"The West Coast Platform Drilling Company was hired by me!" Beano screamed. "Donovan Martin was my friend. We had a contractual obligation to him, and all I did was-"
Then the door opened and Teo X. Bates entered the room. He was tall and broad shouldered. He had been doing land scams in the Phoenix area and flew in to work Beano's sting. Following Teo into the room was a driveway specialist from Simi Valley, California, named Luther X. Bates.
"Everything okay in here?" Teo said, looking suspiciously at Beano and Tommy. "We heard shouting."
"Perhaps these gentlemen would like to leave now," Victoria said.
"I own a hundred thousand shares a'this company," Tommy said. "I ain't goin' nowhere."
Victoria looked at him unpleasantly, then seemed to relent. "Maybe if you'd wait in another office for a minute. Perhaps I can arrange for you to be included in the preferred stockholders' meeting."
As Tommy turned to leave, Beano gave Victoria a lingering look. She held it for a minute, then winked at him and shrugged. Tommy pulled him out of the office. It was then that Beano saw Alex Cordosian standing there, out of breath. He had just arrived.
"They're gonna let us in the stockholders' meeting," Tommy grinned.
"The reason I'm late is I've been making some calls. You can't just walk in here and buy this place. I can't get any banking information on this outfit. You don't know what the debt obligation of this company is… What if they owe a hundred million against a bunch of devalued assets? You're gonna be liable for all their loans." Tommy blinked his lizard eyes at the Armenian attorney. "What if there are outstanding claims by other subs?" Alex continued. "What if there's hundreds of millions in lawsuits pending? You don't know what you're buying. You could be buying a long-term headache. I'm determined to point these things out to you," he lectured. "You can threaten me, but I owe you my best judgment. Your brother would never plunge blindly like this, believe me." That sentence, more than all the others, snapped Tommy's eyes wider.
"Did you check on all that Tennessee land, did you call about that?" Beano asked hotly.
"Yes, I talked to the Clerk in Fentress County. The company does have a land grant title for the acreage, and I did feel better when I confirmed that, but there's no current value for the land listed. The land grant goes all the way back to the Civil War."
"There's more value here than they even begin to suspect," Beano whispered intently, turning Tommy so Ellen seemingly couldn't hear. "Don't forget all that oil in the ground. The largest stratigraphic trap ever located." He led Tommy away from the secretary's desk and out of earshot.
But Alex kept following and buzzing, "How much is the oil field really worth? You don't know, nobody knows. You don't even really know there's crude down there, you just have this guy's word for it. What if it's just a pocket well?"
"A what?" Tommy asked.
"It's no pocket well," Beano corrected. "Are you kidding? I've worked the seismics on this acreage for eighteen months. We've got at least a six-acre pool down there. The flow pressure tests were incredible."
"I saw it. I saw the oil," Tommy said.
"How much?" Alex asked. He was cooking now, he could see indecision clouding Tommy's narrow thoughts. "Did you see a billion barrels' worth, like he said?"
"You don't have to see it. I know it's there. That's what geology is about," Beano hissed angrily.
"I didn't see it," Tommy said, "but I got a decanter full."
"Oh, a decanter. Well, great, that's gotta be worth about two bucks. You can't do this."
"Look, you," Beano said, leaning in on the lawyer, who pulled back in fear. "I don't need all this sarcasm from you. I worked to prove that field for almost two years. You don't know what you're talking about. In half an hour this opportunity goes away."
"I've been in a few oil deals in my life, and they're not done like this. This is nuts. I called some friends of mine back east this morning. They think this company went bankrupt in the late seventies."
"Bankrupt in the seventies?" Beano sputtered.
"I'm not saying you shouldn't buy this eventually, just slow down. Joe never buys stuff quick. He always says, 'If there's a clock anywhere in the deal, then let the buyer beware.'"
"Joe says that?" Tommy asked.
"If this is an up-and-up deal, it will be for sale tomorrow or next week. You don't have to buy it now. If you insist, we can negotiate an option today, preserve all your rights, and then, after I've checked it out, we can let go of the cash."
It was a solution that would never work for Beano. Alex would surely discover the fraud if given enough time to investigate. Beano had to up the stakes… So, he moved back to Ellen's desk, borrowed a pencil, and wrote a note for her while Alex was slowly getting Tommy to reconsider.
"What's it matter if you buy it today? Look, big purchases don't happen like this. You don't roll in with a suitcase full of cash and plunk it down. That's insane. Do it the way Joe would do it. Do it smart." Alex had finally found the right tune to play, and Tommy was listening and nodding.
Beano handed the note to Ellen. She read it and stood up. "You can wait in Mr. Spencer's office while Miss Luna gets the approval for you to attend the meeting," she said, as she showed them to a nearby office.
They entered and looked out of the huge plate-glass window. Across the street, the Exxon double locking x's were shining. Ellen left them in the office and closed the door. Then she handed Beano's note to her husband, Steve. Rig a chill and play the cross-fire, the note read.
There was a computer in the office where they were waiting. Tommy watched as Beano turned it on and booted it up.
"I'm telling you," Alex went on relentlessly, "we can hold our dirt. If they're really in cash trouble, time is working for us, not against us."
Beano had the Quotron stock report up, and he motioned to Tommy and Alex.
"Look't this," he said, and he punched in FCP amp;G and they watched the stock ticker report. "This stock was trading at ten yesterday, this morning it's down to five and seven eighths and whoa, no… look't this…"
Tommy leaned in and, as they talked, he saw the stock drop from five and seven-eighths to five and three-fourths. Again, Victoria's program had overridden the real Quotron ticker, and Fentress County fell right before their eyes.
"This fucking thing is dropping faster than a bad tit job," Tommy said, glaring at the screen.
"Mr. Rina," Beano said, "I don't mean to stand here and argue with Mr. Cordosian, brilliant in legal matters as I'm sure he is, but I've been in the oil business for fifteen years. This stock is about to get frozen by the Vancouver Exchange. An insider is obviously dumping stock without notifying the Board. They've gotta be looking at this. A stock goes from ten to five and three-quarters, loses almost half its value in one day, and you don't think the Exchange is gonna stop trading and delist it? Once that happens, we are absolutely out of the game. Maybe your brother thinks if there's a clock in a deal there's a problem, but I'm sure he wasn't contemplating a foreign stock exchange taking the whole transaction out of our hands. We have one hell of an opportunity here. But we've gotta suck it up, be a little brave, and move now."
Then the door opened and Ellen Bates stuck her head in. "Miss Luna says you can join the stockholders' meeting. It's on the floor below, in the big conference room. I can show you down."
Tommy picked up his briefcase and they all followed her out of the office to the elevator.
The stockholders' meeting was more of a shouting match than a meeting. Miss Luna, a.k.a. Victoria Hart, was trying to maintain some control, but the Bates point-out players were screaming at her and each other.