The Mall Page 26

  The woman sidestepped out of his path and he realized in passing that the woman hadn’t once screamed. This is one cold-hearted bitch, he thought as he folded forward, his knees buckling beneath him.

  The last thing Albert saw, before he took a dive face-first into the marble-tile floor, was the satisfied grin of the punk kid standing by the side of the woman.

  “Payback’s a bitch,” Jesse remarked, giving Albert Lynch a playful goodbye wave and fading away just like sunlight dispersing in a morning fog.

  54

  Standing alone in her neighbor’s kitchen, Charlene Myers-Cartwright shuddered, as the noonday sun outside slid behind a cloud and cast her and the body at her feet into shadow.

  As the carving knife slipped from her wet hand onto the floor, her eyes shifted from the body of the security guard at her feet to the shoebox that he had thrust into her hands just before he collapsed.

  A ring of keys lay spayed out at his belt.

  Out. Into the Mall. To my grandchildren. Out.

  She knelt and carefully removed the keys from the dead man’s belt.

  BOOK THREE

  “GHOSTS”

  “For the 1976 presidential election, the Republican party chose well-known actor and former California Governor, Ronald Reagan, narrowly over House Minority Leader Gerald Ford. As his running mate, Reagan chose Secretary of the Treasury and former Governor of Texas John Connally, who had recently chosen to switch his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Connally had been chosen as Secretary of the Treasury by his long time friend and mentor Lyndon Johnson before his death and served under Humphrey during his administration. …Though it had been rumored that Reagan’s original choice of running mate had been George H.W. Bush, advisors had made a clear and convincing argument for Connally’s political value to Reagan… Reagan won a substantial victory over McGovern to become the 39th President of the United States and took office on January 20, 1977…As the Soviets continued to reject offers of joint space ventures with the U.S., Japan and Germany cooperated on several successful missions, including four more historic moon landings in which Washington Base, a permanent outpost (originally proposed during the Johnson/Humphrey administration) was finally constructed. This lunar outpost contributed greatly to research into the miniaturization of circuits, which produced smaller and faster computer technology, directly leading to the MECH1, the first bi-pedal mechanized prototype (popularized by science fiction author Isaac Asimov as a “Robot”).”

  Excerpt from the article entitled “A Brief History of the Presidents of the United States of America,” from the Uni-pedia on-line resource

  1

  Charlene Myers-Cartwright did not spook easily. Living on the Gulf Coast her whole life, she’d seen her share of more hurricanes than she could remember. Power outages were a way of life here. If she’d still had her husband’s ranch, it would have been a simple matter to start the gasoline-powered generators and wait in air-conditioned comfort while those Gulf States Utilities repairmen pulled their thumbs out of their respective asses and started doing what their bosses paid them for.

  But apartment life was different than living on a working farm.

  After living a good portion of her life in the city of Houston before marrying Mr. Cartwright, her third husband—which she affectionately called the Rancher in deference to her previous two husbands, the Cheater and the Loser—whose name itself was the first thing that tickled her fancy about the man when they’d first met.

  Who would believe after all that there really was a rancher named Cartwright? At least he had the dignity to refrain from calling his impressive acreage the Ponderosa.

  She’d gotten used to the prospect of being a stone’s throw away from whatever necessities and comforts a woman might desire. At some point in her life, she’d discovered that “things” just weren’t enough and had hoped--by relocating back here to the city after the death of her husband--that she could get to know her grandchildren better.

  But her plans had been thwarted by that woman that her son had had the lapse in judgment to go against her advice and marry--though he had certainly paid the price for that mistake.

  This last outrage had been the final straw. Should her grandchildren be without a home due to the stupidity, the selfishness of that bitch? Not under her watch, she decided, and promptly called Child Protective Services the moment she had walked out the door with them, giving the social worker she had spoken to explicit orders that when—not “if” but “when”—the children had been removed from the care of their negligent mother, that she was to be considered as a priority placement, being that she was their only remaining living relative.

  The next thing she had done was send a message to Mall security that they should be on the lookout for them. The rep to which she had spoken told her that they would relay the message across the network but the odds of the three of them being picked out of the thousands of people that moved through the Mall everyday was extremely low. Even after she had tried to explain to the snide sounding kid on the phone that this was a priority as her grandchildren might very well be in physical danger, she had the audacity to tell her that there were fifteen other alerts out in addition to hers—one for a potential kidnapper and another for a convicted rapist.

  So she had waited. Even after her central air had cut off in the middle of the night, she had waited. The next morning, she had opened all the windows and the patio doors of her apartment and waited even longer.

  But enough was enough and she had lost her patience.

  She had tried the doors leading to the Mall and found those to be locked and without electricity her keycard was also useless. And though she could get into the garage from the residential level—someone had been kind enough to prop the keycard-operated doors open so that anyone entering would be able to get back in—she quickly found that her car, along with all the others, if the testimony of the residents could be believed, was inoperable. Not only that, but the remote-operated gates were also locked shut, effectively sealing the tenants into their homes like prisoners.

