Mall Crime Fiction, with Dick Wisely

Along a lone stretch of highway just outside of the city lies a place, a big place, where spending is king, and all the rest are jokers. It's a metropolis of commercialism that screams out "crime" like a two-dollar bullhorn, or one cheaply made out of construction paper. My name is Dick, and I'm a retail enforcement officer. That's why I'm here.

I work the beat known as The Mall. It's a big joint with lots of fancy stores--stores with crepe paper displays, and bold neon signs. People come here to spend the greenbacks that burn holes in their pockets--much like an imitation Zippo. It's a living, or at least that's what the dame says who signs my cheques.

Every day is a chapter, and every chapter has folded dog-eared corners, like an old Louis L'Amour novel...only this ain't no Western, and the hero doesn't ride off into the sunset. No, the tales I write are fact, or as close to fact as you're likely to get if fact hasn't bathed in a week, and has been wearing the same old unwashed sweatshirt.

Some of these stories ain't pretty to read, and even the pretty ones are wearing too much make-up. I'm warning you now that the metaphors will be as bizarre as a fruit-smoothie in Winter, and the dialogue will make your church-going grandmother's cheeks blush, but not from the pinching or from the rosacea. You're probably better off reading the funny pages, because these stories don't have the happy endings you're gonna see in a comic strip. In my tales, Calvin doesn't always get right up after hitting the tree with his sled, and Beetle Bailey doesn't always make it out of the infirmary.

In the weeks to come, you'll know what it's taken to keep The Mall safe, and you'll be surprised to learn what goes on in the seedy underbelly of retail shopping...and I'm not talking about the food court, or the vendors' lounge.

My name is Dick, and at The Mall, I'm a mall dick.