The Mall Page 5

  “Wait!” Lara exclaimed, turning briefly back to the shuddering silver Bot just long enough to say, “Sorry,” before rushing through the double doors after the figure.

  The next room looked like a cross between an operating room and an automobile service bay. Metallic humanoid figures hung from hooks in neat rows on both sides of the room like articles of clothing in a dry-cleaning shop. Twenty tables lay in two rows crowded with the bodies of Bots in various states of repair. Several humanoid and non-humanoid Bots wandered about the room; one forklift-shaped Bot carrying a piece of equipment that looked to weigh hundreds of pounds and a squat red square-shaped Bot that looked like a rolling tool box with arms followed the spectacled man closely.

  “Authorized personnel only allowed here,” the tall, slump-shouldered man murmured under his breath. His back was turned to them as if they didn’t warrant his attention. He clutched the sides of one of the tables and stared intently down at the jumble of wires and components spilling from the back of the Bot there.

  “I’m sorry, but I have sort-of an emergency and…”

  The man straightened slightly. Snatching a rag from his back pocket and wiping his hands, he asked without turning, “Is someone’s life in immediate danger?”

  Lara opened her mouth and closed it again. “Well… no, but y’see…”

  “No, I guess you wouldn’t have wasted time with Reggie if there had been,” he responded, then gestured to the Tool-Bot, which handed him a delicately slender crescent-shaped instrument. Taking the tool, he returned his attention to the Bot on the table.

  “Well, I just needed to see if there was some sort of warranty or repair agreement on file for a dog Bot owned by my mother-in-law…”

  At the phrase “dog Bot,” the man tensed slightly, almost as if she’d uttered a curse.

  “The Administrative Department closed at five PM,” he muttered indifferently. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow when they open at seven.”

  Lara sighed. Did all men have to be such assholes? Whatever happened to the attempt at a good first impression… followed by the ultimate disappointment?

  “I’m sorry for wasting your time,” she snapped, backing toward the door. “I was just trying to…”

  What was she trying to do anyway, she wondered? There was no way in the world she ever could have paid for such a repair. The most she could have hoped for was that by some miracle the warranty on the critter included a free in-home repair. Even then, did she honestly believe that it would have changed her and Charlene’s relationship one iota?

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she muttered, grabbing Cora by the wrist and starting outside.

  “Grandma Charley’s doggie is sick and we just wanted to make him better.”

  The man in the glasses lay down his tool and turned ever-so-slowly to Cora. His face was pale, pasty white and his wispy brown hair took a wild ride back atop a receding hairline. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, a hard-spent thirty years at that.

  “Grandma Charley’s all alone except for Andy and I can tell she loves him.”

  While his eyes lingered on Cora, Lara found that her first instinct—what a pitiful ghost of a man—was replaced with a revelation that the hidden eyes behind the glasses, that she’d first mistaken as beady, were quite extraordinary.

  “Bring it by tomorrow morning and I’ll take a look at it for you,” he offered with a weighty sigh. Before another word could be spoken, he turned back to the table, the Tool-Bot moving closer in anticipation, and leaned down over the dissembled Bot on the table like a shade-tree mechanic beneath the hood of his car.

  It was then that Lara realized that her daughter had just clarified what she had been trying to do: The right thing.

  “Unfortunately, we won’t be here tomorrow,” Lara replied. “Do you think if she were to bring it by this evening..?”

  “These units have priority,” he said, his volume rising slightly. “I couldn’t possibly get to it tonight.”

  “C’mon, Cora,” Lara hissed, taking her daughter by the arm and starting for the door. If she didn’t take her leave now, she knew the frustrated anger would get the better of her.

  Cora glanced back once more and tossed a sweetly-toned “Thank you, sir,” over her shoulder before disappearing through the swinging doors.

  9

  Slipping his debit card in and out of the reader, Albert waited patiently for the clear plasti-steel door of the compartment to pop open on the slice of pepperoni pizza he’d selected.

  Albert took an early break at the food court because he hadn’t eaten dinner before he’d left the house. He normally ate dinner so he wouldn’t be hungry until early the next morning. By then, the Mall would be nearly vacant, except for hard-core shoppers, insomniacs, and people with nowhere else to go.

  Right now, at eight o’clock, there was still a fair amount of people, he thought as he took his slice to a seat strategically placed so that he could watch the clientele while remaining relatively anonymous. From a safe distance, he often took notes for his book on the soulless automatons that he found there.

  Large groups of people made him uncomfortable— in much the same way a rancher would feel wandering on foot through a herd of cattle instead of riding atop his horse--and that was another reason he waited until later to eat. He would usually take a slightly longer than normal break if it had been a quiet day and read whatever mag he’d bought from the comic shop. Normally, it was obscure Anime from Japan, involving pre-pubescent girls, mechanized warriors, and tentacled monsters. He preferred the stuff that pushed the envelope of taste—another reason why he preferred to keep to himself.

  People just didn’t get him. He was special. He was sensitive. That’s what his dear mother--God rest her soul—had always told him.

