In the cramped office above Returns, Tony, an Assistant Manager, squints at a bank of CCTV monitors. He stubs out an unfiltered Pall Mall and scribbles with a golf pencil on a notepad. The office reeks like stale laundry but he can't smell it anymore.
The outside line rings, and he picks up. "Yessir, roger that. I'll be ready when you are." He taps the lighter in the pocket of his Guns and Roses t-shirt.
Register 4. Backed up. At checkout a college girl is yapping on her cellphone, oblivious. Behind her an older woman is buying a table lamp with a cream shade wrapped in plastic. Next up is a guy in sweats and a fur hat with flaps.
Last in line is a tall dude with a mass of curls piled on top of his head. He's buying a backpack that's stuffed with other goods: a green blanket, a white tablecloth. Is he going on a picnic?
Blake, a pimply high schooler, strolls by in a neon green vest with Asset Protection labelled across the back, a walkie talkie clipped to his belt.
Lynn, the cashier at Register 4, brushes a swath of feathery hair out of her face and flips the switch to make the big red number 4 overhead start to flash.
Tony glances at the monitor for Register 6. The suspect could be anyone. There's a mom with her toddler riding in the cart; she's cradling a bouquet of lilies in a plastic sheath. For a funeral, a birthday?
A hipster in plaid pj bottoms strolls by with a Target red-and-white bullseye bag dangling from one hand, his earbuds plugged in, eyes glancing down at his receipt.
The local cops told Tony to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. The story about scammers conning people into buying gift cards is all over the news. They call up and pretend to be their bank and say the gifts cards are needed to clear up fraud on their checking account. He wishes he had facial recognition software, that would be cool.
On "48 Hours" he saw a case in Brazil where they caught a fugitive on the run for 30 years. They linked her high school photo to a newspaper picture of her judging a tango contest. The neighbours said she was a sweet old lady who walked her shaggy dog every morning. Her boyfriend, who visited weekends, had a long white ponytail like an albino snake. It took investigators 10 minutes to make the match.
Monique at Register 8 looks bored; she leans back against the terminal and cleans her glasses with a tissue. She says something under her breath to Ashley on 7, who erupts in laughter and bends over in her red vest.
There's a knock at the door and Tony swivels. "Yeah?"
Blake shuffles in and sits at the other desk. He flips open a box of pizza, slips out a slice of pepperoni and bites off the pointy end.
"Anything?" asks Tony.
"Naw." Blake wipes grease off his chin with a napkin. "Pretty slow for a Saturday."
"Probably the heat."
"The cops say anything about who we're looking for exactly?"
"Nope. Could be anybody."
"Huh. You want a slice?"
"Not right now, I gotta keep my eye on things." He swivels back to face the monitors and sparks a Pall Mall. In the bottom row, a camera flickers on the coffee shop.
At a corner table, a serious man in a knit cap is hunched over his laptop. Wearing a crisp, white buttoned-up shirt and black vest, he looks like a blackjack dealer.
Nearby, a young girl in a pink cartoon t-shirt is chatting at a table with her friend whose spiky orange hair is peeking out from his hoodie. In front of each of them sit enormous Burger King cups.
A woman goes by juggling a soccer ball as she lugs two shopping bags over one shoulder.
Register 5. Jeri is checking out a big guy with bare pink arms in a black leather vest, with black bands on his wrists, who looks like a survivalist. He's buying paper towel and kitty litter, along with salad dressing, oregano and a couple cans of chili. He has thick black glasses and a chin beard like Lincoln. Weird.
Tony grabs the store phone and rings Jeri. He can see her hold up a finger to tell Survival Guy to wait a sec while she picks up the red phone.
"Jeri, it's Tony."
"Yeah, duh."
"Is this guy using any gift cards? We're on the lookout for a scam."
"No, he's got his wallet out with cash."
Tony can see it splayed open on the conveyor belt. "10-4."
Tony is hoping for a big bust, something to boost him up to Manager. In the Brazil case, the woman turned out to be part of a terrorist network responsible for a spate of violent robberies that netted them over 2.3 million dollars. In her apartment, in the basement of a grey apartment block, they found grenades and a stash of Kalashnikov assault rifles. Her arrest was announced as a law enforcement masterpiece.
Who knows, thinks Tony, what the gift card scammers are really up to.
A drive-through expediter, Juan, in a neon-yellow raincoat, goes to help out at Register 4. A couple hands over a three-drawer storage unit. On top goes a 12-pack of toilet paper. They're both stylish, him with a thin moustache, her in cascading black curls. On the counter they balance a broom and 3×4 area rug. Could be a cover, Tony thinks.
Behind them is an elderly lady pushing a red cart, a college kid in a baseball cap who's piling his items on the counter, and a middle-aged dude in a vest and sweater. He slides a pack of AA batteries off their hook.
Tony hears a wail of police sirens pull up in the lot. This could be it, he thinks. He throws open the office door and bounds down the narrow stairs.
"Code Red!" he barks at Denise in Returns. "Call it!"
She picks up the intercom, and her voice blares out through the static. "Code Red, Code Red!"
The numbers above the registers flick off, and customers scatter down the aisles in panic. Cans clatter to the floor.
Tony shouts to Duane in the entryway, who's clanging some shopping carts into line. "Watch the front door! Lockdown!"
Tony fumbles in his pocket for the key to the automatic doors. Red and blue lights are cascading across the facade. He sees two cop cars angled at the curb, they're getting out with pistols drawn.
Tony flings himself against the glass, arms up, walkie talkie grasped in his right hand, and screams something the cops later testify they couldn't understand, that they thought the walkie talkie was a weapon, and they made a split-second decision in the heat of conflict. Thank god the lighter in his chest pocket deflected the bullet.
That’s the official version. The ruse with rubber bullets and breakaway glass worked perfectly. While Tony and the police played out their dramatic confrontation for onlookers' iPhones, Blake and a pair of plainclothes detectives swooped in to nab the Stylish Couple, wrenching them onto the tile floor. Inside the storage unit were handfuls of gift cards they'd extorted from folks to Apple, Amazon and eBay that they could flip. Their arrest led to busting an international drug ring and global headlines.
Fast forward six months. Under a red umbrella, Antonio sprawls back in a lounger on Copacabana Beach in Rio. He raises his sunglasses to find the end of the straw dipped in a caipirinha. He takes a long sip, nudging aside the wedges of lime. The smoke from a Pall Mall beside him spirals into the air. To his right, atop Mount Corovado, the white statue of Christ the Redeemer blazes in the sun, its arms raised high in supplication.
It's a miracle, Antonio thinks, how his life took a sharp left. As an investigator for the Brazilian Polica Federal, his speciality is art theft, employing the latest facial ID software. Right now he's on the trail of a Hans Holbein the Elder grabbed in a snatch and run from a Utrecht house museum.
To make sure he stays anonymous himself, he used some of the Target reward money to alter his features, a little off the nose, tucked ears.
He brushes some sandy grit off his cheek and grins, the crystalline blue waves foaming on the shore.
Gary Duehr has taught creative writing for institutions including Boston University, Lesley University, and Tufts University. His MFA is from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. In 2001 he received an NEA Fellowship, and he has also received grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the LEF Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Journals in which his writing has appeared include Agni, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, Cottonwood, Hawaii Review, Hotel Amerika, Iowa Review, North American Review, and Southern Poetry Review. His books include Point Blank (In Case of Emergency Press), Winter Light (Four Way Books) and Where Everyone Is Going To (St. Andrews College Press).
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