Andy Westin, the new security guard at Black Oak Mall, has no idea that the mall is built on a gateway between Elfland and Earth and that a long-standing conflict may threaten innocent shoppers.
JUST WAIT TILL IT GETS DARK
George Andropolous looked around his ice cream stall and scowled. It was too damn early and he still had to purchase supplies today. But he had to be here to keep people from robbing him blind.
Cherries, chocolate sauce and now the nuts were starting to go too.
At this rate he was going to have to raise his prices again and that was bad for business.
»How we fixed?« he demanded of Lance.
»Okay. We’re a little low on vanilla and I had to open a new can of cherries last night, but…«
»A new can? Jesus, that’s three this week.«
Lance shrugged.
»How in the hell…?« Andropolous stopped. There was a distinct rattle, like metal on metal.
»What was that?«
Lance opened his mouth to reply, but Andropolous motioned him to be quiet. Again the rattle.
There it was again. This time he could pinpoint it. The rattling was coming from the hot-fudge pot.
Slowly, carefully, Andropolous edged up to the pot and eased the lid back. He lifted it perhaps an inch when something small, manlike and liberally smeared with chocolate sauce popped the lid back and went running across the counter, leaving tiny chocolate footprints in its wake.
»WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?« Andropolous screamed as the tiny creature scuttled out of sight, leaving a brown trail behind.
»I’m not real sure,« Lance said slowly, »but I think it was a chocolate-covered brownie.«
MALL PURCHASE NIGHT
Baen Books By Rick Cook
The Wizardry Cursed
The Wizardry Compiled
Wizards Bane
Limbo System
Mall purchase Night
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Copyright 1993 by Rick Cook
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Books Original
Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471
ISBN: 0-671-72198-4
Cover art by Gary Ruddell
First Printing, December 1993
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
Besides the usual list of helpers (Jaison, Cynthia, the mall rats at Metro Center, the Circle Of The Desert Willow and the folks at Jan Ross Books) there’s someone who deserves special mention. Over the years I’ve »borrowed« his life story, ripped off a character name and picked his brains on various arcane matters.
Since he and I were security guards together a long time ago, it’s particularly appropriate to dedicate this one to Cary.
Chapter 1
His leg hurt.
It wasn’t two A.M. and already Fogerty’s leg was giving him hell.
It’s all these goddamn stairs, he told himself as the golf cart whined through the night. Never mind that he usually took the elevators, it was the principle of the thing. A man his age shouldn’t have to be climbing all over something this big.
At least tonight he had outside duty. He could spend most of the shift riding the cart to check the lots and the mall’s exterior. Except he still had to get out every so often to look over the dumpsters and planters.
Black Oak Mall was built on and into a ridge and the parking lots were laid out stair-step fashion up the sides. Each level had to be checked separately.
He tried to rest the leg on the cart’s dash, but it was too high. He couldn’t drive with his leg on the seat and some sonofabitch had taken his box out of the cart. It had taken him two days to find a box just the right height to support that leg.
He breathed deeply and then coughed. Christ, even the air stinks. Even after six years in California the damn air still smelled wrong. He should have stayed in Pennsylvania, lousy economy, snow and all.
He reached the turnoff for the highest lot and stopped for a minute. The full moon was riding high in the sky, only slightly blurred by the thin haze. Below, the lights of the valley spread out in all directions, the streetlights running off into the smog like a net of jewels. The sight just reminded him that he was on a hill and made him even more sour.
Fogerty still weighed 250 pounds, same as when he was the pride of the Altoona, PA, police force. Of course that had been thirty years ago and a continent away. Now he carried more of it around his waist and less in his chest and legs. But he still thought of himself as Big John Fogerty.
He looked at the empty lot and hesitated. There was a bottle in his car in the employees’ lot. Fogerty swallowed hard at the thought. But no, he’d already been warned twice about drinking on duty, and that prick Morales would turn him in if he smelled liquor on him when he checked in at the security center. Besides, he thought, looking up at the security camera mounted on one of the light standards, that sonofabitch could be spying on me right now. He jammed the cart in gear and lurched off into the lot.
It was all the goddamn high-tech. These assholes thought you could substitute a bunch of cameras and radios and stuff for patrol officers. Well it didn’t work that way, and he had twenty-two years of experience that said so. All that shit was good for was spying on employees. Suppose there was some junkie or crazy hiding in one of these fancy planters? Suppose he got jumped? What the hell good would those fancy security cameras do? There were only three guards in the whole damn mall after midnight. He could be dead before help got to him.
He noticed once again how quiet it was. Not even traffic noises this far up the hill. Just the whine of the cart’s electric motor and the occasional buzzing of a lamp. The lot was brightly lit by the even pinkish radiance of the high-pressure sodium lights, but there were dark contorted shadows around the dumpsters and in the planters.
