Free Fire - C. J. Box [88]
It was as if he were speaking Martian, McCann thought.
“Clay,” Sheila sighed from the back, “please take me somewherewithout horses. Or hunters. Or ex-sheriff assholes who won’t take their sunglasses off.”
McCann noted that her anger had been replaced by despair. He felt sorry for her. All dressed up and stuck in a car with Butch Toomer. And him. She deserved better, he thought. He wished Toomer was gone and she’d take her sweater off.
“Make her shut up, or I’ll do it,” Toomer growled at him.
“Leave her alone,” McCann said.
“Don’t you tell me what to do.”
McCann could tell the ex-sheriff meant it.
“Okay,” McCann said. “Let’s all settle down, please.” He tried to catch Sheila’s eye in the rearview. When he did she displayedher middle finger at him.
Mccann had heard nothing from Layton Barron. That alone told him all he needed to know. If Barron and his partner were playing straight with him, there would have been at least a call that morning. And if Barron had been unable to reach his man on the inside, he should have let McCann know he was working on it and beg him not to carry out his threat.
And when his banker told him no money had been deposited into his account, McCann knew Barron had talked to his partner,and they’d decided not to pay up, but to take another course of action. Either they didn’t believe he’d go to the police or they had plans for him. He guessed the latter.
Which meant, McCann decided, that his situation was desperate.And desperate men, well . . . they hire lawyers to think of ways to use the law to save themselves. Fortunately, he had that part covered.
The road got narrower, more rural. Straightaways turned into meandering turns through farmland. The Tetons sparkled in the distance, looking clean, white, and fake.
Toomer said, “It always pisses me off that the snooty bastardsover there in Jackson Hole always refer to our side of the mountains as ‘the back side of the Tetons.’ Who in the hell gave them the ‘front’?”
McCann watched for the turnoff and ignored Toomer. Sheila had seemed to make it her mission to ignore both of them now. Instead, she kept sighing.
“I need a drink,” she said, breaking her silence. “Are there any bars ahead?”
“This is Mormon country,” Toomer said. “No bars.”
“Mormons drink,” she said. “Especially if there’s just one of them. I’ve seen ’em go at it at Rocky’s. If there’s two, they watch each other and neither one will drink. It cracks me up.”
“That’s what they always say in elk camp,” Toomer said, laughing with loud guffaws. “If a Mormon comes and he’s alone, hide the whiskey!”
They seemed to be getting along so well, McCann thought, neither noticed he had turned off the main road toward the east. Or that the bridge that crossed Boundary Creek was just ahead. Or that despite the absence of a sign or a gate, they were officiallyin Yellowstone Park.
With his left hand, McCann pushed the button on the door handle that lowered the passenger window by Toomer’s head.
“Hey,” Toomer said, “why’d you do that? Did you fart or something?” He looked back to see if Sheila, his new pal, would laugh at his joke.
“No,” McCann said, pulling the .38 out of his jacket, “so your brains won’t splash all over the glass.”
Toomer’s mouth made an O and McCann fired into the left lens of his sunglasses, and then the right. The sounds were sharp and deafening. The ex-sheriff slumped back, his mouth still open, a string of saliva connecting his upper and lower teeth.
Sheila screamed, “Clay! Clay! Clay! Oh my God!” her hands to her face, her knees clamped together.
McCann said, “I’m really sorry, honey,” and shot her three times. One bullet passed through her necklace and sent pearls flying all over the inside of the car.
At dusk, ten minutes before he’d close the office for the night, B. Stevens heard the clump of a shoe on the wooden stairs outside the Bechler ranger station and looked up as Clay McCann opened the door and came in. He looked flushed.
The ranger was stunned. “You . . .” he said.
“It happened again, can you believe it?” McCann said as he wearily dropped