“Maybe we’ll do that. We’ve got another guy to look at before we go running out there, though. Vermilion Wright thinks he knows who’s buying the oil.”
“You’re moving, Letty,” Greet said. “But take care. I grew up in Oklahoma oil country, and it can be rough out there.”
“We’ve already figured that out,” Letty said. She told Greet about the dog attack.
“I gotta say, the cop was an idiot for busting through a gate with a bad dog sign on it.”
Kaiser called, and they went back to IHOP for pancakes and to plot out the day. They decided to go out to Seminole to talk to Vermilion Wright’s friend, Lowell Harp, and to check out Roscoe Winks’s oil operation. Letty called Harp during a second cup of coffee, and they arranged to meet at one of Harp’s convenience stores.
Seminole was as easy to get to from Odessa as it was from Midland, so they swung by the Odessa hospital to check on Tanner. There, they were told that Tanner was still in the operating room. When they asked about his condition, a nurse asked if they were relatives. Letty showed the nurse her DHS identification and he grudgingly conceded that Tanner was listed in fair condition, which was the second-highest level, below “good” and above “serious,” “critical,” and “unresponsive.”
“Does ‘unresponsive’ mean the same as dead?” Kaiser asked.
“Yeah, pretty much, except we could still get in there and harvest some organs,” the nurse said.
“I didn’t need to hear that,” Kaiser said. Out in the car, he muttered, “Harvest some organs,” a couple of times, until Letty told him to shut up, and then he said, “I got your organ right here.”
* * *
Seminole was an hour out of Odessa, through a forest of pumpjacks and the small city of Andrews. They met Harp at a wind-scoured Elko gas station and convenience store. He was a tall man with a deeply lined face and a gray mustache, wearing a straw cowboy hat and boots as though he’d done that all his life, which he probably had; Letty pegged him at somewhere between seventy and eighty, but, given the obvious wear and tear, couldn’t make a closer estimate.
The store had a combination storage room and office, with two chairs wedged inside. Harp took one, offered the other to Letty, and said to Kaiser, “I’m old and she’s female. You’re gonna have to stand, John.”
“Roscoe Winks,” Letty said, as they sat down, knees-to-knees.
Harp smiled, showing a row of thick teeth under the mustache. “Roscoe Winks. He’s a crook, he surely is. Always has been. Vee tells me that Roscoe might be stealing oil, and I gotta say, the only reason that he hasn’t been doing that before is that he hadn’t figured out how to do it. He’s been bankrupt about six times, screws over people he’s hired to do work for him, lies about everything, cheats at everything, been married four times, and drinks. He does tell some good stories when he’s in his cups.”
Letty: “Is he violent?”
“Oh, no. Not because he wouldn’t like to be, but Roscoe’s yellow. A coward. I wouldn’t put it past him to hire somebody to beat you up, but he wouldn’t do it himself.”
“You’re painting an attractive picture,” Kaiser said.
“Did I mention that he’s ugly?”
Made Letty laugh.
“I made you laugh,” Harp said, reaching out to pat Letty on the knee and maybe a piece of her thigh. “But listen here: when I say he could hire somebody to beat you up, he knows people like that. I believe he would do that if you were a threat. Maybe worse. There are places not far from here that no white man has ever walked over, make good burying grounds. You don’t want to disappear.”
“We’re very up-front and careful,” Letty said. “Where would we find Mr. Winks?”