New Jersey man caught on camera tossing ice on the floor and allegedly faking a slip and fall before filing a false insurance claim, authorities say.
He was later arrested and charged with insurance fraud. https://t.co/KCQPJh0kUw pic.twitter.com/1lOONILBrG
— ABC News (@ABC) February 1, 2019
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I personally dealt with dozens of these types of fraud slip and fall – pain and suffering – cases as a retail Big Box Loss Prevention Store, District, Regional and Corporate manager.
When there was fraud (with or without video) their pain and suffering was dealing with me.
Never paid a fraudster once in any case I got personally involved in, usually got video of them mowing their lawn, working out at their gym, one clown moving furniture from one apartment to another etc. after they were supposedly bed ridden or suffering from a back injury. Back in the day a little stealth, persistence and a camcorder was all you needed to prove they were con job liars.
If I had to I would pay a good PI rather them. It was the principle. Just sent them a copy of the video of their injury magically cured for a little while and never heard another peep from their lying parasitical lips.
Hang the bastard….
Corn Hole.
He needs some “cheater’s justice”.
That would learn him.
Entitled Baby Boomer looking to soak the younger generation… even more.
Well fuck. There goes my plan for retirement. Fuckin cameras everywhere.
Iska,
No joke…unless your in the bathroom or dressing room…don’t pick your nose…somebody can see the individual boogers.
Whenever I had fraud video like this I relentlessly pursued charges…trust me the word gets around: shoplifters, walk outs, grab and run rabbits, refund fraud artists, worthless check bouncers, till tap artists, slip and fall cons, vendor delivery fraudsters, overnight cleaning crews, the real serious threats your own employees, perverts of all types they all know through the grapevine what companies/retail stores are soft touches and who plays hardball and hits back.
I use to love coming into a new city…take over a bleeding district, region, company, a year later many of the above would learn the hard way to take the game somewhere else.
It was FUN!
I couldn’t believe they were paying me to kick ass for a living…I use to do it for FREE.
Interesting. Could loss prevention or lack thereof be the reason the big retails dominate and it so hard to compete? It must cost a few $$$ to deal with this stuff and a one store operation could be at a huge disadvantage, no?
Donkey,
Without a doubt…all the major companies have extensive Loss Prevention pyramids, they have to – to survive. Loss porevention is a fabulous, fun way to make a well paid exciting living after you move up the predator food chain a bit. You have to be a good predator…Once upon a time I was called Mark the Shark.
It’s the same in the Vending Industry, where I went as a hired gun after retail. The jelly heads who break into vending machines steal a tiny fraction of what the vending employees do. Vending never had shoplifters until the new Micromarket technology recently came out…no employees in them just kiosks. Now, the cash intense vending industry was a killing field for an experienced business gumshoe like me.
I’ve also investigated and taken out a few Loss Prevention people as well. You can get jaded as the number of dishonest employees can be staggering…based on the level of controls and opportunity. About 1/3 of companies that go bankrupt do so because their own employees stole the company out from under them and they didn’t know how to deal with them until it was too late.
This is life in a kleptocracy. When all people see is a thieving, lying, cheating political system operating without restraint or consequence what other possible outcome could be expected?
When we win we will unfortunately have to employ some rather rigid methods to illustrate the importance of common civility. The public stocks sound like a good idea for something like this.
Crooks abound.
I rather like the idea of a newfangled, as it were, stock market.
Could we pillory the miscreants too?
That was funny,
sad,
but funny.
I imagine he spent the whole night planning this, every detail….
This was published in a Retail Loss Prevention magazine in 2003. It was the opening serial in a 13 part interconnected story written for that career field in that industry.
The story line was popular at the tIme because it was 100% true. I just wrote about myself and my past and just changed all the names
SOME OF IT MIRRORS THIS VIDEO, but there was no video of the phony slip and fall…however there are other ways to investigate this type of BS con game as explained.
If anyone up votes it to read the conclusion I’ll put up the next serial of this: PAIN AND SUFFERING TRUE STORY.
If not It will go back into the mothballs of my early writing career.
THE RETAIL RIDE
PAIN AND SUFFERING IS IN AISLE 4
It had been a long time since he had visited a store on a Saturday night, let alone unannounced and dressed down, too long. As he moved among the 6 PM pre-dinner hurried mix of mostly well to do yuppie customers, the few blue collars sprinkled among them stood out like clams at a lobster bake in their sun bleached, dusty, well-worn construction garb or matching uniforms. He had heard that Cary, North Carolina, was a prosperous technocrat Mecca, a mini silicon valley bordering the Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle Park. From the number of hulking Navigators, brooding Pathfinders and polished Lexus’ in the parking lot and the mostly J. Crew and Land’s End clad customers, he believed it.
Eric Landers, Director of Assets Protection for CONCORD INC., a privately owned six-company retail group, surveyed the human beehive POS of store K-254 in the company’s KNOB HILL Food chain. After twenty-seven years in retail loss prevention, and ten as a director, Eric knew you didn’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing, just the line items of the store’s P & L tracked, trended and analyzed. The breeze blowing from KNOB HILL #254 was foul and hinted at the odor of creeping losses and according to Eric’s boss, the CFO, a year-end net profit loss that could help dim the luster of Eric’s tenuous, recession battered, 2002 year-end bonus. As a division KNOB HILL was doing fine, people would always buy food and high end pretentious markets were still paying more than anyone, but CONCORD INC’s latest prototype’s net profit was as Eric’s old Marine Gunny would say, “Hurt’in for Cert’in.”
The disastrous retail Christmas of 2001 had fueled the downsizing that had cost Eric most of his crackerjack staff. Now he was going to have to “manage by walking around” as most of the men and women he had depended on for that critical function were now keeping company with the Dot Com wunderkinds in unemployment wonderlad.
Eric casually strolled down the front end of the spotless wide aisles lined with the bounty of America. One eye casually scanning the customers milling up and down, while the other touched each cashier and searched for the Customer Service Manager (CSM) or any manager. He was alarmed when he noticed the elevated glass fishbowl perch of the Customer Service Booth booth only held two teenaged girls, intent upon giggling and not much else. He couldn’t help but sigh and feel a little old. At 52 he wasn’t old (at least he didn’t think he was, yet) but when meeting some of the new key carriers throughout CONCORD, (nicknamed THE BIG GRAPE), he didn’t know if he should shake their hands or burp them.
As he passed aisle 4, Eric saw him and in that micro second he knew this customer was dirty. As luck would have it Eric spotted the telltale, frantic, last second double glance, at the precise moment when the customer was swiveling his head to the opposite end of the aisle from Eric. Eric’s radar eyes scanned and analyzed his body language in a split second. He was a tall, well-groomed slim man, with a healthy crop of bushy white hair, dressed in khaki pants and a crisp starched brown shirt. He had a small bottle of something in his hand and his body language was screaming, “I’m stealing sly glances, I’m going to shoplift!” Eric froze at the end-cap darting out of the man’s sight, deeply sighing. There was no way he was going to get involved with some depressed middle-aged yuppie concealing a $2.00 bottle of something, stealing to give himself an undeserved lift or whatever. Pulled between wanting to finish his covert tour of the store and the apparent well-heeled shoplifter, Eric’s decision was made for him when he heard a piercing moaning scream.
In reflex Eric darted down the aisle, the customer’s white head looking like the top of a giant Q-tip as the man withered on the gleaming floor moaning in pain. Twenty minutes later after the injured customer had been gingerly carried out of Knob Hill #254 by EMS on a gurney, suddenly sullen and silent. Eric sat down in the Store Manager’s office with the 23 year-old, brand spanking new, Manager on Duty (MOD). After carefully engaging and appraising this MOD, who used the word, Dude, too often, Eric thought MOD for this generation Xer stood for Manager on Drugs. Eric took the MTV-MOD through the accident report and insured every t was crossed and every i was dotted. Having identified himself to the befuddled MOD, by whispering in his ear as soon as he nervously appeared in aisle four; Eric had assumed control and shifted into investigation overdrive autopilot.
The giant Q-tip had been convulsing next to a puddle of thick yellow liquid, clutching his lower back and loudly complaining about the pain of a back injury caused by a slip on something on the floor. Eric bent over the man, having had clicked on the unseen micro cassette tape recorder in his buttoned shirt front pocket in reflex, while on the run after the scream. The giant Q-tip enthusiastically told his tale of woe to Eric; whom he thought was a sympathetic fellow yuppie customer-witness. When the Manager on Drugs finally appeared and consoled the injured customer, “Dude all you all right?” Eric’s whispered his identity and hurried instructions to the MOD out of sight of the customer. One of the professional gigglers also appeared and franticly called EMS on her cell phone, at the customer’s now angry insistence. Eric then pulled out the disposal camera he always carried and robotically took six pictures.
The puddle of yellow liquid had no skid marks, Eric took two pictures. The soles of both the Giant Q-tip’s shoes were clean and spotless, Eric snapped two pictures. Ignoring the giant Q-tips barrage of questions, whose pain had been suddenly replaced by concerned suspicion? Eric then searched and found a small bottle of Joy dish detergent, on the shelf, with the pop up tip in the open position and a thin stream of detergent running down the side, Eric took two tight pictures. Eric also ensured the MOD noticed the customer’s clothes were spotless…no speared dish detergent.
Later in the Store Manager’s office, after Eric finished educating the wide-eyed MOD on the obvious scam and how the giant Q-tip would now be hoisted on his own (slippery) petard, Eric smiled as he thought of the reaction to the last words the giant Q-tip faintly heard as he was being wheeled down aisle 4 on the EMS gurney. Words that Eric huskily whispered. Words that held a controlled, tight, sharp edge that caused the white head to snap up and lock eyes with Eric’s in shocked realization. During that dancing stare the giant Q-tip, who had carefully selected Knob Hill #254 for its lack of cameras and its MTV staff, suddenly feared this store was not the settlement honey pot he thought it was. From the looks in Eric’s laser beam, knowing eyes, he had run into one of the dreaded, loss prevention stinger bees.
Eric had softly growled aloud, “Sir, your pain and suffering will be dealing with me.”
To be continued:
Ok…up voter here is the second serial…if any one is interested in the third seriel up vote this one.
THE RETAIL RIDE
Continued from, Pain and Suffering In Aisle 4
SUN TZU AND THE ART OF (Loss Prevention) WAR
Eric Landers hung up the phone laughing out loud. It was a healthy, contagious laugh. The nurse at Wake Med had just told him the white haired gentleman, who had just been brought in on a gurney from the Knob Hill grocery store, was never admitted. Apparently he disappeared seconds after he was wheeled into the emergency room. She sounded perplexed, describing how another patient had seen him leap off the gurney and dash out the hissing automatic doors, a moment after the attendants left him alone???
Eric smiled as he pulled out the faded, well-worn paperback copy of The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. After all these years in LP he still found this 2,500 year-old Chinese study of victory without battle and strength through the psychology of conflict, amazingly useful. What did his old Gunny always say, “The best defense is an offense and the best offense is a sucker punch.” Eric grinned again thinking about the grizzled old Marine who gave him his first copy of, The Art of War, over thirty years ago. The look on the slip and fall artist’s face when Eric spit out the words, “Sir, your pain and suffering will be dealing with me!” Was in a word, priceless. He loved playing mental chess games with the bad guys and that line, highlighted by the glimmer of barley-controlled insanity lurking behind Eric’s eyes, was a sucker punch he relished throwing. “Checkmate you parasite.” Flipping through The Art of War he found the quote circled on page 93.
