Chapter 18
WE drove for about another forty-five minutes before Cal pulled off the road to set the stage for part two of the day’s plan. And this time we’d stopped at a McDonald’s, which was a great relief since I desperately needed to pee.
Cal tucked the SUV in behind a dumpster and shut it down. “Whadda you guys wanna eat?” he asked. “You’ve both been seen already, so you should keep a low profile.”
“I have to use the bathroom,” I interjected. “Like now.”
I whipped off my seatbelt, threw open the door, and sprinted toward Mickey D’s. And as I burst into the grungy ladies’ room, an amusing thought occurred to me: I was in love with Mickey D. Mick Donovan. I could already see how the coincidence might lead to some humorous misunderstandings, or, at the very least, some lowbrow entertainment. So for however long it took me to empty my bladder (which seemed like about a week, by the way), I dreamt up funny Mickey D sayings I could add to the graffiti that already littered the stall—if I only had a pen.
And when I finally exited the bathroom, the Goofball Goons were right there in the narrow hallway, poised to pounce on me. “What’re you tryin’ to do, get us caught?” Cal rumbled under his breath. “We make the decisions. Got it?” He reached for my arm, like he was going to drag me from Mickey D’s by force. But I pulled back before he even laid a finger on me.
“Should I have peed my pants?” I asked sarcastically.
“No. But we have procedures. We operate below the radar,” Cal said. “You’re gonna get us all nailed if you can’t follow simple directions.”
“He’s right, you know,” Donny agreed.
“Fine. Get me a chocolate shake. I’ll be in the car.” Sheesh, for supposedly bad-ass criminals, these guys sure got jittery over the tiniest things. I mean, give me a break.
I returned to the SUV for a few good minutes of pouting before the Goofball Goons showed their faces again. And to be honest, the whole drag-Flora-along-on-a-crime-spree thing was starting to get on my nerves. Because if something didn’t change—and fast—I was going to miss my last opportunity to see Mick for God only knew how long.
“Here,” Cal said, thrusting the shake at me.
I smiled real bitchy, so he’d know my patience was wearing thin. “Thanks a lot,” I snipped. After all, there was only so much nonsense I could take from these idiots. If it weren’t for the fact that they were Mick’s cousins, I would’ve made an incredible escape by now for sure. But as crazy as this sounds, I wanted to impress Donny and Cal; I wanted them to like me. I guess I thought that if they liked me, maybe Mick would keep liking me too. You know, the whole blood-is-thicker-than-water thing. I didn’t want to be the water; I wanted to be the blood.
With a sick sucking sound that just about gagged me, Donny slurped up the end of whatever he was drinking. “So who’s on package duty?” he asked Cal, when the last possible drop of liquid had passed his lips.
“You and Flora.”
“Package duty?” I asked.
“Somebody’s gotta prep the box for return,” Cal explained. “Take out the merchandise. Replace it with a decoy. Wrap it back up again, nice and neat.”
“Why us?” Donny complained.
“’Cause I’m logistics, remember?” Cal said, like it should have been obvious. “And you guys are labor.”
Well, that seemed right—at least the part about Cal not being labor, that was. “Come on, Donny,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”
At the back of the SUV, Donny and I began “package duty” by weighing the stolen Blu-ray player on a postal scale. Then Donny carefully slit the box open with a razor knife and removed the contents. I could tell by his skill and speed that he’d performed the operation many times before, probably every time the Goofball Goons had run this particular scam.
As for me, my job was to re-pack the Blu-ray player in a plain cardboard box for shipping to an unsuspecting eBay customer. And while I did that, Donny filled the original box back up with bricks and Styrofoam peanuts, pausing occasionally to weigh the thing as he went along. I guess the closer he got to the original weight of the box, the smaller the chance that anyone behind the returns counter would get suspicious.
“You can do this part,” he said, handing me a big roll of clear tape. “I’m not that good at getting it on straight.”
He chuckled a little, probably at his supposed impairment. But I laughed at him saying getting it on straight. How mature.
As precisely as possible, I stuck a new layer of tape over the old one and asked, “How’s this?”
Donny squinted. “Good,” he said. “I think we’re done.” He shifted the real Blu-ray player to a safe spot, thrust the decoy at me, and slammed the tailgate shut.
And that’s when it first hit me that I was about to knowingly commit a crime. I mean, sure, I could claim I’d been influenced, coerced, threatened—all of which was technically true. But I knew I was making a choice. And the strange thing was, the stealing didn’t really bother me that much. After all, I’d already done it once, even though I hadn’t known I was committing a crime at the time. It was a genius move by the Goofball Goons, really: They’d desensitized me to criminal activity.
But even though I was kind of desensitized, I was still super nervous. A million times more nervous than before. Because for the most part, I’m a pretty sucky liar. So pulling off a crime without giving myself away was bound to be a monumental challenge. And before I was ready, of course, Cal tripped the blinker and whipped into the Garett’s Department Store lot.
“Garett’s again?” I asked. The idea made me squirm.
“Yep,” Cal said. “Ready?”
Right at the curb, he stopped to let me out. “But…isn’t this stupid?” I complained. “The same store twice in one day?” As far as I was concerned, I’d already tested my luck enough with Garett’s.
“It’s a different store,” Donny pointed out. “We’re over two hours from where we were this morning.”
Okay, I’d give him that. It wasn’t the exact same store. But it was still the same chain. They couldn’t be so lax about security that I’d slip through the cracks again, could they?
