The Second Mouse

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The Second Mouse Page 25

by Archer Mayor


  “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 cop. I don’t know. I think so.” She took her hand off the steering wheel and grabbed her forehead. “Leave me alone.”

  “He buggin’ you, babe?” came a voice from outside, making them both shout in surprise. Mel’s grinning face was hanging in the open frame of her side window.

  “Mel—Jesus,” she said.

  Mel opened her door and stood back. “You people have got to chill. This is just another op.”

  Ellis got out from the other side. He was smiling, putting on a good front. “This is the mother of ops.”

  Mel laughed. “Okay, you got it.” He looked back down at his wife. “Come on, Nance, heave your butt outta the car. We need to make like ghosts.”

  They both followed him across the lot to a rental van parked on the edge of the grass by the nearest taxiway. He patted its side. “My newest wheels—all nice and legal and anonymous.”

  He opened its rear double doors, reached inside, and pulled out the two M–16s, handing one to Ellis. “There you go, bucko. A little old-fashioned firepower. Got something else, too.” He reached back a second time and pulled out two ballistic vests, again handing one to Ellis. “Just like the big boys.”

  Ellis was impressed. Nancy watched his eyes grow as round as a kid’s. “Holy shit. You did good, Mel.”

  Mel had propped his gun against the van’s side and was slipping the vest on over his head. “No point screwin’ around, right?”

  Nancy looked from one to the other. Mel misinterpreted her gesture. “You don’t count,” he told her. “You’ll be behind the wheel, like always. By the time we get to you, the shooting’ll all be over.”

  “There’s going to be shooting?” she asked, remembering his assurances that the Niemiecs wouldn’t be armed.

  He laughed. “Not for sure. I don’t want to wake up the neighborhood, but if we gotta, we gotta. You know that.”

  He brushed by her and slapped Ellis’s shoulder as the latter was attaching his Velcro straps. “Come on. Let’s get in place.”

  He looked back at his wife as they started off into the darkness between two of the buildings. “Just wait in the van, in the back, until after they get here. Stay out of sight till the last second, but be ready, okay? Don’t fuck up.”

  “What about the car?”

  “What about it? It’s just a parked car, like all the others.”

  She nodded without comment and then cast her eyes over the entire scene—the few cars he’d mentioned, the darkened buildings, the starry sky overhead.

  Where were the cops?

  “The Turkeys have settled in,” a quiet voice said over all their earphones. For no reason beyond playfulness, Mel and his duo had been code-named the Turkeys. The Niemiecs were, blandly, the Bad Guys. At the pre-op briefing, Willy had suggested calling the Secret Service for better labels. Nobody had gotten the joke.

  Joe peered over Sam’s shoulder. The dot representing Nancy’s position had stopped moving at the edge of the parking lot. “Looks like we pinned the tail on the wrong turkey,” he murmured.

  “Turkeys One and Two are in motion,” came the same voice. “Both armed with M–16s. Heading toward building B—previous location.”

  Each structure had been given a letter. B was the one nearest the easternmost taxiway, and the one they’d watched Mel check out a half hour earlier, when he’d arrived alone in the rental van. At the time, they’d had their first fright—he’d almost stepped on the hand of one of the hidden SWAT members while passing by.

  Joe risked a peek over the roof’s low wall to see the two shadowy figures of Mel and Ellis reach the corner of the hangar. Around him, half the cops had put on night vision goggles. The sniper, still alone in his far corner, was relying on his scope to give him the same advantage.

  A new voice came over the radio. “This is Perimeter Four. Three cars just drove by, headed your way. Pretty sure they were the Bad Guys. Two black sedans—a Ford Fiesta and a Cutlass—and one Explorer SUV, color red.�


  Although nobody moved, Joe felt a distinct shift in the air. The last of the three groups had finally arrived. Something was going to happen after all.

  The latecomers were the most casual of all, despite what they had at stake. They parked abreast, not far from the van where Nancy was hiding; eight young men got out, not four, as Mel had advertised, and assembled as if preparing to enter a sporting arena. They talked in normal voices; a couple were throwing fake punches. Joe could see several handguns tucked into waistbands here and there—another Mel goof-up.