“When you meet opponents head on with a surprise attack, you can always win and never lose.” Just like the ole Gunny said…throw the sucker punch!
The following Monday after Eric planted some disinformation with the Store Manager, to calm the store grapevine from his unexpected LP visit, he continued his covert investigation of the bowels of the bleeding P&L at Knob Hill #254. He found a hidden tumor the very first surveillance. This immediate success was rare but smugly rewarding.
On Monday, at 0 dark thirty, he sat in his van with a night vision scope and a 35mm camera with a powerful telephoto lens. He also had that week’s store schedule that had fallen into his pocket. The opening Receiving Manager unlocked the front doors 6 minutes late at 5:06 AM. Then the Customer Service Manager hurried in at 5:12 AM, 22 minutes early. Eric sensed his luck was unfolding. The opening manager exchanged a greeting with the CSM then disappeared. But Eric knew at that time of the morning 95 out of 100 employees were either a little late or late-late. Rarely ever early. He sat up stiff and straight squinting as he peered through the camera’s telephoto lens, watching the CSM dart from the front end for 12-minutes, then return with a white garbage bag she stashed behind a register. That had left a 29-minute gap from the time the CSM came in 22 minutes early and when the next two yawning employees dragged in together 7-minutes late at 5:37AM. The CSM, a skinny dark haired woman, who reminded Eric of a young Cher, twisted the dead bolt open for them as they shuffled in to the bakery.
A few minutes later Eric photographed the drop and understood the very exact (and probably practiced) timing of the CSM.
The young looking Cher (Maria Lorna according to the schedule) peered out the front doors telegraphing her intent with the thief’s usual telltale, snappy, double-sided, sly glance. With no one in sight, and 15 minutes until the bulk of morning employees were scheduled Maria darted out the front door with a bulging white garbage bag in her hand. In a split second she lifted off the lid pulled the existing black bag out and stuffed the white bag into the ornate, pretentious, pebble encrusted concrete trash can next to the in door. The big white bag was tied with a large knot at the end, but the skinny CSM maneuvered it with a forceful familiar grace. The Cher look a like hurried back inside with the real trash bag slung over her shoulder…hesitating a moment and confirming her homemade sin with a radar like dark glance scanning the parking lot. She sensed eyes but saw nothing. Eric laughed out loud and lowered the camera singing in a deep off key voice. “Babe, I got you Babe, I got you. I got you to interview…..Babe, I got you!”
Four hours, 17 cell phone calls, a thermos of black coffee and 3 Arturo Fuente petite Cubanito cigars later Eric watched the two men in blue coveralls empty the concrete trash-cans from the front of the store into a garbage truck. When they got to Maria’s hidden treasure and the white bag was casually tossed into the jaws of the huge truck, Eric’s camera was clicking away. All the other trash bags in the strip mall were black but the truck’s crusher was not used on this last bag, in this last stop, in this last morning pick up.
Eric flipped to page 89 of The Art of War. “When the strategy of opponents first makes an appearance, you operate secretly in such a way as to be able to attack it. Since the effort used is little, and your assurance of victory is done in a subtle way, it is easy to prevail.”
As the garbage truck headed down 440 towards Raleigh, with Eric two cars behind he answered his 18th cell phone call of the morning. It was his boss the CFO of CONCORD Inc. wanting a final budget justification, with the exact ROI, for the new digital CCTV systems that Eric insisted they must purchase for the top 25 shrink stores. Eric said he needed two weeks and would have the numbers as well as a case blown open from the Concord #254, Bermuda Triangle vortex of massive stolen merchandise.
The CFO, a soft spoken yet no-nonsense direct man who had developed a healthy respect for Eric’s ability to crack cases and deliver P&L relief asked, “Where are you and what are you up to?” Eric answered, “I’m behind a garbage truck pulling into the Farmer’s Flea Market in downtown Raleigh… and this face is on the #254 case. Gotta go the bad guys are making a move.” The CFO hung up feeling reassured. If Lander’s was personally involved in a case it was always two things…big and ugly.
“Therefore the victories of good warriors are not noted for cleverness or bravery. Therefore their victories in battles are not flukes. Their victories are not flukes because they position themselves where they will surely win, prevailing over those who have already lost.” Sun Tzu
To be continued…………..
Ok…up voter here is the THIRD serial…if any one is interested in the fourth serial up vote this one. (I’m a short story whore)
THE RETAIL RIDE
(part 3)
LEAD, FOLLOW OR GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!
The pieces of the recent Knob Hill #254 (horrendous shrink) jigsaw puzzle were all fitting together, or so Eric Landers thought. After following the garbage truck mule that hid a bulging white trash bag of stolen Knob Hill merchandise to the parking lot of a Raleigh North Carolina flea market. Landers confidently told his CFO, “This face is on the case.” He figured he was on the trail of just another two bit, nickel dime, inside-outside, local yokel booster ring with a ready willing and disposable flea market fence. Landers had photographed the opening CSM (a 2002 throw back to a 1970 Cher) make the 0 dark thirty drop. He had also clicked away through a telephoto lens as the bag was plucked out, tossed into a garbage truck and now into the bed of a beat up Mazda pickup that had pulled alongside the garbage truck/mule in the flea market parking lot. So far the stolen chain of custody was intact and on film. Landers then followed the Mazda to a small stand-alone warehouse in the Raleigh outskirts called Rogers Storage; click, click. Landers grinned as he snapped away realizing this booster ring was a cut above on the criminal food chain and sophisticated enough to use a repack house to clean up and repackage stolen goods. Snapping away he whispered out loud: “Film at eleven.”
Then after seven hours of hop scotching around every thirty minutes to avoid being made and watching absolutely nothing of any significance, the Mazda finally pulled out of the repack front… empty. Painfully pinching his face to stay awake Landers remembered why he hated, no despised, grunt surveillance. The need for sleep and a pressing digital CCTV budget proposal pulled him back to his hotel to re-charge his run down batteries.
Landers knew he had to isolate himself with last year’s shrink numbers to figure out the ROI mystery math, to satisfy the ever-present self-preservation, finger-pointing instinct, of the CFO. Landers knew a long time ago digital CCTV could drive his downsized LP division down the road in the new millennium’s lean, mean, “restructured” corporate machine. Landers also knew, the CFO knew, as far as digital CCTV was concerned, it wasn’t a matter of “if” but “when.” Landers had no illusions the CFO also wanted to make sure it was Landers job, not his, on the line, Landers’ mystery math ROI numbers, not his, in the CEO’s tight fisted hands. The CFO would cc the “LP” numbers to company’s Puzzle Palace’s senior staff and the old man who owned Concord Inc., Mr. Concord, (known as the Big Raisin behind his back). When Concord Inc’s, (known as the Big Grape) year end net profit stared back, the CFO would have Lander’s numbers to either “share the praise with,” or distance himself from…. while….. “pointing at.” Counting beans could be a win/win if you play both ends against the (LP) middle.
After a deep, dreamless sleep, Landers’ eyes popped open six hours later (almost to the minute as was his annoying uncontrollable habit) and for a few foggy seconds he wasn’t sure what city he was in or even what hotel. After 27 years of working up from Nicky New Guy Gumshoe wanna be, to leading three divisions for a six company retail group, his relentless drive sometimes reflected his adult life back in the form of a Holiday Inn road trip blur. Then he remembered the budget proposal and shifted into a yawning stuttering first gear while stumbling towards the shower.
After pouring over last year’s shrink numbers of the test region, the shrink reduction bucks were pulled out of thin air with his best (and as usual boldest) educated guess.
The mystery math done, he phoned in the final numbers to his secretary, Betty, a true southern belle. She knew the drill and wasn’t valuable in helping Landers run three divisions, she was invaluable. Betty snorted over the numbers and knew Landers, once again, was jumping on thin ice while the sun was shining. She warned him for the umpteenth time.
“Eric, “she drawled, “can digital CCTV really do this? Why don’t you offer a more, ah…conservative ROI?” Her syrupy drawl dripped concern.
“Betty, this is what it will take to get the initial systems and I don’t have to make it, just visit the neighborhood.” Landers chuckled. “Got to feed the bears what they want to eat.”
“Alright.” She said. “I just hope it isn’t you they, ah…snack on.”
Yea, he would fulfill the bean counter butt-covering requirement. Faced with the classic LP corporate leadership choice; take the company to the technological or program future viva an investment expense that must be justified to accountants, who expect exact bean counting science, where nothing but LP gritty savvy exists. Landers remembered what his old gunny once said to an indecisive Captain who was more worried about his career appearances then the Marines in his charge, “Sir, lead, follow or get the hell out of the way.”
Landers knew it was time to dig in, plan, execute and crack this case like an egg on the edge of a frying pan. He stared at his brand new laptop then took out a yellow legal pad (never white as he relished his many idiosyncrasies) and block printed his plan. He had to block print because he often couldn’t read his own handwriting, nobody could…except Betty. First things first. Landers called his two remaining corporate field investigators (four others had been sacrificed on the alter of the post 9-11, 2001 Christmas sales slump-malaise downsizing) and told them to hike it over to his hotel in Raleigh, North Cackalacky. He told them to come loaded with all the Goody Gear, as he called the trunk of LP Guerilla Warfare surprises he had accumulated in 27 years on the J.O.B., plus enough clothes for at least two weeks of big time stealth snoop’in.
Two days later at 0 dark thirty Landers and his number one investigator, Liz Shearon, sat behind the tinted windows of Landers’ van, hidden in the night and blending into the deep overhanging tree limb shadows of a far corner of the Knob Hill #254 parking lot. The Cher look a like stuffed yet another bulging trash bag into the front sidewalk garbage can. The theft was timed like a tried and true re-run of the first hit Landers had witnessed, click, click.
Shearon shook her head laughing, turning to her boss and mentor. “Theft and habit, habit and theft…what does Sun Tzu say about those two.”
Landers pulled out his worn copy of The Art of War and without hesitation thumbed to page 89, “A leader of wisdom and ability lays deep plans for what other people do not figure on. This is why Sun Tzu speaks of being unknowable in the dark.”
Liz giggled, always amazed how Landers could always find a Sun Tzu quote to fit just right.
The following Saturday morning Liz Shearon (who Landers affectionately called Lizard) and Landers’ number two gumshoe, Johnny Hargrove, connected the next dot. They followed the Mazda, with two hulking men jammed in the cab and a pyramid of boxes lashed to the bed, from Rogers Storage back to the flea market. The cleaned up re-tagged Knob hill booty (among other retail plunder) was then hauled in to the Bargain Time flea market stall.
After Lizard’s’ gleeful call, Landers drove hard and made it to the Raleigh Farmer’s Flea Market by two PM. The market was a cross between a carnival, a crowded Wal-Mart, a loud bowling alley and a state fair. The smell of cotton candy, leather, produce, dead fish on ice, funnel cakes, pizza and the sounds of ringing pinball machines and video game gunfire startled his senses. The chattering, milling, wildly diverse crowd further surprised Landers reminding him of a southern version of the bar scene in the first Star Wars movie. He strolled past the Bargain Time stall as the stolen Advil, Tylenol, Gillette razors and blades, Excedrin, Bayer, Aleive, Anacin, Bufferin, Zantac, batteries, Tums, Rolaids, assorted vitamins, toothbrushes, cough medicine, and just about every other product in the Knob Hill health and beauty line was being carefully fronted, by a pretty red haired woman in her early twenties. Standing behind her surveying the jammed inventory Landers spotted a complication, a serious complication, a dangerous completion, a wide and deep complication. If the man behind the mirrored aviator sunglasses, buzz cut, slight bulge under his left arm and a belt clip badge faintly outlined under a shirt one size too small, wasn’t a cop, then Eric Landers wasn’t a retail warhorse who ate too much pizza and washed it down with too many dark beers.