He reached down and patted the butt of his .38. A mans best friend if you knew how to use it and Big John Fogerty had two medals in his dresser drawer that said he knew how to use it. Just stay alert and don’t spook yourself and you’ll be fine.
He pulled up next to one of the chest-high planters that separated areas in the lot. A quick sweep of his flashlight convinced him there was nothing in the planter. He climbed back into the cart and jammed the pedal down.
Fucking pissant Morales. Fogerty hawked and spat. The golf cart whined in protest as it climbed to the next level. I’m a better man drunk than he is sober.
A ratde pierced the warm night air, as if something metallic was being dragged over pavement, or wheels on asphalt.
He stopped instantly. What the hell…? Must be those damn kids again. Skateboarders, trying to avoid Fogerty and the security cameras so they could break their goddamn necks on the sloping access roads. It was fine with Fogerty if they scraped their whole hide away, too good for them. But his job was to run them off.
As quietly as he could, Fogerty reached for the radio on his left hip. »Base, I’ve got something on Level Four-H.« Only the hiss of static in reply. »Base. Base?« Still only static. Fogerty snorted in disgust and jammed the radio back in its holster. Just like that asshole to be off taking a leak when he needed him.
He left the cart and eased forward on foot, keeping three steps from the retaining wall on the downhill side of the lot – close enough to dive behind it if he needed to but not so close that someone behind it could reach up and grab him.
There was another rattle. Fogerty froze, hand on his gun. It was definitely coming from the dumpster alcove up ahead. He felt naked out under the pink glow of the parking lot lights. He eased diagonally across the lot and toward the dumpster bay.
He drew his six-cell flashlight from its belt ring and grasped it tightiy next to the head. With that grip he could flash the light in someone’s eyes or reverse with a twist of the wrist and use the heavy aluminum case as a night stick.
He got his back to the inside retaining wall and moved toward the alcove crabwise, making as small a target as possible.
Something moved in the darkness next to the dumpster. Fogerty swept his light into the alcove. He saw nothing, but something moved in the narrow space between the dumpster and the alcove wall. He unsnapped his holster strap with his thumb.
»All right, you little bastards,« Fogerty called. »I see you in there. Come on out with your hands up.«
Then the intruder moved and stepped into the light.
Fogerty s eyes widened and he screamed.
He was still screaming his throat raw when Morales found him ten minutes later.
Chapter 2
Andy Westlin fidgeted as the man across the desk scanned the application. His shirt was scratchy with newness, and the tie he had bought for the occasion was too tight. The tiny office seemed too hot. He wondered if the shock of red-brown hair at the back of his head was sticking up again. He almost reached up to plaster it back down, but he decided that would be too obvious.
Christ, he thought, I wasn’t this nervous going after speed freaks in abandoned buildings.
The nameplate on the desk read »JD. Dunlap, Chief of Security.« Behind it sat a blocky man with a hard face and thinning gray hair. An ex-cop, Andy thought, one of the ones who was tough rather than efficient. But he was losing the tough look as the layers of flesh accumulated. Now he just looked mean. Andy wondered what he would be like as a boss.
Dunlap finished the first page and looked up.
»You still have a permit to carry a gun on duty?«
Westlin nodded.
Dunlap turned the page and went back to reading.
»Two years on the force, I see.«
Andy nodded. Here it comes.
»What precinct?«
»Southeast,« Westlin said woodenly.
Dunlap looked at him sharply. »You involved in that?«
»I was a goddamn rookie. I didn’t even know what was going on.« The lie didn’t come easily and Westlin was sure he’d said it so clumsily he had given himself away But Dunlap only grunted and nodded.
»Why d you leave the force?«
»Like it says there. I decided I didn’t like it.«
The security chief smiled for the first time in the interview. Andy didn’t find it particularly reassuring.
»Long hours, low pay and spending your time dealing with scum, huh? Well the hours aren’t much better here and the pay’s less. But most of the people don’t hate your guts and not many of them will try to kill you.« He glanced through the rest of the application.
»Westlin, I think you’ll do nicely.« Dunlap gave him another unsettling smile. »You’ll have to submit to a polygraph and urinalysis, and go through a background check, but those are pretty much formalities. When can you start?«
»Any time.«
»Fine. Be here at 9 A.M. tomorrow to draw your uniform and we’ll get you squared away.« He looked over at a clipboard hanging on the wall. »You’ll be on days for a couple of weeks until they get the reports back on you. Then you’ll be floating. Probably mostly nights cause you’re the new guy.«
When Andy pulled his old Toyota into the employees’ parking lot at 8:45 the next morning, there was already a sprinkling of vehicles in the regular lots. That struck him as strange since the stores didn’t open until 10.
