A Cold-Blooded Business (5 page)

The philodendron was having a bad day. "The Federal Energy Regulatory Committee says that eating a lunch at RPetco's Base Camp free of charge constitutes taking a bribe," Cale Yarborough barked. "They insist on paying." "Paying who?" Toni asked with polite interest. "And how much?"

"Find out goddammit do I have to do every goddam thing around this goddam place myself?" The question was obviously rhetorical because he slammed out again without waiting for a reply.

Toni frowned, marring her perfect brow with a furrow of concentration.

After a moment it smoothed out again. She picked up the phone and dialed, and winked at Kate while waiting for an answer. "Francine?" she said, her voice smooth and syrupy and now entirely without haste.

"The Federal Energy Regulatory Committee says there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. They insist on paying for theirs when they come up."

Kate could clearly hear the exasperated voice coming over the receiver from where she sat. "Oh, for God's sake. How much is lunch on the Slope and how are they going to pay, cash or check? Do we ask for two pieces of identification? Do we accept out-of-state checks? And what the hell are we supposed to do with the money once we have it?" "Find out," Toni suggested sweetly. "Do I have to do every goddam thing around this goddam place myself?" She hung up with a flourish and grinned at Kate.

"Another challenge faced another crisis met another problem solved delegation is the life's blood of any young executive in the oil business, remember that {Catherine and you'll do fine."

Kate's ear must have finally caught up with Toni's voice because she thought she might actually have detected a comma in that last phrase.

The phone rang and Toni snatched it up. "Yes yes yes no not now have a little patience call me tonight."

Then again, maybe not.

Toni hung up and the door slammed open and a Fury erupted into the middle of the room. Nobody knocked in this place.

The Fury had a face like Early Simon and an accent like LBJ. She was dressed in a white, three-quarter-length jacket that made her look like she was about to produce a syringe and draw blood. "There it is!" she yelped, pointing at the Benjamin fig tree. "I knew that lying sack of shit took it!" She saw Kate, mouth open, and said furiously, "And just who the hell are you?"

Kate tried an ingratiating smile. "Um--Kate Shugak?" "Well?" the Fury demanded. "Is you or ain't you?"

Toni intervened. "Katherine Shugak, new hire roustabout, Ann Mccord head steward what's the problem Ann?"

The Fury rounded on her ferociously. "The problem is that goddam alternate of yours stole that fig tree for the second time this month!

I ain't got enough to do training Hump to eat Deputy Dawg's lunch without chasing after my damn plants?" She leveled a finger and commanded, "Y'all tell that prick if he steals one more plant outa the lounge he's dead meat! The same goes double for y'all!" She bent over the planter tub and, cursing loudly, shoved it out the door. She poked her head back in and said politely, "Nice to meet y'all, Katherine.

Welcome to the Prudhoe Hilton. Toni?"

"Yes, Ann?" Toni said meekly.

Ann looked from Toni to Kate and back again. "Never mind." Toni smiled.

"Call me later."

The door slammed shut and naturally banged open again immediately. By now both Kate and the philodendron were used to it and barely flinched.

The man caught the door on its backswing. He wore insulated bib overalls, heavy boots and carried a parka. He had a thin face with sharp features and intense dark eyes. Those eyes widened when they saw Kate, but before either of them could speak Toni had risen to her feet and come around her desk, hand outstretched. "Otto. How nice to see you again."

He took her hand automatically, shaking it with his eyes still fixed on Kate, his expression hard to read. It wasn't male speculation of female availability, nor, Kate decided, was it the instinctive withdrawal of one race from another, she'd seen that too many times not to spot it on sight.

"Otto Leckerd, meet Katherine Shugak. Katherine's our newest roustabout.

Katherine, this is Prudhoe Bay's resident archaeologist."

"It's Kate, actually, not Katherine," Kate said, patiently for her. So that was it. She hadn't seen that look since college and Anthropology

101, no wonder she hadn't recognized it for what it was.

"Shugak." He affirmed her judgment with his first words. "You're Aleut."

It wasn't a question, but she nodded. Before she could dodge back out of the way he raised a long-fingered hand tipped with grimy fingernails and turned her head to examine her profile. "Classic. With those cheekbones and that forehead you'd have to be from the Aleutians. With a name like Shugak, maybe Kodiak?"