  With a certain amount of alarm, she had begun to realize that something was seriously awry here, and though, she had attempted to get a few of the more dependable of her neighbors motivated enough to do something, she was surprised to find that like the others, even they simply wanted to “wait and see.”

  Fear, she thought. These spineless cave-dwellers were so used to being catered to day-in and day-out they’ve forgotten how to fend for themselves.

  Had she become that complacent in her retirement?

  Not Charlene “the Warhorse” Myers—as her employees used to call her back in the bad old days when she was head loan-officer down at the Harris County Savings and Loan, single-handedly supporting the Loser (husband numero dos) after the housing market bubble had burst back in the early-sixties, rendering her principle wage earner of the couple.

  We can all thank the bleeding heart liberals for re-electing that skirt-chasing Kennedy for another four years. Between him and Old Triple-H, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, she had barely survived the last two decades, what with the energy crisis and the Soviets’ little missile-waving exercises. Not that Johnson could have done much better had the lush not died two days into his administration. Bizarre thing that. She wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if the Russkies hadn’t slipped a shot of plutonium into his single-malt scotch.

  Things had only recently started to turn around since the second term of Reagan. As far as Connally went, she didn’t know enough about the guy aside from his Texan roots, though switching from Democrat to Republican seemed a bit wishy-washy. (As far as she was concerned, politicians were pretty much all a bunch of brown-nosing tunnel dwellers anyway.)

  But despite all the economic setbacks of the sixties and seventies, Charley had managed to survive with no help from anyone but herself.

  She always came through in a crisis and this was no exception. She had been determined to find a way outside a
nd now it appeared she had, she thought as she turned the key and pushed the fire escape door open to the stairwell.

  For a moment, she hesitated there in the open doorway and looked back into the empty quarter of the complex. She considered wedging the door open so her neighbors could follow her down into the Mall, but then she had the good sense to realize that there might be questions asked about the body of the security guard and about the body of the poor Mr. Kaibigan, who the guard had thrown off his own balcony.

  Why he had done that, was beyond her. She didn’t know and didn’t need to know. She knew nothing about the Filipino gentleman besides the passing pleasantries they’d exchanged over the years.

  She had witnessed the entire encounter by a coincidence she didn’t once question.

  She had been reading in her apartment when she thought she had heard her name being called from the outside courtyard and discovered the security guard standing just outside Mr. Kaibigan’s door, tying a blood-stained uniform around his waist.

  That had been enough to pique her interest. On the heels of that, she had realized that the guard was a tenant and if he hadn’t been upstairs when the lights had initially went out, then he had been in the Mall. How had he gotten back inside the residential level?

  It was this question that had led her innocently enough to the doorway of her neighbor. She had actually lifted her fist to knock on the door when she recalled the blood on the uniform that the man had seemed so desperate to hide, and tried the doorknob instead.

  They were standing on the patio when she had peeked inside. It looked fairly innocuous and she had even stepped foot inside the foyer with the intention of calling out to her neighbor—“Hello, I heard voices and was just wondering if I could borrow a cup of hope,” or some similar inanity--when she witnessed the guard murder the elderly retiree before her eyes.

  Instinctively, she spun toward the door and realized that it was securely closed.

  But she had left it open. She was positive of that fact! After all, how would it have looked if she had entered her neighbor’s home uninvited and shut the door behind her?

  Before she could question the fact that the door had closed on its own, she rushed defensively into the darkness of the kitchen, slipping into the shadows until her back struck the counter.

  There, resting on the counter beside her left hand, was a carving knife. It lay on the counter, neatly separated from its siblings, while the others sat conspicuously organized on the rack.

  It was almost as if it had been placed there for her to find.

  “Why did you do that?”

  She froze. The voice had come from the balcony. Was he talking to himself?

  There she stood, breath held fast, as she listened to the guard re-enter and slide the screen shut behind him. Her blood turned cold. She realized that there was a distinct possibility that she was in the presence of true lunacy.

  Her hand enclosed around the handle of the knife.

  The heavy-set man rushed within several feet of her and stomped down the hallway. Moments later she could hear the distinctive sound of urine streaming down into a toilet.

  Was he actually relieving himself in a dead man’s home?

  She turned toward the door, her hand hesitating on the knob.

  If she wanted, she could demand that he let her downstairs into the Mall. She had witnessed him commit a murder. She held all the cards.

  Wait, was she actually considering this? Making deals with a madman?

  Kill him!

  She spun around and brandished the knife out before her, actually slicing the air in front of her in self-defense before realizing that she was alone. It took her a moment for the reality to sink in and by then she heard him scream from the other end of the apartment.

  “Where are you now, you fuck!”

  Kill him. If you don’t, he will kill them!

  Regardless of the source of the feeling, she knew it was a possibility that her grandchildren were down in the Mall. Right now. And they needed her.

  Owen and Coraline needed her!

  So she’d waited, poised, listening as he carried on a one-sided conversation with the voices in his head.

