Authors: William W. Johnstone
Black Friday (10 page)
He was halfway to the door leading out into the mall itself when it swung open and two men appeared there. The one slightly in the lead was tall, broad shouldered, and had a shock of white hair. He wore a security guard's uniform, like the one Habib had on.
The other man was shorter and wider, with a face like a bulldog. He was dressed in civilian clothes, but he didn't carry himself like a civilian. Like his companion, he had an air of authority and command about him.
Habib felt a second of panic at the sight of the men. They moved with determined strides, and he knew they were here because of him. Somehow, they had guessed that something was wrong, and they were determined to find out what it was. Habib considered trying to bluff, to brazen out the impending confrontation.
But the security man would know that he wasn't Donald Reed, Habib realized. There was no way he could make the man believe otherwise.
Well, he had planned to kill Americans today anyway, he thought as he reached into the shopping bag and closed his hand around the pistol's grip. As he started to lift the gun, bringing the bag up with it, the white-haired security man yelled, “Hey, you! What are youâ”
The man was already reaching for the gun on his hip as he spoke. Habib didn't let him draw the weapon. He squeezed the trigger, sending a burst of fire through the bottom of the bag.
Chapter 18
E
ven all the handicapped parking places were full, something that almost never happened . . . except on Black Friday, Pete McCracken supposed.
ven all the handicapped parking places were full, something that almost never happened . . . except on Black Friday, Pete McCracken supposed.
As Father Steve circled through the lot, Pete said, “Look, Father, why don't you just . . . forget about it? You can take me home . . . and we'll tell Sister Angela . . . you brought me to the mall like she wanted. Hell, it'll be . . . the truth. We're here, aren't we?”
“No, Mr. McCracken, I'm sure we'll find a place soon,” the priest said. “I have faith.” He grinned over his shoulder. “That's my job, after all.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Pete muttered.
“Look, I was right.” Father Steve pointed through the windshield. “There's an empty spot now.”
He pulled into the parking place, then got out to operate the van's wheelchair lift. Pete could tell he had done it before. It took only a few minutes for the priest to get him out of the van and onto the ground. Father Steve put the lift away, then locked the van with the button on the key fob.
“I'll push,” he said as he moved behind the wheelchair.
“I can . . . do it myself.” Pete felt the wheelchair start to move before he could hook his withered hand around the knob. “Ah . . . hell. What's . . . the point?”
He sat there and let the priest push him into the mall. Father Steve used the automatic doors so he wouldn't have to hold them open while he maneuvered the wheelchair through them.
Once they were inside, Pete said, “Holyâ” then stopped himself before he fully expressed the thought that went through his mind at the sight of all those people.
“Quite a crowd, eh?” Father Steve asked cheerfully.
“Yeah, you could . . . say that. I think the last time . . . I saw this many people . . . in one place . . . was on a troop ship . . . headed for Europe.”
“That's right. You were in the war, weren't you? The Great War?”
“No, that's what . . . they called World War One . . . before they knew there was . . . gonna be another one. Don't they teach you kids . . . history anymore?”
“I guess I was getting confused, what with you being part of the Greatest Generation.”
“Not gonna . . . argue that part . . . with you. We were just . . . a bunch of average joes . . . but we saved the world. Your . . . pansy ass generation . . . couldn't do that.”
Gently, Father Steve said, “I hope my generation will see to it that the world never needs saving like that again. I don't think it will ever come to that.”
“Don't kid yourself... Father. It always . . . comes to that . . . as long as there are guys . . . who think they can . . . run roughshod over everybody else.”
“Disagreements can be solved without going to war.”
“Not talkin' about . . . disagreements. I'm talkin' about . . . evil. You believe in . . . evil, don't you . . . Father?”
“Yes, of course. But I believe it comes from outside of ourselves and that human beings can always be freed from its influence.”
“Maybe. But some of 'em . . . the only way you can free 'em . . . is by shootin' 'em in the face.”
Father Steve made a scoffing sound. Pete knew without looking around that the young priest was shaking his head. He was wasting his breath arguing with Father Steve . . . and in his condition he didn't have much breath to waste.
Father Steve had been pushing the wheelchair through this wing of the mall. He changed the subject by asking, “What would you like to look at, Mr. McCracken?”