Being viewed as a specimen by a potential collector was not a new experience and never a pleasant one. Kate removed her chin from Leckerd's grasp. "Actually, my family comes from the Kanuyaq River and Prince William Sound."

"World War II relocation," he said instantly, and it galled her no end that he was right. Still, she was interested. "What's an archaeologist doing in Prudhoe Bay?"

"The Eskimos used to have a summer hunting camp on Tode Point. It turns out it used to be a place the local tribes met for kivgiq, a--" "A dance celebration," Kate said, "yes, I know. Interesting. I'd like to see it while I'm up here, if I may?"

An odd expression Kate couldn't quite define flickered across Leckerd's face. He hesitated, exchanging a glance with Hartzler, who said smoothly, "Oh, I don't see why not, Otto, do you? It really is the most interesting place, I'm sure you'll enjoy it."

Beneath her dewy-eyed gaze and dimpled smile Otto Leckerd forgot Kate's existence. They shook hands but to Kate's inquisitive eyes the prolonged gesture seemed more of a caress than a greeting. When she saw Toni's thumb brush Otto's wrist, and saw Otto come to attention like a setter on point, all alert and aquiver, she was sure of it.

"Did your people make it up all right?" Toni asked him, turning the question from prosaic to intimate with the twist of a vowel.

He nodded dumbly without releasing her hand. To Kate's critical eye he looked perilously close to drooling.

With a husky little chuckle Toni disentangled herself. "Where are they, in the lounge?" She had to repeat the question. "Is your crew in the lounge, Otto?"

Otto shook himself like a setter coming out of the water. "Yeah, they're in the lounge."

Toni beamed at him. "How nice. Shall we pick them up and get some lunch?" She tucked a companionable hand into his arm and they strolled into the corridor, Kate a forgotten third bringing up the rear. "I have a tour this afternoon, would your people like to come along? I don't believe any of them have been to the Slope before, have they?"

The corridor opened onto the first floor of the main module for the Base Camp, and Kate was surprised at how open it was. To the right was a game room filled with pool tables and shuffleboard and lined with booths upholstered in red. There was a long, rectangular window on the back wall of the game room and through it Kate saw a large body of water. The pool, she guessed, the site of Chuck Cass's last lap.

To the left was a lounge dotted with low modular furniture, cubical tables and brass lamps. A large shelf lined with books stood in a far corner. Between the two rooms and directly in front of them was an atrium with, if Kate's eyes did not deceive her, real birch trees growing behind glass and extending up through a hole in the ceiling into the next floor. Behind that was an open double door, through which came a hum of voices and the clink of dishes and the enticing aroma of a deep-fat fryer.

In the lounge four people rose to their feet and Otto introduced them around. "Chris Heller, Kevin Woolley, Rebecca Bean, Karen Clark. This is Toni Hartzler, our lifeline to RPetco. Oh, and Kate Shugak." Four pairs of bright, inquisitive eyes focused on Kate. "I'm sorry, what was it you do up here?" "Besides be Aleut," one of them said, and looked to Leckerd for approval, and got it.

"Let's get some lunch, shall we?" Toni said briskly.

"Wait a minute," Kate said. "Mind telling me why I'm here?"

Toni looked at her, puzzled. "Harris gave me to understand you were my new driver."

"And you do what?" Kate inquired.

"I'm the flack." At Kate's bewildered look, Toni elaborated. "The North Slope public relations representative." Kate still looked blank.

"The tour guide."

"Oh."

"And you're my new driver. You'll be driving the bus for me on tours."

Kate remembered the bus ride from the airport and experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Oh."

Something in her voice gave warning. Toni raised one perfectly groomed eyebrow. "You do know how to drive a bus, don't you?"

Kate took a breath and held it. "Let's put it this way." She met Toni's eyes. "I will by tonight."

Toni's feet slowed naturally to a halt as they joined the lunch line, and Kate broke off eye contact when she nearly ran into the person in front of her, a burly man who was staring at the salad bar with a pensive expression on his square, seamed face. She followed his gaze, to encounter the un winking stare of a small green turtle peering out of a large bowl of romaine lettuce in the center of the serving table.