“Hmmmm, A dirty cop,” Landers thought to himself. The CFO would want him to back off far and fast. Yea Right, he snorted. Landers avoided the eyes of “The Man” and bought sixty-four dollars’ worth of over the counter drugs for less than it cost to manufacture them. Leaving with his purchase, Landers noticed the bathrooms next to the Bargain Time stall. Taking a mental inventory of the LP Goody Gear recently hauled in by his two field investigators, Landers started planning his next leadership move, on this suddenly very interesting and challenging chessboard. Landers wasn’t a follower, and sooner or later “the man with no eyes” hiding his betrayal behind a badge will get the hell out of his way. He will be left no choice.
To Be Continued……..
Ok…up voter here is the FOURTH serial…if any one is interested in the fifth serial up vote this one and I’ll post it in the AM
ENTER THE LIZARD
PART 4
After making his flea market purchase, at the Bargain Time stall, all of what he knew to be recently cleaned up and stolen over the counter drugs from Knob Hill #254, Eric Landers sat in his van in the parking lot for the next three hours…listening. He heard scattered conversations between the pretty young red head cashier and the constant customers. Then what he had been waiting for, one side of a revealing phone call between the buzz cut, mirrored aviator sunglass wearing, thickly muscled, “Man with no eyes” who Landers suspected favorite movie was Cool Hand Luke. After his suspicions were confirmed Landers pulled out into downtown Raleigh traffic and called Liz Shearon on his cell phone.
Shearon was his investigative right arm. Besides nick naming her Lizard, an affectionate handle that had stuck to her like super glue the last nine years, Landers also referred to her as his right hand woman, Lefty.
“Lizard.”
“Hey Boss, you get what you wanted?” Her cartoon Betty Boop voice was excited and as always masked the mature, tough, street-smart woman behind her girlish appearance.
“Yea, and I’m afraid we are up against a lot more then local-yokel boosters with a repack house.” Landers tone was reflective.
“Did you drop a pen?” She asked.
“Lizard, ask me no….”
“Questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” She finished his sentence in an irritated monotone parrot.
Landers had paid for his flea market purchase of stolen drugs with cash. When the pretty red head cashier had looked down to make change and the “Man with no eyes” was lighting a cigarette, he had silently slid a pen, with a built in transmitter, onto the cluttered counter, next to the telephone. It wasn’t legal and Landers rarely used the ploy…but people can get killed investigating a dirty cop…the gloves were coming off.
Landers rarely broke the law, but he played his cards close to his chest, even with his right hand woman lefty. The (smart) good guys played by the rules. The (stupid) good guys put their staff in places they didn’t need to be in. Especially when the boss was holding a tiger by the tail and the big cat carried a badge, two handguns and this case was heading State, maybe even Federal.
Landers gunned the van through downtown Raleigh traffic rattling off tasks to Shearon’s legendary photographic memory. He hung up, lit an Artunio Fuente Hemingway and blew out a steady cloud of swirling gray smoke through the open window heading home to his perky wife he nicknamed the Petite Flower and two dogs, a rare ‘mellow’ jack russel and a minature weiner dog in a Mayberryish small North Carolina town, called Wake Forest.
Liz Shearon hung up the phone just as her counterpart, and the only other Big Grape Field Investigator, Johnny Hargrove, who along with her had survived the recent “Corporate restructuring” knocked on her hotel room door.
Although at 38, Liz Shearon was 13 years Johnny Hargrove’s senior she didn’t look it. With two teenage daughters and married twenty years to her high school sweet heart, she could pass for and often did as younger then young Johnny. It use to irritate her when they would hit a store together on a case and the Store Manager would defer to green Johnny and ignore her…the seasoned veteran. But she had learned a long time ago to use being underestimated to great advantage, especially with men. The long-term store managers in the Big Grape who had witnessed her work interviews didn’t refer to her as Lizard but as ‘the Dragon Lady’. It was said when the interview was over and the interrogation was in full swing, a secret switch in Liz Shearon flipped and the disarmingly pretty, petite Lizard shot accusatory flames out of her mouth consuming trapped dishonest employees with their scorching intensity. She could be motherly, tender and comforting, sympathetically rationalizing confessions from sobbing cashiers and sullen stockers. But she was a master at jam’em up and flip’in over the hard ones. She displayed, at just the right moment a photographic memory that untangled convoluted lies, exposed contradictions and hung the dishonest with their own tongues. Her investigative motto was, “Follow the lie.” She could instantly transform her apple pie face into a hard mask of smug disbelief, confidant secret knowledge and display a cold contorted snarl that never failed to rattle the guilty. She had broken the will of hundreds of bewildered suspects with her Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde personality ambush. Then once the head of a dishonest employee started to slump and a whimper of an admission stammered out she was suddenly transformed into Mother Theresa sometimes weeping along with her submissive, broken, now grateful victims. Landers loved interviewing with her and referred to her style as, “The Sybil Treatment.” Watching her multiple interviewing personalities emerge, wrap themselves around the unsuspecting employee sitting across from the cute Lizard, the wild eyed Dragon Lady, teary eyed Mother Theresa or who ever else emerged was always as they said in North Carolina, “A hoot.”
Shearon let Johnny Hargrove in smiling warmly. She was fond of this too serious and often brash young man, but as Landers had said about him, “He’s green around the gills but he has it all…as soon as he figures out how to use all of it.” Johnny had unconsciously tapped into Shearon’s real mother instinct and as she trained him their bond developed into a big sister younger brother relationship that Landers had hoped for.
“Hey Lizard.”
“Hey Johnny.” Hargrove plopped his large sturdy frame down in the room’s single chair, a look of eager anticipation on his handsome face. Shearon sat crossed legged on the bed.
“Have you heard from Eric yet? It’s been almost four hours.” He asked.
“Yea, he laid out the next week for us both and something big is cooking?”
“Whata ya mean?” Johnny shot back leaning forward.
“He hasn’t told me yet, but he did say we are up against more then local-yokel boosters with a repack house. He found something today…I could hear it in his voice. He’ll let us know when its time.”
Hargrove grinned, then his usual too serious expression returned, “What’s the plan, I know he has one, he always does?”
“You and I are shopping separately at the Bargain Time flea market stall tomorrow. Besides buying one of everything they sell, that we sell, there is a ladies and men’s bathroom next to the stall we are to comb over and photograph from the inside. Eric also wants us to find out how we can rent a stall, introducing ourselves with a plausible cover story to whoever runs the flea market. Then I’m gonna rent a space at Rogers Storage and try and figure out the repack house layout. Get the waders ready, there will be a dumpster dive coming up. I’m also arranging a breakfast with the #254 District Manager, I know him well, he’s a friend of LP and understands the value of ‘need to know’. You’ll be going in on a temporary overnight stocking crew assignment at #254 with two ultra violet-light pens, Eric gave me a list of what he wants marked.” She paused and grabbed young Johnny’s eyes with her own, smiling, “Oh yea, and he wanted to know if you had ever dated a red head?” As always the photographic memory of Lizard was flawless.
“Red head, I don’t get it” Johnny looked confused.
“Eric said to look up page 171, Du Mu in the book.”
Johnny pulled out his copy of Sun Tuz’s, The Art of War, flipped to page 171, found Du Mu and read it aloud. “It is by finding out the conditions of the enemy through the agency of reverse spies that all the other kinds of espionage can be used, so reverse spies, renegades, or double agents, are most important and must be treated well.”
To Be Continued……
Ok…up voters here is the fifth serial…if any one is interested in the sixth serial up vote this one and I’ll post it in the PM
One Third Were Tories, One Third Timid
And One Third Were True Blue
Continued from Enter The Lizard
Eric Landers sat in the plush mahogany boardroom of the Big Grape’s corporate headquarters in Henderson North Carolina, surrounded by the 12 senior executives of Concord Inc. The mid year financial review was almost over. When it came to the decimated LP budget the only issues left in this bi-annual, squeezing blood out of a turnip ritual, was always centered around the unspoken but understood Siamese twin questions; What have you done for us lately?… and…What will you do for us tomorrow?
Landers had been fighting an undeclared war with the Sr. VP of Operations for too many years. He had lost some skirmishes, but he had never lost a battle and the OPS leader envied and hated him for his P&L program success. The Director of HR, a razor sharp fast talking articulate woman, who Landers thought must be the model for the evil HR Director out of the Dilbert cartoons, smiled sweetly at him, while daydreaming how to frame out a restructuring of the LP bonus plan and stick it to Landers and those, “Nasty LP people.”
Mr. Concord cleared his throat and everyone fell silent. Mr. Concord (called the Big Raisin behind his back) was a lot of things, but as the sole owner, leader and driving force behind a six company retail empire spreading throughout the Southeast there was no doubt of his total domination in this meeting. The Big Raisin locked eyes with Landers and in his old man’s soft but strong southern voice spoke.
“Eric, ah…tell me why I should give you this money for 25 Digital CCTV systems and how and …more importantly, when, this significant ROI is going to be returned to Concord?” As always the fire in the Big Raisin’s eyes burned like smoldering coals.
Landers stood scanning the faces of the Vice Presidents, his boss the CFO, the Controller and the HR sniper (who was trying to hide her gleeful anticipation of Landers being put on the spot). He thought of what’s John Adams had said about Americans at the start of the war for independence, “One third were Tories, one third were timid and one third were true blue.” Reading the faces of the company’s leadership, Landers figured John Adams got the percents just about right.
The pregnant silence and his confidant smile setting the stage Landers scanned the faces of the Big Grape’s leadership.
The Tories
One third of the room hated Landers, consciously or unconsciously or hated what Landers stood for, fearless, (politically incorrect) bold, independent action. Their loyalty was directed towards their own castles with-in their own divisional kingdoms of the Big Grape. They clung to their titles and power with a selfish protectiveness that bordered on treason to the collective company success and other divisional goals. They consciously or unconsciously recognized one another and banded together in an unspoken but understood alliance of mutual self-interest and mutual turf protection. They professed and portrayed fanatical loyalty to the Big Raisin, but in reality, they and him knew their loyalty began and ended with their own personal reflected power from him. They were mirrors the Big Raisin stared into, not men and woman of true grit. They viewed Loss Prevention as a necessary evil at best. At worst, an outside threat that will expose their dirty laundry, ripping away the façade of competence they have carefully constructed. They were fat and comfortable and more concerned about their own salary, bonus and 401K then the people or responsibility in their charge. They would betray one another in a New York minute, that was a given, but they circled together for the same reasons sharks do. They were all staring at Landers, with shiny eyes, waiting for a drop of his blood to hit the water and signal the start of their feeding frenzy.
The Timid
Another third were weeping willow trees. Men and woman with shallow roots, who bent in the human political breeze and like water running down a hill, sought the course of least resistance. They weren’t leaders they were managers. Timid ticket punchers who always got in line behind the safe career bet, the way we always did it, the known will of the majority, the Big Raisin’s moods, or all of the above, regardless of the path taken or any annoying business or human realities. They resisted change quietly; at least until it was inevitable then they publicly embraced it. Many had reached the Peter Principle, promoted to their level of individual incompetence, but they survived through a long-term network of competent subornates that held together what they pretended to. They sat on the fence with one eye on the room, one eye on the Big Raisin, and their reaction waiting for their mind’s eye poll to allow them to decide what side to come down on. They will wait for the reaction of the majority before they said a peep, and their greatest fear is they will be called upon for an opinion, before the obvious is obvious. The feared both the Tories and the True Blue and would side with either, depending on their poll results.