Pete didn't really want to
be
here, let alone look at anything, but he knew that if he indulged the kid and pretended to be interested in something, he would get back home sooner. So he raised his good arm, pointed at a sporting goods store, and said, “Over . . . there. Might bring back . . . some good memories . . . of when I could still . . . hunt and fish.”
be
here, let alone look at anything, but he knew that if he indulged the kid and pretended to be interested in something, he would get back home sooner. So he raised his good arm, pointed at a sporting goods store, and said, “Over . . . there. Might bring back . . . some good memories . . . of when I could still . . . hunt and fish.”
Father Steve angled the wheelchair in that direction and said, “That's fine.”
As the priest pushed him toward the store, Pete looked idly around, and suddenly he stiffened as much as his atrophied muscles would let him. He had just spotted a familiar face in the crowd.
It was that damned punk who had tried to break into his house the day before!
* * *
“You didn't have to bring me with you if you didn't want to, you know,” Jennie said as she and Aaron walked toward the mall.
“Nah, I don't mind,” he told her, which wasn't entirely true but close enough. Even though they hadn't talked much on the way over here, it had been sort of nice, the two of them being together in the car. He'd had the radio on, and it turned out they both liked some of the same music, which had surprised him a little.
“You
look
like you mind, the way you're frowning,” she said now.
look
like you mind, the way you're frowning,” she said now.
“I didn't know we were gonna have to go on a freakin' hike once we got here, that's all.”
“It's not that far. Only a couple of hundred yards. If you'd let me drive your car, I could've dropped you off at the door . . . Grandpa.”
She was smiling at him. Aaron laughed and said, “Let you drive my car? No way!” Although in truth, there was actually no way she could hurt that old rattletrap, he added silently.
He went on, “You're plannin' on ditchin' me as soon as we get in there, right?”
“I figured you'd be the one to ditch me.”
“I don't care. We can hang if you want. I just thought you might want to see if any of your friends were here.”
“I don't have that many friends,” Jennie said, and what was bad was the matter-of-fact way she said it. Aaron felt a pang of sympathy for her.
He'd had plenty of friends in high school, what little time he'd been there. There were always guys who wanted to hang around with him since his time behind bars had given him a reputation as a badass. Also, he knew where to find the best weed.
Jennie was a nerd, though, and despite the fact that nerds were a lot cooler than they used to beâAaron didn't understand how that was possible, but he'd witnessed it for himselfâthey still tended to be outsiders.
“I do know this one girl, though,” Jennie went on. “Her name's Holly. She's working at one of the seasonal stores in the mall. You know, the one that sells cheese balls and beef sticks. Maybe I'll stop there and say hi to her. She could probably use some cheering up. They make her wear this silly costume.”
“She might not want her friends coming by to see her. She might be embarrassed.”
“Well, we'll just go by and say hello. I don't think she'll mind.”
They had reached the doors. Aaron opened one of them and shrugged.
“Whatever you want to do,” he said.
He was just here to avoid the phantoms, and so far it had worked.
* * *
“What do you think?” Kaitlyn asked as she held a short, black dress in front of her.
“I think that's way too old and revealing for you to wear,” Vanessa answered without hesitation. “Anyway, where would you wear it? It's not appropriate for anywhere you go.”
“Oh, I don't know,” Kaitlyn said as she turned to study her reflection in a full-length mirror. “I think it might make a few eyes pop out at school.”
“You mean the junior high you go to?” Vanessa took the dress and hung it back on the nearby rack where it had come from. “None of this stuff is appropriate. We're in the wrong section.”
“Yeah. The
cool
section,” Kaitlyn muttered as her mother turned away. Vanessa heard the comment but chose to ignore it.
cool
section,” Kaitlyn muttered as her mother turned away. Vanessa heard the comment but chose to ignore it.
Even the good kids had to be a little rebellious, she thought. In the long run, it wouldn't do any harm.
* * *
He needed a hobby, Charles Lockhart told himself as he walked through the mall, trying not to bump into people. He'd never been very comfortable with human contact. He liked books and he liked the Internet, but people . . . not so much. Which made dealing with his students and fellow teachers difficult at times.
So maybe he needed to do something that would get him out of his comfort zone . . . although to be honest, that was a really stupid name for it, he thought, because he'd never actually been that comfortable, no matter what zone he was in. The socially awkward zone, that was a better name. He always seemed to be in that one.
But what sort of hobby could he get involved in? He thought about model railroading. That appealed to the old-fashioned side of his nature. But he could do that in his own apartment. A hobby, even if it wasn't one that brought him in contact with other enthusiasts, ought to be something that would get him
out
.
out
.
