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He definitely looked like the type of guy I’d love to have hot sex with, then send home right after. Not relationship material. Bad boy material. And I knew all about bad boys. I married one.
Mom spotted me and said, “Pink, this is Ed.”
I stuck my hand out to shake his and smiled politely. At least I think it was polite. Feeling his huge, warm hand wrap around mine was very stimulating. I may have leered at him, but I’m not sure. The hot sun and the Coronas and my complete lack of a love life over the past year and a half all added up to a few lightning-bolt zings in the vicinity of my hootus. So maybe I did leer at him and probably held his hand too long. He smiled back and mumbled something like, “Nice t’ meet you.”
I finally let go of his hand and we stood there, eyeing each other like moose in mating season. Hmm. Nice body. Good teeth. Smells awesome. For a minute, I wished I was a moose. Then we could go get it on and no one would think anything about it.
But alas, I wasn’t a moose. And Mom was right there, noticing all the animal attraction and clearing her throat, as if to say, Back off you two and save the drooling for later.
I turned to glance at her and noticed her eyes, those dark, flashing Mom eyes, said, See, I told you so.
Mom loves to say “I told you so.” Most times, I don’t care. It gives her a charge, so why not? Other times, it really ticks me. This was one of those times. I decided not to like Ed, just to show her she wasn’t always right. Looking up at him, I asked casually, “So, Ed, what’s with you not paying your taxes?” I ignored Mom’s sharp breath.
He never so much as blinked. “I forgot.”
“And the IRS bought that?”
“No. They bought that I’ve never made that much money before and didn’t realize I needed to pay in quarterly.”
“So, how much did you make?”
“Whitney Ann!” Mom said in a take-no-prisoners voice, “Stop asking such personal questions and behave yourself!”
Ed still didn’t look away, or appear one bit concerned. “A little over five million.”
“Musta been a good case. Who’d you sue?”
“Marvel Energy.”
Just like that, he got me, right between the eyes. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”
He smiled then. Grinned, actually. “Loved it. Wanna go for round two?”
“Maybe later. I’m starving.”
Mom looked ready to wring my neck, but she didn’t say anything else, or call me Whitney Ann! again. We sat down in her elegant dining room and ate fajitas out of a foil pan and talked about the Midland school board and their latest attempts to pass a gigantic school bond. Ed wasn’t as dumb as he was a slob. In fact, he seemed very intelligent.
By the end of supper, I knew I needed to steer clear of him. He was an accident waiting to happen, and I was doomed to be the sole casualty. My ex-husband, George, was just like Ed. Well, except that George was a mechanic and Ed was a lawyer. But other than that…And I suppose Ed did have better manners. George would never have asked if Mom and I would like more iced tea as he got up to pour himself another glass. George would have grunted, pointed his fork at his glass and waited for me to jump up and get it. He got away with that exactly once. After that, he waited so long, his ice melted.
Ed poured more tea into my glass, then Mom’s, and retook his chair. “Tell me about Marvel Energy and the senate finance committee.”
“What? Don’t you watch CNN? I’m the flavor of the week. Me and Senator Santorelli. They’ve got me sleeping with him.”
“Well, he is very attractive,” Mom said. “And he’s single now, since his wife passed away. You know the media loves him, and they really get off on pairing him up with single women.”
“I don’t even know the man. And I don’t think he’s the least bit attractive.”
“Why?” Mom frowned at me over her fajita stuffed tortilla.
“Gee, let me count the ways. Could it be because he made me tell the entire United States about Mister Bob?”
“He meant well. How could he have known about Mister Bob?”
She had a point, but I was not in the mood to be understanding. I refocused on Ed’s face. His very attractive, manly face, with a five-o’clock shadow and really nice brown eyes. “What do you want to know that isn’t already out there?”
He swallowed his drink of tea, set the glass down and said easily, “I want to know how you knew about the memos and how you got them.”
Sitting back in my chair, I stared at him for a long time.
“You’re going to have to trust me,” Ed said.
I took a long drink of tea. Would he believe me? Or would he be like Mr. Dryer and Barbara Clemmons and assume I was as guilty as the partners at the firm? I supposed there was only one way to find out. “When I discovered the enormous amount of debt Marvel carries off the books, and how close the company was to defaulting on those loans, I went to Lowell and told him. He said I should forget the loans, that I should just conduct the audit and make sure I had workpapers to back up clean financials.”
“He told you to lie?”
“Only a lot. That’s when I knew he’d set me up. He promoted me and put me in charge of the audit so when the news broke that Marvel is basically bankrupt, I’d be in the hot seat. I’d get my license jerked for gross negligence while Lowell stood back and acted like he had no clue. The firm would stay in business and my career would be history. I was the sacrificial lamb.”