The True Blue
The last third were all grinning as Landers stood. As their eyes locked with Landers they exchanged a silent but understood acknowledgement of earned mutual respect. They embraced his direct, cut to the chase, if walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… it is a duck, decisive, clean honesty. They knew he was a fearless driven maverick, yet like them a true blue leader who brought home P&L results. They shared the deep confidence not the shallow cocky bravado the Tories displayed. Their own apprenticeship years had taught them the depths of the old truism Retail is Detail and having had watched Landers walk (and sometimes run) his bold talk, they recognized within one another the integrity that is fostered by woman and men whose character has been built on unselfish action. Instead of looking at LP as outsiders who would publicly air their division’s dirty laundry, they viewed LP as partners and expert surgeons who would skillfully cut out dangerous cancers. Instead of sitting on the fence waiting for the reaction of others they were independent forward thinkers who knew there was always a better way. They also shared another quality with Landers. They would never, ever, compromise their personal integrity for any reason. This alone made them dangerous people to the Tories and terrified the Timid, pulling them to LP in general and Landers in particular. They grinned for another reason. They knew Landers had watched the Tories and the Timid gang up on LP, convincing the Big Raisin to sacrifice the LP budget to save their castles from the post 2001 Christmas nightmare cuts that were inevitable. This LP presentation, with the Big Raisin’s opening challenge, and the glistening look of anticipation in the eyes of the Tory leaders, The powerful OPS VP and the cunning H. R. Director, promised the next half hour would be if nothing else, electric.
Landers spoke, his deep voice even deeper then usual. “Sir, I appreciate this opportunity to explain how Concord Loss Prevention will lead a draconian reduction of stock shortage and controllable expense in 2003.”
Lizard debriefed Johnny after his third date in two weeks with the pretty red head, who ran the register at the Bargain Time flea market stall. She was impressed with the information he had gleaned, but Landers was worried about the pace of intelligence gathering young Johnny was attempting.
“Johnny, Eric told me to tell you to tread very lightly with the red head. He said to look up Master Sun, on page 170.” Lizard smiled patiently at Johnny, her photographic memory silently repeating the Art of War words in her computer like mind.
Johnny pulled out the copy of the Art of War Landers made him carry and thumbed to Master Sun, page 170, then read it aloud to his partner and the Senior Field Investigator of Concord Inc., Liz Shearon.
“Óne cannot use spies without sagacity, knowledge, humility and justice. One cannot get the truth out of spies without subtlety. This is a very delicate matter indeed. Spies are useful everywhere.”
To be continued……
Good stuff Mark. Thank you for the insight Keep them coming :).
Thanks, you got it Warts…13 serials all together!
Lawdy! I ain’t nebba heard about no short story ho, but I feels fo all dem ho. Dey gots a hawd life, dealin with dem pimps and all. Dem big corprate managa be de wors kine ob pimp.
Dat a gud story. I wants to hear sum mo. It jus like True Detectiv Magzine. I steels it off de rack ebery munf, regular. Aint been caught yet.
FORCE,TIME,SPACE AND PAWN STRUCTURE
Part 6
“Sir, I appreciate this opportunity to explain how Concord Loss Prevention will lead a draconian reduction of stock shortage and controllable expense in 2003.”
Eric Landers popped up like a coiled spring pushing his chair back with his legs. He shot a steely glance at the lead Tory, Howard Porter, the VP of Operations and his co-conspirator, Cathy Wheeler, the Director of HR.
“Ladies and gentlemen…eleven months ago Loss Prevention bore the brunt of the payroll cuts recommended by OPS and HR. The rationalization was made that our shrink was well under the industry averages… a true statement, and there was no cash registers in the LP offices…a misleading statement. It was further explained that because the interconnected LP programs were in place our store managers could maintain the Culture of Controls that has been the foundation of our shrink and expense reduction.” Landers locked eyes with the Big Raisin, “Sir, those assumptions were built on a false premise. Our recent ugly inventory results and the red ink that is bleeding from the controllable expense line items of this months P and L…show the profit drain is obviously gaining momentum, especially at Knob Hill.”
The VP of OPS dug his fingers into the arms of his chair and a vein on his neck popped out, while the HR Director’s eyes blinked rapidly as she nervously licked her lips. Landers leaned forward on the table boring holes with his eyes into the two Tories then snapped his head over to the Big Raisin speaking almost in a low growl.
“Mr. Concord, store payroll is lean but LP payroll has been made anorexic.” The True Blue executives chuckled and the Big Raisin fought a smile. “Our LP programs are useless without focused execution. The word is on the streets is out LP has been downsized and Knob Hill is the store du’jour to boost from. There was no fat to cut in the LP budget…it was all P and L muscle. Our net profit pocket is now being picked clean by some of our own dishonest employees and an army of professional boosters that are swarming over our stores like ants, since we on the advice of some, downsized a crackerjack LP team… for short term payroll reduction gain.”
The red-faced VP of OPS started to sputter when the Big Raisin shot out his hand in a traffic cop stop sign at an intersection. Slowly standing Mr. Concord folded his arms and went into his relaxed Jack Benny pose…then the patriarch of the Big Grape thoughtfully spoke.
“Eric, you opened using the phrase, ‘Draconian reduction of stock shortage and controllable expense in 2003.’ As the result of the LP budget cuts are now obvious,”
the old man shot a hard glance at the now crimson VP of OPS and the pale Director of HR, (The Timid decided to back Landers at the first opportunity, as they are masters of the technique of pre-emptive surrender). “I would like to hear more about your plans to reverse these disturbing trends.”
The Big Raisin sat down and Landers reached inside his leather bag for the folders
containing his action plan. A plan requiring OPS and HR budget cuts to fund the
re-hiring of his top five people, and eventually restoring his division, based on the turn around trend of the mounting Knob Hill massive merchandise theft losses.
Sun Tzu stated on page 71of The Art of War, Planning a Siege, “If neither intimidation nor intelligence are sufficient to overcome people, and you have no choice but to attack them where they live, then you must take adequate time to prepare.”
Landers was betting with the development of the Knob Hill case, his best five people who were laid off returning and the digital CCTV ace up his sleeve, he could take adequate time to succeed in a siege against OPS and HR. As his old Marine Gunny would say, “When you get really pissed off…enough can be enough.”
Lt. Lonnie Rodgers of the Raleigh Police force was grinning as he watched customer after customer snap up the over the counter drugs and assorted health and beauty products from the Bargain Time flea market stall. He made more money in a month standing around this stall on the weekend then he did in a quarter on the job, plus it was all cash on the barrelhead and tax-free! Lighting up another Marlboro and exhaling through his nose, he grinded his teeth thinking about how he had been passed over for promotion…again!
He’ll show’em…they could shove those captain bars where the sun don’t shine. At this rate in two more years he’d take their lousy pension and cruise past them all on Falls Lake in his new 32 foot Hunt Harrier courtesy of a network of booster low life’s and fat, stupid, short sighted retailers.
Johnny Hargrove’s cell phone rang as he was sitting in the flea market parking lot, waiting for his date, a pretty young red head who ran a register at the Bargain Time stall and also worked on the books.
“Johnny its Liz…I know you only have a few minutes, so listen up. The boss called, and it sounds like he hit a stand up triple at the Big Grape meeting today.” Hargrove snorted with glee. He was s little intimated by Landers intensity but was also convinced Landers was a Ted Williams at the LP plate. The Lizard continued her Betty Boop cartoon voice even more light and excited then usual.
“Eric said to tell you we have had the SBI behind us for months and you can back off the redhead pawn, we have her positioned where we want her…that is of course…if you really want to, uh… back off.” Her giggle triggered a blush from the very formal, serious and proper young Field Investigator, Jonathan Harold Hargrove, the Third.
Special Agent Wayne Turax of the the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and
Eric Landers were more then old friends; they were drinking buddies, and shared a
passion for fine cigars, dark beer and an occasional game of testing the four principles of chess; force, time, space and pawn structure, against one another. The same four
principles Landers was keenly aware of in his siege against the Tories, and a dirty cop named Lonnie Rodgers.
Sitting across from Landers table size chess board, with foot tall hand carved wooded pieces, Truax finally moved his remaining Bishop into a classical force attack called the pin and fork threatening Landers’ King.
Exhaling a blue cloud from a Fuente OpusX cigar Truax said, “Well Eric, I do believe your King is in deep do do.” Truax’s thin face split wide open with a broad confidant grin. Landers’ face held his best poker expression. Truax’s force strategy would soon be countered and overwhelmed by Landers’ time strategy as although Landers King was pinned at the moment in five moves his overall board position would provide him an overwhelming piece advantage, focused on the exact upcoming battle scene. Known as development. Landers embraced the principle of time in positioning interconnected force.
To be continued……
REVENGE OF THE TRUE BLUE
Part 7
Eric Landers stood in his conference room grinning as he surveyed the seven Concord Inc. Field Investigators seated around the polished table, five of them recently re-hired after being un-ceremonially downsized a year ago. They were a tight click of LP professionals who knew each other’s life stories, idiosyncrasies, strengths, weaknesses and before the bolt out of the blue downsizing had spent four years building one of the most successful regional retail LP teams in the country…program by program… together. Their collective impact and infusion of Loss Prevention P&L net profit black ink had grown to the point were their contributions, as it does in cycles in retail, was taken totally completely and foolishly for granted.
After the VP of OPS and the Director of HR had convinced Mr. Concord to slash the 15 person LP managerial staff to 3, then cut the 75 LP worker bees under them to 25 and have them report directly to OPS even Landers was amazed how fast the red ink started to gush. The company’s net profit was bleeding out like a man with a slashed artery.
The dishonest employees and shoplifter perception of the Big Grape Empire of 600 dollar, discount, and grocery stores had flipped overnight from being one of the most dangerous retailers to steal from…to ripe low hanging fruit. Through the criminal mole grapevine perception became reality faster then a greedy Customer Service Manager Cher look alike can stuff a bag full of stolen good at O dark thirity, quicker then a druggie booster can pack a crack pipe, more destructive then a crafty vendor left alone in receiving. When the axe fell on LP two thirds of the Store Managers (the Tories and the Timid) treated the interconnected Culture of Controls program Landers and his crackerjack team had carefully woven together into a tight LP tapestry like yesterday’s newspaper and a warm can of beer. The remaining LP survivors were quickly forced into the role of over worked firemen running to the hottest flames…long after the theft fires had engulfed a market.
Landers spoke, “Guys, in one hour Wayne Truax from the SBI will be here to brief you on the details of the evolving case at Knob Hill. It has exploded far past the reach of any single LP organization, but we will remain a critical cog in the gears that will grind up some serious bad guys. This case, through the SBI and because of some interstate…ah lets call it commerce for now, that we passed off to Truax, has grabbed the attention of the Feds. Lizard is going to give you the Reader’s Digest abridged version of where we are as her and Johnny have done the grunt work, Lizard.”
