Bentley Little - The Store

There were people within the organization who were unhappy and dissatisfied.

That was a good sign.

That was a very good sign.

_The Night Managers_.

He didn't know who they were, but it sounded promising. The concept itself was pretty damn creepy, but it also seemed unethical, immoral, illegal. And in a spectacular, media-friendly way. This was what editors liked to buy and readers liked to read. This was what brought down giants. This was the stuff of journalistic wet dreams.

Even without the Night Managers, it was going to be one hell of an article. He'd talked to Jack Pyle, an old buddy of his in Denver, who'd promised to send him a ton of info. Jack had been working on a similar story, inspired by his son's recent involvement with The Store, but he'd chickened out at the end, afraid that The Store would retaliate against his boy if the piece got published.

"It's a cult," he said. "And if one of their own breaks ranks, breaks that wall of silence . . . God help them."

"You have documentation?" Ben had asked.

He could almost hear Jack nodding over the phone. "Oh, yes," he said. "Oh, yes."

Another week of waiting and researching, a week of writing after that, and this puppy was ready to be sent out and shopped around.

But he needed another angle, some personal involvement between reporter and story. That was the trend these days. That's what people liked. Hard research and solid quotes were fine, but the news-hungry public now wanted more than that. They wanted an element of danger. They wanted a tale of intrigue and infiltration.

Which was why he was going to spend an entire night in The Store.

And see the Night Managers for himself.

He'd been planning the stunt for the past three days, and he was pretty sure he could pull it off. Just before closing, he would go into the rest room, hide in one of the stalls, crouching on top of the toilet so his feet could not be seen in the gap beneath the stall door, and wait until everyone had gone.

It was a risky plan, of course. For all he knew, The Store might make its employees conduct a thorough search of every nook and cranny within the building. The door of each toilet stall might be individually opened and checked. But he was betting that on Friday, at the end of an ordinary, uneventful week, such precautions, even if in effect, would not be followed to the letter.

Besides, he had a head start going in. Despite the appalling number of security cameras all over The Store, there were no cameras trained on the men's room door.

It was something he had checked, double-checked, and rechecked.

The Store did not keep track of who entered and exited the men's rest room. Of course, the perverts had a video camera inside, on the wall opposite the urinals. But he'd come up with a way to take that camera out without being noticed and without making it seem suspicious.

There was an element of danger to this. He knew that going in, and he didn't want to involve anyone else. But he needed help. He needed someone to drop him off at The Store and act as lookout while he secured his hiding place.

Bill was the logical choice. He'd hated The Store since the beginning since _before_ the beginning -- and he was both reliable and trustworthy. But he also had a family. And his daughters worked for The Store. Bill himself worked for a corporation that was supplying computer software for the chain, and Ben didn't want his friend to lose his job if they got caught.

Lose his job?

The Store would do worse than that to them if they were caught.

No, he thought. Bill had too much to lose. Street was the better choice in this instance.

He started to call Street, then put down the receiver and drove to his house instead.

Never could tell. The phone lines might be bugged.

Probably were.

Street wasn't too thrilled with the idea. He agreed to go along with it, had no problem playing his part, but he didn't think there was any need to spend the night in The Store. "It's stupid," he said. "It's a fucking Hardy Boys plan.

Something Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would do. Not the way a respectable journalist would get his story."

Ben laughed. "Since when have I been a respectable journalist?"

"Good point."

But Street remained troubled, and Ben had to admit that his friend's reservations were valid. He began having second thoughts himself. But even as he inwardly debated whether or not he should go through with this, they were doing what they were supposed to do, taking the actions they'd planned and coordinated, and before they knew it, they were in the empty men's room, Street locking the door and pretending to take a piss while Ben used his cover to sneak under the video camera and, with the help of some handy-dandy tools, disconnect the video feed.

"What time do you have?" Ben asked, walking over to the sink to check his appearance in the mirror.

"Almost ten."

"They'll be closing," Ben said. "You'd better hit the road."

"In a minute."

"Now."

"I really do have to take a leak," Street told him.

Ben laughed. "Sorry." He leaned over, pretended to peek. "Wow! You have a big dick!"

Street grinned. "But of course."

There was a knock on the rest room door, and they both froze.

"Is anyone in there?" someone called.

"I'll be out in a minute!" Street answered. He flushed the urinal and ran the sink tap. Covered by the noise, Ben locked himself in the far stall, crouching on the toilet seat.

"I owe you," he whispered.

"Check in with me when you're finished. I want to know that you're safe."

"Will do."

Street unlocked the door, stepped out, and Ben heard a Store employee say, "Is there anyone else in there?"

"Just me and my diarrhea," Street announced cheerfully.

"That door's supposed to remain unlocked during business hours."

"Sorry," Street said. "I just don't like people to hear me making disgusting noises."

The door closed, and it did not reopen. Ben waited. Fifteen minutes, a half hour. An hour. The lights did not switch off, but no one returned, and when he checked his watch and saw that it was nearly midnight, he realized that they'd gotten away with it.

Carefully, quietly, he stepped down from the toilet, nearly falling from the sudden shift of weight on his cramped, weakened muscles. He stood in place for a moment, stretching, then walked across the tiled floor and pushed open the door to peek into The Store proper.

The building was silent.

All of the lights were still on, but The Store appeared to be empty.

He walked out carefully, practically tiptoeing, listening for noise but hearing nothing. Even the air conditioner had been shut off. There might be a security person around somewhere, maybe someone monitoring the other video cameras, but there was no one else around. No one could be this quiet unless they were asleep.

The other video cameras. He'd forgotten about them. He should've brought a mask to wear, something to hide his features so they wouldn't be able to identify him on videotape There was the sound of an elevator door opening.

Ben's blood began racing, his adrenaline pumping. He ducked quickly behind a shelf of CD players and adjusted his angle so he could peer through the stacked merchandise to the source of the sound.

They emerged from the elevator and the stairwell next to it, one after the other, a line of whey-faced men dressed entirely in black: black shoes, black pants, black shirts, black jackets. They moved silently, and there was something about the absence of sound that bespoke danger.

The Night Managers.

The elevator and stairwell were only a few yards down from the rest rooms, and he realized that if he had waited a few moments longer, if he had spent even another minute stretching his cramped muscles, they would have caught him.