by Diane Kelly
Before I could even make a move in their direction, the two sped up and out of sight. It was probably just as well. I couldn’t run fast enough to catch them and I wasn’t about to send my K-9 partner on a chase that could lead her into traffic.
“Officer Luz!” came Ricky’s voice across the radio. “You’re needed at the main doors of Macy’s. There’s a fight about to break out.”
Visions of gang warfare in my head, I opened the back door, grabbed Brigit’s leash, and pulled her out, taking off at a full run with my partner galloping alongside me. We didn’t get far before the tight crowd slowed us down.
“’Scuse us!” I called, weaving as fast as I could through the crowd. “Police! Out of the way, please!” When my polite pleas fell on deaf ears, I escalated to the less amenable, “Move aside! Now!”
We rushed down the walkway, barreling past the choo-choo train, the passengers’ heads swiveling to watch the cop and her K-9 partner. Clang! Clang!
When we finally reached Macy’s, I found no gangbangers, just two girls engaged in an all-out catfight, clawing and scratching and kicking at each other.
“You slut!” screamed the blonde as she dug her pink-tipped fingernails into the redhead’s face.
The redhead countered with a kick to the shins and a cry of, “Bitch!”
A group of teens had gathered around to watch and cheer for one of the girls or the other. There were even a few grown men in the crowd. I supposed the catfight was a titillating alternative to mud wrestling. Scott and Ricky had joined the crowd, too. Though they’d stepped off their scooters, they’d made no move to intervene in the conflict. It wasn’t clear if the security guards were just being lazy or if they were afraid to involve themselves in a physical confrontation with young girls. With everyone being sue happy these days, I couldn’t much blame the guards for not wanting to use force on female teens.
“Break it up! Now!” I hollered, attempting to step between the girls and force them apart. My efforts earned me a slap from the redhead and a scratch from the blonde. I debated siccing Brigit on them, but both wore lightweight halter-style tops and I was afraid she’d pull their shirts off or down and expose the girls’ boobs. I could only imagine the crap I’d get for that.
I whipped my baton from my belt and flicked my wrist to open it. SNAP! I brandished the baton. “I said break it up!”
I almost hoped they’d ignore me again. After the threats from Cuthbert and my encounter with the Big Dick, I really felt like hitting someone.
The redhead got in one last kick before backing away. The blonde stopped the physical attack but not the verbal: “Whore!”
I raised the palm of my free hand. “Enough!”
After ordering the girls to step up to the wall and turn to face it, I determined who in the crowd had witnessed the entire series of events and ordered the others to move on.
I pointed my baton at the grown men as they wandered off. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Should be.
Weren’t.
I pulled the witnesses aside, then gestured for one of them, a cute teen girl with dark curls, to follow me a few feet away from the crowd where the others couldn’t hear our conversation. “Did you see what happened?”
The girl bit her lip and nodded.
“And?” I prodded.
She cut her eyes to the blonde at the wall and whispered, “Kirstie’s boyfriend Taylor told her that he couldn’t go out last night because his aunt and uncle had come for a surprise visit. But then Lauren called Kirstie and told her she’d seen Taylor making out with Amanda at the movies.”
Teen drama.
Blurgh.
I tilted my head to indicate the two girls at the wall. “Amanda’s the redhead?”
Curls nodded, her eyes narrowing. “Amanda knew Taylor and Kirstie were seeing each other. She’s trying to break them up so she can have Taylor.”
My lip quirked. Taylor sounded like a jerk. Why the heck would any girl want to be with the guy? “How did the fight start?”
“Kirstie saw Amanda and called her a slut. Then Amanda shoved her.”
“Got it.” I dismissed the witness and pulled another from the group.
This one was a petite girl with honey-colored hair and light freckles. She corroborated the story the curly-haired girl had told me, though she did so reluctantly and pointed out that Taylor had told Amanda he’d broken up with Kirstie. “So technically Amanda isn’t a slut.”
