memo, then almost threw it in Lawson’s direction. As they walked back toward his suite with no apologies offered, they left Nancy standing there, and she heard Randall say to Lawson, “She’s right, you know; you are full of shit!”
At that instant, she considered herself the luckiest person alive. But less than an hour later, the intercom sounded. It was Randall again!
“Nancy, could you come to my office please?”
“I’ll be right there,” she answered. What could it be this time? Entering the suite once more, the same two personages were waiting. Randall again motioned for her to have a seat. He resumed the discussion, having gotten some new reason to suspect her since the last encounter.
“Why did you go to the Chronicle today? Like I said earlier, I can’t imagine why they would be interested in anything on my desk, and Lawson still insists you removed and returned several items.“
She froze visibly, remembering ”Scarface.” Almost without hesitation, she responded.
”Looking for employment.”
Randall looked more than suspicious, but having won round one earlier, she knew how she would answer his next question, because she already knew what it would be.
“Earlier, when I asked you if you were happy here, you said yes; now you say you went to the Chronicle looking for a job. Which is it, Nancy?”
“I was happy here until about a year ago, two months after I buried my husband. That should work,” she thought. Randall’s face flushed red, first with embarrassment, then with rage.
“You’re being evasive, playing mind games. If you’re looking for revenge that makes you dangerous.”
She gave him a justified look, almost verifying the basis for her suspicious actions.
"You never apologized, Randal. The stigma is still there and it's a free country; if I want to seek employment elsewhere, it's my choice."
'If that's the case, why have you waited an entire year, Nancy?"
"Because I needed the money, and I felt I had damned sure earned it."
“She’s pissed-off about that night.” It was a night he had long since forgotten. What made her think she was so goddamned special?
“Think twice if you’re imagining doing something to hurt this company,” he said with a fierce look like he could bite a nail in half. “The only reason I haven’t fired you today is that I’m fond of you; you’ve always been loyal, and I don’t have any idea what you could be up to. I have many eyes and ears though-professionals. Just remember what I told you at the club that night, and remember I have no mercy where enemies are concerned. Person’s I let get close who then betray me are the worst sort. You should have learned that by now. I just get rid of them,” he said, hoping Cleo’s team had finished what he had sent them to do.
She said nothing and denied nothing during his tirade, but she knew he was watching her, perhaps had been watching her for some time with her unaware, and as soon as he found anything which he considered grounds, that would have been her job. However, given the frankness of how he had just spoken to her, she could only assume he would kill her if he knew the seriousness of what she had actually just instigated, because it was far worse than anything he could be imagining now. It would seriously dampen him financially and do irreconcilable damage to his standing in the community. He thought those documents had been shredded. She might have enjoyed watching him worry if she wasn’t so aware how serious a matter this was. Job? Hell, this wasn’t about having an income like she had thought all along. If you wronged Gangley, it could be about life or death. Suddenly the job seemed unimportant.
"Was I living in a fog all these years?"
The phone rang, and Gangley answered. It was Cleo, and he was reporting back. This was the call he had been waiting for.
“Nothing at all?” she heard him ask, almost surprised. “What? From inside where?” As Nancy waited for him to get off the phone, Randall was listening intently, looking at her. “Yes, go ahead; I want to hear it.”
As he listened, saying nothing, his lips grew white, his face pale and fearful.
“He must be getting some bad news,” she thought. His face flushed, and his expression changed as she continued looking him in the eye as innocently as she could under the circumstances. It was more than anger . . . it was anger mixed with a creepy-looking resolve. Suddenly, she was afraid. What if the call concerned her in some way; or was he just looking in her direction as he listened to an upsetting report?
“Take the rest of the day off,” he said upon hanging up.
“Why?”
“Lawson, escort Ms. Herrick to the front exit.”
“Are you firing me?”
He smiled, like Lucifer might.
“I didn’t say I was firing you. After all of the hassle today, you deserve some time to relax. You’ll be in promptly in the morning?”
“Of course!” She knew she was lying.
“I’ll get my purse,” she said, leaving his office and walking toward hers with Lawson uncomfortably close behind. Fortunately, she had brought a big bag today, and before Lawson could comment, she quickly shoved the three pictures on her desk into it: one of Greg; one of Nadine with her husband; and one of herself and Greg with a much younger Nadine.
“I’m tired of looking at these. I’m switching them with some new ones.”
Lawson seemed too busy enjoying the moment to think about the implications. She reasoned the call had upset Gangley, and realizing that he had nothing solid against her, he was probably making a placating gesture.
“That’s a stupid-ass thought; why would he have Lawson escort me out?”
The smartest thing she could do now, she thought, would be to help Doreen, then before the story actually broke, leave the area entirely-go to California, or perhaps Ohio-and use her meager savings and the proceeds from the sale of her home to get a new start in life. Once the story broke, he would know the source immediately now that he suspected her, not knowing what of, at least not yet.
“Well, they say, ‘Life begins at forty!’” She thought.
Her mind was filled with these thoughts as she climbed into the car and headed for Commercial Bank. She had to get the document safely hidden away, and fast. Remembering his expression in the office, if it was discovered in her possession, she doubted she would ever see California or Ohio. Parking at the bank, she opened the glove compartment and reached for the envelope. Not feeling it, she leaned over to see it. Her heart turned to stone. The envelope containing the document was gone! She looked in all directions, but saw no one. Nothing else was missing. The car had been locked. She must have dropped it on the floor while hurriedly shoving it into the glove compartment, so she looked on the floor, under the seat, at the end of the seat. Getting back out and opening both doors, she searched every inch of the car. She had not failed to put it inside the glove compartment. Someone had somehow gotten into the Cadillac, and discovered it. It could only have been one of Randall’s security men. Her mind raced . . . the call . . . what was it he had said . . . ”I want to hear it?”
“God help me! No wonder he turned pale and changed his expression like he was looking at Judas in person!”
He was as shrewd as any man she had ever known. By now, he must know everything, including why she went to the Chronicle, It wouldn’t take him long to figure out why anyone would want to copy the seemingly useless handwritten notes on his desk. He probably already had.
If any of Gangley’s perceived enemies had ever been in serious danger, it was her. She had to disappear now. She decided she would go straight home immediately, pack a bag, call Doreen and tell her what hotel she could be reached at, giving her the awful news of loss of the document. Doreen would have some ideas; she would know what to do. Nancy needed to speak with her. She had to talk to someone before she flipped out. The fear was so intense, she felt like she was losing her mind.
Arriving at her home, she pulled the car into the garage, lowered the garage door, and jumped out of the car, almost running to get inside the house. She opened the door to the kitchen, closing and locking it behind her. Whirling around, she felt her legs give way beneath her as the scene of Muff lying, whining, in a pool of his own blood, opened before her. A large butcher knife was still sticking out of his throat. Nancy began to sob uncontrollably as she removed the knife and bandaged the wound. Perhaps Muff would live. The kitchen was trashed.
“Someone has been in my home looking for evidence against Gangley,” she moaned to herself, as she half sat, half lay there, Muff’s head in her lap. That was obvious. Recovering, she slowly arose, leaving poor Muff and venturing through the rest of the house, finding everything in total, deliberate disarray. She felt as if she was about to throw up and ran toward the bathroom. Jerking on the door, the knob wouldn’t turn. It was locked! The burglars had done it! Her stomach contents in her throat, she ran for the kitchen sink, but didn’t make it. She threw up on the floor, almost gagging herself. She decided to call 911, and after washing her face and drinking a glass of water, she picked up the phone and nervously dialed.
Suddenly she heard a definite sound from inside the bathroom. She was looking right at the door less than twenty feet away. Someone was in there, and they were opening the door. They knew she had discovered them. Perhaps they had intentionally waited for her to get home. She screamed in terror, dropping the phone to the floor . . . No time to speak to anyone at the other end! As fast as she could force her muscles to respond, she ran for the garage, screaming uncontrollably as she heard steps closing behind her. She grabbed the back of a kitchen chair, pushing it over. It sounded like thunder as her assailant tripped over it, crashing to the floor. She reached the door to the garage, grabbing wildly at the lock, pushing the door open with all of her strength, and slamming it behind her. She was ahead of him. She could get away. As she reached the car, she suddenly realized that her purse and car keys were still in the house. She ran to the corner one foot to the right of the door and squeezed tightly into it as he smashed it open. Pushing him from behind with all of her strength, he lunged head first onto the concrete floor of the garage.
“Goddamn it,” he shouted as she closed the door.
She had seen him from behind when she pushed him. It wasn’t Scarface as she feared . . . It was a black man she’d never seen before!
“You're dead, bitch, and it ain’t going to be quick!”
She locked it before he could yank. He began pounding violently. The door to the back yard was to her immediate left. She threw it open, but with a flash of desperate inspiration, left it that way to mislead him, instead running to the front door. There was no way out of the garage with the garage door down except into the kitchen, and that door opened into the garage, buying her some time. There was an incredible smashing sound as he broke through the garage door into the kitchen just as she was closing the front door behind her as quietly as she could. She ran into the street, waving her arms desperately as neighborhood traffic passed, running away from her home as fast as she could. A car halted abruptly.
“Nancy? Is that you?”
It was Moses Pearson, her neighbor four houses away.
“Moses, there’s a man in my house, and he tried to kill me! Can you take me to the police station right now, fast?”
“Don’t need to; there’s a patrol car pulling into your driveway as we speak!”
“What?” she shouted, twisting her head to look. It was true, but how did they know? She remembered she had dialed 911, but dropped the phone in panic. The operator must have heard the noise and sent a squad car by to check it out.
“Hop in, Nancy; I’ll drive you back to your house.” She obliged, jumping out of Moses’s car a moment later, just as the police were getting out.
“He’s in the back yard,” she shouted, “He tried to kill me! I almost didn’t get away.”
Immediately, the officers came to life, drew their guns, and ran toward the house, one entering the front door, the other the gate to the back yard. She and Moses waited. Abruptly, there was shouting from the back yard, followed by gunfire. Several more shots were fired in rapid succession. Nancy panicked. He had a gun! What if he had shot the officers? She jumped into Moses’s car in a rush of terror, shouting at him to get in and drive, just in case the intruder had killed the police. At almost the same instant, the back yard gate opened again, and the officer came through, unharmed. Returning to his squad car, he picked up his radio.
“It was a Black male,” she heard him say, moving closer to hear better. “No ID on him. He fired and I returned fire . . . No, I think he’s dead; better send an ambulance.”
Dead? It was a miracle! If a single thing had gone differently, she would be dying right now . . . slowly, and no one would have even known it was happening.

Corruption

Harold Moss sat at his desk, cleaning his nails, admiring his ostrich-skin boots. At six feet, two-inches, and the lift from the boots, almost everyone at the Department of Environmental Quality literally looked up to him. He’d started wearing his blond hair in a flattop in his teens, continuing during a stint in the Air Force, and hadn’t changed it since, so he’d always been called by his last name by most of his associates due to his short haircut.
His position as supervisor of the case officers was prestigious in the Department. He reviewed the case officer's work; when a question arose about the substance of a consultant report or the appropriateness of a work plan, the case officer involved would bring it in for a conference. His supervisor and those further up were more involved in the politics of the department. The only time most people saw them was when some site owner with an attorney wanted to meet for a conference. He’d notify them, so when the owner arrived with his attorney and consultant, there would be an impressive array of state personnel on the opposite side of the conference table.
Geologists who conduct the site investigations and write site reports are referred to as “consultants.” Some were worthless as thinkers, but they had the scholastic aptitude to pass the state exam, becoming certified. The owner of a contaminated property could only use State-certified consultants. Earlier in the industry, it wasn’t like that. Anyone with a degree, and often individuals with nothing more than an underground storage tank excavation license acted in lieu of consultants.

Moss had an interesting and noteworthy background prior to joining the regulatory staff. He’d worked as a consultant himself in California, and his name appeared on national news when he exposed the dumping of broken up, radioactive concrete in the Tuolumne River. The consulting company he worked for at that time used the same well-drilling company for all of their monitoring well installations on all the sites they investigated. Two somewhat elderly brothers owned it, and he’d gotten to know both of them on a personal basis. / They invited him to dinner at one of their homes one evening, and, as usual, the conversation developed into a upmanship, as each told stories about sites they had worked on, an ignorant or stupid regulator they once worked with, which consultants shouldn’t be allowed to practice hydrogeology, and so forth.
After they were all well drunk, the older of the two related an event Moss doubted he would have ever spoken about sober. He recounted having been called by someone at a national laboratory to inquire if they could haul broken up concrete chunks. Did they have a truck that could handle quite a few tons of it? He responded that, yes, they could, and asked to have the bid forms mailed to them. The man responded, “This isn’t a bid job. If you can handle it, you can have it.”
He thought that strange, but went to the laboratory the next day. Some small building had been broken up into big chunks for disposal. When he asked how much the job paid, the man winked at him and said, “It depends.”
“On what,” he responded.
“On whether we have to spend lots of time and labor filling out a stack of forms, or whether you can just lose it, if you get my drift.”
He had a sly smile on his face.
“Where do you want me to lose it, or does it matter?”
“Away from any populated area, where no one can get near it.”
“Like the desert?”
“That’s all up to you. You’ll be paid in cash, and after you finish the job, no one here ever saw you before. And I don’t ever want to know what you did with it.”
It was a lot of money, and he wouldn’t have to report it to the IRS, because it was cash.
The next day, he brought their biggest long bed end dump, and a backhoe filled it to the brim with the concrete rubble. He had driven to a remote spot along the bank of the Tuolumne River not far from La Grange and backed down a bank to the edge, dumping the concrete, although a good bit of it was above water near the edge. He left it in that distant location. It had been there ever since. The story seemed plausible, but very suspicious to Moss, who was one of the few true environmentalists in the company. Most geologists pursued their careers for money and status, or because they loved rock and study in the field. But one could be a geologist and not be an environmentalist, just as one could be an environmentalist, yet be dumb as a stick if you discovered how little they knew about geology. He happened to be both, and very serious about each. He tried to ascertain the exact location, but at that point, the old driller clammed up, saying he couldn’t quite recall. No amount of baiting could get the information out of him.
Moss suspected he knew the concrete was contaminated, almost certainly radioactive, and was the evidence of a test gone wrong that the laboratory wanted to “lose.” It cost Moss his weekends for the following two months, probing along the banks of the Tuolumne with a Geiger counter. He had all but decided it was just a fantastic yarn, like he often heard from fishermen in seaside bars as a youth, when his counter suddenly went wild one Sunday afternoon. He couldn’t see any concrete though. The vegetation along that part of the river was like a blind. He was working his way through it when he stumbled over the edge of one of the chunks and fell, nearly spraining his ankle. There it was, mostly underwater or buried in mud during the annual high water level of the river. He left the area quickly, because there was significant radiation.
Over the next few days, he wondered if he should report it. He wouldn’t have to say how it had gotten there or even give his name. Should he . . . or should he not? He imagined small boys and old men sitting on the concrete fishing. How much radiation would they have picked up? That of course would depend on how long they sat there. If they did it regularly, they could develop leukemia or another form of cancer.
He felt it had to be reported. He did what he felt he had the responsibility of doing. He called the FBI and reported the entire story, leaving out the name of the driller, since he probably hadn’t been aware of the danger he himself was in, or the danger it posed to others. Fish hiding among the recesses of those rocks, as fish do, would become contaminated, and if eaten, would give a further dose to the fellow unfortunate enough to catch them. He waited, returning to the site the following week. To his amazement, a hazardous waste team wearing radioactive gear had a long-arm Track hoe, and the chunks were being loaded into special trucks. This went on quietly for almost two weeks, with no notification of the press until the site was abandoned. A great deal of the bank had also been dug out and the soil transported away. He had performed a valuable public service, and he felt good about it.
One afternoon, as he arrived at the apartments where he lived, he noticed two men in suits talking to his wife. He could see them from where he was parked. She looked frightened. Rushing upstairs, he inquired who they were and what they wanted. “FBI,” one of them revealed, “We need to speak with you about a matter.”
After the conversation ensued, they related the call and the details given by the caller, and reported that the site indeed existed as was reported, and had since been cleaned up. They traced the call to his phone, and they wanted more details. He admitted calling as a civic duty, but pretended that a man in a bar got drunk and started mouthing off about it; he didn’t know who he was, and wasn’t certain which bar it had been. The men told him by their expressions that they knew he was protecting his source, but he didn’t try to cover up for the actual instigator, the lab. They told him that lab personnel had been interviewed rather intensely, and that they denied any knowledge of or responsibility for the incident. A few days later, as he left his apartment and was about to enter his car, cameras flashed and reporters hit him with a barrage of questions. He didn’t know who tipped them off, but he suspected it was someone wearing a suit. He repeated the story he told the FBI exactly, neither omitting nor embellishing anything, video running the entire time.
That evening, there was a story on CBS News, reporting how a brave American geologist had been responsible for locating the site of, and reporting, a felonious environmental crime. They patched in a spokesman for the laboratory, enthusiastically denying any knowledge of it, saying they hoped the FBI would catch whoever had been responsible, and then patched in Moss telling the story. The city of Modesto presented him with an award in a ceremony involving the mayor, also shown on the six o’clock news, except most of it was the mayor’s diatribe about the yet-to-be-located conspirator. The old driller was never approached, because no one knew who to look for, or that the man had been a driller or any other details Moss held back. Gradually, the story faded.
Later, he accepted a position as a regulator, which put him on the other side of the table from the consultants, beginning in the state of Wisconsin. He watched the industry evolve into many complex, highly regulated layers, with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, sitting on top of the entire heap.
Different states have varying regulations and criteria for cleanups. In Wisconsin, the legislature created a cleanup fund and endowed it with a large appropriation. Within a matter of months, contractors exhausted the entire fund just digging up contaminated soil and hauling it to landfills. Almost none of the money went for the real problem: groundwater remediation. Remediation is the word for cleanups in the industry. When someone did approach remediation of the groundwater, all they usually did was install one or more wells in the center of the contamination plume, pump out groundwater, and run it through activated carbon to remove the gasoline or other applicable fuels. After passing it through the activated carbon in such systems, the water is pumped into the city sewer system and ends up at the sewage treatment plant. It requires an NPDES permit from the National Pollution Discharge people even to take that approach. This method of remediation is known as Pump & Treat [P&T] in the industry, and other than digging up the polluted soil around leaking tanks, was once the most widely used technology for cleaning up contaminated sites.
Congress created the Office of Technology Assessment, the OTA, to evaluate the effectiveness of various environmental remediation technologies. After reviewing thousands of P&T projects, they announced publicly and to the Congress that more than 97% of the P&T systems in place were expected to fail. This troubled true environmentalists like Moss, who were frustrated by the lack of technologies that would work.
The OTA announcement sent a shock wave through the industry, and in effect, criminalized any regulatory official who approved a proposal for Pump & Treat. California reacted first, requiring that the consultant demonstrate that it could be expected to work before a P&T approach could be approved. Other states followed suit, and soon, this had the effect of killing many P&T remediation proposals immediately upon submission to the case officer.
P&T is based upon a theory that seems logical, but in reality is full of holes. The idea is, if you pump out the contaminated water from the internal area of the plume, the center, you will create a depression in the surface called a “draw-down cone-of-depression.” Creating a depression cone by pumping out the water causes clean water from the surrounding, adjacent area to flow into the space being emptied by the extraction well pump. Over time, clean water passing through contaminated soil should eventually clean it up, and the site can be approved for closure. In theory, it sounds good . . . in theory. As the OTA discovered, the theory was unsound. Moss suspected it during his entire career before the OTA ever admitted it.
Every consulting company loves site characterization (definition) work. Go onto the property, define the groundwater gradient, install monitoring wells, pull groundwater samples from them and send them to the analytical lab. The labs charge exorbitant rates, and so do many consultants. They bill like attorneys, so the client is more or less at their mercy. The monthly billings can be shocking to the consultant’s client, but if they ask for an hour-by-hour explanation of the bill, they may not understand the industry-specific language, which is often mixed with sufficient bullshit to render it incomprehensible to the untrained. They soon give up, caught in a hopeless regulatory milieu which never seems to end. There is the Phase I site investigation, the results of which must be submitted to the case officer in a professional report. The reports cost thousands of dollars to produce, containing graphics, analytical results, a description of the local and regional geology and hydrogeology, and other pertinent data. It must be grammatically correct and make recommendations for expanded definition. All of the Phase I monitoring wells are usually within the area known to be contaminated, so it is necessary to install another round of wells further out, determining how far down gradient the plume has moved. This is the Phase II study, and if the plume extends a long distance down gradient-he had worked on sites where it approached half a mile to a mile, more and more wells were required to define the length and width of the plume, and more and more reports had to be written. It was like a gold mine for the consultants, and with billing after billing, an endless nightmare for their clients. There are meetings with the client, meetings with State personnel, and on and on. Every single hour is billed. Even a small site can result in site definition costs alone of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And still nothing has been done to actually clean up-remediate-the problem. Often, a client will finally explode, telling the consultant he isn’t paying another dime for them to “study” the site; he wants it cleaned up.
For many years, the consultant, knowing he had no effective remediation technology, would recommend the standard P&T system. It was leased to the client, required an operator to check it periodically, and seldom ran only for months to clean a site; they usually ran for years. With tongue-in-cheek, having nothing better to offer, the regulators and consultants perpetrated P&T into a giant trap. Knowing it was basically a lie, it at least kept the contamination from spreading even farther, even if it couldn’t clean the site. Most citizens, and many regulators who gave blanket approvals, weren’t educated enough to recognize that if you install one or more extraction wells in the center of the most contaminated part of the plume, after you begin pumping, you pull down the groundwater, creating a depression cone. As long as the pumps are running, the cone exists. But when you pull the groundwater down, you leave the worst part of the contamination suspended between the top of the soil contamination and the top of the groundwater depression. The entire soil volume above the depression cone isn’t being remediated. It’s just hanging there, adhering to every soil particle - waiting.
Eventually, if the consultant gets the groundwater concentrations low enough to convince the case officer that they no longer represent a threat to human life and health, permission is given to terminate the cleanup, but quarterly groundwater monitoring is required for a year afterward. So the consultant turns off the pumps, and the groundwater begins rising until the depression cone no longer exists. What is actually happening though, is that the worst part of the contaminated soil-the volume that has been hanging there above the groundwater- now becomes resaturated, meaning that as it rises, the groundwater refills all of the soil pore space again, coming into contact with the contamination. Months later, during quarterly sampling, the measured concentrations of the contaminate in the groundwater samples begin rising until they again exceed regulatory limits. This is referred to in the industry as rebound, an almost universal problem where P&T has been relied upon. That’s when everyone starts scratching their heads, wondering how this could be happening. Of course, any bright high school student should be able to figure it out. And what happens then? The case officer orders the pumps turned back on. Obviously, they “hadn’t gotten it as clean as they thought.”
Every quarter, the consultant is required to sample all of the wells. That costs thousands of dollars. He or she must then ponder the analytical lab data and redraw the plume with the concentrations noted as of that instant in time. They must then prepare a Quarterly Groundwater Monitoring Report for submission to the State-more thousands billed to the client. Moss knew of some sites, like one he worked on in Michigan, which had been running for close to twenty years! There was so little improvement from quarter to quarter that the EPA approved a reduction of the monitoring frequency to once a year!
When the Super fund was authorized, with hundreds of millions of dollars to “clean up America,” things had not gone as anticipated by the public from the political rhetoric, nor as expected by the Congress who made the huge commitment. They had been sold a bill of goods by scientists eager to profit from the newest pile of money around. Lawyers, like so many Draculas looking for a new jugular, sunk their bloodsucking fangs into the pile, working in conjunction with consultants.
Many clients at first thought they could protect themselves from getting fleeced if they got a lawyer to get them out of it. This, of course, was horse shit and every environmental lawyer knew it. Regulations are regulations. So the lawyers would go through the motions of sending semi-intelligent letters, offering frivolous reasons why their client should be excepted from the law. The regulators played along, consented to the meetings, with the client expecting to get off. Of course, everything his lawyer knew about the true environmental issues involved could easily be contained within a single fart, but the client only realized this after handing over a sizable chunk in legal fees that could have been better spent completing the site characterization he ultimately had to complete and pay for anyway, rather than attempting to forestall the inevitable. It reminded Moss of the most recent lawyer joke circulated around the office:
“What’s the difference between a lawyer and a catfish?”
“One is a slimy, scum-sucking bottom dweller, and the other is a fish!”
He laughed, then sighed, because he knew like everyone else it was true when it came to the environmental industry.
Over the years, the charade of the entire nonsensical mess had worn him down, until now Moss felt little more than contempt for every facet of it, including the regulatory side. He became a cynic. So many thousands of mom and pop businesses had been driven under, it bruised the entire character and spirit of the laws and regulations responsible. Practically every day, there was a new horror story. He remembered one of his first jobs, where an old white-haired man and woman who had worked hard and lived conservatively all of their lives finally sold their business, looking forward to their last few years together with relative financial security. As part of the property transfer, the gasoline tank behind the store was tested, but failed the integrity test. This meant it had to be closed, and the contaminated soils excavated. The site was almost pure sand down to groundwater, and the leaking gasoline was almost to the groundwater seventy feet down. Moss had been given the project and secured permission from the County environmental department to excavate the soil and spread it over the parking lot, turning it daily with a tractor, until all of the vapor evaporated, after which it could be returned to the excavated area. Since those days, you would never be able to get away with that, but it made the cost of the cleanup much lower than it might otherwise have been. Still, it totaled $80,000. The poor old man and woman were as nice as anyone he ever met, and felt it was their civic duty to remediate a problem they were unknowingly responsible for. They maintained a good attitude even as their retirement savings evaporated.
One afternoon when the hole was at its deepest and looked like the entrance to Carlsbad caverns, the couple brought some visiting relatives out to see the site. The old man could hardly walk, even with his cane, so his wife helped him approach the edge of the excavation with their guests. As they all stood looking with amazement down into the huge pit, the old man said almost with pride,
“This is my hole.”
Later, before leaving, he repeated it, “This is my hole.”
His wife helped him back to the car and they left. When Moss told his wife of the incident during dinner that evening, she had cried.
Eventually, public animosity escalated in response to the cruelty being exercised against fellow citizens, and it became apparent that if the environmental movement was to survive, something had to be done. To make the situation workable, many states imposed an annual tax on each underground storage tank owner for each buried tank. Using those funds, they created a state UST fund, with which to fund the cleanups. Often, the fund was additionally fed by a gasoline tax of a quarter of a cent per gallon, or perhaps a half-cent. The public liked it because it no longer meant that mom and pop businesses were guaranteed to go bankrupt if they became saddled with a cleanup; the consultants liked it, because it ensured that they would be paid for their services, and the State liked it, because editorialists stopped referring to them collectively with lawyers and consultants as “Ali Baba and the forty thieves.” Agencies could justifiably dip into the fund for “expansion” of their regulatory staffs, and it looked for a time like the perfect solution. However, once a bureaucracy is in place, its main concern becomes job survival. By ingenious means, some power-hungry state environmental departments developed ways to drain unwarranted sums from the remediation funds to help support an often monolithic size. The public was unaware of this, and generally, it was hidden from the consultants. If they knew, competitive greed would lead to national exposes as their reimbursement payments from fund proceeds fell farther and farther behind.
Something interrupted Moss’s thoughts, and looking at his schedule for the day, he noticed that Mark Houser from Delta would be in at 1 pm. This would be the first discussion of results from the Convention Center site. Moss respected Mark, because he was unquestionably one of the best hydrogeologists in the state. Test scores were never revealed to applicants for state certification. To be certified, a grade of 75% or better was required. This was unexceptional, but it was a constraint placed upon the state board by Affirmative Action guidelines, so that certain population groups could gain a foothold in the industry, primarily those from poor schools and the lower end colleges. Of course, the regulatory community had access to the test scores; the state was the one administering the exam. Moss knew that Mark had scored 100% on the exam. He was exceptional.
Moss liked Mark’s energy, too. He heard that while Mark was in graduate school, he spent a summer completing a graduate project at the Bolton landfill in Modesto California. The landfill had been built adjacent to the Tuolumne River, Moss’s old stomping grounds. Landfills consist of huge earthen “bowls,” called cells, cut into the ground, usually rectangular in shape and perhaps 50 to 100 feet deep. Some were even deeper; others more shallow. When garbage trucks or people with a load of trash came to a landfill, they paid a modest Dump fee, and were directed to the cell currently being filled, where they backed up to the edge and dumped the trash. A bulldozer spread the trash out, forming horizontal layers, each of which was covered with a thin layer of soil. Then the next layer was started. Over time, the cells would gradually fill up, be covered with several feet of soil, and the process would start for the next cell. These days, cells required a plastic liner, thick and durable, with the liner bottom covered with a layer of clay before any trash could be dumped into it. This prevents any leachate from escaping into the groundwater beneath.
Leachate is formed by rainwater falling on the surface of a landfill, filtering down through the trash, leaching chemicals and dissolving anything water-soluble on its way. Later, it reaches the bottom of the cell. If the cell doesn't have a liner, like older cells before liners were required, the leachate enters the virgin soil at the base, gradually working its way down into the groundwater which presumably is below the base of the cell. If hazardous waste has been dumped in the landfill by various customers, some of it will leach during precipitation, so that the leachate is actually a hazardous waste itself.
The oldest cells at old man Bolton’s landfill were built in the old days before liners were required. They were entirely legal at the time they were built. All of the newer cells had liners installed. When the state of California’s environmental lobby was at its height, another layer of environmental bureaucracy had been created: the California Regional Water Quality Control Boards (RWQCB).
As soon as it was in place, the RWQCB immediately devised a plan to ensure that their paychecks would be assured for the next decade. They took the thousand or so landfills within the state of California, and divided by ten. That meant they would address ~100 landfills per year, and if there was a leachate problem, force them to correct it. Theoretically, they started with the worst 100 the first year, the next worst the second year and so on. The Bolton Landfill was on the first list, because of its proximity to the Tuolumne River, and also because in random testing, the RWQCB detected the presence of dissolved contaminants in the leachate from the landfill, which of course was moving down gradient toward the river, the nearest gaining stream during low river elevation.
Mark arrived for his senior project at about the time that the state was proposing that Bolton dig up the offending full cells and move the trash into newer lined cells. The problem was, Bolton was in semi-retirement. The RWQCB’s proposed solution would leave the old man penniless after working hard his entire life. It was a great human tragedy. Bolton was so nervous and worried that he had developed huge sores all over his face-even on the end of his nose. It was pathetic. He was a short little man who once walked fully erect, but nowadays, his shoulders drooped. His wife had succumbed to the stress a year before Mark entered the scene and divorced him, taking a healthy share of his wealth on the way out. His total net worth was now five million. The cost of completing the work the state was demanding was also around five million, which meant that he would spend the rest of his life on Social Security. It was like so many other horror stories that permeated the country during that initial period of environmental frenzy.
He had already spent over two-hundred thousand with a major firm when Mark arrived for his summer project, which was restricted to the hydrogeology of the site. He was, however, given access to all of the reports and data collected to that time. He discovered that the leachate problem had only developed in very recent years, which was inconsistent. That cell was twenty years old, and had never produced leachate until the last few years. The problem Mark went after is why the base of the cell was being inundated during the high-water river elevation every year now, soaking the refuse and producing leachate, when for many years, the base had been above the groundwater year-round. Further, it only happened during that period of the year when rainfall was highest. He acquired data from the river gauges which are maintained by the U.S. Geologic Survey for the previous 20 years, and noticed that during recent years, the river rose to a greater elevation during peak periods than it had for decades before.
The Tuolumne river is fed by the watershed on the west side of Mount Owens. Unrealized by the previous consultants was that the city and county of San Francisco, always in need of more water, had obtained rights to the watershed on the east side of the mountain and had built an aqueduct to carry it to the coast. It just happened that the aqueduct crossed part of Lake Don Pedro, and San Francisco quietly obtained permission to dump excess water overflowing the aqueduct into Lake Don Pedro during periods of highest precipitation. This meant that the dam had to release more water to avoid overflowing than it otherwise would have, and this excess water was originating from outside of the natural watershed which formed the hydrogeologic environment of the Tuolumne River. In other words, San Francisco had altered the natural hydrogeologic environment to its advantage, but the excess water caused the river to rise much higher than if foreign water from the watershed on the opposite side of Mount Owens had not been dumped into the lake on the Tuolumne side. Mark installed a line of piezos between the river and the affected cells, and by taking daily measurements, mapped the subsurface groundwater surge which flowed from the river toward the landfill during periods of high water, showing it crashing into the base of the cell in slow motion.
Mark held meetings with the RWQCB, Bolton, and Bolton’s attorney, Rip Normole, and discussed the implications. Either San Francisco should solve its own aqueduct problems, or they should be sued for the consequences to Bolton, and possibly others, altering the natural hydrogeologic environment, thereby indirectly inducing the leachate problem at the Bolton Landfill down river from Lake Don Pedro. They were unarguably liable for the problems generated by their actions. Let them pay the five million. Mark had been there only four months, and managed to resolve the Bolton mystery. Bolton needn’t retire on Social Security after all. Only the legal proceedings remained to be undertaken by Rip when Mark finished his graduate project, returning to Texas.
Such genius so early in one’s career follows a professional, and fingering San Francisco was a widely and oft-repeated story within geological circles. Mark became known as the geologist to assign to the difficult projects, because he could correctly define and resolve the problem. So Moss was not surprised during their meeting when he learned that Mark had suspected and corrected the reversed gradient at the Convention Center site. He looked at the site plan with the diesel plume correctly defined.
“They excavated an enormous amount of material all the way to groundwater, and one of the excavation areas isn’t even within the area of the plume, the one to the east,” Mark told him, showing him the site plan with the excavated areas outlined.
“That’s a huge volume to backfill.” Moss observed.
“About half a million tons, it looks to me,” Mark told him.
Moss was nonplussed to learn that a Stoddard Solvent plume extended beneath a major city street, and appeared to be originating from the Chronicle, because Delta encountered it in soil cuttings during the installation of one of the monitoring wells installed just across the street on the Convention Center property, and then in the groundwater samples bailed from the well following its installation.
“What does your wife think of that one, since she’s been at the Chronicle for a while now,” he inquired.
“She doesn’t know yet, but she will tonight. We’ve both been busy with this project for the last few days.”
Moss seemed stunned. He knew that Doreen was an investigative reporter.
“Both of you?”
“Yes, but she’s working on a different aspect, nothing to do with hydrogeology,” he laughed.
Moss didn’t smile, which surprised Mark. When he noticed Mark was noting his reaction, Moss brightened and changed the subject.
“What’s Jess’s latest lawyer joke?” This diverted Mark's attention as he tried to remember which was the most recent, Jess told so many, and Moss’s cynicism fed on them.
“Well, let’s see . . . Oh yes, ‘What’s the difference between a dead lawyer and a dead skunk lying on the road in the middle of the night?”
“Beats me,” Moss said anxiously.
“The skid marks in front of the skunk!” They both roared.
“Why do you suppose they over-excavated excessive volumes of soil in the areas with only surface contamination,” Mark asked, “The whole site is pocked with craters, even in the low areas.”
“I guess they wanted certainty. It all must be filled to construction grade. They’ll need a good forty feet of fill in that low area alone.”
“It just seems like the contractor was lining his pockets to me. They probably removed three or four times as much soil as they needed to, perhaps more.”
“Maybe you’re right; maybe that’s why Gangley fired them from the job? You could ask Clarke, although he might not appreciate insinuations like that.”
“No, it’s already done now, and we’re on the site, so I don’t think I’ll go rub it in.”
He already knew why Clarke had gotten fired. They shook hands, and Mark left. He had an appointment with his pal at the Ford dealership and was tired of the cost of the rental car he had driven since totaling his Land Rover in the accident. It was a constant reminder of how foolish an otherwise intelligent person can be.

