CHAPTER TWO

Mr. Rafferty and the custodian stared at me. My face burned. I slammed the wallet down on the nearest cashier counter.

The guard crammed the wallet into his back pocket. “Nice try, buddy.”

“I was handing it in,” I objected. “And maybe, buddy, you should watch where you leave it.”

Before I realized what was happening, he’d yanked my own wallet out of my jeans back pocket. Flipping it open, he scanned my I.D. “Our thief is Sam Jellicoe. From Vancouver.”

The guard spat out the last word, as if Vancouver was some kind of cesspool. I wanted to punch the sneer off his face. But that would get me into genuine trouble. Right now this was all a stupid misunderstanding.

Grabbing my wallet back, I looked squarely at Mr. Rafferty. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life. I found the wallet and was about to give it to you. That’s the truth.”

Sighing, Mr. Rafferty shrugged. “Okay, kid. Go. Get outta here.”

“NO.” The guard grabbed my right arm, twisting it up behind my back. “The guy’s a thief, Dad. I saw him lift the wallet. You know what our policy is. Thieves will be prosecuted.”

I wanted to yelp with pain, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, I looked at the storeowner for help.

“Where you gonna put him, Jon?” Mr. Rafferty demanded. “In a short while, this place is gonna be broiling. It’s not humane to – ”

“This Jellicoe kid – Jelly, we’ll call him,” the guard snickered, “shoulda thought of that before his fingers turned twitchy. I’m gonna take him to the office till we can get hold of the cops.” He shoved me ahead of him.

He had me in an agonizing grip. I couldn’t escape – for now. I’d wait till he relaxed his hold slightly, which he had to do sooner or later. Then, I’d make a break for it. I might just wallop him in passing.

The custodian flipped his eyebrows at me as if to say, Tough luck, kid.

Jon noticed. “Not amusing, Rick. Not so amusing, either, that you let the power blow. You’ve laughed yourself right out of a job.”

The custodian bit the side of his lip, probably to stop from telling off, or even belting, the boss’s son.

Mr. Rafferty began, “C’mon, Jon, it’s bad enough … ”

But Jon pushed me away from them, down the aisle heading to the glassed-in office. He wrenched my arm higher at every opportunity.

He shoved me past a cosmetics counter with some tester boxes of loose face powder, and several oval mirrors.

Jon paused to smirk at himself in one of them. Maybe also to check that the carefully oiled lock of hair was still positioned just so over his forehead.

Our gazes met in the mirror, and Jon laughed. “Why dontcha blubber, Jelly?” he invited. “I’d like to see you bawl. I’d like to see you beg.”

He’d relaxed his grip.

“I’d like to see you take a powder,” I said. Grabbing a box of the loose face powder, I dumped it over Jon’s head.

Stunned, Jon let go of my arm. He gasped and choked on the powder. His eyes streamed.

“Jon?”

It was a girl’s voice. The owner of it stepped around a display of lipsticks. She had short, dark red hair, wide brown eyes, and lips like plums. She wore a white smock with a badge that read, Gina Manetas, Cosmetician sewn in red handwriting across the top.

“Cosmet-what?” I said.

“Make-up specialist,” the girl said shortly. She turned away from me with an abrupt movement that made her silver hoop earrings dance.

She handed Jon a damp towelette out of a box on the counter. “What happened?”

“This goon attacked me. He’s a thief,” Jon snarled.

Gina switched her dark-eyed gaze back to me.

“Hi, I’m Sam Jellicoe,” I said. “And, by the way? Don’t believe our sneering friend here. Think: liar, liar, pants on fire.”

She frowned and looked away again.

Jon was wiping the towelette over his face. All it did was create flesh-coloured streaks in the white powder. The effect was to make his face look like it was behind bars.

I massaged my arm. I could make a break for it – but I was having trouble ungluing my eyes from Gina the make-up specialist. “Do you wear this guck?” I asked, gesturing at the products around us. “If you do, you should be arrested for defacing art.”

Jon threw his towelette on the floor. “YOU!” he shouted at me. “DON’T TALK TO HER. YOU’RE A THIEF, REMEMBER?” Jon crashed his fist down on the cosmetics counter, making the other boxes of powder jump. His nostrils flared like a bull’s.