The petite Liz Sharon known as the Lizard, all five foot two inches and 104 pounds stood up and coyly smiled. The six men in the room knew the glint in her eye reflected a savvy toughness that a few of them secretly feared as they had found themselves on the well deserved receiving end of it. She was a reverse tootsie roll pop, soft and sweetly feminine on the outside with a steel ball bearing in the center. Her Betty Boop carton voice and girlish appearance had beguiled all of them, at first…and like a lot of men in the Big Grape they had underestimated the Lizard while committing the serious mistake of
treating her as she appeared and sounded. That only happened once with any of them.
“Guys, listen up and I will paint the picture.” (Everyone knew when the Lizard said ‘paint the picture’ it really meant don’t interrupt). “In the last five months Johnny and I have funneled intelligence to the boss that I just recently found out was being fed to the SBI.” The Lizard arched an eyebrow and shot Landers a dirty look a knowing chuckle rippled through the room. When the Lizard was not happy she hide it from no one.
“The boss photographed a dirty Customer Service Manager at Knob Hill #254 feeding garbage bags of stolen over the counter drugs and health and beauty product to a mule garbage truck, before store opening…so much for the source tagging debate.” Everyone chuckled. “He traced the hits to a repack front in the boondocks, with that lead later Johnny and I followed the cleaned up goods to a flea market stall in Raleigh, called… Bargain Time.” Laughter followed as she rolled her eyes. “Then the boss ran into a local dirty cop running the stall and brought in the SBI. While a SBI Task Force was forming Johnny and I pulled some midnight dumpster dives at the repack house owned by the dirty cop’s brother, a front called Rodgers Storage. Their trash was a gold mine of intelligence! They are hitting almost every retailer, big and little box, in Raleigh. Then Johnny went into their honey pot store, Knob Hill #254 overnight with ultra-light pens marking most of the hot items that led to some great buys at Bargain Time. Then we asked the ultimate sacrifice of Johnny.” The Lizard paused with mock sincerity. “And he forced himself to start dating Bargain Time’s head cashier, a sweet young red head who, as our intrepid investigator ah….uncovered… also does their books!”
Johnny Hargrove’s face turned beet red as a collective howl went up from the other men, and he unconsciously folded his arms over his chest in a protective sulk. The Lizard gave him an exaggerated sympathetic pout and the room roared.
“Oh yea, the boss gave me the honor of announcing our VP of Operations has suddenly left the Big Grape to, as they say, pursue other interests.”
Mr. Concord looked up from his desk frowning, as he heard what sounded like thundering cheering and foot stomping coming from the LP conference room???
A week later: Landers came in the back door of a former sub shop closed for remodeling, in a run down strip mall, across the highway and a quarter of a mile down the road from Rodgers Storage. The gutted business was buzzing with SBI Agents, FBI Agents, Raleigh Police Detectives, and four spook technician types in identical gray coveralls. Wayne Truax escorted Landers introducing him around. There were two desks of electronic gear that tapped, recorded, and tracked all the phone calls coming in and out of the storage front. Truax didn’t even try to explain the equipment to his friend knowing Landers was, as he liked to put it with a wry smile, technically challenged. The focal point of the surveillance site was a monitor that displayed a crystal clear picture of Rodgers Storage, from a pole camera mounted on the roof of the business. The pan tilt zoom capabilities impressed Landers as an agent focused in on and read aloud the license plate number of a car pulling into the business, another agent recorded it in a log, while a third tapped into a computer tracking down the registered owner.
“What leads do you have so far?” Landers asked Truax.
“A dozen known druggie boosters stopping by loaded and leaving empty, the owner of a local Pawn Shop backing up a pick up twice, a woman who owns twelve convenience stores is constantly visiting and a gentleman from a company called Buy Right Liquidators out of all places, New Brunswick, New Jersey.” Truax started laughing. Landers grinned shaking his head in disbelief. Truax knew Landers was raised in and had miss-spent…his miss-spent youth in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
“Wayne…this is too much of a coincidence to pass up.” Landers was staring at the wall almost talking to himself. “You know an investigation is like a chess game: delicate maneuvers, inter woven development, subtle positional understanding, all the artistic flair of classic music…then you have the bold attacking maniac, the Berserker.
Landers stared at a reflection of his face in mirror on the wall and laughed out loud at his own maniacal expression.
To be continued……
A MOTIVATED CITIZEN
BADA BING BADA BOOM
Part 8
F.B.I Special Agent Arthur Owens leaned back in his chair staring at Eric Landers as if he was a slide under a microscope. His fingertips formed a contemplative steeple supporting his chin as he digested Landers’ carefully worded hypothetical proposition. Landers hinted about his “possible” intelligence capability concerning the snowballing case of organized retail theft. A case Landers had initiated, a comfortable win/win for Concord Inc. and the Bureau…if there was an assured carrot and not the usual federal stick waiting for a retail gumshoe…or as Lander’s refered to himself as a “motivated citizen.”
Owens saw that his ambitions for the potential of this mushrooming inter-state case dovetailed into the self-serving plans of the “motivated citizen” sitting across from him. This was one of those rare times he found himself open to being used as the use seemed to be a two way, wide tree lined boulevard, with no roadblocks for the Bureau. But still he wanted more time to study Landers’ implied knowledge and capabilities and Landers himself before he agreed. He had to admire the foresight of this LP guy he had developed this case very carefully and methothoiloicly, he had passed it on at just the right time to the S.B.I. while exposing a dirty cop! Playing this card now showed he was a shrewd bold player, actually brazen, who thought four moves ahead.
Owens suspected as he probed into Landers past with jabbing deft questions of an experienced interviewer that he was dealing with someone who was more experienced then the boyish smile and engaging, energetic personality suggested. He also sensed Landers was more than a little dangerous and danger often has a way of exploding. Obviously, Landers was a driven pit bull completely ‘politically incorrect’ by his colorful salty language and there was a glint in his eye of the maverick or was it the berserker or both? Owens was a very structured almost a plodding investigator, a buttoned down government bureaucrat, a careful political inside…and politically incorrect maverick berserker outsiders gave him belching acid reflux. He made a mental note to investigate this investigator before he committed to this charismatic retail Monty Hall and his intriguing retail Loss Prevention version of, Lets Make a Deal.
Landers left the meeting with the Head Fed pleased with the barely suppressed interest of the Special Agent oozing out of him. He knew that in a few days Owens would know everything about him that could fit into a manila folder. It was obvious Owens’ curiosity was mingled with the Federal knee jerk question “Do I really need this frigg’in civilian?” And the standard issue FBI paranoia. At times Owens was peering at him as if he was driving past a car accident, curious, a bit uncomfortable, yet drawn to stare. That happened to Landers a lot and he was use to it. Landers was well aware that his enthusiastic intensity put some people off (he tried to contain himself but he often escaped) especially the Feddy Bear, white shirt, drab tie, trench coat types like Owens. Landers laughed at loud as he thought of all the tightly wound Feds he had dealt with and the cases he had turned over on a sterling silver platter, wrapped up with a pink ribbon o a bunch of them. Once Owens checked out his background and more importantly his investigative track record he would warm up…fast. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse. As they still say in the neighborhood in New Jersey were Landers was raised, Bada Bing…Bada Boom.
Landers drove into downtown Henderson North Carolina, the headquarters of The Big Grape to meet with The Big Raisin and move another piece on the LP chessboard. All he wanted from the old man was his agreement to an internal deal he knew the shrewd merchant would embrace like a lottery winner at a blue light special. It wasn’t a complicated plan; matter of fact when it was all over it would become transparent to everyone. There was only one word to describe his invisible move on this investigative game board that he was developing with a creeping time strategy, cool. He laughed out loud again and thought about one of his favorite Winston Churchill quotes: “All the great things are simple.” He popped in a CD then turned the volume up as his musical alter ego, Bill Joel, huskily sang the piercing words of “Good Night Saigon.” A glazed look covered Landers face as he let his thoughts drift into the past and wrap themselves around the revealing, haunting, biographical lyrics.
Concord Inc. Field Investigator Johnny Hargrove returned from his latest overnight under cover operation and strolled into his direct supervisor’s office, Liz Sharon.
“Liz, how many more over nighters does Eric want me to do? I’m getting writer’s cramp. Where are we going with all this? The boosters are killing us.”
Hargrove plopped down in a chair across from the Big Grape’s Sr. Field Investigator, AKA the Lizard. She fixed her young protégée with a motherly sympathetic expression that was chased away by a sly grin as she spoke.
“Ok Johnny, let me paint the picture for you. I just got off the phone with the boss and his exact words were.” The Lizard mustered her best Eric Landers Jersey accent impression talking out of the side of her mouth in a staccato burst. “Tell young Johnny when he starts complaining I said, Do ya want some cheese to go with that whine?”
Rodney Cline strolled into Knob Hill #254 in Carey North Carolina during the pre-dinner rush, his personal favorite time of day to pull a hit. He was a smart thief and preferred crowds operating with bold, lighting speed. He worked with Becky Lurane, a fellow crack head, prostitute, and a woman who could pull off a faded imitation of a local mid 30ish Research Triangle yuppie drone. She was only 23, but the drugs and the street had left her playing a much older woman who was a little too thin, passing for a gaunt, Clista Flockhart wanna be. Heavy pancake covered the dark circles under her eyes and Rodney had spotted her the money for the clothes for her to pass for a study in local, too expensive yuppie casual wear.
Rodney was also dressed and groomed to blend into the upscale crowd as he and Becky moved into position in the health and beauty isle. He was an experienced journeyman booster and had learned the hard way how to morph into a yuppie chameleon in upscale stores. Underneath his Tommy Hilfiger knock offs he wore an elastic body suit that had held over three hundred dollars worth of over the counter items with out a tell tale bulge or sharp corner protruding. The lining of his jacket held custom zipper slits with room for another 30 to 40 items. They had developed their eye, hand, hair flip, cough, throat clearing, ear lobe tug signals and mutual body blocking moves to the point of silent choreographed booster ballet perfection. If either one was made by an employee or the staff tried that tag team customer service crap, the clean one “accidentally” pulled down a display, screamed for a phantom missing child, slipped and fell screaming in pain or pulled out a dozen other tricks to allow the dirty one with the goods to rabbit. If LP was made in any way shape or form the lookout immediately faked an epileptic fit and during the commotion the stuffer mule unloaded every item in another aisle or the bathroom. They had been busted three times by invisible LP pros and had learned to fear and avoid stores staffed with their streetwise nemesis. Regular management was blind busy and inexperienced hourly employees were lost in the corn flakes. The word on the street was Concord Inc. had downsized most of their LP and it was a booster open season feeding frenzy on the Big Grape.
A few feet from Rodney Becky casually turned and pulled out her compact mirror scanning the aisle and three customers behind her, then instantly glancing over the top of the mirror analyzing the two customers walking in the opposite direction. She used her body to block one side for Rodney, coughed twice and his lighting hands shot out and four bottles of Tylenol disappeared down his shirt, quickly settling into the hollow of his hip. He sidestepped a few feet, stuffing his hands into his jacket pocket while pretending to lean forward reading a shelf talker. Straightening out his left leg all three bottles shifted, sliding down to the hollow on the inside of his thigh, held snugly in place by the panty hose body girdle under his oversized designer jeans. He picked up a bottle of Advil with his left hand and tugged his right ear lobe…letting Becky know he was ready for the next hit signal. Becky walked past him and glanced over her shoulder, blocked his other side with her body, cleared her throat once, and the Advil plus three bottles of Excedrin disappeared…snaking their way down Rodney’s waist. Fifteen more hits in twenty minutes and they slowly moved separately to the front of the store pretending to shop.
