Crusader

by Edward Bloor

  We all looked back at the screens. The woman in blue was saying, "In the last year alone, more than twelve hundred children were murdered in Rio. That's about four children a day, just in that one city."

  I said to Suzie, "Do you want us to take these chairs back?"

  Nina answered, "Hey, don't take mine. I want to see this."

  Suzie said, "No, that's all right, Roberta. Leo will come and get them." She sat down with Nina and Kristin. "I want to see the rest of this, too."

  I worked my way out of the chair area and started back toward work. The last thing I heard as I circled behind the TV wall was, "It's happening in South America today. Will it happen in North America tomorrow?"

  When I entered Arcane, Uncle Frank seemed surprised to see me. He said, "What? Is the show over?"

  "Let's just say the tour is over." I joined him behind the counter.

  I spotted Hawg and Ironman coming in from the north side. They had stopped to talk to the Head Louse. They all looked very serious. As usual, I could only hear Hawg's end of the conversation. He told the Head Louse, very emphatically, "That's right! I don't like him. Somebody don't want me in his store, and kicks me out just for trying to watch a damn football game on TV—I don't have to like him. Do I?"

  Uncle Frank gestured toward them and shook his head. "Sounds like I'm the only one who doesn't kick them out."

  Uncle Frank knelt down and opened the floor safe. He pulled out a handful of coin rolls and started to sort them. I looked up as the Head Louse approached the counter. He asked, "So where's Karl?"

  I told him, "I don't know. He might be down at Love-a-Pet; he might be at the food court."

  Uncle Frank stood up. He locked eyes with the Head Louse, who took a quick step backward. Uncle Frank demanded, "Why do you want to know where Karl is?"

  The Head Louse gulped. "He's a friend of mine, that's all."

  "He's on break. When he's on break, we give him a break."

  The Head Louse took another step, spun around, and left the arcade. Uncle Frank watched him go.

  Nina and Kristin arrived with Karl just after five. They were talking about the Brazilian kids on the TV show, but not the Brazilian kids in our mall. It was like they had missed the real story—that the Brazilians had marched out of the mall in disgust.

  Kristin said, "All right, Roberta will know." She turned to me. "What language were they speaking?"

  I said, "Who, the Brazilians?"

  Nina sneered. "No, the Munchkins."

  I answered Kristin anyway. "They were speaking Portuguese."

  Nina sounded triumphant. "See, I told you that wasn't Spanish."

  Kristin answered, "I didn't say it was Spanish. I said it sounded more like German."

  "Girl, that's not German!"

  "Right, like you would know."

  "I know it wasn't Spanish." Nina turned to me. "Roberta, you missed a really good show." She turned back to Kristin. "Did you see Angela's nails today? They were so perfect, you know? So long, it's like they're not even human.

  "My aunt says that Angela del Fuego goes to her salon, like, every Saturday and spends at least five hundred bucks in one hour. They all start working on her at once—manicure, pedicure, mud pack, facial. Like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when everybody's working on the Cowardly Lion. You know, when they get to the Emerald City, and they all go inside, and they're all getting their hair done and stuff?"

  Kristin said, "Yeah, I remember that. They're doing Toto, too."

  "Yeah, that's it. Toto, too. Angela always looks so fine." The two of them settled into their usual spots behind the counter.

  Suddenly Nina got very excited. "Oh! Oh! Did you see the show yesterday?"

  Kristin answered, "No. What was it about?"

  "Guess."

  "No, I'm not going to guess."

  "No, really. I'm serious. See if you can guess. This is too weird. You'll never guess it."

  "Then I give up."

  She poked at Karl, rousing him from a magazine. "How about you, big guy?"

  I figured Karl hadn't been listening, but I was wrong. He came up with a guess right away. "Teenage psycho zombies from hell?"

  "No. Listen to this: These kinda dumpy-looking women were all married to serial killers, and they didn't know it." She looked from me to Karl to Kristin triumphantly. "But they all said, like, afterward, 'Oh yeah, I wondered why he had that bloodstain on his socks.' Or 'I wondered why he would never let me open the trunk of his car.' Stuff like that. It's like they all had little pieces of the puzzle, but they couldn't see the whole thing."

