Delbert stood in front of Bonmark’s. All along their outside wall was a series of display cases built into the cement block. The cases were inaccessible from the inside of the store and were serviced from the corridor. As Delbert slowly and carefully scanned the area he saw movement once more, slightly behind and to the right. Delbert spun on his heel.
In one of the display cases stood a tall, slender mannequin wearing a skimpy bikini. Delbert stepped closer to the window. The mannequin smiled down at him and made come hither gestures with her right hand.
Delbert’s mouth dropped open. He took a step backwards, frowned and looked closer at the mannequin. Why, it wasn’t a mannequin at all! Obviously, somebody was playing a joke on him. He cleared his throat, squared his shoulders and stepped purposefully forward to stand directly beneath the slightly elevated display window.
“Okay, whoever you are,” Delbert said in his deepest voice. “I want you to step down out of there right now or I’m calling the police.” He pointed to the floor in front of him. “Right here. Now. Come out of there.”
The mannequin that was a girl continued to smile, twisting this way and that, showing off her slender young body in the bikini which, oddly enough, seemed to cover less and less of her as the seconds flew by.
Delbert shuffled his feet and glanced right and left. “Come on. I said out.”
“Why don’t you come in here with me?” she asked.
“Are you nuts? I couldn’t get in there if I tried. It’s locked. Besides, I’d lose my job. Now come on out. Who the hell are you anyway?” It seemed to Delbert that the temperature had risen at least ten degrees since he had started this ridiculous conversation.
“Just a friend,” she said. “Come on, Delbert. Don’t I look good to you? Or have I made a mistake? Hey, you aren’t gay, are you?”
“Now, just…hold on. Don’t…ahh, shit!”
The girl reached behind her and unhooked her bikini top. It fluttered to the floor like a dying butterfly. Delbert was uncomfortably aware of the ever-increasing tightness of his jeans. Smiling brighter than ever, she hooked a forefinger in each side of her waistband and slid the panties slowly down to her ankles. Then she stepped out of them. Delbert swallowed noisily, looked frantically about once more and shrugged.
“Oh, what the hell,” he said to nobody in particular. Then he reached out and tentatively tugged on the door to the display cabinet. It swung effortlessly open. The girl reached down and took both of his hands in hers.
Delbert Rollins stepped into the display case with the blonde, beautiful and extremely naked young lady.
Ezra Docket pushed his cart ahead of him down the long corridor and hummed something he had heard on the car radio on the way to work. He liked working early in the morning before the mall opened. It sure beat the job he had before he retired. Always somebody around wanting something. Ezra, get this. Ezra, go tell so and so that. Can you take a short lunch, Ezra? I need you to pick something up for Eugene.
Who would have thought that life could be better after sixty-five? But it was. He could slip from of the house before Wanda even thought about getting out of bed. Ezra had wondered for years why her mouth popped open exactly the same time his eyes did every morning. And, Lord, how Ezra hated noise in the morning.
But, this job! This was really something. Ezra thought about where to start work. Maybe the public restrooms next to Bonmark’s. Yep. That would be fine for a change. He liked to vary his routine. It added a bit of spice to the day.
Ezra pushed the cleaning cart around the corner in front of Bonmark’s and stopped dead in his tracks. There was something laying in the corridor in front of one of those funny display windows set into the wall. He stepped around his cart and moved cautiously toward the lump on the floor. It looked like a pile of clothing. The lump was surrounded by something that sparkled in the glare of the ceiling lights. A funny red-brown stain had spread itself around the lump, too. Ezra stopped moving.
And then the two eggs over easy, the bacon, the grits, the toast with jelly and the coffee he had enjoyed for breakfast was suddenly on the floor at his feet.
Ezra Docket staggered backwards a few steps, then turned around and trotted as fast as his sixty-seven-year-old legs would carry him to the pay phones next to the restrooms.
Ezra Docket still stood in the corridor of the mall next to the telephones when Gerhart ran in followed closely by two paramedics and Penton, the mall manager. Fortunately, from Penton’s standpoint, it was far too early for any potential customers to be in the parking lot, therefore the mall’s position was not compromised. At least not yet.