The Scare

Mark and Doreen arrived home at the same time that evening, Mark driving a Ford F-150 Lariat, and Doreen anxious to tell Mark about Nancy’s visit, Scarface, and the discomfiting position Nancy was finding herself increasingly trapped in. Both were completely unaware of what had happened after Nancy returned to work that afternoon.
Tim was sitting on the porch with his head buried in the latest issue of Things You Never Knew Existed. Every month, most of his allowance was consumed acquiring an astonishing array of devices, some quite useful, others stuff only a kid would fall for, and against the purchase of which, arguments based upon mere reason by grownups were ineffectual.
“Hi Mom, Hi Dad,” he said; then he noticed Mark’s new truck.
“Wow, were traveling to Mexico in that for Boy’s Night tomorrow night, aren’t we?”
“Sure are!” That had been a second motivation for Mark to purchase it before the end of the week.
“Oh, I can’t wait!” he shouted, hugging Mark as hard as he could, “Isn’t it beautiful, Mom?”
“Yes it is, Tim. Let’s just order pizza delivered,” Doreen suggested, “I still have lots to talk to Dad about and it’s late. You go up and get ready for bed, then come back down and we’ll eat pizza.”
“Yes!” Tim shouted, darting toward the stairs. How he loved pizza!
After calling in the order, Doreen returned to the den. Looking at Mark, she said, ”I wish I could undress you right now.”
“I’ll go for that. The pizza will be eaten and Tim will be asleep within an hour.”
“Maybe, a little more than that. I must discuss with you what Nancy brought in today as soon as Tim’s in bed.”
“There goes the undressing part. You’ve made me curious now.”
“I just wish I wasn’t already feeling so wrung out,” she said.
The pizza arrived, and they talked and laughed while eating about how various brands of pizza differed. Doreen and Tim’s favorite was Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut.
“No way . . . Nobody makes pizza like Shakey’s,” Mark said, reciting Shakey’s slogan.
“Really,” Doreen observed, standing her ground, “if they can’t even come up with a slogan that’s grammatically correct, how can they possibly make better pizza . . . ’nobody’ instead of ‘no one?’”
“Well, I’ve never tasted their slogan,” Mark rebutted, “but when it comes to Italian Sausage and Black Olives with extra cheese, on thin crust, with Shakeys's sauce, now that’s a different matter.”
Tim was finally securely in bed. Mark and Doreen retired to the bedroom, settling into their sitting chairs in front of the DVD system, both knowing there would be no Blue Ray DVD movie tonight. Doreen recounted Nancy’s visit; the quickness of her exit; her hysterical return after seeing Scarface; the chase with the security guards; and her decision to return to work. She reached for her purse, removed a folded sheet of paper, and offered it to Mark. “This is the list in Gangley’s handwriting of the people involved and how much they were paid.”
She watched Mark’s face and expression as he unfolded and began looking it over. His eyes moved down the list. There were the two City Council members-$250,000 each; the mayor, at $500,000. The list verified what he already knew about Roger Clarke.
“The man does have a conscience to give up four-hundred thousand dollars . . . Who’s Slag?” he inquired, “and Mac Turner?”
“We’ve drawn blanks on both; but the way the amount is written after Slag’s name makes me think he’s a hit man, Mark. Notice the twenty-five thousand dollar increments? The next two names, you’ll recognize.”
Mark’s eyes halted. His expression looked to Doreen like a man at the exact instant he realized he’d fallen off the edge of a cliff. There was a long silence as Doreen almost heard the gears turning in his mind.
“No way,” he pronounced, “Not Jess. It’s been lined through, He’d have told him to . . . ”
“Take a flying leap?” Doreen finished his sentence.
“More like, take a flying fuck. Notice there’s no amount by his name. Jess is clean. I know he is, even without the indicators. But Harold Moss . . . two-hundred, fifty thousand. I just can’t envision him being bought off. He’s like a pillar of integrity. I just met with him today. He didn’t question our discovery of the reversed gradient, or any of the data.”
He thought for a moment, remembering, “There was one thing that puzzled me though, when I told him about the Stoddard Solvent plume emanating from the Chronicle. That seemed to hit him hard. It didn’t make sense to me at the time. He should have been more concerned with our uncovering the true extent of Gangley’s site problems, not with the Chronicle’s.”
“It will be very interesting watching this saga unfold as your investigation moves forward.” Doreen observed.
“I think our separate approaches will begin to overlap soon, Hon. There’s a lot more to this than we’ve uncovered.”
“That's the sense I’m getting as well,” she said. The phone rang, and she reached for it.
“I know Jess is clean,” Mark was still musing aloud, “and I can’t see what Moss could hope to do to get around what we’ve already determined on the Conven . . . ” Doreen cut him off abruptly.
“Nancy? What? . . . slow down! How did they find the list? . . . Where are you? . . . Holiday Inn! . . . Well, yes of course, but. It wasn’t Scarface?”
Mark leaned forward. Whatever this was about, the name Scarface indicated it couldn’t be good.
“Mark could be there while you got your stuff out, and so could the police. Then, you could . . . ”
Mark was baffled. What in hell was going on?
“Okay, just relax. If he’s dead, he can’t hurt you, and Gangley wouldn’t dare try again immediately after the first attempt failed.”
“He’s dead? Who’s dead? Doreen, what’s going on?”
Doreen placed her hand over the mouthpiece. “Someone tried to kill Nancy this afternoon at her home. The man almost got her, but the police arrived. There was a gunfight and they killed him,” she related, removing her hand from the mouthpiece.
The news disoriented Mark, shocked him into the realization that this was becoming something much more serious than an environmental problem, or even a political scandal. Attempted murder was serious business, and he and Doreen could find themselves trapped in the middle of it. He grew increasingly concerned.
“Are you okay? Do you need us to come over, maybe bring you here for the night?....Very well, but if anything happens, you call us immediately. Really, Nancy, anything. We’re here for you, and I feel responsible, so I want to know everything as it happens. You’ll call me in the morning first thing? . . . I love you too, Nancy. Bye, and don’t leave the hotel; don’t even leave your room. Bye.”
Hanging up, she and Mark stared at each other with the same scenes running through their minds. If Gangley tried to have Nancy murdered, who else might he be willing to kill to keep the scandal from getting out, or perhaps worse, losing the entire Convention Center property sale?
“Now I know who Slag is, or rather, was,” Doreen volunteered. “He was a black man she had never seen before. Scarface isn’t black.”
“Gangley wouldn’t have used him,” Mark deduced, “not after what happened at the Chronicle. He knew Nancy would recognize him, because she rode the elevator with him in Gangley’s building. Security knew him, unless Slag is Scarface; in that event, the other guy was a substitute, the original plan being scuttled. What was that about me and the police being there?”
“She’s not going back to work. She’s moving her things out of the house and leaving for Ohio. She’s worried about returning to her house alone to pack.”
“She’d be crazy to go back alone. He knows . . . he knows almost everything she's done. Sooner or later, she’d die in an accident or some other misfortune if she stays. This story’s got to come out Doreen. Once it’s out, any jeopardy you might be in vanishes. They’ll be no advantage coming after you, because everything you know will be in the public domain after the story.”
“True,” she said, growing nervous, “I’ve got to get interviews going, and soon.”
They talked about various scenarios, how to avoid any exposure in the interim. They explored courses of action available to Gangley at that point, talking into the night. It was after three in the morning before either of them could relax enough to fall asleep.

Heat

Moss was nervous as he entered Gangley’s office, like a field mouse trying to avoid vespertilian notice at night. There was a meeting today between the primary people involved, but he told Gangley he wanted to meet privately with him first. Gangley agreed, and said they would just drive together from his office afterward. Gangley’s door was open when he arrived, and he motioned for Moss to come in. He was on the telephone.
“All right Mac. We’ll discuss it more later. I have to go now. I have someone in my office.”
They shook hands as Gangley put down the phone, speaking into his intercom, “Joyce, bring two black coffees; thanks. . . You sounded concerned when you asked to meet privately Moss.” Shutting the office door, he continued, “Is it something I needed to know about before the meeting with Merrill and Laurel? You did have your meeting with Delta yesterday and got some relevant information regarding time, right?”
“Yes, I had the meeting. The investigation is moving rapidly. They’ve defined a sizable diesel plume. Diesel will self-attenuate over time, and there are no down-gradient wells threatened. With the new attitude toward P&T, combined with the impact nationally of the Lawrence Livermore Report, I can deal with that one by making the decision to let it self-attenuate. The construction won’t be delayed, especially with slag available to help settle that issue.”
“That is what I’m paying you to do, Moss,” Gangley reminded him.
“The reason I called is that another problem has arisen which I only learned of yesterday from Mark Houser of Delta during our meeting.”
“Another problem, like what?”
“Their last monitoring well north from the middle of your site defined the northern edge of the old diesel plume. It wasn’t very far from the source area because the groundwater gradient is in the northeast direction. The on site portion of the diesel plume is fully contained within the area Clarke anticipated when they completed the dig out. Mark asked me why there were three craters almost to groundwater on the northwest corner of the site, but he thinks you were laundered by the contractor doing unnecessary digging, and maybe that’s the reason Clarke was fired.”
“Well, that works, doesn’t it?” Gangley said, smiling.
“Unfortunately, they encountered the southwestern edge of a Stoddard solvent plume moving northeast down gradient, and Mark feels certain it originates from off site, in fact, across the street.”
“Across the street? Which area across the street?”
“The corner.” Moss waited for the response.
“The corner? The corner is . . . the Chronicle?”
Gangley suddenly stood and began walking around his office with his hands clasped behind his back. His mind was racing. Moss wondered if he realized the significance of what he had just told him.
“You understand that Stoddard solvent cannot be left to attenuate? They use it to wash down their presses. They have a main storage tank of solvent, and nearby, a waste solvent tank. One or both of those have been leaking for a long time for a sinker to be detected that far away . . . quite a few years, likely.”
“What’s a 'sinker'?”
“A chemical with a specific gravity greater than water. It doesn’t float on the surface down gradient like diesel. It sinks and works its way deep, more like a column shape than a normal plume configuration until it encounters a barrier to further penetration. It's only partially water soluble like gasoline. Yet, somehow, solvent has gotten all the way across the street. They picked it up northeast of the Chronicle building.”
Joyce entered, “Here’s your coffee, Mr. Gangley. Sorry it took so long. It was necessary to brew a fresh pot.”
“Thanks,” he muttered barely audibly, continuing to pace.
Moss added, “Of course, it could have hit an old gravel bank formed by the river thousands of years ago at that depth. Then it could run like hell, and sink deeper than hell”
“Hmm.” Gangley muttered.
“And since this entire area is part of a delta that extends all the way from central Arkansas into Mississippi, it could require some very deep wells to fully define its depth, not just the surface configuration of the plume.”
“How long would it take to clean it up?” Gangley sat down and began sipping his coffee.
“By P&T, I don’t think an end would be in sight.”
“Is there any way it can be abandoned, or the remediation completed quickly by some other method? You must be current on the newest technology. Or could you have the site investigation halted other than by my firing Delta, and bury it? You have the authority over at DOE to get rid of this, right?”
“It’s a matter of public record. Delta’s Phase I Report can’t disappear, because it has a case number and several people are aware of it. Mark has called a meeting with the management of the Chronicle to discuss it, since fortunately for you, they will have to pay the entire cost. You’re off the hook on this one other than our problem of time. This could be a deal killer with the city. That’s what I’m trying to say, I guess.”
Gangley swung around, looking fiercely at Moss.
“Listen here, you son-of-a-bitching’ glad-hander; You don’t stroll in here and casually tell me that I’m losing over two-hundred million, when you’re getting a double payoff. I don’t give a shit about the details, but you’d better goddamned sure get your thinking cap on and get that solvent plume out of the picture one way or the other. Slag will solve the diesel plume with your idea. That was a creative solution. Now, you’ve got to come up with another creative solution to get us out of this mess. That’s what I paid you for. There’s no way the deal with the city gets nixed; and if it does, Harold Moss better already have paid for his burial lot, because he’ll need it. I paid you big dollars - $250,000 - and no one takes me for that much money and keeps walking around if they don’t deliver. You understand what I’m saying, Moss, cause if you don’t, you’d better have your will in place, that is, if you even have a family left to inherit anything!”
He was staring at Moss with flushed face, a monster. Moss was as frightened as if locked eye-to-eye with T. rex. He began quaking so uncontrollably that he accidentally spilled his coffee right in his lap. He looked like he’d pissed himself. At that instant, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t. He couldn’t think of what to say, and his mind was confused because Gangley didn’t understand the impossibility of what he was demanding. This only angered Gangley further.
“Get the hell out of my office, you son-of-a-bitch, and figure something out. I don’t want you at the meeting. You’ve got plenty to do on your own.”
Saliva was actually visible at the corners of his mouth. Moss left immediately, saying not a word, nor requiring a second invitation. He didn’t enjoy the idea of being carried out.
As soon as he knew Moss was out of hearing range, Gangley laughed so hard and so long, he thought his sides would split. He called Joyce,
“Get Merrill on the phone.”
“Yes, Sir.”
A few minutes later, Merrill called.
“How’s your game, Randall? What’s up?”
They played golf together twice a month, as Merrill’s firm handled all of Gangley’s affairs.
“I’ve got a problem, actually, two problems, and one of them is mutual. I think they could possibly cancel each other out though.”
“I’m listening.”
“How well do you know Bard at the Chronicle?”
“I know he only has a handicap of three, and I kick his ass every time we play.”
Merrill was on a leave of absence from his law firm, but was widely known as the bloodiest litigator in Houston. He enjoyed the power and influence of being on the City Council, and was already taking steps to replace a mayor few people liked, primarily because he had divorced his wife of many years to marry some cute, Swedish stewardess three years previously. He’d waited until just after the election, one rich in television spots with his wife and children, the All-American family. No one failed to see him for the sleaze he was after that. He knew his days were numbered, and he knew Merrill would probably take his chair, but he didn’t care. His deals with Gangley and several others had set him up so that he’d spend the rest of his life in leisure with his new wife, free to travel wherever and whenever they wanted freed from the never-ending hassles of the politics she constantly complained kept him away from her. Now, he was just riding it out to collect his checks until the end of his term.
Gangley explained that one of his employees caught a document in his handwriting after he started it through the shredder, listing the names and payoff amounts of everyone involved in the Convention Center deal. Merrill’s name and Laurel’s were on that list. He recovered the original when he started having her watched, and put a contract out on her the day before when he recovered the list. She had to be taken out. That was a top priority, but the asshole screwed it up and got himself killed by the cops. Today, he was meeting a two-person team he had used before, and they would ensure that the main witness was erased. She had been spotted meeting with an investigative reporter from the Chronicle and the next day, went to the Chronicle for a short meeting, “presumably with a reporter.”
“Shit!” Merrill reacted, “This is a big problem, Randall.”
“There’s more. Delta Geotechnical has found a huge solvent plume which underlies the center area of the Convention Center construction site. It’s coming from the Chronicle. The hydrogeologist in charge has called for a meeting, I don’t know with whom, but it doesn’t matter, because it will end up in Bard’s lap. The cleanup could possibly take years, but would be at the Chronicle’s cost.”
“The city can’t wait years, Randall, you know that. There’s political heat and special interest pressure to get construction underway. If it’s delayed more than three months, six months max, they’ll overturn it. The deal has lots of enemies. We both know that. How do you plan to deal with it?”
“I’m not sure yet, but Moss is working on it. I have an idea he’ll figure something out though. What’s your take on the rest?”
“Lots of angles on this one. Several ways out, as long as you don’t let that woman get away. She’ll bring us all down, combined with the list. Without her, the list loses most of its power. In addition, she knows you’re after her now. She’ll do desperate things, make desperate moves.”
“She’s dust, the disloyal bitch. Don’t worry about her. My people know where she is, and every move she’s making. She won’t see the sun tomorrow morning. Besides, she’s got a daughter in Ohio we can use against her if we have to. Now . . . here’s what I’d like you to pull off. And I don’t care what it costs to make it happen . . . ”

Doreen had an idea. She knew that Gangley would be watching every airport and bus depot, and probably have lookouts posted on every major freeway, just waiting for her to show up or pass by. He would take no chance of letting Nancy slip out of his grasp. But, since Mark and Tim were driving to Mexico this evening for Boy’s Night, they could pick Nancy up at the Holiday Inn, and take her with them to Laredo, where she could catch a bus to San Antonio. Then, she could fly from San Antonio to Ohio. After Gangley realized he had lost her, things would cool down, and they could arrange for movers to pack and ship her furniture, household items, and her car. Returning to her home was out of the question. The house was locked, and given the neighborhood she lived in, would be safe until then. Gangley would be watching it like a hawk.
She had talked to Nancy this morning from the Chronicle, and she’d agreed. The idea of a man taking her out of the city calmed her hysterics significantly. She said the things with her were in four suitcases, and were all she was taking, so they wouldn’t require much space in the back of Mark’s new truck.
Now all Doreen had to do was obtain Mark’s agreement and have him devise a story for Tim so that he wouldn’t feel like their Boy’s Night was being intruded upon. Mark was a creative story teller. She often suggested that he try his hand at a novel. He wouldn’t have any trouble coming up with one sufficient to handle Tim in a pinch. She called his cellular number.
“Mark Houser.”
“Hi, Sweetheart, how are you?”
“Great. Are you at the Chronicle?”
“Yes, I am . . . ”
“Have you spoken to Nancy? Is she there, alive and well?”
“Yes, though she’s scared to death, as you might imagine.”
“I guessed that. What’s her plan? Have you two worked anything out? I don’t think she should even think about returning to her house. Gangley will have it under surveillance.”
“Where are you now, Mark?”
“I’m standing on a site that looks like the cratered surface of the moon, looking down forty feet at Stoddard Solvent oozing from the soil into the groundwater. It’s not a pretty sight. I’m waiting for the driller to show up so we can install a monitoring well next to the excavation and see how deep this stuff has penetrated the saturated zone. Two feet of the soil horizon is black immediately above the groundwater. To make matters worse, it’s mostly sand. The solvent plume reaches all of the way to the edge of the diesel plume on the other side, but I’m more interested in the plume depth halfway. It’ll make it easier to plot later. Did you tell Lou we need a meeting?”
“Yes, but when I told him what it’s about, he said that I should turn it over to Legal. He was upset of course, since the Chronicle will be liable, and the idea of us paying money on Gangley’s behalf makes him sick. Legal’s upset too. They’re working it up to send to Mr. Bard’s office.”
“When do you think it’ll get there? I need to install those wells as soon as possible. If I don’t have the source data, I can’t estimate the plume properly. They’ll have to pull the tanks, too. Did you tell them that?”
“Yes, but they’re much more concerned about the cleanup cost you estimated. Three million is a lot money for the Chronicle, and it turns out that our insurance coverage has an environmental exclusion clause, which means the paper has to foot the entire bill. It’s got them scared. I can vouch for that. I can’t answer your question yet, Mark. I’ll call Legal again and see if they can proceed with the monitoring wells in lieu of resolving all of the legal questions. I don’t think it should be that serious an issue, since no matter what, the wells have to go in.”
“And the tanks must be pulled; until they are, they’re making the situation worse every day that goes by. Put it to them that way.”
“I see your point. It appears I need to go speak directly to them.”
“Anything else, Beautiful? Remember, you’ll need to have Tim ready so we can leave as soon as I get home. With the drilling, I can’t be sure when we’ll finish, but I’ll definitely be an hour late, so don’t panic.”
“Actually, I wanted to discuss something with you about Boy’s Night.”
“Really? What? Do you think we should cancel? Are you nervous about being alone?”
“No, no, not that. Gangley’s not onto me yet. His problem is Nancy, and that’s actually what I need to ask you about. It’s a big, big favor for her.”
“Hold on a second . . . Doug! Have the rig brought over here from the east. They’ll get stuck if they try to go that way. Look at their rear wheels. That’s all unconsolidated from the excavation . . . Sorry, Hon., you were saying?”
“I’m sorry to be bothering you in the middle of work, but I need to know if you’d be willing to let Nancy ride with you and Tim to Laredo. From there, she’ll take a bus to San Antonio, and fly from San Antonio to Ohio. We worked out the strategy when I spoke to her. That way, there’s no chance of Gangley’s spotters grabbing her. If they do, that’ll be the end of Nancy. I know it’s Boy’s Night, but the real thing starts when you arrive in Laredo, doesn’t it . . . more or less . . . this is important Mark, and she’s very relieved at the idea of a man taking her out of the city. I don’t know how you should explain it to Tim.”
“I’ll take care of that. Of course we will. We’ll enjoy ourselves much more if we know that she’s safe.”
“Thank you, Mark. You’re so sweet to do this; I’ll make it up to you.”
“There’s nothing to make up. I liked the idea the second you told me. Hold on . . . Doug! Have them back up four feet farther and about three feet to the right. You’ll cave the side of the excavation if you’re that close . . . How will this work? We just pick her up on our way out of town? Have you committed to a time, or . . . ”
“No time. She’ll just wait until you arrive. She’s already paid another day to stay past eleven. I’ll let you go, Sweetie. I can hear you’re very busy. I’ll have Tim ready when you get home, and I’ll call Nancy right now and give her the good news. Thanks again.”
“Love you, Hon. Bye now.”
The drilling was easy through the sand, but within the area of the Stoddard Solvent plume, a caliche layer was encountered at a depth of 52 feet, underlain by an impermeable clay layer.
“That’s how it has spread so far,” Mark realized, “It worked its way through the caliche, but couldn’t penetrate the clay, so it began spreading out down-gradient.”
The last sinker plume he had remediated was almost columnar in shape, and because “sinkers” are solvents heavier than water, it had penetrated to a depth of thirty feet below groundwater elevation. On that last project, he had used a three-foot diameter coring rig to remove “pillars” of soil to that depth, overlapping the cores to remove all traces of contamination. How it spread laterally on this site had been a mystery until now. No smell emanated from the samples or registered on the probe below the impenetrable clay. To ensure that the monitoring well borings didn’t provide a pathway to the underlying aquifer beneath the clay, he had Doug place three feet of bentonite clay slurry around the lowest three feet of the well casing.
As they reviewed the drilling data, he and Doug discussed their options.
“The solvent plume is probably columnar in shape next to the Chronicle building above the caliche, Doug. And unable to penetrate farther, it began spreading out on the surface like pouring water on a table. Since the groundwater gradient is away from the Chronicle building, there probably won’t be much beneath the building itself.”
“That’s good. In a sense, having it all contained within the upper fifty-two feet makes a remediation possible, theoretically. Had it gotten through the clay aquitard, there would have been two separated aquifers to deal with, the underlying one essentially bottomless.”
“That would have been hairy, and impossible to address. Even so, we’re up against the wall on this one, as far as technology is concerned.”
“How can we address it?” Doug queried.
“The problem with sinkers is that pumping out the water doesn’t necessarily equal pumping out the solvent. Much of it is adsorbed to the sediments. P&T is useless, and I despise it.”
“So do we even have an option here? It looks grim”
“Maybe we do. I read in Groundwater about a new technology called Bio-Sparge, invented by a fellow . . . name of Hodges . . . Michael Hodges, a few years ago. It was first tested at an Amoco station in the Salt Lake Valley, Utah area. According to the article, in only eight weeks, it remediated a gasoline spill that would have required two years or more with P&T.”
“That seems hard to believe.”
“It was a comical article?”
“Comical?”
“Even more impressive, during the last week just prior to finishing, a driver refueling the underground storage tanks left to flirt with the cashier. Unattended, the fill spout overflowed, and hundreds of gallons of additional gasoline flowed into the monitoring wells and other access points. It was a disaster, but because the Bio-Sparge system treats both the soil and the groundwater simultaneously, the project required only an additional two weeks to complete.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Doug said. “Besides, this isn’t gasoline we’re dealing with here. It’s more like diesel. Can Bio-Sparge clean adsorbed soils?”
“I’m not sure. I know what makes it unique is it’s closed-loop configuration. In the account I read, soil vapor extracted from the pore space above the groundwater was sparged through a spherical bioreactor on board a mobile unit that was parked innocuously somewhere on the site. It’s great in the sense that the business isn’t inconvenienced by excavation and doesn’t have to close. The bacteria within the bioreactor degraded the contaminants, converting the hydrocarbon into water and carbon dioxide.”
“So it’s environmentally friendly! But how does it generate carbon dioxide when there’s no oxygen in the subsurface?”
“The system injects oxygen and bionutrients into the reactor aboard the mobile system and returns clean, warm, soil gas back underground, including millions of bacteria, completing the loop-the same soil gas that it had extracted from the contaminated subsurface. Nothing was discharged to the sewer system or into the atmosphere.”
“It almost sounds too good to be true, and like I said, the solvent won’t evaporate, so it can’t be withdrawn from the subsurface as soil gas to be passed through the bioreactor, not much of it. So Bio-Sparge would be useless here, wouldn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. Think about it. The injected air or water must be teeming with bacteria, so the contamination would be degraded within the formation as well, not just the withdrawn vapor. That would convert the entire subsurface into a reactor of sorts, resulting in an exponential remediation rate.”
“If it would work here, it would be nothing short of a miracle. How do we find out about it?”
“I’ll go to the website . . . there must be one. Then, if it looks possible, I’ll talk to Jess about it, then propose its use at the Convention Center site when I meet with Harold Moss on Monday. I’m taking Tim to Mexico for Boy’s Night this weekend. Can you keep things moving, Doug?”
“No problem, drillers willing!

