Rating: ★★★★☆ Tags: Mystery Detective, General, Fiction

hold up there, hey, guy, we
just have a question
. The man didn’t even give a backward
glance. 
I said hold on, motherfucker!
The runner remained
silent amid the yelling, but he picked up speed and shot
down the mall corridor, in and out of the flashlight’s glow,
his slicker flapping behind him like a cape. Then the guy
turned acrobatic: leaping over a trash can, shimmying off
the edge of a fountain, and finally slipping under a metal
security gate to the Gap and disappearing.
‘Fucker!’ The Hillsams had turned heart-attack red in
the face, the neck, the fingers. They took turns grunting at
the gate, straining to lift it.
I reached down with them, but there was no budging it
over half a foot. I lay down on the floor and tried threading
myself under the gate: toes, calves, then stuck at my waist.
‘Nope, no go.’ I grunted. ‘Fuck!’ I pulled up and shone
my flashlight into the store. The showroom was empty
except for a pile of clothing racks someone had dragged to
the center, as if to start a bonfire. ‘All the stores connect in
the back to passageways for trash, plumbing,’ I said. ‘He’s
probably at the other end of the mall by now.’
‘Come out, you fuckers!’ Joe yelled, his head tilted
back, eyes scrunched. His voice echoed through the
building. We began walking ragtag, trailing our bats

---

alongside us, except for the Hillsams, who used theirs to
bang against security gates and doors, like they were on
military patrol in a particularly nasty war zone.
‘Better you come to us than we come to you!’ Mikey
called. ‘Oh, 
hell
o!’ In the entryway to a pet shop, a man and
woman huddled on a few army blankets, their hair wet with
sweat. Mikey loomed over them, breathing heavily, wiping
his brow. It was the scene in the war movie when the
frustrated soldiers come across innocent villagers and bad
things happen.
‘The fuck you want?’ the man on the floor asked. He
was emaciated, his face so thin and drawn it looked like it
was melting. His hair was tangled to his shoulders, his eyes
mournful and upturned: a despoiled Jesus. The woman was
in better shape, with clean, plump arms and legs, her lank
hair oily but brushed.
‘You a Blue Book Boy?’ Stucks asked.
‘Ain’t no boy, anyhow,’ the man muttered, folding his
arms.
‘Have some fucking respect,’ the woman snapped.
Then she looked like she might cry. She turned away from
us, pretending to look at something in the distance. ‘I’m
sick of 
no one
having 
no respect
.’
‘We asked you a question, buddy,’ Mikey said, moving
closer to the guy, kicking the sole of his foot.
‘I ain’t Blue Book,’ the man said. ‘Just down on my
luck.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘Lots of different people here, not just Blue Books. But
if that’s who you’re looking for …’
‘Go on, go on, then, and find them,’ the woman said,

---

her mouth turning down. ‘Go bother them.’
‘They deal down in the Hole,’ the man said. When we
looked blank, he pointed. ‘The Mervyns, far end, past where
the carousel used to be.’
‘And fuck you very much,’ the woman muttered.
A crop-circle stain marked where the carousel once
was. Amy and I had taken a ride just before the mall shut
down. Two grown-ups, side by side on levitating bunny
rabbits, because my wife wanted to see the mall where I
spent so much of my childhood. Wanted to hear my stories.
It wasn’t all bad with us.
The barrier gate to the Mervyns had been busted
through, so the store was open as wide and welcoming as
the morning of a Presidents’ Day sale. Inside, the place
was cleared out except for the islands that once held cash
registers and now held about a dozen people in various
states of drug highs, under signs that read 
Jewelry
and
Beauty
and 
Bedding
. They were illuminated by gas
camping lamps that flickered like tiki torches. A few guys
barely opened an eye as we passed, others were out cold.
In a far corner, two kids not long out of their teens were
manically reciting the Gettysburg Address. 
Now we are
engaged in a great civil war
… One man sprawled out on
the rug in immaculate jean shorts and white tennis shoes,
like he was on the way to his kid’s T-ball game. Rand
stared at him as if he might know the guy.
Carthage had a bigger drug epidemic than I ever
knew: The cops had been here just yesterday, and already
the druggies had resettled, like determined flies. As we
made our way through the piles of humans, an obese
woman shushed up to us on an electric scooter. Her face

