Free Shudder by Harry F. Kane

ever.
    â€œI’m going out, Maldiva,” Dave said, “and you are free to leave as well. See you tomorrow morning.”
    â€œAll right, goodbye, Mister Cohran. See you tomorrow.” Dave winced as the secretary playfully slapped Lucy’s bottom to get her attention. “Say ‘bye’ to Mister Cohran, Lucy.”
    â€œBye.” Lucy mouthed through her apple and waved her hand. Dave waved back and made his exit.
    Still thinking about the annual girl corpse, Dave twisted ineffectually his ignition key, before remembering he had to say the command. “Drive, James,” he said and the BMW hummed to life.
    Not up to braving the radio, he directly switched on the music he prepared beforehand. This time he listened to an ancient album of
Fergie
. It was a song about her treasures, their pleasures, boys going loco... Dave sighed contentedly. They sure knew how to make pop music in the past, how to be subtle, not like the mindless stuff these days.
    Nevertheless, by the time he reached the mall, he had already fallen back on Light-Eye Dove’s rendition of the Beatles. He totally agreed, that the inserts of vintage 1990’s trance samples into
Tomorrow Never Knows
did add something.
    He parked his car on the minus fourth level and took the elevator to the first floor of the mall. As the doors of the lift opened, he entered the world of shining, warm, plastic safety.
    Fashionable families, fashionable couples, and fashionable groups of students moved with the easy grace of people being in a place where they truly belonged.
    A group of almost identical schoolgirls with heavy makeup, curly purple and black hair, and shiny chains acting as belts for their pants, giggled at David as he passed them. He looked about for the cafe.
    Intertwining smells of perfume and natural soaps tickled his nostrils. His eyes located the cafe—
Brown X-Tasy
—and there was a neon sign above the entrance, a blue coffee cup with three rising wisps of smoke.
    He passed a stand of lipsticks, navigated through a group of bleached women clustered around a fake nail stand, turned by the shelves displaying sweets and gums, and was there.
    He entered the cafe and looked around. All tables were taken but one. For hormonal reasons beyond his control, his attention immediately focused on a group of pale blond teenage girls sitting with very straight backs around a stern looking older woman.
    In another age , the way they were dressed, especially the older woman, would make David think morals have fallen so low, that a madam was publicly and shamelessly displaying her underage flock.
    Fortunately, they were obviously a gymnastics or dance team with their trainer. Foreigners from Russia, Sweden, or something like that. Maybe they were just bleached too.
    The madam caught his eye and deliberately wiped her lips with her fingers. Her flock of girls also turned to see who she was looking at. Quickly averting his gaze David made his way to the line at the counter.
    He surveyed the rest of the customers. There was another table populated by a half-dozen schoolgirls, near it—a table of a half-dozen schoolboys. The girls were playfully trying to get the attention of the boys, who gruffly pretended to concentrate on man talk.
    Two elderly couple occupied two tables, and another table housed a youngish couple of about thirty.
    At the other four occupied tables sat three single men and one single woman. Of the men, one was white, one was an east Asian and one was brown.
    It was Dave’s turn to order. He asked for a double coffee with milk and went to the other side of the bar to wait for it. There he discreetly took out his notebook and looked at the name of the person he was meeting. Phalak Chippada.
    â€œPhalak Chippada,” he repeated soundlessly to himself. “Chippada, Chippada.”
Probably a Hindu. Maybe an Arab. Maybe an Arab-Italian.
He grinned at the thought.
    An effeminate youth with heavily gelled