regulation.”
“Anything else?” said Paz. “Any indication of what his plans were, other appointments?”
“No.”
“Any mention of a woman named Dideroff?”
“No. Really, Detective, I am in the middle of my business day….”
“What else did he say, Mr. Zubrom?”
“Well, we did not exchange small talk. He was not a pleasant fellow, I am afraid. But many of the people in the oil business are like that. Especially the Africans, if I may say so.”
“And why is that, sir?” asked Paz genially. “If I may ask.”
Zubrom seemed taken aback by this question. He licked his lip and stammered a little. “They…they…I don’t mean to be offensive, Officer.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Zubrom, I’m not an African. Go on. They what?”
“They lack…lack the idea of public property. If a man controls something, it is his own, like his shoe or his house, his and his family’s, or clan or tribe. The nation is just a figure of speech. Now, my own nation is corrupt enough, but we have a sense of limits. We have our commissions and bribes, but we don’t think that our oil is the personal property of the petroleum minister and his friends. I think in Nigeria, in Sudan, they do think that. I believe this Mr. al-Muwalid had connections that were able to divert a quantity of crude to this tanker, so he could sell it for himself, which he certainly did. But you asked what we talked about. After the deal was over, he relaxed a little. I gave him a drink. He gave me a tip.”
“A tip?” said Paz.
“In a manner of speaking. He asked me what would happen if a new strike was made, an oil field say fifty times larger than the Widha and Kordofan and Adar Tel fields combined. These are the main Sudanese fields, you see. I told him that it would not have an immediate effect on the spot market, for the reason that it is still difficult to get oil out of Sudan. The oil is highly parafinized and requires heating, the pipeline through Khartoum is small, and almost all the oil is in the south, where it must be moved through the middle of a civil war. But as I said to him, a find of that magnitude might?”
“What are we talking about here,” asked Morales, “Saudi Arabia?”
A patronizing smile. “Of course not. Saudi is in a class by itself; it has no serious rivals as far as reserves are concerned. Do you understand that at this time Sudan is atiny producer? Reserves of perhaps point six billion barrels. I mean tiny compared to Libya, with nearly thirty billion proven and Iraq…who knows about Iraq these days? Anywhere from one hundred twelve through to as much as two hundred twenty billion barrels. So I said to him if you multiply point six by fifty you are in a class with Libya, and that is a very serious class, and if that were to happen, it would create a change on the geopolitical level, never mind in the spot market.”
Another shrug, a hand gesture partaking of both the Middle East and Latin America, acknowledging the futility of expectations. “Perhaps. Depending on the quality and cost of production and so on. I told him I had not heard of any such find and he said, Oh, it is there, we know it is there, but we don’t yet have the proof of it. He meant data for the oil companies, so they could begin development work. He was somewhat full of himself then, talking, I don’t know, how he was going to be a key figure in the future of Sudan, if he could get the data on this field, and he knew someone who knew where it was, right here in this city. This is why he required this money, you see, for expenses, to hire people, to look, you know, hard people.”
“For protection, you mean?” asked Paz. “He felt threatened?”
“I believe he did.”
“Who by?”
“You know, he didn’t say. We were not best buddies. He took a call on his mobile while he was here and left immediately after. In something of a rush as I recall. That is totally all I know about this man.” He looked desperately at his screens. “Honestly, gentlemen, this is ruinous. I am losing money by the minute.”
They thanked Mr. Zubrom and left.
In the car, Paz said, “That was good. You did good, you picked up his eyes.”
“He was looking at me,” said Morales, somewhat uncomfortably. “He hardly ever looked at you, even when you were talking to him.”
“Uh-huh. A black guy and a white guy show up together, and nine out of ten people are going to assume that the white guy is in charge, even when the black guy is wearing Zegna and the white guy’s got a JCPenney confirmation suit on. Life isn’t fair that way, and it gives me a bad attitude sometimes, which I intend to take out occasionally on your lily ass. In this line of work, though, it works pretty good. I can slide something in where they’re not looking. An off-balance informant is the policeman’s friend, as we just saw. So what did you make of all that?”
“I don’t know. The vic had a hold on some serious cash. He had enemies. He was looking for something worth a zillion bucks. We know the guy wasn’t a sweetheart off of that FBI thing the major told you about, plus what the suspect said. So…” He waggled both hands.
“So it looks a little less like a loony having a fit and clocking the vic on the head.”
“Yeah. You think maybe she was set up?”
“Oh, I think she did it, but I also think she had some help. We didn’t recover a cell phone off the vic, did we?”
“No.”
“And Emmylou sure as shit didn’t have one. She’s got one built into her head connected to a switchboard in heaven. So that means…”
“There was someone else in the place,” said Morales instantly. “He took the cell phone so we couldn’t find out who called him at Zubrom’s, the call that got him moving.”
“Very good. Drive on.”
Morales pulled away from the curb and headed north of NE First Avenue. “Where are we going?”
“Bal Harbour,” said Paz, “take a look at some suits. I think you’re a keeper, but I want to see how you clean up. After that…shit, there he is again!”
“Who?”
“Guy in a white Explorer with tinted glass. He’s been following us. Make this next left.Now! “
Morales stamped on the gas and swept across the oncoming traffic into a left turn, leaving screeching brakes and angry horns in his wake. Paz swiveled around in his seat, expecting to see the white SUV make the turn as well, but it proceeded north with the other traffic. He felt Morales’s stare. “Wait here,” he said, “pull over, he’ll go around the block.” Morales did so and they waited. After five minutes’ silence, Morales asked, “Did you get his plates?”
“No, did you?”
An uneasy pause. “No. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even see what car you were talking about. A white SUV? I didn’t spot it. Are you sure…?”
“Fuck, yeah, I’m sure!” Paz was almost shouting. “You think I don’t know when I’m being tailed?” Paz had a moment of rage so intense he thought he was going to have a stroke right there in the unmarked. Irrational. He was seeing things. It could’ve been a white Explorer, and maybe next time it’d be a hearse with a zombie driver or a circus van playing a calliope. First that thing with Emmylou, then the craziness with Willa, now this, and he’d realized now that he’d screwed up the interview with Zubrom, he should have pulled the guy out of there, taken him downtown, and sweated him some more, the guy was laughing at them, he knew a lot more than he’d said, if he had a decent partner instead of this asshole kid, he would’ve gotten a lot more…no, that was not him, not a line of thought that should have appeared in his brain. Morales was fine. He felt cold sweat start up on his forehead and back.
“Hey, Jimmy?you okay?” Paz looked at Morales, at his pale and worried face.
“Yeah, it’s nothing, I’m a little…just go, drive.”
A little what? Paz asked himself as they rolled. A little crazy? Crazy he could deal with, but not the other thing, not the…the wordpossession floated into his mind. He skittered away from that and took refuge in the forms of old prayers and grasped certain objects hung about his neck. By the time they got to where they were going he felt nearly human again.
The next seven years went peacefully by for the de Bervilles. Georges’s affairs prospered. He had cannily
