The Mall (46 page)

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.

“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.”

“He was a friend of mine,” Chance muttered under his breath.
 
“He’s dead now.”

Throwing all his weight into the crowbar, the back cover of the machine popped open with a crunch.
 
Dugan smiled and peered in.
 
His expression collapsed.
 
“Will you lookit this?
 
Twenty-five dollars in crumpled five dollar bills.
 
Damned credit system is making a dishonest living more and more difficult every day.”

Dugan rose to his feet, took a second smell of the slice of cheesecake, crammed the remainder into his mouth, and then hopped back over the counter.
 
“What were you saying about your friend being dead?” he asked with a full mouth.

“A security guard killed my best friend Jesse yesterday down on the tram tracks.”

Dugan looked up with interest for the first time.
 
He swallowed the cheesecake with an audible gulp.
 
“What do you mean, ‘killed’?”

“Murdered.”
 
In way of proof, Chance lifted the tail of his t-shirt that was smeared with the blood he had tried to scrub off his face.
 
He had found some antiseptic wipes in a health food store much more effective in removing it.

For the first time since Chance had met him, Dugan actually seemed focused.
 
In fact, the man looked pale.

“Was he a big burly rascal?
 
About yeh tall?”
Dugan asked, raising his hand about a foot over his head.

Chance simply nodded.

“I think I saw him early this morning,” Dugan said in a weak voice.
 
“He was pulling one of those flat bed carts through the Mall.

“What was on the cart?” Chance could not stop himself from asking, but the question was mere rhetoric and in response to him, Dugan simply gave him a knowing look in return.

“Wait, you expect me to believe a security guard murdered a teenaged kid?
 
Did your friend have a gun on him or something?”

Chance shook his head once and said, “No, this guy snuck up behind us in the dark and beat Jesse to death with his own skateboard.”

Dugan tensed.
 
The only word he spoke in response was, “Why?”

Chance started to shrug but thought better of it.
 
He knew the answer.
 
The man who had killed his best friend was insane.
 
But that wasn’t the answer either.
 
Something specific was wrong with the security guard that had murdered Jesse and he was slowly approaching the answer from the side like an animal he was leery to face head-on.

He didn’t know what his answer would be until the words escaped his lips.

“Something got inside him and drove everything that was human out.”

Owen trotted south into the blue section corridor, letting the last of the bright orange crepe paper unspool behind him from his right hand.
 
Dropping into a squat, he opened the slowly dwindling shopping bag and pulled out a roll of day-glow yellow crepe paper and tied one end to the orange.

He’d come up with the idea on the fly as he’d passed the Hallmark store after he’d separated from Chance and the Mercedes.
 
If it worked for Theseus, he thought, it should work for him; though, in this case, the trail wouldn’t be for him to find his way out of the proverbial maze, but for his Family (the word had in the last few hours risen to a state of importance enough to require capitalization) to find him.
 
Weren’t teachers always telling them to apply what they’d learned?
 
Here was a situation Mr. Olivaw could never have foreseen when he’d taught them Greek mythology.