She looked surprised at that. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been in touch with them.”

“Don’t get excited. Just a couple of friendly lunches is all. Shop talk. You know how I always like to cover my rear.”

“Not as much as you like to cover mine.” The glittering eyes again, only different this time.

He looked one last time across at the small homes across the valley. She followed his gaze, turned abruptly serious.

“There’s been no trouble with any of them?”

“What kind of trouble could they make, even if they knew enough and had the inclination? Niggers and trash. But no, not a peep out of any of ’em. When I came through here a week ago to make the final sweep I contacted those who aren’t getting welfare checks. I told them we were going to do some landscape work around here and that I’d appreciate it and so would my company if they’d make sure to keep their kids out of the way. Gave them fifty bucks a head. You should have seen them take off in their junkers. Straight for the nearest liquor store.” He made a gesture of disgust.

“Of course, there were one or two I couldn’t buy off, but we didn’t have any trouble shutting them up. I had some friends pay them visits. Been no trouble. No problems at your end?”

She shook her head. Blonde hair rippled in the fading moonlight. “Below board level no one even suspects what’s going on. All costs and equipment procurations are filed under ‘Baja Exploration and Development,’ along with our phosphate operations down there. It’d take a better programmer than the County retains to separate truth from fiction, and he’d have to know Spanish anyway. Es verdad, amore. Even if somebody tripped over the actual figures, the substance of the operation’s as well hidden as a real Gucci bag in a truck full of Hong Kong fakes.”

Huddy nodded and gently stepped away. A man was mounting toward them. He was a big, beefy individual a few years older than Huddy. It was hard to tell. Physical labor aged you faster than desk work and his beer belly made him look even older.

This was Larson, and he had four kids and a wife prone to illness, Huddy remembered. All four kids still lived at—and off—home. None of them had a dope problem. He smiled to himself. He liked to know all about his subordinates. It helped him to identify with their petty personal problems. It also provided him with the wherewithal to wield more than just corporate power over their lives.

As one of the supervisors of the clean-up, Larson was in a position to have a pretty good idea what was going on. And to testify in court about it, too. But that would never happen, Huddy knew. The foreman needed this job too badly.

“Pardon me, Mr. Huddy,” the foreman said, properly deferential. Big football star in college, Huddy thought. Second-team all Big-Eight at offensive guard. Didn’t look much like it now. The only sweeps Larson led these days were with a broom. Good man, though. That’s why Huddy had brought him in on this one. He’d keep his trap shut.

“What is it, Larson?”

He jerked a thumb down toward the valley. “We’re just about through here, sir. As you can see.”

“Any trouble on the way out?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Hang on. I’ll check.” The foreman extracted a radio unit from his belt, muttered at it, listened, then clipped it back in position.

“No sir. None of the outgoing trucks have been stopped. Every driver’s under strict orders to stay within the speed limit on penalty of forfeiting every nickel of their bonuses. No complaints from any of the local yokels, the Highway Patrol hasn’t noticed us, and I’ve made sure the trucks are well spaced on the Interstate. The last of the dumpers is already out at the ‘Springs. By rush hour they’ll be on Highway Twenty-five and beyond any traffic. By tonight they’ll be near Mexicali.”

“You’re sure our people at the border know what to do?”

“Everyone’s been taken care of,” Larson said delicately. “The right people have been paid. The trucks’ll go over, then cut through to the coast and rendezvous at the dumpsite we picked on the Gulf. By tomorrow night everything we trucked out of here will be a problem for the fish to worry about. Not yours any longer.”

“Not ours any longer,” Huddy corrected him.

“Right. Not CCM’s, I mean. Excuse me.”

“No sweat. You’ve done a great job, Larson, you and the others. There’ll be an extra surprise in your paycheck next month, on top of what’s already been agreed upon. I’ve already authorized it and Ms. Somerset here will make sure of it.” She nodded at the foreman. He didn’t acknowledge her smile. Being around her made him nervous and tend to forget his wife and family.

But he couldn’t conceal his pleasure. Replace the old Dat-sun six months early, he thought. A new stereo, maybe. Maybe even enough money to help Frank out at the J.C.

He wanted to express his thanks to Huddy but held himself back. He knew Huddy didn’t much like talking to him. That suited Larson just fine. Privately he thought Huddy a stuck-up asshole. Knew his business, though. Had to admit that. Anyway, you didn’t have to like the guy. Just follow his orders and it was Christmas in September.

“I’ll see that things are cleaned up proper, sir.”

“I know you will, Larson.” He said nothing else, ending the meeting. The foreman nodded once, then turned and headed back down the path.

As soon as he was out of sight Huddy put his arm around Somerset’s backside.

