Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 48, No. 1, January 2003

I said, “What’s a — what did you call her? A Christmas something?”

“A Christmas Temp. This is our third year — my first running the program. The Speedway Corporation keeps a roster of mostly local neighborhood people — usually housewives and college students — who want part-time holiday work. So when the various stores in the mall need extra personnel for the Christmas rush they call us — me — and I send them over someone from my list who meets their requirements. It’s a really smart program: it saves the stores a lot of screening and paperwork, it gives us a boost with the local community, and practically all the wages paid get spent here for Christmas presents.” She drew on her cigarette.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sounds great.”

“It was Judy’s idea,” she replied and made a defeated, fatalistic shrug. “Well, I’ve got to get back to biz. Nice meeting you, Mr. Carr.” She drifted out the door.

I did the same a couple of minutes later, after I’d parked the security log and called to leave a message for Jim Sammons to find out more for me about the car stolen on the night of the hit-and-run. On my way across the mall to talk with Frank Malin in the security office I happened to see Barb Becker again as she walked along, engaged in a heated conversation with what seemed to me to be an unlikely companion, an aggressively stupid-looking man in a slicked-back ducktail haircut, denim jacket, and corduroy shirt. He was about thirty years old, but with a hard, weathered face, and the young woman seemed to have lost all her chipper good cheer in talking to him. She looked more than a little unhappy, in fact, and I couldn’t help speculating why, if only to divert my thoughts from the hurrying mass of shoppers and the loud, unrelenting blare of seasonal music that was long on Rudolph, Santa, and presents, but short on everything else.

In contrast to the retail area, the security office seemed almost like an island of calm when I stepped inside. Frank Malin greeted me in front of the three-person staff with an air of forced cordiality, asked after my brother Johnny, who at that time was a detective captain at Homicide Central, and led me back into a room that could have passed for a wartime interrogation chamber but was really his office.

“Pull up a chair,” he said, pointing to the only available candidate, a wobbly secretarial number tucked in a corner. “And be careful. It tips over backwards real easily. One of the many amenities afforded the head of security.” He waved roundly at the rest of the room — a metal desk, an inexpensive-grade executive chair, a file cabinet. It reminded me of my own office in a way, only my furnishings were older and my room had a window.

With his large, angular face and broad, powerful shoulders, Malin gave the impression of being hard and square. He lit a cigarette, then he said, “Well, you’ve seen the log. You’re the one comes in when we’re too stupid to catch on. So, who do I detain?”

“Today is Wednesday,” I said in reply. “What are you and the guards watching for?”

He thought for a few seconds. “I’d say... we’re watching for a gang of professionals. Slick and careful. They go for big stuff, they work together somehow — hand the stuff from one to another, maybe — and they’ve got some way, maybe a lead-lined bag, to get by the security sensors in some of the stores. Either that or they’re invisible.”

Suddenly, and for no reason I wanted to name, I felt better. “Lead-lined bags,” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that. You realize, then, that the stores with sensors are among the big losers.”

“Well, I know they’ve complained a lot. That rat’s ass at Orchid Records — I could turn him over any day of the week for possession and probably dealing — he’s been in here screaming.”

“Yeah, he’s a jerk,” I said. It was good to have some common ground. “But my point is that six stores are bearing the brunt of the thefts.” I reeled off their names. “In fact, I’m not at all certain that the rest of the mall is being affected by this gang. What’s left on the list seems to be pretty random. Have you talked to Penney’s and Wieboldt’s?” The two anchor department stores had their own in-house security.

“Yeah. What’s-his-name over at Penney’s said they got no big problem. Wieboldt’s never tells us anything, but if something goes bad, they scream.”

“And they’ve been quiet?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “Listen. This is how it seems to shape up: this gang has picked six stores that carry medium to big ticket merchandise and figured out a way — or possibly six ways — of moving the stuff out. I’m not absolutely sure, but the pattern in the log indicates that they do it on Wednesdays and Fridays.”

He made a skeptical growling sound, then opened his copy of the log and looked through it. After a couple of minutes of cross-checking, he said, “You know — I think you’re right. What if we put all our floaters on those six stores for the rest of the day?”

“Wouldn’t hurt,” I replied. “I really came over to talk about Judy, you know.”