We robbed a diner tonight because of a debt that isn't even ours. Cy. Leo's voice was quiet and hard. I'm just saying. I know what you're saying.
Saying it louder doesn't change where we are. Cory pressed both fists against the edge of the table and breathed through his nose hard and fast the way someone breathes when they are trying to hold something in that wants very badly to come out. Mike watched him do it and said nothing. He gave the man his moment. Bobby was looking at the phone on the table.
"The question is whether Toad's reachable by reason," he said. Some men in his position, you show them the real picture and they recalibrate. Other men they've already committed to a version of events and the truth is just an obstacle. Which kind is Toad? Garrett asked.
Bobby looked at Mike. I've heard the name and Mike said. Never dealt with him directly. What I know is that he's been operational for 11 years, which means he's functional enough to survive. Functional men tend to be reachable by logic when the logic is presented right.
He picked up the phone. The presentation matters. Let me do it, Bobby said. "I'm the sergeant-at-arms." Mike looked at him. You're the president, Bobby said simply.
You don't make the first call. I do. It was said without any inflation, without any drama, just the clear statement of a protocol that both of them understood and had followed for years. Mike considered it for exactly 2 seconds and then set the phone in front of Bobby. Bobby Gallagher picked up the phone pressed call on the contact marked T and set it on the table between them on speaker.
The sound of it ringing at 2:40 in the morning filled the booth with a particular tension, that specific suspended quality of waiting for a voice you don't know to answer and define everything that follows. It rang four times. Five. On the sixth ring, someone picked up. There was a sound of movement cloth against cloth.
The small adjustments of a man who had been asleep and was now deciding how to present himself. "Who is this?" Not a question, a challenge, flat and immediate, with the hoarse edge of someone pulled from sleep by a number they didn't recognize. My name is Bobby Gallagher, Bobby said. I'm calling from Ali's Diner on I-40 outside Barstow. I'm sitting across from two men I think belong to you.
A silence, the kind of silence that has texture attention moving through it. I don't know what you're talking about, Toad said. "Leo Danton and Cory Baxter", Bobby said. Take your time. Another silence shorter this time.
Where'd you get this number? Toad said. From Leo's phone. He's sitting next to me. Put him on.
Bobby looked at Leo. Leo looked at the phone on the table and felt his whole body contract around a single point of dread. He leaned toward the phone. Toad, he said. It is Leo.
The silence that came back was different from the previous ones. It was the silence of a man reorganizing his entire orientation to a phone call he hadn't expected. "Leo Danton," Toad said, and the name had edges to it. You have some stones calling me from a number I don't know at 3:00 in the morning. I didn't dial you, Leo said.
The man sitting across from me did. And who the hell is the man sitting across from you? Bobby leaned toward the phone. "Bobby Gallagher, sergeant-at-arms, West Coast chapter." The silence this time was the longest yet. And in that silence, Leo heard something shift on the other end of the line.
A small involuntary recalibration. The sound of a man who has just received information that changes the geometry of his situation. What do you want? Toad said. The belligerence was still there, but it had been restructured, organized around something more careful.
To give you information, Bobby said. Information that concerns your operation, your corridor, and a man named "Felix Aranda." Three seconds of silence. I'm listening, Toad said. Bobby laid it out. He did it the way Declan had done it.