Sleeping Beauty

chapter 19

It was nearly noon when I got back to Pacific Point. The harbor was even blacker than it had been in the morning. Men wearing oilskins and hip boots were cleaning its rock walls with live steam.

Other workers in small skiffs were scattering straw on the floating oil, then picking up the oil-soaked straw with pitchforks. Hundreds of bales of fresh straw had been trucked in from somewhere and were piled on the beach like barriers against a possible invasion.

There were further changes on the wharf. A couple of dozen picketers were walking back and forth across its entrance. They carried homemade signs: “Do Not Patronize: Oil Facilities,” “Oil Spoils,” “Pollution!” Most of the picketers were middle-aged, though there were several long-haired youths among them.

I recognized the hairy-faced young fisherman I had talked to the previous evening. He shook his sign at me – “Consider the Poor Fish” – and yelled good-naturedly as I drove past him onto the wharf.

Blanche was watching the picketers from the almost empty parking lot of her restaurant. She recognized me as a customer and raised her voice in complaint.

“They’re trying to put me out of business. I want to know, did they use any force on you? Or threaten you?”

“No, they didn’t.”

“Too bad.” She shook her frizzy head. “The police said unless they use force or threats it’s legal and there’s nothing I can do. But it doesn’t look legal to me. I’d like to toss ’em over the railing and give ’em a little taste of that oily water. They’ve got their nerve, trying to take over my wharf.”

“Is it really your wharf?”

“It is to all intents and purposes. I’ve got it on long-term lease, and it gives me the right to rent space to the oil company. I intend to make a personal appeal to the Governor.”

Blanche was flushed and breathing hard. She ran out of breath.

“I had dinner in your restaurant last night.”

“Sure, I remember. You didn’t finish your red snapper. I hope it was all right.”

“It was fine. I wasn’t too hungry. I noticed a couple of other customers while I was here – an older man with a young one. The old man was wearing a tweed suit, and he had burn scars on his head–”

“I remember them. What about them?”

“I’d like to get in touch with them. Do you have any idea where they belong?”

She shook her head. “I never saw them before. They didn’t come from these parts.”

“How do you know?”

“They asked me for directions. They wanted to know how to get to Seahorse Lane.” She pointed south along the beach in the direction of Sylvia Lennox’s house.

“Did they say who they wanted to visit on Seahorse Lane?”

“No, but I wondered at the time. It’s a very high-priced development, right on the beach. And they were strictly from hunger – at least the old one was. I mean literally. You should have seen him eat.”

I thanked her and started back to my car. A gray-haired man climbed out of another car and casually intercepted me. He had sensitive blue eyes which wore, like a transparent shield, the detachment of an observer.

“You’re not a local man, are you?” he said to me.

“No. It’s a free country.”

His face wrinkled in a self-deprecating smile which was almost a look of pain. “I’d be the last to deny that. Are you with Lennox Oil?”

“No. I’m a free lance.”

“Exactly what does that mean?” He was still smiling.

“I’m a private investigator. My name is Archer.”

“Mine is Wilbur Cox. I write for the local paper. What crime are you investigating, Mr. Archer? The crime of pollution?”

“I’d certainly like to know what caused this oil spill.”

He seemed happy to oblige. “The oil people say it was an act of God, and in the long run there’s some truth in that. The undersea formations here are naturally porous, delicate to fool with. You might say the area is blowout-prone. But in the short run the oil people are to blame. They didn’t take the danger of a spill fully into account, and they didn’t use the right preventive measures for drilling at this depth. The result is what you see.” He flung out his arm toward the platform which stood against the horizon.

“Why didn’t they take the right preventive measures?”

“It costs money,” he said. “Oilmen are gamblers, most of them, and they’d rather take a little chance than spend a lot of money. Or wait for technology to catch up.” He added after a moment, “They’re not the only gamblers. We’re all in the game. We all drive cars, and we’re all hooked on oil. The question is how we can get unhooked before we drown in the stuff.”

