The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(24)

He went down to the Seven Seas in the evening and sat at the barstool against the wall. Janice opened a bottle of beer and slid it to him. Your buddy’s back there, she said.

He raised up to see over the heads of the bar drinkers. Oiler was sitting at a table by himself. He got up and took his beer and went back. Bobby boy, Oiler said.

What are you doing?

Waitin on my hamburger. Sit down. You want one? I’m buyin.

Sure.

Go tell him. I aint gettin up.

Western walked out to the grill on the patio. Make it two, he said.

Two what.

Hamburgers.

He’s havin a cheeseburger.

Okay.

Cheeseburger?

Sure.

Everthing?

Yeah.

Fries?

Fries.

He went back in and kicked back the chair and sat. Where’s all the crazies?

Oiler looked around the room. I dont know. Maybe they finally came and seined em up and hauled em off.

You been reading the papers?

I have. I just started.

You have any notion how a three million dollar jet aircraft can wind up in the Gulf of Mexico with nine people dead in it and it doesnt get reported in the paper?

I was fixin to ask you that.

I had some visitors the other evening.

At your place?

Yeah.

You had a breakin?

Why would you think that?

Just the way you said it.

No. Two guys in suits. They sort of looked like Mormon missionaries.

What did they want?

I dont know. They asked me about the plane. They said that one of the passengers was missing.

You’re shittin me.

Western sipped his beer.

You aint shittin me.

No.

I got to suppose that they know who it is that’s missing.

Yeah, I suppose they wouldnt know that without knowing who was present. Or would they?

They might. What? They think we know where this dude is?

I dont know. What I do know is that anytime some squirrelly crap such as this comes up it seldom travels alone.

Oiler leaned with his elbows on the table. All right. They know how many people were on the plane because we said how many.

I dont think so.

You’re makin my fuckin head hurt. What did they say about the Jepp case?

They said it was missing.

And they know this how? You’re not jerking my chain about any of this shit are you?

No. Why would I?

I dont know. You got a twisted mind.

Not that twisted.

Missionaries.

Yeah.

I’m beginning to get an ugly feeling about this.

I thought you already had one.

Uglier, then. More ugly?

Uglier.

Anyway, I got some advice for you. But then you probably already know what it is.

I do.

You go back out there to look around and these missionaries are going to be moving in with you.

I set some little traps for them. If they come back I’ll know they’ve been there.

Sure. Then what?

I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.

You already have. When are you going down to Port Sulphur?

Monday. I think.

You dont mind diving the river.

I dont like it. But no. I can do it.

Why is that? It’s as dark as anywhere else.

It’s not just the dark. It’s the deep.

How dark it is is what tells you how deep it is.

Maybe. I knew a guy who dove the Indian Ocean where he said the light was good to five hundred feet. He said you’d get vertigo when you looked down. But he still couldnt dive it. And it wasnt because he ran out of light.

Well. He ran out of something.

How did we get on my phobias?

Hell, Western. If it wasnt for your phobias I wouldnt fuck with you at all. Here we go.

The frycook set their plates on the table with the cheeseburgers and took a bottle of mustard and one of ketchup from either armpit and salt and pepper from the rear pockets of his rancid jeans. What else? he said.

I think we’re covered.

Oiler looked at the plastic jar of mustard and then reached for it and opened his cheeseburger and squirted the mustard. In for a dollar, he said.

You cant get a decent cheeseburger in a clean restaurant. Once they start sweeping the floor and washing the dishes with soap it’s pretty much over.

Oiler nodded and sat chewing. Well, these sumbitches are pretty damned good, so there you go.

Best cheeseburger I ever ate was at the lunchcounter at Comer’s Pool Hall on Gay Street in Knoxville Tennessee. You couldnt get the grease off your fingers with gasoline. You still havent told me where you’re going.

Yeah, I know. We’re goin to Venezuela.

When.

Week and a half. He held up two fingers. After a while two more beers arrived. Western watched him. What’s the job? he said.

We’re goin down there to replace a run of old flange joints that’re leaking. The Taylor barge left two days ago and I expect we’ll be gone a while.

How long a while.

I dont know. Probably two months.

You cut out the joints and weld in a pup joint.

That’s right. Then you got a completely welded pipe. No problems. Taylor developed all the technology. We did the first hyperbaric welded joints on a pipeline in the North Sea about sixty miles out of Peterhead. Not that long ago. You’ve never been there.