  She stepped out of the kitchen and waited there just outside the hallway, listening as he uttered the words “It was an accident! It could have happened to anyone!” to his invisible companion, and when the madman had started back down the hall, she had stepped in front of him, plunged the knife into his guts, and taken the keys along with the shoebox he had conveniently handed her.

  Oddly enough, it was one of easiest, most logical choices she had ever made in her long, difficult life.

  Now as she closed the door upon the empty courtyard of the Choice Life Estates and descended the steps of the Mall stairwell, she had that renewed feeling of being in the presence of Another.

  It was the same feeling that she had felt as she had shut the door to Kaibigan’s apartment.

  Almost as if something were watching her.

  2

  “Seriously, do you really need all this?”

  “I told you what I’m going to do with these batteries.”

  “I’m talking about all this shit I’m pushing around.”

  Chance let go of the overloaded cart and let it drift forward to collide with one of the tables in the food court. It was bitch to get started but once it was going, all you had to do was keep it moving right down the middle of the corridor, avoiding any obstacles.

  “Hey! Easy-Easy!” Dugan called, yanking the flatbed to a stop in front of an eatery serving Italian food. He turned a full circle then peered into the plasti-steel-fronted dispenser that ran the length of the counter. “Need--no. Want—Hell yes. Besides, I’m not keeping much of that. I’m going to donate the bulk of it to charities. Y’know, Salvation Army. Make a Wish Foundation.”

  Taking Owen’s flashlight from the top of the heap of goods and tucking it beneath his arm, Chance gave the other an accusatory look.

  “C’mon, kid, give me a break with that,” Dugan growled, setting his crowbar atop the counter. “Besides, I didn’t hear you complaining when you took those shoes.”

  Chance forced himself not to look down at the Nike cross-trainers he’d taken from the Foot Locker a few minutes ago. “My shoes were leaving a blister on my heels.”

  “I noticed that you didn’t exactly snag the cheapest pair, did you?”

  Chance did look down this time and felt guilty for being lured into doing it.

  “Yeah, whatever. You don’t have to justify yourself to me,” Dugan muttered, turning back to the food display case. “You hungry?”

  Chance gave a shrug.

  Dugan shook his head and murmured something under his breath about “kids.” He braced himself on the counter and threw his legs over.

  “Owen was keeping a tab of all the stuff he used, so he could pay it back,” Chance mentioned, glancing down at the flashlight in his hands. For the first time, he noticed a large dent at the top. Lifting it to his eye, he studied it more closely. Was that blood?

  “Who’s Owen?”

  “The kid I was with.”

  “Of course, he’s going to have those dumbass notions. He’s a curtain-climbing nose-picking fart-knocker of a child.” Dugan leveraged the back of the dispenser open with the crowbar.

  “You don’t think this is stealing?”

  “Look, all I know is, I got trapped in this place and they owe me for pain and suffering.”

  Chance stiffened as he recognized the very same argument he had used on Owen not all that long ago. “Seriously? You got locked in by accident?”

  “Shit no, but that’s my story,” Dugan replied with a scoff, pulling the track where the food rested along with his hand and seizing a wrapped blueberry muffin and a slice of chocolate cheesecake. “Hey, are you gonna get back here and grab something or am I gonna have to leave your lead-bottomed ass?”

  Chance glanced through the glass with a frown. “Got anything that’s not cold
?”

  “Sure, everything that’s supposed to be served chilled,” Dugan commented, snatching a plate of lasagna and tossing it atop the counter. “Here’s something at room temperature.”

  Chance poked the top layer with his index finger. “It’s a brick.”

  Dugan glared at Chance and spun the food carousel around. “This is why I wear a condom,” he mumbled, snagging a slice of pepperoni pizza from another compartment. He slid the paper plate across the counter with no regard for presentation. “We could’ve hit that Hoity-Toity restaurant on the top floor but I figured you weren’t the filet mignon and lobster type.”

  “Cold steak? Are you kidding?”

  “Hey, I roasted a chicken on a spit in the middle of the kitchen last night,” Dugan boasted, grabbing his slice of chocolate cheesecake from the counter, and after giving it an experimental sniff, took a bite. “And wouldja believe it, not one fire alarm went off! I tell ya, I live a charmed life.”

  Chance gave him a perfunctory smile and chewed the cold slice of pizza hesitantly. “So, you really don’t believe all this is stealing, huh?”

  “The way I figured it, I’m a modern day Robin Hood. Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor: Me.” Stooping back down behind the counter, Dugan felt along the back edge of the food dispenser and wedging the straight-edge of the crowbar into a crevice. “Look, kid, they’re all just big greedy corporations anyhow. They’re insured.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Jesse used to say too when we used to lift CD’s from Sam Goody.”

  Chance stared dreamily down at his shiny new Nike cross-trainers and wondered distantly if Owen had found his mother and sister yet. “But don’t all those greedy corporations employ the people who need the money?”

  “Hey-Hey, don’t get all political on me, kid,” Dugan replied. “Who is this Jesse anyway? Sounds like he had some street smarts.”