  I understood immediately. I added, "Or they didn't want to see the whole thing."

  "Yeah. There you go." Nina looked hard at me for a moment, like she was waiting for me to say something else. But I didn't.

  Dad appeared from around the corner with a slice of pizza and a Coke. He stopped by the side of the counter. "Hey, honey. Suzie said that tomorrow you should wear what you would normally wear. Just come to the mall office at eleven and she'll fix you up."

  "Okay. Thanks, Dad."

  Nina waited until he left to say, "You know she's gonna send you to the Gap."

  I shrugged. "That's fine with me."

  Nina looked away. "Whatever."

  Kristin said, "Roberta, there's still time to get something with us tonight. Your dad will give you the money."

  "No. That's okay."

  Uncle Frank came back from dinner early, at about five-thirty. He looked agitated. Right away he called over to us, "Go on. Go on. I'm back now."

  Kristin came around and took him by the elbow. "Daddy, I'll need some money for the mall." Uncle Frank took out his wallet and gave her a twenty-dollar bill. Kristin just stared at it. She looked embarrassed. "Uh, Daddy, I'll need a lot more than this tonight. We're going to the Gold Coast Mall." Uncle Frank looked at her and then at Nina. He seemed trapped. He looked through his wallet again. He pulled out his American Express card and handed it to Kristin, saying, "You girls be careful over there."

  "We will. Thanks, Daddy." Kristin and Nina hurried out.

  I felt really bad about leaving him. But I said, "Good night, Uncle Frank," and ran to catch up with them.

  As we hurried through the rotunda, I saw a couple standing by the south anchor store, arguing. It was Sam and Verna. I heard Sam say, "I was at my car an hour ago, and it was fine. So now you know who did it! If you don't believe me, ask Griffin."

  I knew right away what had happened: Sam's car had been vandalized again. And I knew I had to see it for myself. As soon as we got through the door, I practically yelled at Nina, "We have to drive around back. Somebody's car got vandalized!"

  I thought Nina would give me a hard time, but she agreed right away. "Yeah, sure. Okay."

  We ran all the way out to the perimeter parking spaces. Nina's car is a black Corvette convertible with red leather seats. She has license plates that say NINA 1.

  Nina turned the engine on with a loud roar. "Where are we going?"

  I squeezed into the back. "Go around the south anchor store, the one that used to be Burdines."

  "Okay."

  We zoomed around to the back of the mall. I spotted Sam's car right away. It was parked against the building, about twenty yards up from the trash trailer. It was a brand-new white BMW with a brand-new paint job. But it now had a deep, ragged scratch running from the back bumper to the front bumper, like a long appendix scar.

  Nina called out, "Oh, man! That's cold. That's real cold. Look, they keyed that beautiful Beemer."

  Kristin said, "I don't think a key did that. That scratch is too deep and wide. That looks like a tire iron."

  Nina asked me, "So whose car is it?"

  Sams.

  "Oh yeah?" Nina whipped the Corvette around. "That's a nice car, and he's very foolish. If you have a nice car, you don't park it out back. There's too many scumbags around here. Like my father says, 'If you go looking for trouble, you're sure to find it.'"

  I thought ab
out Sam as we pulled out of the parking lot. Sam wasn't a fool, and he wasn't looking for trouble. Just the opposite. Why would somebody hate him?

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  I've never been in a car traveling as fast as Nina's Corvette did down Everglades Boulevard. It was frightening. The wind blew so hard into my face that my own words could not get out. They blew right back down my throat.

  However, I could still hear voices from the front seat. They came hurtling past me clear and loud. So I listened, like I was supposed to do.

  Kristin asked, "Is Carlos going to be there tonight?"

  Nina sneered. "Carlos? What do I care where he is?"

  Kristin laughed in disbelief. "So you're not going to the cotillion dance with him?"

  Nina shrugged. "I might. If I don't get a better offer. Like, from a real man."

  Kristin laughed again. "If Carlos only knew how you talk about him."

  "What? I talk about him the same way when he's there. I tell him, 'Carlos, you got two chances with me: no way and no how.'"

  "So why do you go out with him?"

