Con Law (18 page)

‘Billy Bob Barnett.’

Book hesitated then shook hands.

‘John Bookman.’

‘Professor, it’s an honor. Course, you didn’t have to dress up for me.’

He hadn’t. Book wore jeans, boots, a blue Tommy Bahama T-shirt, sunglasses on a braided cord around his neck, and his black running watch. No rings.

‘And my intern, Nadine Honeywell.’

She wore shorts that revealed her swimmer’s legs. Billy Bob’s eyes roamed her body with lascivious intent.

‘Well, honey.’

He had amused himself with his play on her name. Book gestured at the photos on the wall to divert Billy Bob’s leer from his intern.

‘Did you play football at A&M?’

‘Yell
leader.’

Unlike the University of Texas, which offers gorgeous coeds in leather chaps, biker shorts, and torso-revealing fringed cowgirl shirts as cheerleaders at football games, Texas A&M offers five male students in white shirts and trousers as ‘yell leaders.’ The former Aggie yell leader standing before Book abruptly threw his arms out and broke into a yell.

Nadine had recoiled in fright when Billy Bob began his yell.

‘Wow,’ she now said. ‘That’s really scary.’

‘It is for Longhorns,’ Billy Bob said with a big grin.

A&M boasted a proud agricultural and military tradition, although the A and the M originally stood for ‘Agricultural’ and ‘Mechanical,’ and the students were initially called ‘Farmers,’ but later became ‘Aggies,’ a common nickname for students at Ag schools. The downside is that the nickname encouraged UT Longhorn students to make up jokes mocking Aggies as dumb farmers, such as:

‘Anyway,’ Billy Bob said, ‘I got a degree in petroleum engineering, minor in international politics, which is damn near required knowledge to play the oil and gas game today. Not like back in the day, when the Texas Railroad Commission controlled the price of oil in the world, before OPEC came on the scene. Before my time, but old-timers tell me the oil and gas business was really fun back then. How ’bout some coffee and donuts?’

‘No,
thank—’

‘What kind of donuts?’ Nadine asked.

‘Honeywell, we got chocolate donuts and glazed donuts and sprinkled donuts and crème-filled donuts and just about every kind of donut they make. You like donuts?’

‘I love donuts.’

‘Me, too. Come on back, we’ll get you sugared up … sugar.’

Billy Bob abruptly turned away and sneezed—Nadine used the opportunity to make a gagging gesture with her finger at her mouth—then he blew his nose into a white handkerchief.

‘Damn head cold.’

They followed him down a hallway; he jabbed a thumb behind them.

‘Receptionist, she’s more an Earl than an Earlene, but she can double as my bodyguard in a pinch.’

‘You need a bodyguard in Marfa?’ Book asked.

‘Never know, all these artists and environmentalists.’

Nadine pulled out her hand sanitizer and offered Book a squirt; he was about to decline when Billy Bob sniffled and then wiped his hand across his nose again. Book stuck an open palm out to her; she gave him a good squirt. He rubbed the gel into his hands as they followed Billy Bob into a lunchroom. On a table sat a platter of donut paradise. Nadine’s eyes sparkled.

‘Oh, boy.’

She squirted sanitizer into her hand and rubbed quickly while she studied the donuts. Billy Bob grabbed a massive donut with colorful sprinkles on top; his belly testified to a serious donut habit. He waved a hand at the platter of sugar.

‘Take what you want, Honeywell.’

She did. A big chocolate-covered donut.

‘Can I have coffee, too?’

‘Help yourself.’

She did. A tall Styrofoam cup of caffeine.

‘Read in the paper you were in town, Professor,’ Billy Bob said. He stuffed half the donut in his mouth. Blue and red and pink sprinkles now dotted his goatee. ‘And I heard you roughed up a couple of my boys last night at Padre’s. With that kung fu crap.’

‘Taekwondo
. Only after your boys accosted a lady.’

‘Carla’s no lady. Cusses like a roughneck and votes like a Commie. She’s an environmentalist.’ He had amused himself again. ‘Course, she fits right in now, all those New York homo-sexuals moving down here, voting Democrat … Hell, Presidio County went for Obama, only county in all of West Texas. That’s pretty goddamn embarrassing, if you ask me.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘If you did.’ He finished off the donut. ‘You know, Carla, her—’

Billy Bob stopped short his sentence as if he had thought better of it. He abruptly pivoted and lumbered out. Nadine crammed the last of her donut into her mouth as if she were in a donut-eating contest then quickly grabbed another chocolate one; they followed Billy Bob farther down the hallway. Book whispered to Nadine.

