"Bailey-TheMall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bailey Dale)

panorama of constellations, and then into the kaleidoscope of images Ellis had
seen before: escalators and walkways that met at impossible angles; the city,
tawdry against the midnight sky. The night manager raised his bony finger and
leaned even closer. His breath stank of cotton candy.

"Look," he hissed, and jabbed his long finger out over the rail. When he spoke
again, his tone was reverent -- the tone of voice a man uses when he encounters
some awe-inspiring natural wonder. "Look at it. Isn't it beautiful?"

Ellis turned and looked out over the pit, following the line of the bony finger.
The great mall lay spread out all before him, a vast well of light and sound and
whirling movement that stretched to the distant horizon.

"Five-point-two-million square feet of retail space," said the night manager. "A
seven-acre amusement park. I thought it might appeal to a man of your talents, a
man of your profession." He moved closer, his long arm encircling Ellis's
shoulders. His pale thin fingers enclosed Ellis's upper arm.

In his left hand, pressed close against him by the night manager's wiry body,
Ellis held The Boy's Book of Constellations. When he spoke, his voice was tight
with panic. "Where are my wife and children?"

"In the mall, Ellis," the night manager said. "Where else?"

Ellis struggled against the other man's grip, but the fingers about his upper
arm merely tightened. The night manager swept him around and thrust him out
across the railing. Ellis felt his back arch painfully, his feet come away from
the floor, and then he was dangling out into space, the noise of the calliope
rising around him.

"Listen, my friend," the night manager said. "Let's have some cooperation."

Ellis swallowed, and struggled to squeeze words past the huge lump that had
formed in his throat. "Okay," he gasped.

Ellis felt himself pulled back across the rail. His feet touched the floor and
he found himself staring into the night manager's fury-contorted face. His eyes
were black pits. His lips pulled back in a savage grimace.

"Your family is quite content, I assure you. Jason is infatuated with the
amusement park. And Donna. Well, she lives for the mail. She hardly took any
convincing at all."

"And Katie?"Ellis asked. His voice dwindled to a hoarse whisper. The night
manager chuckled. "Ahh, Katie. She was a bit more challenging. At last, she has
a restaurant of her very own. There's always room for another merchant at the
American Mall, Ellis. You, my friend, you're the only problem that remains."

Ellis's fingers tightened reflexively about the book and that interior voice
piped up again: Open it! It's --