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part 2 of the story

Strip Mall

Bill Tope

(This was originally published in “Fiction on the Web.”)

    Molly appeared at Arthur’s back door and started to knock but then changed her mind and simply pushed open the door and entered. She stepped into a green-walled kitchen.
    “Hello?” she said, struck immediately by the rich, fragrant aroma of baking cinnamon rolls. Already she was glad she had come. But, she wondered, what was this old man up to? What did he want? A gravelly voice suddenly boomed out:
    “Mornin’, Sunshine!” She startled a little. “How are you, Molly?” Arthur asked.
    “I’m good.” Then she said, “You’re baking?” Arthur grinned.
    “What was your first clue?” Then he laughed. Molly blinked. Arthur wasn’t quite like anyone she’d ever met. She quietly surveyed the kitchen. There were cannisters of flour and sugar and tea and coffee and bowls of utensils and a huge electric mixer and the list just went on and on.
    “Molly,” said Arthur kindly, “would you like a big glass a’ milk?” Her eyes opened wide. Milk! She loved milk but hadn’t had any for at least two months, not since...
    “Thanks,” she said, and accepted the largest glass of milk she had ever seen. Arthur’s crooked smile crinkled his eyes.
    Over the next several hours, the pair came to know one another. Arthur asked Molly about her life before the streets and she answered carefully, warily. Arthur was likewise a little cagey when talking about his family but at length they forged a tentative bond of trust. Still, Molly wasn’t yet prepared to trust him fully—but the cinnamon rolls and the milk went a long way in that direction.
    “What do you do when you’re not sleepin’ or workin’, Molly?” he asked curiously. Molly shrugged.
    “Sometimes I hang out in the library,” she disclosed. He nodded. “One time,” she told him, “I went to a wedding.”
    “A weddin’?” he exclaimed. She grinned, feeling ever more comfortable with the old man. “Yeah. It was outside, last September, when I first got into town.” At his skeptical look, she went on. “My clothes were new then and I didn’t stick out too bad.”
    “Why would you go a weddin’?” he asked.
    “Because, after the wedding they had the reception,” she explained. “A buffet. I got so full—and a little drunk,” she admitted. Arthur laughed heartily.
    “Listen,” he said. “Supper’s at 6 p.m.; will you be here?” She hesitated for just a moment. “Roast beef, mashed potatoes, homemade gravy,” he purred enticingly.
    “See you at six,” she said determinedly.
    Supper that night—and for three successive nights—was as successful as breakfast had been. On the third evening Arthur offered Molly a substitute home. A bedroom of her own, three meals a day, the works. Molly still had just a tiny bit of her mind that wasn’t wedded to the idea; was he in fact up to something or was he just the kind of man he gave every appearance of being? She thought, if this were some grand seduction scheme, he was certainly taking the long way about it. What almost sold Molly was when she fell asleep on his sofa watching TV one night after supper. She awoke with a start, found the television on but muted and discovered that a blanket had been placed over her. She felt warm and safe and went back to sleep.