  As he crammed a mouthful of pizza into his mouth, he pulled a tattered paperback from his breast pocket. A week ago he’d found the paperback on the tram while making his rounds. He’d held onto it with the intent of dropping it into the lost and found at the end of his shift, but had flipped through it out of curiosity. The first thing that caught his eye was all the crudely drawn pictures; just on the first few pages alone was a sketch of fat cow, the American flag, and what appeared to be the author’s representation of an asshole.

  What the hell sort of a book was this, he had wondered, when he first picked it up.

  The book was entitled Breakfast of Champions by a writer named Vonnegut, an author he knew nothing about except through a long ago class he’d taken as a pass/fail elective back in college. The assignment had involved another one of his books, Slaughterhouse Five, for which Albert had promptly skimmed the Cliff Notes in a bookstore the morning of the exam. He’d gotten a C in the class, good enough for a passing score, which was the only thing he had sought.

  No sense in putting in more effort than was necessary, and he had always felt that fiction was as disposable as anything on television.

  He believed in conservation of all things, especially his time.

  Though he had avoided fiction, in the glossing over of Slaughterhouse Five, he found that some of the ideas in the book had piqued his interest and had often considered checking the book out at the library. He never did, of course, but when he had discovered this other Vonnegut book, he had begun to peruse it during his breaks.

  It didn’t take him long to discover that this Vonnegut guy was a fucking hoot, talking about the sizes of men’s penises, and women’s underpants, and aliens, and the stupidity of government.

  This guy Vonnegut had a pair on him the size of melons!

  He even called the blacks “niggers,” instead of “African-American” (or whatever the hell the politically correct term was today).

  How he ever got that bad boy published in this day and age, he’d never know.

  On his break that first morning, he’d started skimming it, and when he had trouble getting to sleep—as he often did since starting the night shift at the Mall--he started rea
ding from the beginning. By the time his shift started at five that evening, he had gotten through half the book.

  As of today, he was already three quarters of the way through the book a record third time and was still riveted.

  There was just something about it. Something that rang true to him. Something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but he knew he was close to a great understanding. An epiphany. Maybe even a concept that he could use in his book. That important.

  Polishing off the last of the pizza with a belch, Albert slung the triangular paper container into one of the many identical food court receptacles shaped like a short, squat Bot. After the lid--painted to look like a mouth--snapped closed, the receptacle gave a loud “crunch,” followed by a smacking sound that the designer must have thought was “simply precious.”

  He listened for the inevitable “swallow,” which it completed with an exaggerated cartoonish “Gulp,” knowing that the trash flowed down a moving chute to an incinerator in the basement of the Mall. It made sense that a structure this large would have to dispense with their garbage in a more efficient way than most places. Placing it all in bags to await pick up simply would not do.

  The kids certainly loved the spectacle of all of it, Albert thought bitterly, watching as one of the tiny freaks, at this very moment, was shoveling waste into one nearby, one piece at a time with an enormous smile on his face, the can responding with a gulp and juicy belch after each deposit.

  And where was its parent? Certainly not watching their spawn! No, certainly not that.

  The six year old looked over his shoulder at Albert and smiled brightly at him as he continued to load the can. “Look, mister,” he exclaimed proudly. “I’m feeding the Bot!”

  About this time their blank-eyed, painted-up Jezebel mothers would chuckle and bat their false eyelashes. Oh, look at little Johnny! Isn’t he simply a genius! So environmentally conscious and still so young! He’ll be a leader of men, that one will!

  Albert made eye contact with the child and asked, “Do you know where all that trash goes?”

  The child shook his head and turned to Albert, his full attention on the wise friendly grown-up.

  “It goes down to the basement where a dragon the size of a jumbo jet eats and eats and eats day and night.”

  The little boy studied Albert with slowly widening eyes.

  “And sometimes if a little boy like you leans a bit too close, the dragon’s powerful lungs suck him right down the tube and swallows him whole… if he’s lucky,” Albert told him, articulating every word as clearly as he was able. “If you’re not so lucky, the dragon might chew on you for a while like a piece of beef jerky, then swallow you.”

  The child’s eyes moved from the painted smiley-face on the receptacle to the remaining ball of wadded napkins in his hand. Tossing it to the floor, the boy raced away.

  With a grunt of amusement, Albert turned hungrily back to his book. Glancing at his watch, he realized he was a few minutes over his break.

  Maybe just a few more pages.

  10

  “I know it’s late, but I need a room for the night, please.”

  Her watch read a quarter to ten. They had wasted nearly two hours in the E-Bot store and in that time after coming up and discarding more ideas than she could remember, she had come up with a sort of plan Z.

  The attendant at the front desk of the luxurious Clearlake Regent barely glanced at her as he called up the logon screen at his computer terminal. “We take reservations all night as long as there’s availability. How many, ma’am?”

  “I have two children,” Lara tried to keep the anxiety out of her voice, as she studied the young attendant. He was dark-haired, in his mid-twenties with an indifferent sort of delivery that concerned her. She would rather have dealt with the older female attendant that she had seen earlier when she first stepped into the lobby. Unfortunately, as Lara had started up to the desk, the woman had said a few words to the male attendant and disappeared. Bathroom break probably.

