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 two hundred and fifty 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 man’s 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 rattle 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 lads 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 tightly 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.