All The Way Down

Chapter 27

I drove over to the mall and parked close to the entrance. The mall had been open for just a few minutes, and the only cars in the lot were employee cars parked at the perimeter.

I went inside the big glass doors. Across and to the right, sandwiched between a jewelry store and a maternity clothes store, was the photo shop Michelle had told me about. A chain screen suspended from the ceiling hung halfway across the entrance to the one hour film developer shop. I sat on a bench across from the store and waited for the shop to finish opening.

I could see a short, dark-haired man wearing a yellow blazer inside, putting change in the cash register and checking the settings on the machine that developed film. The man finished his preparations and turned a crank by the entrance that pulled the chain screen the rest of the way up. I waited until he was back behind the counter before I went into the store.

"I have some film I'd like to have developed," I said. I pulled the roll of film from my pocket and put it on the glass countertop.

The man picked up the container and made a face. The container still smelled like dead fish. He pulled the lid off and slid the metal roll onto the counter.

"Twelve exposures. Black and white. Slow-speed stuff. How soon do you need it?"

"Can I get it in an hour, like the sign says?"

"I'll run your film through first. It should be ready in about 45 minutes. What about prints?"

I hadn't thought about that. "What kinds do you have?"

He gestured at a display on the wall. "All sizes," he said. The pictures ranged from billfold size to 8 by 11. I didn’t know what was on the roll, but I figured that bigger would probably be better if there was any need for detail. "Eight by eleven is fine."

"Very good," the man said. He had a gold crown on one of his lower front teeth that shined when he smiled. He keyed the purchase into the register.

"That will be 20 dollars."

I pulled my wallet out, and realized I only had a hundred and ten in cash left. I added the pictures to my swelling credit card bill. The man in the yellow blazer pulled a stub off a film development packet and handed it to me.

"It'll be ready by eleven for sure," he said.

"I'll be back for it."

The man nodded and took the film over to one end of the film developing machine. It was the size of a walk-in closet, with large black reels, cables, and gears on the outside of the beige box. It made a pleasant humming sound.

I walked back out into the mall. A discount store and a fruit smoothie shop were close by. I went to the discount store to look around in the sporting goods section. I looked at the camping and fishing gear for a few minutes without any real desire to buy anything. I worked my way towards the counter in the back and checked out the displays of sunglasses. My old pair had scratched lenses, and they didn't seem to be dark enough to cope with the glare in New Mexico.

"These are glacier glasses," a kid working in the sporting goods section told me. "The leather on the side keeps wind and stuff from blowing in your eyes."

The lenses were incredibly dark. They looked well suited for the desert where blowing sand might be a problem, and where the glare was overpowering in the afternoon. "Do you have much of a problem with glaciers around here?" I asked.

The kid stared back at me across a counter full of guns, puzzled. "Forget it," I said. "I'll take a pair." I had thirty minutes to kill.

I eyed the pistols under the glass countertop. "I'd like to take a look at the automatic and the snub nosed revolver."

The kid used a key on his belt to unlock the cabinet. He pulled the two pistols out and laid them on a padded red velvet rectangle on top of the glass.

I picked up the automatic. It was a gun metal blue Ruger .38. It had a comfortable, solid feel. I popped the clip out, checked the action, and slid the clip back in. I held it at arm's length, aiming at the wall behind the counter. "How many rounds does it hold?" I asked.

"Six in the clip, one in the chamber," the kid said, looking around, bored. He seemed to value the prospect of selling a $400 gun equally with the prospect of scratching his scalp.

I lay the automatic on the countertop and picked up the revolver. It was a short-barreled .44. I flipped the cylinder to the side and looked at the five gigantic slots for bullets. They were each big enough to take a small cigar. The barrel was barely two inches long, but it was perfect for blasting someone at short range. I closed the chamber and hefted the thing. The grip seemed small for the size of the bullets. "How many rounds does this one hold?" I asked. The kid knew I had just looked at the chambers. He checked my expression, trying to decide if I was stupid or just being annoying.

"Five," he said. He held up the fingers on his hand to provide a visual aid.

I lay the gun on the countertop and fingered the tag on the gun. $320.

"Seems like a lot for the guns."

"You could try a pawn shop, I guess." The kid's patience with me was at an end. He was ready to go flip through one of the wrestling magazines at the front of the store, I guessed.

"You're quite a salesman," I said, "but I'll leave the guns here. I'll take the glasses, though." I put them on and gave him a big smile. The kid ignored me and rang the sunglasses up. I put them on my charge card and I made it a point to whistle as I walked away.

I still had ten minutes to kill before I went back for the film. I sat at the fruit smoothie shop and worked on an orange drink, concocting theories about what was on the film. Pictures of police pay-offs? Pictures of killings? Pictures of Ray, Marty, and Sgt. Bullard splitting a six-pack on a pile of stolen copper ore?

The mall was surprisingly busy at 11:00. There were lots of people coming in to have lunch at the restaurants in the mall. Mothers shopped with their pre-school age children. I looked into the faces of these people and recognized something I found missing in myself, a sense of ordinary belonging and ease. I felt disjoint from my previous life in Oklahoma City, but I had no desire to return there. I found myself powerfully drawn to Michelle and to staying in Alamogordo, in spite of my brother's murder.

I finished my drink and went down to the film shop to collect my pictures. They were ready on time, but I waited until I got into the car to open the packet. I ran the windows down, pulled the pictures from the packet, and laid them in my lap.