  The male attendant who Lara saw from the nametag pinned to his breast was named “Henry,” cocked an eye at her for the first time. He glanced past her and saw no children because she had strategically told them to stay put just outside. “Ages?” he asked, bored exhaustion in his voice.

  “Five and ten.”

  He inputted some numbers and glanced up at her again. This time, his lips curled slightly as he recognized something that he hadn’t before. “No bags?”

  “Our stuff is in the car,” Lara answered, making deliberate eye-contact with the young man. “I’ll bring it around once I know where the parking garage is.”

  “May I have your credit card, please ma’am?”

  Lara started into her pre-rehearsed performance. “Here’s the thing. I had a family emergency and had to leave the house suddenly. My husband is out of town and took the credit cards. All I have is cash.” She paused to glance back at the children with just the right amount of concern in her face. “I sure hope it’s enough, or I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  Henry had her full attention now. He had abandoned the keyboard altogether. “Ma’am, the most reasonable room we offer is two hundred a night.”

  Lara sighed and placed the full amount of cash she had at her disposal (minus ten dollars) on the desk before Henry. “I have twenty-six dollars cash.”

  Henry stepped back in front of the computer’s keyboard, almost defensively. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”

  “I know that it’s a far cry from two hundred, but I’m sure you have some sort of bereavement or traveler discount or something.”

  “Even at the discounted rate, you’re still looking at one eighty.”

  Lara paused, both hands palm down on the edge of the front counter. This part wouldn’t be performance. She looked down at the worn, dried skin of her hands and found the ring. Her wedding ring. The only thing of value she still held in her possession.

  Henry followed her eyes and caught the gist. His eyes widened briefly before the inevitable embarrassment. He shook his head and murmured, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I…”

  “Listen Henry,” Lara said, finding the other’s shifting eyes and holding them firmly. “I’m the mother of two small children with no place else left to go. My paycheck of eight hundred dollars will be deposited into my checking first thing Monday morning. The first thing I’ll do when that money hits my account is pay you a big tip for going out of your way for me. Now to show you how trustworthy I am, I’m going to give you my wedding ring.” And her hand reached for it, she prayed that it would come off. She hadn’t taken it off for any length of time since that day a month before his death, when on a lark she’d had it polished just before their ten year anniversary.

  How radiant that humble little stone had been on the day of his funeral!

  Oh, how it had shined when they lowered him into the ground!

  Henry broke eye contact as the older female attendant stepped back behind the desk. Supervisor, his posture said.

  And just like that, the spell she had briefly held him under was instantly broken.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said in a louder tone than the one he’d previously used with her, pushing the cash on the counter back toward her. “I wish I could help you, but we have a very strict policy on this.” His eyes fluttered up and found her briefly, apologetically before fleeing again.

  Lara lowered her head, reaching out and taking the money.

  The female supervisor glanced over with marked curiosity then stepped a respectful distance away, cocking an ear in their direction.

  Henry leaned forward as Lara started to turn away. “Y’know, I’ve spent many a long night theater hopping at Cine-Verse.”

  Lara glanced up at the attendant in shock.

  “They have a pretty relaxed policy over there after hours.”

  But Lara was already retreating, Henry’s hallow words falling short of their target.

  What exactly was this pompous little assh
ole suggesting? Did he actually expect her and the children to camp-out in a movie theater like common vagrants? That was scarcely better than sleeping in your own car!

  How dare he compare me to..?

  Lara’s shoulders slumped as she stepped out of the lobby of the Clearlake Regent and into the Mall, where Owen and Cora were—oh, wonders of wonders—fighting again. Her instinct to leave them outside was right on the money, not that it would have made much of difference anyway had they made a display inside the lobby.

  Owen had taken a tiny troll doll that Cora had brought with her and was rushing around like a maniac playing keep away, while Cora chased after him, bordering on tears. Misery has a hierarchy, too, Lara thought, stepping forcefully up behind Owen, grabbed him by the arm, and gave him a single hard shake.

  “Ow! Goddammit!”

  Lara yanked him forward until her face was scarcely an inch from his. “Say that again!”

  Owen quivered in the harsh spotlight of his mother’s livid eyes.

  The troll doll slipped unconsciously out of his fingers. Cora snatched it up, and backing slowly away, pressed it to her tiny breast without a moment’s hesitation, like a smaller dog seizing the spoils of two larger ones embroiled in battle.

  “Do not swear again,” Lara growled.

  Owen stared frozen, seemingly incapable of even blinking. Suddenly, his vision cleared and he muttered, “You do.”

  She would not be distracted. “Do you understand me?”

  Owen moved his head down and up and Lara started forward, dragging Owen by his arm behind her. He yanked her hand away and fell behind a few steps, something Lara felt obliged to allow.

  “I hate you,” Owen growled.

  “C’mon, Cora.”

  Ignoring him, she snapped her fingers and the five-year old dutifully scampered forward, but when Lara held out her hand for her, she shrank back, casting a glance back at her brother.