Gerhart Kable and Jonathon Holloway stood and looked down at the body of Delbert Rollins where it lay on the stainless steel table in the autopsy room at the back of Holloway’s practice.
Gerhart waved both hands in the air and sighed loudly. “This is crazy,” he declared.
“Death very often is,” Holloway replied philosophically.
“Not just death in general, damn it, this death. What the hell was this kid doing? He breaks through the glass in a locked display case that holds nothing but a clothing store dummy. He pulls the dummy out of the case on top of him, cutting his wrist and throat in the process—and dies within fifteen feet of a phone. And with a button on his belt that would have had us there within five minutes.” Gerhart walked slow circles in the middle of the floor as he spoke. “Why would he break the window in the first place? You can’t get into the store that way. And why, assuming he did have a reason to break in, did he pull the dummy out on top of him? And why the hell didn’t he call for help? Even if he was doing something illegal, was it worth dying for? Jesus Christ, Holloway, what’s going on?”
Holloway shook his head and pulled the sheet up over Delbert Rollins’ bloodless face. “I ain’t got a clue, pardner,” he said in his best John Wayne voice. Holloway was the only man in town who didn’t know he spoke like that only when he was worried. “After all, pardner, y’all are the Sheriff in this here town. I ain’t.”
“Y’all is plural. I’ve told you that before. There’s only one of me standing here, despite what you may have had to drink last night. Think about what’s happened here in the last week or so. First a dessert chef in the restaurant spikes the mousse with a laxative. We can’t find him. Then the mayor’s kid tries to mug a lady on crutches. Fortunately, she’s tougher than he is. But he’s never been in trouble before in his life. I doubt that he wet his diaper more than once. A few days later, some little girl reports a “pervert”, as she calls it, in the mall. Apparently he hid in a closet grinning at her while he pounded his pud. Then, the Curran boy deep-fries his noggin. Now poor old Delbert, here, decides to try on a bikini and slashes a wrist in the process. This is just nuts!”
Holloway raised a hand as if asking to recite. “I just remembered something. There was this boy they hired to clean up in the food court. Retarded kid, but a good worker. His boss couldn’t say enough about him. One of the girls that works there saw him sitting at a table holding his head and mumbling. She said he kept saying, ‘He’s in my head. Get him out of my head. I don’t want to do that.’ His mom brought him to me. We checked the boy out six ways from Sunday, but couldn’t find anything physically wrong with him. They told me he never pitched a fit like this before. Now he absolutely refuses to go anyplace near the mall. His mom told me they were in the car a few days later and she remembered she needed something from the drugstore. They were only a couple of blocks from the mall so she whipped over there. As soon as the boy saw where she was going, he yanked open the door, jumped out of the moving car and ran off across the street yelling and screaming. Said it took her a half hour to get him back in the car.”
Gerhart listened with his mouth partly open. “You never told me about that. Why didn’t you tell me about that?”
“For what? I mean, shit! The kid’s a little tetched, right? Who’d have thought it was important?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s ju
st that this is beginning to drive me nuts. My God,” Gerhart said snapping his eyes wide open. “I forgot one.”
“Another one? When? Where? What else happened?”
“You forgot, too. The first one. The dead guy we found in the mall before it was even finished. Remember? The guy that fell out of a cloud.”
Polly Jo Hornfelter trotted happily along beside her husband like a well-trained beagle. It was all she could do to keep from shouting for joy.
“Did you talk to Roscoe Marney, Elmer?” Polly Jo asked her husband. “Can we go up there when it’s time?”
“I called him yesterday, sugar. It’s all set. He said we can have the run of the place just like you and your daddy used to do. The only thing he said was, be sure and get the licenses. Roscoe said he ain’t sure he’d need ‘em, hunting on his own land and all, but he knows we do. Don’t worry, I’ll pick ‘em up tomorrow.”
Elmer slipped an arm about his wife’s thickening waist and grinned down at her.
