by David Searls
Then another thought struck Peter with enough of a gut punch to make everything else an irritating distraction. There were gypsy cabs, right? In big cities like New York, taxicabs that weren’t legally registered or licensed or regulated, but they’d just swoop in and grab passengers in their beater death traps and scoot out before the authorities could take action.
What if that odd little train worked much the same way? What if the driver wasn’t working for the Commons at all and mall management knew nothing about him? His mind grabbed an image of five train cars, all of them too small for adults to ride except for the conductor’s perch. And now Peter couldn’t help picturing a tumbledown contraption being run by some alky weaving in and out of traffic, a man with an unhealthy affection for small children.
“Sir, if you’d like—”
Peter wasn’t even sure which cop or rent-a-cop had spoken as he pushed his way out the door and strode back into the night.
Chapter Five
Icy White Sand
Where would Ava have gone? It would depend on whom she was buying gifts for, wouldn’t it? There was a boutique toy store on one end of the expanse of faux village green and a couple pricey men’s clothing stores at the opposite end. And gift shops and specialty stores throughout.
The line of traffic in the street before him was seamless. Peter pictured a low-to-the-ground toy train, bumper-high against some of the monster SUVs out there. He pictured his kids’ transport dodging and weaving and threading its way through that congestion on icy streets in spotty visibility, and had to force the image from his mind.
He knew he wasn’t going to find anything standing still, so he moved. He merged into the bustle of foot traffic and studied the dark figures tightly wrapped in parkas and overcoats as they knocked against him in passing. No stooped figure limping along under a pea green stocking cap. No high-energy seven-year-old twins dancing, skipping with every step. No dark-haired Ava with distracted look and vague, delicate smile. And no oversized toy train crawling through the line of vehicles, each with windshield wipers swiping at snowflakes as large as marbles.
As he walked, Peter pulled off a glove with his teeth, pulled out his phone and tapped a sequence of numbers with frigid fingers. Numbers that proved to be the wrong ones, a fact that he knew as soon as he heard the unfamiliar black female voice calling out, “Hello? Hello?”
He couldn’t walk and dial. He disconnected and muttered “shit,” momentarily forgetting he held a glove in his mouth. When it fell to the ground, he got bumped and pushed and apologies muttered his way as he stooped to pick it up from where it had made a snow angel in the fresh snow.
“Excuse me.”
“Oops! Sorry.”
“Oh. Sorry ’bout that, sir.”
There was simply no end to the jovial courtesy expressed by the inmates of this goddamn asylum of a mall. Correction: lifestyle center.
Peter pulled himself out of the worst of the snarl of foot traffic and pasted himself against the wall of a furrier. He had to catch his breath. Let his mind calm. Give his throbbing left knee a break. He let the wall hold him up and put the bulk of his weight on his good leg and studied the crowd and tried to figure things out. Make a plan.
He was glad he’d gotten a wrong number. He could now imagine the conversation that could have followed if he’d tapped in the right sequence of digits moments before:
“Hi, hon,” she’d say, answering in her usual singsong tone of voice.
“Hi.”
“Are you okay? What’s the matter?” She always knew. Always knew.
“No. I’m fine. Are you…alone?”
“Well of course I’m alone, Peter.” Now the tone not so musical.
“Then you haven’t seen Uncle Buster or—”
“He’s with you, Peter. Right? Right? And with the kids. You and he were waiting for—Peter? What is it? Peter? Where are the kids?”
No, that would never do. If he had anything that serious to discuss with his wife, he’d have to do it in person. Face to face. In a calming tone of voice, one that would only inform and seek information, wouldn’t send shockwaves rolling her way.
He’d have to do this himself. Have to keep searching, ask around. Christ, how could anyone hide a fucking train?
Peter trudged through snow that was already inches too deep for the sneakers he’d worn to the Commons. His shoes were soaked, and so were the ankles of his jeans. It felt like icy white sand on his skin, this powdery fall of snow too cold to pack. He strode through it easily, seemed to float through it since he’d long ago lost any sensation in the soles of his wet feet.