“He didn’t count on you blowing the whistle.”
“Not hardly. Or maybe he just thought I wasn’t smart enough to figure it all out. The day I suggested we should go to the SEC with what I’d found, he went ballistic. I told him I was gonna do it, and he fired me. The next day, I turned over copies of Marvel’s debt instruments to the SEC, thinking they’d investigate, fine the company and demand they clean up their act. Instead, they asked me a lot of questions about how we’d conducted the audit in the past, about how much debt Marvel had during those years and how we missed it. That’s when it dawned on me, Marvel had been hiding debt at least three years before the current year, and Lowell must have known all along. That’s when I knew we weren’t just talking about losing a CPA license. We were talking about criminal charges against any of the management who worked on the Marvel audit during the past several years, including me. By blowing the whistle on Marvel, I’d basically set myself up. No way anyone would believe I wasn’t aware of the cover-up.”
Ed gave me a funny look and I held my breath. He had to believe me. If he didn’t, how could I hire him to represent me, to help me get through the next hearing?
“If you’d realized the hidden debt was there in years past, would you still have gone to the SEC?”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitating. “It all would have come out eventually because Marvel didn’t have the income they needed to pay off the loans, but I hoped I could get things straightened out before they had to declare bankruptcy. I hoped I could keep the stock from losing all of its value.”
“Even if it meant putting yourself on the line?”
“Even then, but I didn’t realize my position until I went to the SEC and they started asking a lot of questions. I was scared to death, and figured my only hope was to find something that proved the deal was between Lowell and the CFO and CEO at Marvel, which would go a long way toward proving me and the others who worked on the audit had no clue about the debt.”
“The memos,” Mom said, her dark eyes wide.
“As it turned out, there were memos, but for all I knew, it could have been on the back of a cocktail napkin. I went to the office late one night, got in with a key card I swiped and hit pay dirt. I called the SEC the following morning and set up an appointment to deliver one of the disk copies a couple of days later. They asked if I was willing to testify in front of the finance committee and I said I’d have to consult an attorney. I hired Mr. Dryer, and he set up a deal that I’d have immunity from any prosecution, if it came to that, in exchange for my testimony. When the disks were ripped off, I didn’t want to admit it, thinking I might still be able to get my hands on the Mister Bob copy.”
“Do you think they offered the deal because of the memos?”
“Mr. Dryer said so. He says if I don’t get the last disk, they’ll withdraw immunity and I can be prosecuted along with Lowell and the other principals at the firm.”
“Santorelli made it sound like they can’t prosecute anyone without the memos,” Mom said, her face pale. “If you don’t turn them over, they can’t prosecute you, so why does it matter? You don’t need immunity.”
I hadn’t counted on Mom being so difficult. “I lucked out when I found those memos, and I’m sure they’ve been destroyed by now, but there may be other letters, or e-mails or something they can use to bring charges against the firm. It may even become obvious that the firm signed off on fraudulent financial statements. I have no idea, Mom.”
“You can’t be prosecuted if you’re innocent!”
“I’m afraid she can,” Ed said in a deep, calm voice. “Guilt by association. She might not be found guilty, but she can certainly be prosecuted.”
Mom rubbed her hand across her forehead. “What a nightmare.” She looked at Ed and said, “And as if it’s not bad enough, she’s got some maniac after her.”
“Maniac?” He turned a questioning look toward me.
I explained about the loft, the car and the missing copies of the disk, but before I could finish, Mom went off about the Dog Doo Stalker.
I ate my fajitas and didn’t add anything. I didn’t need to.
“…and after she went to the SEC, he started calling in the middle of the night, threatening to kill her if she gives the disk to the finance committee. I told her, she should get rid of the disk, but she insists…”
I tuned her out by wondering if Ed was married, or had a girlfriend. I wasn’t interested in starting a relationship or anything like that, but I’d been alone a long time, and something about Ed really punched my buttons.
When Mom was on the verge of foaming at the mouth about the danger I was in, Ed held up his hand and stopped her. Turning to look at me, he asked, “Do you have any clue who he is?”
I slanted a “duh” look at him. “Because of me, at least fifteen men are about to lose their jobs, and some of them may be starting new careers making license plates in the joint.”
“You think one of the Marvel executives, or a partner at your firm may be behind all this?”
I shrugged. “Stands to reason, doesn’t it? They have the most to lose.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s true.” He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll represent you, Pink, but you have to agree not to talk to anyone at Marvel. They have a branch office here in Midland, so you’re likely to run into some of the employees. And do not tell anyone where Mister Bob is right now. After what I discovered during the lawsuit against Marvel, I don’t trust any of them. This is the big leagues. The dog shit dude is a nuisance, but these guys mean business. One wrong move, one small leak of information, one hint that all you’ve got can be taken, and you could be playing a harp.”