iii

    Molly was seriously pondering Arthur’s offer of a haven: to move into his home and attend school and escape the streets—or the Studebaker, as the case may be. She would be glad to ditch this shitty job, that was for sure. Tell Derek where to shove his four bucks an hour, along with his broom and his dustpan. She didn’t trust easily—a lesson hard-learned—but the old man hadn’t screwed with her yet. And he’d had every opportunity to. There are times when you just have to trust somebody, she thought. Right now she had to meet up with Lea, her only friend, besides Arthur. They had some business to discuss. As she approached the back door of the pizza parlor, Molly noticed something familiar on the parking lot, by the dumpsters: it was a purse; Lea’s purse. Molly knew that Lea would never surrender her purse, for any reason, because it contained not only her birth control pills, but her dope as well. She stooped and picked it off the pavement, opened it. Everything was intact, including the keys to Lea’s apartment, her car. Lea wouldn’t just abandon her property, Molly well knew. Clutching the handbag in her hands, Molly approached the back door. There she found Dudley, terrifically busy. As she approached he didn’t look up, but continued to roll out dough, festoon it with sauce and cheese and other toppings. She knocked on the open door. Dudley glanced up for a moment.
    “What do you want, Molly? Can’t you see I’m busy?” he brushed a thatch of blond locks off his forehead.
    “Dudley,” she asked, “have you seen Lea tonight?” He huffed angrily.
    “I’d better never see that bitch again,” he snarled. “She up and quit on me, can you believe it? After all I done for that little shit, she up and quits on me!” He took his anger out on his rolling pin. “She was supposed to work tonight.”
    “When did she quit?” asked Molly. “What time?” Dudley glanced at the clock over the huge Hobart dough mixer, said,
    “I don’t know, an hour ago?” He caught the concerned look on Molly’s face, asked, “Why, what’s up?”
    “When was she supposed to work her shift?” asked Molly next.
    “Eight to two, same as always,” he replied, then caught Molly’s contagion of worry. “Why, Molly?”
    “How do you know she quit?” she asked cryptically. Dudley furrowed his brow.
    “Because,” he said, “she called it in.” He got angry again. “Ad she didn’t have the guts to call it in herself, she had her dad do it.” This galvanized Molly into action. She informed Dudley,
    “Lea doesn’t have parents. She was emancipated when she turned sixteen last year.” This came as news to the young man. “That’s what I was coming here to meet with her about tonight.”
    “Who could have called in for her, then?” Molly shook her head.
    “I don’t know, but I found Lea’s purse outside by the dumpster. I think somebody took Lea to sell her as a sex slave!” A lightbulb seemed to go off inside Dudley’s head.
    “I heard about that on 60 Min....”
    “We’ve got to do something, right now!” she said pointedly.
    “What?” He seemed clueless.
    “I think I know a place to look for her.” Come with me, Dudley.”
    “I can’t leave the business. I’ve got customers, and....” She waved him off impatiently.
    “This is way more important than pizzas!” she snapped. She started to walk away and then turned back and told him, “Call the cops; or the FBI,” and she was out the door. Would he ultimately summon the authorities? she wondered. Probably not, she thought bleakly. Molly had seen Derek struggling with young women in his big van several times before; she had always considered him a dense, unsuccessful Romeo, but under the circumstances his behavior became even more suspect. And he hired runaways and other undocumented girls, she knew. Girls who would never be missed. Girls like Lea—and her.
    Molly walked the several blocks to the small truck stop and quickly scanned the lot. There it was: Derek’s van. It was inconspicuous here with all the other trucks and utility vehicles. It would have stood out like a beacon back at the strip mall. Besides which she figured they were just holding her in the van till they could transfer her to one of the bigger trucks. They undoubtedly were taking other girls besides just her friend, the way she’d heard about it on TV. These guys weren’t stupid; evil, but not stupid. If Molly owned a cell phone, she could have called the cops herself; she looked around for a payphone, but of course they were now extinct. She hadn’t any change anyway. She peered closely at the front seat of the van: it was utterly vacant. Sneaking furtively forward, she tried the driver’s door; locked. Damn! Then, on the off chance, Molly ran round to the other door and tried that one. Yay! It was unlocked. The driver might not be stupid, but his passenger certainly was. Molly knew that a reckless crook was an unpredictable one; she’d have to be careful. Who kidnapped someone and then left the door to their escape vehicle unlocked? The teen prudently locked the door behind her.
