Free Fire - C. J. Box [106]
The hot tears came from nowhere as the chopper lifted off for Billings, and he angrily wiped them away.
Joe was bone-tired as he drove Lars’s pickup through Mammoth village to the cabins. He was having trouble thinking clearly and was unable to stop his left eye from blinking furiouslywith stress.
Marybeth’s van was parked in front of his cabin, doors open. Nate was helping her carry suitcases from the van into the cabin. They appeared to be chatting happily. Neither recognizedhim as he drove up in the pickup, although Nate shot an annoyed glance in his direction because of the burbling noise of the glasspacks. He could see Sheridan and Lucy wearing sweat-shirts,their blond hair tied back in twin ponytails, sneaking up on a cow elk and her calf eating grass in a meadow that borderedthe cabins.
When he parked and got out, Marybeth saw him, beamed, then switched to a fake angry face. Joe could tell she was about to say: How nice of you to be here to greet us, or Thank goodnessNate was here to show us our cabin . . . when she saw the expression on his face and became instantly, visibly concerned.
“Dad!” Lucy cried, turning and running toward him with Sheridan just behind her.
“One big happy!” Nate said, oblivious.
24
When the trusty brought his breakfast, McCannsaid, “I want to talk to the man in charge of the jail.”
“You mean Ranger Layborn?”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“You do that. And take the food back. I can’t eat that crap. Leave the coffee, though.”
He waited for twenty minutes, sitting on his cot drinking weak coffee until the plastic carafe was empty. His stomach hurt and he wondered if he was getting an ulcer. He tried to ignore the video camera aimed at him through the bars outside his cell. It was strange how, at times, he felt people watching him. Like yesterday,when he felt the presence of someone quite strongly, someone new. When it happened he did his best not to move so as not to provide his watchers with anything to see. He wanted to look comfortable, and content, even though he wasn’t. His goal was to show that he could wait them out, drive them crazy. Of course, he knew, as they did, he could walk out anytime. But that was the last thing on earth he wanted to do.
Out of his view, a metal door opened and closed and he heard footsteps coming. He took a deep breath, straightened his back, set his cup aside.
Layborn stopped short of the front of his cell and leaned forward,his face an annoyed mask. “What now?”
“We need to talk.”
“I’m busy.”
“I promise you this will be the most important thing you hear today.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“And you, Ranger Layborn, need to know which side your bread is buttered. Grab a chair,” McCann said. “Let’s raise the level of discourse. Which means I talk, and you listen with your mouth shut for once.”
Layborn’s good eye bulged, and McCann thought for a secondthat Layborn was going to come in after him. Something made the ranger think twice about it, and instead he withdrew his head, turned angrily while muttering curses, and marched back toward the door.
“If you leave right now without hearing me out,” McCann called after him, “I swear to God I’ll blow this whole thing wide open and you’ll go down with them.”
Silence. Layborn had stopped. He was thinking about it.
“I’m not bluffing,” McCann said.
“Fuck,” Layborn hissed.
McCann heard the legs of a chair scraping against the concrete.Layborn reappeared reluctantly, raised the chair and slammed it down, sat heavily in it, said, “You’ve got five minutes.” McCann noted Layborn placed the chair far enough from the cell that it couldn’t be seen on the video monitor if anyone looked. He knew there was no sound accompanying the live video feed, so they couldn’t be overheard either.
“That’s all I need. Are you listening? I mean, really listening?