—
ONE DAY TOWARD the middle of May, Jim Upjohn called Frank at the office and told him to come after work to the Plaza. There was a man he wanted Frank to meet. Andy was in Iowa, visiting her parents, and Nedra was staying through the weekend, so Frank had been planning a rendezvous at the Grand Canyon with a girl named “Ionia” (really Effie, though Effie didn’t know that Frank had looked through her purse when she went to clean up the last time), but Jim pressed him, and so he went.
The man was an oddball, in the sense that he was wearing a very expensive suit, certainly made for him, but he was so impossible to fit that he looked terrible anyway. When he went to shake Frank’s hand, his hand enveloped Frank’s in a horny clamp even though he was six inches shorter. His hair marched around his red, shiny head in patches, and there was a quality of scaliness to his bald parts. His eyes were bright and suspicious. Jim said, “Dave, I want you to meet Frank Langdon. He might be the man you’re looking for.”
“Not looking for a man,” said Dave (Dave Courtland, it was; Frank had heard of him, though he wasn’t sure where).
“Are you looking for a woman?” said Frank.
“Not looking,” said Dave Courtland.
And Jim Upjohn said, “Well, you better be; otherwise, your kids are going to ease you out of there before you know it.”
Frank pretended this was not interesting. The Oak Bar had a self-conscious quality, Frank thought, as if it knew it was in a hotel and really wanted to be off on its own, not so accessible to out-of-towners. Jim ordered drinks for all of them — a martini for himself, a whiskey and soda for Dave Courtland, and a beer for Frank. If Frank was thirty-nine now, then Jim Upjohn was forty-four or — five, on a kind of plateau of self-assurance that came not only from wealth and not only from his war experiences, but also from considering himself a free thinker and a charitable man (who still sent money to the Daily Worker—try and stop him). Oh, and there was the fact that his fortunes, always prosperous, had risen on the postwar economy like a cork on a flood. He frequently made “wealthiest in America” lists, and only Frances Upjohn knew what the exact amount was. Probably because of Jim, Frank had had a very good year, promoted to VP in charge of development at Grumman, making a nice sum, and, thanks to Jim’s tips, though he and Andy were not on any “ten most” lists, Uncle Jens was spinning in his grave. Every time Andy opened a brokerage statement, she said, “Do you think this is real money?”
Jim said, “Dave and I were just talking. I serve on the board of Dave’s company, that’s Fremont Oil — you know them, Frank — and I told him he needs to talk to you. He needs to talk to someone entirely outside of that world.”
“So you say,” said Dave.
Jim said, “This is what makes Dave such a great oilman. He is stubborn as a doorpost. It’s a medical condition brought on by petroleum fumes.”
Frank said, “I know you recently discovered a big field in Venezuela.”
“How’d you know that?” Dave looked as though he might punch him.
Jim said, “I told you, Frank Langdon is a scout. He’s got his eyes open twenty-four hours a day. Even when he’s asleep. He was an army sniper in Italy during the war.”
“I thought the marines in the Pacific did that.”
“There were a few of us in Europe.”
“How many kills you get?”
“Twenty-six,” said Frank, “but one was a Jerry who asked me to do it.”
Now Dave actually looked at him, and Jim did, too — Frank had never told him this story. He said, “It was in Sicily. A German officer was being driven up the mountain, and they went over the edge. The driver was impaled on the steering wheel. The officer got himself out, and when we came up to him, he was just lying there. He tried to shoot himself and failed. When he saw us, he asked us to do it for him. He was the only one I ever saw up close. Seemed more like a murder in a way.” Frank spoke coolly.
“Missed both wars,” said Dave Courtland. “Too young for the first one and too old for the second one.” That would make him fifty or so, but he looked twenty years older than that. Frank said, “You start out in Texas?”
“Nah, Oklahoma first, then Texas. But the war effort drained those fields. Mexico looked good for about a minute, but I knew that Red, Cárdenas, was trouble before the big boys did. I had a feeling about Venezuela from the beginning. No roads, no nothing. We used to explore on foot, donkey if we were lucky. When that fellow who worked for Jersey was killed by an arrow while eating his eggs and bacon one morning, I just thought it was exciting.”
Frank nodded, then said, “And these days?”
“ ’Bout ten percent more civilized, but better than butting up against the Russkies.”
“That seems to be the problem,” said Jim Upjohn. “Dave’s sons want to make a big investment in Saudi. Dave says better the devil you know.”
“Your sons are Hal Courtland and Friskie Courtland?”
“Friskie, yeah. Christened William Flinders.” Dave made a low, rough, loud sound in his throat that Frank decided was a cough, then said, “You know anything about the oil business?”
“Only what I read in the papers,” said Frank.
“See,” said Jim, “this is where you’re making your mistake, Dave. You think that the oil business is different from any other business, and it’s not. Real estate, airplanes, bombs, cookies, rutabagas — all the same. You identify the customers, you identify the product, and you bring the two together.”
Dave looked Frank up and down, then said, “The thing I’m not good at is getting along with people. I just seem to blow my top. You good at getting along with people?”
Jim said, “Frank gets along with everyone.”
Frank thought, Or with no one. And that was a pleasant thought.
The conversation ambled forward, Dave Courtland taking an intermittent interest in it, but also looking around the bar, staring at this customer and that one, and not always the females. Frank saw why Jim was after him to run Fremont: Dave was a kind of farmer, with oil as his crop. Proud that he hadn’t gone to school after the age of twelve, proud that he’d taught himself everything he knew, but now confused at how often he felt adrift. Hal and Friskie (Harvard and Yale? Princeton and Dartmouth?) would have perfected their slightly condescending manner, and of course they wanted to invest in Saudi — they could hobnob with Europeans and Rockefellers and art collectors. Frank agreed with Dave Courtland that it was better to drill on your own side of the Atlantic.
Jim sat on any number of boards of directors, including Pan Am and Douglas Aircraft — he had taken Frank on the maiden run of the DC-8 a year ago May, and Frank had been impressed. He knew that Jim loved the DC-8, and suspected that he was behind Pan Am’s big order of those planes when everyone else assumed they were going to go with Boeing. Now he was up to something, but when had Frank ever not gone along with Jim Upjohn? It was like that first time he had taken Frank for a ride in his — what was that? — a Fairchild something — an Argus. You could see through the roof of the plane. It had been a revelation.
All of a sudden, Dave Courtland balked. He bucked, he reared, he backed away. He said, “I’ve had it for today. I’m going up to my room and having supper, then turning in for the night.”
Jim Upjohn was as smooth as could be. He said, “Good idea, Dave. They serve quite a good filet here; you should try it.”
Dave Courtland was already gone, leaving Jim to pay for the drinks. All Jim said was “That man’s got forty million bucks, and those boys are siphoning it out of his pocket.”