Technically. As if there were some type of penal statute defining the term.
“You’re a friend of Amanda’s?” I guessed.
Honey-hair nodded. “You’re not going to tell her what I told you, are you?”
“No.” I dismissed her, too, and stepped over to the wall.
“No boy is worth fighting over,” I told the girls, “especially one who lies.”
Frankly, it seemed to me the two should’ve joined forces against the boy and toilet-papered his house or egged his car. Not that I condoned lawbreaking. I just hated to see the little cheat get away with his crimes of passion.
These girls had not only assaulted each other; they’d assaulted me as well. Still, I’m not sure the slap and scratch I’d received had truly been intended for me, and if I called for backup to haul these girls in I risked another encounter with Mackey. Besides, the girls looked embarrassed now, their cheeks pink, their heads down. I’d let them go.
“Go home,” I told the girls as I collapsed my baton and returned it to my belt. “Don’t come back here this weekend.” That ought to give them time to cool down.
Once the girls left, I glanced at my watch. Three minutes till noon. Time for me and Brigit to take our lunch break. Thank God. One more idiot and I would lose it.
We made our way down the walkway toward the mall’s food court, the smells of pizza and burgers, garlic and onions, grease and more grease growing stronger as we drew near.
The courtyard teemed with people and movement, like an ant pile that had been poked with a stick. The carousel music blared “Whoopie Ti Yi Yo, Get Along, Little Dogies” over the roar of chatter. Today Randy’s hatband sported a losing lottery ticket, a dark-haired paper doll in Victorian dress, and his third-grade report card—As in every class and a complimentary comment from a pleased teacher that read: Randy is an exemplary student.
The comments on my third-grade report card were more along the lines of Megan needs to work on her social skills and Megan refuses to participate in class discussions. I supposed my parents might have worried more about these issues if they’d been aware of them. But my parents were too busy taking care of five children to notice when the six weeks’ reporting period was up. I’d forged my father’s signature on the report, along with a reply that read: She’s smarter than you think.
All around the food court, huge clusters of colorful helium balloons floated in the air, anchored to railings by shiny silver curling ribbon. An enormous banner hung over the food stands: Enjoy Your Tax-Free Shopping Weekend!
Brigit tugged on her leash, pulling me over to the shish-kebab stand again. She was like an addict with a habit.
When we heard the clerk call, “Next please!” Brigit and I stepped up to the counter and placed our order with the young man who was working the register today. Brigit would get her usual beef and chicken, while I’d have the veggie kebab.
Serhan waved to me through the window that looked out from the kitchen, his smile all the more bright in contrast to his brown-skinned face. A moment later, the swinging door opened and a woman, a young girl, and Serhan emerged.
Serhan ushered the woman and child our way. “Officer Luz, so good to see you.” He gestured to the delicate woman standing next to him, dressed in a bright-yellow sari. “This is my wife, Aruni.”
I stretched my hand out to her. “Nice to meet you, Aruni.”
The woman shook my hand and smiled. When Aruni released my hand, she put her palms on the girl’s shoulders. “This is our daughter, Kara.”
Kara smiled up at me. She was a beautiful girl, with enormous brown eyes and dark ringlets crowning her head. She was missing several teeth, like an adorable human jack-o’-lantern.
She looked from me, to Brigit, and back to me again. “Can I pet your dog?”
Most K-9 officers discouraged interaction with their dogs and perhaps I should, too. But despite our power plays, I trusted her with civilians. For as hard as she worked she deserved some attention. “She’d like that.”
Kara ran her hand down Brigit’s back.
Serhan gave Brigit a pat on the head, too. “We are shopping for school clothes today.”
Kara held up two tiny fingers. “I start kindergarten in two weeks!”
Her excitement got me thinking back to my kindergarten days. I’d been excited and hopeful, too … in the beginning. Those hopes were soon dashed when every time I opened my mouth to speak the other children stared at me and giggled. It wasn’t long before I first heard the word. That awful word, that cruel word, the word that seemed to wrap itself around me and refuse to let go.
