Finnegan's week

CHAPTER 10

When Jules Temple arrived at the office of Burl Ralston he thought he was in command of his emotions, yet Jules was unaccountably warm on an October day when the cool offshore air signaled the end of a long summer. His forest-green shirt was open at the throat now, and one of his neatly rolled coat sleeves had come unrolled.

“Something wrong with Friday’s pickup?” Burl Ralston asked, the moment Jules entered his office.

The old man had just come in from the warehouse and was still wearing a blue hard hat. He was a big man, a bit stooped, but still a hard worker. He removed his trifocal glasses and wiped them when he sat down, noting that Jules’s smile was less smarmy than usual.

“Can I see the EPA copy of the manifest?” Jules asked. “And your copy?”

Burl Ralston opened his desk drawer and removed an envelope, using a scissor blade to cut it open. “I was going to mail this today. What’s wrong, Jules?”

“My truck got stolen a few hours after my haulers picked up your drum. There was some North Island waste in it as well as yours.”

“Too bad about the truck,” Burl Ralston said. “But I don’t see what …”

“You did read the manifest on Friday, didn’t you, Burl?” Jules asked, pressing his fingertips together in that annoying way of his.

“I glanced at it, sure,” Burl Ralston said, pretending he didn’t know what Jules was driving at.

Jules’s smile darkened then, and the light through the office window made Burl Ralston realize how much he disliked Jules Temple’s affectations. Jules wasn’t as young as he dressed, not as young as his haircut. Fortyish, he seemed too old for the little yellow sports car he drove, and Burl Ralston didn’t even like Jules’s rich-boy teeth.

Then Jules said, “Of course you read it. You signed it in the presence of my two haulers.”

“You prepared it,” Burl said, taking off his hard hat, baring a bald splotchy scalp.

“I don’t deny that I prepared it,” Jules said. “You asked me to. You said you were too busy with your own paperwork.”

“I asked you to? No, you offered. You asked for my EPA identification number and I gave it to you over the phone. Remember?”

“Why quibble?” Jules said, delicately tugging at his trouser creases before crossing his legs. Jules had a prissiness that always made Burl Ralston uncomfortable. Jules had once hinted that he’d been a Green Beret in Vietnam, but Burl Ralston didn’t believe that he’d even been in the military.

“What difference does it make if you typed the manifest or if I typed it?” Burl asked. “I admit I signed it.”

“Admit that you read it then,” Jules said. “Particularly item eleven.”

Burl picked up the EPA’s copy of the uniform hazardous waste manifest and read aloud: “Waste flammable liquid.” Then he said, “Okay, that’s maybe a technically correct description for Guthion that’s been accidentally mixed with a little weed oil.”

“Technically correct?” Jules said.

“But it’s not morally correct because I told you it was Guthion. You should’ve described it as Guthion. I think I see where you’re going with this conversation, Jules.”

“I described it exactly like you described it to me.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Burl, you signed off on the manifest. Look at your signature. Is Sacramento going to accept that you didn’t go along with a morally incorrect description of the hazardous waste?”

“I think you better leave, Jules.”

“Even if the EPA believed that you told me it was Guthion, you obviously went along with the morally incorrect description because you got a very good bid from me to haul and dispose of the stuff. For which you paid cash to my haulers. Didn’t you read item nine? Look at the designated facility: a refinery in Los Angeles. Since when can Guthion be disposed of at a refinery in L.A.? Someone’d say you went along because you got a good deal from me and even paid cash under the table.”

“What happened, did the drum turn up somewhere? Did someone get hurt? What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Jules said. “And I don’t think the drum will ever turn up. But if it does, and if somebody from HazMat or the EPA should test the contents and find out that the waste flammable liquid headed for Los Angeles was really Guthion, I’d say you’re in a lot more trouble than I am. In fact, as I see it, I’m not in trouble at all. I don’t work for the I.R.S. so I don’t question my customers if they’re trying to cheat Uncle Sam by doing cash transactions.”

“You little son of a bitch,” Burl Ralston said, twisting the manifest copy like a chicken neck. “You been doing cash business with me for two years.”

“That’s it, Burl,” Jules said, “destroy those copies. Both of them. I’m here to protect you.”

“You’re here to protect me?”

