The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [56]
Mel shrugged. “Yeah. Little asshole.”
Ellis took a step back, the realization of what had happened in the proverbial blink of an eye overtaking him like a nightmare. “You killed him,” he repeated in a whisper.
Mel was gazing down at his handiwork appreciatively, as if what decorated the grass was just another project. Ellis had seen the same look that day in the woods when they’d reduced all those glass bottles to silvery glints with the machine guns. Mel’s face was the embodiment of pure pleasure following a job well done.
“Why?” Ellis asked, transfixed by the corpse.
Mel seemed genuinely baffled. “Why not? Who’s gonna miss him? I got what I wanted.”
“We could’ve followed him. It was just an address.”
Mel scowled. “What the fuck is your problem? You know this kid?”
Ellis shook his head, tearing his eyes away from High Top and finally looking straight into Mel’s shadowy face, studying it as if it had sprouted new features.
“That’s not the point. You killed him. That’s huge.”
Mel took two steps toward him, making him flinch. “What d’you think we’re playing at, Ellis?” he asked.
The answer was absolutely honest. “I don’t know.”
“You think we just been jerking around, banging people, ripping them off, waiting till we can retire to three hots and a cot and all the butt fucking we can handle in some federal lockup? That what you think?”
Ellis didn’t answer.
“That’s your dream, bucko. Not mine. My idea of success is not a shit-hole trailer and a bitchy old lady whose butt is starting to sag. I got a plan.” He tapped the side of his head before pointing at the body nearby. “And that little cockroach doesn’t amount to shit on my shoe along the way.”
Ellis was momentarily distracted by some of what he’d heard. “You goin’ to dump Nancy?”
Mel’s eyes widened. “What the . . . ? You got a tongue out for my wife?”
Ellis held up both hands, feeling his face redden and hoping the darkness would provide enough cover. “Jesus, Mel. Where’d you get that? You’re like one person to me, the two of you. What you just said surprised me, is all.”
Mollified, Mel shrugged. “Fuck, I don’t know. What do you want to do with him?”
They both returned their attention to the body, Ellis suddenly grateful for its presence.
“Whatever it is, we better do it now,” he suggested.
Chapter 11
Joe Gunther followed the receptionist across the very room imagined in most visions of bureaucratic hell: huge, no windows, an oppressively low acoustic ceiling, and rows of harsh fluorescent lighting, inhabited by people nestled in tiny chest-high cubicles. It made Joe think of refugees crowded into a sports arena, their identities reduced to a cot in the middle of the floor. In that light, the decorations in the work spaces he passed—family pictures, flowers, posters portraying Hawaii—became life preservers.
The receptionist reached the far wall and stood aside at an open door labeled “Director,” beyond which a second woman sat at a desk near yet another door.
“Mr. Gunther for Director Freeman,” she intoned before giving Joe a quick smile and disappearing.
Joe didn’t look back, passing instead into the anteroom and smiling at the new factotum. “He’s expecting me,” he told her, repeating what he’d said to the first one.
She looked vaguely irritated as she rose and moved to the inner door. “Of course.”
She mimicked her predecessor’s motions, twisting the knob and stepping back with a small flourish, announcing him to the person inside. For a split second, he saw this happening eight times in a row, with eight women each going through the same motions, and with him suddenly standing back out on the street.
But there were no more doors ahead. Just a man rising from his desk with the smoothness of a limousine leaving the curb, circling around to shake hands and point out which chair to occupy, as his secretary faded away.
“To what do I owe the honor?” Floyd Freeman asked, staying out in front of the large desk and taking the companion guest chair. Very polished, in fact literally—Joe noticed he had manicured fingernails. “It’s not often the