“Ahhhhh!.. Oh, it’s you.”
“Of course it’s me,” said Martha. “Why are you so jumpy? Did I hear you talking to someone around the corner?”
“No, nothing, what?”
“You’re acting kind of suspicious.”
“So how did the report go?”
“The assistant mall manager that I was supposed to see was out, so I left a message with his secretary for him to call… There he is now.”
“The manager?”
“No, that mall cop.” Martha nodded in the direction of the other side of the escalators. “Look at that cocky asshole… That’s odd.”
“What?”
“Two guys just passed him going the other way. Then they made a quick U-turn, and are right behind him stride for stride. Seems they’re following him.”
“Who is?”
“Those two elves. Now they’ve started skipping.”
Jim coughed and hit himself in the center of his chest. “W-w-what elves?”
“How can you not notice them? The one on the left is the tallest elf I’ve ever seen, with the giant coffee… Does he seem familiar to you? I could swear I’ve seen him somewhere before.”
“Ahhh!” Jim put his arm around Martha and turned her the other way.
She tried looking back. “Jim, what’s gotten into you?”
“I know what you need,” he said with a crooked smile. “How about some ice cream? There’s the food court.”
“Jim, why do you always think a woman just needs ice cream to put her in a better mood?”
“It doesn’t?”
“No, it’s true. Where’d you see the ice cream parlor?”
The uniform was spiffy. Navy blue with eagles on the shoulders. The mall cop kept it pressed. And maintained his mustache like Magnum, P.I. His forearms were conspicuously thick from gym workouts. If a hot babe had a lot of bags, he always offered assistance, and they always declined. As they walked away, he took their pictures with his cell phone. In his pocket was a set of keys for various mall doors and a black Delta 88 parked outside in the employee lot.
The guard strolled casually past Banana Republic and Foot Locker. But his senses were keen, on the watch for any mall infraction. He thought: I have to go to the bathroom.
The mall cop pushed open a door and walked across black-and-white-checkered tiles. He unzipped and hummed to himself, making a game of hitting the urinal cake.
The door opened behind him. The ever-vigilant guard reflexively glanced over his shoulder. He chuckled a single time. Losers. When his business was finished, the guard zipped back up and turned around.
“Excuse me,” said Serge.
“What do you want?”
“For you to stop being mean to little children and decent women.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ve been watching you.”
“ You’ve been watching me?” The guard shoved Serge in the chest. “I’m so going to have you fired. I’m heading to the office right now.”
“You can’t get me fired.” Serge raised his extra-large coffee, draining it in one large guzzle, then whipping the empty cup sideways at the garbage can. “I don’t work at the mall.”
The guard stopped with a confused look. “But you’re wearing an elf suit.”
“I fuck conventional wisdom’s wife. Clipboard. Orange cones. You’re a mall cop. Not a real cop. My personal code is never harm real cops, who risk their lives every day. The Thin Blue Line. You’re an almost-cop, so harming you is a gray area. Thin Gray Line? Who knows? So I’ll err on the side of decency and ask nice. Don’t yell at any more kids before you’re fired.”
“Fired?”
“And after you’re fired, let it go. Don’t look for the anonymous complaint that got you dismissed. And if you somehow do find the anonymous complaint, don’t go after the Davenports, which isn’t their name. Brass plaques, frozen turkey, LEGOs. I’ll be watching. That is all. You may go.”
“You’re insane!.. and dead!” The guard began rolling up his sleeves. “Both of you.”
“You can’t hit me. I’m in an elf suit. I’m calling it.”
“Oh, I can’t hit you, eh?”
“No, look, see? Elf hat.” Serge took the hat off, twirled it on his left index finger, then his right, then quickly placed it over the guard’s face and smashed his fist as hard as he could in his nose. Plus a knee to the groin. The guard went down like a sack of concrete, clipping his chin on the edge of the porcelain and sending two teeth into the urinal cake.
Thus Serge began a vicious stomping-kidneys, ribs, spleen-kicking away with hands on his hips like a demented river dance. Coleman peed on the guard.
“Coleman, watch out! You’re hitting my elf shoes!”
“Sorry.”
A final kick in the throat. “Don’t you ever be mean to kids again! And stay away from the Davenports, who are called something else.”
The mall cop’s face lay sideways on the tiles. Blood streaming from his nose and mouth, finally managing to open his eyelids a slit, seeing four green elf shoes walking out the door to the sound of the jingle bells on their curled-up toes.
Chapter Four
A phone rang.
“I got it.” Jim Davenport set down tools to hang a painting and picked up the receiver. “Hello?… Yes, this is the Davenports’
… Uh-huh, right, we were there yesterday… What?… No, we don’t know anything about that… I see… That’s unusual… I don’t know; I’ll have to ask her…”
“Who is it?” Martha yelled from the kitchen.
“Excuse me a second.” Jim covered the phone. “It’s the mall.”
“What do they want?”
“About your complaint. They got your message and want to talk.”
“Good.” Martha walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel. “I’m glad to see at least someone takes this sort of thing seriously.”
“I think they’re actually more interested in something else. That mall cop is in the hospital. They suspect some kind of fight in a restroom, although he’s claiming he was attacked. They’ve put him on suspension until they finish the investigation.”
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You left your complaint about the same time. They just want to know what you might have seen.”
Martha held out her hand. “Let me talk to him… Hello? Yes, this is Martha Davenport… But it will be completely confidential, right?… Okay, I saw him behaving unprofessionally toward a group of small children. And he was extremely rude to me… No, nothing about any attack… Well, who does he say attacked him?… Elves?…”
Jim fell into a chair, knocking over a lamp.
“Jim, are you okay?”
