Killer Pancake

No such luck. A large woman was leaning over the railing next to the escalator at the second floor landing, just above the cosmetics counter. When she straightened up, my heart sank to new depths. The last person I wanted to see at this moment was Babs Meredith Braithwaite. Even so, I might have avoided her if she hadn’t inched over so that the security guy and I collided with her on our rough arrival at the second floor. We stared at each other. Babs’s rust-colored suit trimmed with white was somewhat rumpled; her white blouse was hanging out. Her rust skirt slanted crookedly above her brown and white spectator pumps, as if the skirt were unzipped. Nor was her hair as meticulously poufed as it had been two days before. Today it looked like a windblown bird’s nest. She was clutching her purse, which was open, as if it had been hastily snatched up. She was panting. She looked as if she had just shoplifted a diamond brooch, when all she’d been doing was spying on the Mignon counter, or so I assumed. The nefarious possibility that I could sic Stan the Security Man on her occurred to me.

“There’s somebody back there,” Babs whispered in a trembly voice to Stan and me. Her hand rose toward the racks of gaily colored bathing suits. She added urgently, “Please help me.” She looked the security guy up and down. “Do you work for the store?”

“Yes,” said Stan curtly. “I’m with security.”

“There’s somebody back there!” Her cheeks were aflame, and it wasn’t blush giving the color. I tried to look around Babs’s wide body. Somebody back where?

Stan White touched my upper arm gently to guide me away from Babs and oncoming traffic spilling from the escalator. When I didn’t move, he put his hands on his hips and set his mouth in a stern frown.

Babs whimpered, “Aren’t you going to help me?”

Stan cleared his throat and pointed at me. “Are you with this woman?” he asked Babs. Confused, she shook her head. Stan concluded, firmly, “Then you’ll have to find a salesperson. I can’t help it if there’s nobody back there.”

“But,” Babs said frantically, grabbing his arm, “there’s somebody back there in the dressing room. You’ve got to come and help me.”

Stan White perked up. This interested him. “Is it a man?” he asked. “In the women’s dressing room?”

“It’s somebody behind the mirror,” insisted Babs. “I heard him cough.” Reluctantly, she released Stan’s arm.

“Lady, please.” The security fellow shook his head, “We haven’t done that kind of surveillance for years. It’s against the law.”

Babs clutched her purse. Her vivid cheeks shook with rage. “But, I’m trying to tell you …! Somebody must have broken in behind the mirrors! Aren’t you going to do anything? What kind of security guard are you anyway?”

Stan bristled. “Okay, look. I have to do something else first. Then I’ll check the dressing room, all right? Please, we need to go.”

“Go where?” she demanded shrilly. “What are you doing with this woman?”

“What we’re doing doesn’t fall under the Freedom of Information Act, lady.”

Babs Braithwaite pressed her lips together. “This …” She looked at me. What was I, exactly? “This … woman is going to be catering an important function for us this weekend. She’s also operating a booth at our Playhouse Southwest benefit, and we can’t have her—”

“When’s your party?” the security fellow asked amiably as he made a no-nonsense gesture to me to walk forward in the direction of the department store offices.

“Why, why—” babbled Babs as she hustled along beside us, past the Japanese china decorated to look like English bone, “—tomorrow,” she finished breathlessly. She slapped her purse down imperiously on a table displaying Waterford crystal. An extremely large and undoubtedly expensive vase teetered, then, miraculously, straightened.

“It’s Friday,” Stan said wearily, without giving Babs so much as a glance. “I promise not to detain her more than twenty-four hours.”

“But … this department store! What is going on—” Babs wailed, while I thought, Twenty-four hours? I don’t think so.

Stan White nudged me through a door that said SECURITY and slammed it with a satisfactory thwack on Babs Braithwaite’s indignant face. A large, imposing man sat behind a large, imposing desk. I felt like the bad kid brought before the principal. Or, since the man who stared at me with such authoritative disdain seemed to be enthroned, make that a disobedient subject tossed in front of the king. From the scowl of the seated man, it was clear he was the one who decided whether the subject was thrown to the lions or was released to work again in the fields of the sovereign.