Becky constantly casually circled Rodney touching every employee with her eyes, her booster radar senses probing every customer for any tell tale signs of the dreaded and despised undercover LP enemy stalking her partner. Visions of the beckoning, glowing pipe and the tiny white rocks danced and sparkled and hissed a seductive call in her head.
To Be Continued………..
THE CREAM AND THE SCUM ALWAYS RISE TO THE TOP
The Lizard hung up the phone and grinned at Field investigator Johnny Hargrove.
“It looks like the boss cut a deal with the Feds and the Big Grape… and we’re on the hook for some tricky intell ASAP.” She laughed and Johnny look confused.
“Well what do we have to do?” Hargrove asked.
“Johnny, all the boss wants from us today is a home address of some slick booster goon named Rodney Cline… who has been sneaking around with the dirty cop at the flea market and turning over tons of stolen goods to the Benedict Arnold with a badge.
“What do we have to go on?” Hargrove questioned.
“Nothing but a name. He isn’t in the phone book or listed with information, but Eric thinks he lives in the Raleigh area.” She explained.
“How are we going to get an address out of just a name?” Hargrove looked worried.
“At lunch time you will pull a pretext the boss taught me and wants me to pass on to you grass hopper. It’s a move you won’t find in the LP Manual or The Art of War.”
After a detailed briefing by the Lizard, and at exactly 12:30 PM, smack dap in the middle of the lunch hour Field Investigator Johnny Hargrove called the Raleigh Water Department. Hargrove worked up a well-rehearsed angry tone. He told the clerk (who was the only one left in the office) of yet another occurrence of too low water pressure, and the that the last two times they had come out to fix the problem they came out to the wrong house! How could they make the same mistake twice! What address does their records show for Rodney Cline anyway?? During Johnny’s Dennis Miller rant the abandoned clerk stuck with the phones kept staring over at his half eaten homemade lasagna. He never handled complaints and wasn’t sure what to do…so he popped on his computer and gave the address for Rodney Cline. He suddenly found an apologetic citizen who thanked him for taking the time to listen before suddenly hanging up. Then the hungry clerk dashed back to his interrupted meal and attacked the lasagna.
The Lizard leaned back in her chair;…her Betty Boop giggles filling the room.
Rodney Cline parked his van in the Wayward Wind Bar and Pool Hall located in the seediest section of east Raleigh. He was on a mission. Like all dishonest entrepreneurs he knew he needed two things to expand his criminal enterprise:
1. Experienced felons.
2. Cash flow.
With six boosters now under his umbrella feeding the buying power of the pot, crack, and speed drug division of Cline Inc., through an endless flow of stolen Excedrin, Tylenol, Advil, Bayer and other over the counter drugs, cash flow was now a cash flood. The word was on the streets that he was fast becoming a Mack, a leader who organized, supervised and sometimes led retail hits.
Cline knew two types of people always rise to the top in the business world, the cream and the scum. Cline new he could find both of the Raleigh dark side, in the belly of the street beast, at the underworld crossroads called The Wayward Wind. With an illegal pipe line outlet like the Bargain Time flea market stall, the brother of a Cop overseeing the cash payoffs and a Cop himself running the stall, he had more dead presidents greasing his palm then he ever made prying open suburban back doors or doing the side street dash after ripping purses off of old arms. Besides, boosting was getting easier and easier since a lot of the retailers got rid of most of the real LP heat…the shoes on the retail floor. One more pop by those Dudley Do Rights and he was going to do some serious prime time, but now that he was a Mack climbing the underground management ladder, paying out 20 cents on the retail dollar (out of his own stash) and selling it for 40 cents. He was the man! With his six boosters averaging 10K a week, him paying out 2K, and the Repack House paying him 4K, the gravy train was leaving the station…all aboard.
Cline scanned the smoky interior of the watering hole pool hall. Peering through the drifting blue haze he spotted Bernie Faizo hustling some pigeon in a nine ball game. Faizo was an old cellmate and a grifter player of bunco cons as well as a master retail short change-till tap artist. Cline’s face broke into a wolf grin when he made eye contact with the conman, also a well-known Fake (and speed freak) working the greater Raleigh-Durham streets. He was just the kind of smooth shark Cline was looking for to help him by pass the Rodgers Storage repack operation. Cline was a man of ambition and greed and he knew that most of his quality product was being sold around the flea market, by the dirty cop, directly to a semi legit front in the rotten apple called, Buy Right Liquidators, for 60 cents on the dollar! He over heard the dirty cop, Lonnie Rodgers, bragging that Buy Right was selling it back to the retailers for 75 cents. What a con, the idiot greedy retailers were buying back their own stolen merchandise…talk about supply and demand!
He just needed a sharp front man to help him with his marketing and he could sell directly to the legit big boys himself, almost double his end and cut out the dirty cop middleman. Not only was there no honor among thieves but loyalty was also in short supply.
After Fazio ran three racks in a row the sullen sucker stormed out carrying an empty wallet. Cline then spent over two hours shooting at a corner table explaining the scam to Fazio, who liked what he heard and knew two crack heads with booster reps who would lift for a fence…who could fill the pipe with white rock. The barter system was well and alive in the dark side. Cline slid into Fazio’s red PT Cruiser at closing to head to an after hour joint and entice the two dudes to lift for the booster division of Cline Inc.
Eric Landers clicked away with his telephoto lens zooming in on the PT’s license plate, then pulled in behind the throw back sedan as it swerved out of the lot of the Wayward Wind, speeding south to a small town called Apex to an even murkier private club known as, The Fall Out Shelter. In between long draws on a smoldering Arturo Fuente Don Carlos cigar, Landers reflected on the position of the pieces on this crowded investigative chessboard. After having the Lizard and Johnny sit on Cline’s house for three days it was obvious from the trash and the traffic that behind the privacy fence the
Doublewide had been turned into a new repack house the Feds didn’t know about, yet. Before the Feds could back track to this copycat punk, Landers would serve Cline up on a silver platter with an apple shoved into his mouth as part of the under the (federal) table deal that Owens had agreed to.
Landers ran a mental check list of the bargaining chips that he and the SBI had led the Feds to: a dirty cop, a repack house, a flea market outlet, four dirty C-stores, two dirty Pawn Shops, and the grand prize, a national distributor of stolen repackaged goods. Then there were two cards up his sleeve he would play when it came time for Special Agent Owens to honor his side of the deal; the pretty red headed bookkeeper Johnny had wined and dined who knew what the Feds needed to pound the real prosecutorial hammer, the Ricco act. Last but not least the motive behind all of Landers’ positional development. All that stolen Concord Inc. merchandise young Johnny had marked with ultra violet light pens that was snaking its way through the convoluted Anaconda pipeline, mixed in with cleaned up stolen goods from twenty retailers. With a little battery-operated hand held Ultra Violet Light all the invisibly marked Concord items will stand out with a suddenly visible CI on the box. Possession may be nine tenths of the law, but identification of a fraction of the stolen merchandise confiscated through the eventual Federal raids-busts, may hatch the golden Concord recovery egg!
If Landers can feed the Federal bear…without getting mauled while he moves the next piece on the game board.
To Be Continued……..
Coming into the home stretch…I have to re-type two of the last 3 stores from the magazine they were orginally published in as I can’t find them on my computer. If any of you are still reading and interested just upvote this one and I’ll do it!
IT WON’T BE LONG NOW
Part 10
FBI Agent Art Owens and Eric Landers sat in a back booth of the Olive Garden on Capital Boulevard in North Raleigh. Owens had called the meeting not knowing that Landers already knew “the case” was suddenly on the front burner of the FBI. Landers’ friendships in the SBI and into the Bureau itself ran wide, deep, and true blue. Landers called in some longstanding chips and Owens’ sudden sense of urgency was whispered to him, but the Paul Harvey Rest of the Story remained a mystery to even Landers’ contacts.
The Paul Harvey Rest of the Story started with a creative Customer Service Manager and a 6 AM drop of stolen merchandise into a front door garbage can of a Knob Hill store. This led Landers to a mule garbage truck, a repack house, a flea market stall, then a dirty cop, who he immediately turned over to the SBI. After a joint State/Federal task force set up a high tech peek a boo surveillance hub at a sub shop closed for re-modeling (down the street from the repack house) a pole camera zoomed in on the tip of the suspected criminal ice berg. Soon the task force unearthed a subterranean network of swarming army ant boosters, diverse fences (C-stores and pawn shops), and a crooked out of state middlemen liquidator who sometimes fed stolen product to an international wholesale diverter. Then in a case of the animal eating it’s own tail, another trail doubled back and led to greedy retailers bidding against one another to buy back their own stolen merchandise! Then to Owens’ shock and amazement the Federal Mother of all Investigations suddenly materialized. Through the diverter, one of his agents stumbled onto an international U-Boat import export operation, two shell companies, then letters of credit running through a Swiss bank originating from another bank in Indonesia. The Indonesian bank kicked out on a recently shared CIA/FBI list (viva Tom Ridges’ mushrooming mandate) of financial institutions suspected of laundering money for the battered and scattered, but still threatening, al-Qaeda terrorist network. The next thing Owens knew his boss and his bosses’ boss, with some mysterious spook types, had him on a video conference call asking how wide this case was, they already grasped the implications of its depth. When Owens stated it all started from “a motivated citizen” who implied he had a way to identify his company’s stolen goods anywhere within the criminal pipeline, for the promise of a lions share of Federal raid recovery, Owens was ordered to “Use every resource at his disposal” to map out the submerged mass of this criminal enterprise. Every resource, when it came to Owens’ ability to track any of the stolen merchandise was the “motivated citizen” sitting in front of him in the Olive Garden corner booth.
Owens slurped sips of his steaming minestrone soup peering over his spoon as Landers stabbed at his salad, carefully spearing all the black olives first. Landers knew he was suddenly in a strong position, he didn’t know why and he didn’t care. Owens was using his first name too often and as Landers sliced open and buttered a long thin steaming roll he knew from the soft spreading tone of the head Feds voice just how that roll felt.
“Eric, I want you to understand how much the Bureau appreciates all the ground work you and your dedicated people have done on this case.” Owens expression glowed with Government benevolence.
“Why thank you Art.” Landers smiled back, then thought how his friend in the SBI had told him three months ago the Feds wanted him to follow Douglas Macarthur’s example and just fade away. How six of his phone calls had gone unreturned since his last meeting with Owens and how Owens was still peering at him as if he was a slide under a microscope.
“Eric, there are things about this case I can not tell you.” Owens shrugged with his arms stretched out, hands fluttering, his palms up.
“Art, then there are things about this case I don’t want to know. I have one agenda, one goal, and one reason I approached you in the first place.” Landers leaned forward smiling making his standard hey diddle diddle right up the middle approach.
Owens stared at Landers, his dark Mediterranean features; shiny dark eyes, his Jersey alley accent and with the soft Italian music playing in the background couldn’t help but feel like he was living an episode of the Soprano’s.
“All I want for showing you how to track merchandise stolen from Knob Hill, no matter where you find it, is after any Federal raid where ever Knob Hill merchandise is positively identified and no other positive identification of ownership is made and after proper prosecutorial documentation, Knob Hill takes possession of all the goods.” Landers bit off a chunk of buttered roll and stared at Owens…until Owens looked away.
“Eric, I don’t see a problem with that, if you can deliver, but how are we going to identify stolen Knob Hill goods from every other retailer?” Owens asked.
