“I need you to keep an eye out for a shit-heap pickup with an Eddyville sticker on the bumper,” Clay said. He racked his brain for a second. “License plate… starts 712 or 713. It stays off the record. I’ll make it worth your while.”
He hung up and shoved the burner into his pocket. Then he bounced his knee absently, the sound of his heel against the dash loud. After a second, Harry glanced his way.
“Maybe give up the smokes tomorrow,” he said. “When you know if there’s any reason to or not.”
Clay ignored him as they turned out of town and hit the more or less straight run to the Slap.
§
Ezra handed Clay a beer and pulled a chair out from the table with his foot.
“You sure about this?” he asked.
Clay slouched back, one arm hung up over the back of the chair, and watched the front door of the Slap. He rubbed his finger against the scarred wood, over and along the nicks and lines.
“You know whiskey makes me pissy,” he said.
Ezra snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, we all remember that. I mean talking to Nesmith.”
“Mouthpiece?”
Ezra winced. “Do you have to?”
“Yes and no,” Clay said. He lifted the beer to his mouth and took a swig, one eye still trained on the door. “I had genuinely forgotten his name.”
“Why?”
Clay swallowed and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand while he thought about that. “I mean, hard to say. But probably ’cause I was kind of fucked up on coke. Also, I didn’t care, so I didn’t listen.”
“That’s my point,” Ezra said. He twisted the cap of his beer off and flicked it toward the bar. “What’s going to make this meeting different?”
His phone buzzed. He flipped it over to check the message and swore quietly. Clay raised an eyebrow.
“They here?”
Ezra nodded grimly. It looked like the Catfish Mafia was on the premises.
Clay set his bottle of beer down on the table.
“And the difference is,” he said as he stood up, “right now, I care.”
The doors opened, and Mouthpiece—Nesmith—walked in. He was wearing a different suit, although he’d left the tie back at the Lodge. The collar of his shirt was open, probably to show he meant business. Only two of his men were with him: a skinny blond and the limpy asshole from earlier. The rest…
Clay tucked his tongue into the corner of his mouth as he considered his options. Four around the back. Probably two over at the gas station, up on the roof with long-range rifles. He glanced over toward the windowhe’dhave aimed through and gave whoever the sniper was the finger. Ezra grabbed his forearm and squeezed.
“Problem?” Nesmith said as he paused.
“He thinks I’m going to make things worse,” Clay said. “To be fair, I got form with that. So…”
Nesmith glanced at Limpy. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve seen your work. You asked to see me. What do you want?”
Clay put his finger and thumb in his mouth and whistled sharply. After a second, Harry came out of the back with a drum propped up on a trolley. He clunked it down just in front of the table, and it audibly sloshed. Clay slapped his hand on the top of it.
“I already told you. We found Buchanan.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Nesmith said. “Open it up.”
Harry got to work on that with the same screwdriver Grade had used. While they waited, Clay picked up his beer for a sip.
