by Weston Ochse
“You mean ask the vengeance demon to change her name?” Boy Scout replied.
“Good point.”
They drove in silence for awhile, passing the place they’d rendezvous with Noaks later, one of the Goodyear Blimps parked in a great open field.
Finally, McQueen said in a low voice. “I’ll admit that there is some merit there. As the expert,” he said, taking his hands of the wheel for a moment to give air quotes, “I’ll let you know if anything comes to mind.”
“That’s all I ask,” Boy Scout said.
“And if that doesn’t work, I think I’ve also seen every episode of Scooby Doo. Those Hanna-Barbera cartoons were aces.”
“Fuck you, McQueen.”
“Yes, boss. I’ll get right on it.”
Twenty minutes later they were pulling into the mall and Nicki Minaj was still singing about men’s genitals.
Chapter Nineteen
Del Amo Fashion Center Mall
DEL AMO MALL, or more rightly Del Amo Fashion Center, rested in the heart of downtown Torrance and was everything you wanted in a mall and more. With a leasing space of almost three million square feet it was one of the largest shopping malls in America. But where bigger ones went up, many sporting carnival-type rides, Del Amo concentrated on the most natural of American human rights: the right to spend money. With three tight levels and nearly two hundred and fifty stores, a shopper could become lost inside and never have to leave. Having been a fan of the Dawn of the Dead franchise, Boy Scout had assessed Del Amo as a possible hideout in an end-of-the-world scenario and had found it wanting. Not for everything it had, but for its too many entrances and the fact that it rested squarely in the middle of millions of people. A far better redoubt would be some small, midwestern mall with three or four entrances, off the interstate, and in the middle of nowhere.
But everything that made Del Amo a poor place to defend during a zombie apocalypse allowed it to be a prime spot to detect surveillance. The uninitiated might wonder how one would spot surveillance in such a massive property with tens of thousands of fellow shoppers milling about, browsing, hanging out, and doing the various consumer dances relative to popular culture. But there’s an attitude of inattentiveness the average shopper assumes upon entering one of the Great Temples of Capitalism. They look forward and not backward. They search ahead and rarely care what’s behind, because once surveyed and dismissed, there’s no need to return. The evolutionary hunter-gatherer mentality dictates that their desires might be met in the next or the next or the next store, even if they aren’t even sure what it is they’re looking for.
Some go to malls to buy a specific item, then leave.
Some go to spend time with friends or loved ones and inevitably buy things they may or may not need.
Still others go to hang out with friends or find new ones, the food court being the locus for most of these social activities.
And still more people frequent malls as retail therapy, erasing the bad events of the day or replacing one’s poor idea of self with something new and shiny that fits them perfectly in the moment, allowing them to achieve a momentary mental triumph as who they were and what had happened was temporarily erased by the purchase of a two-for-one blouse, a new pair of shoes, or a Starter Jacket with their favorite team logo. Who they were wearing these new things is not the same as who they had been before they bought them.
Then there are the exercisers. They were recognized by their complete disdain for capitalism, using the interiors of such malls as their own free gyms. Headbands, Sketchers, eyes forward, body straining, eager to urge a year or two more on a structure that had become inevitably more fragile as the decades were heaped upon it.
These categories made up more than ninety percent of those who regularly go to malls. This didn’t include those who go there to work, those who go to provide security, and those who go to hunt. Hunters came in all shapes, from those looking to remove a handbag from a busy mother, or a wallet from a distracted husband, to those eager to exploit capitalism without the desire to perform legal commerce.
Then, of course, there were the hunters like Boy Scout and McQueen. Hunters who pretended to be victims only so they could become better hunters. By now, the dervishes should have been able to have persons in place and ready for them, with others probably on the way. The problem the dervishes had was the same one that Caucasian Americans have when operating in Muslim or Asian countries—they stuck out. Not as much so in Los Angeles, but enough that the attentive prey could discern the differences. For instance, each of the men hunting them would be of military age. Each of them would be of Turkish or Middle Eastern descent, which created a specific facial biometric profile. And most importantly, each of them would be hunting rather than shopping.