    Slipping into the van, she moved quickly through the opening leading to the rear. There she found Lea, sound asleep. Asleep? She stooped, tried to shake her awake; at that moment, both doors were opened by two men. Molly crouched into the shadows. One of the men spoke,
    “Better check the chick.” The mean cop!
    “Shit. She ain’t going nowhere. I shot her up with smack. She’ll be out till Munoz gets her to Mexico, and then some.” Derek! Though she didn’t need one, Molly had found a new reason to hate the sonofabitch. And Lea wasn’t sleeping; she was high on opiates.
    “You’re prob’ly right,” agreed mean cop.
    “What time is the wetback getting here, Muncie?” asked Derek.
    “Oh-two hundred,” replied the bad cop.”
    “Don’t gimme that quasi-military bullshit, what time?”
    “Two a.m.,” he replied. The evening settled down. After sharing a loud joint, the men were soon sawing logs, but Molly didn’t even remotely think of sleep. She had to get Lea and herself out of here—it would mean death if she did not. For both of them. When the men had snored for some ten minutes, Molly decided to make her move. It wouldn’t be easy, ferrying a comatose girl four inches taller than herself, and who probably outweighed her by twenty pounds. Finally finding the rear door handle, she pushed it: locked.
    “Shit!” she muttered, then cursed herself for speaking aloud. She thought, I’ll have to get the key—and the key was up front with those kidnappers. Suiting the action to the word, she edged her way carefully forward until at length she spotted the keys reposing in the ignition. She looked at the two dissolute figures, checking them carefully for any sign of life. They were dead to the world. And Molly knew why: the smell of whiskey and pot was thick in the air of the closed in space. Careful not to make a sound or even to breathe, Molly extended her arm, grasped the keys and then holding them tightly so they would not jingle, pulled them slowly from the ignition.
    Escaping to the rear of the bed again, the fifteen-year-old inserted a key and, miraculously, guessed right on the first try. Another Yay! She turned over the lock. It clicked with a deafening sound. Molly froze, then thought, why bother? They wouldn’t get out at all now, if the men had been awakened. Swinging wide the rear doors, she dragged her friend to the edge of the floor, flopped Lea’s legs over the side and attempted to stand her on her two feet. That went about like she’d expected: she nearly dropped Lea to the asphalt. Molly listened for sounds of movement from the men in the front of the van, but she was greeted with silence. Molly was hit with a brain storm!
    Twenty minutes later found Lea whisking through the streets, tied to the aluminum dolly that Molly had discovered on the floor of the van. She propelled the contraption with all her might; Lea was beautiful, but she wasn’t light, decided Molly. With no cell phone and no car, she did they only thing that occurred to her: she headed back to the strip mall. There she found dependable Dudley, still on duty at the pizza parlor, but in the company of two impossibly tall uniformed policemen and two men in plain clothes, ostensibly detectives. Molly eagerly approached the back door, was met by the two tall cops and subsequently interrogated by the plainclothes men. She told them what had happened, where the two kidnappers were to be found, and how she figured in all this. Asked her identity, Molly replied with flair that she was Molly—no middle name—Cooper and she lived with her grandfather, Arthur Cooper in the house with the exquisite ‘53 Studebaker in back of it. An ambulance was summoned and Lea was transported to the hospital with suspected heroin intoxication. Molly noted that the police had possession of Lea’s handbag, which meant they had seen the marijuana, but figured that was of no moment; in this state, pot had been all but decriminalized. Besides, the fuzz wouldn’t want to alienate a Grand Jury witness against sex slave traffickers.

