No Immunity

‘Tchernak and O’Shaughnessy.’ ”
    Tchernak didn’t seem to move, but his mouth had tightened. He bent toward her, hands braced on thighs, glaring as he must have at the defensive tackle. “You just want I someone to keep house, cook, and walk your dog.”
    It was of course exactly what she wanted. A more diplomatic woman would have equivocated. She nodded.
    He lifted his chair, put it under the table, walked to the door of his flat, turned, and said, “I quit.”

CHAPTER 4

    Reston Adcock tapped his finger on his polished teak desk. It was a thick finger, one muscled by work. A finger that should not be dialing his own phone. That’s what he had a secretary for. He hated being held captive while the phone rang, while the guy at the other end took his own time to get to the receiver. Adcock wasn’t a man made for waiting. He who waits... waits, and Reston Adcock had no time to waste. He stared at his finger, noting the dark lines in the creases, the stains of the oil he had discovered, oil he had rubbed into his palms and on his face and neck and bare chest in joy the first time he’d found a seeper. He’d screamed and laughed; he’d rolled in it then, the black anointing oil of riches.
    He thought then that he’d never want his hands clean of it, that if it never washed off, he’d be a happy man, a happy magnate, a merry mogul. But it had washed off, and he’d gone after his second strike with only “greater reputation” in his pocket.
    Twenty years since then. He’d lost count of the strikes. And the oil companies he’d worked for, the times he’d quit and set up on his own, the dines he’d gone back on payroll. The Mercedes and the Chapter Elevens. The wives and the kids. And the college tuitions.
    And Grady Hummacher. Where was Grady? The guy could have been himself twenty years ago, smelling oil in his sleep, sniffing it out for the joy of rubbing his hands in it. Hummacher had the best nose in the business. Loved the jungles and deserts, the wilder the better. Wanted to scale the highest peak on each continent, row the oceans, stand atop the earth and pound his chest, and stop to wink at the gods and men. And the girls. Adcock understood it all. No wonder he loved Hummacher. But he should never have trusted him with details. You don’t pound your chest with paper and pen in hand.
    At least he’d had the sense to demand reports from Hummacher so that he couldn’t be left totally out of the loop. Still, he never expected Hummacher to miss this meeting, the one that would set them both in gold. Grady was a party guy, but he wasn’t a fool. No matter what shape he may have been in, he’d get himself in here today. Unless he opened his mouth in the wrong place. Dammit, he had to have the detective. He wasn’t about to ask her again; he didn’t operate that way. He needed some leverage. He could—
    The phone rang.
    “Adcock Explorations.”
    “Is this Reston Adcock?”
    “Right. You?”
    “Kiernan O’Shaughnessy’s associate, Brad Tchernak. I think I can help you.”

CHAPTER 5

    The swollen, bloody, terrified African faces had filled Kiernan’s dreams, and she’d jolted up time after time, sweat-drenched and disoriented. The alarm woke her forty minutes earlier Saturday morning than if Tchernak had been driving her to the airport. The van company insisted on unloading passengers a full hour before their departure, not the twenty minutes any sensible woman preferred. The twenty minutes that always drove Tchernak crazy. If he hadn’t quit, he’d be pulling out of the driveway right now, describing how far off the ground her plane would be by the time she made it to the airport. It would serve her right, he’d be adding; any competent businesswoman should have the maturity not to make a contest out of every flight departure.
    She smiled at the memory as she strolled to the gate for Las Vegas . She would miss Tchernak, no question about that. But he had been an aberration in her life. She was meant to be alone, she’d known that since she was twelve and her sister’s death left her with parents dead in spirit, and the Catholic community who no longer spoke to infidels like the suicide’s sister. Tchernak was as close to family, to belonging... But life moves on. This was best for both of them. And at least Tchernak had agreed to take care of Ezra in her absence. “No reason why he should suffer,” Tchernak had said by way of exit line as he disappeared into his half of the