Persuader

and west of the highway interchange. I could already see it in the distance. There were giant tan buildings with no windows and bright neon signs. There were giant parking lots about half-filled with cars. I pulled in and drove once around the whole place. It was as big as a town.
    There were people everywhere. They made me nervous. I came around again and headed in past a line of trash containers to the rear of a big department store.
    "Where are we going?" Richard asked.
    "Staff parking," I said. "Customers are in and out all day long. Unpredictable. But store people are in there for the duration. Safer." He looked at me like he didn't understand. I headed for a line of eight cars parked head- on against a blank wall. There was an empty slot next to a dull-colored Nissan Maxima about three years old. It would do. It was a pretty anonymous vehicle. The lot was a backwater, quiet and private. I pulled beyond the empty slot and backed up into it. Put the van's rear doors tight against the wall.
    "Got to hide the busted window," I said.
    The kid said nothing. I put both empty Colts into my coat pockets and slid out. Tried the Maxima's doors.
    "Find me some wire," I said. "Like heavy electrical cable or a coat hanger."
    "You're going to steal this car?" I nodded. Said nothing.
    "Is that smart?"
    "You'd think so if it was you who'd accidentally shot a cop." The kid looked blank for a second and then came to and scouted around. I emptied the Anacondas and tossed the twelve spent shell cases into a garbage container. The kid came back with a three-foot length of electrical wire from a trash pile. I stripped the insulation with my teeth and made a little hook in the end and shoved it past the rubber sealing strip around the Maxima's window.
    "You're the lookout," I said.
    He stepped away and scanned the lot and I fed the wire down inside the car and jiggled it around and jiggled the door handle until it popped open. I tossed the wire back in the trash and bent down under the steering column and pulled off the plastic shroud. Sorted through the wires in there until I found the two I needed and touched them together. The starter motor whined and the engine turned over and caught and ran steadily. The kid looked suitably impressed.
    "Misspent youth," I said.
    "Is this smart?" he asked again.
    I nodded. "Smart as we can get. It won't be missed until six tonight, maybe eight.
    Whenever the store closes. You'll be home long before then." He paused with his hand on the passenger door and then kind of shook himself and ducked inside. I racked the driver's seat back and adjusted the mirror and backed out of the slot. Took it easy through the mall lot. There was a cop car crawling around about a hundred yards away. I parked again in the first place I saw and sat there with the engine running until the cop moved away. Then I hustled for the exit and around the cloverleaf and two minutes later we were heading north on a wide smooth highway at a respectable sixty miles an hour. The car smelled strongly of perfume and there were two boxes of tissues in it. There was some kind of furry bear stuck on the rear window with clear plastic suckers where its paws should have been. There was a Little League glove on the back seat and I could hear an aluminum bat rattling around in the trunk.
    "Mom's taxi," I said.
    The kid didn't answer.
    "Don't worry," I said. "She's probably insured. Probably a solid citizen."
    "Don't you feel bad?" he said. "About the cop?" I glanced at him. He was thin and pale and crunched up again as far from me as he could get. His hand was resting against the door. His long fingers made him look a little like a musician. I think he wanted to like me, but I didn't need him to.
    "Shit happens," I said. "No need to get all worked up about it."
    "What the hell kind of answer is that?"
    "The only kind. It was minor collateral damage. Means nothing unless it comes back to bite us. Bottom line, we can't change it, so we move on." He said nothing.
    "Anyway, it was your dad's fault," I said.
    "For being rich and having a son?"
    "For hiring lousy bodyguards." He looked away. Said nothing.
    "They were bodyguards, right?" He nodded. Said nothing.
    "So don't you feel bad?" I asked. "About them?"
    "A little," he said. "I guess. I didn't know them well."
    "They were useless," I said.
    "It happened so fast."
    "The bad guys were waiting right there," I said. "A ratty old pickup like that just hanging around in a prissy little college