The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [104]
Sam made no comment.
Thirty feet away, low down and braced by the wall, isolated in all senses of the word, the police department’s sniper sat alone, his eyes locked on the still darkness below them—a fitting symbol of the potential violence they were about to face.
“I can’t wait for this to be over,” Joe added.
Nancy shifted in her seat, taking advantage of the gesture to poke at the plastic module perched between her breasts. It wasn’t really uncomfortable, but it did feel weird. And so huge, she was convinced all the world could see its bulge.
She also didn’t like what it stood for. She felt like a snitch.
“You okay?” Ellis asked. Per agreement, she hadn’t told him about the transmitter—she’d merely promised that tonight would put Mel where they’d been wishing him.
“Fine,” she said shortly.
They were in his car, the one with the now nonradioactive trash in the trunk, parked along the edge of a narrow road leading to the airport a mile farther on.
“I wonder where Mel is,” Ellis said.
Nancy didn’t know, which bothered her more than she let on. She felt as if her head were about to explode, she was so nervous. Ever since her long afternoon with that cop, she’d been like a pressure cooker with the heat turned on, gradually building up steam to the blowing point. Her affair with Ellis already had her on edge. Tack on her having spilled her guts to the cops, for which she knew Mel would kill her. And now she had this . . . thing jammed between her boobs, making her feel like a radio beacon. She hadn’t seen or heard from Mel since discovering his note at the trailer, and had grown steadily more convinced that the reason he’d disappeared was because he knew what she was up to.
Which, in a predictable vicious circle, only encouraged her own feelings of self-loathing. She felt like the Judas they’d all scorned of old—the unspeakable life-form that could betray its own kind. The more she’d pondered it, the more she’d become disgusted with herself and, by extension, Ellis. Both of them had turned their backs on the rough-and-tumble life they’d chosen from puberty, but which had, nevertheless, rewarded them with friendship, camaraderie, love, and a true sense of belonging. It hadn’t always been easy—the tolls of a nomad existence, the price that cigarettes, booze, drugs, and hard living had exacted, the daily violence she’d experienced, often at the hands of her own husband.
But somehow all of it—even Mel’s growing craziness—began to seem less awful than what she’d just done to be free of it.
She felt cut down the middle by guilt.
The cell phone in her pocket burst into life, making her and Ellis both jump.
“Yeah—what?” she stammered into it.
Mel’s voice sounded rich with self-satisfaction. “Where are you pussies? The fun’s about to start.”
“Mel?”
“Yeah, right. No, it’s the fucking president, stupid. Get your asses up here.”
“To the airport?”
She could almost taste the scorn as he answered, “God, you are a dumb bitch. Give me Ellis.”
She handed the phone over, grateful for the exchange. She was doing the right thing.
“Yeah,” Ellis said. He then listened a few seconds, muttered, “Right,” and hung up.
He returned the phone, explaining, “We’re just supposed to drive up and park in the lot. He’ll find us. The place is deserted.”
Nancy put the car into gear.
The drive up Airport Road and into the facility itself was eerie. There were no cars, no people, no signs of life at all the whole way.
“Creepy,” Ellis said softly, craning slightly to see better out the windows as they pulled into the parking lot.
“It’s late,” Nancy said, mostly to comfort herself.
“Still,” he said, adding, “You said the cops are here, right? Hidden somewhere?”
She started slightly, as if he’d pricked her with a pin. “Don’t say that.”
He looked at her. “Isn’t that right? That this is how we’re getting rid of Mel?”
“Yeah,” she said with emphasis. Then, looking around at the emptiness, “I guess.”
“You don’t know?”
She stopped the car and turned on him angrily. “Ellis, fuck you, okay? Just shut the fuck up. I’m not some fucking