  "Because he begs me to. And because he takes me to nice places."

  "Isn't he in love with you?"

  Nina hesitated, like she had never thought about that. Then she said, "Yeah, of course he's in love with me." She thought about it a minute more. "It's like, he's in love with me, but he knows he shouldn't be. Like, he knows he's out of his league and he's never gonna get loved in return, but that's okay. He's happy just to be where he is."

  Kristin held up her thumb at a right angle to her index finger, forming the letter L. She and Nina said in unison, "Loser."

  We finally slowed down for a red light at Seventy-second Street. I took the opportunity to lean forward and ask, "If you think he's such a loser, why do you go out with him?"

  Nina looked surprised to see someone in the backseat. But she answered me seriously, "There was one moment in time when he had potential. When I first met him, he was sitting in the parking lot at Xavier in this blue Jaguar XKE convertible. Beautiful car. He asked me out to the Marlins game that night, and I was real excited to go. I was even standing out in the driveway with my sister, like, waiting for him, so she could see the car. And what does he do? He pulls up in some little pickup truck. Like a Toyota or something. My sister started laughing so hard she had to run inside.

  "He gets out and says to me, 'So you ready to go?'

  "I said, 'Not in that thing. What do you think I'm gonna do, go pick sugarcane? Where's the XKE?'

  "He says, 'Oh, that's my dad's car. He's using it tonight.'

  "I said, 'Well, you can go get your dad's car, or you can go to that baseball game by yourself.'"

  Kristin interjected, "So what did he do?"

  "I don't know what he did. But he came back, like, two hours later, with the Jag. We made it to the game around the seventh inning."

  I said to her, "So what if he had refused to go get that car? What if he had said, 'Take it or leave it'?"

  Nina thought for a long time. "I guess I'd have had a little more respect for him. But he didn't say that. He went and got the Jag."

  The light changed and we roared off, but we soon got caught in the eastbound traffic. I leaned forward again. "How about you, Kristin? Who are you going to this dance with?"

  Kristin curled up her lip. "Greg Vandervelt."

  "Who's that?"

  "Just some guy who asked me."

  Nina scoffed. "Oh yeah, just some guy." She yelled back to me, "He's, like, the king of the Anglos. He's a captain on the baseball team, president of the student council, straight-A honor roll. He's, like, perfect."

  It was Kristin's turn to scoff. "He's not perfect. He's boring. He's a stuffed shirt. All he can talk about is himself and how great he is."

  Nina disagreed. "Well, he sure looks good." She yelled back to me, "All the little blond girls want Greggie for their own. But he has chosen Kristin. Together they shall be king and queen of the Anglos."

  Kristin said, "He's Dutch and I'm German. How's that make us king and queen of the Anglos?"

  "Because you're all Anglos to us."

  I said to Nina, "It sounds like you don't approve of Greg."

  "Hey, I don't care about him one way or the other. As long as he treats my girl here good, he's okay with me."

  We drove straight east, toward the Atlantic Ocean. After we crossed the Intracoastal Waterway, Kristin turned and pointed. "That's the Gold Coast Mall, Roberta. You've never been there, have you?"

  "No." I looked ahead, on the right. It was enormous, at least four times the size of the West End Mall. It took up most of the land between the Intracoastal and A1A, the beach road. Each corner of the mall had a spiral parking ramp attached to it. One was pink; one was orange; one was pale green; one was pale blue.

  Nina turned right and drove around to the back. There weren't any trash trailers back there. The back of this mall was as immaculate as the front, and as luxurious. Nina said, "Let's park in Avocado. I have avocado eyeliner on tonight."

  We took a glass elevator to the ground level. Nina knew right where to go. She said to me, "Roberta, are you watching my every move for the newsletter?"

  I said, "Yeah, I guess."

  Nina led us to four chiseled glass doors with brass frames and handles. She pushed them open, and I quickly found myself inside the Gold Coast Mall.

  It was a beautiful, beautiful place. Nina and Kristin had to wait for me because I was stuck in one spot, staring. The floor was made of pink-and-white marble. The storefronts had wooden planters attached above them, with lush plants hanging down. The music and the lighting were both very soft and elegant. There was an oasis in front of us, with mahogany benches and a babbling brook. I felt like I had stepped into a rich person's mansion, not a mall.

