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 “J.D. 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 ten.
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 roof’s 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 six-inch 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 brightly 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.”
He turned to the man at the console. “Anything good, Henderson?”
The guard grunted. “Nah, too early. Maybe something later.”
“People don’t realize the whole mall is covered by those cameras,” Morales said as they left the security office. “Sometimes they’ll do the damnedest things in the corners and hidey-holes around here. Hell, we’ve seen people screwing, men going down on men, women on women.” He smiled and shook his head. “We made a videotape of some of the best stuff. You ought to see it some time.”
Instead of turning left to go back out into the mall they turned right. There were no more offices along the corridor, just metal double doors with store names stenciled on them. The corridor was wide but deserted. The walls of the corridor were unfinished concrete and the baseboards and corners were black with tire marks and chipped from the passage of hand trucks and forklifts. The floor was spotless and buffed to a matte finish. The air was warmer and still, Andy noticed. Apparently it wasn’t air conditioned directly.
“This is the fast way to get to the central elevators,” Morales explained. “It runs behind the smaller stores.
“We’ll keep you on day duty for a few days until we get your test results back,” Andy’s new supervisor told him. “Then you’ll float wherever we need you. Probably mostly graveyard, but some days too.”
“Much happen here at night?”
Morales snorted. “You know why we’re here at all at night? It’s the goddamn insurance. It’s so much cheaper if they have people on around the clock that they can pay a guard force and still save on the fuckin’ premiums.
“Night shift’s a piece of cake. You make a round every hour, that takes you about forty-five minutes. The rest of the time you sit at the desk in the information center down on the first level.
“Days are tougher ’cause the mall’s full of people. There’s lost kids and drunks and shit. LaVonne will tell you about it and it’s all covered in the regs book in the security center. Get here a little early for the next couple of days and go over the book. It’s pretty straightforward.”
“What kinds of crimes should I watch out for?”
Morales looked at him oddly. “Crime? You mean like felonies? Hell, we don’t even have much car theft. Not with all those cameras. When the place first opened they had a couple of gangs lifting cars from the lot. But that stopped when they found out we had everything on tape. Not only made it easy to ID the perps, it was real convincing when they played it for the juries.” Morales gestured expansively, palms up. “So, no more auto theft.”
“And inside?”
“Just about zip. Maybe someone’s purse gets lifted. Once in a while we’ll get a rape or something, but the cops investigate that. Mostly it’s a matter of kids acting up, vandalism, that sort of thing. We keep everyone in line and keep ’em happy. That’s our real job.”
Morales tapped his head. “It’s common sense, man. Use common sense and remember which side your bread is buttered and you won’t have any trouble.”
“What about shoplifting?”
“Not our problem. The store detectives handle it in the big stores, the clerks take care of it in the small ones and we stay out of it unless they ask. Usually they call the police themselves. Most of this business is public relations. You keep your eyes open and show the flag. You won’t have any trouble.”
They stopped before the door and Morales unclipped his ID card and put it in the slot.
“Easy way is to take the elevator to the top and work down. We’ll meet LaVonne up on Level Four.”
When they stepped out of the elevator, Andy was stunned at the change. In the time he had been with Morales the stores had opened. The sprinkling of joggers was replaced by streaming crowds of people. Andy looked at his watch and saw it wasn’t even eleven yet.
“This is the South Court,” Morales said. “LaVonne will be here in a minute.” Andy nodded and looked over the railing.
It was like standing on the edge of a canyon. Waist-high planters served as railings at each level. Down at the bottom, water sprayed and tinkled over an elaborate waterfall of artificial rocks and splashed down a tall metal sculpture in the center of the pond. While Andy admired the view, the supervisor spoke briefly into a walkie-talkie and listened intently to the static-filled response.
“That’s a real spring,” Morales told him. “When they were building this place they hit water. So they put a fountain there and use the extra water for irrigation and the other fountains in the mall. Even when we had the drought that fountain kept going.”
“A spring? In a ridge?”
Morales shrugged. “Hey, all I know is, the water’s there. Never shuts off. Even at night when the mall’s empty. Anyway, like I was saying, the best way to handle trouble is to head it off before it starts. Don’t strong-arm anybody but don’t take a lot of shit either. If someone causes trouble, your job is to throw him off the property. There’s a list of people down in the day book who aren’t allowed in the mall. Study it, and if one of them shows up, toss him out.”
“Isn’t that harassment?” Andy asked, remembering his training at the academy.
Morales grinned mirthlessly. “You don’t get it. This isn’t a public place. The whole mall is private property and we don’t have to put up with nothing. If someone starts causing trouble, tell ’em to leave. If they don’t leave, we escort them off the property. And if that don’t work, we call the cops and have them arrested for trespassing.”
Morales looked at the crowd streaming around them.
“When you get right down to it, none of these people have any rights in this mall. Makes keeping the peace a whole lot easier.”
“What about nights?”
“On midnight to eight there’s mostly no one here. All the regular store employees are supposed to be gone by ten p.m. From ten to midnight no one’s allowed in the mall without a special ID. From midnight to six a.m. the guards are the only ones authorized to be in the mall. Cleanup crews finish at midnight or come in before the stores open.”
“Why?”
Morales shrugged. “Security, man. There’s a lot of valuable stuff in here.” He smiled like he had just made a joke.