He managed to scare me spitless. I shot a look at Mom and felt an enormous guilt trip for freaking her out so badly. Her food forgotten, she sat back in her chair and stared a hole through me, a couple of fat tears rolling down her pretty cheeks. “Jesus, Mom, don’t cry.”
“How can I help it? This is like getting mixed up with the mob.”
Ed took a drink of his tea and set the glass down carefully. “Worse. This is worse. At least with the Mafia, you know who the bad guys are.”
Early the next morning, I stopped by the donut shop on the way downtown to buy a couple dozen for the office. In spite of their outward friendliness the day before, after the smoke bomb, I was afraid they all either hated my guts, or were scared to death to be anywhere close to me. So I thought maybe donuts would make everyone happy. Hell, I wasn’t above buying friends.
With that in mind, I pulled into the parking lot next to the Donut King and went inside, my mouth immediately watering from the yeasty scent. As I stood at the case, deciding which round pieces of fried dough I should get, I heard a man behind me say, “Glory be, look who it is! Pink, is that you?”
I turned and smiled, and even though I remembered Ed’s warning about not talking to any of the employees, there was no way I could turn away from one of the nicest guys at Marvel. “Roy! How are you?”
“Never better.” We shook hands. “I came from Dallas to Marvel’s Midland office for my monthly meeting, and I had to stop off at the Donut King. Really love their donuts.”
Making myself not look down at the evidence of his love affair with the Donut King, I simply said, “Who doesn’t?”
Roy chuckled, then slowly sobered. “You know, Pink, we’re all rooting for you at Marvel. Took a lot of guts to do what you did, and even though it’ll shake things up at the company, it’s a good thing. I think the only ones who’re upset with you are the execs, and the way I see it, they were about due for a comeuppance.”
“Thanks, Roy.” I smiled again, and wanted to throw my arms around him, I was so grateful for any morsel of support. Roy Kipper had always been amiable, and a big help to me and the staff during the audits. He managed the revenue distribution division at Marvel’s head office in Dallas. “Can I buy you lunch today? It’d be like old times.”
Reaching up, he smoothed back the patches of hair growing on either side of his otherwise bald head. “No can do, but thanks for the offer. We’re having a big powwow about maybe closing the Midland office, and since I’m gonna have to be the bad guy, I need to stick around.”
My spirits sank again and I nodded my understanding. “I’m sorry, Roy.”
“Hey, that’s the way it goes. I’m not an executive, but I’m upper management, and a year from retiring, so bein’ the bad guy sort of fell on me. Hate to do it, but the company needs to tighten its belt if we’ve got a prayer of stayin’ up.” He smiled at me and patted my shoulder. “Good to see you, Pink.”
I watched him leave and it was another five minutes before I could order my donuts because I was so choked up. It made me furious, Lowell and the Marvel brass’s greed and complete disregard for anyone else. People would lose their jobs, and investors would lose their savings. It all made me sick, and I felt guilty because I was the one who started the fall of their house of cards.
By the time I got to the office, it was about eight-twenty. I came in balancing the boxes of donuts and a few of my desk things and said hello to Tiffany. Her pretty blue eyes widened like she was afraid and I thought, geez, they’re only donuts. “You want a donut?”
“Goodness, no,” she said, “I never eat donuts.”
Of course she didn’t eat donuts. She was skin and bones. I turned and headed toward the break room, where I left the donuts, then went to get started on the Shankses’ project.
Within an hour, I had several things figured out, but most of it only led to a longer laundry list of questions. For one thing, there were quite a few checks to a company called Birds in Flight. Sixth sense told me there was something behind those checks, that they had something to do with Bert’s shady dealings. The endorsements on the back were no help, simply a stamped For Deposit Only, followed by an account number. The Birds in Flight bank was in Miami, which I thought was peculiar. I couldn’t think of any oil-related companies based in Miami.
With my methodical approach to the project, I came up with ten different ways to prove Bert Shanks was cheating his cousin. Problem was, all but one of them required information I didn’t have and wasn’t likely to get, because it was all information Bert would have. Even if Bert wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, I didn’t think he’d hand over information that would prove he was a crook.
So I’d have to go with the tenth plan, which involved staking out the pipe yard and waiting to see who bought the new pipe from Bert. The buyer wouldn’t hire a trucking company to drive out and pick up a load of what amounted to black market pipe, so chances were good they used their own vehicle to transport the pipe. Once I had a license plate number, I would go from there. If I was really squirrelly, the truck might have a company name painted on it.
