No Immunity

enthusiasm. “So what you got for me now? My first case, this is really important.”
    Suddenly she was the woman in the beige suit with cotton underwear. “What do you want first, Grady Hummacher or Adcock Explorations?”
    “Adcock.”
    “Hocked to the gills. You want figures?”
    “No. Gills are enough. And Grady Hummacher?”
    “Okay. There isn’t much on him. Not surprising. He’s kept an address in Las Vegas for two years. Only membership is the Carson Club.”
    “The Carson Club?”
    “It’s more legit than it sounds. Lots more. Association of young movers and shakers throughout the state. Speaks well of Hummacher to get accepted. As for work history, a couple of movie companies—”
    “Fifteen years ago? I know that.”
    “Got a graduate degree in geology. Then signed on with Exxon for two years, then Aramco, then Nihonco—”
    “Never heard of that one.”
    “Japanese exploration company. You know how desperate the Japanese are for oil. They’re hot for a good find in a country that will give them sole export.”
    “Countries like?”
    “Central America, for one area. That’s where any data on Hummacher comes out of. So then he quit Nihonco and signed on with Adcock Explorations.”
    “Quit? Not fired?”
    “Nope. Nothing to suggest anything but normal job movement. That’s not the interesting area with Hummacher.”
    She paused long enough to make Tchernak antsy. He didn’t exactly beg, but was starting to picture himself as a Chihuahua, panting a little.
    “What’s interesting, Tchernak, is that Hummacher was detained—not arrested—but questioned about the company employees whose visas he’d arranged.”
    “I thought people arranged for their own visas.”
    She let a beat pass before saying, “That’s the normal way. But the two essential workers he brought into the country last month were never seen at the embassy in Panama or the INS in Las Vegas. Two seismic aides.”
    So that was how Grady Hummacher got two deaf teenagers into the country. He knew the answer before he asked, “Names?”
    “Juan Gomez, Carlos Rios. And here’s the thing you’re really going to find interesting, the source of the INS complaint. You can guess, right?”
    He didn’t have to picture her at all to sound desperate now. “Persis!”
    “The INS was notified by Reston Adcock.”
    “But didn’t these two come in as seismic aides to Adcock Explorations? You mean he called the INS and said he had nothing to do with them?”
    “You got it.”
    “Whew!”
    “Well, Adcock Explorations is not exactly a blue-chip stock. Adcock was a senior vice president of explorations for Exxon before they split off a number of their operations four years ago.”
    “Was he fired?”
    “No. You’d think being a big shot in a new offshoot company would be a good deal, but here’s the thing, Tchernak. Big oil cuts these operations loose, so if there’s a disaster, like the big Alaskan spill, it’s not big oil with deep pockets that’s liable anymore, it’s the little offshoot with wee little pockets. One spill and it’s history, and the public’s left paying for the rest of the cleanup. But if there’s no spill and the offshoot does find oil, they’ve got to sell it to big oil.”
    “So they’re damned if they don’t, and if they do, they don’t get much cash for it?”
    “You got it, my man.”
    “And so, Adcock figured rather than head an offshoot, he’d do better on his own.”
    “Safe guess.”
    Normally Tchernak liked these little guessing games, but this one was beginning to irk him. “So, then, why is Adcock Explorations mortgaged up to its derricks?”
    “He’s a little guy now, competing with the deep pockets of multinationals. He needs a big strike quick before they bury him. The geologist he had before Hummacher... in Yaviza...?”
    “Yes?”
    “Shot.”
    “Really?”
    “Really. Six months ago. No suspects. But the last person seen having a drink with that guy, Ross Estes, was a representative of Nihonco.”
    Tchernak leaned back in Grady Hummacher’s chair. “Would Grady have known that?”
    “It was in the papers down there.”
    “Not here?”
    “No. But—”
    “Yeah, sure, it would have buzzed around the grapevine down there and made a new circuit every time someone arrived from the States—”
    “Especially Estes’s replacement. And Tchernak, no one would be more anxious to meet that replacement than the guys from Nihonco. Too bad Estes was shot, but that