The Shoplifter

THE SHOPLIFTER

“I saw you,” the man shouted, and it seemed as if he didn’t care if the entire store or the whole world heard him. “You put the lipstick in your purse. I saw you.”

 “Not true,” the woman said.

She was blonde, perhaps forty, well dressed in a grey business suit, her five feet eight frame held erect, as if the man’s words were having no effect whatsoever on her.

“Yes,” he shouted again, “you did so, I saw you. And when you saw me, you put it back.”

“Not true,” she said, as the clerk placed her groceries in her recycled green bag.

The man seemed to be a far cry from what a store security guard should look like: he was dressed in a faded, tight fitting t-shirt, blue jeans, a cap pulled over his forehead, both the cap and the shirt with the insignia of the Toronto Blue Jays. His thick, black kinky hair showed through the side of the cap. No uniform for him: he was undercover.

“You are not welcomed back here in this store again,” he said.

His voice was raised even higher than before, as if he were an actor trying to project his speech on stage to the back of the theatre. He looked around, as if to ensure that his entire audience was paying attention. He seemed to be familiar with crescendos and diminutions.  

“Not true,” she said, continuing to avoid his gaze, focussing instead on the clerk packing her groceries in the second bag.

 “If you come back here, you will not be served,” the security man said, his voice now increasing evermore in intensity. “And if you’re caught shoplifting, you will be turned over to the police.”

“Not true,” she said.

The clerk had remained aloof to goings on and now she completed the transaction, pulled out the cash register slip and turned it over to the woman. The woman placed her two shopping bags in her cart and walked away.

The man watched her as she made her exit, then he turned away and headed to the office in the mezzanine.

“Not true,” the woman continued to mutter all the way to the exit.

The woman proceeded to the parking lot, opened the trunk with her remote control and placed her two bags inside. She reached into the trunk and pulled out a bag, taking it to the driver’s side of the car.

Inside the car, she pulled out a laptop from the bag and powered it. In a few seconds her computer screen came alive with icons. She clicked on a program and waited for it to populate. When it did, she started to enter information. Later she would transmit it to head office.

Under the field for Resolution, she entered: Test successfully completed. Store meets all requirements for security validation.

She pulled out her Blackberry, found the address for the next store and started her car.