For their benefit, McQueen and Boy Scout each carried a slender P238 in an ankle holster and wore the special glasses they’d field tested against the dervishes at the monastery. On the edge of retro-ridiculous, the shades looked more like something a grandfather or Elton John might wear, their thickness a little unnecessary. In fact, the frames were so thick they made the army issue Birth Control Glasses, or BCGs, seem stylish by comparison. But the team couldn’t operate without them. The series of flashing lights hidden in the frame structure were designed to catch the attention of their eyes just enough that they couldn’t concentrate on a specific thing—this was the secret of being able to ignore the hypnotic dance of the dervishes. It was ironic that the technology for the glasses was based on EMDR, or eye movement desensitizing and processing, which was being more frequently used to help veterans overcome the trauma associated with PTSD. Now it would be used to help veterans overcome those who would seek to add to their PTSD.
With their glasses on and the pistols tight against the ankles, each of them slipped into the mall using different entrances.
Boy Scout entered using the door nearest Crate and Barrel on Hawthorne Way.
McQueen entered near AMC Theaters on Fashion Way.
The idea was for them to drag whatever surveillance they had to the food court and then see what transpired. They had an idea, but they weren’t about to assume that would happen. If nothing at all happened, then they’d meet and enter the theater as two persons and take down their surveillance teams in the dark.
It was only when Boy Scout entered that he remembered why he hated malls.
The crowds set him on edge. His tinnitus hissed higher as his blood pressure raised. The problem with so many people was that he found it impossible to track and assign threat levels to everyone. Add that he was no longer in full combat kit and he might as well have been naked. Hispanic and Asian families seemed to be the majority. The few Caucasian men he saw were dressed in gangbanger shirts and cholo shorts, Lakers or Dodgers shirts, or any variation of Nike apparel. Boy Scout had thought about changing their appearances, but that might tip the dervishes that they were worried about surveillance. Instead, they dressed as they always did: black polos, tactical kakis, Merrill shoes, and belts strong enough to drape all sorts of weaponry from. They looked like off-duty cops or military contractors.
Boy Scout walked along the corridor, head slightly down as if he were thinking more about what he was going to buy than paying attention to his environs. He clocked surveillance immediately. A military-age dark-skinned male wearing a red track suit with black stripes down the sides of the legs, standing against the wall and reading texts from his cell phone. As Boy Scout passed, the man began to tap on his phone.
A few seconds later, Boy Scout made a right turn into Dick’s Sporting Goods. He went first to the bag section and spent fifteen minutes selecting a bag to carry everything else he’d buy. He settled on a red Osprey Go Bag. Then he went to the clothing section and grabbed three sets of pants, three shirts, a new belt, six pairs of socks and a set of new Merrill shoes. All the while, he kept the man in the track suit in his sights. This wouldn’t be the threat. He was merely the tracker.
Finished, Boy Scout exited sou
th into the mall proper and grinned as he paused at the US Army Recruiting Office, posters of men and women in action plastered on the windows.
Then he resumed window shopping, meandering around the south mall before entering Macy’s from the east side. Inside the department store, he went up a level, then down two levels, before returning to the main level and exiting the west entrance. While inside he spotted a second dervish, this one wearing the same brand and style of track suit except in blue. Boy Scout was disappointed. It was like they weren’t even trying, which demonstrated how certain they were of their TTPs.
He exited Macy’s into the food court, which had the usual suspects such as Chipotle, Sbarra, Pita Pit and various pizza and burger places. What surprised him and had him salivating was Pink’s Hotdogs. He’d had no idea that the oldest hot dog stand in America had a satellite stand in the mall. He’d been to the original Pink’s off La Brea many times, ordering dogs that no self-respecting mid-westerner or northeasterner would ever have. So staid were New Yorkers and Chicagoans about their various dogs that they wouldn’t even consider trying something so un-geographically tasteful.