I decided to go check out Shanks Resources’ equipment yard, but on the way out of the office, I thought I’d snag one of the donuts I’d yet to eat. As I walked toward the break room, I passed Tiffany and noticed what looked suspiciously like cinnamon sugar stuck to her lip gloss. I was polite and pretended not to notice. Then I got in the break room and saw both boxes of donuts were empty and wished I’d said something to her like, “When you said you never eat donuts, you meant before ten, didn’t you? Once ten o’clock rolls around, it’s a free-for-all, right?” I was so hungry, even Mom’s raspberry infused sawdust diet bars started to look tasty. Resigned to my fate, I grabbed one and left the office.
I drove out the Rankin highway, to the south side of Midland, where a lot of oil companies have yards. Most of them are several acres of scrubby land, enclosed by metal fences, and at any one time, there might be a couple of pumpjacks, a few tanks, extra pipe or wellhead equipment scattered around, looking rusty and old. When a well depletes and stops producing economically, it has to be plugged, but all the equipment is saved for whenever a new well is drilled and proven to be productive. Or the old equipment is sold off. Either way, it ends up in somebody’s yard until it’s needed again.
The Shankses’ yard was farther out, actually outside of the city limits, away from the highway by a couple of miles. It was the perfect setup for a cheating partner. I drove around, looking for a spot to park when it was dark, where I could see what was going on, but no one could see me. I was glad the Mercedes was black and that it was an SUV, although it groaned a lot when I ran over a stump, and I had the sneaking suspicion it wasn’t really made for off-road. But how could I have known I’d need an off-road vehicle when I bought it a year ago? The farthest off-road I ever got was the parking lot at Northpark Mall.
I found a good spot behind a cluster of mesquites and made a mental map so I’d know how to get there in the dark, without headlights. Driving back around, I cruised through the Shankses’ yard, scoping out their equipment, particularly the pipe. There were several strings of brand-new pipe, already strapped and ready for delivery to a rig.
From the bills of lading, I knew the pipe had been delivered the day before yesterday, so it was a good bet Bert would be selling it off soon. If I was lucky, that very night.
After congratulating myself for being so clever about the whole thing, I headed off to look for an apartment. I knew Mom would go ballistic and tell me it was too dangerous, not to mention I was silly to pay rent when I could live with her for free. But I had to have some space, sans Mom.
I saw five apartments before I found one, and it wasn’t anything to write home about, but it would do. On the second floor, it was a one-bedroom, furnished with cheesy, cheap furniture, including a scratchy couch with wooden arms supported by half wagon wheels. The grounds were well tended, and although there was no pool, there was a small duck pond, complete with a cutesy sign that said Duck Xing. I never did see any ducks.
After signing a six-month lease, I paid the deposit, then went to get my hair cut. I headed for Mabel’s House of Beauty to see if anyone could squeeze me in.
Mabel’s is one of those old-time beauty parlors, housed in a tired shopping center storefront, with avocado-green linoleum floors and faded photographs of the nineteen-sixty-five Junior League Charity Ball marching around the walls. Every picture features some of Midland’s leading ladies in their glory days, all with Mabel’s House of Beauty bouffant hair-dos, thick eyeliner and elbow-length evening gloves.
When I stepped inside, I was greeted by the whirs of multiple hair dryers, female chatter, a ringing telephone and Buck Owens on the stereo. It was like stepping back in time. I’m pretty sure I was the only woman under fifty.
The receptionist, a short, stout woman with a name tag that read Bessie, smiled warmly. “Can I help you, hon?”
“I don’t have an appointment, but I need to get my hair cut.”
Bessie nodded enthusiastically. “We’ve got a new gal, Dot, and she just happens to be free right now.”
I followed Bessie to the back of the shop, toward Dot’s station. Dot was maybe the skinniest woman I’d ever met, with a deep smoker’s voice and coal-black hair, the kind of dyed black that looks blue in fluorescent lighting. We chatted a bit while she washed my hair, and I discovered Dot was from Big Spring, that her husband died and left her no money, so she had to go back to work, and even though she was “right mad at him” at first, now she figured he’d done her a favor because she’d made so many new friends at Mabel’s.
While she snipped my hair, she rambled on about her grandkids and her Buick and George W. and the best recipe for King Ranch chicken. I didn’t pay close attention, but I was listening, sort of zoning out with the buzz of the sounds in the shop and Dot’s smoky voice.
I guess that’s why I started so violently when someone shouted, “Lord a Mercy! It’s pink!”
“Sugar, you shouldn’t jump like that,” Dot said from behind me. “I cut a bit too much when you moved.”
Her words didn’t fully register, I was so fascinated with the scene unfolding two stations away. The woman I’d thought yelled my name was actually talking about her hair, a big, fluffy mass of cotton-candy pink. She was righteously pissed off.
“Goodness,” Dot said, “looks like Miz Colder’s on a tear again. Reckon she’d learn her lesson after last time.”
“Last time?”