“Stupid.”
I felt my fingernails digging into my palms, a manifestation of long-repressed, festering frustration that had yet to find its release. I forced my memories aside and smiled at Kara. “You’ll have a great time.”
Farther down the row at the deli, a clerk pushed the button on the flexible microphone. “Order three-six-four is ready for pickup. Three-six-four.”
After bidding Serhan and his family good-bye, I grabbed our lunch from the counter and looked around the crowded area for a free table. Brigit and I got lucky. Two teenage girls were vacating one of the booths along the perimeter of the food court. My partner and I hurried over and, as soon as the girls slipped out, we slipped in, one on each side.
Across the table, Brigit salivated and licked her lips while I used a fork to push her meat off the stick. I slid the basket her way. “Here you go, girl.”
The carousel music fell silent, signifying the operator’s half-hour lunch break. I can’t say I was sorry. The repetitive, hokey songs were getting on my nerves and the overcrowded food court was noisy enough today even without the organ. As I took a sip of my fresh-squeezed lemonade, I glanced over to see Randy stashing his lasso under the ticket booth and locking the ride’s control box. Good thing. After the morning I’d had I wasn’t up for chasing horse rustlers, even if it was only in a circle.
Famished, I’d just bitten into a chunk of red pepper when Irving and another maintenance worker walked into the food court, both dressed in their usual coveralls and work boots. Irving carried his toolbox in one hand and a cardboard box in the other, while his assistant carried a folding metal stepladder. The assistant opened the ladder and positioned it in front of one of the broad support beams nearby. Irving set his toolbox on the floor and placed the cardboard box on the platform near the top of the ladder that was often used for paint cans. After ascending the ladder, Irving proceeded to replace several burned-out bulbs in a light fixture mounted over a decorative bronze clock on the beam.
Turning his head to avoid the harsh light of the bulbs, Irving noticed me and Brigit and gave us a friendly wave. “Can you believe how busy this mall is today?” he called.
“It’s crazy!” I agreed.
I finished my meal in record time, wolfing it down almost as fast as Brigit devoured hers.
When I’d finished eating, I pulled out my cell phone, laid it on the table, and accessed the Internet. I pulled up the Web site for the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, a relatively new museum in the neighboring city of Dallas. I had yet to visit the place, though it had received rave reviews. According to the site, the museum was open noon to five on Sundays. I could attend the 9:30 AM mass at Saint Patrick’s with my family tomorrow morning and still get to the museum by opening time.
I pulled up my e-mail account next. The only new messages were a couple of funny forwards from my sister, a spam ad asking if I wanted to meet hot Asian women, and a reminder from my auto insurance company that my monthly payment was due. Already? It seemed like I’d just paid that bill.
Arrur?
Across the booth, Brigit had pricked her ears and seemed to be listening to something, a distinct sound. She stuck her nose in the air, her nostrils twitching.
“What is it, girl?”
The carousel music started back up as Randy returned to duty, and Brigit seemed to lose interest in whatever she’d heard or smelled a moment ago.
I figured the rest of my lunch hour could best be spent taking advantage of the weekends’ special bargains. Short as Texas winters were, I could still use a new sweater or two for the upcoming winter. I gathered up our trash and Brigit’s leash and led her to the closest trash can. The plastic receptacle was filled to the brim, the door flap pushed back and up inside the bin, bags and napkins crammed into the hole. As busy as the mall was today, the custodians were evidently having trouble keeping up with garbage removal.
Before I could shove our trash in, Brigit reared up, propped her two front paws on the can, and sniffed the garbage, her nostrils twitching with the effort. Sniff-sniff. Sniff-sniff. She stuck her snout through the flap and grabbed dirty napkins and wrappers and food scraps in her teeth, dropping the refuse to the ground at my feet, creating a royal mess.
“Stop!” I ordered, yanking back on her leash.