He stopped. Stared at the sight looming before him, the Gridiron Sports Bar.
He’d aimlessly circled the block, ending up where he’d started. He glanced at the snowy curb where the round-trip train ride should have ended probably long ago.
He had to get out of the cold, at least for a few minutes. Peter forced from his head any thoughts of how that wind and cold would be affecting Jack and Ellie out there. Ava had buttoned them up tight and wrapped scarves so many times around their rosy pink cheeks that the icy wind would have no way to sneak in. Nothing to really worry about for the next two, three minutes, the smallest space of time he could sacrifice to the goal of thawing himself out for the continued search.
Chapter Six
Higher Ground
“Make room, gentlemen, make room,” Iris was saying as he approached her bar. “Hello, Peter. Welcome back.”
The snugly wrapped crowd of mostly men parted slightly to let him claim a tiny section of counter space. She gave him a quick smile before holding a pilsner glass under a tap and filling it with his Belgian. He’d really wanted a bourbon to take off the chill, but he was so grateful for the special care she extended him that he thanked her and asked for a bourbon shot to go along with it.
“Global warming, my fat ass,” said a guy a couple stools down who had the backside to back up his words.
Peter peeled off his gloves and reached into his pocket for his phone. It was frozen, that was the problem. That would explain why the digital clock display refused to deviate from its 6:42 reading. Maybe even the reason he’d tapped in the wrong number. Either his malfunctioning phone or his frozen fingers.
“Did you find them?”
Peter stared at Iris, momentarily convinced that she was in his head, but then he remembered their prior conversation.
“No,” he said. “I’m just in here trying to warm up.”
“So you didn’t find the train, huh?”
A mutter of snickers echoed in the background.
Peter clenched his jaw at the asshole college kid who’d taunted him before. He and his friends were three or four stools down to his left, but they’d obviously not missed his latest entrance.
“Ignore them,” said Iris, rolling her eyes. “Find higher ground, Peter.”
Peter shook his head. Stared into his beer. Then he lifted his eyes, found Iris’s face and said, “I haven’t always been there.”
Where did that come from?
The game was still going on, of course, but the third-quarter score gave the bar patrons near him little reason to pay it much mind. It might have only been Peter’s imagination, but the whole place seemed to hush, waiting for him to say more.
Iris had placed both winter-pale, slender-fingered hands lightly on the bar in an expectant, patient pose. There was an expression on her face and in the set of her thin mouth that looked like it could turn on a dime to humor or sympathy as soon as he said something she could attach a response to.
Peter lifted his glass and took a long swallow, which he chased with the bourbon. It felt like he had dislodged a solid chunk of ice in his gut and he could feel it melting in mingled sensations of cold and warmth as it worked its way down.
He took a breath. Let it out. “I don’t even remember what we got them for Christmas, to tell the truth. Ava must have gone shopping while I was at work. Probably had a conversation
with me or a text exchange where she told me what she’d bought them, but I have no memory of it.” He laughed as he watched tiny bubbles form and burst in what remained of his beer. “Hell, I might have even been with her at the time, but distracted by phone calls or emails or text messages from work or…”
He dribbled the thought out. He had nearly nothing more to say except: “I’ve lost my kids.” He said it so low that—he hoped—no one but the sympathetic, green-eyed bartender would be able to hear him.
“Lost them?” she said, not a trace of amusement on her face.
“On the train,” he said.
“The kiddy train.”
He nodded. Then he dropped his voice to little more than a whisper. “They’re seven years old and all alone in the cold and I can’t tell my wife without totally panicking her. And it’s 6:42 and it’s always 6:42, and I don’t know why. I’ve tried convincing myself the damn phone is broken, but now I’m looking at your wristwatch and it says 6:42 too, right? I mean, I’m not crazy, okay?”