---

was pimply and wet with sweat, her teeth catlike.
‘You buying or leaving, because this ain’t a show-and-
tell,’ she said.
Stucks shone a flashlight on her face.
‘Get that fucking thing off me.’ He did.
‘I’m looking for my wife,’ I began. ‘Amy Dunne. She’s
been missing since Thursday.’
‘She’ll show up. She’ll wake up, drag herself home.’
‘We’re not worried about drugs,’ I said, ‘we’re more
concerned about some of the men here. We’ve heard
rumors.’
‘It’s okay, Melanie,’ a voice called. At the edge of the
juniors section, a rangy man leaned against a naked
mannequin torso, watching us, a sideways grin on his face.
Melanie shrugged, bored, annoyed, and motored
away.
The man kept his eyes on us but called toward the
back of the juniors section, where four sets of feet poked
out from the dressing rooms, men camped out in their
individual cubicles.
‘Hey, Lonnie! Hey, all! The assholes are back. Five of
’em,’ the man said. He kicked an empty beer can toward
us. Behind him, three sets of feet began moving, men
pulling themselves up. One set remained still, their owner
asleep or passed out.
‘Yeah, fuckos, we’re back,’ Mikey Hillsam said. He
held his bat like a pool cue and punched the mannequin
torso between the breasts. She tottered toward the ground,
the Blue Book guy removing his arm gracefully as she fell,
as if it were all part of a rehearsed act. ‘We want some
information on a missing girl.’

---

The three men from the dressing rooms joined their
friends. They all wore Greek-party T-shirts: 
Pi Phi Tie-Dye
and 
Fiji Island
. Local Goodwills got inundated with these
come summer – university graduates shedding their old
souvenirs.
The men were all wiry-strong, muscular arms rivered
with popping blue veins. Behind them, a guy with a long,
drooping mustache and hair in a ponytail – Lonnie – came
out of the largest corner dressing room, dragging a long
length of pipe, wearing a Gamma Phi T-shirt. We were
looking at mall security.
‘What’s up?’ Lonnie called.
We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we
cannot hallow this ground
… the kids were reciting in a
pitch that was close to screaming.
‘We’re looking for Amy Dunne, you probably seen her
on the news, missing since Thursday,’ Joe Hillsam said.
‘Nice, pretty, sweet lady, stolen from her own home.’
‘I heard about it. So?’ said Lonnie.
‘She’s my wife,’ I said.
‘We know what you guys’ve been getting into out here,’
Joe continued, addressing only Lonnie, who was tossing
his ponytail behind him, squaring his jaw. Faded green
tattoos covered his fingers. ‘We know about the gang
rape.’
I glanced at Rand to see if he was all right; he was
staring at the naked mannequin on the floor.
‘Gang rape,’ Lonnie said, jerking his head back. ‘The
fuck you talking about a gang rape.’
‘You guys,’ Joe said. ‘You Blue Book Boys—’
‘Blue Book Boys, like we’re some kind of crew.’

---

Lonnie sniffed. ‘We’re not animals, asshole. We don’t steal
women. People want to feel okay for not helping us. 
See,
they don’t deserve it, they’re a bunch of rapists
. Well,
bull
shit
. I’d get the fuck out of this town if the plant would
give me my back pay. But I got nothing. None of us got
nothing. So here we are.’
‘We’ll give you money, good money, if you can tell us
anything about Amy’s disappearance,’ I said. ‘You guys
know a lot of people, maybe you heard something.’
I pulled out her photo. The Hillsams and Stucks looked
surprised, and I realized – of course – this was only a
macho diversion for them. I pushed the photo in Lonnie’s
face, expecting him to barely glance. Instead, he leaned in
closer.
‘Oh, shit,’ he said. ‘
Her?
’
‘You recognise her?’
He actually looked stricken. ‘She wanted to buy a gun.’

---