The Second Mouse - Archer Mayor [85]
Or maybe do something more creative . . . He smiled in the darkness of the cab, considering the possibilities.
There was movement by the door of number 32—a reflection from the distant streetlights as it swung open. Against the dim glow of the room inside, a shadow appeared briefly before vanishing just as fast. For a moment, watching Banger’s dim outline slipping along the balcony, Mel regretted that his plan hadn’t been simply to kick into the place and work all of them over, like in a movie, maybe even threatening them with one of the M–16s.
But even he had enough tactical sense not to do that. Too many unknowns. Plus, he wouldn’t have gotten away with it, not for long. Burying a little toad like High Top was easy enough—nobody to miss him, even with Ellis wringing his hands. But a roomful of people?
Best to stick with the plan—just as with High Top, go after the nobodies, the people who, in the eyes of those who knew them, were just as prone to go wandering as to go missing.
Mel slipped quietly out of the truck, his eyes on the shadow working its way down the stairs, his heart beating to the call of his own primordial lethal urge.
Chapter 18
Joe rose from his plastic seat as a tired, heavyset woman entered the employee break room and blinked at him without curiosity. She was wearing a brightly colored vest adorned with a large sticker announcing, “Hi, I’m Lilly, I’m Here to Help.”
Rarely had Joe seen a person more in need of what she was professing to offer.
He approached her with his hand held out. “Mrs. Morgan?”
She didn’t smile, and her hand was soft, moist, and cold in his. “I go by Kimbell.”
He hesitated. Not only did this differ from what he’d been told, but it made him wonder what might be going on in the Morgan household to have prompted it.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was misinformed. No offense, I hope?”
“I just changed it back,” she said, standing before him like an upended duffel bag.
He stepped back and swept his hand over a scattering of chairs adorning the otherwise empty room. “Would you like to have a seat?”
The faintest sign of a smile appeared. “I may never be able to stand up again.”
Still, she sat, surprisingly daintily, on the nearest chair.
“Can I buy you a soda from the machine?” he offered.
“I’m fine.”
Joe sat opposite her, a synthetic table between them. The room was a display of bland colors and polymers. Joe assumed that every aspect of it, from the acoustic tiling to the fake wood paneling to the rows of robotlike vending machines, was the result of either a metal press or a plastic molding machine.
He introduced himself, slipping a business card across the table to her. “Do you prefer to be called Lilly?” he asked.
She took the card but didn’t even glance at it, holding it instead like something she’d found on the floor and didn’t know how to throw away. “No. They call me that here.”
“Ms. Kimbell, then?”
The faint smile returned. “That sounds nice.”
“Great. I guess you know why I’m here.”
The smile faded. “Michelle, I suppose.”
He sat back and crossed his legs, hoping to introduce an element of friendliness into an otherwise sterile environment. “Yeah, that’s right. I heard she and Archie were very much in love.”
The approach caught her off guard. She stared at him for a moment, nonplussed, before answering, to his own surprise, “I guess that’s right. I wouldn’t have thought of that.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Really? Why not? Wasn’t it true?”
“I think it was.” She seemed to be considering it for the first time.
Joe didn’t say anything, letting the silence work for him, as he often did.
“We didn’t talk about them much that way.”
“You and Newell?”
“Yeah.”
“He didn’t like her much?”
This time she actually produced a noise like a laugh. It was her only response.
“Was that always the case?” Joe asked. “I mean, I know it was after