17 More Oil Wells

He swallowed a bark of laughter, because loud laughter on this austere occasion would be a severe breach of the etiquette he'd been taught to observe. Excusing himself, he put the unfinished scotch down on a small table beside him and went off in search of a better drink. Behind him, the elderly lady picked up the glass and took a dainty sip. "Cheap scotch!" she said in disgust, and put it back where he'd left it.

A few minutes later Jon spotted Parker Reynolds standing in an alcove off the living room with two young women and another man. After stopping at the buffet table to get another drink, he walked over to join his friends. "Great party, isn't it," he remarked with a sarcastic smile.

"I thought you hated funerals and never went to them," Parker said when the chorus of greetings was over.

"I do hate them. I'm not here to mourn Cyril Bancroft, I'm here today to protect my inheritance." Jon took a swallow of his drink, trying to wash away the bitterness he felt over what he was about to say.

"My father is threatening to disinherit me again, only I think the old bastard really means it this time."

Leigh Ackerman, a pretty brunette with a lovely figure, looked at him in amused disbelief. "Your father is going to disinherit you if you don't attend funerals?"

"No, my lovely, my father is threatening to disinherit me if I don't 'straighten up' and make something of myself immediately. Translated, that means I am to appear at funerals of old family friends such as this one, and I am to participate in our family's newest business venture. Or else I'm cut off from all that lovely money my family has."

"Sounds dire," Parker said with an unsympathetic grin. "What new business venture have you been assigned to?"

"Oil wells," he said. "More oil wells. This time my old man has cut a deal with the Venezuelan government to carry out exploration operations over there."

Shelly Fillmore glanced at the small gilt-framed mirror over Jon's shoulder and touched a finger to the corner of her mouth, smoothing a tiny smudge of vermilion lipstick. "Don't tell me he's sending you to South America?"

"Nothing as essential as that," Jon scoffed bitterly. "My father is turning me into a glorified personnel interviewer. He put me in charge of hiring the crews to go over there. And then you know what the old bastard did?"

His friends were as accustomed to Jon's tirades against his father as they were to his drunkenness, but they waited to hear his newest complaints, anyway. "What did he do?" Doug Chalfont asked.

"He checked up on me. After I picked out the first fifteen able-bodied, experienced men, my old man insisted on meeting everyone I'd interviewed personally so that he could rate my ability to choose men. He rejected half of my choices. The only one he really liked was this guy named Farrell, who's a steelworker and who I wasn't going to hire. The closest Farrell's ever been to an oil rig was two years ago, when he worked on a few little ones in some damned cornfield in Indiana. He's never been near a big rig like we'll have in South America. Furthermore, Farrell doesn't give a damn about oil drilling. His only interest is the one-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar bonus he'll get if he sticks it out for two years over there. He told my father that right to his face."

"So why did your father hire him?"

"He said he liked Farrell's style," Jon sneered, tossing down the rest of his drink. "He liked Farrell's ideas about what he planned to do with the bonus when he gets it. Shit, I half expected my father to change his mind about sending Farrell to Venezuela and offer him my office instead. As it is, I have been ordered to bring Farrell in next month and 'acquaint him with our operation and introduce him around.'"

"Jon," Leigh said calmly, "you're getting drunk and your voice is getting loud."

"Sorry," he said, "but I've had to listen to my father singing this guy's praises for two damned days. I'm telling you, Farrell is an arrogant, ambitious son of a bitch. He has no class, no money, no nothing!"

"He sounds divine," Leigh joked.

When the other three remained silent, Jon said defensively, "If you think I'm exaggerating, I'll bring him to the Fourth of July dance at the club and you can all see for yourself what sort of man my father thinks I ought to be."

"Don't be an idiot," Shelly warned him. "Your father may like him as an employee, but he'll castrate you if you bring someone like that to Glenmoor."

"I know," Jon said with a tight smile, "but it would be worth it."

"Just don't dump him on us if you bring him there," she warned after exchanging glances with Leigh. "We aren't going to spend the evening trying to make small talk with some steelworker just so you can spite your father."

"No problem. I'll leave Farrell all by himself and let him flounder while my father looks on, watching him try to figure out what fork to use. My old man won't be able to say a word to me either. After all, he's the one who told me to 'show Farrell the ropes' and 'look after him' while he's in Chicago."

Parker chuckled at Jon's ferocious expression. "There must be an easier way to solve your problem."

"There is," Jon said. "I can find myself a wealthy wife who can support me in my accustomed style, and then I can tell my old man to go fuck himself." He glanced over his shoulder and signaled a pretty girl in a maid's uniform who was passing a tray of drinks. She hurried over and he grinned at her.

"You're not only pretty," he told her as he put his empty glass on her tray and took a fresh one, "you're a life saver!" From the flustered way she smiled at him and then blushed, it was obvious to Jon, and to the rest of the group, that she was not immune to his six-foot-one muscular body and attractive features.

Leaning close to her, Jon said in a stage whisper, "Is it possible that you're only working for a caterer as a lark, but that your father actually owns a bank or a seat on the exchange?"