Polly Jo had always loved to hunt. When she was nine years old her daddy taught her how to use an old .410 gauge single shot that had belonged to his father. When she was twelve she graduated to a 16 gauge double barrel. She could now shoot as well as her daddy and better than most of the men in the county. One of the reasons she and Elmer got along so well was because they both loved the outdoors. They belonged to the National Rifle Association and subscribed to Field & Stream and American Handgunner. When the latest issue of a magazine arrived they fought to see who got to read it first. But early in their married life something came between them and the hunting.
Oddly enough, that something was survival.
It’s hard to find the time, much less the money, for hunting when you spend most of your waking hours trying to raise five young’uns that forever sit around with either their mouths open or their hands out. But eight months earlier, Edwina, the daughter Elmer called the last of the Mohicans, married Jasper Conling’s third boy. The newlyweds moved to Attapulgus, Georgia, wherever the hell that was, so the boy could work in a mine of some kind. Now Elmer and Polly Jo had the house to themselves. The first thing they did was get to know each other again—in the Biblical sense—using every room in the house except the bath. It was just too damn small. When they got caught up on that sport they decided that now, by God, they were going to hunt if they had to exist on shoe leather and nettle sandwiches for the next month.
Elmer and Polly Jo stepped into Buck’s Sporting Goods, stopped just inside the door and grinned at each other like two kids at Disney Land. They looked around and sighed simultaneously. Then Polly Jo spotted the gun section and tugged Elmer’s hand.
“Over there, honey. See?”
The ecstatic couple walked through the store and came to a halt in front of a rack full of shotguns. The only clerk in the place, the one that had drawn lunch duty, looked up from the customer he was waiting on and smiled at them.
“Be right with you folks.”
Elmer waved a hand. “No hurry. When you get a chance, let me take a look at that 12 Gauge Ithaca pump.”
The clerk stepped over to the rack, took the shotgun down and handed it across the counter to Elmer.
“Here, sugar, try this for size,” Elmer said. He swung the gun up and placed the butt against Polly Jo’s right shoulder.
She reached out and gripped the shotgun expertly, left hand under the slide, right hand around the small of the stock. She aimed at her reflection in the mirror behind the rifle rack and broke into a delighted grin. “Oh, Elmer,” she squealed. “It was made just for me!”
There was a steady stream of shoppers in and out of the store. The clerk, a good fifteen years Elmer’s junior, recognized early on that his customers knew a great deal more than he did about guns. He left them pretty much alone, except to hand over a weapon now and then. Almost an hour passed as various customers came and went. Finally the store was empty except for Elmer and Polly Jo. The clerk made his way back to them and hoped they had settled on the most expensive shotgun.
“How are you folks doing?” he asked.
Elmer smiled at him. “I think we’ve made up our minds,” he said. He turned to Polly Jo. “Honey, give that Remington a try. I think you’ll like it better than the Ithaca.”
Polly Jo grinned at her husband, pulled the shotgun tight against her shoulder, swung in a small half-circle, took a deep breath, held it and squeezed the trigger. There was a deafening roar and a large hole appeared in the chest of the mannequin standing next to the dressing rooms.
She cocked her head slightly to the right and frowned. “Elmer, don’t you think the pattern’s a little tight for a modified choke?”
Elmer nodded. “Yep, you’re right. How about this one?”
He swung up the shotgun he held and made three basketballs disappear in rapid succession. “Now, that’s better,” he said, lowering the gun.
The clerk had turned several shades of white during this display, each one lighter than the last. He worked his mouth a few times, tried to speak, heard nothing and decided he was deaf. Then he took in a great breath and yelled at Elmer.
“You can’t do that! Give me that gun! I’m calling the police!”
He backed a few steps away from Elmer then whirled around and ran for the telephone at the end of the counter. Polly Jo brought him down with one well-placed shot.
“Good job, sugar,” Elmer nodded with approval. “But don’t lead so much next time.”
Polly Jo pulled a face. “You can tell I’m out of practice,” she said. “Let’s see what this little Remington 16 will do.”
Elmer and Polly Jo walked out of the shop, each with a shotgun under one arm. The clerk made a last attempt to get to his feet, pitched forward onto his face and died.