Mentally I filed this image away. I might be able to use it some day in improv.

“Hey,” I said to Gina, “how come you didn’t leave the store when everyone else did?”

Gina still wouldn’t look at me. She started tidying up the lipsticks display, putting colours back where they belonged. “Jon told me I could stay.”

Gina wasn’t looking at raging-bull Jon, either. Maybe I wasn’t the only person she found objectionable right now.

Jon snapped, “Gina gets to stay because she’s my girl.” He punctuated that remark by shoving me forward. “If you got any ideas about stealing her, thief boy, you’re outta luck.”

Gina had stopped fiddling with the lipsticks and was watching me. When she saw that I’d noticed, she looked away again.

“Sorry about this,” I told her. “Honestly, the whole thing’s a mistake.”

“Move,” Jon ordered.

I raised a fist. “You touch me again and I’ll slam you one faster than you can say ‘hair gel.’ ”

Jon reached into the inside pocket of his security-guard jacket. He pulled out a switchblade and waved it at me.

I’d missed my chance to scram. I walked ahead of him, into his dad’s glass office.

Still with the knife pointed at me, Jon edged behind his dad’s desk, to a huge phone console crammed with buttons and lights. It could’ve passed for the dashboard in a jumbo jet. He pressed a button.

“Dad?” he said hesitantly.

Jon’s voice echoed at me from all directions. He was talking over the loudspeaker. “Yo, Dad,” Jon growled. He was enjoying himself.

Down the aisle, Mr. Rafferty strode over to one of the cash registers. He reached over and pushed something beside the register. His voice then blasted through the console speakers and into the office.

“What’re you doing, Jon? I need to let Rick check the building from outside, but I don’t want to be alone up here. People are at the doors, wanting to know what’s going on. Forget about the Vancouver kid. I need you.”

“Be right there, Dad.” Jon’s smile widened. I guess he didn’t realize how much powder was still stuck to his face. He could’ve subbed for Heath Ledger as the Joker.

I told him impatiently, “If you really think I’m a thief, call the cops.”

The police would straighten this out, I was sure of it. I couldn’t understand what Jon was waiting for. Savouring the moment, sure. But this moment was turning into a month.

He backed away from me to the door. “No, I’m not gonna phone the cops yet. And neither are you, Jelly. I’m gonna let you sit in here and sweat.”

Stepping out of the office, Jon slammed the glass door shut. He removed the key ring from his belt. He stuck one of the keys into the lock. With a final sneer through the glass, he twisted the key.

And the thought came to me: Jon hadn’t called the cops because he knew very well I wasn’t a thief.

What was he up to?

With the door shut and no air circulating, the temperature in the glassed-in office started inching up like a caterpillar on a tree. It didn’t help that I was mad at Jon, and madder at myself. I could’ve run for it, out there in the cosmetics department. But noooo. I had to try and impress a girl.

I looked around the office. The other three walls were solid. Against the back wall was a row of TV security screens, now blank because of the outage.

There was no way out.

If I could remember Alvin’s cell-phone number, I would phone him – but I couldn’t. I’d made it a point of pride to ignore everything about him. In frustration, I smashed the palms of my hands against the glass a few times.

The glass didn’t break, though. It was thick and tough. I glanced around and saw why. There was a big gray floor safe in the corner.

I leaned against the glass and got hotter and more frustrated.

Then I realized I could see straight down to the front of the store. I could see Mr. Rafferty, Rick the custodian, Jon and Gina.

And someone else, just coming in one of the front doors.

I pressed my forehead against the glass and squinted.

It was a stocky guy, a few years older than Jon and me, in scruffy T-shirt and jeans, holding a guitar case.

Mr. Rafferty turned and yelled at Jon – for not having locked the front doors against newcomers, I was guessing.

Shrugging, Jon went to every one of the front doors and locked them. The last door, though, he held open, for the scruffy guy to leave through.

But the guy didn’t. He set his guitar case on the closest cash-register counter and opened it.

With his back to the window, to block outside view, he took out a rifle.