  The group, leaving two members by the vehicles, headed out between the buildings toward the landing strip. From the roof, one of them could distinctly be heard asking, “You sure nobody’s here?”

  “Nobody’s ever here at night,” came the answer. “That’s the whole point.”

  Joe couldn’t help wondering just how many people were in fact here—certainly enough that they were almost literally stepping on each other.

  The group of six reached the grassy patch housing parked planes, halfway to the concrete runway, where, amazingly to the watching cops, three of them flopped down on the ground to wait, stretching out on their backs to gaze at the stars.

  “Okay,” came the soft, slightly amused voice in the earphones. “We wait.”

  It didn’t take long. In the tradition of drug stakeouts, one standard was that everything ran late, the supposition being that neither dealers nor users were sticklers for time. But this scenario involved a pilot, so it turned out somebody had a watch and knew how to use it. At exactly 2:00 a.m. a faint humming became distinguishable in the sky, growing quickly into the thrum of an approaching aircraft.

  The final effect, when it came, was startling if expected. Somehow, Joe had prepared himself for a darker version of what he’d seen at airports during the day—the sight of a plane, its wings wobbling slightly, the bounce and squeal of the tires hitting the concrete, maybe all accompanied by runway lights.

  Instead, there was that distant sound, followed by a sudden and very brief stab of a light as the plane quickly pinned down the location of the strip, then more darkness and finally abrupt silence. Totally unseen, the small plane had landed as if large pieces from a film strip had been surgically removed from a movie—one moment it wasn’t there; the next moment it was. But it never appeared on one of the taxiways. It stayed out on the runway, finalizing the accuracy of Mel’s intelligence.

  The six men roused themselves and jogged out toward the gloomy edge of the runway, almost vanishing from view.

  The whole transaction took less than a minute, barely allowing the voice on the radio to ask, “You get the registration on that aircraft?” and get an affirmative answer. Then there was a sudden burst of noise as the engine coughed back to life, and the plane began receding back into the night.

  In the meantime, the jubilant party of six, laden with compact packages, still laughing and chatting, began stepping back out of the darkness.

  “Okay,” said the quiet voice. “Just as rehearsed. By the numbers.”

  Over his shoulder, Joe heard Sam whisper, “Boss, thought you’d like to know. Nancy’s on the move.”

  She couldn’t take it any longer. There was too much at stake, too many unknowns, too big a chance for everything to go wrong. Nancy eased herself out from behind the van’s seat, where she’d been struggling in vain to see anything out of the windshield, and peered out the side windows for some sight of the two men by the cars.

  She saw them to her right, loitering by the Explorer, smoking, their attention drawn by the sound of the airplane’s engine. She took advantage of the diversion to silently open her door, slip out, and scuttle soundlessly toward the shadows cast by the nearby buildings. Once there, totally hidden, she jogged along the wall, aiming for where Mel had told them earlier that he planned to make his interception.

  Her timing was good. As she reached the corner and faced the open aircraft parking area and the two taxiways, she saw not only the approaching band of drug dealers but, from the sides, the shadows of two rifle-toting dark figures emerging from separate corners to cut off the larger group.

  Mel’s loud voice pierced the night. “This is a robbery. Stop where you are and drop your weapons.”

  The group froze. Mel and Ellis continued forward, their M–16s becoming clear in the half-light. Surprisingly to Nancy, she noticed that they’d also donned black ski masks, adding a menacing aura to their sudden appearance.

  “You can give it up or die. Real simple choice,” Mel said, lifting his rifle to the firing position and adding, “These are fully automatic weapons.”

  The six men looked from one hooded gunman to the other in silence. Finally, one of them very slowly cleared a semiautomatic from his waistband, crouched slightly, and dropped it onto the ground.

  “Everybody,” Mel ordered. “Now.”

  The other five followed suit. As they did, Ellis faded back slightly, swung around, causing Nancy to duck out of sight, and shouted, “You two, keep coming with your hands up.”

  The men from the parking lot, attracted by the sound of voices, were caught unawares as they approached between the buildings. Transfixed by the change of events, they followed orders, passing Nancy without notice.

  Mel waited until all eight were herded together and had deposited their guns on the ground.

  “Take five steps back and drop the packages,” he then ordered.