“Sure. After my truck got stolen it suddenly occurred to me: What if there was something besides oil or solvent or something like that in Burl’s drum? What if there was something like, oh, malathion, or paraquat, or even Guthion? If it gets dumped, found and tested, old Burl could get in trouble. So I just thought I’d come by and tell you about the theft of the truck. And that you probably have nothing to worry about. The drums might never turn up. Maybe the truck went to Mexico. Down there, they’ll empty the drums and use them to barbecue baby goats in. So you probably have nothing to worry about.”

“I’m going to call the EPA right now and tell them the truth. That I told you it was Guthion in that drum.”

“That’s exactly why I came by here!” Jules said. “I thought you might panic and do that if you heard my truck got stolen. I thought you might try to put it off on old Jules. I just want you to think about it, Burl. Who signed the manifest? The contents’re listed right there as flammable waste bound for L.A. Who signed it? Who paid cash to my driver?”

“We could both go to prison if somebody’s hurt. Do you understand that, you shit-sucking little prick?” Burl Ralston clenched his big fists on the desktop.

“Put a customer’s order form, or a credit-card receipt, or a note to your sister Mabel, or any goddamn piece of paper you have into an envelope and send it certified to the EPA. When they finally contact you about it, just say, ‘What? You mean I didn’t send you the manifest copy of the Guthion that Green Earth was going to take to Texas for disposal with some other hazardous waste? Well, land o’ goshen!’”

“And my generator’s copy. Does that get misplaced?”

“Of course. Your files’re a mess. How old’re you, seventy-something? Tell them you’re lucky if you can file your nails. And that you know it’s time to retire but you just can’t let go. And that you’ll look everywhere for the manifest copy. But you’ll never find it, will you? And don’t worry about my two haulers. I doubt that either of them can read anything more complex than the label on a beer can. They just knew to pick up the two loads and bring them to our yard. Period.”

“The thief might get caught with the manifest in his possession.”

“No truck thief is gonna keep owner documents lying around. He’d toss them away. The manifest doesn’t exist, not after you destroy those two copies in your hands. Now we’re both going to tell anyone who contacts us that the waste was indeed Guthion and that it was correctly manifested as Guthion and it was heading for incineration in Texas within three days. That’s in case the waste ever does show up and gets tested. I’m trying to help you, Burl.”

“You’re trying to help yourself, you snake.”

“I want my business to close escrow with no problems. If the EPA or the D.A. starts going over all my past manifest copies, who knows what mistakes they might find in some of my other cash transactions? Even some I’ve done with you.”

“If that manifest is in the truck when the cops finally find it, then what?”

“It won’t be.”

“But if it is?”

“The cops don’t know from jelly donuts about manifests or hazardous waste. They’ll notify me if the truck gets recovered and I’ll run down to their tow yard and destroy the manifest. But it won’t happen like that.”

“I never wanna see your smarmy face again,” Burl Ralston said. “You’re never doing business with me after this.”

“Not with anyone,” Jules Temple said. “Not this business anyway. You know, Burl, I got a very good price for my company, recession and all, but maybe I shouldn’t’ve sold. With Al Gore as vice president and all those ecology groupies flocking to Washington, waste hauling might become a very good business indeed. Environmental protectors, that’s who we are.”

“Get outta my office,” Burl Ralston said. “You got what you came for.”

When Jules headed for the door, he said, “It was okay for two years, wasn’t it, Burl? All those low bids I gave you? All those manifests you signed, not caring how I described your waste or where I was taking it? Now when something goes wrong you give me sanctimonious bullshit. Well, just remember that at your age any jail time could be a life sentence. That’ll stop your sniveling, old man.”

When Fin got home that evening with too much booze in him, he checked his messages and found a call from Orson Ellis, who said, “This is the world’s greatest agent calling to inform you that tomorrow morning you’re going to read for Ms. Lenore Fielding, co-executive producer of Harbor Nights! Finbar, my son, you have but to command me. Remember, be yourself. Good luck. And dress tall. The professional killer is probably a formidable specimen.”

After Fin turned off the machine he was excited. He ran to a mirror and looked for the face of a contract killer. But he saw nothing but a flushed middle-aged civil servant with fear in his eyes!

Fin went to the medicine cabinet and grabbed a vial of Halcion that a nurse he used to date had given him for nights like this. He knew he shouldn’t mix the drug with all the happy-hour booze, but what the hell, George Bush took them and hadn’t expired yet. But Bush was close to expiration, being ten points behind Clinton with only a few days left.

When Fin got under the covers he tried to relax every muscle and fiber. He almost succeeded until he thought about that earthworm of an agent telling him to dress tall.