Escape

Mark arrived at Woods at six-thirty, and saw Tim sitting on the front porch, backpack to his side, with the clothes and items needed for the weekend all neatly folded and packed with the help of his mom. Doreen was sitting with him, chatting about this and that element of a young boy’s exciting world. As soon as he saw Mark’s Lariat, he immediately grabbed his backpack and came running.
“Whoa, not so fast, Hombre! Throw your backpack in the back seat, but we need to chat for a minute before we leave. You’re all packed and ready?”
“You bet!”
Stepping onto the porch, he sat down by Doreen, “Tim, we have a community service to perform.”
“We do?”
“Yes, we need to help a poor woman who has no one else to help her.”
“Who is she?”
“A very good friend of Mom’s”
“How can we help? We’re still going on Boy’s Night, aren’t we?”
“Oh yes! In fact, that’s the only way we can help her.”
“Really?”
“Yes, we need to let her ride with us in our new truck to Laredo. She won’t be going over into Mexico with us, because that’s where our Boy’s Night begins, so she’s not allowed. Also, she won’t be riding back either, because Boy’s Night doesn’t end until we get back home. That will help Mom’s poor friend, and we will be performing a community service project, just like you have to do as a Cub Scout.”
“O.K. We’ll do that for you, Mom!”
Doreen gave Tim a hug,
“I sure appreciate you two guys helping out my friend. It’s sweet of you.”
“We don’t mind, do we Dad?”
“No, we always help damsels in distress-just like the good guys in our Westerns.”
“Yeah, we’re like good cowboys! Where is she? Are we going now?”
“I’m calling her right now and telling her that two brave guys are coming to her aid. Her name is Nancy.” Doreen dialed the number.
“Nancy; that’s a nice name.” Tim said.
While Doreen was speaking to Nancy, with cowboy Tim listening in, Mark went to the safe and retrieved his 45 and some ammunition, putting both in the waist pack he wore when on trips . . . ”Just in case,” he thought. Neither Doreen nor Tim would know. After freshening a bit, he returned to the porch.
“She’s ready and waiting,” Doreen said, proud of the sleuth maneuver they undertaking for her special, new friend. Mark verified the room number, and promised to call from the motel in Laredo with an update. He and Tim gave Doreen longs hugs and kisses. Doreen watched, relieved, as they backed out of the drive and drove away.
“Where are we picking Nancy up, Dad?” Tim asked as they drew near the hotel.
“Holiday Inn. Would you help me look for it? It should be on the right before very long.”
Tim flattened his nose against the glass. He didn’t intend to miss it when they drew near.
“He’s such a fine boy,” Mark reflected, “How different our life would be without him.”
Tim was like a bright star in their sky. They often spoke of trying for a little girl, but when Doreen was offered the position of Investigative Reporter, it was her childhood dream come true. Maybe after she advanced further, the urge would return. They loved their life together. They kept it romantic and stayed close.
“There it is, Dad on the right; just there. See it?”
“Yes, I do. Thanks for helping,” he said, turning into the entrance and parking as close as possible to it.
This Holiday Inn was one with inside access only to the rooms. Nancy had gotten a room on the second floor. She felt safer there. As they walked toward the elevator, Tim noticed the stairs.
“Dad, lets go up the stairs instead of the elevator, okay?,” he pled, grabbing the door handle.
Mark tried to remember if there was ever a time he would have preferred stairs to elevators. They climbed the stairs, passing a man and woman on the way down. Both were wearing all leather, with Harley Davidson patches and gear. Mark smiled,
“What do you guys ride?” The standard bikers’ introduction.
“Just got a new Dynawide Glide,” the man answered.
“I’m a Harley man too; mine’s a Sportster. Can you pick up the Dynawide? I hear its pretty mean.”
“One heavy son-of-a-bitch. You don’t ever wanna lay it down. It’s like a chopper on the highway; steady thunder’s all you hear. Don’t wanna spend much time on winding highways . . . wears your buddy out leaning. That new big engine’s got a hell of a torque banking left-like a fuckin’ gyro. If you rev it on sharp curves and she don’t lean, you’re gonna leave the road.”
“Sounds like more than I could handle with a messed up shoulder right now. Well, good luck to you!” Mark said, as he resumed climbing.
“Same to you, Pal,” the biker answered, “Keep your beer cold, your powder dry, and your dick hard!”
His female companion and Tim had been smiling and admiring each other while they were talking. Neither seemed to have overheard the last comment.
When they stepped onto the second floor, Tim said,
“Gosh, Dad, they were dressed just like you and Mom when you ride, but he doesn’t have the silver Nazi helmet. He was carrying a black one.”
“That’s a carbon fiber design. I don’t like it as much. It’s probably safer; I just prefer mine.”
They walked to room 209, and Mark knocked on the door. He noticed the view hole darken.
“Who’s there?” came a soft voice from the inside.
“Tim, and my Dad,” Tim interjected loudly, looking at Mark for approval. Mark gave him a thumbs up. The door immediately swung open, and an attractive forty-ish-looking woman with bright red hair and a kind face greeted them excitedly.
“So, you’re Tim! What a handsome lad you are. You look just like your mother,” she said, giving him a kiss and hug like an aunt would give a nephew. She was beaming, and relief was written all over her face. Mark had difficulty comprehending that this sweet human being had almost met death less than two days ago.
“Hello, I’m Mark Houser,” he said, extending his hand.
She held it between both of hers and answered, “Nancy Herrick. I appreciate this. I know I’m putting you out, but this is the safest I’ve felt for days!”
“Nonsense,” Mark replied with perfect honesty, “I can’t think of a single thing of more importance than you right now, right Tim?”
“Ye..ah! We’re the good cowboys!”
Mark winked, and Nancy laughed. Tim was endeared to her from that instant. She had never known the joy of a young son, and she wanted to shower him with hugs and kisses.
“Are you checked out?”
“No, I paid with cash this morning. That way, no one will know what time I left. Do you mind pulling your car around behind the building and parking next to the back door? We can leave through the stairway at the back end of the hall.”
“That’s a good idea; a very good one. I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”
“I have to let you in. After seven, the doors can’t be opened from the outside.”
“Show Tim and let him open it. When you exit, it should be one quick movement from the door to the front seat. Tim and I will load the bags after you’re in.”
“Okay.”
Mark walked to his truck, glancing about nonchalantly as he went. If there was anyone there, it certainly wasn’t evident. He pulled around back, positioning the truck adjacent to the curb within five feet of the door. Getting out, he opened the passenger side door, and immediately Tim opened the hallway door from the inside. A nondescript woman wearing a black scarf over her head stepped from the hall into the front seat almost in a single movement. Tim placed one bag against the door as Mark turned the truck around to face in the opposite direction, and they loaded the suitcases into the back seat. Everything in the back together took only half the seat. The remaining territory belonged to the little cowboy.
“Tim, step back into the hall and make certain the door is closed all of the way. I’ll circle the building one time. When I get back, you open the door and jump in.”
Without thinking, Tim obeyed, but as the door lock clicked, it suddenly hit him that this was a very strange thing indeed for Dad to do! Mark drove very slowly around the hotel, looking into every car in the lot and along the hotel side of the adjacent streets. Nothing out of the ordinary; just an old couple arriving, and three girls in the pool. As soon as he was back at the door, Tim hurriedly came out and climbed in behind Nancy. Entering the roadway, Mark saw no one leaving at the same time. He was beginning to relax.
“We’ll wait until we reach Victoria to eat if that’s okay,” he announced.
“Anywhere well outside this city is fine with me,” Nancy replied.
“Aren’t we traveling on I-10?” Tim asked later as Mark headed south on Highway 59.
“I thought since this was such a special Boy’s Night, we’d go through Victoria and Beeville. It’ll be more fun.”
That seemed exciting to Tim. The actual reason Mark was taking Hwy. 59 was that I-10 and I-35 always had dense traffic. But the farther south they were on Hwy. 59, the more stretches of road they would encounter as the hour grew late with no oncoming car in view, and no car in view behind them. Someone attempting to follow would have great difficulty keeping them in view and not being detected. It was unlikely they could avoid it. Nancy turned, putting her back to the window, and noting the opportunity, Tim leaned forward, engaging her in his life history and anything else he could think of to talk about, listening intently when she spoke of Nadine’s childhood, especially the part when she was his age. The time between Houston and Victoria did not pass in silence.
Victoria is a charming little city on the Guadalupe River near the Gulf of Mexico. Mark had once brought Tim there on a Boy’s Night, visiting the old Spanish Mission, the restored mid-century Mexican military garrison, and the Texas Zoo. There were many things to do, and with a population of only fifty-five thousand people, one had the feeling of being a long way from the hustle and bustle of Houston, which seemed never to end. As they were entering the city, he suddenly turned to the right and drove into a neighborhood adjacent to the highway, proceeding several blocks. He turned around in a driveway, as if to head back, but pulled over to the side and turned off the lights. Finding themselves in darkness, Nancy and Tim stared questioningly at him.
“I’m just seeing what it would feel like to live here in Victoria. Imagine if this was our home, Tim, and we had just pulled up after a movie or something and parked the car.” He winked at Nancy, who realized what he was doing.
“It’s very quiet here,” Tim noted, as Mark and Nancy studied the street between themselves and the highway. Observing that no vehicle had turned off when they did, Mark turned on the lights and resumed driving back.
“I don’t know about you two, but I’m mighty hungry!”
In one voice, Nancy and Tim agreed they felt likewise. Turning back onto the Highway toward Beeville, they drove to the southern end of town, choosing a hometown southern café that was still open. After they finished with restroom stops and sat at a convenient table, Nancy smiled at Mark,
“Well, so far, so good!”
“Yep,” Tim echoed, unaware of what he was acknowledging.
Mark and Tim stuffed on fried chicken, French fries with heavy catsup, and large chocolate malts. Nancy was content with a club sandwich and iced tea, but did agree to join them when they each ordered a piece of pecan pie. Afterward, he ordered black coffee. There remained many miles between them and Laredo. Nancy ordered the same. Tim was so full, he stopped talking, a rare event worthy of note by historians. They sat sipping their coffee.
“How much, if anything, does Nadine know?”
“Everything.”
“And her husband?”
“Tom, too. I wasn’t about to go anywhere near them unless they were in full accord; total agreement. I just couldn’t do that to them.”
“Are they concerned?”
“They were very concerned about me. Nadine almost lost it, I was so hysterical when I called. Tom calmed her down. Neither of them feels they’re in any danger. Tom says Gangley doesn’t stand to gain anything by going after them, especially if I’m there. He said the only way they would be in potential danger is if I disappeared somewhere else. I was about to go to California when I called them, but I wanted them to know that I thought Gangley might show up looking for me. Tom insisted that I come there, because if I were elsewhere it could potentially place them at risk. Gangley could use them to get to me. Tom thinks once he realizes he’s lost the opportunity to get rid of me here, he’ll decide that having me out of the picture is good enough.”
“Tom sounds like a sharp guy. That’s exactly the reasoning I would have followed.”
“He is. A lesser man could never have snagged a catch like my Nadine. She’s not only a beautiful woman. She’s brilliant. Did Doreen tell you that she’s studying Chemical Engineering?”
“No, but I’ve had enough chemistry and engineering to automatically respect her.”
“She’s running a 3.8 grade point average. I’m proud of her. I wish Greg was here to see it.” Tears came into her eyes remembering her deceased husband.
“How did he die?”
“He was healthy, at least we both thought so. He died in bed.”
“Heart attack?”
“Yes.”
“Still fairly young; that’s a true tragedy, Nancy. My heart goes out to you.”
Mark was glad Tim hit the video games the second they ordered coffee, knowing he’d have a few minutes to play.
“Let’s go, Tim! Time to hit the road,” he yelled across the room.
“I’ll be right there . . . I’ve almost got all of ‘em.”
“Them” could be spaceships, ghastly opponents, or who knows what.
“Let me pay, and I’m giving you the money for the gas and any other costs.”
“Poppycock! Tim and I were coming to Laredo already. You’re just riding along. Besides, there’s two of us, and only one of you.”
“Let me at least pay for mine, really.”
“Maybe next time,” he said, grabbing the check.
When he saw Mark walking toward the register, Tim knew he had to finish the battle. He had only a minute or two left.
After resuming the trip, Tim’s conversation slowed, then stopped. Soon, he was fast asleep, and Mark guessed he would probably remain that way until Laredo. He found a channel with soft music, and they drove along in silence, each in their own worlds. Mark’s mind was with Doreen; Nancy’s was somewhere in Ohio. The quiet sound of rubber rolling down the road was very soothing, and conducive to thought. The Lariat was very comfortable. Dark stretches with no vehicles in sight became more frequent, and Mark realized Nancy had slipped from Gangley’s noose. There were a few times when he thought he saw a car trailing them at a great distance, but it always turned out to be a single light, some porch light on a house they passed, perhaps.
By the time they reached Beeville, Nancy had fallen asleep as well, and Mark felt he was about to fold any minute. He stopped for coffee, drinking two cups. Then came the long deserted stretch between Beeville and Laredo where only the coffee enabled him to remain alert until they arrived at an economical hotel they’d stayed in before, renting two rooms side by side, indoor access only. Awaking Nancy, he asked which suitcase she needed for the night. She indicated one of the carry-on-styled bags. After retrieving it, locking the truck, and setting the alarm, he carried the sleeping cowboy to their room and placed him in bed. It had been a long day. He stayed in the hall until Nancy locked her door, then retired.
Awaking early, Nancy prepared for the bus, which would leave for San Antonio at 9:30 am. She felt a new zest for life. Somehow, being this far from Houston made her feel safe, as if every horrible thing that had happened was just a bad dream. They had neither been followed, nor disturbed during the night. She was secure. Not long after she was prepared to leave, there was a knock at the door. Without checking who it was, she opened it wide to find Tim standing there, wearing a big smile.
“Ready for breakfast? We are, and I’m really, really hungry. Are you?”
“I sure am. I could eat a cow!”
“I like pancakes. There’s a place here that makes them as big as your plate, and the syrup is delicious.”
“Boy, that sounds good” She gave him a hug.
“Good morning, Nancy.”
Mark greeted her, closing the door behind him.
“Good Morning to you! Tim says we’re having pancakes as big as plates.”
“He is. I’m having the ham steak. It’s also as big as the plate, and tender enough to cut with your fork!”
“Wow! Sounds like heaven.”
“Oh, it’s just a little dive owned by an old Mexican couple. The thing that keeps bringing us back is that everything Mama Fe makes is good, and the portions are enormous. No one leaves that place hungry.”
“What’s it called?”
“You know, I can’t tell you. I don’t know that it even has a sign. You remember the name, Tim?”
“Now that you mention it, no,” he said, mimicking Mark, “But I know it’s close.”
“Well let’s head out. It’s almost eight, and we want Nancy on time for the bus.”
They drove to the innocuous café, and were lucky to find an empty table. Word had gotten around. Mark ordered in Spanish for everyone, which Nancy found very impressive. They sat, looking around the little place, as they waited. Nancy noticed that none of the appliances matched; the light came from bulbs hanging on cords from the ceiling and through an open front, which a garage-type door closed at night. The walls were crammed with post cards and pictures from tourists and others, some of which looked as if they had hung there for fifty years . . . maybe, they had!
“I’ve never been to Mexico once in my entire life, even living as close as Houston,” she admitted.
Mark studied her. “I know a lot of people who’ve never been. Why is that? I’ve always wondered. I know many others who hit the border frequently, but have never been to the interior.”
“There’s no excuse. I don’t know any Spanish, and I guess I just felt insecure about it. Laredo is weird in some ways, almost as if it was in Mexico. I would be uncomfortable here if I wasn’t with you. It’s sort of a run-down look, and with the things you see on T.V., and hear involving Third world countries, it just seems a little spooky to me, like parts of Houston I don’t feel safe in. And that’s in the United States,” she added.
“I’m surprised more people don’t visit, and it seems that Greg would have brought you.”
“I can’t speak for other people. Greg was a little prejudiced; I can’t deny that, and also tended to be suspicious of some things, so he never even brought up the subject.”
“Like reporters, Doreen tells me.”
“Yes, like reporters.” They both laughed.
“Why was he prejudiced?” Tim inquired.
“I don’t know, but I could tell from comments he made from time to time. He was a good man, but judgmental. He was about as good a husband and father as a woman could hope for. We all have our faults.”
“We certainly do,” Mark said as tiny little Mama Fe, around sixty-five years old and heavily wrinkled, brought their plates. She looked like a relic from the past to Nancy. She could understand why they came here. Their plates were all piled high and the aroma steaming from each of them was maddening. No one spoke for five minutes, each too busy enjoying a great breakfast. Mark was the first to break the silence.
“God, I love this place. You see what we meant?”
“Oh yes,” she acknowledged, “it’s unlike any place I’ve ever been. How much like this is Mexico?”
“Well, you have to understand that Mexico really isn’t a Third world country. It's the twelfth or thirteenth largest economy in the world, as big or bigger than Canada's. You can find anything in Mexico, depending on where you go. I doubt there is any setting anywhere more beautiful than Chihuahua nestled in rolling green hills. Doreen and I have been lots of places, and almost every state has a character of its own. The wealth isn’t redistributed to the degree it is in the U.S. The first place we visited was Villahermosa-that means beautiful town, and it is-on the Veracruz oil coast. It’s more modern than much of the U.S. Mexico is a big oil player. On the other hand, if you were to visit the state of Chiapas, you’d think you were a hundred years or more back in time. You can still pass through areas inhabited heavily by pure-blooded Mayan Indians. Guadalajara is home to more than a hundred thousand Americans who live or have retired there. Doreen and I have never had trouble anywhere in Mexico. We usually fly in, rent a car, and drive ourselves. There are places like the one we’re sitting in all along the roads and highways with outdoor patios, so you’re never far from food. On the other hand, much of Mexico City differs little from Houston . . . modern stuff all the way down to shabby. There’s a marginality problem because so many people without a dime have tried to squeeze in to get a start that the outlying areas are mostly run down, even to the extent of tin and cardboard shacks. Mexico has its on again-off again corruption problems, but so does Houston, right? That’s why we’re sitting here. There’s corruption from the President on down in our own country. Most big cities have corruption to one degree or another. Everybody knows that. Some small towns are even worse . . . remember when the governor of Florida put up a billboard on the freeway near a small town, warning people exiting there that it was full of tourist traps. They’d fleece people a dozen ways. But it always seems worse if it’s another country, especially if we don’t understand the language. Somehow, they don’t seem as civilized, but it depends on what you mean by civilized. I think the Latin people generally are some of the nicest, most accommodating people in the world. We love them. Well, that’s my I Love Mexico speech. I’m a big advocate.”
“You sure are. I feel like I should be arrested!”
They laughed heartily, knowing they would soon part company. Mark picked up the check, which was for so little Nancy thought there must be an error. He also left a very nice tip for Mama Fe after conversing with her for a spell. They climbed into the truck and proceeded toward the Greyhound depot.
Upon arrival, he and Tim helped with the bags as they walked to the ticket counter, and Nancy secured passage to San Antonio. They waited with her until boarding was announced.
“What time does your bus get into San Antonio?” Mark asked.
“Sometime this afternoon, but it’s not an issue, because I’m not flying out until tomorrow. I’ll just get a hotel for the evening and enjoy the River Walk. I doubt I’ll see it again anytime soon. I’ll leave early for the airport.”
“I wonder if it’s possible for Gangley to gain access to the reservation data?”
“I didn’t make a reservation, wouldn’t think of it, so even if he has access, it won’t do him any good. I’ll buy a walk-in ticket; I’m in no hurry, although I am anxious to see Nadine and Tom. I’ll eventually get there.”
“What’s the flight routing?”
“Probably through DFW, but Gangley won’t have anyone there. I could be anywhere.”
The Boarding call came. Nancy gave Tim a big hug and kiss.
“I enjoyed our conversation on the way here last night, Tim. You’re a very special boy, but I’m sure you know that. I’ve come to love you. I wish I could promise to call or write, but I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to.”
“I love you too, Nancy. I’m happy we helped.”
“You did help. You saved me.”
Looking at Mark, she added, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you except by doing the same for someone else when I have an opportunity. You’ve all been wonderful. Tell Doreen I’ll always think of her as a sister, and you, Mark . . . ” She kissed him on the cheek . . . ”are a very special man. You and Doreen are unique in a way. I love both of you. Take care of each other. I know you do.”
After giving Tim one last hug and a kiss on the forehead, she walked toward the bus with excitement. Tim was waving both hands as if guiding a commercial aircraft into the gate. They stayed watching as the bus rolled safely away. She was still waving and exchanging blown kisses with Tim until it vanished into the distance. Then, they sat at a bar, Mark talking to Doreen on the phone while Tim enjoyed a Coke until it was his turn.
Afterward, they looked at each other. Yes! Time for Mexico . . . and fun.

San Antonio

Marie held fast to Carlos’s little hand. Downtown San Antonio was bustling as every other morning, and Carlos could easily get run over by a bus or a car if he got loose and started running around like six-year-olds always do. Mama reminded her eleven-year-old daughter of this every morning as they left their duplex for school. Her father had to take the old car to work, and their family couldn’t afford a second car, so they always walked. Marie knew the way perfectly, and had her own special routine. They walked down third street three blocks, right two blocks, passing the entrance to the big hotel where fat officer Gonzales always stood. He was a very nice, friendly man. Carlos’s school was in the middle of the block on the next street over behind the hotel. So after saying “Good Morning” to Officer Gonzales, they still had to walk to the corner, go left, another block along the side of the hotel, left one-half block, and they were finally there. After taking Carlos to his class, and making certain that his teacher was in charge of him, she walked out the door, turned right and walked back to the corner, again along the side of the hotel. There, she would wave to Officer Gonzales again, and all she had to do was cross the street, and her school was two blocks farther.
But Marie was a clever girl, and she hated having to walk all the way around the hotel every morning. She learned that she could save time by merely cutting left through the alley just before the hotel. It ran along the near side of the hotel, rather than walking all the way around it. No bullies hung out there, and after walking through the alley, Carlos’s school was only half a block to the right. It was a much shorter route, and she didn’t have to put up with Carlos’s constant complaining about squeezing his hand “too hard,” or his constant jerking on hers. He was a real pain.
“Stop squeezing my hand,” Carlos yelled as they were finally getting to the alley.
“Stop it, Carlos! I’ll stop squeezing if you stop trying to pull loose. You do this all the time and I’m sick of it.”
He stuck out his tongue.
“I’ll slap you . . . I will, and I’ll tell Mama! She said you can never stick your tongue out at anyone! You’re too big for that! Good Morning Officer Gonzales!”
She waved at him as he shouted back a customary greeting.
After turning into the alley, they walked until they were passing the big steel dumpster located halfway through the alley to the street where Carlos’s school was located, Without any warning, Carlos jerked his hand so hard, it slipped from Marie’s. She turned to grab him, but he had both hands clasped over his eyes and began screaming as if struck by a truck. Marie looked. On the side of the dumpster, the lid was lifted slightly above the top, and a leg was hanging out near the front corner. She could see it from the knee down. She began screaming as loud as Carlos, filled with terror, and was running as fast as she could back to tell Officer Gonzales when she realized she didn’t have Carlos’s hand. She looked back. Carlos had dropped to his knees, and was still screaming, holding his hands tightly over his eyes. She fought the overwhelming urge to flee long enough to run back and lift him up. Glancing at the leg again, the two of them ran along together, screaming.
As they rounded the corner, officer Gonzales almost ran into them. He had already heard the screams and was running toward the alley when they surged out of it.
“What is it Marie? What is it?” His heart was pounding, and he was breathing hard.
“A leg,” she screamed, grabbing him around the waist. Carlos grabbed hold of his right leg. He was pinned.
“A leg? Did you say, a leg?”
“Yes, in the dumpster,” she cried. By now, several passers-by accumulated, and Gonzales instructed one of the women,
“Keep these children here. I’ve got to go see what they’re screaming about!”
Marie and Carlos had to be pried off of Gonzales. Two women took charge of them, and he began walking down the alley. As he neared the dumpster, he unholstered his weapon, holding it at the ready. He didn’t see anything at first, and wondered what in the world terrified them so utterly. But as he passed the dumpster, he saw it . . . a woman’s leg from the knee down was hanging over the left front corner of the dumpster, with the corner of the lid resting atop it. Already knowing more or less what to expect, he slowly lifted the lid, letting it fall back against the side of the hotel. The dumpster was more than half-filled with trash, and thrown on top was the nude body of a fairly young woman lying on her back. Her hands had been tied tightly behind her. The torn skin and flesh in the area of the cord indicated that she had fought desperately to free her hands. A clear, plastic bag had been pulled over her bright red hair so that her entire head was covered. The open end of the bag had been taped with duct tape securely around her neck. The face had a look of unspeakable horror as if etched by a sculptor into a permanent stare. There were no marks or bruises visible on the front of the body.
Backing away from the dumpster, he felt nauseated. How could one person do such a thing to another? What must have run through her mind as she was dying from want of air . . . precious air. He felt his knees begin to weaken, his body trembling. His age of sixty years, his enormous, protruding gut, and too much beer were beginning to tell. His security guard job was easy, but this wasn’t. Feeling faint, he slid down into a sitting position against the wall opposite the dumpster as the crowd came running. Within a minute, he was surrounded by shouting and screaming. Total disorganization prevailed. He needed to do something, take control of the situation, but he couldn’t. A few minutes later, several police cars entered from both ends of the alley, noticed his condition, and at last began restoring order. An ambulance arrived, and one of the detectives took several photographs of the position of the body as found at the crime scene. The policemen together lifted the nude body out, covering it with a blanket on a stretcher. Within a moment, the ambulance hastened away, the site was secured within a tape perimeter by the police, and the crowd was dispersed.
“Oh my God, Marie and Carlos!” he thought. Rising with difficulty, he retraced his steps back toward the street, half walking, half stumbling, and looked for the women he left the children with. There they were. There was something he could still do. He walked up to the women, taking the hand of each child with one of his, and he walked them home. They never stopped sobbing all the way there. During much of the time consumed by the walk, he wept along with them.