Landers reached under the table and pulled out a gym bag. In it he had 15 ultra violet lights and a dozen samples of over the counter drugs and health and beauty items.
“Art, for the last six months I have had a number of my people marking high value items the boosters have been hitting retailers on with ultra violet light pens. They have written on appropriate items, those not shrink wrapped, the store number, the date, and their initials. We have gone into our competition, purchased the same items, shined an ultra violet light on them and found our stolen merchandise. There is no doubt in my mind some of our own blind Buyers have purchased some of our competitor’s merchandise as well.” Landers took out a brand named box of ibuprofen, held up an ultra violet light next to it, turned the odd looking little flashlight on and suddenly the invisible writing appeared, “#254, 11/15/02, JH.” Owens listened as Landers showed him item after item he had purchased at a local C-store, flea market, or pawnshop that was stolen from Knob Hill.
Over the next six weeks Special Agent Art Owens and Loss Prevention Director Eric Landers met eighteen times at the Olive Garden as the case progressed and thelayers of the retail onion were peeled away. Because of the vast profit netted by the loose federation of interconnected dishonest individuals and business entities, starting at the local booster level and slithering its way to a bank in Indonesia, with stops at a dozen criminal cul-de-sacs along the way, a funny thing happened on the way to the courtroom, the plodding Federal bureaucrat and the crafty LP Director developed respect for one another…boarding on a budding friendship. Owens kept his cards close to his chest, especially the part about the money laundering in Indonesia, but as he picked Landers brain on legitimate sources of retail “salvage” merchandise, he started to realize the complicated depth of the internal/external theft problem facing the retailers and how according to Landers, their own ruthless competition and blind stupidity was fueling a significant part of the market for their own stolen merchandise.
Eric Landers sat across from Arthur Owens in the corner booth at their nineteenth meeting at the Olive Garden. Owens struggling to suppress a grin as Landers speared all the black olives in his salad first, as Owens had watched him do eighteen other times. Landers asked for the nineteenth time, when the federal raids were going to start. Owens who was developing an appreciation for Landers’ colorful wit answered in kind.
“Eric, Do you know what the dog said when they cut his tail off” Owens deadpanned.
“No.” Landers said looking confused.
“It won’t be long now.” Owens whispered.
To Be Continued…..
Lawdy! Dis stuff gittin better n better! Dis man start a magazin, Wautavious be stealing dat one eber munf long wit Tru Detectiv. Be ez. When Big Mama be hollerin at the clerk bout no fashun magazins for full size Black womens, Wautavious have time to stuff all the magazin he want in he insid coat pocket.
Dis aint rite! De edit buttun done work no mo! Wautavious see dat he done spel betta de rong way two time, but no way to fix it! Dis makin Wautavious look bad!
Wautavious gettin a lawya. Maybe dat Swamp Bunny dude hep.
Alright Wautavious, calm down…contact Marsh Rabbit, the only lawyer I know on TBP.
I HAVE SEEN THE ENEMY AND HE IS US!
Part 11
LIZ Shearon, AKA the Lizard, scanned the senior management staff of Concord Inc., AKA the Big Grape surrounding the gleaming conference table. Since the sudden dismissal of the lead Tory, the VP of Ops and his replacement a True Blue ally of her boss Eric Landers, she knew her appearance in the board room of the corporate puzzle palace was a reflection of the political regeneration of Loss Prevention at the Big Grape.
She met and held the cool piercing stare of the patriarch of the company Mr. Concord, AKA the Big Raisin. The old man smiled as they locked eyes. There were very few people who didn’t wither under his intimating hawk like gaze and the Lizard was one of them. He liked her for that. The old man knew the petite, spunky and formidable woman who Landers said was worth five investigators had another nick name in the stores, the Dragon Lady, he liked her for that too.
Landers stood, “Ladies and Gentlemen, our Senior Field Investigator, Liz Shearon has been closely working with myself and the entire Concord LP staff in a lengthy, convoluted investigation involving numerous Police agencies. As you know our supermarket and discount divisions have had tremendous mounting shrink, most notably in our over the counter drugs, OTC and health and beauty aids, HBA departments. This pervasive organized retail theft that is plundering our stores is fueled by an underground criminal pipeline that Liz is going to unmask for you.
Landers sat down and the pert Lizard spoke her girlish voice floating through the room.
“As you all know professional shoplifters, boosters, are mostly street thieves, muggers, drug addicts and prostitutes. Our expensive Electronic Article Surveillance systems, EAS, are not a deterrent to the majority of these parasites or for that matter even a speed bump, just an inconvenience that usually informs our point of sale staff when one of these thugs has left the building with our merchandise.
The Big Raisin arched an eyebrow as he had approved the significant cost of the very expensive EAS systems and the ongoing payroll intense item tagging and point of sale employee training. This approach to shrink had been championed by the former VP of Operations insistence and the grist for this costly mill had come from downsized LP payroll. Now he finds out the expensive costs is just a speed bump!
“Our stolen goods are then sold to a local fence for a fraction of the retail value. The local fence then sells the merchandise to an interstate fence. The interstate fence then disposes of damaged, out of date and store brand product at flea markets, Ma and Pa convenience stores and even some pawns ships. Top quality brand merchandise is then ‘cleaned up’ and sold to re-distributors who re-introduce the stolen merchandise into the retail supply chain. The cleaning up of brand merchandise involves the removal of all markings and tags and this usually is done with hair spray and lighter fluid, which is also shoplifted in large quantities. They also strip off any rebate coupons and EAS tags. Now the merchandise is passed off for quality goods to re-distributors who buy it for less than its wholesale cost and then re-package it. Re-distributors maintain their ‘clean up’ operation to catch any retailers identification missed by the interstate fences. Because much of this merchandise deteriorates over time and has an expiration date and FDA regulations prohibits their sale after that date, redistributors demand constant current stolen products to successfully pass it off as legitimate quality goods. To us and other retailers they pose as legitimate buyers of salvage or liquidated product. In a nut shell that is the underground supply and demand, it’s a growth industry for the bad guys. We, the retailers, are eating our own tails, we furnish the supply and then fuel the demand”.
The Lizard’s pretty face hardened into a cold mask, her eyes glistening with a stare that suggested why she had earned the whispered nickname of The Dragon Lady. Her Betty Boop voice suddenly plunged from a light soprano to a coarse base and a few of the audience were reminded of Linda Blair in a scene from the Exorcist.
“We are talking about individual companies who deal in millions of dollars of known stolen product a year. We are talking about our own buyers, who in their haste and blind greed for gross margin profit regularly deal with suppliers who have sold them our own stolen merchandise back. These losses to Concord, that have significantly increased since the downsizing of our store level LP staff…as Eric calls them ‘the shoes on the floor’…is estimated to be over 1.2 million in 2002, 7% of just the two categories mentioned, two and a half times greater than the company shrink and over 3 times the LP payroll saved.” The Lizard paused for effect and stared unflinchingly into the burning eyes of the Big Raisin.
The Big Raisin leaned forward in his chair, his lips suddenly curled in a snarl, his pale blue eyes focused like two laser beams on the petite Lizard who, as Landers had coached her, was playing the old man’s righteous entrepreneurial indignation like a six string guitar. The Tory and Timid Vice Presidents, who had sided with the VP of OPS to bring in EAS at the expense of the LP store Staff had frozen deer in the headlight expressions.
The Lizard continued to remain silent scanning the executives, letting the significance of the Losses, the overestimated impact of EAS, the blind greed of their own buyers and the disaster of the LP downsizing sink in.
She giggled to herself the boss was right it was time to hoist the Tories and the Timid on their own petard, no quarter would be asked…or given.
Eric Landers sat at the corner table of the Olive Garden with FBI special agent Art Owens, listing to Owens relate the latest news about the dirty cop that Landers had stumbled into ten months ago at the Bargain Time flea market stall. Once jammed up with indisputable general evidence and charged with, (1) Conspiracy to transport stolen property in interstate commerce and, (2) Conducting financial transactions with the proceeds from the interstate transportation of stolen goods, (3) Tax fraud and evasion…the dirty cop flipped over faster than a greasy hamburger on a grill. Lieutenant Lonnie Rodgers had immediately turned state’s evidence on the re-distributor he had dealt with, Buy Right Liquidators and everybody else he had ever done anything illegal with that memory served. Owens told Landers that Rodgers had been so desperate to save himself from hard time he had developed the “snitch from hell” syndrome and was vomiting up anything illegal he could think of from anyone at any time in his entire life. Rodgers had agreed to work with the Feds in setting up a controlled sale of stolen goods to the re-distributor and wear a wire. He had also agreed to forfeiture of the contents of the entire warehouse of stolen HBA and OTC in in Rodgers Storage, 10% of which had Concord, Inc. ultra violet light markings. Upon hearing this Landers head snapped up from his salad, minus the black olives he had already speared and devoured.
“Good, now I want two things Art, the government’s word kept on possession of goods where Concord ultra violet light markings are found and you’re okay to let the Lizard loose on the dirty Customer Service Manager who started all this and who has been plundering our showcase store. “I feel like the shoemaker whose own children are walking around barefoot…it is time for the Concord Loss Prevention to clean out its own house.
To be continued……..
GYPSIES, TRAMPS AND THIEVES
Part 12
Eric Landers walked the Concord Inc. Distribution center with Mr. Concord A.K.A. the Big Raisin. As the stood in front of the seven pallets of merchandise confiscated from a dirty cop’s flea market stall and repack house, the old man pursed his lips and nodded his head with barely suppressed glee.
“Mr. Concord, the Feds are about to raid a huge illegal salvage operation in New York that our initial intelligence led them to and our stolen merchandise marked with ultra violet pens will identify any of our product. With us being the only retailer who can positively identify any of the stolen goods and the Feds leaning on us for expert witness insight and future testimony grist for their prosecutorial mill, I have cut us a deal that will put us in line for the Mother of all recoveries.” Landers thought he heard the old merchant actually smacking his lips.
Customer Service Manager (CSM) Maria Lorna prowled behind the registers of Knob Hill No. 254 like a confidant cat. Her striking sultry appearance, waist length jet black hair and long blood red finger nails always left male customers in line following her with their eyes while sucking in their guts. Bearing a striking resemblance to a young Cher, Maria never tired of hearing the compliment and through osmosis acquired Cheri Mannerisms. The constant beeping of the UPCs flying over the register scanner filled her head with white background noise that was as natural to her as blaring car horns in rush-hour Manhattan.
After 11 years in retail, the last three as the senior CSM of Knob Hill No. 254, she was a prized, experienced and valued retail frontline veteran. Herb Elting, the store manager had glowing praise for Lorna in her last three year-end reviews. He had learned to lean on Lorna as an unofficial Manager On Duty (MOD). She was professional, dependable and had great people skills. And most valuable of all, Maria seemed content in the critical but underpaid position. She even liked opening the store at the pre dawn 0’dark thirty time all the other managers found too early.
There was only one thing wrong with this retail-recruiting poster, MOD stood for ‘Manager On Drugs’ and her consuming nose candy vice had transformed her into a cunning thief. She was not just any run-of-the-mill CSM skimming from the cashier’s till, sliding free groceries to her friends or creating fantasy refunds from the phone book. For the last year she was the horn of plenty in a multilevel conspiracy that supplied stolen Knob Hill goods to a mule garbage truck, eventually unloading at a flea-market repack operation run by a dirty cop. A dirty cop exposed by Eric Landers and his investigative dart tip, Liz Shearon, a.k.a. the Lizard. A dirty cop trapped by the SBI then jammed up and flipped over by the Feds. A dirty cop whom, after being cornered with indisputable evidence and facing hopeless hard times, was squealing louder than the chubby guy in “Deliverance”.
