The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

“Why did you say ‘poor little squirt.’ An unhappy child?”

“No, no, no. Smiley, laughy little fellow I never thought was unhappy. But all of a sudden—poof—he was gone. Bill never got over it.”

“When did he leave?”

“Must be seven or eight years ago.”

“Before Bill joined the Standard?”

“Long before. Looking back, I realize that the boy running off broke him. He was never the same. Harder. Hard as adamantine—not that either of us was choirboys. Choirboys don’t last in the oil business. But somewhere along the line, Bill got his moral trolley wires crossed and—”

Hopewell stopped abruptly. He stared past Bell at the gasoline storage tank. His jaw worked. He seemed, Bell thought, to be reconsidering.

“But if you want to understand the oil business, Mr. Detective, you better understand that Bill Matters was not the first to give in to Standard Oil. Half the men in their New York office were destroyed by Rockefeller before he hired them. John D. Rockefeller, he’s the devil you should be after.”

“What if I told you I suspect that one of those newer men like Bill Matters can lead me to him?”

“I’d tell you that no man in his right mind would bite the hand feeding him like he’s feeding Bill.”

“Would you have switched sides if the Standard asked?”

The oil man drew himself erect and glared at Isaac Bell. “They did ask. Asked me the same time they asked Bill.”

“Obviously you declined. Did you consider it?”

“I told them to go to blazes.”

Bell asked, “Can’t you see that I’m offering you an opportunity to help send them there?”

He pointed down at the orderly rows of tanks and the belching furnaces, then across the forest of derricks looming over the roofs of what must have been a peaceful town. A gust of wind swept the smoke aside. Suddenly he could see clear to the farthest of the wooden towers.

“You built your refinery to serve independents. That’s where your heart lies. Wouldn’t you agree, sir, that you owe it to all independent oil men to testify?”

Hopewell shook his head.

Bell had one card left. He bet the ranch on it. “How much did the Standard pay for a barrel of crude when you drilled two years ago.”

“A dollar thirty-five a barrel.”

“How much are they paying now? Provided you could deliver it.”

“Seventy cents a barrel.”

“They raised the price artificially high, nearly doubled it, to encourage you to drill. You and your fellow wildcatters did the Standard’s exploratory work for them, at your own expense. Thanks to your drilling, they know the extent of the Kansas fields and how they stack up against the Indian Territory and Oklahoma fields. They suckered you, Mr. Hopewell.”

“More homework, Mr. Bell?” said Spike Hopewell. “Is that the Van Dorn Detective motto: ‘Do your homework’?”

“The Van Dorn motto is ‘We never give up! Never!’”

Hopewell grinned. “That’s my motto, too . . . Well, it’s hard to say no to a man who’s done his homework. And damned-near impossible to a man who won’t give up . . . O.K., put ’er there!”

Spike Hopewell thrust a powerful hand into Bell’s. “What do you want to know first?”

Bell stepped closer to take it, saying, “I’m mighty curious about those tricks up your sleeve.”

Hopewell stumbled backward, clutching his throat.

3