Moss

When Moss arrived at his office at eight, there was already a message from Mark Houser on his voice mail:
"I need to speak with you about the Convention Center site. It’s very important. If ten this morning is not a good time, please call me on my cellular-you have my number-or contact Delta. I’ll talk to you later."
He wondered what new surprises Mark might have uncovered during the investigation. He was worried enough as it was. He still looked like the same looming, immaculately dressed, well-groomed man he was before his scorching encounter with Gangley, but he wasn’t. He felt irresolute, conspicuous, shrunken. Before discovery of the Stoddard solvent plume, he had rationalized and devised a way of getting rid of two of Gangley’s problems at once: the diesel contamination at the Convention Center site and the Foundry problem which the EPA was about to assume jurisdiction over. Slag was the solution to both. Gangley paid him $125,000 for each of the two. He wondered how many people had ever seen two thousand, five hundred $100 bills in one cardboard box before.
Gangley had called his office one morning and asked if Mr. Moss could visit him to discuss the Foundry site. Moss agreed to meet him at his office the following Tuesday, the first opening on his schedule. When he walked in, Gangley shook his hand warmly, turning on all of his charm. After cursing the EPA, he said he wanted the problem resolved at the state level. Moss certainly had no problem with his comments about the EPA, as he agreed with most of them. They were viewed by the state environmental departments like the FBI is viewed by big city cops. But he could only sympathize with his foundry problem. There was a cardboard box by Gangley’s desk. It wasn’t even a new cardboard box. Gangley asked him if he thought he could think of a creative solution to both problems that could be pulled off within a few months. Moss told him that was almost certainly impossible.
“Well, I guess this meeting is over,” Gangley had announced as he arose.
That seemed abrupt to the point of rudeness, but Moss stood and turned to leave after shaking his hand. As he reached for the door handle, he found it locked.
“Your door seems to be locked.”
“Oh, sorry about that; I didn’t want anyone to walk in while you were counting the payoff.”
“Payoff?”
“Yes, that’s your box; I mean it was your box, but you say you’re not very creative. You can look at it though.”
“Mr. Gangley, I don’t know what you were trying to suggest by use of the term “payoff.’ As for your connection of my statements with creativity though, I wasn’t referring to my ability. I believe I’m more creative than most people are. I was referring to your time element.” he said.
“Well, go ahead and take a look. Maybe you’ll realize it is your box.”
Moss, sufficiently curious at that point, raised the lid and looked inside. He was stupefied. He had never seen that much actual cash in one batch in his life. In the movies, yes, but never the real thing. Inside were five banded stacks, each of which contained five hundred $100 bills. He was speechless. He had always believed that a man who would take a bribe had no ethics, and he was highly ethical. Somehow though, seeing that much cash seemed to detach its purpose from ethical considerations. Men work to achieve dreams. Here was a box full of dreams come true. And all that was being asked was a little imagination.
“Oh, you don’t have to count it, it’s two-hundred and fifty grand. Tell you what. I’ll keep it somewhere close while you figure out whether it’s yours or not. If you come up with something, just stop by-no telephone calls on the subject. By the way, you weren’t here, we never had this conversation, and I didn’t show you a lost-and-found box, asking if it was yours.”
He said the last sentence as he was unlocking the door. Moss muttered agreement and said he would give it some thought.
“I’m sure you will, Mr. Moss . . . I’m sure you will.”
He had.
Now, he couldn’t return the money. Of $250,000, less than sixty-thousand remained. He and Lee Ann had gone on what in hindsight could only be characterized as a spending spree: New, matching BMW’s, an upgrade of the furniture in their condo, and several items each had been wishing they could afford for a long time. Even at his level, state employment never led to wealth, except by the low road of corruption. Having been a star on the high road, he now saw himself as slithering along on the lowest road of the lot. He had foolishly placed not only himself, but his wife and two nearly grown daughters at risk. Last Friday, he was a very well off man with a great future. Now, on Monday, only three days later, he had a death threat hanging over his head with all of the characteristics of the Sword of Damocles, slowly inching toward a potentially fatal collision with reality, and with Gangley. Of course, it was possible that Gangley was just trying to make a point, trying to scare him. If so, he’d succeeded. The idea of him actually killing someone over a business deal seemed ridiculous in one sense. He normally came across as an engaging fellow. Then again, at the end of the day, after the full investigation had been completed and they were looking at a remediation period measured in years, it would mean loss of the Convention Center sale to Gangley, and in the rage arising from losing over two-hundred million dollars, not to mention what it cost him to buy the deal-maybe millions more for all Moss knew- it might very well mean the extinction of Harold Moss.
The problem was, if he took any action which was obviously arbitrary or suspicious, the consultant or the Chronicle would certainly call him on it. If, as a consequence, it went over his head, it would be killed by his superiors, and his career track could be derailed or slowed down precipitously-if he lived to experience the humiliation. He couldn’t think of a single, possible way of achieving a cleanup of such magnitude within six months.
There was always a chance, though, that he might think of some way to pull it off by sleight-of-hand, and presently, he thought about little else. This damned solvent plume surprised everyone. When Clarke first encountered it, the two of them had come up with a way to “lose” it. They rigged the piezos to create the illusion that the groundwater was flowing in the reverse direction. That would have delayed its discovery until construction was well underway. If it turned up later, an innocuous P&T system would be installed in a small concrete structure on the corner of one of the parking lots. If it ran a decade, it wouldn’t be an issue. No one visiting the Center would even know that it was there. Hell, it didn’t seem like real corruption, just an abuse of authority, sort of. That’s how he was prepared to live with it.
But Roger Clarke had bailed. After his encounter with Gangley, he had $400,000 deposited in the Gangley Enterprises account at the branch where the account was located. Normally, no bank in America would accept that much cash without notifying the IRS. But Clarke reasoned correctly that the branch personnel wouldn’t dare meddle with Gangley. He was too important and powerful a client. There was too much money on deposit to risk loss of his business, and he had very powerful friends as well. It went down without a hitch. Clarke was out of the deal, and four-hundred thousand lighter, but he was walking around alive and still had his integrity.
Moss couldn’t escape his dilemma. He was in the soup, because Gangley’s argument was that he paid him for two sites, not a single spill at one site. Moss should have known the risks, given his history. And he was right. Over the weekend, he had perfunctorily delivered on half of what he had been paid to do by resolving the foundry problem. Now, he had to smooth it over with Delta without raising any suspicion. And he had to stay fully informed of every detail to think of some way out of the Stoddard solvent problem that he didn’t even know the true extent of yet. He decided he couldn’t cancel Mark’s ten o’clock in spite of his gloomy mood, because undoubtedly Mark wanted an explanation for what had occurred over the weekend.
Ten o’clock arrived, and with it a very up Mark Houser. After the usual greetings, Moss suggested going down to the cafeteria so they wouldn’t be constantly interrupted by the phone.
“Good idea. I could use some coffee,” Mark agreed.
As they walked to the elevator, he added, “I didn’t get much sleep over the weekend. Tim wanted to go to Mexico, and we got a late start Friday evening. We were up early Saturday, then, Saturday night we were up late again trying to soak in as much as possible before heading back yesterday, but Tim promised Doreen that we would bring back a big slab of cabrito, so we crossed again to get it.”
“For cabrito, I’d go back too.”
“I didn’t mind, but I never considered the fact that it’s not ready at nine in the morning. We waited over an hour and a half, getting engraved copper bracelets and other junk to kill time. Of course, Tim loved every minute of it. By the time we went back to check, it wasn’t just ready, it was intoxicating, so . . . ”
“You stayed and ate?”
“ . . . more like stayed and stuffed. I felt miserable for the first three hours of the trip back. But when I saw Doreen’s reaction upon presenting it to her, which Tim insisted upon doing personally, it was worth every minute of the Sunday afternoon nap I didn’t get after all. And you know how it is the first night you’re back after being away without your sweetheart?”
“So you certainly didn’t get much sleep last night!”
“Only Tim.”
They selected a table after getting large coffees from a fresh pot, which got them off to a good start discussing the manifest subject of the meeting. Mark’s cellular rang.
“I guess it’ll be your phone this meeting,” Moss smiled. Mark nodded.
“Hey Buddy . . . how’s the new week going?”
“I wanted to compliment you on the backfilling.”
It was Doug.
“Backfilling?”
“Yeah, you know. That’s where you dig a hole, then fill it up again?”
“Haa, Haa,” Mark snided, “Really though, I don’t know what backfilling you’re talking about. Which site?”
“I’m at the Convention Center site.”
Mark looked at Moss,
“Do you know anything about backfilling at the Convention Center site?”
“Yes, I’ll tell you about it when you finish your call.”
“Moss knows about it. What does it look like?”
“It’s beautiful. All of those huge craters covering twenty-five percent of the site are gone. They’re three feet above grade now. The dozers are compacting it, D-11s. I never saw so many on a single site at one time; listen . . . ”
He held his cellular so Mark could hear the roar of a passing dozer.
“Mark, they destroyed every monitoring well in the whole area. They’re all gone.”
“Well, I guess the idea is to install new ones for remediation. I’m with Moss now for a meeting, so I’ll bring you up to date later on that.”
“We completed the general definition of the solvent plume Friday evening late. It’s saturated two feet of the sand above the caliche across its entire extent, and both caliche and clays are continuous. The good news is, it’s clean below the aquitard . . . non detect readings from every piezo before we plugged them. When do we get the go-ahead across the street? We’re ready to install those now.”
“I’ve got Doreen pushing the legal department on that, and I’ll discuss it with Moss. I’ll get back to you. Bard runs the whole show under Amholtz at the Chronicle. The thing is, Doug, the Chronicle is a bureaucracy; sorry, Harold.”
Moss smiled.
“So it could take a few days. Just have your people start on the surveying when you’re finished, have Karen start the site plan, and you do the mass balance on that side of the street. That way, you won’t be wasting time.”
“I’ll see you later.”
“Yeah.”
Moss was ready for Mark on the backfilling issue.
“The construction supervisor called me late Friday, and said he had obtained a source of fill and had the trucks free to do the job over the weekend. You know that when Clarke’s excavation subcontractor dug those craters out, he removed close to half a million tons of soil all the way to groundwater. Clarke pumped from the base of every one of those craters with a sump pump . . . took out Lord knows how many gallons of water mixed with free diesel and transported it for re-refining. No one but Gangley could afford a ruse like that. I’m sure it’s the reason Clarke was fired. The subcontractor told me when I poked around that he was ordered to remove that volume of material, but hedged about who at Clarke instructed him to . . . the whole deal was very fishy.”
“No kidding,” Mark admitted, “It’s been hell just moving the drilling rig around that quarter of the site to install the monitoring wells. We were constantly concerned that they would cave a wall and turn over the rig.”
“There is a good side to it though,” Moss continued, “because as I thought about it, backfilling will stabilize the plume where it is. The clean backfill will act as giant sponges, and draw in water and free product from every direction. The plume isn’t going anywhere now.”
“What about across the street?”
“As an agency, we’ve been giving more and more thought to the Lawrence Livermore Report, and as that diesel plume has no receiving wells beyond the street and has been stabilized at the source, self-attenuation by natural biodegradation will take care of it. It doesn’t now-and probably never did-represent a threat to human life and health, but we had to follow the regulations and enforce them. Now, the thing’s been shot to hell. That solvent plume is what needs 100% of our attention.”
“I see . . . so no more diesel remediation plans or further issues?”
“It’s neither a productive use of time nor funds, particularly with the city putting pressure on the department to clear the beginning of construction. They need us off the site. With diesel, we can reasonably move it along. The column of solvent to be cored out could be enormous though, not to mention the groundwater plume carrying dissolved solvent with it. It could be bottomless with a sinker like that. What have you learned? Sounds from you conversation with Doug like you’ve got it roughed out?”
“We think so.”
“How significant is the areal extent?”
“Almost ten percent of the entire six square block span of the site. It’s where it is that’s worse: underneath the planned location of the Center itself!”
“Ten percent! Oh, you’re talking about the dissolved plume?”
“No! I’m talking about the free product plume!”
“With a sinker? That’s impossible! It would be deep, not wide!” Moss seemed very upset.
“Not at this site,” Mark confirmed, “When I was a student and first learned that an aquitard was a layer of sediment so impenetrable that it divided a groundwater aquifer into two discrete horizontal zones, separate from each other, I was intrigued. We’ve all run into them, but usually there’s some breakthrough, unless the pressure beneath the aquitard is slightly artesian, and keeps the groundwater above the aquitard. But a sinker can still penetrate the spotty areas and contaminate beneath. At this site, the groundwater starts forty feet down, and twelve feet below is a perfectly continuous layer of caliches highly permeable to a sinker. The feature that makes it absolutely impenetrable is that immediately inferior to it is a stratum seven feet thick of tight clay. The two combined comprise an ideal aquitard. So when the solvent column underneath the leaking tank or tanks reached it, it was stopped. It couldn’t develop further vertically, so it started spreading out in the down gradient direction-the northwest-like spilling a glass of milk on the table. A little goes a long way, especially when you have a stratum comprising four feet of clean sand overlying the aquitard, immediately superior to it. The sand lets the solvent move as fast as it develops sufficient hydraulic pressure. This was either a hell of a leak, or its been going on for a long time. The bottom two feet of the sand is black, saturated with free product. There’s one incredibly fortuitous feature of this plume though, with respect to remediation.”
“What could that possibly be?” Moss asked, his face contorted like a man in pain.
“Every sample pulled from beneath the aquitard came back non detect from the lab. The groundwater beneath it is completely unaffected.”
Moss’s mind was racing with thoughts of inescapable calamity approaching him at high speed. He felt like a dummy in a crash test the instant before hitting the wall. Mark had just described a geologic environment that P&T could never address. Coring was out of the question, and he couldn’t imagine how the situation could be swept under any rug, because the Convention Center could not be permitted underlain by such a calamitous soil and groundwater plume. Mark handed him a cross-section schematic of the subsurface.
“This is what we have down there.”
After staring at the cross-section, Moss exclaimed,
“Let me think about this for a minute.”
He leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head, staring into space above Mark’s head, imagining the hydrogeologic cross-section just described.
“So, in cross-section, we have unsaturated soil down to forty feet, then twelve feet of groundwater zone above the aquitard. Sitting atop the aquitard is a layer of free product-pure solvent. The upper part of the twelve feet of groundwater is clean, but immediately above the free product is a dissolved plume: groundwater into which the most soluble components of the solvent have dissolved.” Moss’s shoulders visibly slumped. Mark handed him the updated site plan showing the solvent plume.
“We’ll never get that out of there,” Moss lamented. “You’d have to put extraction wells down to the top of the aquitard and sink pumps into each one. The solvent is heavier than the water, so to have any chance of pulling it out, the wells must be spaced so tightly, the area would look like a pin cushion. It would take years, and you’d hardly dent the problem.” He remembered Gangley’s face. “This will cost Gangley the Convention Center deal.” He added.
“What is it?” Mark queried, “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. It’s just a project. It’s not personal.”
Moss was seeing a ghost-His. He had taken the money and now was checkmated. Some problems were so serious they couldn’t be buried. What was he to do about Gangley’s ultimatum? A steel-hard sense of cold panic arose in his gut, and Mark noticed beads of sweat forming on his forehead. He sensed he might just be about to hand Moss a life preserver more important than even he suspected-Bio Sparge.
“This will be a never-ending remediation and won’t succeed,” Moss lamented, expecting Mark’s peer acknowledgment of the dilemma.
“Perhaps not. That’s why I requested this meeting.”
Moss seemed surprised, looking at Mark with clear anticipation.
“Ever heard of Bio-Sparge?“
“What’s that?”
“A new remediation technology. It’s taken a beating from the consultants because it’s threatening to them.”
“Threatening?”
“Yes. It often works too fast, if you can believe that. I’ve researched its progress since it was first applied to the real world. It has some near-miracles to its credit. It seems there’s no remediation situation it can’t address. But that’s the problem.”
“Why in the world would that be a problem.” Moss was all ears, now, leaning forward in his chair.
“Say Delta’s working on 25 sites. The spread is probably something like twenty gas stations, and five with problems other than diesel or gasoline. Normally, with the Phase I, II, and maybe even Phase III reports, the Remediation Plan, and all the associated work, meetings, etc., our income floor extends at least six months out. That’s a comfortable feeling for guys like Jess. It gives stability to the business. When you add the actual ‘remediations,’ the P&T, Vapor Extraction, over-excavations of contaminated soils, setup work, quarterly sampling, quarterly reports, and operation and maintenance of the equipment, it extends that floor by another one and a half to two years. For regional and national firms working on projects for companies with deep pockets, it’s probably more like five to ten years. They’re less affected by clients going bankrupt. That’s the industry, and everyone in it knows the numbers. It’s the way the game is played. The seesaw is tipped completely in favor of the industry, not the clients. If the EPA is directly involved, with all of the government and military paperwork, qualifications and bonding requirements, most of that work is for the biggest companies, so those projects will take forever.”
“Sounds a bit torrid,” Moss exclaimed, “but I guess I have to agree, more or less.”
“Okay, back to Delta now. Here’s Jess, sitting on three-years of guaranteed stability, and along comes a technology that can remediate fully half of his projects within six months.”
Moss was leaning forward so far, he looked awkward.
“Moreover, if such a technology is applied, a big chunk of the remediation revenue is paid to the remediation company, not to Delta as at present. No consulting company is fond of that idea. Owners like Jess find themselves in a dilemma; any one of them has a couple of clients he’d like to use it on: maybe a widow he’s stripping and feels guilty about, or a friend he’d like to get off the hook. He has many sites perfect for the technology. But he knows that if he lets it in the door, it may be like trying to get a bear out of a mountain cabin. Remember that Robert Redford movie where he wants to become a mountain man, and an old-timer traps him in the cabin with a bear?”
“Jeremiah Johnson.”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
They both laughed as they replayed the scenes from the movie, and how Redford had to flee the cabin, leaving it to the bear.
“Well, that’s a great visualization of what Jess and the majority of consulting companies can see happening if Bio-Sparge were to come into general use, presuming of course that it can deliver on the claims made. It could wreck their cabin, certainly cut their income floor by fifty-percent. A three-year income floor extension could shrink to less than one. There’s no quarterly report due on a closed site. And in the end, they care more about their own families than about that widow or any other client they’re wiping out.”
Moss was shaking his head in agreement. He had only to think of the money he had taken, and the motivations which led him to do it.
“When I introduced Jess to Bio-Sparge, he seemed excited at first. We ran through a list of sites we were basically killing time on to avoid a phony remediation that we knew wouldn’t work, just enough to get you guys to let us sweep it under the rug.”
Moss laughed. Everyone knew the game, no matter how emphatically they denied it.
“But the next morning, after sleeping on it, he was disinterested; the change of attitude was phenomenal, until I reflected upon his reaction for a while. I should have known in the beginning what would happen. He was afraid it would undermine our business, revise the entire economics of the industry. All I could get from him was a commitment that if we have a site condition that clearly cannot be addressed by any other means, he would let me apply it. Once. The Convention Center is such a site.”
“Do you think Bio-Sparge could really clean it that quickly, Mark?” Moss looked liked a man who had just discovered Jesus Christ and the prospect of forgiveness and salvation.
“Only Hodges could answer that. But I’m certain that if it could, it’s the only plausible solution. Otherwise, as you say, we’ll be messing around here for years. P&T could contain the groundwater plume, but the free product would just keep recharging it, and spreading it around could multiply the problem several times over. It could end up smeared all over the sediments, whereas now, it’s restricted to a very limited vertical zone.”
“Hodges?”
“He’s the man. He invented and patented Bio-Sparge. He owns the company.”
“Where’s he centered?”
“Las Vegas, but he has projects in most of the surrounding states. He started Bio-Sparge in Utah, and the first project out the door was an Amoco gas station. Bio-Sparge cleaned it within eight weeks.”
“Eight weeks!”
“Yes, but that was gasoline in a standard plume format, with groundwater and the vadose zone impacted. The Convention Center is solvent in a nonstandard plume format.”
“How quickly could you set this up? Moss asked.
“What do you mean? That’s the client’s call, and the real client is the Chronicle. They’re the responsible party and will have to pay for the entire thing.”
“True, but a down gradient owner whose property has been impacted can act unilaterally if they wish and address the portion of the problem restricted to their site.”
Mark loved watching Moss wiggle. He must really be in a fix.
“Yes, but why would he? Why spend your own money? Let the Chronicle pay.”
“If it’s in their best interests, that’s when they would, and I have no doubt that Gangley would pay for a technology that could clean his property, because if he’s looking at years versus possibly months, it could mean the difference between losing the deal with the city, and salvaging it. There’s an enormous amount of money at stake here.”
“I’ll say there is.”
Moss was ready to take control and to act quickly. Mark’s visit was serendipitous, unless some god out there had decided Moss might have made a mistake, but should be allowed to live in spite of it.
“I’ll tell you what. You push for getting the monitoring wells installed at the Chronicle. I know Gangley personally.”
“I’ll bet you do,” Mark thought to himself
“I’ll talk to him directly about Bio-Sparge. I think he’ll fly Hodges in immediately to explore a Bio-Sparge approach. How soon could you have the relevant data prepared in usable form for Hodges to review?”
“A few days; enough for him to get the picture pretty clearly.”
“Thanks for coming by, Mark. You made my day.” Mark had surmised as much. They shook hands and parted company.
Gangley
After Tim had gone to bed, Mark and Doreen sat in the den and talked for a while before turning in. They agreed they needed to retire to bed early. Doreen had become concerned upon learning that Mark had virtually no sleep for three days. He was already developing a cough and weepy eyes, always the first indication in his case. She handed him a dose of one of the drugstore copies of Nyquil and a glass of water to flush it into his system. There was that wonderful romantic interlude last night, and the conversation to catch up. His call from Laredo after putting Nancy on the bus had helped, but they had other things to discuss. He had been much worse this morning, and she wanted him to get a long night.
Tim, having slept most of the way, was rested when they returned from Mexico. Mark drove. It had been difficult enough to get Tim to bed. But poor Mark; they hadn’t fallen asleep until two-thirty this morning. She awakened Mark with strong coffee, making certain that he was in the shower with the water striking him before she and Tim left. Mark improved after the third cup, but wasn’t interested in breakfast.
As they sat, he related the details of his conversation with Moss. They now knew he had foolishly taken money with too little comprehension of the site, and now was in trouble. Mark related how Moss had relied upon the Lawrence Livermore Report to justify nixing the diesel cleanup, though he admitted that the volume of backfill necessary to fill the craters covering a quarter of the site would stabilize the diesel plume like so many sponges. When gasoline or a light solvent plume develops, it has no trouble passing through the sediments. But diesel is different. Its molecular structure is very long. It’s much more viscous. Because it’s more viscous than gasoline, diesel plumes have different characteristics within the subsurface. Instead of merely passing through the pore space between soil particles on its trip down gradient like the more highly soluble dissolved components of gasoline, it coats each particle en route. This attenuates the momentum of the plume, because more and more is left behind, adsorbed to the soil. This is both a blessing and a curse; a blessing, because it’s less likely to travel very far down gradient, and a curse, because once adsorbed to soil, diesel becomes very difficult to remediate. Vapor Extraction can’t touch it, because it won’t evaporate significantly. P&T is ineffective, because drawing cold groundwater through diesel-adsorbed soil is about as effective as an auto mechanic trying to clean his hands at the end of the day using only cold water and no soap. It’s a joke. Usually, less than fifteen percent of the total mass can be removed by P&T, no matter how many years the system is operated.
Moss knew this as well as Mark. The clean backfill would absorb all of the diesel in the underlying groundwater, halting any down further down gradient momentum of the diesel plume. It was a plausible call that could not be effectively criticized. Moss had used his knowledge of the dynamics of diesel plumes-and his position as supervisor-to end Gangley’s problem. Had it not been for the solvent plume appearing out of nowhere, Gangley could be starting construction now. Moss’s relief upon learning of Bio-Sparge indicated that Gangley had paid him to deliver a clean site, not just a clean plume. Otherwise, his money would have been considered earned as of this morning. Moss had delivered termination of the diesel plume over the weekend. But it was a moot point now.
Doreen related to Mark that she had hard-pressed Legal to free up permission for the two monitoring wells. The lead counsel became so irritated by her perceived intrusion into their area of authority that he told her politely enough it was none of her business, at least in so many words. Stymied, she had gone to Lou with her frustration. To help salve her determination, Lou picked up the phone and called Legal. After getting the fellow who put her off on line, he informed him that his next calls would be to Bard, Amholtz, and Gangley if permission to install the monitoring wells was not given in lieu of completion of their ‘analysis,’ and within the next twenty-four hours! Fearing a rowdy Lou far more than a tactful Doreen, he became especially accommodating, assuring Lou he would do his best to accomplish their wishes. Lou gave them Mark’s cellular number, told them he was working on the Convention Center site for Gangley, and reminded him that the Chronicle could have to pay for the entire cleanup caused by their tanks.
“Don’t piss Gangley off!” Lou yelled, “And don’t piss me off, either.”
He explained that the wells were in the Chronicle’s best interest, because the problem would defy alleviation until the source was identified, and that was the purpose of monitoring wells.
Mark didn’t know if it was the mention of Amholtz’s name or of Gangley’s, but when he called Doug after the meeting with Moss, he found him preoccupied with two attorneys who had walked across the street, asking for Mark. They wanted to know exactly what a monitoring well was, how it worked, how noticeable it would be following installation, and where did they plan to put them on the Chronicle’s property? Doug had shown them some of the wells on the Convention site, explained how they worked, dropped a bailer into one to show how groundwater samples are collected and labeled prior to transportation to the lab, and pointed out the general area along the Chronicle’s side of the street requiring monitoring well installations. He repeated that it would be cheaper and more efficient if he led the rig across the street when he finished where he was working, rather than re-mobilizing it again later from the drilling company. They promised Doug a response within twenty-four hours.
“That’s tomorrow,” Doreen commented, relieved.
“Yes, it . . . ” Mark was nodding off.
“C’mon Baby, let’s get you to bed,” she sympathized, helping Mark stand, and leading him to the bedroom. He almost tripped just climbing the stairs. The antihistamine in the cold medicine was definitely taking effect.
“It’s nearly ten, and you need a nice, long night.”
Mark offered no objection. Lying down on the soft sheets and pillow felt like heaven. A minute later, he was already asleep. Doreen covered him lovingly, then switched off the light. She wasn’t quite ready to join him, so she went back downstairs to catch the Ten O’clock News.
At first, she wasn’t paying that much attention. She was replaying the significance of what she and Mark had together accomplished that day. It was a big win for both of them. This project could represent a real boost to Mark’s career if he could save the day, both for the Chronicle and for Gangley. She could care less about that bastard, but either way, it would make Mark a virtual hero, especially with the Department of Environmental Quality behind him. He was finally able to approach a remediation project the way he felt it should be done, with a cleanup technology that worked. After Hodges looked at it, she hoped he’d say it would work. Now, Moss was on the hook. Maybe he wouldn’t have to run and hide like Nancy, not if Mark and Bio-Sparge were successful. It sounded like a very challenging cleanup, based upon all she had learned about hydrogeology and sedimentation being married to Mark.
Suddenly, she was jarred from her thoughts as she caught what the reporter on the news was saying:

"....dead today in San Antonio. Her nude body had been carelessly thrown into a dumpster in a downtown alley. The woman’s hands were tied behind her back, with a plastic bag taped over her head, causing her to suffocate. The body was discovered by two school children on their way to school who noticed a leg hanging out one side of the dumpster and notified a nearby security guard. Police and an ambulance were called, and the approximately forty-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The police have no suspects and do not know the woman’s identity. Anyone knowing the identity of this woman is asked to contact Detective Evans at the San Antonio police department. If you know who she is, please call the number on the screen."