“What if I get caught?” I asked.
Cal huffed, “You won’t. Just play it like you did before. Now get out of here. You’re drawing attention to us.”
I took a deep breath, hopped out of the SUV, and dragged the box out behind me. And as I bumped the door shut with my hip, Cal pulled away from the curb, leaving me naked, exposed, transparent, as if my private thoughts were scrawled across my forehead in permanent marker. Everything about me screamed: I am a liar. I am a criminal. Don’t trust me.
Still…
I stepped through the automatic doors and slowly proceeded to the returns counter, where I waited in line behind a plump young woman returning a defective vacuum cleaner. From her shopping cart, her baby goo-gooed and ga-gaed at me, which, I must say, made me feel like a total creeper. I mean, what kind of poor excuse for a human being would even consider doing what I was preparing to do anyway?
The good thing about the wait, though, was that it gave me an opportunity to size up the returns clerk. And even though the guy was no sweet, old grandma, he looked pleasant enough and sort of dopey, which almost always worked to my advantage. I could only hope my experience with him would be painless, lucrative, and exceedingly brief. Because honest to God, I felt like I was about to hurl.
“Hello. How may I help you?” the returns guy asked, as I stepped up to the plate.
“Hi…uh…I need to return this,” I sputtered, sliding the box across the counter.
“Do you have the sales receipt?”
“Oh, yes,” I lied. “Hold on.” I patted my hips, like the nonexistent paper was just going to pop out of my pocket and save the day. “Shoot,” I said, frowning. “I must’ve left it at home. Is that a problem?”
The guy was unreadable. Honestly, I couldn’t tell if
he was buying my feeble acting job, or he was onto me. “It would be better if you had it,” he said flatly. “But sometimes we can make exceptions—in certain cases.”
“That’d be great!” I gushed, like I assumed my case would qualify.
“What’s the problem with this, um, Blu-ray disc player?” he asked.
I shot him a charming smile. “Actually there’s nothing wrong with it,” I said. “My parents bought it for me for my birthday—I just turned sixteen—and my boyfriend also got me one too. So I don’t need them both. That’s why I want to return on this one.”
Okay…way too much information; I was rambling like a motor-mouth with ADD.
The returns guy just stared at me like I was a mental freak. “All right. Let me check with my manager. You said you have the receipt at home, correct?”
“Uh-huh,” I lied again.
He shook his head. “Because we’ve been having some problems with fraud lately, so I’m not sure we’ll be able to help you without the receipt. But I’ll give it a try. You can wait over there,” he said, pointing to a metal bench on the wall near the photo machine. “I’ll be right back.”
As he ducked through the door to work his magic, I tried to squeak out a thank you, but my vocal cords were paralyzed. After all, he’d just mentioned fraud. To me. The fraudster.
For what seemed like enough time for the returns guy to build a Blu-ray player from scratch, I waited in silent terror. I mean, what the hell was taking so long? This was supposed to be a quick operation. In and out. Instead, it had turned into a torture-fest that was going to kill me for sure. And I wasn’t the only one getting antsy either; a steady stream of customers had piled up in the rope-maze to wait for the Incredible Disappearing Refund Dispenser.
And to be honest, I was on the verge of disappearing myself, when the returns guy finally graced us with his presence again. But the peculiar thing was, he didn’t even look in my direction. He just pushed the fake Blu-ray player aside and stared straight ahead at the next customer like I didn’t exist.
Determined to reclaim my spot in line, I stood up and took a step toward the counter. And that’s when I heard the most frightening sentence of my life.
“Excuse me,” the gruff voice said, “we’re going to need you to come with us.” Before I could even respond, the muscle-bound brute and his scrawny assistant cornered me. “We’re store security, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.”
The brute nodded to a well-dressed woman who had suddenly appeared behind the returns counter.
My mind was blank. “I...I…”
By the reaction of the security guard, it was entirely possible I was shaking like a leaf. “Just relax and follow us,” he said. “If you cooperate, there won’t be any trouble.”
Now I’ve never had a near-death experience before, but I’m pretty sure it would be exactly like this. Because my mind had inexplicably detached from my body, and I was watching myself march into the Pit of Doom as if my life were a flickering reel-to-reel movie.
“But…what?” I tried, still unable to form a coherent sentence.
The men led the way and the woman followed behind me, lugging the box I’d tried to return. Meanwhile, I shuffled along on autopilot as our little troupe slugged through the Associates Only door, up a wide, industrial staircase, and into a bare, claustrophobic cubicle of a room.
“Sit down,” the scrawny security guard ordered, pointing to a weathered wooden chair in the corner.
All three of my tormentors squeezed into the narrow space beside me, which made me feel like a million invisible bugs were crawling under my skin.
“Would you care to tell us exactly what’s going on here?” the muscle-bound brute asked.
I just blinked uncontrollably.
The brute took the Blu-ray box from the woman and dropped it on an empty desk, where he zipped a sharp tool—maybe a razor blade—across the tape I’d so meticulously applied.
“You don’t know anything about this?” he asked, pulling a single brick from the Styrofoam peanuts. “I find that hard to believe.”
My mouth refused to move. It was as if I’d swallowed a bucketful of stones, and they were creeping up my throat to choke the life out of me. The last thing I remember is an out of control sensation, kind of like falling off a cliff in a dream. Then things went blank—that is, until I recovered from fainting and the police hauled me off, handcuffs and all.