  Kristin said to me, "It's hard to believe the same guy owns our mall."

  "Who? Ray Lyons?"

  "Yep. If I were him, I'd be ashamed to admit it."

  Nina tugged on Kristin's arm. "You tell me, girlfriend. Tell me what guys we're gonna see tonight." Then she turned to me. "I should say, 'What guys are going to have the privilege of seeing us tonight?'"

  I asked Nina, "Are a lot of guys from Xavier going to be here?"

  "For sure. This is a big Xavier hangout. Xavier and Lourdes. We'll check out Bloomie's first. There'll be some girls in there getting their colors done. There always are."

  I asked her, "What's that?"

  "Makeup? Finding out the best color of makeup to use? What, you never did that?"

  "I never heard of it."

  "Madre de Dios." She shot a disbelieving look over at Kristin. Then she said, "Roberta, you need a makeover. You need one in the worst way."

  I wasn't interested. "I don't want a makeover."

  "I didn't say you want one. I said you need one. Bad."

  We turned into the golden-framed entrance of Bloomingdale's. It looked fantastic. It smelled fantastic. There were high stools and counters all around us, showcasing different brands of makeup. Nina stopped next to a girl on a white stool who was staring hard into a round mirror. She was drawing a purple line under her eyelid with a pencil. Nina winked at me and then said, "Oh! That color looks so good on you, Lisette."

  The girl looked further into the mirror until she spotted who was speaking. She said, "Ninaaaa," in a drawn-out way. Then she went back to her purple line.

  We continued on. Nina turned to Kristin and said, "She stuffs."

  Kristin nodded in agreement. "Most definitely."

  I asked Nina, "Stuffs what?"

  "She stuffs her bra. You can see it." She turned to Kristin, disgusted. "God! You know, if you're gonna stuff it, have a little class. Use some shoulder pads or something. This girl, you can see wadded-up Kleenex sticking out of her blouse."

  We went to another counter, which said CLINIQUE. This time Nina and Kristin made me sit on the stool. They started moving bands of color on a color chart, like a slide rule, trying to figure out my co
lors. Kristin said, "I think she's earth tones."

  Nina said, "I think she's hopeless."

  "Cut it out, Nina."

  "I'm joking. Lighten up. I'd go with pale greens and yellows. She's more like forest tones."

  They went on like that for about ten minutes, with me sitting there silently, like I was in the dentist's chair. Then Nina bought a couple of bottles and tubes and said to me, "Okay, Roberta. We're all ready for your makeover. We'll do it tomorrow morning."

  Kristin asked, "Where do you want to do it?"

  Nina started to answer, but Kristin interrupted her. "I was asking Roberta!"

  I said, "I don't know. My house, I guess."

  "What time?"

  "We have to be at the mall office at eleven. Is ten o'clock enough time?"

  Nina said, "Girl, there is not enough time in all of—"

  Kristin interrupted her again. "What she means is that we'll be there at ten."

  Nina frowned, but she said, "Sure, whatever," and led us off in a new direction. We stopped at a set of red-and-gold doors that said BLOOMINGDALE'S BOUTIQUE. She said to Kristin, "Here it is, girlfriend. The dress you want is right through that door."

  Kristin didn't seem so sure. She said, "No, I want to look out here, in the petites."

  Nina shook her head. "Whatever. To each her own and all that. Roberta, who you hanging with?"

  I said, "I don't know."

  Nina decided. "You'd better come with me, then."

  I looked at the red doors. "Am I allowed in there?"

  Nina laughed out loud. She shouted, "Allowed? You come with me. And you take notes."

  We burst though the red doors and entered a circular room with dresses displayed around its perimeter. Two ladies in what looked like French maids' outfits approached us. They looked like they were going to ask me what I was doing there, but Nina jumped all over them. She started to order them around like they were her personal maids, and they took it from her! It was a little nasty, and a little embarrassing. But it didn't last long. When the maids found what she was asking for, Nina announced, "I'll take it," without even trying it on. We were back outside the red doors, purchase in hand, in ten minutes.