Black Friday by William W. Johnstone Page B

then.”
    Jake figured that meant she planned on selling him a bunch of things he didn’t need. She was going to be disappointed, though. He was no pushover for a sales pitch.
    â€œThey’re right over here,” she said, turning and pointing. “You’d better not waste any time getting them. Those curtains are a popular item, especially today.”
    â€œThanks,” Jake said, trying to sound sincere instead of surly. He hated to ask for any favors, but he went on, “Maybe you could show me . . .”
    The woman smiled and said, “Of course.”
    The aisles were crowded, just like every other place in the mall. Jake wasn’t sure why she had singled him out to approach, unless it was because he looked a little lost and she took him for an easy mark.
    Or maybe she actually was trying to be helpful, he told himself. It wasn’t easy to break through the shell of cynicism that years on the job had given him, but he knew, logically, that there were still some nice people in the world.
    Just because he hadn’t dealt with them very often didn’t mean they weren’t out there.
    It could have been worse, he mused. The parking lot was crowded, but he’d been lucky and had come up on a fairly close spot just as a shopper was backing his car out. Jake had waited and then swooped in, beating a car coming from the other direction to the punch.
    Inside the mall, pedestrian traffic was heavy, but people were moving along with a minimum of standing around. They were bent on their errands as much as he was, he supposed.
    â€œHere are those curtains,” the saleslady said. “What color do you need?”
    Jake’s brows drew down in a frown. Adele hadn’t said anything about the color.
    He held up the phone again and said, “This one, I guess. The one in the picture.”
    â€œWell, this style comes in five different colors. If you look at the webpage, you can see the drop-down menu where it asks you to pick a color if you’re ordering online.”
    â€œYou mean you can order these online?”
    â€œOf course. You can get any merchandise in our stores from our website, and other options, besides.”
    Then why in the hell hadn’t Adele just ordered what she wanted and had it delivered to the house, he asked himself. Why send him out into this . . . this hellhole of good cheer?
    Maybe she just wanted a break from him, he realized. He supposed he did tend to hover a little. Or maybe she honestly thought it would do him some good to get out of the house for a while. She probably wished she could get out of the house and go somewhere besides doctors’ offices and treatment centers and hospitals.
    Feeling foolish and a little embarrassed all of a sudden, he said to the saleslady, “The room where these are going is a pale blue, I guess you’d call it. I don’t know the fancy name for that particular shade.”
    â€œThen I believe these will do just fine,” she said as she picked up a set of curtains in a clear plastic package. She handed them to Jake and asked, “What do you think?”
    He held them up, squinted at them, and tried to imagine what they would look like hanging over the windows in the bedroom. That wasn’t easy, because he had about as much visual sense as a rock when it came to things like that.
    But after a moment he nodded and said, “Yeah, I think they’ll look okay,” even though he still wasn’t a hundred percent certain.
    â€œExcellent. What else can we get for you?”
    Here came the sales pitch. He shut that down right away by saying, “That’s it. This is all I need.”
    â€œThe checkouts are at the front of the store, then,” she told him with a smile. “Thank you, and have a wonderful holiday season.” She glanced around and added in a slightly conspiratorial tone, “Is it all right if I wish you a Merry Christmas?”
    â€œIt’s all right