‘You know how much sugar you’re putting in your body?’

‘Better than a man,’ she said through a mouthful of donut.

They entered an expansive office with the courthouse cupola framed in a wall of glass. Billy Bob gestured at two chairs in front of a massive wood desk that looked as if it had been carved out of a redwood tree.

‘Take a load off.’

He circled the desk and dropped into a leather chair that resembled a throne. They sat in the visitors’ chairs. The office featured wood and leather and the aroma of cigars. A tall bookshelf behind Billy Bob held more Aggie memorabilia, signed footballs and framed photographs of Billy Bob with coaches and the governor of Texas, a former yell leader himself. On the wall opposite the desk hung a huge flat screen television; on the side wall were large maps of Texas, the U.S., and the world. The desktop was clean except for a copy of
The Times of Marfa
with Book’s photo on the front page, a remote control, and a Western-style handgun sitting atop a thick stack of papers. Billy Bob swiveled in his chair, reached into a cigar box on the shelf, and removed a long cigar. He held it out to Book, but Book shook his head. Billy Bob clamped his teeth around the cigar.

‘I
hate Commies, but the Cubans do make good cigars.’

He picked up the handgun, pointed the barrel at Book, and pulled the trigger. A flame shot out the barrel.

‘Lighter.’

He moved the flame to the end of the cigar, but Book’s intern stopped him cold.

‘No!’

Billy Bob looked at her. ‘What?’

‘I have allergies.’

Billy Bob studied her a moment then released the trigger of the handgun-lighter. The flame disappeared. He replaced the lighter on the stack of papers. His gaze returned to Nadine, as if expecting a show of appreciation for his chivalry. But all he got was, ‘Thanks.’ Book decided to use the moment to begin his cross-examination of Billy Bob Barnett.

‘Mr. Barnett, are your fracking operations contaminating the groundwater?’

Some lawyers believe that aggressive rapid-fire questioning is the most effective form of cross. Perhaps it is in a courtroom where the witness knows he is the target. But outside a court-room, when you’re still stalking the target, when the witness does not yet know he is the target—when you’re not even sure he is the target—such questioning is not effective. The witness simply refuses to answer your questions; and there is no judge to force an answer.

Book wanted answers from Billy Bob Barnett.

So he opted for a different technique. One that encouraged the witness to talk—about himself, his work, and his life. That technique required a provocative opening inquiry and a certain amount of patience. Most people want to convince you that they’re good, that their work is important, that their lives are relevant. If given the opportunity, they will talk. And if their favorite topic of conversation happens to be the person they see in the mirror—and Billy Bob Barnett seemed that type of man—they will talk a lot. Reveal a lot. Perhaps even incriminate themselves. Book felt certain that the man sitting across the desk had much to offer in the way of self-incrimination.

Billy
Bob’s eyes slowly came off Nadine and onto Book; he held his expression a moment then broke into a hearty laugh.

‘Well, good morning to you, too, Professor. Damn, you sure don’t waste any time with small talk, do you? Hell, and I was gonna try and recruit you away from UT for our new A&M law school. Professor of your stature, just what we need to get it off the ground. Five years from now, our law school will be better than yours.’

Only a hundred miles separates the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University at College Station, but the two schools have been bitter archrivals for over a hundred years. Both enroll fifty thousand students, but the student bodies resemble the national political parties: UT is liberal, green, anti-war, and Democrat; A&M is conservative, oil and gas, the corps, and Republican. The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum stands on the UT campus; the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library stands on the A&M campus. The schools have competed in putting prominent politicians, business leaders, scientists, military officers, academics, artists, actors, and athletes into the world—but never lawyers. Because A&M had no law school. Until now. The A&M alumni had finally gotten their law school, and they were determined to fund it to whatever extent necessary to top UT. Billy Bob jabbed the unlit cigar in the air.

‘And
we’re sure as hell not gonna hire a bunch of goddamn left-wing professors from Harvard and Yale, I guarandamntee you.’

‘Not enough jobs for law grads as it is, might not be the best time to start a new law school.’

