Free Fire - C. J. Box [81]
DINNER TOOK HOURS. McCann ordered too many martinis.She looked good in the light from the single cheap candle on the table, which took ten years off her face and made her skin seem smoother and whiter and her lips more lush and red.
“Tomorrow we’ll drive to Idaho Falls,” he said. “We can check on flights, do a little shopping. You’ll need some things to wear on the beach, I would guess.”
“It must be nice to have money,” she said. “Ten thousand a day.”
“That’s just a fraction of what they owe me.”
“You turned that man into a quivering little squirrel,” she said, holding her hand out toward him and pulling her sleeve back. “I got goose bumps listening.”
He shrugged, flattered.
“Who is the man on the inside?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll fill you in tomorrow . . . if you’re a good girl until then.”
“When I’m good, I’m very good,” she said. “That’s what they used to tell me . . .”
“And when you’re bad . . .” he said, letting it trail off.
“I’m really fucking bad.” She grinned.
He ordered another martini for both of them. He had to look down to see if he’d finished his steak. Nope.
She favored him with a smile so full-bore he could see her back teeth. “We really are partners in crime, aren’t we?”
“We are,” he said. “You now know more than anyone else.”
“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” she said, “except when, well, you know.”
It was as if she were melting for him before his eyes.
He’d never been with a woman like her, he thought. Too bad about tomorrow.
16
It was obvious to joe when he saw george pickett waiting for him at a back table in the near-empty employee cafeteria that the old man had cleaned himself up. George looked dark and small, birdlike, fragile, his thick black hair slicked back wetly in jail-bar strings and his hands entwined in front of him. A tray of food sat off to the side. He wore a dingy but clean white shirt buttoned all the way up and dark baggy slacks Joe recognized from years before, which gave Joe an uneasyfeeling and caused a hitch in his step that he powered through, as if his legs had thought better of the reunion and decidedto flee.
The closer Joe got to his father, the angrier and more confusedhe became. The emotions came out of a place he didn’t know still existed, as if a long-dormant tumor had ruptured. He felt eighteen again, and not in a good way.
Joe sat down across from George. They had the table to themselves. Outside the murky, unwashed windows, the last moments of the sun died on the pine boughs.
“You can grab a tray and get some dinner,” George said, gesturingtoward the buffet line at the front of the room.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve got to eat something.”
“No.”
George slid his tray before him—slices of dark meat coveredwith brown gravy, a mound of mashed potatoes with a hollowed-out, gravy-filled pocket on top. Joe remembered watching his father do that growing up—hollowing out the potatoeswith the heel of his spoon, pouring gravy in the depressionso it looked like a volcano about to erupt gravy.
George halfheartedly cut a forkful of beef and raised it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, painfully, as if his gums hurt. Joe noticedthat his hand holding the fork trembled as he raised it.
When he was through chewing, George washed it down with half a glass of ice water and winced as he drank. “You sure you don’t want something?”
“I’m sure.”
“Just so you know, I haven’t had a drink all day.”
“That’s why you’re shaking and drinking water,” Joe said.
“I did it for you. It wasn’t easy.”
Joe nodded. He could not make himself thank his father for not drinking for the day. He couldn’t think of a good thing to say about anything, and regretted that he’d come.
“It’s good to see you, Son,” George said softly, holding Joe’s eyes for a fleeting second before looking away. Joe noticed George was having trouble keeping his mouth still, as if his teeth wanted to chatter.
“I guess I’m supposed to say it’s good to see you too,” Joe said.
“But you can’t say that.”
“I can’t say that.”
Still not