“Huh,” Lilly muttered to herself. “Would you look at that?”
She had gotten used to not seeing any new faces for days at a time. The Mas Suenos Motel was about as popular as an ice pop in a snowstorm. And yet, only minutes after the middle-aged alien hunters had checked out, here came another car barreling into the motel’s parking lot. Red Chevy Malibu, Florida plates -- there was no way it wasn't a rental, which was a rarity unto itself around there. Swell, Nevada wasn’t exactly Branson, Missouri when it came to travel hot spots. While tourists weren’t unheard of, most people who wound up in Swell were either lost or looking to get that way. She didn’t know what would compel a person to drive all the way out to Swell in a rental. There was no nearby airport, no shopping malls or outlet stores. The nearby gas station barely ever even had oatmeal pies.
On the other hand, the other two, the alien hunters who never got closer together than two feet apart, had seemed normal enough; Lilly wondered if she might be letting herself get too judgemental. Maybe not everyone who rolled into the Mas Suenos Motel was a whackjob. Then again, Lilly reconsidered, at checkout, Hillary couldn’t quit asking, in a hurried kind of whisper, if anything strange had happened to Lilly the night before, not letting up even after Lilly had explained, in any number of different ways, that her evening had been perfectly normal, thank you very much. And the guy, well he was a little bit of a slouch and a little bit of a slob, and Lilly couldn’t help but think he looked like someone who would rather hold it in than ask where the nearest bathroom was.
Out from the Malibu came a man and a woman, both dressed identically. Both shaped identically, too. They were hulking, lumbering masses of muscle, only further accentuated by the tight grey polo shirts they wore tucked into their tight navy slacks. A purple logo, indiscernible from Lilly’s distance, was their only form of adornment. No sunglasses, earrings, watches, or necklaces.
It took a moment, but then it came to Lilly. Mall cops. Dystopian mall cops. What the past thought the present’s mall cops would look like. Beefy, brawny, and brainless. Whatever else it did, this new pair did not alter Lilly’s decision to judge harshly, judge quickly, and judge often.
“Welcome to the Mas --”
The man cut her off with his hand as if he were a traffic cop and her words had just lost the signal.
“Sullivan,” he said, pointing to himself first and his partner second. “Pacheco.”
Never one to be upstaged when it comes to mimicking Tarzan, Lilly mimed him.
“Lilly,” she said, pointing at herself first and her dingy surroundings second. “Mas Suenos Motel.”
“We’re looking for some people,” he sneered. The look on Pacheco’s face suggested she let Sullivan do most of the talking, and not because he was any good at it, but because she wasn’t interested in wasting her breath.
“We’re fresh out of people,” Lilly replied. She could tell she was pushing up against something harsh, perhaps dangerous. Their eyes were cold and unkind. This fact, though, seemed to make Lilly more, not less, combative. “Plenty of rooms, though. Well, like six rooms that are worth staying in. Could I interest you in one of our six rooms?”
Lilly wondered what it would take to provoke a word out of Pacheco, and what might follow next if she were to speak.
“Two people in particular,” Sullivan went on. “A man and a woman.”
“How about that? I’ve got a set of those standing right in front of me.”
It was a snake. Where there was usually emblazoned a lion or a lobster or grizzly bear, their polo shirts had a purple snake wrapped around a stylized planet Earth. It was a brand Lilly wasn’t familiar with.
“Hey!”
Lilly’s eyes darted back up to meet Sullivan’s.
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“We’re going to need you to quit it with the games. We’re with the government.”
If Sullivan thought snapping at her or evoking the government would make Lilly more pliant, he was in for an awful surprise. They’d worn their welcome out two words in. He was looking for the road to redemption but had gotten off at the path to perdition instead.
“Where are your badges?”
Sullivan made a sound like a laugh, only dryer, crustier.
“This isn’t the movies. We don’t go around flashing our badges to get things done. We don’t need to.”
“Well, it certainly isn’t by saying please and thank you either, is it?”
It wasn’t pride that made her act this way. She didn’t take herself or this dismal little motel seriously enough to warrant pride. But neither would she abide by unencumbered boorishness, by undue confidence, by unwarranted rudeness. What had she ever done to these two to be treated like the help? What did she owe them, anyway?
“Your books. We need to see your books.” Lilly was surprised to hear Pacheco’s voice. It was higher, lighter than she would have expected. It wasn’t friendly -- it wasn’t even in the same neighborhood as friendly. It was still as sharp as a spear, only its tip had been dipped in something deceptively sweet. Pacheco was more loquacious than her partner, but only slightly, much like a frog is more frog-like than a toad is.