From the employees’ lot at the edge of the property Black Oak Mall looked like something out of a science fiction movie. The structure rose like some futuristic city out of the flat terrain of the valley. The planters that rimmed the parking lots on each level drooped greenery like a hanging garden and the heat-reflecting glass roof seemed to glow golden in the morning light. The roofs aluminum framework was anodized gold as well, making even brighter golden highlights in the gleaming mass. Even the white concrete walls were tinged gold by the morning sun. The parking lot was freshly swept and the vegetation was carefully trimmed to look natural without being untidy. It was all clean and bright and wonderfully new, without a trace of graffiti or a broken wine bottle to be seen.
It was a long way from the streets he had patrolled, and the distance wasn’t just measured miles. Andy wondered if he’d fit in better here than he had on the force.
Well, the way to find out wasn’t to sit here and moon. He reached over onto the passenger’s seat and picked up his Sesame Street lunchbox containing a couple of sandwiches and his Taurus .357 revolver with a regulation 6« barrel. Then he started across the parking lot toward the glistening edifice before him.
The main entrance was at ground level. The roof swooped out from the portal and the patterns in the terrazzo pavement converged on the doors as if sweeping the whole world inside. Not just welcoming, sucking you in.
There was a carefully arranged rack of newspaper machines to one side of the mall entrance. Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today and the local papers. »Police Scandal Grows,« announced the headline on the LA Times. »Eight More Indicted in Police Corruption Probe,« blared another. Andy tried hard to ignore them and stepped through the glass doors.
Inside, even the air was different. The temperature was about the same as the morning air outdoors, but it seemed cleaner and clearer. Andy walked past the shops flanking the entrance and out into the open space of the main mall. He stopped dead as the full effect hit him.
The open court reached up four levels with planters and cascading greenery to break up the white concrete of the railings. The effect was like a gigantic atrium with ivy and ferns cascading over the waist-high walls every level. There were benches and planters with more greenery scattered about the court before him, including a stand of bamboo that must have been fifty feet high. Around the perimeter, the names of the stores glowed brighdy but not garishly above the still-closed entrances. High above, sunlight filtered down softly, the beams catching a plant here and an architectural detail there. In the background, soft music played over concealed speakers.
Andy had been in malls before, but never one like this. When he applied yesterday he had come through a side entrance near the mall offices. He realized he didn’t have the faintest idea where those offices were.
»Excuse me.«
An old man in T-shirt and shorts pounded by him, breathing heavily, eyes fixed on something infinitely far ahead. Not far behind him came an elderly couple in matching blue warmup suits, striding along in lockstep. A middle-aged man in shorts, running shoes and a Walkman passed them, driving past like a freight locomotive, torso shining with sweat.
Andy stepped out of the runner’s way and up to an information kiosk to try to find where he was supposed to report and to meet his new supervisor.
Eduardo Morales was a chunky, swarthy ex-cop with a big nose and tight little eyes that never seemed to stop moving. He greeted Andy amiably enough, shoved a pile of clothing and equipment at him and nodded him toward the locker room.
The uniform was a little loose on Andy’s lanky frame, and the combination of dark blue and sky blue with yellow piping made him feel like a movie usher. Still, he was careful to wear it in the style he had learned at the police academy. The patch on the shoulder read »Black Oak Security« over a stylized picture of an oak tree.
When he came out of the dressing room, Morales looked him over and nodded approvingly. Then he handed him a plastic card with a clip on one end and a bar code on the other.
»This is temporary, but don’t lose it. It’s your real badge. It opens doors and clocks you in when you make your rounds.« Andy fumbled a bit as he clipped it to his other breast pocket, across from his shield.
»Come on,« Morales said. »I’ll show you around in here for a little bit. Then I’ll take you topside and LaVonne will show you the ropes on day duty.«
He led Andy back into a big gray room behind the main office. In the center was a large U-shaped desk with about fifteen monitors. Another guard in the blue-on-blue uniform sat at the console sipping a cup of coffee and watching the monitors.
»This is the security center. The whole place is watched from here.«
»How many guards are on?«
»In the daytime, anywhere from eight to a dozen, depending on the day of the week and the season. At night, just three. One guy here, one patrolling inside and one patrolling outside.«
»That’s not much for a place this big.«
Morales smiled. »Technology, man. They really don’t need nobody except the guy in the security center. Those cameras show everything that happens in the whole mall.«
The stubby man with jug ears and thinning hair watching the monitors glanced up and then went back to the screens.
Andy did a quick count of the screens. »Just fifteen?«
»Nah, there must be a couple of hundred cameras. You can switch back and forth, see?« He leaned over the console to demonstrate. »But you don’t need to worry about that. Senior man takes the security center and the other two guys do the patrolling. One inside, one outside. Be a while before you’ll be sitting at that desk.«
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