“Ernie, you and Lenwood go around to the door behind the food court. I want Ford and Al at the end of the corridor in front of Bonmark’s. Brock and Dee Dee, same place in front of Sears. I’ll go in here,” Gerhart said indicating the main entrance. “Now, listen up! These folks are nuts. They’ve shot a clerk, some basketballs, and several store mannequins. If one of them swings a gun at you, shoot him. Then we’ll ask questions. Go!”
The police officers leaped into their respective vehicles and sped off. Gerhart stepped through the main door and stood behind a concrete pillar waiting for his people to get into position. Three minutes later the radio yelped.
“Ford in position.”
“Ernie in position.”
“Brock in position.”
“Okay,” Gerhart replied, “go in easy, keep covered, tell me when you see them. Hit it.”
Gerhart drew his Sig Sauer 9MM, snapped off the safety, and jogged toward the food court with the piece at high port. The mall was so quiet Gerhart thought he could hear his shoelaces rustling as he tiptoed along the corridor. Occasionally a cough or sob burst through the curtain of silence. As Gerhart moved deeper into the mall he saw people laying under benches or huddled in the corners, most of them breathing shakily and holding their arms over their heads. When he reached the intersection where the mall branched right and left he stopped to listen. Far down the left passage were faint voices interspersed with manic giggles. He crept forward and peered around the corner
Midway between where he stood and Bonmark’s a man and a woman strolled side by side toward the big store as if walking through the park on a sunny day. The man was well over six feet and looked like he kept himself in good shape. He carried a long gun over his right shoulder like a soldier on parade. The woman at his side wasn’t more than five feet three and was slightly thick in the waist and hips. She carried another long gun slung under her left arm with the barrel pointing down at an angle. Her right arm was linked with the man’s left. Although the corridor was lined with prone and supine shoppers, the pair seemed not to notice. Gerhart thumbed the button on his radio.
“Ford,” he said quietly, “they’re coming at you.”
“Got ‘em.”
“Be careful.
I’m coming at you, too. I’ll be on your right, hugging the wall. If you have to shoot at them, try to do a better job than you did on the range last week. Remember, I’m in front of you.”
“Right.” A soft giggle followed. “You’ll be safe. I’ll aim for your head.”
As Gerhart released the radio, the man stopped, swung his gun to the left and blew the window out of a storefront. The woman gave him a round of applause. He stood critically eyeing his work for a moment, then turned back to her and they continued their stroll. Gerhart was fifty feet behind them. He slid against a concrete pilaster, held his pistol so they couldn’t see it and called to them.
“Hey, there. How’s it going?”
The pair stopped and turned slowly in his direction. Gerhart waved his free hand at them and smiled around the pilaster. Elmer grinned and waved back.
“Hey, neighbor. Nice day for hunting, wouldn’t you say? What’re you after?”
Gerhart thought for a moment. “Just varmint shooting. Ever do that?”
“Off and on, but I like something a little more challenging.”
“I heard that. Doing any good?”
“Polly Jo, here, got herself a real nice ten pointer, didn’t you sugar? Real nice.”
“Where is it?”
“Left it back by the stand. I got a shot at a six pointer a few minutes ago, but I guess I missed. Couldn’t find any blood.” Elmer shrugged and pointed to the ground at his feet.
As Ford moved slowly up behind the couple Gerhart decided to go for broke. He stuck the Sig Sauer back in the holster, but didn’t snap the thumb clip.
“Let me give you a hand. Should be spoor around here someplace.” He stepped out from behind the column and walked purposefully toward Elmer and Polly Jo. Ford and Al were within twenty feet of the pair. Ford crept along one wall, Al along the other. Gerhart smiled and continued toward the couple, all the while hoping they wouldn’t turn away from him. Sweat ran down his face like a waterfall and his shirt was soaked. His eyes never left the business end of Elmer’s shotgun, which was still resting on his shoulder. Suddenly Polly Jo looked behind her, smiled and tapped Elmer on the shoulder.
Genesis of Evil Page 8