Pink’s named many of their dogs after famous movie stars or Californians. Boy Scout’s go-to dogs included the Huell Howser Dog, which had two dogs on a single bun with mustard, onions, and chili, and the Martha Stewart Dog, which was a nine-inch stretch dog with relish, onions, bacon, chopped tomatoes, sauerkraut and sour cream. He laughed when he noted a new Lord of the Rings Dog, which had BBQ sauce and onion rings as if they came straight from the Shire.
After much hemming and hawing, he settled for an Emeril Lagasse Bam Dog, another nine-inch stretch dog with mustard, onions, cheese, jalapenos, bacon, and coleslaw. It was the jalapenos and coleslaw that did it for him. When they gave him a tray with the dog and a Coke, he took it to a table where McQueen was already seated.
McQueen was eating an Asian bowl with Kalbi chicken, zucchinis, onions, and jalapenos, mixed with kimchi rice and topped with seaweed and a fried egg. Waiting on the table was a boba tea from Bibigo Fresh Korean Kitchen.
McQueen was about to eat when he saw Boy Scout’s dog, the coleslaw almost covered in fresh, steaming bacon. He glanced up at Boy Scout like a puppy and all but licked his lips.
The funny thing was that Boy Scout had been looking at McQueen’s Bibigo box in the same way.
Without a word, they switched trays.
While Boy Scout retrieved his Coke, McQueen grabbed his Boba Tea.
They ate in silence for a moment, then Boy Scout asked, “How many do you have?”
“Three. Two followed me and one who was waiting by the brick pizza oven over there,” he said, flashing his eyes in a direction.
“I counted two,” Boy Scout said. “Are yours on the track team as well?”
McQueen chuckled. “It’s like they’re not even trying. Give one a wife beater and some cholo shorts and some black Nike high tops and I’d never know.”
“Right?” Boy Scout sipped his coke and realized that the glasses were giving him a headache. “Do you think they’d actually try it here?”
The final third of the hotdog disappeared in McQueen’s mouth. Around chewing the food, he said, “If they do, they’re desperate and you have to wonder why.”
Boy Scout saw a flash of white and lowered his eyes. “Don’t look now but Mr. Desperate himself just walked in wearing a dervish dress.”
McQueen started. “Do you really think they’re going to do it?”
“It would be suicide. I already see security has pegged this guy as trouble and are vectoring towards him.” And they were, one larger than life African American woman and a thick Hispanic man, neither with more than mace and a walkie talkie with which to defend themselves. The other dervishes weren’t moving, instead standing where they were. And then as one, they all turned and faced the other way. “Oh shit. Here it comes.”
The dervish wearing the traditional conical felt hat and a white dress leaped atop an empty table in the middle of the food court.
At first guess, Boy Scout surmised that there had to be two hundred people mingling, eating, or passing through.
The dervish raised his arms and a woman screamed.
The African American security guard ordered him down.
Then the dervish began to dance, twirling in the way only dervishes could, head knocked to the side as they entered a place where they were closer to god. But these dervishes had discovered that with a few more steps, they could create in the human mind a need to sleep. And like they’d all practiced, everyone who was watching sagged to the ground, their mind spinning and lost in the grooves at the end of a record. Those who didn’t go down right away turned to see what was going on and, in one mesmerizing moment, were also down.
And on the dervish twirled, until the only people standing were two blind men near Sbarro, and Boy Scout and McQueen. The latter ran towards the whirling dervish, taking him down in a flying tackle that would make any professional linebacker an instant Pro Bowl selection.
The crash was followed by the other dervishes turning and realizing the almost perfect effectiveness of their plan—almost because the two they had actually targeted were up and violent.