“They’re seven,” Iris said in a quiet, flat tone that gave nothing away.
While there was no accusation in her voice, it made Peter feel suddenly disgusted with himself, shamed at the way he just stood there at the bar with two drinks in front of him with his kids lost in the cold. He dropped several bills from his wallet onto the counter and slowly pulled on his gloves and cap. He flexed his left knee a couple times to try to get the blood circulating.
“Good-bye, Iris.” He was aware that he said it as though he’d never see the young woman again.
“Good-bye, Peter,” she told him, a touch of sadness in her voice.
When he reached the door, he buttoned his coat to the throat, stomped both feet to dislodge snowflakes that had found shelter in the treads and on the tops of his sneakers and in the ankles of his jeans. The act also shook a little more blood flow into his cranky knee.
Something Iris had said had stuck with him.
Find higher ground.
Yes. He supposed she’d meant that he should not stoop to the level of the smart-assed college boys, should just ignore them, but it had seemed a quaint way of expressing the thought. Maybe that’s why he glanced upward as he exited the warm bar and felt the cold air immediately numb his cheeks.
The Commons was composed of an array of freestanding retail outlets, each with an additional floor or two of apartments or commercial space above the storefronts. Peter only took a moment picturing himself knocking on the doors of strangers to ask if he could stake out their windows before his gaze lifted to take in the six-level parking garage in which the Craig family had parked an indeterminate amount of time before.
“Ah,” he said, his breath fogging up the air with the single exclamation.
Chapter Seven
Santa’s Smoke Break
Peter passed Avalon Spa & Nails, a LEGO Store, and a Brio Tuscan Grille before he stopped, winded, to lean against the façade of a jewelry store. The parking garage, one of several in the layout, was backlit to stand out, so it always seemed nearby but still might have been hundreds of yards distant. He stared at a fall of snow spreading so rapidly and so fine and powdery that it seemed to leave no tracks despite the constant foot traffic and the steady stream of cars and SUVs on the designed village’s grid of streets.
“Excuse me,” passersby said with warm smiles as they bumped into Peter.
He pressed himself so flat against the wall that there could be no more excuse for jostling. He had to call Ava. He’d run out of options. His wife had to know what was happening. He had to tell her, as calmly as possible, that Jack and Ellie were missing. Temporarily. Or at least broach the subject, tell her he was on his way to meet them.
Maybe she’d interrupt to ask him what he was talking about. To tell him that she was standing with Uncle Buster and the kids at that very moment and she needed to know where he was and when he’d be joining them.
Yes, it could be as simple as that. Couldn’t it?
Peter grabbed hold of one glove by his teeth and tugged it off. The air immediately found the naked flesh and turned to ice the blood circulating through his fingers. Quickly, before he lost all sensation in those exposed digits, Peter pulled out his cell phone and slowly, carefully punched in a familiar sequence.
He attempted to zone out all outside noise so he could focus on the uncomfortable conversation in which he was about to be engaged. Perhaps it was this need for near-total silence that made him painfully aware of the ringing of bells he hadn’t consciously noticed until that moment.
To his left stood a mall Santa Claus, a tall man in a heavily padded red suit, maybe fifteen feet away. The man held and monotonously waved a comically oversize bell. Clunk clunk clunk. Peter realized he’d heard the unmelodic sound throughout the evening.
Shoppers occasionally tossed coins and paper money into a black pot at Santa’s booted foot. The bell-ringer nodded at Peter, then brought his attention back to an elderly couple who’d just made a donation. “Thank you, thank you, and a Merry Christmas to the both of you,” he called out brusquely.
There was something about him, something about—
“Hello?”
The question caught Peter off-guard. “Hello?” he said back, not even sure until after he spoke that he was talking to the voice emanating from his cell phone. “Hello? Who is this?”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s…is Ava there?” The oddity of the situation hit Peter as soon as he said it, so he added again, “Who is this?”
