105 (21)

Time stopped, or at least it felt like it. Bob’s eyes were locked in an angry glare at Phil. Phil was frozen in a state of half sitting, half standing. Most of the people at Subway were staring in his direction. Phil’s mind couldn’t process anything. The phone rang again, and Phil felt a few beads of sweat run down his face. His mind started playing conversations that haven’t taken place and may never take place. Michelle takes him back in one. In another, Michelle tells him it was all a lie. Another has Michelle already married to another man she had been seeing in Aberdeen that Phil didn’t know about. A third ring snapped Phil back to the moment. Some people were moving, but Bob was still exactly where he had been before, and he was still staring with a glare that was genuinely freaking Phil out. The thirty dollars Phil charged to his company to look up Michelle’s information on-line was starting to seem like a price that should have been higher. How could he have known he would be right here, right now and tha-

“Hello? Yes dear, I’m on lunch. Yeah, Subway. I promise, it’s one of their six subs under whatever. No, I didn’t get mayo. I’ll call you back.”

Phil’s eyes looked to the right. A man was closing his cell phone. Phil finished standing up. He looked at Bob, who was once again working on his sandwich. “Don’t just stand there” Bob said with his mouth half full. “Coke me already.”

Phil shuffled towards the soda fountain. Slowly, he pulled out his phone and shut it off. He didn’t see Bob watching him.

***

Garrett slowed the car to a stop at a red light. Lewis was on her phone, but Eli couldn’t hear what she was saying. He slowly turned down his iPod.

“What do you mean there’s been a shooting? Hostage? Is she all right? Interrogation? By who? F.B.I. agent Clayton Iron-Horse? I know he’s talking big. Listen…just…just hold him off until we get there. It shouldn’t be too much longer. We’ll deal with him. I’ll put in a call, and I’ll have him taken off the case, and out of the state. No worries. Just keep him busy until we get there Hale.” Lewis put her phone back into her jacket. “That’s just great. The police had at least one infiltrator.”

Garrett looked at her as he drove forward. “You didn’t think they would?”

“Well, not in South Dakota.”

“Remember where we are, and what’s at stake, and what’s nearby.”

Lewis nodded and they both looked forward. What the hell does that all mean? Eli put his hands inside of the front pocket of his hoodie. Slowly, he felt for his Blackberry. He pressed the contacts button, or at least he was hoping he was. He clicked down his contacts list, hoping he remembered how many clicks it took to get to Bob’s cell phone. Once he had gone far enough, he started typing.