iv

    Two mornings later, after Molly had moved her meager effects into the extra bedroom in Arthur’s house, she sat before him at the kitchen table, enjoying another gourmet breakfast.
    “Where’d you learn to cook?” she asked.
    “I been a widower for twenty-five year,” he told her, ‘an I hadta’ either learn or go hungry. So I learned.” He looked askance at her. “Finally get rid a’ all that dirt?” he asked with a smile that, as usual, crinkled his eyes. She nodded. “Took at least four showers,” he pointed out. “You know I got to pay for the water...” Molly’s eyes grew wide.
    “Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was so dirty, and...”
    ‘I’m bein’ funny, Molly, or tryin’ to be.” Relief flooded her face. “You’ll have to get used to that.” He was silent for a moment. “Hey, Thanksgivin’ is comin’ up, two weeks. Got any plans?” His eyes shown brightly.
    “Arthur, are you being funny again?” asked Molly. He only smiled.
    “I ‘unnerstan’ from Bob that they caught your friend Derek but that Officer Muncie got clean away,” said Arthur.
    “What’ll happen to them?”
    “Well, tax evasion, criminal conspiracy, sex-traffickin’, contributin’ to the delinquency of minors, the list jus’ goes on,” replied Arthur. Molly’s face darkened.
    “I knew Derek was into some bad things, but I didn’t know how bad.”
    “All in the past now,” said Arthur soothingly. “After the holidays we can get you into school—I got a friend used to be a social worker, Molly, and I know how and where to get the bogus documents we need. Of course, we could do like your friend Lea, and go for emancipation, but you’re a little young yet, for this state, and besides, it’s an uphill battle. Might not be any choice, they use you as a witness in the trial; we’ll just wait an’ see. And I gathered that you don’t care to see your stepfather no more.” Molly had related to her new friend the manner in which her stepfather had mistreated her.
    “Is that why you’re helping me, Arthur, because of how your granddaughter was abused and how no one ever helped her?” For a moment, Molly was afraid she had gone to far.
    “Yep. Partially. I used to work representin’ a union, Molly. For forty-five years I was an advocate and, especially when I learned you was workin’ for slave wages, I felt you needed an advocate, too.” Molly furrowed her brow.
    “Advocate?” she queried.
    “Someone on your side,” he explained. She nodded. Arthur then changed the subject.
    “What grade should you be in, Molly?” he asked.
    “Well, I’m fifteen and a half,” she said, “and I was ready to start my sophomore year in high school when I split. I was a good student,” she added. “Until things went crazy with my stepfather and then my grades went into the crapper.” Arthur looked serious.
    “They’re prob’ly lookin’ for you, Molly.”
    “I hope they never find me,” she said solemnly.
    Time seemed to fly by for both Molly and Arthur. On Thanksgiving Day, Molly asked Arthur,
    “Does your daughter ever come down for the holidays?” Arthur shook his head no.
    “Not in a long time, Molly. She can’t bare to leave Crystal.” Crystal, Molly knew, was Arthur’s only grandchild. “They live in Seattle,” he went on. “Connie is CEO of a medium-sized tech company—an’ no, it ain’t Microsoft—and lives in a big condo that overlooks the city. One suite is devoted to her daughter.” Arthur hadn’t discussed Crystal’s condition in any depth before. Molly spoke up:
    “How old is Crystal now? What does she do? Does she have a job?”
    “She’ll be twenty-five come December 2nd. But, Molly, she has mind of a five-year-old. She needs help dressin’ and eatin’ and...ever’thing.” Molly looked closely and saw Arthur’s eyes film over ever so slightly.
    “I’m sorry, Arthur.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.” And idea suddenly occurred to Molly.
    “Arthur,” she said, “could we go to Seattle sometime? I’d like to meet Connie and Crystal.” The warm, grateful look on Arthur’s face told Molly she’d said the right thing.
    Thanksgiving wasn’t all it might have been. After carefully dressing and buttering and seasoning the turkey, Arthur had fallen asleep and allowed the bird to burn. The stench of burning flesh and the cacophony of multiple smoke alarms awakened him not a bit. Molly, alone in her bedroom reading, was roused by the noises and smells and rushed to the kitchen, where she turned off the oven and flipped on the exhaust fan. Then poor Arthur, alerted by the clatter, stood lamenting a ruined feast. She approached him from the rear and gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
    “That’s alright, Arthur,” she said. He touched her hand with his own.
    “You mighta’ save’ the day, Molly. I took some cold medicine and I was down for the count.” He looked grieved.
    “No sweat, Arthur, my heart wasn’t set on turkey anyhow. Now we can enjoy the same meal I would have had if I were still working for Derek.” He looked at her over his shoulder.
    “Pizza?” he asked.
    “Pizza,” she confirmed.
    So, money in hand, Molly walked the two blocks to the venerable strip mall and went this time to the front of the pizza parlor and stepped through the door. The aroma was intoxicating, she thought: freshly make, yeasty pizza dough festooned with onions and peppers and sausage and all her favorites. It remained her first choice among foods. She approached the counter and ordered the biggest, most topping-laden pie on the menu. She asked the person at the register,
    “Is Lea back yet?” The girl’s eyes widened and she said,
