We were standing in an empty storefront. Once it had been a large grocery store. One of the anchors in a big mall on the east side of the city. Now, like the old mall itself, it was just a gigantic empty cavern with its long front wall of glass covered with paper to keep people from peering inside. A couple of florescent light fixtures created the only light. And the three of us: myself, Frank, and Nils Nilsson, the city’s recently elected mayor, stood silently and waited for the mayor to finish reading a small file.
The mayor was very tall. Over six feet five. Very thin. With a head full of short-cropped blond hair that looked sort of bleached out. The way blond people look when they start to gray. His complexion was Nordic in that it was ruddy and gaunt at the same time. Really, the may