It hadn’t escaped Lilly’s attention that she was severely outnumbered. It was two against one, and either one of them could squish her head like a paper cup. Lilly had little recourse to call the cops, either: the county was too big to get anyone out to the Motel in less than an hour, by which time the future mall cops could surely find lots of ways to make her hurt. And if they were with the government, it was even less likely she’d find any succor with the podunk local police.
Yes, she was convinced she was on the side of right and yes righteousness had certainly served her well in the past. But, when push came to shove, she knew she was dangerously close to being pushed, shoved -- and worse.
“Of course. I’ll just need to see a warrant.”
Sullivan and Pacheco, they didn’t have righteousness. Muscles, yes, but not righteousness. Nor being right ever weighed heavily on them. They weren’t acting out of joy, either. They weren’t the husky pulling the sled for the joy of sled pulling but the bee chasing after nectar by dint of dumb loyalty. This was their job and, much like the bee, they might just be willing to die doing it. Because it was their job.
Sullivan had to clear his throat. He was unaccustomed to this much hemming and hawing. He was more familiar with quick and absolute acquiescence, immediate surrender, often followed by an apology, as if he were the aggrieved.
“We don’t do, uh, warrants either.”
“Right. No warrants. No badges. You sure do operate according to a unique set of rules.”
“We have,” Pacheco offered,” a unique mandate.”
“And what’s that, exactly?”
“Safeguarding the Earth.”
After that line, Lilly half-expected one of the two of them to reveal a cape or a tight-fitting unitard. What a crock. What half-baked message board did these crawl out from, anyway, she wondered.
“Look. I don’t know who you are --”
“Sullivan,” Sullivan said, pointing at himself first, again, and then at his partner, again, “Pacheco.”
“Right. Scratch that. I know who you are. I know you, apparently, work for the government. And I know that you think you have a right to look at our books because you think someone you’re after stayed here.”
“Last night, in fact,” Pacheco added.
“That’s all well and good, but unless I see a warrant or I get hauled in front of a judge, I’m not turning over anything to anybody. I may be a Physical Therapy major, but I’ve taken ACLU seminars. I know my rights.”
Sullivan leaned over and whispered something to Pacheco. She considered his words briefly before solemnly nodding.
“We need to know their names. Your guests from last night. And we have ways of getting their names that are guaranteed to be unpleasant for you.”
Truth be told, Lilly had not made it to a single one of those ACLU seminars, though she had had the purest, most genuine intention of going and had crafted a good number of excuses were anyone to ask why she hadn’t attended. Sullivan and Pacheco had called her bluff, although she had one final ace up her sleeve. Or in her pocket, as it were.
Faster than the two goons could say plastered all over the internet, Lilly had her phone pulled out and her favorite social media app open.
“Hey guys, this is Lilly Chandy and, as long as the WiFi holds up, I’m going to be streaming my encounter with these two very interesting people who claim they are ‘so-called’ cops, or something. One second, let me flip the camera around.”
Sullivan and Pacheco quickly pulled away, as if they were vampires and Lilly’s phone had let in a roomful of light. The only things they were missing were sharp teeth and a Transylvanian accent.
“Say hi! So far, we’ve got, let’s see….38 viewers. But the count is climbing!”
All 38, no, make that 39…40, 40 of Lilly’s viewers caught only the briefest glimpse of two very large gray polo-clad torsos before they quickly hightailed it back to their red rental Chevy Malibu. None of the…46 viewers would have caught more than a hint of their faces, though they might have heard Lilly yell goodbye to Sullivan and Pacheco by name. The most discerning of Lilly’s ….51 viewers might have caught one last thing, though, before she ended the live stream and returned her phone to her pocket. It was a business card, the same gray color. It had fallen out of one of their pockets during the retreat. On one side, the purple snake motif. On the other, a phone number --- no name, no context.
Lilly only discovered the card much later. She had plenty to do. First, she had to assure anyone who had been watching that she was fine, at least for the time being. She gave them her location and a detailed description of Sullivan and Pacheco. Then, she took one last look at the sparse info she had collected from Sam and Hillary before deleting their records entirely.
“What kind of mess have you two gotten in?” she mumbled to herself before having something of a frightening epiphany. “What kind of mess have you two gotten me in?”