  They complied as before, creating two piles of belongings.

  “Take five more steps back, get down on your knees, cross your ankles, and put your hands behind your heads. Do it now, do it fast, or you will die.”

  Nancy crouched, transfixed, incredulous that Mel’s plan was actually working. She watched as the group once more did as they were told.

  Mel was now standing just ten feet in front of the eight kneeling men, his weapon still up and aimed.

  “My partner,” he explained, “will now come up behind you, from the back row to the front, and tie your hands together. Do not struggle, do not say a word, and lie down on your face when he’s done. If you don’t, I will shoot you and he will go on to the next man.”

  Ellis circled around behind them, slung his rifle over his shoulder, and extracted a bundle of white plastic zip ties from his pants pockets. One by one, he bound the men’s wrists together and pushed them facedown on the grass. The entire operation went without a hitch, ending with Ellis standing at the head of a group of eight prone people, all utterly still.

  For a split second, as if stunned by his own success, Mel didn’t move, his rifle in place, now aimed vaguely at Ellis. They stood facing each other as if caught in a photograph.

  And then everything changed.

  The night vanished. With the flip of a switch, everything they could see, from the buildings to the runway, from the tethered planes to the dark spaces between the hangars—all of it became awash with blinding, painful, lightning-white light, supplied by over a dozen powerful roof-mounted halogen searchlights.

  Simultaneously, a booming voice on a loudspeaker intoned, “This is the police. Do not move.”

  But Mel did move. With a ballet dancer’s grace, he fired once into Ellis’s chest, threw his rifle far to the side, and took three fast steps backward just as the SWAT sniper fired a single round where he’d just been standing.

  Before anyone else could react, Mel was kneeling with his own hands on his head, shouting, “Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.”

  As if magically, in the moment it took for all this to occur, he was surrounded by a circle of heavily armed, black-clad, helmeted police officers, all aiming their guns at him.

  Ellis, for his part, was still slowly falling, a bright red string of blood working its way down the front of his ballistic vest.

  Nancy, screaming, broke free from her hiding place and was instantly knocked down by a cop.

  “Hey, Ellis,” Mel shouted, removing his ski mask while keeping his hands in sight. “Surprised?”

 
Ellis sat heavily on his heels. He was staring at his bloody hands, his rifle still dangling from his shoulder.

  One officer seized Mel, pushed him hard to the ground, and pulled his hands up behind the small of his back.

  Mel paid no attention. “You double-crossing fuck—takes one to know one, right?” he shouted at Ellis. “You think I didn’t know you were screwing my wife? You may have squealed to the cops, but I fucked with your vest. Your bullets are dummies, too, asshole—just like you.”

  The cop frisking him finally yielded to temptation and mashed Mel’s face into the grass, stifling him.

  Joe stepped out of the building and freed a sobbing Nancy from the police officer pinning her to the ground. Holding her by the upper arm, he escorted her over to where two paramedics were trying to tend to Ellis, starting an IV and readying a defibrillator.

  But it was clearly a lost cause. In the blinding new light, it was obvious he was dead, his naked chest, its clothing cut free, already touched with the lifeless pallor that comes like the counterpoint of a blush.

  Nancy, all hope gone, collapsed by his side.

  Chapter 22

  The next time Joe visited Michelle Fisher’s neighborhood outside Wilmington, there was already the tinge of winter’s approach in the air. He still drove with the window down, but only because of the sun. Nights were beginning to declare the need to cover up.

  He parked opposite Linda Rubinstein’s ramshackle house and opened the car door to welcome her enormous dog, who this time was on patrol outside. The beast, a mix of perhaps a half-dozen large-headed canines, planted his snout in Joe’s groin to get his ears scratched. Joe didn’t argue with him. He couldn’t exit from the car in any case.

  “Bogey,” a sharp command rang out.

  The dog paid no attention.

  Linda, still in slim jeans and a T-shirt, but with an open men’s dress shirt over the top as well, appeared from around an outside corner of the house. She was carrying a basket with tomatoes in one dirt-stained hand.

  “Bogey,” she repeated. “Leave the poor man alone.” She reached and yanked him back by the collar, adding, “I hope all your friends believe you when you tell them how your crotch got wet.”

 

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