Mall Crime Fiction, with Dick Wisely

I was walking my beat, the same as usual--you know the formula, put one foot in front of the other, and repeat as necessary. It was a quiet night at the mall...some would have said too quiet. But those are the same people who think silence is a loud mistress, and leaves the television on when she goes out, and has too many lights on in the house.

I was adjusting my regulation mall security uniform tie when suddenly this blonde came up to me. She was wearing a blue chiffon dress and a frown, but one of those didn't look so good on her--and the other made her hips look too big. I knew the look. A kind of sad look you only see when you've disappointed a dame, or when you find out there's no shopping carts left in the parking lot.

I'd seen this once before, it was another time and a different mall. But it had the same stink to it, a stink that doesn't leave you, even if you've been caught sleeping with stink's younger sister. There was a shopping cart scam operating, and it was annoying me more than a rock in my shoe.

The scam is simple one: some dupes are paid to walk out of the mall pushing the old four-wheelers. Just a few carts here and there, so there's no suspicion and nobody's supposed to get wise. Well wise is this nobody's middle name...well it's his last name anyhow.

The dupe takes the carts to a discreet location--an empty lot--and dumps them like Martha Stewart on trading day. The abandoned carts are then rounded-up by some thick-browed lout with a pick-up truck who gets a two-dollar bounty for each cart he "returns" to the mall. The mall needs its carts to operate, and I need the mall to pay my drycleaning bills.

So I tracked the dupe, and located the stash of carts. It was as easy as the woman at the lottery booth, and I was twice as lucky. I busted the guy with a pocket-full of quarters, dirty money used for a dirty job--and I'm not talking about the coin laundry. I located the cart-el, using a dummy cart I had fixed with some high-tech gizmos, and some low-tech smarts. That racket won't be working my mall anytime soon.

Dick Wisely ain't someone you want to mess with, unless you're a sweet-smelling retailer selling Keno tickets, and goes for a guy wearing a clean uniform.