He was looking around when he saw the sporting goods store. At first his gaze started to pass right over it. Camping didn't appeal to himâas far as he was concerned,
Roughing It
was the title of a Mark Twain book, and that was allâand he knew he could never be a hunter.
Roughing It
was the title of a Mark Twain book, and that was allâand he knew he could never be a hunter.
But fishing . . . maybe. The idea of sitting on the bank of some slow-moving stream with a hook and a line in the water, waiting for a bite, wasn't too bad. It sounded peaceful. Like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
And he wouldn't actually kill the fish, of course. If he happened to catch one, he'd take the hook loose and throw it back into the river. That way he wouldn't have all the mess and bother of cleaning and cooking it, two things he didn't really know how to do, anyway. Having a hook in its mouth would still be painful for the fish, Charles supposed, but it would get over that.
He didn't have to decide today. He could go over there to that store and look at the fishing poles and the tackle and think about it some more.
Every hobby had to start somewhere, he supposed.
* * *
Tom Vasquez was a hard man to shop for, Jamie thought. Her husband made good money, and if there was something he wanted, he was in the habit of getting it for himself most of the time. Her kids didn't really want for anything, either.
Except maybe a mother.
She frowned and forced that thought out of her head. She had done the best she could for her kids, and that included doing her duty as a soldier.
Anyway, those days were over now. She was home, with an honorary discharge and some medals that were tucked away in a drawer, and she wouldn't be going overseas to fight the enemy anymore.
Right now her job was to figure out what her husband might like for Christmas. She wandered through the men's wear section of one of the department stores, looking at robes and pajamas. A man could always use a nice, comfortable robe, right? Especially when it got cold in the winter. Despite the nice weather outside, Jamie knew those days were coming soon.
* * *
Pete felt his heart pounding. He struggled to draw in a deep breath, something he couldn't do very well these days. His good hand dropped to the little pocket inside the wheelchair's right side where the Browning Hi-Power was hidden. His first impulse was to draw the gun, throw down on the punk, and yell for him to stay right where he was. Then Father Steve could call the cops.
Only the priest wouldn't
need
to call the cops, Pete realized. The threat of some old geezer waving a gun around would be enough to bring them rushing to the scene. People would panic and rush around and trample each other. These days, most people went crazy just at the sight of a gun.
need
to call the cops, Pete realized. The threat of some old geezer waving a gun around would be enough to bring them rushing to the scene. People would panic and rush around and trample each other. These days, most people went crazy just at the sight of a gun.
Something else made Pete stay his hand.
The punk was with a girl.
She was a few years younger, a teenager, from the looks of her. Pretty, in a girl-next-door sort of way, with chestnut hair that fell around her shoulders. Kinda skinny. She wore glasses, too, and reminded Pete of one of his granddaughters. Or was it one of his great-granddaughters? He had a little trouble keeping up with that.
This girl sure didn't look like she ought to be hanging around with a punk who'd bust into people's houses on Thanksgiving.
Then Pete thought he detected a faint resemblance between them. Hard to say, since his eyes weren't what they once were, but that would explain things. They were brother and sister. Hell, even punks could have sisters, he supposed.
It wouldn't do to shoot her brother right in front of her.
Then the two of them split up, with the girl veering off toward the place that sold cheese and sausage while the punk ambled toward the sporting goods store that was already Pete's destination. Pete's eagerness to confront the little son of a bitch was enough to make him lean forward a little.
“Are you all right, Mr. McCracken?” Father Steve asked.
“Just keep pushin', Father,” Pete said.
* * *
As Tobey walked toward the sporting goods store, he scanned the crowd around him, searching for Ashley. If they ran into each other, they wouldn't have to rendezvous at the food court. That would be okay with Tobey, since he had done what he came to do and the ring was resting securely in his pocket.
Whatever else Ash wanted to do here at the mall, however she wanted to spend the rest of the day, that was fine with him.
Without thinking about it, he did more than keep an eye open for Ashley. He studied the other people around him. He had gotten in the habit of doing that in Iraq, where the enemy looked just like everybody else on the streets, and the only way to spot them in time was to watch what they were doing. Noticing any suspicious behavior could easily mean the difference between life and death.
Tobey reminded himself that he was back home now and didn't have to do that anymore. There were a few guys around who looked like they could have come from Fallujah or Tekrit or Baghdad, of course, and honestly, he paid more attention to them than anybody else.
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