The Buck Passes Flynn by Gregory McDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

to your own satisfaction, that everyone in town did receive this money.” She too was keeping her voice low. “Can you tell me the direction in which you expect your investigation to go from here?”
    “There are two questions,” said Flynn. “Who is being so generous? Why is he, or are they, being so generous? It’s my fervent hope to have both questions investigated at one and the same time. Obviously, whoever is doing it does not want us to find out who he is. At least not yet. If he’s got this kind of money, our boyo benefactor can obviously prevent our finding out who he is for a long time—maybe forever, if hewants. Therefore, I think I must try to discover why he is doing it.”
    “And how do you intend to do that?”
    “By peepin’ around the land, Ms. Webb, and trying to discover the results of this astoundin’ generosity. Do you understand that at all, or would you put it down with another of your four-letter words?”
    “What do you mean, ‘the results’?”
    “It’s a simple enough jump, Ms. Webb, isn’t it? Or is my logic in need of overhaulin’ by a man with a wrench? If you don’t know why someone is doing something, you look to the results of his doing it.”
    “Sometimes,” Ducey Webb said, “people don’t get the results they desire.”
    “Sometimes,” said Flynn, “they do.”
    “You mean you’re going to chase the two thousand ex-citizens of Ada, Texas, all over the country—the
world
—and ask them … what? ‘How are you?’ ‘What’s happening?’ ”
    “I mean to take a samplin’,” said Flynn. “A wee samplin’.”
    “Where are you going to start?”
    “Las Vegas. But I wish to speak with the preacher and his wife again, first.”
    “Would you like to listen to me for a while?” Ducey said. “I have some ideas of my own.”
    “It’s well time you contributed to the conversation,” said Flynn, “having entered it with nothing more than a letter from the President and a list of questions.”
    “My first idea is oil, Flynn. Haven’t you thought of oil?”
    “I’ve thought of oil,” said Flynn. “Frequently.”
    “Someone wants this area depopulated.”
    “That could be.”
    “Maybe someone knows there’s oil under all this land and wanted to get the people off it.”
    “Not impossible,” said Flynn. “But if I were a businessman and I wanted to drill for oil, the last thing I’d do would be to scatter the owners of the land and theoil rights to the four corners of the world. If I were giving the owners all this money, at least I’d want some pieces of paper back, signed, sayin’ I had the right to drill for oil on their land while they’re off lookin’ at the Pacific Ocean.”
    “Oh.” She straightened her back. “But no, Flynn. Through the banks. I mean, you said all the ranches around here have heavy mortgages. Within two months, three months—right about now, probably—the banks would be taking over all these ranches because the mortgages aren’t being paid. The owners can’t be found.”
    “I think I see,” said Flynn.
    “See? First you get the people off their ranches …”
    “Which cost almost one hundred and eighty-six million dollars.”
    “Then you buy the ranches from the banks.”
    “For the value of their mortgages, is that it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is Ada, Texas, worth that much?”
    “The oil under it may be.”
    “I don’t know,” said Flynn. “I don’t know. Sure, we’re payin’ a fearful price for oil, aren’t we, though?”
    Down the counter, one of the three young men—the one who had said nothing—took out a switchblade and began to pick his teeth with it.
    They had finished their chili and hamburgers before Flynn had entered Bob’s Diner.
    The dirty dishes were still on the counter in front of them, as were fresh cans of beer.
    Ducey Webb said, “My second theory, Flynn, is that you and I are being diddled.”
    “How’s that? Diddled?”
    “Diddled,” she said. “The object obviously is to