All he got this time was an exasperated sigh.
A standoff. The voice on the other end of his line sounded black and middle-aged and out of sorts. It was the voice he’d heard when he’d hurriedly placed the call after he’d left the security station. He pulled the phone away from his face and stared at the display screen. Read the numbers silently to himself, his frozen lips moving, so he could be sure of what his brain had immediately assured him. The digits were all there and all in the right order. The number was correct.
“Hey! Who the hell is this?” The gruff voice on the line.
“Where did you find this phone,” Peter demanded of the voice, giving her the benefit of a great deal of doubt. Where had she stolen it, more likely.
The woman was cussing up a storm by that point. In between the profanity, Peter could make out that she was claiming she was talking into her own damn phone, and what was it to him?
Peter stared at the number on his screen display again. As he did, he became gradually aware that the bell-ringing had stopped. Glancing down the street, he saw the Commons’ Santa staring at him, apparently caught up in Peter’s side of his confounding phone conversation. Peter tried his best to ignore him.
“This isn’t your line,” he told the woman after once again assuring himself of the number displayed. “Can you tell me where you are right now?”
“Fuck you,” she told him helpfully. “I’ve had this line for thirteen motherfucking years. Now you lose this number and don’t ever find it again. Got it? Merry fucking Christmas, asshole.”
With that, the line went dead. Peter stared stupidly at a phone that now only showed a time display. 6:42, of course.
He became aware of a heavy crunching in the snow and then a big obstruction of the street view as the Santa lumbered up in front of him.
“Got a smoke?” The man’s voice had lost its forced joviality to the point where it sounded like a guy on the street caging a cigarette. A guy not much married to the concept of personal space.
Peter shook his head, too stunned at recent developments to even tell the man he didn’t smoke. He pressed his back harder into the wall, gaining another centimeter or two of space between them.
The mall Santa made a disappointed grunt, then pulled off a red mitten. The action reminded Peter that his own exposed hand was so cold he’d lost all sensation in it. So Peter banged it painfully into his side to restore some semblance of circulation, and then dropped his dazed and c
onfused cell phone into his jeans pocket and pulled his glove back on. Meanwhile, the Santa was rummaging around in his big red coat before extracting his own crumpled pack of smokes. He lit one from a lighter that magically appeared in his other ungloved hand and pulled a drag deep into his lungs.
Peter nervously scanned the foot traffic that passed them steadily, on the alert for children about to get the cruel slap of reality by Santa on his cigarette break. But no one seemed to take much notice.
Santa released a lungful of smoke in Peter’s face. “Trouble on the home front, huh?”
Peter waved the gray nicotine cloud from his face, not caring how pointed the act seemed. He shrugged.
Santa didn’t look like he was expecting much of an answer anyway. He’d carried his pot and his heavy bell with him and had put them both on the ground at his feet. But as soon as he asked his question, he stooped and picked up the pot. It looked more like a Halloween witch’s cauldron than something Santa would use to collect charitable donations. He began picking through its contents. Peter watched him slip out the paper currency and make a stack of it.
“Fucking nickels, can you believe it?” Santa asked, peering into the pot.
There was something familiar about his face, but Peter couldn’t quite place it. The white beard was obviously a fake, a cottony glom of fabric that would only resemble hair in the imagination of the most gullible youngster, but it served the purpose of obscuring his real features.
“People actually throw nickels in here. Pennies, too. They figure they toss a fistful of coins in the dark, toss ’em quick enough, it sounds like they’ve done their heartwarming good deed for the holidays. It’s only later you find out the fucks threw, like, seventeen cents at you. Nickels and pennies. What’s with that Grinch bullshit?”
Then it hit Peter. Despite the cotton-candy beard and the red nightcap, dangling cigarette and smoke cloud wreathing his face to camouflage real features, nothing covered the man’s stone-dead pale green eyes or the creases surrounding them.