They regarded each other in silence for a moment. The man stirred and reached a hand forward to move a leaf to one side, disclosing a gold, five-pointed badge painted on the turtle's shell. "Deputy Dawg, I presume," he said, giving a small, courteous bow. "Pardon me." He employed the salad tongs to transfer romaine to his plate, careful not to disturb Deputy Dawg's comfy little nest, and moved on to the three varieties of salad dressing at the end of the counter.

Kate, agape, stared from the turtle to the receding back of the man to Toni, who shrugged with elaborate unconcern. "He's a photographer for National Geographic." She handed Kate a plate. Kate took it automatically. "Take some salad if you're going to, you're holding up the line."

They left immediately after lunch, archaeologists in tow, but they did not go directly to the airport. On their way out of the Base Camp, Cale Yarborough charged down the front staircase three steps at a time bellowing, "Hartzler goddammit the line's back at Crazy horse I want those broads off the Slope by sundown take care of it!"

He crashed back up the stairs without waiting for a reply. Toni looked at the security guard seated behind the window before the front door, who shrugged in reply. "Don't look mean at me. I volunteered to escort them off the field. So did the safety supervisor. So did the production supervisor. So did the communications supervisor, the transportation supervisor, the--"

"Okay okay I get it," Toni said. "Dammit it's not like I don't have anything else to do." She held the door for Kate. "I guess we're tossing you in at the deep end today Kate hold your breath."

Kate walked through the door with the distinct feeling of a lamb being led to the slaughter.

To her relief, the big blue fifty-six-passenger bus proved easier to handle than she had feared, although she soon learned to treat the soft shoulders of the Backbone with respect, and to swing very wide for turns. The weather was a uniform dirty white, ground, clouds and fog, and she knew a steadily growing gratitude for the fluorescent markers on four-foot sticks planted every ten feet at the side of the road.

There were moments when the next marker was all she could see. She would have driven right by the turnoff to Crazyhorse if Toni hadn't caught her in time. Thank God. The last thing she wanted to do was try to back it up.

Crazyhorse Camp was a collection of Atco trailers arranged in wings off a main corridor, and looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since its arrival on the Slope. Kate picked her way distastefully around a spill of popcorn, most of which had been ground into the cigarette-scarred carpet whose brown color was not improved by either. She followed Toni down the hall and into a corridor and up some stairs. A line of men had formed at the bottom of those stairs, wound up both flights and extended down the hall. One of them caught sight of Toni and groaned.

"Oh, shit, guys, it's Hartzler."

There was a chorus of boos and whistles and catcalls. Toni beamed at one and all and put a little extra sashay into her walk as she and Kate proceeded down the second story main hallway. The line of men (Kate, counting heads, estimated at least a hundred) had widened to three deep by the time they came to a stop in front of a door. The man closest to that door saw Toni and swore loud, long and with a facility Kate was forced to admire. When he ran out of breath he said bitterly,

"Goddamnit, Hartzler, why do you always get here just when I get to the goddam door?"

"What's the matter, Bill, your subscription to Playboy run out?" Toni asked innocently.

The man swore again and stamped off. Everyone else stayed put, staring at Toni out of hangdog faces that reminded Kate of nothing so much as a bunch of hungry bloodhounds. They made her feel slightly guilty, though as yet she had no idea why.

Ignoring them all, Toni knocked on the door. There was no answer. She knocked again. "Belle? It's Toni Hartzler. Come on, I know you're in there, open up."

After a moment the door cracked. A large, round blue eye peered out.

It encountered Toni and paused. There was a long sigh, and the door opened farther, to expose a six foot platinum blonde in a minuscule leather cowboy vest, a minuscule, pleated leather skirt and matching cowboy boots. A tiny cowboy hat perched precariously on top of all that platinum hair, and there was a tiny toy pistol strapped to her waist in a tiny leather holster and a five-pointed star pinned to the vest over her left breast. There was a lot more breast than there was vest. Kate sternly repressed what she assured herself was merely a momentary feeling of inadequacy that would soon pass, and wondered if they were real.

"Well, shoot?" the cowgirl said in a breathy blond voice. She spoke Deep Southrun, ending every sentence with a question mark. Her foot gave a petulant stomp, the front of the vest bounced, and the next man in line sighed like he was in love. "We was just selling a few I'll' of' magazine subscriptions? What could it hurt?"