82 Desire

dreamy look on his face.
    Ray resigned himself. “I like the woman who plays the clarinet in front of the A&P.”
    He was going to have to go at United Oil’s pace—they were paying for lunch, they could have it their way.
    He was stirring his coffee when Fortier said, “I want to plant a thought in your head—just a tiny little thought, maybe nothing you and I want to act on right away. But here’s the idea—United might be willing to buy your company and let you keep running it.”
    “Now, why would they do a thing like that?”
    Fortier looked him in the eye. “Money. Why does United Oil do anything?”
    They got a good laugh out of that one.
    Ray said, “Obviously you know something we don’t.”
    “Tell me—if a new reservoir were detected, could you afford to drill?”
    Ray shrugged, forbearing to say, None of your damn business.
    Fortier named a number in seven figures, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Think about that. You’d get the bucks, plus a generous salary for doing the same job you do now. But it would be about half the work—think how many headaches we could relieve you of.”
    The offer was insulting—less than half what the company was currently worth, even without a new reservoir. Ray wiped his mouth to cover his anger and then forced himself to smile. Sometime during lunch, they had achieved a first-name basis, but Ray said, to make a point, “No, thank you, Mr. Fortier.”
    “We’re flexible, of course. That’s certainly not our final offer—it’s just a starting place. Call it a number to think about if you should want to get together some figures of your own.”
    Ray had taken Fortier for a smarter cookie than this. He was disappointed, not only in the wasted two hours, but also in the man. He’d liked him. Now he didn’t know what to think.
    He said, “I’m really not interested in selling the company at any price,” and with that, he sealed his doom. That was what the damn lunch had been all about—eliciting a secret so open Ray would have told the press if they’d asked him. But of course that didn’t dawn on him till after he’d lost his lease.
    It was another month before Fortier called again. Once again, he didn’t sound right on the phone: “Ray! How you been, boy?”
    Just a trifle too hearty. “I’ve got some real interesting news for you. Real interesting. How about we have another of our famous lunches?” Like they were best buddies.
    Ray said, “My schedule’s pretty full these days. Maybe we could talk about it on the phone.”
    “Oh, no. This is much too good for that. Come on—break away for a while.”
    “I’d love to, but I really can’t manage these days.”
    “Listen, I’m gonna tell you what this is about. We’ve acquired some very exciting seismic data that might affect you. You haven’t acquired your own yet, have you?”
    Ray didn’t answer, and Russell jumped in to fill the void.
    “Look,” he said, “I’m out front in my car. Why don’t I just come in?”
    It would have been churlish to say no, and Ray was feeling churlish—but in spite of himself, he was interested. He sighed mightily, a man much put upon but just this once making a concession: “All right.” If he’d said no, he’d still have his nice house on the North Shore and Ronnie would probably be in MIT instead of UNO.
    When Fortier had come in and sat down, Ray glowering at him all the while, he said, “How much do you know about Three-D seismic?”
    Ray shrugged. He had known before, during their lunch at the Rib Room, that all that talk of a new reservoir was dependent on what was then new technology—”profiling” done with Three-D seismic equipment.
    Fortier said, “Look, it’s very simple. It’s a way to predict oil reservoirs. Nothing to it, really—you put earphones on the surface that can record sound waves. Then you shoot off dynamite, and the sound waves are reflected off the layers of the earth in different ways. If you’ve got gas or oil-bearing reservoirs, you can tell by the way the sound hits and returns to the surface.”
    “Sounds like magic,” Ray said, though he well knew it wasn’t.
    “Well, it takes some of the guesswork out.” Fortier reached into his briefcase and started unfolding things. “Look at this. This is exciting, boy.”
    He handed Ray a document, poster-sized, completely unintelligible. “Ever seen a seismic profile?”
    “Are you going to get to the point, Mr. Fortier?”
    “Sure. Sure. I just