Boy Scout tore into two of the dervishes with short chopping rights, hitting each of them where the jaw met the skull. Both fell like the other patrons and Boy Scout began running towards another. He glanced back and saw McQueen had an arm under the shoulder of the whirling dervish and was escorting him into the movie theater.
Then he heard his name called.
“Bryan? Stop!”
Boy Scout twisted for the sound.
A seventh dervish stepped from behind a support beam wearing clothes identical to Boy Scout’s. Faood. Boy Scout recognized him immediately as the one who had been with them at the cistern, the one who had explained everything to them, then disappeared with the others.
Boy Scout mouthed the man’s name.
Faood nodded. “You have it wrong. We need you.”
Boy Scout shook his head. “We don’t have it wrong.” He gestured to the hundreds of fallen. “Is this what you think is right?”
Faood smiled. “They are not hurt. They will be fine.” He started to walk toward Boy Scout. “It’s the glasses, isn’t it? What’s in them, lights?”
“I’ve seen what your kind can do. My team was killed for it. Narco, Criminal, Bully… all killed because of you.”
“Not me, my friend.” Faood continued moving toward him. Several of the other dervishes were also vectoring in. “I am here as a friend. I am here because we need to work together.”
Boy Scout saw their plan and knew he had to leave. They were almost in place and where they’d have him. He thought about reaching down and pulling out his pistol, but there was still the issue of the surveillance cameras.
“Has it spoken with you yet? Did it explain who it is?”
Boy Scout backed away. He wanted nothing more than to rush Faood and bash in his head, but he needed to fight another day. He thought of a dozen things to say, but none were as good as the ones John McClane delivered during the battle for Nakatomi Tower, so instead he shut the hell up, turned and ran. By the time he was running out the west entrance to the food court and slipping past Aéropostale, the people in the food court were beginning to recover, those entering now screaming as they probably believed terrorists had hit the mall with a strange new weapon.
Boy Scout was able to race out the west exit before anyone could stop him. He slowed to a walk, forcing himself not to turn around, the last words of Faood playing through his mind. He knew he’d have to tell Preacher’s Daughter about what had happened here. He needed her religious history expertise, and he needed to tell her about the giants, and ultimately, about the boy whose mother’s fingers once held the memory of oranges.
Chapter Twenty
South Los Angeles
BOY SCOUT UBERED to the Home Depot in South Torrance. He went inside through the contractor entrance, cru
ised the aisles for a few minutes, stopped to marvel at a kitchen setup, chatted with an employee about various granite choices, then left through the garden center. He walked to the Costco a few blocks away and met McQueen, who was sitting in the driver’s seat of a white panel van. A pair of marines had driven it up earlier, and when McQueen had arrived at the mall, they’d exchanged keys. The dervish was trussed in the back, his scowl almost comical.
“Did he have a cell?” Boy Scout asked.
“He did.”
“Did you exploit it?”
“I did. Got his call history as well as all the emails he’d downloaded.”
“What’d you do with the phone?”
McQueen shook his head. “What do you think this is, amateur hour? I tossed it in the back of a pickup with Tijuana plates.”
Boy Scout climbed in the back and inspected the dervish’s bonds. McQueen had done a good job. “Did he give you any trouble?”
“I might have had to give him a little punch or two. Funny how if you hit the stomach hard enough all effort of trying to escape just vanishes.”
“Does he speak English?” Boy Scout asked, squatting beside the dervish.
“He knows all of our best curse words.”
Boy Scout looked into the man’s eyes. They radiated hate. “Did he give a name?”
“Not one that I heard.”
“Well, then,” Boy Scout said, his face inches from the dervish’s. “Shall we begin?”
The dervish stared at him a moment, then smiled. “Are you going to torture me in the parking lot of a Costco? I think there’s a metaphor for your people in that.”
Boy Scout rocked his head back and laughed. “A metaphor for my people. Did you hear that, McQueen? He can speak English.”
“Except for his accent, you might even think of him as being born here,” McQueen acknowledged.