Then, the face of a dead woman was shown. It had horror etched into its features. Someone had tried to brush out her bright red hair before the photo was taken.
“They didn’t even get the hair right,” Doreen sobbed.
She rose stoically, holding back enough tears to overflow a dam. She didn’t want to let out her sorrow, any of it. She wanted to feel the pain, the rage, the hatred, and the emptiness. Gangley was paying for this if she had to kill him herself. Sweet Nancy had to be avenged! Walking to the phone, she dialed the number shown and asked for Detective Evans. Although it was unlikely he would be in this late, she’d give the information to whomever was taking his calls.
“Detective Evans, here; who am I speaking to?”
“I’m a friend of the woman found in the dumpster. Her name is Nancy Herrick.”
“Could you spell that, please?”
“ H e r r i c k.”
“And your name, ma’am”
“She was a resident of Houston, Texas, and she worked at Gangley Enterprises.”
“Could you spell Gangley?” She spelled it out for him.
“Ma’am, I need to know your name.”
“I can’t tell you my name yet, but I will eventually when I need your help. I know who had her killed, and why he did. If I tell you, he’ll have me killed before I can expose him. Nancy is survived by a daughter and son-in-law in Ohio. They’ll be contacting you tomorrow to make arrangements for shipment of the body there for burial.”
“Ma’am, I can help you if you’ll talk to me about who you are and what you know. We’ll have him arrested and we’ll protect you.”
“No, you won’t. You can’t do either, because you have no evidence, do you? You didn’t even know who she was. He’d walk, and I’d die.”
“Ma’am . . . ”
Doreen put the handset back on the phone. She didn’t want Nadine to learn her mother had been murdered, gruesomely, from a stranger in a uniform. She would call them tomorrow, and they would hear it from a friend. As evil as the murder was, and as casually as the body had been disposed, it probably wouldn’t gain national coverage. Too many people were murdered every day. She needed to enlist their support in her efforts to destroy him. If they reacted in the first flush of sorrow and hatred, it could expose what little coverage she had from Gangley, and she needed it. She also needed one of the pictures Nancy mentioned removing from her desk at the time she left it for the last time. Her things were probably still in a hotel somewhere in San Antonio. Detective Evans would automatically follow that one up looking for evidence now that he knew she was visiting from Houston. If not, she needed a good picture of Nancy from Nadine. She would convince Lou to run a front page piece showing her picture, and as gruesome a police photo from the crime scene as Lou would tolerate-they weren’t the Star-mentioning that she had been employed by Gangley Enterprises. People would then make the connection when she broke the real story. She turned off the TV and sat down, surrounded by darkness, trembling with rage. She wished Mark’s arms were about her so she could lay her head on his shoulder and cry until there were no tears left. She wanted to dash up the stairs and scream at the top of her lungs,
“Nancy’s been MURDERED! Gangley did it!”
But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t even let him know that she heard it. In his anger, he might panic and start worrying about the safety of his wife and son. He might react impulsively or violently to the news, putting Gangley on the alert, jeopardizing her plan. She would use all of her genius; only a clever plan could scuttle several Machiavellian political careers and a murderously corrupt man, One they were unable to discover. She would work out the details soon enough. Only then would she involve Mark. He was about to achieve something important in his career and she didn’t want anything to interfere with that, or to upset him. Her investigative reporter self was plotting . . . when the plan was developed, she would strike without warning, destroying them all in one fierce blow!
Somehow, this intense resolve eased her sorrow and helped her relax. She went back upstairs, undressed, laid down, and snuggled up to her sleeping prince, bare breasts pressed against his back. Calm came quickly being so close to him, imagining Gangley ruined. At length, sleep overcame her.

The phone rang, awaking Mark. He fiddled with it, getting the handset to his ear.
“Hello . . . ”
“Mark, are you still at home?” It was Jess.
“Uh . . . yes. I remember getting up and showering . . . I must have laid back down or something. What time is it?”
“Nine-thirty!”
“Wow. I did get some sleep.” His mouth felt dry, and as he spoke, he was getting matter out of his eyes with the other hand.
“You got a call just now from Moss. He says Gangley wants to have lunch with the two of you today. He also said the two of you had quite a discussion about Bio-Sparge. You’d better give him a call. Need the number?”
“No, I’ve already got it. And Jess . . . ?
“What?”
“Thanks. I know you could have said, no.”
“Well, its going happen to all of us sooner or later. And after talking to Doug, we’ll need a miracle on that site. So, live long, and prosper!” Mark laughed. They hung up, and he quickly called Moss.
“Hey, Mark, How are you?
“Great. I hear there’s lunch with Gangley himself?”
“Yes, he wants to meet us at eleven, and he said to have you decide where.”
“He did?”
“Yep, it’s your call, but I hate McDonald’s and Chinese food.”
“How about the Crab Shack?”
“Excellent . . . Their lunch menu is almost as interesting as the evening buffet! I’ll tell him, and if he doesn’t like it, I’ll tell him you want him to pick.”
“Sounds like a good plan. I’ve got to hurry if we’re meeting at eleven!”
“O.K., I’ll meet you out front,”
He couldn’t believe he had slept so late. He felt good. If Gangley wanted to have lunch, that suggested he had made the decision to act unilaterally and apply Bio-Sparge immediately. Mark felt vindicated. Hodges would soon benefit from the efforts of an admirer he didn’t even know of. The best technology was about to be applied to the benefit of the least worthy client. He decided he’d better get a move on.
When he arrived at the Crab Shack, he spotted Moss standing out front with a man he assumed must be Gangley. He had never met Gangley, so he was somewhat surprised by his appearance. Given the political and business circles he moved in, Mark had just assumed he would look like any other well-dressed businessman. Gangley definitely did not look like a businessman. His black hair was slicked straight back like in a mobster movie, culminating in a pony tail that hung six or seven inches past a wide leather band which he would later learn was covered with Indian bead work designs. He wore an expensive silk shirt, but the pants he wore with it were jeans. Like Moss, he wore boots, but unlike Moss’s, they weren’t Cowboy boots. They were biker boots, not unlike Mark’s, but more expensive. He was broad-shouldered. Thick, black chest-hair protruded noticeably below his neck, accentuated by the top button of his shirt being left unbuttoned. He wasn’t quite as tall as Moss, but he was much thicker-almost fat, but not enough to look good on his Harley Fat Boy. The front had been re-engineered, the front wheel thrust out an extra foot, imparting an Easy Rider semblance. Fifty-ish, muscles bulged beneath his clothing. He wasn’t a guy you’d want to piss off in bar or meet in an alley late at night if he had it in for you. He wore an earring in his right ear, and a large watch on his hairy wrist. A leather belt cut thick, with prestigious silver studs embedded in it, girded his waist. His face and arms were darkly tanned like a man who boats every weekend. So this was the Gangley he had heard so much about. Moss was busy conversing with him and obviously respected him. Gangley’s expression seemed to indicate a liking for Moss. He pulled up and parked within a few feet of them.
“There he is now,” he heard Moss say.
He pretended not to have heard, and got out of the car somewhat casually, ready for anything, since he didn’t know what to expect.
“Mark Houser, this is Mr. Gangley. He’s the owner of the Convention Center site.”
Gangley and Mark extended their hands simultaneously. In spite of an obvious effort to soften it, Gangley’s grip was like steel.
“I’ve heard such accolades about you, Mark, I don’t know whether to shake your hand, or kiss your ring. If you can do what Moss claims, it would definitely be the ring. Call me, Randall,” he said, smiling in an engaging manner.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Randall,” Mark said, laughing. Moss was grinning from ear to ear.
“Was the Crab Shack a good choice?” He suspected it was, having met the man.
“Perfect. I love the food here. I guess we can go in now?”
“Sure,” Moss and Mark chimed simultaneously.
“Oh, Harold,” Mark queried, “can I speak to you privately for just a second about one of our sites?” Moss glanced at Gangley,
“Go ahead, I’ll get us a table,” Gangley said, heading for the door.
“What is it Mark?” Moss seemed a bit annoyed at Mark’s having separated the group.
“I wanted to ask you not to mention what Doreen does for a living, especially that she works at the Chronicle.”
“Why?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Okay, let’s go on in.”
Gangley was just about to sit down at the chosen table when they rejoined him.
“My wife and I often come here on our dates,” Mark informed them, “We love the buffet, and my favorite is the oyster stew and the gumbo. Are you married, Randall?”
“Til five years ago. My wife drowned in a terrible boating accident. Now, I’m all alone. I miss her.”
“Any children?”
“No, neither of us wanted any, although I’m thinking I’d like to have a son someday. How about you . . . kids?”
“Just one son, Tim. All boy; he’s quite a character. I don’t know what we’d do without him.”
“Moss here has kids, don’t you Moss?” Gangley asked.
“Yes, two daughters, but they’re almost grown. College and planning marriage. You know the routine.”
When Randall turned to look at Moss, Mark noticed his earring was etched with a circular Harley logo.
“I see you’re a Harley man. I am too!”
“No shit?” Gangley expressed surprise, “You look tough enough, but you’re not dressed for it.”
“I’m just a weekend biker, mostly. I’ve got a Sportster. I love your ride; it must have cost a few pennies to shove that front out. It’s the first Fat Boy I’ve seen converted to a chopper.”
“I don’t ride it exclusively now. I’ve got one of the new Dynawide Glides. The Dynawide’s great on the road; that new 1500 cc engine will do anything you ask.”
“I hear it’s hard to pick up if you lay it over?”
“I don’t have any trouble at all picking it up!” Having shaken his hand, Mark believed him.
“That’s a nice leather band (he’d almost said, ‘hand.’). I like the Indian bead work”
All of us in the club wear one; if a guy doesn’t have a tail, he wears it on his wrist.”
“What’s its significance?”
“We all rode Indians before switching to Harleys.”
“Indian riders, still loyal in spite of yourselves! That’s a clever-unique-way of preserving a touch of loyalty. Do you ride a lot?”
“Weekends, like you, and jaunts like lunch today. There are sixteen of us in the club and we stretch out road to some spot every Saturday morning. We meet at the 50's Diner downtown for breakfast, leave at ten o’clock, and get back Sunday night after dark. If you’d like, I’ll get you a guest clearance some weekend.”
“Sounds like a great bunch of guys.”
“Yes, everyone with his wife or night-ride on the seat behind him.”
“Night-ride . . . clever pejorative for a girlfriend or weekend lay,” Mark thought.
“Can I help you, Gentlemen?” A waitress appeared from nowhere.
“Get whatever you want, boys; it’s on me,” Randall offered.
Moss had been glaring at the menu.
“I’ll have the steamed clams in chowder sauce, and Mark says the gumbo here is superb.”
“Cup or bowl, Sir?” Moss looked at Mark.
“A bowl, and I’ll have a bowl and the crawfish etouffee.”
“Sounds great.” Gangley complimented, “I’ll have what Mark’s having.”
“And to drink, Gentlemen?”
“Miller Draft.” Gangley
“Bud Light.” Moss
“Iced Tea; the 14-ounce size, with extra lemon.” Mark
“Mark,” Moss began, “we’re here to discuss the Stoddard solvent plume as you have defined it, and the possible application of Hodges’ Bio-Sparge to it. I’ve briefed Mr. Gangley somewhat on the technology, and although he knows the Chronicle is the responsible party, he wants to act unilaterally and remediate the Convention Center site immediately, involving the Chronicle as a separate issue. You mentioned that you felt there was a probability that Bio-Sparge could destroy the plume within six months.”
“He’s covering his ass,” Mark thought, “six months must be a magic number between the two of them.” He decided to play along, since infrastructure size was the real issue. That would provide him with an out if it took longer.
“Yes, but that’s a function of the infrastructure design, more than the technology itself in the case of the solvent,” he said, addressing his response to Moss.
Gangley looked at Moss, then said to Mark, “What exactly is ‘infrastructure design?’ What all does that include?”
This is what it always came down to: the client has a problem, wants you to fix it, and tell him how you’re going to do it. He might not know beans about science; shit, sometimes just writing the symbol for an oxygen molecule, O2 or a water molecule, H2O, freaked some people out. But, when the invoices start arriving, you don’t want a scene like the one he’d witnessed at Delta that time, with the client calling you a “fucking asshole” because he doesn’t understand the damn thing.
Mark’s policy had always been to explain very simply (“Keep it simple, Stupid!”) how remediation worked. He felt if Tim could understand it, any adult should be able to if he made it Kindergarten simple. Then, if they still didn’t get it, if they tore their hair and ran, screaming, out of the room when they saw the word, ‘molecule,’ at least he’d tried. It wasn’t his fault if the guy was a dumb ass, or so lazy, he wouldn’t even focus his eyes on the paper!
“Well,” he explained, “in the case of Bio-Sparge, everything withdrawn from the subsurface . . . groundwater from beneath the water table, or soil gas from the soil pore space above it . . . is returned to the subsurface after being passed through the system’s bioreactor. The bioreactor is the place where the bacteria initially destroy the contaminants, whatever they are. Because everything that comes out goes back in, you eliminate environmental concerns and the delays of getting permits, which can otherwise consume significant time and bring the project under closer, often excess scrutiny. Any time you’re discharging anything into the atmosphere or the public sewer system, the process requires closer scrutiny to ensure you’re not exceeding Clean Air Act concentrations, or Clean Water Act concentrations.”
“In other words,” Moss jumped in, “it’s a closed loop back to the subsurface; nothing is released into the air or pumped into the sewer.”
“I get it, Moss;” Gangley said, “but feel free to jump in any time,” he gave Moss a light punch on the shoulder. “Go ahead, Mark.”
“Well, because everything coming out is going back in, the process is what we call ‘continuous.’ The density of the infrastructure is the determining factor of how much time will be required to achieve remediation. It’s also germane to the design, power, and size of the system.”
“O.K. Moss, do your thing,” Gangley said. Something had gone over his head.
“The infrastructure,” Moss elaborated, “consists of all wells, the connecting pipes, valves, and other components that allow the remediation system on the surface to fix the problem in the subsurface. You have to pull water from the ground beneath the contaminated areas to run it through the system; the extraction wells provide access to the groundwater for withdrawal. If the wells were on two-foot centers, the job could theoretically be finished in a day, whereas, if you tried to do it with only two wells a block or two from each other, it would require an indefinite amount of time, and it would never be finished. How closely the wells are spaced will limit or accelerate the cleanup more than anything else you do. BUT, the capacity of the system on the surface has to match it. There has to be a balance between the capacity to WITHDRAW AND REINJECT, and the capacity to CLEAN IT, PRIOR to re-injection.”
“O.K.. I’ve got it! If I want it done fast, I have to pay for putting wells close together, and I have to pay for a bigger system.”
“Yes, it’s always a conflict between how fast, and the cost!” Moss said, “and that’s the client’s call. The more you invest in the infrastructure, the sooner you can walk away from the cleanup. At least you can do a cleanup this way. With Pump & Treat on this site, you’d still be at it twenty years from now!”
The waitress brought their drinks, and they all took the first, healthy swig. Mark’s mouth had been dry all morning because of the antihistamine in the cold medication Doreen had administered last night to ensure that he slept. The iced tea felt soothing as it washed down his throat.
“How close together the wells would need to be installed is a decision that must be made by Hodges following review of the data. I’ll also tell him that we need a well density and powerful enough system to finish within six months.” He looked at Moss.
“How about . . . if you wanted to complete it within three months?”
“That’s probably not possible, Randall” Moss said.
“Why not just install twice as many wells, and build a humongous system?”
“That would be very expensive.”
“What if it didn’t matter what the cost was?”
“Let me try to explain why it’s not quite that simple,” Mark said. “Imagine a child drinking eight ounces of milk, versus how fast his father could drink it. The father’s mouth is bigger, so he can swallow it in a single, extended gulp . . . that’s your humongous system (laughter) . . ., whereas the child would require several smaller gulps . . . a normal system. No matter how many or how few wells you install, you must, as Harold explained, still remediate the same volume of contaminant.”
“Well, that’s what I meant, Mark; address that with additional systems on the surface.”
Mark thought for a moment. Gangley just might be able to understand the elementary principles better than many clients, but “keep it simple, stupid!”
“I get your point, but there’s an associated task: you must heat the subsurface water and soil to the temperature required for bioremediation to kick in.”
“What do you mean, exactly?”
“You probably shouldn’t get too technical with Mr. Gangley.” Moss said, giving Mark a cautious stare. They’d been here, before. This was the point where many clients got rattled or lazy, and you lost them.
“To hell with that, Moss! You think I’m too stupid to understand this shit? Fuck off! If I’m going to foot the bill, I wanna know what the hell I’m paying for!. Just because I’m not familiar with your nomenclature, that doesn’t imply I can’t get it if Mark goes over it a few times.”
Moss’s face reddened, and the feigned, formal nature of his and Gangley’s relationship appeared to be in danger of breaking down in front of Mark. Gangley seemed to sense that wasn’t a smart move. Citizens with environmental problems didn’t normally tell a top state regulatory official to ‘fuck off,’ not in the beginning, anyway!
“I’m just messing with you, Moss,” Gangley said, smiling broadly, and giving him a friendly pat on the back. But I do want to understand it. This sounds like a good approach, and frankly, it’s interesting; I want to know more about it.” Moss smiled, but Mark knew he was struggling to retain his professional air.
“I’ll try keep it in layman's terms as much as possible,” Mark said, ignoring Moss’s embarrassment, “If you’re trying to bring a pot of water to a boil, you have to add sufficient calories of heat to raise its temperature from whatever it comes out of the tap at to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. It requires one calorie of heat to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree centigrade.”
“To clear that up,” Moss added, “one degree Centigrade is about two degrees on a regular thermometer.”
“Okay.” Gangley said.”
“Say, the pot contains one kilogram of water; ‘kilo’ means one thousand, so, it’s one thousand grams of water, total . . . a little over two pounds; that’s not a lot of water, a couple of glasses full. If the temperature of those two glasses of water is 75 degrees Fahrenheit, then the temperature of each gram must be raised to 212 degrees for it to boil. On the Centigrade scale, those numbers are 24 degrees raised to 100 degrees, a difference of 76 degrees Centigrade. That means we must provide 76 calories of heat for each of the 1000 grams of water, or 76,000 calories, to bring the two glasses to boiling temperature.”
“Two glasses of water, about a thousand grams, needs about 76,000 calories of heat to boil,” Gangley repeated. He removed his pen from the pocket of his shirt, and wrote it on a napkin as Mark paused. Moss seemed relieved, back to normal, whatever ‘normal’ was between these two. Mark could only wonder.
“What’s important to recognize at this point is the staggering amount of soil, water, and solvent contained within the twelve foot interval that’s contaminated. If we intend to dramatically reduce the remediation time, we must raise the temperature of the soil and water combined from the present low fifties to the temperature at which the entire subsurface becomes active. Then the impacted area underground becomes an enormous bioreactor itself, not relying solely upon the bacteria in the bioreactor up on the surface anymore.”
“What temperature is that?”
“About 75 degrees on your thermometer. The bacteria become a significant factor at that temperature, much more so at 80 degrees.”
“How high does it ultimately go?”
“There’s little benefit beyond 80-85 degrees; around 90 degrees, it might even begin to kill the bacteria.”
“Eighty degrees Fahrenheit; that doesn’t seem like such a challenge if you had large systems and properly spaced wells. It seems like you could supply the right amount of heat without a problem.” Gangley offered.
“Maybe, not; There’s so much to be heated, it could take months just to raise the temperature; but, again, I’m not the expert. Hodges may have techniques I’ve never heard of.”
“How do the bacteria get rid of the solvent?”
“They metabolize it, eat it.”
“How?”
“By cleaving the bonds which hold the contaminant’s structure together, converting it into something harmless.”
“Can you show me?”
“A simple concept of it, yes.”
Mark took a napkin, and with his pen, drew a methane molecule.

H
I
H -C- H
I
H
Methane

“This is a schematic of the molecular structure of methane, CH4, the gas you cook with in your kitchen.”
“I cook with electricity, all-electric, but I understand what you’re saying, go on.”
“The letter ‘H’ represents a hydrogen atom, and ‘C’ a carbon atom. Each of the lines connecting the four hydrogen atoms to the central carbon atom represents a bond. The bond is what holds the structure of the molecule together. If you cleave-cut or break-a bond, it collapses the molecule to something else. This is how bacteria change that methane molecule into something else. We write it like this:”

CH4 + O2 => CO2 + H2O

“The CH4 is the methane molecule, and the O2 is an oxygen molecule.”
“That’s simple enough; you say, CH4 is cooking gas?”
“Yeah, methane. It’s the stuff that bubbles up between your toes as a kid when you step in the mud on the bottom of a pond. In fact, it’s sometimes called, ‘Pond Gas.’”
“You learn something new, every day.” Gangley said.
Notice that there are two oxygen atoms in one molecule of oxygen.
“I see that: the little ‘2' beside the ‘O’ for oxygen.”
“Okay, in order to eat that molecule of methane, the bacteria change it to water and carbon dioxide, the gas we breathe out every time we take a breath.”
“I already knew that: breathe in oxygen, breathe out carbon dioxide; read it somewhere, or learned it in school.”
“Sure, pretty basic. For the bacteria to do it though, they need enough oxygen atoms to combine with the hydrogen atoms. This simple equation says that if we have a methane molecule, we need oxygen molecules in order to degrade the methane into water and carbon monoxide, CO2. At that point, the methane is gone . . . it’s been degraded.”
“Simple enough. See, Moss, I’m just as smart as you are; I’d like to see you grasp the oil and gas rights leasing business this quickly!” Moss smiled . . . a nervous smile.
“Sure, it is! It’s an example of the majesty of biochemistry,” he said.
“So, mankind’s environmental sins can be forgiven by nature, after all!” Gangley mused.
“This is how it looks if we balance the equation,” Mark said, placing a ‘2' in front of the oxygen on the left side of the equation, and in front of the water on the right side.

CH4 + 2O2 => CO2 + 2H2O

“What does adding the two ‘2's do?’” Gangley asked. Moss winked at Mark.
“Before, the equation told us we needed oxygen, but not how much, and that we got water, but not how much. If you look on the right side of the arrow, you see what’s actually left over after the methane molecule is degraded, how much CO2 and how much H2O. In this case, one molecule of methane is combined with two oxygen molecules to produce one molecule of harmless carbon dioxide and two molecules of water, if you count them. These are both natural components of our environment, and the contaminant is gone. Stoddard solvent is a more complex molecule than methane, but it’s the same process. Does that make it comprehensible?”
“That’s awesome stuff,” Gangley exclaimed. “I should have become a chemist! So all we have to do is heat it up and the bacteria take care of the rest?”
“Not quite. Remember, it requires two oxygen molecules to destroy each methane molecule.”
“You explained that, already.”
“Yes, but here’s the kicker: there’s no oxygen below ground, none! It’s concentration there is essentially zero.”
“Hmm. So how about that?” Gangley was trying hard to hang, after attacking Moss.
“Your ‘humongous system’ has to supply that essential oxygen on a continuous basis by injecting it into the bioreactors as the groundwater passes through, in addition to heat; it also supplies a couple of other things: biosurfactant-that’s like dish washing liquid, the stuff that makes it easy for the bacteria to slide past soil particles and spread out-and nutrients.”
“They need all of that?”
“It helps to think of bacteria as the tiny animals they are. The more comfortable they are, the more contaminant they destroy, as long as they can function, just like us. If you suffocate us, we grow weak and die, like climbers of Everest if they can’t tolerate the low oxygen at that height. Similarly, if you cool us so that we become lethargic, we’re not going to have much of an appetite. We eat, but we know our food may not provide the trace nutrients we need in sufficient quantity, like trace metals, so we take vitamin and mineral supplements.”
“If they’re animals, how can they stand dish washing liquid?” Gangley asked.
“Biosurfactant isn’t really dish washing liquid; it just feels like it on your fingers. It’s actually a secretion of the bacteria themselves.”
“What do they secrete it for?”
“It emulsifies the contaminant, like a bathtub ring is emulsion formed when soap cuts grease up into very tiny particles.”
“And . . . I don’t see the connection.”
“If you break it up into tiny particles–that’s all an emulsion is–it increases the total amount of surface area. For example, suppose a kid stacks a bunch of one-inch blocks to make a big, 4-inch block, a cube. That 4-incher has six faces, each 4 inches by 4 inches, or 16 square inches on each face. Six faces times 16 square inches on each face equals 96 square inches of surface area on the outside of the 4-inch block. If the kid gets mad and knocks it apart, all the one-inch blocks scattered around would total 64 one-inch cubes.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“And each of those has six faces, each of which is one square inch of surface area, or six square inches per block. You then have 64 blocks times six square inches each, which totals 384 square inches of surface area, whereas the big block you can build with them has only 96.”
“I see, so the biosurfactant breaks the contaminant into smaller particles, making the total surface area much larger. And the advantage?”
“Bacteria are very tiny animals, so small you could easily park several hundred thousand on the head of a pin. The greater the surface area, the more bacteria can cover it and start eating away at the particles from the outside, in. Obviously, if they can only get at 96 square inches of surface, it will take longer than if they can get at 384 inches of surface. Same principle.”
“Bingo! The job gets finished sooner!” Gangley seemed proud of himself.
“That’s the reason for the biosurfactant. Now you know.” Mark said.
“Now that you’ve explained it, it doesn’t sound all that complex. In fact, it’s almost identical to raising catfish,” Gangley said, “They eat and grow during a few months of the summer, but don’t eat when it’s cold. So if you want them to eat, you have to keep the water warm. In the summer, if the oxygen gets too low, they have to turn on fountains and paddle-wheels to keep them alive. Same stuff. That’s how I’m going to think about the cleanup you’re doing for me. Your raising catfish underground, so you want warm water and lots of oxygen, so they’ll eat the shit out of the Stoddard Solvent.”
“Why not?” Moss said, “they’re tiny aquatic animals that live in the moisture that surrounds the soil particles, and in the groundwater.”
“Now that we’ve got all of that out of the way,” Gangley said, “How much do you think the price tag could be?”
Gangley was already sold on the technology, because he understood it. He wanted to talk price. Mark was thankful, because it usually took a while for clients to understand how cleanups worked. No one wanted to tell them about P&T, because it usually didn’t!
“I don’t know. We’re talking about a hi-tech technology. I can tell you that according to the literature I’ve read, most gas station cleanups Hodges has done with Bio-Sparge average between $100,000 to $300,000. Of course, this site is much larger and has a unique problem-solvent, which is far more difficult to clean up, not only because of its molecular structure, but also because of the way it’s contained within the soils above and beneath the groundwater. Only Michael Hodges can provide that number.”
“You must have some idea of the order of magnitude?”
“I’m certain it would be one or two million. I would guess that with high well density, and a powerful system, perhaps more than one, you could be talking as much as three or four. But of course, I’m completely shooting in the dark.”
Gangley didn’t react to the estimate. Like Moss, he must have anticipated it would be much more than that. Then again, it was the Chronicle’s money he was spending-ultimately; it was their tanks that leaked across the street, their solvent that got carried down gradient beneath Gangley’s property.
“So how soon can we begin?”
“I’ll call Hodges today and tell him we’d like him to come out for a proposal. You’ll have to pay his expenses.”
“I would expect that. When you’re ready to set it up, call Lawson at the office, and give him the details. He’ll take care of everything.”
“I think it would be better initially if we had Jess send you to Hodges’s place, Mark, Moss interjected. “I’ll call him later and suggest it.”
“Either way is fine with me.”
The timing was excellent as the waitress arrived, and so was the food. During the meal and the additional drinks afterward, all of the talk was small talk. Gangley and Moss seemed like the best of friends again. Now, Mark just had to make Hodges understand the urgency of a quick remediation. He also liked the idea of being able to visit Hodges remediation company, and the opportunity of learning how it might differ from a normal consulting company like Delta.