    “You’re Molly! I saw you on...” Then, “No, she’ll be back next week. You saved her life. Thank you so much!” Molly smiled. “You can have this pizza for free,” she offered. “Business is booming since the kidnapping.” Molly wouldn’t hear of it, though.
    “Thanks,” she said. “But, no.” She laid the money on the counter, “I’m only making a point. Tell Dudley: ‘I came in through the front door this time.’”
    Thirty minutes later, pizza in hand, Molly quitted the pizza parlor and embarked on her way home. Home; Molly liked the sound of that! She walked through the parking lot in back of the strip mall, making haste lest the pie grow cold. There was just the slightest dusting of snow on the pavement and tiny flakes fell from sky. Suddenly she became uneasy, felt as though she were being watched. She turned and looked behind her but there was nothing there. Since she’d heard that Muncie had escaped, she had kept a lookout for him. Wait. That man, she stared hard at him: was it Muncie? Molly felt idiotic; she had been on the alert for a man in a cop uniform, but in reality, the bad cop could be dressed in any fashion. This man had a heavy, green army jacket, hunting boots, jeans and damn! It was Muncie!
    Molly took several stutter steps, then catching Muncie’s eye, she tore out as fast as her legs would move.
    “Come back, Molly,” called the bad cop in a sing song voice, tormenting her. “I just want to talk.” She kept running. She didn’t look back, but ran north, past the pharmacy and the Hallmark Store and the Orange Julius, all now shuttered for the holiday. Slowly, steadily, the ex-cop made up ground on her; Molly couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t making better time, till she looked down at her hands: they were filled with pizza. With a slinging motion she cast the pie aside.
    She ran into the asphalted corner of the lot, past the furthest parked vehicles, decided she couldn’t go home, else she’d lead Muncie back to Arthur and she couldn’t endanger the old man that way. She began panting. She was out of shape. Suddenly it occurred to her: she had a cell phone now! Arthur had purchased one for her on her first night in his home. She whipped it out triumphantly, glanced down at the screen. No bars! She cursed herself. She had grown unaccustomed to a cell phone and had let it run down.
    “Maaarrrryyyy,” screamed Muncie in a cartoon voice. He was risking detection; he must have gone over the deep end, thought Molly; he’s really lost it. There weren’t many shops open tonight, this being Thanksgiving. Just the Pizza Place was busy at all and it wasn’t doing that much business. Molly slowed to rest her lungs, then plodded doggedly forward, took a shortcut through the breezeway which divided the strip mall into two. She got halfway down the breezeway when a stark figure materialized at the other end of the tunnel: Muncie! And he had a gun, a huge, malevolent looking, murderous black Glock. Lifting it to his eye, he took careful aim. Molly stopped in her tracks, staggered, retraced her path and tore down the south side of the mall. Behind her she could hear Muncie laughing.
    Finally reaching the near corner of the strip mall, Molly found herself outside the Flamingo. Yes! There would be people here. She had forgotten that they never closed. Shoving the metal and glass door open, Molly threw herself inside. Nearly fainting with exhaustion and terror, she collapsed into a chair. An inebriated woman with silver hair looked myopically at her and said, “Can I buy you a drink, Honey?” Molly felt giddy with relief; she almost laughed out loud. Her reverie was cut short, however, as the door pushed open again and in stalked Muncie, pistol at the ready. The tavern grew deathly quiet. The ice in a highball glass made a tinkling sound.
    “Everybody just relax now,” Muncie coaxed. “Me and this young woman have a little business to attend to. I’ll take her out and there won’t be any trouble.” He grinned at the teen and she thought his teeth were huge, white and ugly. Molly grimaced, waited for the other shoe to drop when the smile ran away from Muncie’s face, to the cadence of more than a dozen metallic clicks. Molly looked back and saw that fully a score of weapons had been drawn by the Flamingo’s customers, even the bartender, and every one was pointed at nearly point blank range at Muncie. His pistol twisted upside down on his trigger finger and he smiled weakly.
    “Whoops!” he said softly. Molly had forgotten that this was a conceal and carry state and so, apparently, had Muncie.

Six Months Later

    Once again at her favorite spot in Arthur’s—and her—home, Molly sat at the kitchen table and shoveled in Arthur’s special shirred eggs, made with spinach, just the way she had come to like them. A year ago she hadn’t known they even existed. Arthur slipped a pancake onto Molly’s egg-spattered plate.
    “What’re you going to do when school’s out, Molly—just two weeks now?” he asked.
    “I might get a job,” she replied. He pursed his lips.
    “Got any offers?” he asked.
    “Two, so far,” she said. “One, I can go to work at this strip mall I heard about, sweeping sidewalks and emptying trash cans and picking up cigarette butts....” She sneaked a peep at Arthur, was gratified to see a look of horror on his face. “Or,” she continued, “I might get a job at the Pizza Place.”
    “That sounds more like it,” remarked Arthur. Then Molly added,
    “You know, Dudley asked me out...” and if anything the look of horror on his face was even more pronounced.

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