Shortly before three that afternoon — twenty minutes after another of the large diesel tankers had arrived at Tru-Test, and half an hour after the redhaired man had driven out in his new limousine — a white panel truck with the words RIGHT WAY PLUMBING, INC. plastic-stenciled on the sides stopped before the locked entrance gates.
The uniformed guard came out of the sentry box and looked inside. “Yes?”
“Here to fix the john in the warehouse,” Flagg said. He wore a pair of faded blue overalls and a baseball cap. He was still puffing on his briar pipe.
The guard frowned. “Mr. Morgan didn’t mention anything about a plumber coming in.”
“Well, he called the shop less than an hour ago.”
“What’s the matter with the john?”
“He didn’t give me any details,” Flagg said. “Check with him, if you want.”
“He’s not here right now.”
“When’ll he be back?”
“Not until tomorrow.”
“Look,” Flagg said, “it don’t matter to me one way or the other if I do the job. There’s an automatic service charge just for me to come out here.”
The guard chewed at his lower lip indecisively. “I don’t know,” he said. “How long will it take?”
“Now, how would I know that if I ain’t seen the problem yet? That Mr. Morgan seemed to think I ought to get out here right away, but if you don’t think so, I’ll go off back home. Like I said, there’s a service charge whether I do the job or not—”
“All right,” the guard said. “Do you know where the main water house is?”
Flagg shrugged. “I’ve never been here before.”
“Follow the white lines until you come to a big corrugated iron building with a loading dock along one side. Go on around to Door 5 and ask for Lou. He’s in charge there.”
“Okay,” Flagg said.
The guard opened the gates from inside the sentry box, and Flagg drove the panel onto the Tru-Test grounds. He followed the white lines as directed, and a couple of minutes later he stopped in front of Door 5 in the long, narrow warehouse. He had seen the corrugated iron roof from the river, and accurately guessed the building’s purpose. There were three of the dark green delivery trucks pulled up to the loading platform in front of other numbered doors, and a good deal of activity on the dock itself. Pallets of boxes with markings identical to those he had seen in the rear storage room of Barney’s Oasis were being stacked at intervals by two forklifts, and freight handlers were hurrying back and forth with dollies between the pallets and the trucks.
Flagg got out of the panel, opened the rear doors, and took out a large tool kit. Then he went up several wooden steps and through Door 5. A short, fat man with thinning hair was writing on a clipboard. Flagg stepped up to him and asked, “Where do I find Lou?”
“I’m Lou,” the man answered, appraising him with cold eyes.
“Here to fix the john,” Flagg said.
“The john? What’s the matter with it?”
“Who knows? I got this call from Mr. Morgan to come out find fix it, that’s all.”
Lou continued to study him. Flagg puffed uninterestedly on the briar pipe. Finally Lou said, “Okay, then. Come on, I’ll show you where it is.”
Flagg followed him along the cement floor of the warehouse, past more full pallets stacked three high. At the rear wall, between the stacks, there was a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. Loud, vibrant sounds of machinery in operation filtered through the door. On one side was another door marked restroom, and Lou opened that one. They went in.
“Here it is,” Lou said. “It looks all right to me.”
“You can’t tell by looking.”
“How long will you be?”
“What am I?” Flagg asked. “Psychic?”
“Okay, okay.”
Flagg opened the toolbox and pretended to rummage around inside. After a moment, Lou went out and closed the door behind him. Flagg straightened and stood at the door, listening, for a full minute. Then he opened the door and peered out. Lou had disappeared among the stacks of pallets.
Flagg closed the door again and locked it. There was a window in the rear wall, and he went to it and brushed some dust from the glass and looked out. He could see across to where the fuel pumps were located. The diesel tanker that had arrived earlier was parked there, and three men were standing around it. One end of a huge black petroleum hose was hooked to a bottom outlet on the first of the tanker’s two reservoirs; the other end disappeared into a large, square metal plate set into the concrete yard.
Underground tanks, Flagg thought, and then: Well, I’ll be damned! He had just realized that with that hose hooked to the bottom outlet on the reservoir, they couldn’t possibly be filling it; they were emptying it. Strange. The tanker was one of Tru-Test’s, not a delivery vehicle from a manufacturer. Why would they be emptying fuel oil from one of their own trucks back into the underground tanks? Unless...
Unless it wasn’t fuel oil, at all. Unless it was shine.