Evans

After receiving the anonymous call from the woman providing the identity of Nancy Herrick, learning that she was visiting from Houston and had family in Ohio, Evans thought the case was about to break. But then the woman hung up on him. He was so angry he jumped up and kicked his trash can ten feet, bouncing it off the side of Detective Hughes’s desk, paper and ashes flying everywhere.
“Goddamn it,” he shouted, “goddamn it!”
“Calm down, Phil,” Hughes yelled, “what the hell’s wrong. Shit, you got ashes all over my slacks! What’s the matter with you?”
“The goddamn woman hung up on me, and she knows enough for me to solve the dumpster case!”
“The dumpster case? The redhead?”
“Hell, yes! She gave me her name, where she’s from, family information of the victim, and–this’ll get you-said she knows who killed her and why!”
“Shit! No wonder, you’re upset. What will you do now?”
“Work with what we have, what else?” He assigned several tasks to Hughes, then stormed out, hands in his pockets, with a last explicative, “Damn it!”
Phil Evans was known throughout the department as a hothead. After twenty-five years on the force, he was still a detective. He could have been in the front office by now if he possessed any people skills at all. Raised in southern Arkansas and rural Louisiana, he was used to calling things the way he saw them, and to settling issues with his fists if it became necessary. Since his teens, it had often been necessary in his case. He had once punched an FBI agent for the crime of assuming jurisdiction over one of his cases just as he was about to solve it-in front of two other agents and most of the department. He wasn’t liked very much, but they kept him because of his nose.
Most cases referred to the detectives remained unsolved. But Evan’s uncanny nose, combined with a sometimes audacious sense of suspicion, resulted in an actual majority of his cases being successfully closed, even though he increasingly had the toughest ones assigned to him. Hughes had requested on several occasions to be made someone else’s partner after some incident where Evans flew into a rage, caused trouble, or pulled him into life-or-death street confrontations completely uncalled for. The Chicanos hated him because of his untoward behavior, and most of the department was made up of Chicanos and Mexicans who had immigrated to the States. Hughes cleaned up the mess and replaced Evans’s trash can back by his desk. He admired Evans, knew he was a better man, in fact. It was just that no one would walk around long beside a partner with a bigger dick if the job required that they be hanging out in full view all of the time. It was just too intimidating. Yet there were times when Evan’s nose for the evidence was nothing short of genius, and in spite of his temper, he had never lost a partner in the line of duty.
A couple of hours later, Evans returned.
“Hughes, how’s the hotel search going, and are we still waiting for the autopsy report on Nancy Herrick?”
“Who?”
“Herrick-that’s her name!”
“The dumpster case?”
“Who else would I be talking about?”
“Just pulling your chain. Jose’s working on the hotels; it’s a lot of calls . . . Manuel’s helping.
“And the Autopsy report?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Well, call and find out why. In fact, forget it. I’m going to Rankin’s office myself and ask.”
He stormed out again, mumbling something as he walked down the hall.
“What a temper!” someone voiced.
“Oh, shut the hell up!” Hughes responded.
Evans gave Rankin’s assistant the name and other information for the autopsy report, then asked when the autopsy was performed.
“That’s who he’s working on now,” she replied,
“At least the toe tag won’t say Jane Doe any longer. I’m going in there and see what’s taking so long.”
“Go ahead; be sure to put on a mask.”
Evans entered the room where Rankin was carefully going over every square inch of Nancy’s body, with a new assistant jotting down his comments on a flip board.
“Why don’t you just use a tape recorder?” Evans asked
“Detective! Actually, I do, but I’m training someone new and am presently giving her an examination to see how accurately she notes what is significant, and if she misses anything. I don’t want her just memorizing tapes. There’s enough of that around here as it is. Mary, meet Detective Evans, the presumptuous department asshole; Evans, meet Mary.”
They each nodded to each other.
“Is this one your case?”
“Yeah, what have you found so far?”
“A few things; she wasn’t using drugs, and she wasn’t raped. I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t if they were going to kill her anyway . . . beautiful body like this, and it looks like she was very pretty, notwithstanding the look of the face now. No sodomy, no beatings, cigarette burns, or normal signs of torture.”
“You think they got her in her sleep then, before she could struggle much?”
“Oh, there was a struggle all right!”
“How do you know?”
“It was a desperate struggle, but after her hands were already tied behind her back.”
“I’m not getting it.”
“There’s nothing under the nails, no lacerations on the hands other than rope burns on the wrist you’d expect from trying violently to free them, but apparently not for very long. It’s limited.”
“I guess not, with a plastic bag over your head.”
“The plastic bag is the clue, I think.”
“Clue? Of what?”
“I don’t think she knew a bag was going over her head until after she was securely bound. The signs of a struggle are all limited to the head and neck. There’s a chipped tooth, but no sign that she was punched in the mouth . . . or anywhere else. It’s like she was trying to fight with her teeth, and throwing her head around violently, attempting to prevent the bag from being pulled over the top. A chipped tooth from biting action indicates a very hard bite, and maybe against something not very soft.”
Rankin called Evans closer as he reached into a tiny little square plastic tray with tweezers and picked up a piece of a tooth. He held it back in place, so that Evans could see how well it fit.
“Was that in the bag?”
“No, actually it was still in her mouth, so it must have been the last act of survival she attempted.”
“In her mouth . . . Any chance it happened while she was being lifted out of the dumpster?”
“I thought at first it might have, but all of the lacerations on the front of her scalp and head tell a different story: a terrified woman trying with all of her strength not to die. She bit someone, or something. And the other evidence proves it happened before the bag went over her head, because the bag wasn’t removed until I took it off here. Plus, we found these.” He picked up the tiny little tray again, moving it more directly under the light.
“What are they?” Evans asked, “Were they stuck to the body?”
“No, they were in her mouth too! Don’t you see?”
“Yes. It proves the tooth was broken while biting something. They look like little bits of candy, but they can’t be. I’ve heard stories of women eating apples during intercourse, but no one eats candy while they’re being murdered, so what are they?”
“You’re correct. It’s not candy. Look more closely; here, hold this magnifying glass and you’ll see what I mean.”
Evans held the magnifying glass just above the tray, and focused on a single color. They were there; five of them: two red, two turquoise blue, and one yellow.
“They look like tiny balls of plastic?”
“Tiny, yes, but they’re not round, they’re slightly oblong and very well made . . . they’re some sort of bead.”
Evans continued to look. Each little bead had a carefully made hole right through the long axis.
“Now this is a clue,” he thought aloud.
“There’s another one,” Rankin offered, “Don’t know if it will be that helpful. At the time the body was found, she had been dead about ten or twelve hours.”
“That means, she probably died somewhere between 8:00 and 10:00 pm. They wouldn’t have done it in her room, unless they intended to leave the body there, and they didn’t. So they probably nabbed her while she was out somewhere. If that’s the case, her belongings are in some hotel room in San Antonio. We’ve got to find them. There may be something in the room that tells us where she was heading, or whom she was meeting, or something. You know my number; if you find anything else interesting, give me a call. O.K., Rankin?”
“Wouldn’t consider otherwise, Detective.”
“Hughes,” he yelled as he got back to the department. “We’ve got to find the room Ms. Herrick was staying in, and fast!”
“They already found it, less than five minutes after you left. See, if you’d just hung around-calm-we could have been there by now. Ready to go?”
“Hell, yes, let’s move it.”
They arrived at Day’s Inn and approached Check-in, badges in the air.
“We’re Detectives from SAPD, and we’re here to see Nancy Herrick’s room.”
“Whose room?” the clerk asked.
“Oh,” Hughes jumped in, “They found a room a guest hadn’t returned to. The woman was a redhead, but she paid in cash and used a different name.”
“Thanks for telling me that, Hughes!” Evans barked.
“She checked in under the name, Doreen Lew,” the clerk added.
“Apparently, the clerk on duty the night she checked in either didn’t ask for her ID, or she had one with that name on it. He claims he doesn’t remember. But she was a redhead, and she’s never been back. That’s why the newscast prompted our call.”
“Okay, can we see the room?”
“I’m sorry, but when a person pays with cash, and they don’t come back by checkout time, we move their things to the shelves in the storage room at the end of the counter here. If she used a card, the room would have been left untouched.”
“So, there’s nothing of hers in the room?”
“I’m sorry officer.”
“Has it been rented to anyone else since her things were stored?”
“Let me look.”
She checked her computer, entering the room history for the room in question.
“Looks as if it hasn’t been rented since, probably because of its location. It doesn’t have much of a view.”
“May we have the key please, Ma’am?”
“Uh . . . certainly . . . here it is, Room 311. It’s to the right about the middle of the hall when you leave the elevator.”
“I need one other thing from you too.”
“Sure.”
“A list, or else a set of the standard printed items you leave in the rooms, Tourist brochures and the like.”
“Oh, all rooms are exactly the same officer. They have exactly the same items in each room. You’ll see them there.”
“Accommodate me please,” he said, giving her a look that made her uncomfortable, especially since other guests were waiting to check in.
“It’s the same as on that round table by the sofa over there.” she said, pointing.
“Thank you, Ma’am! Grab those, Hughes. We’ll put them back, and pick up the woman’s things, on our way out, Ma’am.”
They took the elevator to the third floor, turning to the right as they got off.
“No evidence of anything unusual in the hall proximal to the door.” Hughes commented.
“Too bad we couldn’t have had this door handle dusted before they moved her stuff.” Evans added. “Get it done.”
“Dotty’s on the way.”
Opening the door, they walked in. A thorough search of the room, the drawers, and under everything revealed only a responsible cleaning job.
“Hughes, check and see if any of the brochures are missing.”
Hughes sat down and removed each brochure from the table in the corner, placing it atop of the matching one in the stack they’d been provided with.
“There’s one missing,” he reported.
“Which one?”
“The one advertising the River Walk.”
“That’s not far from here. Maybe she chose this hotel with the River Walk in mind. Hell, you can walk; it’s only a few blocks.”
“That’s probably what she did.”
“Of course, it could be in her things, and frankly, since the maid hasn’t replaced it, maybe it was taken by someone else previously. I’m nosing around a little longer. Go find that maid and find out if you can pin down when it might have been taken.” Hughes left the room for the elevator. Evans sat, pondering.
“She could have checked in with the idea of walking down to the River Walk. She leaves the hotel later to go have supper at one of the restaurants in the River Walk brochure. Someone is watching her, following her, but she doesn’t know it. Hell, they could have sat at the next table over enjoying supper, and witnessing her enjoy her last. Later, she enjoys the walk a little more, then starts working her way back to the hotel. Just at that instant when no one else is in view, a van squeaks to a stop, the door already open, and someone inside leaps out and grabs her, dragging her into the van. She resists, but to no avail . . . No, the evidence doesn’t support that theory. No marks or bruises on her hands, arms, or body. There was no resistance encountered getting her to enter the van. They pulled a gun on her, and scared not to comply, she climbed in, probably thinking they were about to rob and rape her. They tied her hands behind her back, pulled out a big plastic bag, and proceeded to place it over her head. But she fought like a wild animal with the only thing left - her teeth, head, and shoulders, biting at them, and making one good contact. So good, it broke her tooth, getting beads in her mouth.”
“How could she have gotten beads in her mouth?” He asked audibly, “They aren’t big enough to have been on a chain or necklace. Maybe they were part of a design woven onto a shirt.” He’d seen that kind of thing before.
“After the bite, the assailants become determined, and force it over her head in spite of her writhing about. After that, it’s just a matter of taping the bottom around her neck. She already knows it’s over when she feels the bag slide down the back of her head and over her nose. Was she still fighting, or did she freeze, her mind moving beyond, wondering what awaited her out there?”
Hughes re-entered the room.
“Good news! The maid knew that particular brochure was missing. The woman had taken it. But they are temporarily out of it.”
“Is she absolutely certain it was there when the woman checked-in?”
“She says so, but it gets better. While I was talking to the maid, I had the clerk check, to see if any phone calls were made from the room that night, and guess what?”
“How many?”
“Two, one to a number in Ohio, and one to a restaurant on the River Walk. I dropped a quarter in the lobby, and it’s a soup and sandwich place. I think I’ve eaten there before.”
“You’ve eaten everywhere before! That’s why your pants won’t fit over your gut. You’re the only guy I know who wears suspenders and a belt. Let’s see the call printout.”
Hughes handed it to him nonplussed. There wasn’t a day since he’d known Evans that he hadn’t made at least one derisive comment about “Hughes’s weight.”
“We’ll call this number in Ohio . . . God, she talked almost an hour. So it’s certain this is her daughter’s number. Let’s go have a look at the restaurant, then head back.”
“I already put her bags and a sack of loose stuff in the car.”
“Great, Dr. Watson; don’t know how I’d do it without you!”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
After arriving at the restaurant, they questioned the workers to see who had been working the night Nancy Herrick was killed. To their delight, they all had been.
“Do you remember a woman with bright red hair coming in here around supper time?”
“Yes!” two of them chimed together.
“Okay, can the two of you sit down and let me get some information from you?”
“Why?” The girl asked.
“What did she do?” the young man added
“She was murdered, and we’re just trying to retrace her movements that night.”
“God!”
They sat at one of the corner tables.
“Maria, cover for me.” The lady was obviously some kind of a supervisor.
“Let’s start with you, Son; what did you see? Tell me every detail.”
“Leave nothing out.” Hughes added.
“I don’t remember that much. The only reason I noticed her is that she was sitting alone, had this brilliant red hair and she was beautiful.”
“You like looking at the ones who sit alone, Huh?” Hughes asked.
“Well, it’s a free country, and you just tend to notice women more when they’re by themselves. I mean, the lady she was talking to at the next table was cute too, but I didn’t pay much attention to her, because her husband was with her. It’s just the way . . . ”
“He’s just kidding around with you. You don’t have to explain yourself,” Evans laughed. Hughes had a big, glib grin on his face.
“You said she was talking to the woman at the next table?” Evans confirmed, writing notes as fast as his hand would move.
“Yes, quite a bit, like they knew each other.”
“Did she talk to the man?”
“No, he just sat there listening, kind of staring at her.”
“Did they come in together?”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“No, they didn’t,” the young woman interrupted. “She came in first, and as I was taking her order, the bikers came in.”
“Bikers?”
“Well they were dressed like bikers: leather, Harley emblems . . . that kind of stuff.”
“Oh, I’m sure they were bikers,” the boy added.
“Did they have helmets?”
“No.”
“No? If you both are that certain, how do you know they were bikers, I mean . . . well, never mind. Did they leave together?”
“She left first, because I remember her and the other woman shaking hands just before she left.”
“Did she shake hands with the guy?”
“No, like I said, he was just staring mostly, almost like he was nodding off.”
“Did he eat?”
“Yes, like a lion, but he sort of wound down, like it hits you if you’re tired after dinner.”
“How long was she here?”
The girl jumped in again, “About thirty or forty minutes. Maybe a little longer. It’s hard to recall with that degree of detail. If I’d suspected something, . . . ”
“How long after she left did the couple leave?” Evans was trying to make the theory he had come up with in the hotel room fit.
“Almost immediately,” he answered, looking at the girl for confirmation.”
“I’d say less than five minutes.”
“Anything else either of you can add?”
They both said they couldn’t remember anything else. After getting their names, addresses, and numbers, Evans thanked them for their cooperation.
“You’ve helped more than you could possibly imagine. Thank you both!”
He walked out of the restaurant and up to the street, Hughes trailing behind.
Doreen
When Doreen dropped Tim off at school, she remembered Mark in the shower, and called to be certain that he had stayed in.
“Hello, Mark here.”
“I was just verifying that you’re still up.”
“Oh, yes, I’m drying off now. Where are you?”
“On my way to the Chronicle. Love you, Baby!”
“I love you too. Bye, Hon.”
“Bye.”
Once she felt he was okay, she proceeded to plan the call she would make to Nadine on one of the Chronicle’s phone lines. She hated to break Nadine’s heart, but it had to come from a friend. Upon arrival, she would enlist the support of Lou, the closest person to her after Mark, whom she wanted to isolate from the horror. Mark would perform better if he didn’t know for a while.
“Good morning. Have you seen the front page story in the Morning Edition? Harry’s been working on it. The Foundry’s in the news again.” He handed her a copy. It read:

50,000 tons of
Hazardous Foundry Waste
Illegally Removed.
EPA in the Dark.

“What a story line,” she thought. She read the main story:

"In a disturbing development yesterday, EPA spokesman Mac Turner announced that one or more contractors had illegally removed hazardous waste from the Old Willis Foundry located adjacent to the Houston Ship Channel in Buffalo Bayou.
The Foundry has been a subject of controversy in the past, because the waste was accumulated in low areas, poisoning the Bayou, which has since been declared a wetland environment. The problem first surfaced about a decade ago when a number of fishermen and their families became ill after eating fish caught in the area of the Foundry.
Investigation revealed that arsenic and other toxic substances were leaching from the waste, referred to in the industry as “slag.” The slag was disposed in the lower areas as fill in days past by the former owner, a Mr. Abraham Willis, without any apparent awareness of the danger it posed to the environment. The problem is common to other similar sites around the country, such as the Sharon Steel site in Utah. Precipitation flows through the slag, releasing dissolved, heavy metals into the surface and groundwater. Several fish kills have resulted following periods of high water in the Bayou. The EPA had planned to assume jurisdiction and cap the site with clay, preventing further spread of leached contaminants, but the entire volume of the slag, a whopping 50,000 tons was noted missing by a Mr. Grudge who lives nearby, and occasionally hunts with his dogs near the site where he once worked.
As of Monday, no slag could be found at the site. Mr. Turner states that in the past, local contractors have often illegally mined it for fill, and have been warned that it is a felony to remove hazardous waste to other locations, spreading the toxic material where it might generate additional problems.
The current owner of the site is Mucorp, an offshore corporation registered in the Bahamas. However, Mucorp has no assets other than the Foundry itself, and because of the Bahama’s privacy laws, its actual owners are unknown, Mr. Turner stated. Mucorp issued Bearer shares, so it is impossible to identify the actual officers or directors who are now the Responsible Parties. The much hinted-at capping of the site has been delayed for years, because neither the State nor the EPA wants to foot the bill. Although the owners have never been identified, a spokesman for Mucorp said the company was appalled that anyone would be so presumptuous as to steal what they regarded as a valuable resource. She was quoted as saying: “The smelting process used in the time of Willis was very inefficient and left valuable metals in the slag coming off the process. We have been reviewing a technology which can extract the valuable metals, including significant amounts of gold and silver, leaving a nontoxic material, and had requested that the EPA permit reopening of the Foundry. Now, that opportunity has been lost.” No further information could be obtained. Mr. Turner acknowledged that the EPA and the state were considering their application, but added, ‘With the slag problem removed, there are other issues remaining before reopening can be permitted.”

Doreen was amazed. Mac Turner! Slag!
“Lou, where’s that copy of Nancy’s list of payoffs.”
“I thought you’d ask that. I’ve been sitting here staring at it for an hour before you arrived. Slag was different from the other names. And we also know who Mac Turner is now.”
“You’re right. If you read in context, it sounds like Slag is a person on Nancy’s list, but the amount after the name is very unlike the others: 25k to 75k, depending on the number . . . ” she read aloud, “I thought that Slag was the name of a Hit man.”
“Yes,” Lou agreed, “but notice. A word or two is missing . . . written off the edge of the page. We couldn’t see the end of the page, because it was cut short. I suspect the missing word was ‘tons.’ I also suspect that with Turner and Slag associated so closely on the list and in the story that Randall Gangley is the hidden owner of the Foundry site, or one of them, and was making payoffs to solve two environmental impairment problems. Nancy happened upon his arrangements to solve both, not one”
“The Foundry angle is what I’m not quite getting.”
“These operators aren’t stupid. So, upon checking, the EPA can’t find the owners to go after for the cleanup cost, because the owner’s attorney has it purchased by an offshore corporation, then issues Bearer shares, and as the attorney just happens to be a Bahamian citizen, he can’t be questioned by U.S. authorities.”
“But the Foundry is in the U.S.”
“Indeed. The Foundry is a property you’d like to own, but if your identity is known, the State and EPA are both serving you with notice that you are the responsible party. You know that from Mark.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why such properties are often available at unheard of bargain prices. But if you seize one that’s contaminated, even though you had nothing to do with creation of the waste, you’re about to get stripped by your own, personal, unfunded, federal mandate! So what you do you do? You go to the Bahamas, establish an offshore corporation, and let that entity purchase it. The purchased property is the only asset the offshore company owns, so there’s no access to the shareholders, and they’re unknown in the Bahamas because whoever has possession of the corporation’s shares owns it, and Bearer shares are controlled by whoever ‘bears’ them, IE, whoever has them in-hand.”
“It’s like site laundering,” Doreen observed, “A corrupt way to avoid responsibility.”
“Some would say, an agreement in accordance with international law to protect your assets from being plundered by the government. I hardly blame them; it seems so arbitrary and unfair to strip someone just because the want to develop a property no one else wants, yet wants to be able to control the process.”
“Shrewd people with some international savvy can just go to the Bahamas!” Doreen observed.
“Or the Caymans, or to other jurisdictions. That’s when you recognize how deep this all runs. The owners of the Foundry set up a corporation that issued Bearer shares. There’s no record here that can be tracked, nor can you trace the transactions back to an owner. When the EPA goes poking around for deep pockets to plunder, they come up empty-handed. They’ve been talking about putting a clay cap on that foundry waste for ten years. Now it’s disappeared, and they don’t even know exactly when. Gangley–more likely, Merrill-knew how to navigate his way around the EPA.”
“I’m afraid I have some very depressing news, Lou.” Doreen said, changing the subject.
“You’re scaring me. What is it?”
“Nancy’s been murdered.”
“Murdered? I thought you and Mark got her home safely?”
“So did we. Somehow, he was followed. He should have been able to detect that. I just can’t understand how they got to her. And it wasn’t in Laredo. Mark and Tim watched her leave on the bus for San Antonio. They got her that same night. I was sitting in the den last evening when it was announced on the news. The horrible thing is the grizzly manner of her death. They stripped her completely nude, tied her hands behind her back, and put a plastic bag over her head, taping it around her neck. They just watched her suffocate. It was a hit, a cold-blooded assassination! Afterward, they took her body and tossed it into a dumpster, like refuse. We’re getting that son-of-a-bitch, Lou. We’re bringing him down!”
Lou was so upset he couldn’t immediately respond. His puffy cheeks grew redder with the realization. Rising, he turned around and began looking out the window across Houston.
“Lou, I didn’t tell Mark. I don’t intend to just yet. He’s on the site and about to pull off an environmental marvel that will help his career. If he finds out, he might inadvertently alert Gangley by his reaction.”
“You’re strong, courageous. But you need his help. He’s on the inside and potentially in a position to provide a lot of damning information. You realize that?” He turned around to face her, making no attempt to dry the tear worming down the left side of his face.
“Eventually yes, but first, some investigative journalism by me on this one. I need your support, though. Without it, Lou, I don’t think I can function.” She walked around the desk and hugged Lou like her father.
“You have it,” he said, patting her on the back, You’ll always have it. He will go down, but only by engineering the sequence of events correctly, or it could blow up in our faces. We have to play it close to the chest. You understand what I mean?”
“Precisely,” she replied, sitting again, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“The thing I hate most is that I have to call Nadine and tell her that her mother is dead, and worse, that she’s been murdered. I don’t even have her married name and Nancy didn’t give me any phone numbers, because she was afraid of traces. But I know she attends Ohio State, and I can work through Admissions there, using her maiden name. They’ll have the phone number in their records. I want to do everything from here so there’s no chance of Mark stumbling onto any of this.”
“Why don’t you move into Farley’s empty office? He’s been transferred, and we haven’t put anyone in there yet. It’ll give you the internal privacy you need. Look behind you out my door.”
Doreen turned and looked. Lou had given her a great deal of time, even though a line was forming outside his door, and some impatient people were arguing about who needed to see him first.
“Thanks Lou,” she said as she turned to leave. “I love you, you know.”
It took her less than an hour to secure Nadine’s home number. She held her breath as she dialed, not expecting anyone home at this hour.
“Hello.” It was Tom.
“Tom, this is Doreen in Houston. I’m surprised to find you home this early in the day. Is Nadine around?”
“Yes, but she’s not available right now.”
“How soon?”
“It’s hard to say; she’s pretty heavily sedated, but she’s finally resting peacefully. Nancy’s murder hit her pretty hard. She was hysterical for hours after we were notified. I’m worried about her. I’m not even going in today. God, I just find it so hard to accept that Nancy’s actually dead!”
“Oh, no, Tom, I was trying to break it to you a little more gently. I’m so very sorry. I can’t stand it either. She was such a wonderful person.”
“More than wonderful. She was special in so many ways.”
“Who notified you?”
“Detective Evans from San Antonio. He wasn’t very gentle about the way he announced it to Nadine. He seemed more interested in the beads than in Nadine’s feelings.”
“Beads?”
“Yeah . . . apparently she bit someone or something and broke one of her teeth. It was still in her mouth when they did the autopsy. And there were five tiny, colored beads in her mouth. That bite was probably her last act before they got the bag over her head, Evans says.”
“What a creep,” she thought. “How must that have sounded to Nadine? ‘Hi, your mother’s been murdered. Do you have any idea why she would have some tiny beads in her mouth?’”
“What did you say?”
“I’m sorry, I was just thinking aloud.”
“I’m entertaining the thought of coming down to Houston and filing charges against Gangley.”
“No, Tom, it isn’t that simple. They have no witnesses or formal suspects in the case. And if you get into the fray, they’ll discover my role in all of this. I have a plan. Please don’t take any action now, other than transporting the body home for burial.”
“I’d like to know about that plan, but later. Right now, I’m too preoccupied with Nadine to get involved in anything requiring logical thinking. We won’t do anything without talking to you first. I certainly don’t want to place you in any jeopardy. You have my word on that.”
“I understand how you feel, Tom. We’ll talk about it later. Tell Nadine I love her and I’m so very sorry the attempt to get Nancy safely home was intercepted. We just can’t understand how they found her.”
“We appreciate you and Mark. You’re the best friends she had. I’ll talk to you later.”
After the conversation with Tom, Doreen immediately picked up the phone and called the SAPD, asking for Detective Evans’s extension.
“Evans here.”
“You cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch. How could you?”
“How could I what?”
“Call Nancy Herrick’s daughter and just drop the bomb that her mother had been murdered and found in a dumpster. How did you get her number?”
“Oh, this is the Mystery Lady that likes to hang up on people in mid-sentence?”
“I told you I couldn’t give my identity yet, because it could get me killed! What do you expect from me? I was about to call Nadine and Tom and break it to them gently so they could hear it from a friend.”
“Ma’am, there’s no gentle way to hear that your mother has been murdered. Besides, I did break it to them gently. What’d you think? I called her and said ‘Hey your Mom’s been murdered and we found her in a dumpster?’”
“You could have waited a while before starting to ask questions about beads. What’s the issue with the beads, anyway?”
“You share with me. I share back. That’s how it works. It’s not, you call me for updates on the investigation, then hang up without giving me anything. I got the number from the call list at the hotel where she was staying. Pretty standard part of any investigation. Now who am I talking to?”
“You need to tell me a lot more than that before I’ll be willing to tell you what I know. So far, it doesn’t sound like you know much.”
“Well, without being specific, without your help, I’ve discovered where she was staying, where she was that night, where she ate, who she sat next to while she ate, that they talked, and that she arrived before them and left before them. I also have general descriptions of the possible suspects. I have autopsy evidence and interpretations that have allowed us to reconstruct what went on with her immediately prior to her death. Do you have that much more to share? I found that much out in one day. I wouldn’t suggest hanging up on me again and pissing me off, again, Miss whoever you are.”
Doreen decided she needed to change her tack with Evans. He was much more effective than she had anticipated.
“I’ll make a deal with you. On condition that you take no unilateral action against the murderer without coordinating it with my efforts, I’ll come and see you in a few days, and I’ll share everything I’ve got. It’s still much more than you’ve indicated you know. I can fill in all of the blanks within an hour. This guy’s going down, so maybe together we’ll come up with a better plan than mine on how to accomplish that.”
“I can’t promise anything until I see what you’ve got. It’s my case and I’m expected to work it until I solve it and we lock up the perpetrators. But I will agree not to take any action that would place you in danger by tipping him off. Fair enough?”
“I guess.”
“Well, giving me your name would be a good-faith gesture.”
“My name’s Doreen.”
“Is that the best I can get?”
“It is until we’ve talked together and I can get a feeling about you. Fair enough?”
“Yeah, okay, but just let me ask you one question about something we already know. It can’t place you in danger.”
“All right.”
“Can you think of any way Nancy could have gotten little beads in her mouth?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But you know I’ll be thinking about it now. I’ll give you something in return. Nancy was almost murdered at her home in Houston the night before my husband drove her to Laredo and put her on the bus to San Antonio. She was to fly to Ohio the next morning. Unfortunately, that’s the night they grabbed her. During the attack in her home, the police were summoned and arrived, finding the assailant still on the property. There was a gunfight and the assailant-a black man I know nothing about-was killed by the police. Nancy had never seen him before. If you contact the police here, I’m sure they’ll send you a copy of the report. You’ll probably get some ideas from that. That’s all I can say until we meet. It was good to talk with you detective.”
“Nice to get off to a better start with you, Ma’am.”
When Doreen picked Tim up, he asked if she would take him for a ride on the Harley. Although she was keeping up a cheerful front for him and Mark, her spirits were blue. She was very sensitive to Nadine and Tom’s feelings. Still, she had to admit feeling encouraged after her second conversation with Evans.
“I don’t feel like it this afternoon, Tim, but maybe another time, O.K.?”
“I wanted to go to the Harley shop and look at the leathers. Dad’s birthday is coming in a couple of weeks. I know you’d like them too. I want to get you and him an outfit like the man and woman at Nancy’s hotel.”
“What man and woman?”
“The one’s we met in the stairwell going up to her room. The stairs were funner than the elevator. They were coming down; we were going up; that was neat. They were staying there too. Dad and the man made good friends talking about the Dynawide Glide, and she smiled at me a lot the whole time. I liked her. They looked cool. I want to see what that stuff costs for Dad’s birthday.”
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll do it, if we can go in the car. How about that?”
“Okay, let’s go!”
“We don’t want to give away our Birthday secret, do we? If Dad comes home and dinner isn’t ready, he might get suspicious and discover our secret. We’ll do it when he’s gone somewhere, and we know we can beat him back!”
“No, we don’t want him to discover our secret.”
“That’s my boy. Smart.”
As soon as dinner was cooking, they sat in the den.
“Tell me, Tim: what did the leathers look like that you liked so much?”
Tim began a long discussion of every detail he could remember, while Doreen sat patiently, listening.