I nodded in agreement and started to move away toward my car. He drifted after me:

“Are you the man who pulled a body out of the water this morning?”

I said I was.

“Can you identify the victim?”

“Not yet. I’m working on it.”

“Do you want to give me a quote?”

“I’m afraid I can’t, Mr. Cox. Any publicity would interfere with my investigation.”

“Was the man murdered?” Through his mask of detachment, the newsman’s eyes burned cold.

“I honestly don’t know. I’ll see you later.”

I didn’t get far. The entrance to the wharf was blocked by a line of picketers facing landward. Beyond them was a big semitrailer loaded with tanks of drilling mud. The driver glared down at the picketers from his high seat and inched the truck forward.

One of the young sign carriers sat down in front of the wheels. His face was pale and scared, as if he knew what a poor brake his body was to the heavy movements of the world. But he sat without moving as the double wheels turned almost on top of him.

The driver spat an inaudible word and slammed on his brakes. He climbed down out of the cab, swinging a tire iron in his hand. I got out of my car at the same time and pushed through the line of picketers to face him. He was a flat-nosed young man with angry eyes.

“Get back,” he said to me, “I’m making a delivery.”

“Sorry, we don’t need a tire iron.”

“You look as if you need one, right across the face.”

“It wouldn’t be a good idea,” I said. “Put it down, eh?”

“When you get out of the way. I’m on legitimate business.”

“You don’t look so legitimate with that thing in your hand.”

The driver glanced down at his weapon with some surprise. Perhaps he recognized that he was a threatening figure, and that he was a minority of one. The picketers were beginning to move around me. The driver climbed back into the cab of his truck and sat there glaring. Thirty or forty feet ahead of him, the newsman Wilbur Cox was leaning on the railing and taking notes.

At the outer end of the wharf, beyond Blanche’s Restaurant, a large black car appeared and moved slowly toward us. It stopped just behind my car. Captain Somerville got out, followed by a younger man who moved like the Captain’s shadow. Both men looked rather haggard, as if they had had a rough morning.

It was threatening to get rougher. The picketers surged around the car, forcing the two men back against its side. Somerville looked grim. His companion was pale and frightened.

“Stand back,” he said in an uncertain voice. “This is Captain Somerville. He’s the executive v.p. of Lennox Oil.”

“We know that,” the young fisherman said. “When are you going to cap the oil spill, Cap?”

Somerville answered: “As soon as we possibly can. We made an attempt this morning. I’m sorry to say it didn’t succeed. We have to stockpile more drilling mud, and bring in some experts, and we’ll make another attempt by the end of the week. In the meantime I’m asking you for your patience and cooperation.”

The picketers groaned. One of them called out: “When are you going to take your platform out of here? We don’t need it.”

“The platform is there legally,” Somerville said in an unbending tone, “with the approval of the U.S. Geological Survey. And when you stop our deliveries – which is what you’re doing now – you’re interfering with our attempts to stop the spill.”

The crowd began to get noisier, its groan deteriorating into a growl. The driver sitting up in the cab of the truck had a restless look in his eye. I decided I had better make a move before he did.

I inched through the crowd to Somerville. “You better get out of here, Captain. Get back in the car and follow my car, eh?”

Somerville and his aide climbed into the front seat, the white-faced younger man behind the wheel. I said to the picketers:

“Let them move out. Nobody wants any trouble.”

“That’s right,” a middle-aged woman said. “We don’t want trouble.”

“We don’t want oil on our beaches, either,” a young man said.

I said, “It’s better than blood.”

The crowd made assenting noises. They moved back slowly, away from Somerville’s car. I got into mine, eased it past the semitrailer, and turned toward Seahorse Lane, with Somerville behind me.

I was sweating with relief. Twice in no more than ten minutes, the threat of violence in the air had come very near to being actualized. There were sirens in the distance like the sound of a further threat.