“My place or yours?” she asked, running her tongue over her lower lip.

“Ours,” he told her.

“Oh no.” She slumped against him, disappointed. “Not more work. I thought we were through.”

“Not quite yet. You know that, sweetness. Come on, you’re twice as thorough as I am anyway. Let’s not blow this by overlooking something important at the last minute.”

“Oh, alright. But I’m damned tired of it, Benjy. Two days almost without sleep.”

“I promise we’ll make up for it. Starting tomorrow night, after I’ve been through the site in the daytime. I’ll make up for everything else, too.”

She snuggled a little closer.

III

The path led to a graded parking lot just over the hilltop. Down below lay the lights of Riverside and off to the north, San Bernadino. Huddy stepped up into the motor home and flicked on the light. No family recreational vehicle this, but thirty feet of sybaritic corporate luxury. Even the Captain’s chairs forward were padded leather.

He drew a couple of drinks from the bar and added a few tablets from the pillbox he always carried with him to his own glass. They’d helped keep him going for the past week. Somerset plopped herself down in the chair opposite the computer terminal. Her fingers ran lithely over the keyboard, calling up figures and names which should not have been in CCM’s corporate files.

That was the beauty of computer work, she thought. It was so quick and clean. No need anymore for bulky paper shredders or furnaces. You could wipe out illegal information at the touch of a finger, vanquish it forever from the realm of possible prosecution.

She knew what Huddy wanted her to check now. The dump itself was clean. The county inspectors would find only healthy vegetation and fresh air in its depths. Only people could cause them trouble now. Huddy would want to make absolutely sure of potentially troublesome people. He’d want to double-check to make sure everyone had been bought off or threatened into submission.

Huddy handed her the drink. That was one area where their tastes differed. He couldn’t understand what she saw in the taste of gin, which to him had the flavor and consistency of machine oil.

He leaned close to her as she operated the remote terminal. The list she had conjured up contained the names of everyone, adult or child, who lived within a hundred and fifty yards of the dump site’s outermost boundaries or had lived there within the last thirty years. It was not the kind of list that ought to be in the hands of a private corporation.

In addition to the usual vital statistics: name, height, weight, physical description and so on, the list also gave the employer’s names for those who had jobs, the amount of monthly welfare each family received, which individuals were especially vulnerable to economic pressures (which included nearly everyone on the list), which were not, even the dates and descriptions of serious illnesses suffered.

It was the last statistic that Somerset and Huddy were most determined to keep from any other eyes. A doctor perusing that list would immediately have noticed something unusual. There were less than three hundred names on the list. For such a small grouping, with such a diverse ethnic background, the incidence of serious respiratory disease was exceptionally high, as were the number of deaths due to various cancers.

The statistics were not surprising to Huddy. He’d half expected something of the sort when he’d taken on the project. Unfortunate for those who happened to live near the site, but hardly his responsibility. The number of possible and known carcinogens which had been dumped at the site filled another long list.

Fortunately, few people lived in the vicinity of the dump for very long. They were scattered all over the Southwest and Mexico. Of those who remained, several had recently moved away, thanks to the indirect intervention of CCM, which, through Huddy’s underlings, had provided unexpected financial windfalls or job offers elsewhere to families with an especially high incidence of cancer. The county inspectors would find no cluster of heavily diseased citizens living next to the site.

It seemed wondrous, for example, that a job had miraculously materialized for Mr. Gomez, despite his constant coughing. The family had long been dogged by tragedy. Both of Gomez’s parents had died of liver cancer several years ago. So when the job offer had been made, the family readily accepted, delighting in the knowledge that even their move to Calexico would be paid for by Mr. Gomez’s new employers.

No records had to be falsified, no one had to be asked to lie. The potential warning signs were simply induced to move away from the dump. All were grateful for the unexpected largess. None saw any connection between their good fortune now and their terrible luck in the past.

Only one remained that Huddy would’ve liked to be rid of; an old, long-time resident of the area, name of Jake Pickett. He reached past Somerset and touched the keyboard. The abstracted Jake Pickett sprang into prominence on the glowing screen. Somerset knew the name and looked sympathetically at Huddy. This Pickett had refused the first job offer Huddy’s people had made him. For one thing, he was older than the Gomezes or any of the others they’d had to resettle. He’d lived next to the dump longer than anyone else. Unlike the Gomezes, he had roots there.

So he’d simply smiled patiently at the company representatives while politely declining their offers.

“This is my home,” he’d told them. “I’ve lived here fifty years. I’m not about to pick up and leave now. What for? A job? At my age?” He’d laughed easily. “You’ve got to be kidding. I’ve got my social security and my modest savings. So you find some younger fella who really needs the job.” And he’d closed the door on the discouraged representatives.