Neither Howie nor I could raise the three on either Betsy's or Julie's cell phone. With each unsuccessful try my panic loomed larger until I could feel the perspiration run down my neck. My wife and I had promised each other to remain constantly in phone contact after the close calls in New Hampshire. The mall. Where in hell was a local mall? I rushed to the front desk in a panic with Howie on my heels like a following puppy!

There were people in the lobby, ahead of me but I blurted out my question like a third grader with a bladder problem.

"The mall; where's the mall from here?" A blue haired old lady with a walker and her mate hauling an oxygen tank looked at me as If I was the Boston strangler. "Sorry, my wife is missing and in danger. This is an emergency!" I've found over reaction produces results, a lesson from my tip-line experiences. Thankfully, most times people react rather than ask questions.

"There are three'" answered a clerk with an accent from a country I couldn't fine on a map and a name tag that said Pual. "The closest one is Paseo Neuvo. It's downtown and has it has Abecrombie and Fitch and some other stores . . ."

I cut him off. "Would you drive there if you were a tourist?" I tried to demonstrate the panic I felt.

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"There's also La Cumbre Plaza on South Hope, it has Sears, Macy's and Vons. It's very large. Loreto Plaza Shopping Center up on State Street isn't a large . . ."

"The La Cumbre one; that sound most likely; do you have a phone number?" He gave me another bewildered look. I wanted to shout something like Dracula is out of his casket and has a thirst for my wife's A-negative blood, but I bit my tongue and begged that this was truly an emergency.

The walker-lady intervened. "Go ahead and help the young man. We're retired. Howie thanked her while I practically jumped over the counter to read over the distressed clerk's shoulder as his fingers plodded over the computer keys. The mall's site came up with a phone number he quickly dialed.

"Ask for security," I said. Howie was trying to inform the geriatric customers of our plight while the clerk, apparently speaking with a switchboard, complied with my directive. He handed the phone to me as a manager or hotel big-wig came out of the back to check on the crises.

It was the sound I hated more on a telephone that Henri Mancini's version of Theme from Moon Glow or any other top one hundred hits of elevator music was, 'would you please hold'? After an interminable wait a human voice interrupted.




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