The Bracelet
When Mark arrived home, he was exuberant, with much to report about his encounter with Gangley and Moss at the Crab Shack, even during dinner in front of Tim, feeling there was nothing indelicate in what he was relaying. Doreen was anxious for every detail she could elicit about Gangley, and listened with intensity. He spoke of his shock at Gangley’s appearance, about his belt with silver inlays, his ponytail with a leather band, the fact that, not only was he a biker, he and a group of his friends had formed a club that met every Saturday morning at ten o’clock at the old 50's Diner, left for some destination, returning late Sunday evening. Doreen was especially surprised to learn that Gangley had invited Mark and her to accompany them some weekend.
“Do you think he’s serious about that?”
“Oh, yes, he took a real liking to me. Absent knowledge of his true nature, I found him an interesting guy.”
“If he knew fully the other side of the man and what happened to Nancy, I wonder what he’d be saying.” Doreen asked herself.
“The great news is, he’s unilaterally committed to using Bio-Sparge to remediate the solvent plume. In fact, he had Moss contact Jess at Delta to arrange for me to visit Hodges’s headquarters in person, carrying all of the data we’ve assembled, to get things underway without delay.”
“That must be what Delta dropped off here while I was making dinner,” she said, reaching for a sealed brown envelope.
He opened it, and as he pulled out the sheets, consisting of a cover letter from Jess and a detailed itinerary, an airline ticket fell out onto his lap. Doreen opened the tickets while he read the cover letter.
“You’re flying out tomorrow morning!”
“Yes, I see that, for three days and two nights. It says I’m to be Hodges’s personal guest the entire time.”
“They’re flying you First Class, there and back!”
“Wow! We never fly first class at Delta. It sends the wrong message to the client footing the bill: instead of being recognized for our assiduity, it suggests we’re living high on the hog at their expense.”
“Gangley must have insisted. After all, it’s just the kind of manipulation he would exercise; without your having asked, he already has you in his debt. He’s expecting specific results from you.”
“You’re correct, and I know exactly what the specific result is.”
“What?”
“Press Hodges with the importance of completing the entire remediation within six months or less, solvent or not.”
“And if you can’t deliver?”
“I guess I won’t be flying First Class again,” he mused.
“When they delivered the envelope, they mentioned that if you had any questions, you should call Jess at home tonight.”
“It’s quite straightforward. First Class! Bribes are one thing; perks, I don’t mind.”
Doreen had been observing Mark’s reaction to the whole Gangley thing. She realized they were treading two, perhaps divergent, paths, and that she was responsible. Mark seemed almost enamored with Gangley, while she could only imagine him in neat little one-pound packages, having been run through a sausage grinder. She imagined feeding a package of Gangley sausage to Muff each day in memorial to Nancy. After all, Muff had nearly died because of him too, and was a constant reminder of a dark, human tragedy. Now, he was Tim’s closest companion, even sleeping in his room. She wanted to tell Mark everything she knew . . . wanted to see his enamored look evolve into rage . . . but she thought better of it. He was the knight on a white horse to Gangley now, an advantageous angle to obtain information. More importantly, he was in deeper than undercover. If Mark knew, he might evolve into a knight on a dark horse. She couldn’t let that happen. Not yet. For the time being, she would tolerate his infatuation. Mark knew whom he was dealing with, but he wasn’t at risk. He could focus on the project without getting emotionally involved in the manner she was. She felt she had nothing to worry about, just her own feelings to deal with.
“So he’s actually in a Harley club?” she asked.
“Yes, and there’s a feature to their club that captivates me. Every one of them is a former Indian enthusiast won over by Harley, but they retain the Indian aspect by each wearing the same band that Gangley uses to clasp his pony tail. The guys that don’t have tails wear the band on their right wrist. It’s the most unique use of an icon I’ve seen yet worn by bikers.”
“A leather band? Their not that unique; I’ve seen lots of those before.”
“It’s not the heavy, leather band that’s the icon. It’s the southwest Indian design on it, extremely well done: like the picture of a lost love, carried around in a locket.”
“Does it have an Indian bike burned into the leather?”
“No, not an Indian bike, a southwest Indian motif: a surreal, abstract statement, ingenious. The motif is made of extremely tiny little colored beads. The smaller the pixel, the higher the resolution on the computer screen. In the same way, the smaller the beads, the higher the resolution of the Indian design. Gangley said they did a group deal with a Navajo Indian Artist at a very high price.”
“Tiny, colored beads, and it’s worn either on the pony tail or the right wrist?” Doreen could hardly speak. “I’ll get you packed up Mark; two changes plus what you wear?” She had to get out of the room.
“Yes, that’s perfect.”
“Business, or casual?”
“Maybe, one of each. I don’t know what I’ll find when I arrive. I’ll be ready for anything. I’ll help Tim with the dishes while you pack me.”
Mark and Tim chatted about Dad’s trip, cleared and wiped down the table, rinsed the dishes, and arranged them in the dishwasher. Tim was as excited about it as Mark.
“Will you be famous?” he inquired.
“Well, not famous like Hodges, but I’ll certainly be famous at Delta. Jess will be happy because he will have done an honorable job for an honorable fee.”
“What do you mean, Dad?”
“Ethics, son . . . ethics!”
“I’m proud o’ you, Dad. I just wish I could go with you, but know I can’t.
“I wish you could too, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to miss school, and you would be bored, because every minute will be work, and we’d have no time for talking or for doing things you’d enjoy.”
When everything was finished, they retired to the den to wait for Mom.
Doreen’s face was flushed with rage. She was so upset, she discovered she had actually packed double socks and no underwear. Mark would have found that interesting the first morning after his shower. She had part of her plan already worked out now since Mark’s mention of the beads, and knew step by step how she’d proceed. Nancy had clamped down with all of her might on her murderer’s wrist band - so hard that she had broken her tooth and scraped off a few of the beads from the Indian motif. Someone in Gangley’s riding club had watched her die, and she knew how to determine whom the monster was. It would be possible to know within a week now. A sense of power descended upon her, allowing her to relax. After getting Mark packed, she joined them in the den.
Eventually, Tim grudgingly retired to bed, giving Mark an especially sincere hug.
“I’ll miss you the next three days, Dad.”
“I’ll miss you too, Son, but I’ll call and tell you how things are going, O.K.?”
“That’ll be great. Are you bringing home a present for me?”
“We’ll see.”
After squeezing Doreen, kissing her on the cheek, Tim left for his room.
“C’mon, Muff.”
Muff jumped up, eager to go anywhere with Tim!
Sex
They sat talking for a while before retiring, sitting close together on the spacious sofa. Already missing him, Doreen listened wistfully as Mark spoke. She had chosen well when she married Mark. Her mind drifted back to a time not so long ago when she was a maiden of sixteen. Summers were spent on the beach, because there was little else to do in Key West in those days. She recalled two of her friends, who in the foolishness of youth, and with the artificial cloak of the High School universe clasped snuggly around them, had not chosen so well. There was her friend Mary, beautiful as all young girls are in their own way. Even if they were destined to become as fat as their mother, there was that period when the tightness and freshness of their bodies would be irresistible to some bloke.
Mary’s father was an orthopedic surgeon in Key West, and they lived in a virtual palace. She and Doreen grew close during a typing class one summer. So beautiful, and with such a background, she fell for Frank, a good-looking tailback on the Crimson Wave High School football team, and a popular cut-up in the lowest level courses he could get away with. Of course, her family was violently opposed to such an inappropriate union, and they quickly sent her away to college. Shortly after her arrival, however, she discovered she was pregnant, and returned home. The family was outraged, so she and Frank eloped, afterward returning. The family refused to accept him. After Frank Junior was born, Mary called one afternoon, inviting Doreen over for dinner. Not having been to their home before, she was shocked to find them living in an unrestored two-story Conch house, and worse yet, limited to the rented upstairs, hardly more than an attic. Mary seemed completely out of place to Doreen in such a hole, and she soon became aware from her comments that Mary was a very frustrated woman. She hated the place and she hated her life. Within a year, they were divorced, Mary and Frank Jr. living on her family’s luxurious two-story house boat, having narrowly escaped a life of hell with a loudmouthed, egotistical loser.
Then there was Margaret, fairly bright and even more beautiful. She was a member of the Conchettes, a precision dance team that trained at Kilgore College in Texas every summer. The Conchettes were a thrill to watch as they marched onto the football field during half-time, wearing their sexy outfits: very short, white skirts, with red underneath showing every time they kicked their legs high. They wore tall, white boots with red fringe, Flamenco hats, white with red fringes, and vests. When they moved in perfect formation onto the field, they looked like the Rockettes.
Margaret was beautiful in the classical sense, like an Italian sculpture, with long hair and a body to match. She was hard-working, quiet, and demure. Very selective, when Doreen left for Miami following graduation, Margaret wasn’t even dating. Later, when Doreen returned to attend another friend’s wedding, she was sitting at the table in a local steak house during the Rehearsal dinner, when she espied Margaret at a table across the room. She couldn’t believe her eyes! Margaret had married Jose, a runty, wiry, crass, little Cuban. And as the evening progressed and he consumed more and more alcohol, he became more raucous and more obnoxious in his attempts to draw the attention to himself, until at last, he caused a scene.
The next day, she heard that after they returned to their hotel room, Margaret completely humiliated, a big fight had ensued, during which the entire room was trashed. Doreen hadn’t yet learned what became of that sorry excuse for a marriage; she didn’t think she wanted to.
But, Mark; wow, what a find! Remembering those days, and feeling increasingly romantic, she wanted him between her thighs. Mark seemed to sense the intensity of her desire, and met it with his own. Their lips touched softly, wet, and deep. The walls began closing in around them, forming an exotic nest enclosing only the sofa and their bodies. She unbuttoned his shirt as their mouths rubbed against each other like butterfly wings during courting. She began kissing his chest, massaging his nipples gently between her moist lips. His skillful hands stroked her head and hair as he unbuttoned her blouse and unhooked her bra clasp. In a single motion, the bra fell from her soft breasts. Firmly protruding, they were as desirable to Mark as Aphrodite must have been.
As they sat together naked to the waist, he began kissing every inch of her body, beginning with the delicate skin of her long neck and the sensitive area between her neck and breasts. Massaging her back with the fingers of both hands along the sides of her spine, his fingertips felt like the dance of elves coursing their way down her slender frame. She grew anxious for his mouth on her nipples. They were calling for him, but he pretended not to hear, instead moving his tongue in a circle around the outline of the breasts, especially the underside curve. He steadily closed the circle with his tongue, until, at last, the nipple made contact, and was gently sucked into his warm mouth, the underside of his tongue moving back and forth against it while it was inside. The saga was repeated as he let the nipple slowly draw back out, moving his tongue to the area between her breasts. The other nipple sent out undulating waves of anticipation. When it was sucked in, his fingers gently rubbed the other.
Doreen was trembling, releasing her skirt and letting it slide down her long legs to the carpet. Using only her thumbs, she slid her red silk panties over her knees, letting them fall to the floor with a delicate bounce across her feet. She began unbuckling Mark’s belt. He stopped only long enough to stand and drop his pants and briefs in a single motion, slipping the sandals from his feet, a Greek statue to her at that instant, and she couldn’t stop herself from enclosing his buttocks in a passionate embrace, pulling him toward her face. Mark cringed with pangs of pleasure which had almost the intensity of pain.
In their first, real “birds and bees” discussion, her mother had told her as a pre-teen that no woman enjoyed having a man’s penis in her mouth. But in later conversations with her married older sister, Becky told her it was very enjoyable; that it’s unique texture, and the thrill of feeling it stiffen as your man trembled made her feel extremely close to her husband. During her honeymoon with Mark, she discovered that her mother was either less passionate than she and her sister, or very naive, possibly inhibited by Victorian notions which still lingered in some quarters even today.
When he could stand it no longer, he kneeled and took her face gently between both of his hands, kissing her as their tongues writhed against each other blissfully. Then, laying her gently back on the floor of their nest, the sofa, he looked at the full length of her gorgeous body. His eyes becoming fixed on the area below her navel, he shifted on his knees, and began kissing the inner side of her thighs. He felt no substance could be as soft; as warm; as tantalizing as the skin of Doreen’s inner thighs. He opened his mouth as if to suck in the entire area at once, slowly moving his tongue in short strokes across each thigh in turn, closer and closer to heaven’s gate. Doreen was agonizing rhythmically in anticipation, instinctively moving her thighs forward, then back, as if in the act of lovemaking itself, the primal urge in full sway. Her head was awash in surge after surge of swirling emotion as she softly said his name.
“Mark . . . Mark . . . I love you . . . I love you, Mark.”
Mark answered not a word, but his lust delved into fantasies and burned in anticipation of their foray into passion.
Doreen waited for what seemed the eternity of a slow-burning fuse for the explosion which would follow as he moved closer . . . closer. He began kissing, first from the sides, then down from the top, along the inner seams which enclosed the nectar of the gods. He spread her legs gently with his hands - wider, then wider still.
Like verse from Homer, her mind winged its way to the stars as wave after wave of intense pleasure swept her away. Reality faded into a dream of lovers floating weightlessly among the arcs of a rainbow, each color of which was a feeling. They floated, dancing and pulsing among them like fairies, sliding down the arcs, sparks of paradise whisking away in all directions. The orgasm was unrelenting, beginning with a telling surge of pleasure that crescendoed as his tongue moved almost to her back along the dividing line of her soft buttocks, then returned to the top of her vagina. More undulations of joy followed as his hands gently stroked the skin of her sides, fingertips falling along the surface to the sides of her hips, gently stroking.
Momentarily, after she was fully spent and had reluctantly descended back to earth, his body eased up along hers like a soft-bellied serpent, skin to skin. Her hands moved through his hair as their lips again met, her legs fully spread and lifted high, begging him to penetrate.
Mark removed the cushion from beneath her head. Cradling the back of her head in his hands, he closed his mouth over hers in absolute dominion, like pirates who, having sacked the village and captured the women, gave the most beautiful maiden of all to their master. Later, safely at sea, the pirates had an orgy with the women. But the captain, having led away the prize of the lot to his cabin, removed her clothing, laid her down, and captured her mouth in a kiss and embrace from which there was no escape. Thus was Mark’s fantasy as he thrust his tongue into Doreen’s inviting mouth and his body toward hers. She felt him enter like a young lion, and audibly shrieked, the echo reverberating within his mouth closed over hers.
Slowly at first, then more and more determined, their bodies seemed to melt into one another like the light from colliding stars, and for a coveted moment, their souls were likewise entwined like a strand of DNA. Then, after a violent, surge accompanied by a long, childlike moan she had come, she held on during the after shocks that aroused her every feminine instinct. Slowly, he collapsed, but she applied Kegal in step with his every breath to keep him throbbing within her until nothing remained and he began to subside. This was her Mark. She was his Doreen.
They lay together afterward, tangled within the lyrics of their own love song: a song not of sound, but of flesh, of sensations still largely beyond human comprehension, of tastes, smells, feelings, hair, lips, and exotic arrays of matchless passion. It was a song inimitably. It could not be sung in the same way by anyone else.
The Trip
Dallas-Fort-Worth is a big place, “even from the air,” Mark mused as his plane left DFW Airport for Las Vegas.
The flight from Houston Hobby had been uneventful. Reflecting upon events, the surprising thing was that Jess himself had called Hodges and arranged the meeting: three days and two nights in the company of a man whose intellect he admired as much as any in the environmental industry; a man with a technology that posed the greatest danger to those like Mark, who relied upon, and benefited from, the deplorable technology otherwise available, and perhaps more so, the lack of skill with which it was generally applied. Much was at stake normally, but this time, at Gangley’s site, there would be no second-guessing, no snide comments, no temptation to try to steal it . . . just a clean application of the most advanced technology he had yet encountered.
Many of those opposed to Bio-Sparge were misled as to its manner of operation. He had often heard consultants make completely wrong assumptions.
“It’s just Vapor Extraction, combined with P&T. We already do that on many sites. So why climb on a new Hobbyhorse like Bio-Sparge?”
That equivocation was, of course, cantankerously absurd! Bio-Sparge was not equivalent to the two combined. Vapor Extraction sucked out COLD soil-gas which ended up in the ATMOSPHERE; P&T pumped out COLD groundwater which ended up in the SEWER! Was that the same as Bio-Sparge? Hardly! Bacteria thrived in a warm, moist, Bio-Sparge environment, not so in Vapor Extraction.
“Bio-Sparge sucks out soil gas with a vacuum pump all right,” Mark would argue till he was blue in the face, “if the contaminated soil interval is above groundwater elevation, but it never goes into the atmosphere after passing through the system. It’s cleaned, heated, oxygenated, and returned to the SUBSURFACE.”
Further, to be effective at all, Vapor Extraction systems pull the soil gas from the center of the plume in order to remove the highest concentration possible of the volatile contaminants. Conversely, Bio-Sparge withdraws from the least contaminated area, the perimeter of the plume, and returns it to the center, not to the atmosphere, delivering the heat, bacteria, oxygen, and nutrients into the area of greatest contamination-the place that most needs to be remediated, the center of the plume. The pressure pushing the vapor into the wells, through the slots, and into the subsurface soil pore space displaces more contaminated gas outward toward vapor extraction wells to which a vacuum is applied. There, it is withdrawn to begin the process all over again, a continuous, closed loop. Over time, the subsurface warms to the temperature necessary for the bacteria to grow rapidly and destroy the contamination.
The same reversed direction of flow applies to groundwater: out from the perimeter, back into the center, not out from the center and into the sewer like P&T. P&T creates a depression in the groundwater surface where water is pumped from the wells. As the water table around the extraction wells, it leaves the worst of the contamination adsorbed to the soils above it. Bio-Sparge creates a groundwater mound in the center as water withdrawn from wells around the perimeter is re-injected into the center, completely submerging all of the affected soil.
In Mark’s opinion, the industry reeked with chimerical, technician-minded consultants. Most, of course, knew all too well how superior Bio-Sparge was to the existing technology. But keeping all the money in-house was more important to them than either their clients or the environment. At the root, it saw it as an ethics problem.
He opened his briefcase and looked through the data which had been assembled for Hodges’s review. The logs were nicely done and adequately labeled. After looking through the data in his briefcase and reviewing again the Bio-Sparge literature, he realized that Hodges would require a Biomap of the site.
“How stupid of me,” he thought.
Grabbing the Air Phone, and swiping his card, he dialed Doug’s cellular number, hoping it would go through . . . it did.
“Doug!” a familiar voice answered.
“Doug, it’s Mark.”
“Hey, are you in the airport or in the air?”
“I’m on the Air Phone. The reason I’m calling is that I forgot to have you do something important. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it, until now.”
“Gosh, what is it that’s that important?”
“Hodges will want a biomap.”
“A what?” Doug had never read anything about Bio-Sparge.
“A Biomap. Let me explain what it is, and what you’ll need to do to enable him to construct it.”
“We’re not redrawing that 36 x 42 inch Site Plan, are we?”
“No, no! This is data that will simply be recorded onto the Site Plan showing where bacterial plate counts document the highest bacteria populations in the groundwater samples. High numbers indicate the water is contaminated, prompting degradation. Low numbers suggest lower contaminant concentrations. Here’s what you do: pull a groundwater sample from every monitoring well and piezo on the site. But before bottling each sample, instead of the normal three, bail out seven well volumes. This way, you’ll be certain that each sample contains only water which has just passed through the slots into the well. The reason for that is that the air above the water in the well contains airborne bacteria which are not found in the groundwater. Also, the casing had bacteria on it when the well was installed. So did the hands of the installers. All of these non typical bacteria will show up as colonies on the plate count if the well is not drained several times, and new groundwater allowed to flow in from the formation. Then, drop in a sterile bailer just unwrapped to collect each sample, bottle it, and put it on ice. Placing it on ice immediately is very important, because it slows down the metabolic processes of the organisms. If you let the samples get warm, the bacteria will multiply, utilizing the available nutrient and contaminant in the groundwater, and the plate count will be unrepresentative. The population and number of colonies will be higher in the sample than it actually is within the formation.”
“Sounds straightforward enough. I understand the steps. What do I do with the samples after pulling them?”
“FEDEX them to Hodges’s office on ice in a cooler tonight!”
“You realize we’re installing the two Chronicle wells today?”
“That’s wonderful news! Tell the lab we need 24-hour turnaround time and those results faxed to Hodges’ office by tomorrow. They’re essential for infrastructure design.”
“Well, I’ll get it all done, but I don’t understand why this project is jumping so far ahead so quickly. Usually, it would be weeks before we finished characterizing a site with this areal extent.”
“It’s Gangley, Doug. He wants it and he’s calling the shots.”
“Has the Chronicle agreed?”
“Frankly, at this point I don’t think he gives a shit. He’s fixed upon a single objective.”
“Not to lose the deal with the City?”
“Exactly!”
“If the price tag is high, he might have trouble going back to the Chronicle to collect.”
“I don’t think he gives a damn about that either.”
“Keep in mind, you’ll have a big hole in your Biomap.”
“Really? Where?”
“There’s not a single point where we can pull a water sample on the lower northwest edge where the dissolved solvent plume makes contact with the diesel plume. That boundary encloses about 20% of the outer perimeter. They destroyed the well there when they backfilled that area. Can’t we use the old groundwater samples? They’re still in the fridge.”
“No! Even at low temperatures, bacteria still multiply at some rate. They’d be worthless after this long.. You say you’re installing the Chronicle wells as we speak?”
“One well’s in, casing installed, and smelly by the way; the driller’s down about twenty feet so far at the other location. They’re separated by fifty feet.”
“Tell you what. Don’t let the rig leave after they finish the Chronicle wells. Move them over to the approximate edge where the solvent and diesel plumes meet- where they destroyed the old monitoring well during backfilling. Try to drill through the lip where the backfill overlies undisturbed soil. Put the well there, so you’ll be pulling groundwater from beneath virgin soil. Oh, and collect a soil sample from the backfill they used as you drill through it. Hodges might want to see what bacteria it contains that’s different from the local soils.”
“I love working for you Mark, because you never ask me to do the impossible in a single day. It’s exciting.”
“I’m sorry Doug, I am, and I wish I could be there to help you, but I know what the man needs, and I’ll only be there tomorrow and the following morning. This evening will be intro and background discussions. I’ll make it up to you!”
“A six-pack won’t be enough, but a standing dinner invitation which includes a minimum of half-a-dozen of Doreen’s Margaritas might inspire me.”
“Done!” said Mark.
“Done!” said Doug.

