Free Fire - C. J. Box [79]
“Why exactly did you hire me?”
“I think we’re through here,” McCann said. “I’ll get you your fee tomorrow.”
Toomer smiled a half-smile, put his sunglasses back on, and stood up and left without shaking McCann’s extended hand.
“Don’t mess with me, Clay,” he said as he shut the door.
Mccann’s insides were burbling. This thing was coming apart. He should have been out of the country by now, on an island,sipping a drink and being petted by a woman he’d yet to meet. Instead, it seemed like the sky itself was crushing down and the walls were tightening in on him like jaws of a vise. He wondered what Cutler had told Pickett and Demming.
He punched the button for the intercom.
“Sheila, get me Layton Barron’s home number in Denver.”
No response.
“Sheila?”
“What do you think I am,” she screeched. “Your fucking secretary?”
Barron’s wife answered and McCann asked to speak to Layton. She covered the phone while she called to her husbandbut McCann could hear her through her fingers, which he imagined as bony but finely manicured.
Barron said, “Yes?” He didn’t sound pleased.
“You know who this is.”
“I can’t believe you called me at home.” His tone was angry, astonished. “I’m going to—”
“If you hang up on me, you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison,” McCann said flatly. “Your bony-fingered wife will be alone with all of your treasure.”
Pause. Then: “Honey, I need to take this in my office. Will you please hang it up in a second?”
There were no pleasantries once Barron picked up his privatephone. “Look, I tried to call you back yesterday,” Barron said, sounding as if he were speaking through clenched teeth. “I tried that number you gave me three times. First it was busy, then it rang and rang. And how do you know about my wife?”
“Forget that,” McCann said.
“Then why are you calling me? How did you get my home number?”
“Forget that too,” McCann said. “I want you to shut up and listen for once.”
He could hear Barron take a breath. “Go ahead.”
“We may have trouble up here. A couple of investigators”— McCann glanced at the business cards and read off the names— “went to Sunburst today with Mark Cutler. They may be too stupid to put things together, but that’s getting too close for me.”
“Jesus,” Barron said softly.
“I want to get out of here,” McCann said. “I want you to live up to your end of the deal. I want my money, now!”
“Clay, it’s not what you think. We’re not trying to screw you, not at all. The SEC’s been camped out in our building for three weeks. It has nothing to do with you at all, but I can’t move any money right now. They’re going over everything for the past four years. It’s a fucking nightmare.”
“You’re right,” McCann said, “this has nothing to do with me. I could care less about the SEC, or your company. I want my money. I did my part, you need to do yours.”
“Look,” Barron said, an edge of panic entering his voice, “I think they’ll be gone by the end of the week. I really do. We’re clean, I swear it. It’s just that some of our accounting looks a little,well, optimistic. I’m sure we’ll get it sorted out and when those assholes leave, I’ll get that transfer to you within the hour.”
“Not good enough,” McCann said. “I need it now. Tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“You have no idea what it’s like for me,” McCann said. “If Pickett and Demming start connecting the dots, I’m just sitting here.”
“Can’t you be more reasonable?”
Yes, McCann thought, the panic in Barron’s voice was real. He’d cracked him.
“Listen to me,” McCann said, pressing, deciding to show his hole card, “if I don’t get my money, I’ll go to the FBI and sing in exchange for immunity. They’ll give it to me, I promise you. I’ve worked with them and they’d rather nail somebody high-level—somebody like Layton Barron of EnerDyne—than put me back in jail.”
“My God, you can’t be serious.”
McCann nodded. “I’m serious.”
“But I told you, I can’t move the money. The SEC—”
“Then send me some of your money, you twit,” McCann said. “Sit down at your computer