“Girl!” he yelled, his voice echoing in the empty hall. The double doors at the far end opened, and one of the redheaded maids he kept as his personal fetish slid into the room.
“Yes, sir?” she asked in a honeyed drawl, her dark eyes and Hispanic coloring betraying the nature of her hair. “What can I do for you, Baron.”
“Plenty, mebbe…mebbe later,” he mumbled, before adding in a louder, clearer tone, “Get me more of this hooch, girl, and look lively about it.” With which he drained the jug and sent it spinning down the table toward her. She took it smoothly and turned without a word, exiting the room silently.
“Gaudy slut,” he mumbled under his breath. “Think I don’t know what y’all say about me when I’m not around? Think I can’t hear in this house?” he added in a shout, knowing that the cameras would pick him up. “Shit, just give me a sign,” he added inconsequentially.
He had just drained his glass when the door opened, and instead of the maid he was expecting, Crow entered with the jug of moonshine.
“Hellfire and damnation,” Baron Silas breathed, “I do believe sometimes that my old daddy was right, and there truly is a greater force.”
“That’s as may be,” Crow replied even though he knew it hadn’t been directed at him, “but my people could have told you that a long time ago.”
“There’s a lot of things your people could tell me if I choose to listen,” Silas snapped back. “But I’m only interested in listening to you right now. What’s been going on?”
“Plenty. The usual fighting among the workers and their families—”
“Shit, what do we expect? They all hate each other from a distance, let alone when they’re real uptight and close. It’s a wonder they ain’t all chilled each other already. Fuck ’em, as long as enough stay alive to open up the well.”
Crow bit hard on his tongue. To see these people’s hatred had a greater effect on him than on the cold-heart baron.
“Any of ’em tried to blow the well and got caught?” the baron asked.
“No, but there was an attempt to blow part of the refinery a few nights back.”
“What?” Baron Silas sat forward, knocking a dirty plate off the table as his feet clattered to the floor. “Why didn’t Myall tell me of this?”
” ‘Cause he didn’t know. Cawdor and his people stumbled on the attempt and chased off the saboteur. Didn’t get him ’cause he was using a wag. Mean bastard of a bomb he left, too. But J.B. managed to defuse it. Brave man, smart with it. Ran a check on the plas-ex used, and it didn’t come from works stocks. He reckons that mebbe it isn’t any of the workers.”
“So why didn’t they bring Myall in?” “Oh, they told him eventually, and he left it to me to report ’cause he knew I was headed here. But they had to check him and the rest of sec out first.”
“Shit, they didn’t trust him?”
“Isn’t that why you hired them? To trust no one?”
Baron Silas thought about it, then nodded soberly. “Yeah, of course. So what do they plan to do about it?”
“It’s an interesting kind of plan,” Crow said, drawing a map from his vest pocket. “I stopped off downstairs and got this map of the site from your study. Got me a pencil, as well,” he added as he produced a finely sharpened writing utensil. He spread the map out on the table and took an empty glass, then lifted the jug. “May I?” he asked. “This could take some time to explain.”
“You take all the time you need,” Baron Silas replied, indicating that Crow should pour some moonshine.
The Native American poured himself a glass and took a sip, feeling the burning spirit coruscate down his throat before warming his chest and the pit of his belly.
He took a deep breath, then started to draw lines on the map, marking in the twelve points J.B. had identified as being weak spots, and explaining the way that Ryan intended to cover the ground with only seven people. It took him almost an hour and several glasses of moonshine to explain fully the way in which Ryan and his companions had been operating at the work site and camp, and the way in which they intended to operate.