During the flight, Mark reflected upon how sweet this project was. He had the client’s full support, he had Delta’s full support, and he had the State’s full support. His challenge was to convince Hodges it must be finished within six months or less. That might get a roar from Hodges, but not if Mark was correct about the man. To Hodges, it might be merely a design issue with an open checkbook to implement it.
First Class was a dream: a huge seat, wonderful food, free drinks, and attention to your every concern. A free movie was included. He was amazed that the flight ended so quickly. The movie was hardly over before they announced it was time to prepare for landing. He raised his window cover and looked out over a sea of hundreds of square miles of adobe-colored, cement-covered homes with red-tiled roofs. It looked like Los Angeles beneath him, the good areas. In the distance he could see a black pyramid of glass and steel.
“Amazing the things they do in Vegas,” he thought.
To the right loomed a huge tower with . . . was that a roller coaster winding around it, hundreds of feet in the air atop the tower?
“That would give a person either the thrill of their life or a heart attack. One or the other, surely.”
Before he knew it, they were low over a park and a string of single-story office parks, so low it seemed the wheels of the aircraft would scrape the treetops. After hovering for most of its length, they contacted the runway. Swinging to the right, the plane pulled around and approached the gate area. He was surprised how big the airport was, although he knew Vegas was the fastest growing city in America. Mark was happy to arrive. Not a bad day in the air at all.
“Flying First Class, you won’t arrive exhausted.” Jess had said.
Within a few moments, he emerged into a hot blast of desert air as he stepped onto the ramp.
“This place is an oven,” an elderly woman beside him complained. He agreed.
There seemed to be many elderly people on the flight.
Entering the terminal, he saw a young woman in the distance holding a sign, “Delta Geotechnical.” The details had been well-coordinated.
“Hi! I’m Mark Houser from Delta.”
“Hello Mark! I’m Sandy with New World Remediation Technologies. My job is to take you to the office and give you a wonderful spiel about Las Vegas along the way.”
Sandy definitely had a bubbly personality. Short, blond, hair, medium height-much shorter than Doreen-thin, she was kind of cute. But her main asset was personality.
“Takes about a minute to figure her out,” he thought.
“What do you do at Hodges’s place?”
“Truth, or what I’m supposed to say?”
“Truth!”
“I’m the one that tells him how much money he’s made at the end of each week . . . how much net.”
“How much money the company’s made?”
“Are you kidding? He is the company! Owns it outright.”
“Do you like working there?”
“Everyone likes working around Michael. He’s unique. You either worship him, or you hate him. The ones that hate him don’t last long.”
“He fires them, huh?”
“No, they leave. He’s very intimidating . . . not intentionally, he just is. If you’re an arrogant smart ass that thinks you’re God’s gift to mankind, then suddenly find yourself in the presence of a self-made man who knows about ten times as much as you do on any subject related to the research here, you either realize you’re not so special, or you conjure up a reason to disappear. I’ve seen it happen. Michael’s not rude. He’s very kind and he care’s about his employees. He pays me more than I could earn anywhere else with my qualifications. He pays everyone that way. That’s why everyone you’ll meet here feels about him the way they do. I wouldn’t sleep with him though.”
This Sandy was something else. He wondered if she talked so openly around Hodges.
“Married?” He decided to play along.
“No way! Most of the guys I meet are creeps; the good ones are always married already, like Michael.”
Mark wondered if the men she dated found her a bit creepy; he did.
“That’s why you wouldn’t sleep with him?”
“No, it’s not. I just don’t like sex with fat men. He must weigh two-hundred, sixty pounds, maybe more. I love his mind though. Actually, I would sleep with him if he had the slightest interest, but he wouldn’t. He loves his wife.”
Mark was trying to think of a way to change the subject gracefully. This Sandy was too much.
“So, what’s your spiel about Vegas?”
“Ever been here before?”
“No, but I’ve talked to many who have. They rave about it.”
“Well, Vegas is really three towns.”
“Three?”
“Oh, yes. There are the tourists. They’re always here and they’re the reason it exists, so they have to be considered population, since down town, they’re who you’ll see twenty-four hours a day. Then there’s the locals, two types.”
“How do they differ?”
“The family people live out. When they come in, it’s to eat great food below market price, or to bring the kids and ride the rides, experience the fun. This place is better than Disneyland, you know. They may not gamble, but the majority work in the Casinos or some job directly or indirectly connected to them.”
“Do you gamble, Sandy?”
“Only the nickel slots. I can make two dollars last for hours. Sometimes, I win five or ten dollars. It’s kinda fun, but it gets old after a while. I basically just play when I’m bored. You can’t win over the long term in Vegas. People win; they win big, but not consistently, not in the big casinos. Did you know that the average plane drops hundreds of people here for an average of two days, and they’ve left on average $400 when they board the return flight? Profits were more than five billion last year alone just on the Strip. Local gamblers-that’s the third group-don’t play the big casinos. They each have their favorite little casino where they hang out. The smaller casinos don’t have the money or room for Star Wars quality virtual-reality theaters and such, so they pay much higher odds. You can actually win some money in them. They have bargain food, like a ham steak the size of a platter, with eggs and breakfast potatoes or grits for $2.99, and it includes your coffee and toast! Come-ons like that the locals love.”
“How can they afford such bargains?”
“Because on average, people are just shoving free money into their machines as fast as they can. Overall, they still lose. What’s a discount on a meal that brings them in? If they leave $3.00 in the slots, they paid six bucks for breakfast. What did they pay if they leave twenty dollars in the slots?”
“I think I get it.”
“Cheap rooms, cheap food. The money’s made in the slots. That makes Vegas seem cheap, unless you’re here expecting a big win at the tables to pay off a loan shark. If so, you’re almost certainly going to leave in worse trouble than you were in when you came.”
They were already turning into one of the office parks the plane had flown over just prior to landing, and soon after, pulled in front of the modern, but not overly impressive offices of New World.
“Come on in,” Sandy said, “I’ll introduce you to Mr. Hodges.”
“Aha!” he thought, “now it’s Mr. Hodges.” What an extroverted case she was! No wonder Hodges let her double as a tour guide.
The New World offices were neat, attractive, adequately furnished. The Executive center consisted of a central area surrounded by a hall, outside of which was another ring of offices. Sandy bypassed the receptionist, walked to the corner of the inner office area, stopping at the desk in the entry foyer. There were at least three people ahead of Mark sitting and waiting for “Mr.” Hodges. The woman rose and introduced herself.
“Hello, you must be Mark from Delta Geotechnical?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Wanda, Mr. Hodges’s administrative assistant. He’s expecting you, but it could be a little bit. Could I get you some coffee . . . or a soft drink?”
“Do you have Diet Coke?”
“Yes. Sandy, could you bring it please? Mark, I’ll let Mr. Hodges know that you’re here as soon as the surety company representative has left.”
There was a large, heavy, middle-aged man with wavy white hair standing in the doorway of the office behind her, smiling nervously in the direction where Hodges’s desk must be.
“Just listen to him, Michael. I think he could help us.” the large, white-haired man requested.
He heard a somewhat deep, gruff voice say, “You’ve got two minutes!”
A man with a British accent, or something like it, began to speak. After more than ten minutes, he heard Hodges speak again.
“That’s an interesting background, Mr. Worthen, Bob, is it?”
Another twenty minutes passed. Hodges had evidently taken a liking to whoever was sitting at his desk. The flamboyant-looking man remained in Hodges doorway, obviously pleased. At length, he turned to see Mark, who had seated himself in the comfortable chair across from Wanda’s desk, sipping the Diet Coke Sandy had brought.
“Hello,” he said in a loud, commanding voice, “I’m Roger Temple. I’m in charge of marketing here at New World. Who are you? I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I’m Mark Houser from Delta Environmental in Houston, here to discuss one of our remediation projects with your boss.”
They shook hands. Roger’s grip reminded him of Gangley’s.
“Well you’ve a wait before you can get inside that office!” he said in a voice just slightly below a shout, simultaneously sweeping his hand, calling Mark’s attention again to the other three patiently waiting. They showed no impatience either, just resolve to get their turn. This was strange. He began to question the “personal guest” reference in his cover letter from Jess.
“You’ll need to meet with me first. Let’s go to the Conference Room.” Roger said.
Mark rose, convinced it would be some time before Hodges could work him in.
He followed Roger down the hall to a large room with a fairly impressive conference table - nothing like a law firm would have, but better than Delta’s, which could easily seat fifteen. Centered on the wall at one end was a large white board with technical drawings covering it, partially erased. The other three walls were covered with blowups of Bio-Sparge systems on cleanup sites. There were also pictures of Hodges standing with other men at various locations apparently not directly related to Bio-Sparge. One looked like an ancient oil well with a wooden derrick, and Mark couldn’t resist looking closely.
“That well’s a century old!” Roger shouted. “Can you imagine how acclimated the bacteria in the soil around it must have been to crude spilled onto the surrounding soils by the time that picture was taken? They’ve been eating it for a hundred years! That’s a big oil man name of Jim Bob Jackson standing next to him. Look at this one.”
Hodges was kneeling by a small stream covered with an oil slick in the picture, scooping some of the bottom muds into a jar.
“Four Corners crude. It’s sweet. Those bacteria have been degrading it for Lord only knows how long.”
Mark looked at another labeled, “Great Salt Lake Brine,” showing Hodges in boots up to his knees, with a hand auger. This seemed an oxymoron to Mark
“I know that the ocean holds many species of bacteria, but can freshwater bacteria thrive in water saturated with salt? I thought salt was used to kill bacteria, like when you clean an aquarium before setting it up.”
“You bet they can, those bacteria. They’ve lived there for ten thousand years. It was freshwater back then. As the former inland sea-Lake Bonneville-created at the end of the Ice Age, began to dry up, they were there. The glacial water feeding the lake was pristine, but as the climate changed, the sea began to evaporate. It became more and more saline, but slowly, over time. So the bacteria had thousands of years to evolve the capability to continue living within it. Time only passes one day at a time. Eventually, ten-thousand years later, it’s been saturated with salt so long that Morton Salt has a salt mining operation on the shore. The indigenous bacteria are as comfortable in that brine as bacteria from hot sulfur springs are in water so hot, it would kill most freshwater bacteria.”
“Are you a geologist?” Mark inquired.
“No, I’m in charge of marketing.”
“How did you gain so much understanding? You seem so familiar with it all?”
“You’ve never met Michael Hodges, have you?”
“No, I’ve never even been to Vegas before.”
Roger laughed. Mark glanced at the windows to see if they were vibrating. Roger was loud, but as the girls accused Jess of being a big Teddy Bear at heart, Mark sensed the same was true of him.
“Have you eaten recently?” Roger looked like a man who loved to eat.
“Not since lunch on the plane almost four hours ago.”
“Wait here. I’ll see how it’s going in Michael’s office.”
It was nearing six o’clock and the view out the window promised it would be dark within the hour. Finding himself alone, he studied the walls again. There were various awards and brass plaques reproducing U.S. patents Hodges had been awarded. Mark was surrounded by icons of remediation technology.
“How very different these walls look compared to what you see at a typical consulting company.” He observed.
He felt a bit uncomfortable on Hodges turf. This was exciting, even more different than he had imagined. He had the sensation of being out of place, out of his league. Nothing he had seen or heard yet was anything like a consulting company. New World so far seemed like a one-man show. That man was surrounded by a small, but intensely loyal group, and his time was precious. People were eager to meet and talk to him. At Delta, few people seemed anxious to meet Jess. They usually looked like they were arriving at the dentist’s office to have a tooth extracted. The people waiting to see Hodges were anxious. Having met Roger, he wondered how much marketing they were even interested in.

The Double-Cut

Roger reappeared, accompanied by Hodges. Mark jumped up to shake his extended hand. Hodges’ grip was unpretentious.
“Sorry, Mark, it’s a busy day, and I promised Tabitha that I’d pick her up at six-thirty. We always go out on Tuesday nights.”
Hodges was soft-spoken, and exuding an entirely different attitude than when Mark had last heard him from within his office. Although overweight, he looked good in his suit . . . distinguished. His well-trimmed hair topped a wide, but pleasant face. He looked like a man content with his life.
“Oh, please, don’t apologize. My wife, Doreen and I have maintained a tradition of Date Night ever since we’ve been married.”
“That means the two of you are happy! I still have two people to chat with. You’ve met Roger, and I’ve requested that he take you to dinner. Do you like prime rib?”
“I love it. I order the largest portion on the menu. It’s never enough though, is it?”
Hodges looked at Roger.
“The Double Cut?” Roger asked Hodges with a questioning smile.
“Nothing less. Mark, if you don’t mind, could I review the data from the Convention Center site tonight? You do have it with you?”
“Sure, and there’s more coming tomorrow, including water samples for your use in constructing the biomap.”
“You haven’t worked with us before. How do you know about biomaps?”
“I’ve read everything that’s come my way on Bio-Sparge lately,” he said, unrolling the large site plan of the Convention Center property, “and saw references to its importance on your website, so I knew it would be a prerequisite.”
“I’ll review what you brought tonight and have Roger pick you up at the hotel at seven in the morning if that’s O.K.? We’ll meet in here again and roll up our sleeves.”
“That’ll be great,” Mark replied, already hoping the Double Cut was a generous piece of prime rib. It had many hours since he'd eaten, and the very mention of prime rib made him feel ravenous.
They climbed into Roger’s big, customized van, and within a few blocks, they were on the freeway heading north.
“This is a fine, custom van, Roger; lots of nice extras.”
“Thanks. My wife and I like to travel a lot, and after the first one wore out, we were hooked. These are all we’ve driven for years.”
“How long have you worked for Hodges?”
“Five years. Our business is the development of remediation technologies. So far, we have Bio-Sparge and a mobile metal recovery technology. Everything we’ve undertaken, we’ve successfully completed. How much do you already know about Bio-Sparge?”
“I know how the basic system works as described in your literature, and I’m a good enough scientist to know that the scientific principles and processes relied upon by the technology are sound. Also, I know how successful the first trial was and how quickly it worked.”
“Have you seen the picture of that thing, the first system? Michael has it on the wall of his office; the very first prototype. It wasn’t mobile. Its bioreactor was a four-thousand-gallon, galvanized tank, unpressurized, with pumps and blowers on the ground around it, tested at an International Paper Company site in northern California. Even that long ago–were talking 1986–it took longer to install the infrastructure and the bioremediation system than it did to complete the cleanup. Afterward, the entire system had to be removed piece by piece. Michael swore he would never build another stationary system again. The technology works too quickly. Now, every system is trailer-mounted, fully mobile, and moves from site to site, only stopping here between jobs to be retrofitted and cleaned.”
“I thought the first Bio-Sparge project was an Amoco station site remediated within only eight weeks! That was truly amazing!”
“No, that was the first mobile, closed-loop, Bio-Sparge system based upon patented technology. That came four years later in Utah. You should see the stuff we make now. Sophisticated engineering, pressurized, and much more powerful than that first mobile prototype. By comparison, it was a dinosaur.”
“How many are in operation as we speak?”
“Twenty-one, the most ever.”
Mark thought of the thousands of sites with P&T systems installed, doing nothing but bleeding clients, and here was a miracle-working technology limited to a mere twenty-one sites!
“What a crazy industry we work in,” he exclaimed, “There should be thousands of Bio-Sparge units out there.”
“There almost was a couple of years ago, when Michael was negotiating with Dow.”
“Dow?”
“Dow likes joint-ventures. Their scientists visited Michael, and while here caught the vision of Bio-Sparge, and what it could do for the country. They proposed a joint-venture to their group, but the attorneys killed it.”
“Why would they kill the Dow-New World joint venture when they have the Capital to build it into a mega-corporation?
“Lack of vision, I think, and concern about these deep pocket Judges looking for any big money source they can stick with cleanup costs!”
“Say no more. I understand!”
As they exited the freeway, he noticed that the Las Vegas strip had largely fallen behind them.
“See that sign over there that says ‘Jerry’s Casino’?” Roger asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s where we’re going. It’s the best prime rib value in Las Vegas; actually, North Las Vegas, not a place where you’d want to walk around alone at night, but the casinos are safe. It’s a long way to come, but well worth it. I hope you’re hungry.”
“You haven’t seen me take down a slab of prime rib!”
“No, I haven’t, but this is Jerry’s Casino.”
It was sounding better to Mark with every comment. Pulling into the parking lot, the casino didn’t look that small to Mark, but Roger assured him that later, when he took him to his hotel, he would learn how to better distinguish big from small in Las Vegas. Jerry’s had a southwestern Indian design, which Roger said had been but recently added when it was enlarged and remodeled. Upon entry, they walked atop a huge expanse of luxurious carpet, through a maize of brilliant colors of light, and Mark was stunned by the number and variety of slot machines. There were so many that it made the casino look poorly attended, yet bells were going off from all directions, with people shouting because they or their friend had won. Wheels were spinning; dice were in the air at the tables; alluring, barely clad women who could make any man lust walked around with drink trays giving free drinks to the players, and they were surrounded by the endless clatter of coins hitting metal pay out trays.
The environment had an Alice in Wonderland feel to it. No wonder people with whom he had spoken described a city which sounded like someone had dreamed it, rather than one which actually existed; but it did!
The casino’s restaurant was surprisingly small, no larger than a Denny’s. A short waiting line awaited them beside a pie display case which sported some of the biggest, most tempting pies and cakes he had ever seen. Maybe that’s why the restaurant didn’t need to be any bigger. They kept killing off their customers!
“Smoking or nonsmoking, Guys?” asked a cheerful hostess arriving to seat them.
“Nonsmoking,” they chimed.
She led them to some round tables of varying diameters in the back and seated them.
“Anything from the bar?” she asked, handing each of them a menu.
“Do you have Pina Coladas? Mark asked.
“Yes, and you, Sir?”
“Iced tea.”
“One iced tea!” she shouted to the waiters standing in the rear before scurrying off to bring Mark’s Pina Colada. Mark opened the menu; Roger did not. Flipping through, he spied the prime rib section. There were three cuts: the Petite-forget that; Doreen maybe-the Thick-Cut, and the Double-Cut. He remembered Hodges smiling at Roger at the office, and saying “nothing less!”
“What are you having Roger?”
“Prime rib, same as you. That’s the only reason I’d drive to North Las Vegas to eat with all the bargain buffets in town.”
“Double Cut?”
“Nothing less,” Roger replied.
Soon, the hostess from the bar brought the Pina Colada. Mark sipped it, and immediately ordered a second.
“You like ours, do you?” She toyed.
“It’s one of the best I’ve ever tasted, and that’s quite a compliment, coming from me.”
“That’s because we use only Puerto Rican rums, the best in the Caribbean.”
Roger ordered another iced tea.
The waitress walked up with ordering pad opened, pen at the ready.
“And what are guys having tonight?”
“Two Double Cuts,” Mark replied.
“Have you been here before, Sir?”
“No,” he said, looking at Roger.
“I have,” Roger told her.
“Have you ordered the Double Cut before?”
The question was directed toward Roger.
“Oh, yes!”
The house salads arrived, and they buttered their bread with real butter, enjoying the salad. Mark reached for his second Pina Colada. As he raised it to his lips, his arm suddenly went limp and the drink slipped from his hand. He lunged for it with his right hand, but missed. The large glass spun off his fingers and crashed to the floor, sending shards and the contents in all directions. A waitress rushed toward them,
“Don’t worry, Sir. I’ll have one of the men clean it up. What were you drinking . . . it looks like a Pina Colada?”
“I’m sorry,” Mark said, embarrassed, “Yes, it was.”
“What happened?” Roger asked, surprised, “Bad grip?”
“I’m not sure, Roger. This has happened before. I had an accident not too long ago, and occasionally, my shoulder just gives way . . . without warning. It’s the damnedest thing. The doctors have no explanation, but say it should improve with time. It’s frustrating as hell!”
“Does it hurt?”
“No, it’s as if my upper arm just turns off for a second as I raise it past a certain point. They say there’s nothing physically wrong. Obviously, they haven’t discovered the problem.”
“It sounds like you might be pinching a nerve at some point in the arc of raising your arm.”
“That’s what I suspect. I work out every week, but I’ve temporarily given up the bench-pressing. I dropped the barbells on my chest and damned near cracked a rib.” he added as the hostess brought another drink. Mark, still embarrassed, thanked her and picked it up with his right hand.”
“Are the drinks strong enough?” Roger asked.
“Indeed!”
“Bring him another one Pina Colada to follow this one.” Roger boomed to the hostess as she walked away.
“Roger, I don’t need a third one. Look how big these are, the size of the glass! They’re like two regular drinks, and they’re bumping bitter, there’s so much rum.”
“Everything’s big at Jerry’s. Enjoy yourself! This is on Michael tonight!”
“It is?”
“Of course!”
“I still wouldn’t have ordered a third.”
The hostess returned a moment later, placed the third drink on the table, and waited while Mark chugged the rest of the second. One of the busboys was carefully picking up the glass fragments and mopping up the spill.
“You may need the third one when the Double cut arrives.” Roger commented.
Having barely finished their salads and enjoyed the bread, their waitress returned, pushing a cart out the kitchen door and halting by their table.
“Two Double Cuts!” she deliberately shouted, loud enough for half the restaurant to hear, setting both plates in front of them with a single motion.
“What is that?” a man asked another.
“Is that a roast each?” another inquired.
“Oink, Oink” came from somewhere behind them.
Mark looked at the four-inch-thick slab of prime rib with disbelief. He glanced around to find everyone at the surrounding tables ogling, talking, laughing, or looking terrified with every eye fixed upon their Double cuts. He looked at Roger for deliverance. Roger had been almost busting his gut holding it in, but when he saw the expression on Mark’s face, he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He laughed so thunderously that even the people in the front of the restaurant were standing or craning their necks to observe the commotion in the back.
“Oink, Oink” again from behind.
Roger was joined by a chorus of laughter from patrons at the surrounding tables, who had picked up on the gag, all aimed at Mark. He felt like a pig in a circus. No one could eat a Double-cut at a single sitting.
“I wish you could see the look on your face!” Roger declared, almost gagging, he was laughing so hard.
Ears burning red, Mark wished he was the Invisible Man for a moment; but it looked and smelled so beefy that he decided the only course of action was to pick up the steak knife and fork and attempt to do it justice as Roger was doing. Besides, the third Pina Colada was kicking in, so he began feeling he could survive the abuse. Roger had been right about it easing the embarrassment. He cut into the meat with ease, and when the first bite touched his tongue, the aroma overwhelming his senses, he didn’t care what anybody thought.
“We do this to everyone that visits us,” Roger admitted, still laughing. Most of the others had lost interest and returned to their own dinner. “It’s become a sadistic tradition.”
“We’ll see who leaves the most on their plate,” Mark challenged, giving Roger a confronting smile.
“Then, the game’s afoot!”
When they left Jerry’s for the hotel, neither of them could walk normally, but they hadn’t left any prime rib on their plates. They arrived shortly thereafter at the MGM Grand Hotel, where Hodges was putting Mark for the evening. Gangley had told Moss that Mark was to receive the very best of everything on this trip. The Grand had been the largest hotel in Las Vegas for a time, with more than five thousand rooms! Kurkorian had built it at a cost of one billion dollars, Roger explained. Now, they were building an even larger one, because there was still a room shortage in Las Vegas many nights of the year, and the number of visitors was steadily increasing. As they strolled through the lobby, Mark commented upon the tile floor.
“Kurkorian put two flooring contractors out of business with this floor,” Roger explained. “Deal was, when they finished, if a marble he rolled across it jumped, they had to redo it.”
“Over a billion for one casino!” Mark wondered just how much money there must be in the world.

The Agreement

Merrill strolled into Bard’s office at the Chronicle as if he owned the entire paper.
“Thanks for arranging an appointment in private.”
He shook Bard’s hand vigorously. Bard had not been looking forward to this meeting. He had begun by insisting that all matters connected with the Chronicle’s solvent release be referred to Legal. Merrill had stated that it might be very much in the Chronicle’s interest if they met privately off-the-record before initiating any formal discussions with Legal or anyone else.
“I’ll admit, Mr. Merrill, that I have not been looking forward to this meeting.”
“Relax; golfers have to help each other out when one of us gets into trouble, and although I’m on a leave of absence myself, my firm still represents Gangley Enterprises’s interests.”
“Help each other out? Is that a lead into the purpose of our meeting?” Merrill handed a copy of the site plan to Bard.
“Actually, yes! I’m here to help you out of a very serious and potentially very costly problem. I don’t know how strong your cash flow is this month, but three months ago, your balance sheet was sunburned.”
“How could you know?”
“You’re a newspaper man. You know how sources are worked to obtain information.”
“Actually, I’m not a newspaperman. I just run this paper for Mr. Amholtz. I’m more like his watchdog. But what’s your point?”
“The potential cost of cleaning up the solvent plume is between three and four million dollars. That’s a lot of money, and I don’t think you have it.”
“We have insurance.”
“Yes, with an environmental exclusion. I’ve already spoken to your insurance company. That means you pay the entire wad yourself. Do you have that kind of cash to pull out of the newspaper?”
“You’re being presumptuous.”
Bard seemed unnecessarily irritated and quite distracted. Why would he tell Merrill they had insurance when he knew damn good and well that environmental problems were excluded? Merrill was nonplussed by his attitude.
“Not presumptuous, because if we’re to make your problem disappear, we must have a frank basis from which to work. You have no insurance coverage, so why would you pretend you do?”
“Because I can’t stand lawyers-not even ours. The only reason you’re here is to benefit at the Chronicle’s expense.”
Merrill was insulted, but realized he needed to lighten this man up. The air in the room was getting heavy.
“We’re not the bad guys. I show you a disaster on that site plan, and without so much as a glance at it, the first thing you do is toss it onto your desk and run to Legal. You may not like the idea of lawyers, but when you need one, you’re damn glad they’re there. Think about it: A lawyer doesn’t have a case unless he has a client; the more lawyers, the more clients. Haven’t you heard the lawyer joke about the little town that only had one lawyer, and he was almost starving to death? Then another lawyer moved into town. After that, there was plenty of business for both of them. You assume that the second lawyer stirred up trouble, right? But it was the clients who rushed in that stirred up the trouble. The problem is that there are too many lawyers, so if you want to earn the big money, you have to have big clients. If I had a one-room office on a side street, knew as much as I do now, and charged only $25 per hour, do you think Gangley Enterprises would even consider giving me their account?”
“I’ll give you that point!”
“Yes, but don’t you see? That point is the first domino in the line, and when it falls, all the rest fall with it. Bigger clients mean bigger offices. Expertise in more fields of law means more specialists, which means more payroll and the need for additional clients to raise it. That leads to higher fees. And all of it together leads to your attitude about lawyers.”
“Okay! Tell me, how could you make the problem disappear as you say. This site plan looks very scary, like an absolute disaster.”
“Normally, it would be. However, I’m here at Mr. Gangley’s personal behest for the purpose of working out a mutually beneficial strategy.”
“Oh?”
“You see, it’s not the three to four million we’re talking about. That’s the cleanup cost. However, if due to the delay caused by the cleanup of your environmental problem, the city was to cancel the deal with my client-and the agreement specifically gives the city that option-he would lose another $200,000,000. That’s the reason I’m here.”
“What, to work out a deal where that son-of-a-bitch owns the Chronicle? Two-hundred million dollars? Get the hell out of my office; go down to Legal. You can mix with slime like yourself. This is a legal issue. Two-hundred million dollars, my ass!”
“Do you mind if I make a quick phone call on my cellular first?”
“It’d better be damn quick! I want you out of here!”
Merrill punched one of his preprogrammed call buttons.
“Good morning, Sir. I hope your day is going well? Mine? Not really. I’m in Mr. Bard’s office, and I’ve been invited to leave in a most emphatic manner.”
Momentarily, Merrill handed the phone to Bard, or rather tried.
“He wants to talk to you directly.”
“I’m not talking to that goddamned Gangley!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to mention that it’s Mr. Amholtz. He’d like to speak with you.”
Bard looked like a little kid with his hand caught in the Cookie jar. He took the phone and held it up to his ear like it was his turn in a game of Russian Roulette.
“ . . . morning, Mr. Amholtz.”
He felt ridiculous. His boss had heard him screaming.
“How are the negotiations going, Bard? I think we can work out something very helpful to the Chronicle with Gangley Enterprises. Any progress yet? We need this matter given your utmost attention, and we need it negotiated very quickly. I understand that it can be painless for us. You don’t sound like your normal on-top self today. Anything I should know about?”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve been most unaccommodating to Mr. Merrill. I arrived at the office after a terrible accident involving a man’s death, a particularly gruesome death, and I’ve been filled with a sense of horror ever since. Mr. Merrill’s arrival was just very badly timed. That’s all.”
“Hell’s bells! Did you run over a man and kill him this morning?”
“No, it wasn’t my accident. I was driving in from Katy, and I had to slow down to a crawl with the rest of the traffic. I noticed a tractor-trailer rig not far ahead weaving all over the freeway, knocking into cars and back against the guard rail completely out of control, like maybe the driver had fallen asleep, awakened, and found himself pointed in the wrong direction. He jack-knifed the rig trying to avoid running into another car, and threw the cab of the truck against the side, knocking the driver-side door completely off its hinges. Both the driver and the door fell out and crashed to the ground. The trailer was rocking in wide swings, and it broke free from the tractor, and fell over. Everyone had stopped, and my car was about twenty feet from the top of the trailer. I jumped out along with others to help. The upper part of the driver’s body down to his hips or so was free, but everything below that was under the trailer, and the trailer was only two inches or so above the concrete of the freeway. One of his eyes had popped out from the blood being squeezed from the lower part of his body instantaneously, and was lying next to his nose; his stomach was popped out like he was pregnant! Blood was coming out of his ears and nose. He was screaming at the top of his lungs in pain. He started shouting,
‘Help me, Jesus, Oh God, Help me, Help me! Help me, Jesus, help me, help me, Jesus.’ It was the most unnerving thing I’ve ever experienced, and it was a continuous, screaming prayer for twenty minutes. Dozens of helpless people were standing around crying sympathetically or screaming themselves. The more that came running, the worse it got. No one could do anything for him. It wasn’t like the movies where a doctor shows up who just happens to have a vial of morphine. No one helped, including his God. I can’t imagine what that man endured during those minutes. By the time the ambulance came, he had gone on. It was horror, just horrible! I was so glad to see him die. I was sitting in a near stupor remembering it all when Merrill arrived, so I wasn’t myself.”
“My God, Bard. You need a stiff drink!”
“It’s early.”
“I’ll tell you what: take Merrill with you across the street and swallow a couple of shots. That’ll relax you and you’ll be able to think more clearly. These negotiations need to be done while the man is willing. We’ve got millions on the line, and you and I both know what it could do to us personally.”
“Okay, I’ll do that. I’ll call you immediately after.”
“Thanks Bard. It gave me shivers listening to you. Damn; an eye hanging out! Only you know what that did to you. You’ll probably have nightmares.”
While he was talking, Merrill had been overcome, walked over, and put his arm around Bard’s shoulder.
“Maybe even lawyers have a little heart.” Bard thought to himself,
He returned Merrill’s phone and suggested they take the elevator and walk across to the bar.
“I think that’s a good idea, Buddy.”
They crossed the street in silence, as though in a requiem for the dead.
After two shots of Four Roses on the rocks, Bard relaxed. After two more, he became talkative. Merrill sipped a beer to give the appearance of brotherhood. He never drank during the day.
“Mr. Amholtz believes you can help us. I’m sorry for the way I treated you awhile ago. It was shameless.”
“Hey! If I’d seen what you did, I’d have gone home for the day. Don’t feel badly about it.”
“I’ve been very troubled since learning of the solvent release. I can’t believe annual pressure testing hasn’t picked up the leaking tanks before now. We should sue that damn tank-testing company.”
“Delta tells me that a corrosion hole can become clogged with sludge temporarily, or even permanently, so the tank tests tight, when in fact, it may have leaked hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of gallons into the ground previously over the years before tank-testing became a requirement. The person testing the tank wouldn’t get a pressure drop on the gauge, so he could only assume that the tank was sound.”
“So, Mr. Merrill, let’s start over. What did you have in mind, because this plume looks like the ‘tens of thousand’s’ example to me?”
“It’s very simple, really; nothing in writing from your end. It will be totally off the record, a handshake deal. However, you and Amholtz are bound by honor to keep it.”
“Sounds like it must be a little off-color?”
“Not at all. Gangley’s consultants continue working the plume across the street so that continuity is maintained. They’ll take care of everything, and all the Chronicle gets billed for is removal and replacement of the tanks. That’s it!”
“And the quid pro quo?”
“Occasionally, your Metro editor or one of his reporters takes a swipe at Gangley. There was one last year that implied he was a mobster. In addition, they had your photo room clip a shot of Gangley just after getting off of his bike-he’s an avid biker-so close that it was more of a head shot. It made him look like what the public thinks Colombian drug lords must look like. The whole story was a farce, based primarily upon hearsay. Following our threat of suit, you printed a retraction and apology, and included the full picture un-clipped as a negotiated settlement of the matter with our firm.”
“I remember. It was out-of-line.”
“To say the least. The deal is, Gangley foots your bill and signs a Hold-harmless agreement abandoning his right of recovery of the cost of the remediation. In exchange, in your position, you snuff any negative article or any reference whatsoever to Gangley Enterprises or the man himself unless my office approves the article and edits its wording. In strict terms, you don’t allow anything to reach the street unless it’s approved my mouth to your ear. That’s it. There’s nothing more.”
“Lou will go berserk. He’ll never agree to that. It violates the entire purpose of a newspaper.”
“So did that article last year, but you’ve missed the point. You don’t discuss this with anyone internally, and you don’t make it a policy level restriction. You merely find some angle to debunk anything that’s presented for some reason that you come up with at the time. It’s not a big ‘all,’ nor does it require any internal confrontation.”
“I’ll have to run this by Amholtz personally!”
“I’d expect nothing less. You can use my cellular.”
He punched the preset and handed the phone to Bard. A minute later, the deal was concluded. Delta had full control, Gangley paid the bills, and the Chronicle kept its mouth shut.