Overload

"That Quayle outfit," Nim queried, "What's been found out about them?"

"Plenty. First, there was enough damaging stuff on the truck and in the Zaco Building for Wineski to ask for a warrant to search the Quayle offices. He did ask, and he got it fast. Result: the police were in there before the Quayle people even knew their men had been arrested."

"Don't let your stew get cold," Nim said. "It's good."

"Sure is. Fix it so that I eat up here more often, would you?"

"Go on getting the kind of results you did last week, and you could be up here regularly before you know it."

The dining room, reserved for company vice presidents and above, and their guests, was modest in size and decor, so as not to create an impression of opulence when outsiders were brought in. But the food was exceptional. Its quality far exceeded that of the general staff cafeteria located on a lower floor.

"Getting back to Quayle Electrical & Gas," London said, "first they've got a legit business-good size, with a fleet of twenty-five trucks. They also have a string of subcontractors, smaller firms, to whom they farm out work.

The way it looks now-and again I'm quoting Lieutenant Wineski-is that Quayle has used the legitimate side of its business as a cover for power stealing, which they've been into in a big way. There was a lot more material on their premises-the same kind of stuff that was on the truck they sent to Zaco."

"Tell me one thing," Nim said. "If a company like Quayle was legit to begin with, why in God's name would they get into power theft?"

London shrugged. “The oldest reason: Money. Some of this is guesswork, but the way the pieces are coming together it looks as if Quayle -like a lot of businesses nowadays-has had trouble making a profit because of high costs. But the illegal stuff shows a big profit. Why? Because they can charge maybe five, six, seven times what they would for ordinary work. And the outfits they do it for-like the Zacc, Building are glad to pay because they expect even bigger savings in their costs. Something else you have to remember, Nim, is that until recently it's all been easy, a pushover; they've gotten away with it."

“The way it all sounds," Nim said, "there's still a good deal to unravel?"

"A big ball of yarn," London acknowledged. "And it could be months before the whole picture becomes clear. Right now, though, two things are helping. One, the D.A.'s office is really interested; they've put a prosecutor on the case and Wineski's working with him. Two, the Quayle outfit kept detailed records of all its jobs, and those of subcontractors too."

Nim asked, "And the police have those records?"

"Right-except the D.A. may have them by now. They turned up in the search. Only trouble is, there's nothing to show what work was legitimate, and what was illegal. That's where my department, my people, are helping out."

“In what way?"

'We're checking every job that the Quayle outfit did in the past year. Something their records-work orders-show is precisely what materials were used in each case. If we can show they were stolen or used for illegal purposes-and in a lot of instances it looks as if we can-the D.A. will have a big, fat, prosecutable case."

Nim ruminated, digesting the information be had been given. He asked,

"How about the company that owns the Zaco Building, and other people Quayle did illegal work for? Presumably we'll be going after them too?"

"Damn right we are! There should be records of payments to Quayle Electrical in the books of Zaco, and the others, which opens up another whole side to the case." London's voice reflected mounting enthusiasm. "I'm telling you, Nim, we've uncovered a fat rat's nest. I predict some big names in this town will have mud on them before all this is over."

“The chairman will want a detailed report," Nim said. "And progress reports later."

"He'll get them. So will you."

"How about staff? Can you handle all this with the people you have now?"

"Not sure yet, Nim. I may need some help. If so, I'll let you know next week."

"What's happened to the three men who were arrested?"

“They're out on bail. The police are protecting the kid, hiding him, because they intend to use him as a prosecution witness. By the way, one thing he let out was that only some of the Quayle crews-the trusted ones-have been doing power theft installations. If we can narrow that down to which crews, it should make investigation easier."

"Just one thing puzzles me," Nim said. "Since the illegal work at the Zaco Building was already done, why did the Quayle crew go back?"

"That's one great big laugh," London answered. "A laugh on them. That way the kid heard it, and told Wineski, somebody in charge at Zaco heard a rumble about our snooping-Art Romeo's and mine. It had them worried. So they decided not to steal as much, and what those three guys were doing was modifying the work they'd done earlier. If they'd left well enough alone, we could have stewed forever, waiting."

"Speaking of stew," Nim said, "have some more."

* * *

Later that afternoon, while Nim was with J. Eric Humphrey in the chairman's office suite, he described the substance of the Property Protection chief's report. "You could think of it as a small Christmas present," Nim said.

Humphrey expressed brief approval, smiled at the reference to Christmas, which was five days away, then let the subject drop. As Nim was aware, other matters were weighing more heavily on the chairman's mind.

One was Tunipah. Another was water. A third was oil.

Hearings on GSP&L's Tunipah license application before the California Energy Commission were proceeding even more slowly than anticipated, their pace described by Oscar O'Brien the day before: "A snail by comparison is supersonic." Clearly it would be months before the present, first stage of hearings was concluded, with the prospect of subsequent stages stretching on for years. Coupled with that the other related hearings-before the Public Utilities Commission, Water Quality Resources Board, and Air Resources Board-had not even begun.

As a result, O'Brien had now revised his earlier estimate that licensing procedures would take six to seven years. “The way things are going," he reported yesterday, "it could be eight years, even ten, before we get permission to start construction. Assuming we ever do."

As to other proposed generating plants, including Devil's Gate pumped storage and Fincastle geothermal, progress was equally, dispiritingly slow.

And all the while, as Eric Humphrey, Nim, and others in the GSP&L hierarchy realized, a day of reckoning was drawing closer; a day when public demands for electric power would surpass by far what could be produced with existing facilities. On that day and beyond, the unbuilt plants of Tunipah, Fincastle, Devil's Gate, et al, would be desperately, but vainly, longed for.

Water was the second reason for the chairman's concern. Despite two winter storms with accompanying rainfall, seasonal precipitation in California so far had been alarmingly small. Reservoirs, depleted by an earlier drought were far below normal levels for the third week of December. And snow, which usually fell heavily in the Sierra Nevada and elsewhere, had been exceptionally light or nonexistent.

In a good precipitation year, winter snow was money in the bank for a huge public utility like Golden State Power & Light. When the snow melted in the spring, great rivers and streams cascaded downward, filling reservoirs which would fuel a vast network of hydroelectric power stations during the summer ahead.

Now, according to estimates which Eric Humphrey had been given, hydroelectric power next year might be reduced by twenty-five percent because of the lack of runoff water.

Then oil.

For Golden State Power & Light, as well as other public utilities companies, along both coasts, oil loomed as the largest question mark, the biggest potential worry of them all.

Only that morning, in the Chronicle-West, a syndicated business columnist had summed up the situation:

The danger about oil has been creeping up, like a tiger in the grass, while we haven't noticed or maybe didn't want to.

It began with the decline of the U.S. dollar several years ago -our once respected "greenback," but no longer strong, no longer "good as gold" because the dollar's gold backing was canceled out during the Nixon presidency.

Then, while the dollar plunged because of ineptitude and politics in Washington, the oil exporting nations of the Middle East, North and West Africa, Indonesia and Venezuela raised their dollar prices in an attempt to stay even.