Page 10 of Master of Lies

Red looked around frantically. “Uh…uh…who…”

“Fuck!” Mr. Jones’s gaze swept the room for something to blame, and inevitably, fell on Red. “Why didn’t you tell me he was at Kalaharee?” He turned to Ms. Smith. “Jed Clearwater is yard buddies in the joint with Mickey Savelletri, and nobody fucking notices? Jed Clearwater chats up fucking Freya Masters on visiting day, and nobody says a word? What thefuckdo I pay you people for?”

Red threw his hands up in a spasm of panic. “I didn’t know about anyone named Jed Clearwater! James Craig is the name on his paperwork, and I had no idea—”

“How long has he been in there?” Mr. Jones bellowed.

“Ah, uh, five months, I think. Late spring, early summer maybe, more or less,” Red babbled. “He was transferred from—”

“Son of abitch,” Mr. Jones snarled. “What thefuckis going on in there? How often has he seen Freya Masters?””

“Uh, who’s Freya Masters? Today, he saw this Sandee McGillis woman. Look, I didn’t know that he—”

“Shut up, you fucking idiot!Sandee McGillis is Freya Masters!”

Red cringed in his chair, making himself as small as a guy with a beer gut like his own possibly could. He always felt tense with these people, but now, this wasn’t tension. This was bowel-loosening fear. He was way out of his depth.

“What did she talk about with him?” Mr. Jones demanded.

“Well, um, like I said, I wasn’t in the visiting area today, so I—”

“So no one was listening in?” Mr. Jones’s voice rose. “No one knows if she’s carrying information out for him?”

“Um, let me explain, okay? It’s a passive listening system, and it picks up keywords and slang that activate red flags, for drugs, gun, that kind of—”

“Can you access the archives? Pull today’s recording?”

“Uh, maybe,” Red faltered. “Theoretically. I’d have to ask for help.”

“Then ask for fucking help, right now! Figure it out! I want to hear that recording today. Every fucking word of it. Is that clear?”

Red’s mind raced. It was literally impossible. The people in admin who might have a chance in hell of knowing how to access those archives worked regular office hours, which were winding up right about now, and he was forty-five minutes away from Kalaharee Springs, way the hell out here in Wheedon. Or more like an hour, in these weather conditions. “I’ll try,” he offered, weakly.

“Try? That’s not enough, asshole. Get it done.” Mr. Jones spat the words out. He turned to Ms. Smith. “We take the Masters woman tonight. I need to question her. No more delays. Things are getting out of hand. We have to find out what he said.”

Ms. Smith shrugged. “Sure,” she said. “Better to nab her now when she’s all alone than try when she’s got her brother’s corporate security hovering all over her.”

Mr. Jones made an irritated sound. “Where is she now?”

Ms. Smith consulted her phone, tapping in a text. She looked up. “The team I assigned to her tell me that she’s at the Red Rock Diner on Colum Creek Highway,” she said. “And she’s staying at the Dew Drop. We wouldn’t have known she was in town at all if she hadn’t turned on her phone for a few minutes last night after she checked in. That was lucky.”

“I don’t pay you big bucks to rely on fucking luck,” Mr. Jones ground out.

Ms. Smith gave him a dazzling smile. “No, I have extreme competence and luck, combined. It’s a winning combination. Don’t worry. She’s not going anywhere. No one’s traveling on these roads tonight. You’ll have her. Within hours. Don’t stress yourself.”

Mr. Jones turned those eerie, headlights-of-a-car eyes on Red through the freaky mask. “You have contacts in the inmate population, right? Can you organize a hit?”

Red’s heart thudded. He hemmed and hawed, and gulped. “Ah…I, um, don’t want trouble. Violence, I mean. I just handle info. That’s all I do. I don’t want to get involved in—”

“I could care less what you want, dickhead. Shut up and listen carefully. Jed Clearwater and Mickey Savalletri have to die tonight.”

Red’s guts cramped horribly. “I can’t be involved in something like that!”

“Red, we’re talking about convicted criminals,” Mr. Jones snapped. “No one gives a shit if they die. You’re doing the American taxpayers a favor.”

“But I…I can’t…” Red’s jaw flapped helpessly. “I can’t possibly.”

“What do you think, Ms. Smith, about Red’s compensation?” Mr. Jones said. “It is a considerable risk, after all. A sixfold increase in our usual token of esteem?”

---