Fields Where They Lay

It s the week before Christmas in Tinsel Town, and the Edgerton Mall isn t exactly full of holiday cheer, despite its two Santas. The mall is a fossil of an industry in decline; many of its stores are closed, and to make matters worse, there is a rampant shoplifting problem. Enter burglar Junior Bender, the unwilling fixer for LA s various underworld bosses. The murderous Russian gangster who owns the mall hires Junior to look into the shoplifting problem for him. But Junior s surveillance operation doesn t go well: within two days, two people are dead. It s obvious that shoplifting is the least of the mall s problems. Meanwhile, Junior must confront his own deep-seated melancholy at the very notion of Christmas both present and past."