When she sat down in front of the can, looking from it to me, giving her passive alert, I realized she wasn’t merely scrounging for discarded bites of meat. She smelled something in the can. Given that she was only trained to detect drugs, it had to be marijuana, meth, crack, or another illicit substance.
Blurgh.
Duty required me to continue the search, no matter how messy or disgusting it might be.
The custodian stepped up then, rolling a large bin he used to collect trash from the smaller receptacles.
I begged a pair of latex gloves off him. “My dog alerted on this can. I need to search the trash.”
The man held a plastic garbage bag open for me while I pulled off the can’s dome-like cover and removed the pieces of trash handful by handful, holding them in front of Brigit’s nose. She stood on all fours now, her ears still pricked, sniffing each fistful I placed in front of her. When she failed to alert, I dropped the trash into the janitor’s bag and grabbed the next handful.
I’d dug down about a foot when I pulled out a large, surprisingly heavy white bag bearing the Stick People logo. Brigit took one sniff and sat, giving me the alert.
I pulled the bag open and peered inside.
What I saw made no sense to me a first. A bunch of metal utensils surrounding three metal tubes. The tubes were connected by wires to a digital kitchen timer giving off a tick-tick-tick. Two minutes and thirty-six seconds remained on the timer.
What the …
Holy shit!
A bomb!
My head instantly went light, as if all the oxygen had left my brain. I turned to the custodian, stunned and dazed. “It’s a b-b-b-b-b—” Shit! I couldn’t get the word out!
“A what?” he asked, looking down into the bag I held open.
My mouth finally cooperated with my brain: “A bomb!”
His eyes snapped wide. He turned and took off running.
Holycrap-holycrap-holycrap! I had to do something—RIGHT NOW!—or the families gathered in the food court would be injured or killed. I gingerly placed the bag on top of the trash in the garbage can and cupped my hands around my mouth. “Evacuate!” I hollered as loud as I could. “Everyone out now!”
A few people at the tables near me glanced over and tentatively stood, but anyone more than ten feet away couldn’t hear me over the din of the carousel music and conversation.
I blew my whistle.
TWEEEEET!
“Everyone out of the courtyard!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. “Emergency!”
I was afraid to say the word “bomb” for fear of inciting a stampede. Someone might get tr
ampled. Still, these people were slow to react, some still sitting, looking from me to their tablemates, trying to figure out what was going on, not wanting to be the first to react.
“For God’s sake, move, people!”
I ran to the deli counter and grabbed the flexible mic from the hand of the kid announcing orders. “Everyone out now!” I shrieked into the mic, my voice coming loud through the overhead speaker. “There’s a bomb in a trash can!”
Finally, people seemed to get the message and began to scramble for the doorways.
I ran up and down the food stands, shouting, “Get out! There’s a bomb!”
An older man started to gather up his food.
“Leave it!” I screamed.
“But I paid seven dollars for this barbecue!”
“Is your life worth more than seven bucks?”
He looked up in thought and seemed to mull the question over.
Out of patience and running out of time, I swept his food off the table and onto the floor, where Brigit promptly helped herself to it. “Get the hell out of here!”
The carousel music continued behind me.
Oh, God! The children!
I turned and sprinted as fast I could toward the carousel, barking my shins on several chairs that had been pushed aside or turned over by people in their haste to evacuate. Oblivious, Randy sat on his stool, looking down at the screen of his cell phone.
“Randy!” I cried. “Stop the ride! There’s a bomb in the food court!”
He looked up. “Did you say ‘a bomb’?”
“Yes!”
“Holy shit!” He shoved his cell phone into the back pocket of his jeans, grabbed the key from his wrist bracelet, and jammed it into the control box, turning off the ride and the music. As the organ wound down and the carousel glided to a stop, the children on the ride turned their heads right and left, trying to figure out what was going on. The parents gathered around the ride glanced our way.
“Get your kids and go!” I screamed, waving both hands above my head in a go-away motion. “There’s a bomb!”