Читать книгу Further Adventures of "Dirty Joe" Callihan - Joe Callihan - Страница 5

(This is one of my favorites)

Oh no! He’s at it again! Yes, just like the guy before, I was being watched with deep intensity. So once again I asked Mary to watch the Department, while I did some surveillance of a suspicious character. I arrived just in time to see him stuffing several items from the Hardware Department into his pants.

Then looking over to his right, he observed me standing there. I did not approach him, nor did I say a word. I simply followed him around the store. He went into the Paint Dept. and there I was, standing and staring at him. From there, he went into the Automotive Dept. When he turned around he found me standing there, arms crossed, staring at him from five feet away. The same happened again in the Sporting Goods Department. Only by now, having known I worked for the store, he approached me and asked the following question. It almost made me laugh, as I had been able to again flag down a store Assistant, and had him watching too.

Want to know what the question was? Sure you do! “Excuse me, but do you carry handcuffs? Not the toy kind, but the real ones with a lock and key.” I answered by saying exactly what he was expecting to hear, “No, I’m afraid we don’t.” “Maybe where I had seen them was at Wal-Mart. I’ll try there.” This was his excuse to exit line, a game I was familiar with. But as I had already seen him put hardware items inside his pants pocket, I called for the Assistant I had flagged down, to make the arrest.

He never made it to Wal-Mart. He was in our security office being questioned. Like the other guy, he seemed content with the fact that he had been caught. He too cooperated in answering the questions. Then a brilliant answer to the question he had earlier asked of me came into my mind. “By the way, we have someone on the way that has a pair of those “Real handcuffs” you were looking for.” I loved the look of frustration my remark brought to his face.