‘Not to worry, Professor. Aggies take care of each other. We’re akin to a cult, like Mormons without the extra wives. We’ll make damn sure every graduate gets a job. And Mr. Barnett was my daddy. I’m just Billy Bob.’

‘Billy Bob. Same question. Are your fracking—’

‘Hydraulic fracturing,’ he said, carefully pronouncing each syllable as if he were a kindergartner sounding out the words. ‘We don’t say “fracking.” Myself, I prefer “hydraulic stimulation.”’

‘Why not fracking?’

‘Stimulation sounds fun; not so much fracking. And some sci-fi movie used it like the F-word, to mean sex. Environmentalists picked up on it, plastered it on T-shirts, billboards, bumper stickers. “Frack Me” … “Frack You” … “Frack Off” … “Frack This” … “Frack That” …’

Nadine giggled.

‘It ain’t funny,’ Billy Bob said.

‘It’s pretty funny.’

Billy Bob bit down on the cigar, leaned back in his throne, crossed his thick arms, and studied Nadine Honeywell a long uncomfortable moment. He removed the cigar.

‘You want a job, Honeywell?’

‘I want to be a chef.’

‘The hell you doing in law school?’

‘My dad wants me to be a lawyer.’

Billy Bob nodded. ‘My dad wanted me to be a lawyer, too. Respectable. Instead, I’m rich. Course, I wouldn’t have been a good lawyer, never was much for book work. So I went to A&M.’

‘Was he mad when you didn’t go to law school?’

Billy Bob
grinned. ‘Fit to be tied.’

‘Did he ever forgive you?’

‘He died.’

That thought lingered like cigar smoke until Book broke the silence.

‘Billy Bob, is your hydraulic stimulation contaminating the groundwater?’

Billy Bob snapped back to the moment. ‘Hell, no. The Energy Institute at your own UT confirmed that, said there’s no direct connection between hydraulic stimulation and ground water contamination.’

‘Well, that might be so, but your own lawyer said otherwise.’

‘The hell you talking about?’

Book pulled out Nathan’s letter and slid it across the desk. Billy Bob examined the envelope then removed and read the letter. He sniffled and breathed through his mouth. He finally looked up with a frown.

‘Aren’t lawyers supposed to be loyal to their clients?’

‘Some lawyers have consciences.’

‘Not the ones I hire.’

The frown left, and he sighed.

‘Nathan was a good boy and a good lawyer. Smart and dependable. Cute gal for a wife. What’s her name?’

‘Brenda.’

‘Yeah, Brenda.’ He shook his head. ‘His kid’s gonna grow up without a dad.’

‘Was Nathan your primary lawyer?’

‘Here in Marfa. Tom Dunn—you met him, I heard—he’s my main lawyer. Nathan handled my day-to-day matters down here—lawsuits, leases, permits, contracts, that sort of thing. He was a hard-working lawyer. I liked him. Real sorry he died. Terrible accident. I told him to slow down—’

‘He drove fast?’

‘This is West Texas. Everyone drives fast. But I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about in this letter, Professor. I’m a fracker’—he grimaced—‘a stimulator and damn proud of it. I’m saving America from the Muslims and Europe from the Russians.’

‘What
do you do on weekends?’

‘And contrary to what you hear and read in the left-wing media, fracking’—another grimace—‘stimulation is completely safe to humans and the environment.’

He picked up the remote control and pointed it at the TV. The screen flashed on to a YouTube video showing a drilling rig.

‘Watch and learn, Professor—the ABCs of hydraulic stimulation.’

The video played on the screen narrated by a friendly male voice, as if Mister Rogers were explaining fracking to the neighborhood kids.

The narrator: ‘
Geologists have known for years that substantial deposits of oil and natural gas are trapped in deep shale formations. These shale reservoirs were created tens of millions of years ago. Around the world today, with modern horizontal drilling techniques and hydraulic fracturing, the trapped oil and natural gas in these shale reservoirs is being safely and efficiently produced, gathered, and distributed to customers. Let’s look at the drilling and completion process of a typical oil and natural gas well.
’

A color animation depicted the drilling of a well through a cross-section of the earth.

‘
Shale reservoirs are usually one mile or more below the surface, well below any underground source of drinking water, which is typically no more than three hundred to one thousand feet below the surface.
’