Etling sat behind his desk in shock listening to Shearon introduce a grim looking young man from the FBI. When she announced she and the agent were here to interview his prized employee, Maria Lorna, Elting was flabbergasted. He started to speak…but only stuttered. He knew Shearon was Lander’s hatchet lady and when she visited a store unannounced turnover, terminations and the police usually followed. But the FBI? How could it be this serious? He was ready to throw up in his wastepaper basket.
Elting was the prototype retail store manager, earnest, sincere and hardworking, addicted to the frantic pace and shifting landscape of retail. He hated the ugly side of retail reality, the constant internal theft and never-ending betrayal from revolving cashiers and stockers. But Maria? He trusted her. What did she do to his store to bring in the feared LP Dragon Lady and one of J. Edgar Hoover’s great grandsons?
FBI Special Agent Frank Holly watched this retail LP woman he had been partnered with, against his overruled objections, efficiently arrange the store manager’s office for the interview after Elting hurriedly left picking at a roll of Tums. Holly was still smarting from a brief encounter he had earlier with the Lizard as they rode to the store together after a meeting with his boss, Art Owens and Eric Landers, her boss. Once in the car, Holly tilted his chin up and in a haughty tone boldly assumed tactical control of the upcoming interview. Like a bantam rooster, he verbally strutted and flared out his feathers, dictating the interview approach he would take. Suddenly the Lizard swerved the vehicle over jerking it into park in an angry rocking stop, swiveled towards him from behind the wheel and leveled a pointed finger at him like the barrel of a cocked pistol.
“Look agent Holly Jolly, I’ve been interviewing and interrogating retail employees for over 16 years,” Shearon said. “I believe you were in grade school when I started and if you missed the obvious at the joint briefing, THIS IS MY CASE on my turf. And let’s get it crystal clear from Jump Street, this is my interview, you’re the witness….not me. All I expect out of you is concise notes and not one more condescending, cocky word.”
The Dragon Lady’s fiery penetrating eyes and sudden sneer that twisted the tiny woman’s lips rattled Holly. Her mocking glare latched on his eyes and unflinchingly held him in an invisible full nelson. They stared at one another in a silent duel. Then Holly blinked and swallowed. His words stumbled out their sincerity weakly dangling in the air.
“Ok…Ok…maybe I misjudged you and assumed too much. I know our bosses said this was your case…I just thought…I…”
The Dragon Lady’s words sliced the air as she slammed the car into drive and shot back into traffic. “Well Holly tell your thoughts to take a number and get in lie. I get misjudged every day and it’s the sharpest arrow in my quiver.”
They rode in silence for 10 minutes while the young chastised Agent brooded. The Dragon Lady cut him a sidelong glance catching his eyes, her expression melting into a sweet smile instantly transforming her expression into the girlish Lizard followed by a Betty Boop giggle…the formable and vicious Dragon Lady safely tucked away for now. She said sweetly in her little girl voice, “Agent Holly, when I get through dealing with little Miss Cher Wannabe she’ll be singing ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’ to our tune and I’ll find out about the spelling test she cheated on in the 5th grade. Trust me, all the dirty water is coming out of her well.”
Then a confidant guttural deep laugh cackled from the tiny woman and Holly was amazed at the lightning fast personality transformations of woman he was sitting next to.
Two hours after the interview started a sobbing Marina Lorna finished writing a seven page statement that detailed her yearlong involvement in stuffing white garbage bags full of Knob Hill merchandise before dawn and then switching them with the bag of garbage in the can at the front of the store’s front door. She gave up her boyfriend a driver for Waste Management Industries who had concocted the scam and followed up on the fencing sales, splitting his cut with the Cher look alike. The Lizard couldn’t help but burst into a high pitched giggle when she found out the boyfriend’s nickname given to him by the dirty CSM was Sonny…it was just too delicious not to laugh.
Knowing many dishonest employees eventually run together or find out about one another after the confession was mined and logged the Lizard focused in on implications. As promised to Holly she pulled up all the dirty water from the Cher Wannabe’s well. A meat cutter selling Knob Hill steaks out of his freezer in his garage, a receiving clerk who smuggled out stolen merchandise in the trash and hid it next to the dumpster that his roommate picked up and last but not least a greeting card sales rep who regularly bribed her with concert tickets to let him take cases of unsold holiday greeting cards out the front door, that were charged to Knob Hill as sold.
The Lizard handed the weeping CSM tissues while tenderly patting her shoulder reinforcing the evil Machiavellian intent of the controlling guilt of her obviously manipulative garbage truck driver (soon to be arrested) ex-boyfriend…once he figures out how his version of Cher started singing ‘I’ve got you Babe’ (to throw under the garbage truck!)
SThe Lizard reassured the CSM she would put in a word for leniency with the DA for her cooperation while offering wide eyed compliments on how she was the spitting image of Cher when she was first married to Sonny. All The CSM could think of was getting into the ladies room alone to put the two lines of coke she had in her pocket up her nose, flush the empty packet and little straw and where she was going to get the money to make bail??? She had put all of her cuts the last year up her nose and was broke.
RODNEY CLINE the founder and CEO of Rodney Cline Inc. was thinking about how he was going to expand his burgeoning business. The thief, mugger of old women, suburban home breaking and entering artist, conman, liar, druggie, drunk and recently Booster Forman was sprawled on the ratty couch in his double wide trailer. A trailer he had turned into a repack house for stolen over the counter drugs, product mostly stolen from the seemingly defenseless retailer Knob Hill. He was smugly sipping on a bottle of his best friend, Jack Daniels, lost in future schemes. He was amazed at the number of Dead Presidents pouring in through what he knew was called ORC, Organized Retail Crime. He held the bottle of Jack up in a toast…and said out loud:
“Hip…hip Hooray for stupid greedy retailers who buy back their own stolen crap to get a good deal!”
It had been a long day of meticulously peeling off retail tags and he stunk, his clothing coated with sweat, lighter fluid and hair spray. Then without warning the front door exploded! Shouting men and two women with FBI printed in huge letters on their jackets rushed in pointing guns.
Rodney sat perfectly still on the ratty couch frozen in disbelief his reptilian eyes suddenly wide with terror. As he was unceremoniously grabbed and thrown to the ground, his bottle of Jack dropped to the floor pouring out next to his head, his wrists being roughly handcuffed behind his back. He thought to himself about the .22 Ruger he had stolen in a B&E and had hidden wrapped in plastic in the toilet tank, the one he had used last year to put one behind the ear of that punk who cheated him on that rock buy. He was positive no one knew that it was him and how he should have got rid of it…then he heard the agents cursing and saw them react jerking back with disgust and wrinkled noses. The he smelled it too and felt it running down his legs. Rodney was beyond scared, far past terrified…he had shit himself and it was the mother of all loads.
Rodney Cline Inc. was going into unexpected Chapter 7.
To be continued…to the upcoming last serial of the Retail Ride.
HOW SWEET IT IS!
The Last Serial
The table in the private dinning room of Eric Landers’ favorite watering hole and restaurant in Raleigh North Carolina, The Thai Sigh, was filled with many of his favorite people. The True Blue LP managers of the within the Concord Inc. retail empire, old friend-fellow cigar aficionado and chess combatant SBI Agent Wayne Truax, new friend the buttoned down but canny FBI Special Agent Art Owens, his southern bell secretary the sublime Miss Betty, his strong right arm the tart Lizard, her protégé the tightly wound but promising Investigator Johnny Hargrove, the earnest #254 Store Manager Herb Elting, and a sprinkling of trusted tried and “True Blue” Big Grape executives.
They had come together to celebrate the indictment of 27 individuals and six companies blistered with multiple federal charges of organized retail theft, interstate transportation of stolen goods and money laundering. The convoluted spider web connections woven together in the searing 37-page indictment exposé encouraged well-deserved acid reflux within the stomach linings of its protagonists. This network of chameleon parasites, who had posed as legitimate retail distributors for too many years was being ferociously threatened with the dreaded great white, razor sharp, financial jaws of the asset devouring Ricco Act. Panic consumed them as their ill-gotten wealth and trappings of their white-collar crimes were now unreachable, frozen colder then the heart of an ex-wife in a country and western song. Condos, boats, classic cars, paintings, coin collections and safe deposit boxes were gone in the blink of an e-mailed court order. Their corporate lawyers were scrambling like stepped on fire ants but a few, after reading the indictment and discovering the international connection-implication, resigned like rats scurrying off a sinking ship. The principles of this long untouched loose federation of wolves in sheep clothing also realized too late, through the indictment, why the federal heat was radiating like a righteous blast furnace; some of their multiple layered money laundering shell game maneuvers had been traced to letters of credit to a bank in Indonesia. A bank now linked to America’s enemy number one, the mass murder hunkered down somewhere under a rock deep within a cave south of Tora Bora. Suddenly they found themselves bleeding men in a pool filled with vicious Homeland investigative empowered Federal sharks. They were stunned when they discovered the phrase, “9-11 changed everything” wasn’t a cliché….it was their nightmare criminal reality. They had never cared who poured money into their pockets, but now because their blind greed was feeding a tentacle of the sub terrain terrorist’s network, Uncle Sam was coming and he was pissed!
After feasting on the delicate, spicy hot, exotic textures and pungent Southeast Asian fragrances of genuine Thai Sigh food, while repeatedly toasting their collective hard fought success with warm rice wine saki, the fires of their camaraderie was stoked and the chant,
“Speech! Speech! Speech!”
Suddenly echoed through the room accompanied by a united pounding on the table. All eyes were on Eric Landers…it was his moment as the LP leader who through old-fashioned retail gumshoe persistence and vision had peeled away the layers of a case that lead to the resurrection of the downsized Big Grape LP program. He had pulled off delicate negations with the FBI and earned Special Agent Art Owens’ respect and friendship, while reaping federal raid recoveries that filled the Big Grape DC with pallet after pallet of recovered stolen retail goods. Because Concord was the only retailer who could identify their merchandise with ultra violet lights they received the bulk of the recovered stolen merchandise after the FBI raids, even though most was from other retails! More than enough to pay for the CCTV systems Landers was requesting and even add to LP payroll and LP BONUSES all around!!!
Landers rose, a small mushroom shaped glass of warm Saki in his hand. The room fell silent.
“Ladies and gentlemen… and you too Dragon Lady. The room roared and the Lizard went into her Dragon Lady Linda Blare stare glare, pointing a cocked gun finger of warning at her boss.
“The hallmark of my…shall we say eventful investigative career has been built on one fact, one constant, one repetitive and redundant reality only.”
Landers slowly scanned the room letting his eyes touch each face as a pregnant pause gave birth to the self-deprecating truth.
“Dumb, blind, stupid luck!” He gleefully shouted.
The room roared again and Landers downed half a glass of saki in a prodigious gulp, reacting to the powerful wine with his best exaggerated, bulging eyes, slightly smug, yet appreciative Jackie Gleason facial expression of,…How sweet it is.
The laughter, backslapping, grins, giggles and a lone howl of high-pitched Betty Boop glee that rose from the Lizard encouraged and fed on one another for a full minute. Landers’ smiled broadly the crease of his deep dimples shaving ten years off his face. He realized this was a moment in time he would remember for the rest of his life. One of those precious and fleeting microscopic treasures when all the planets are aliened and the fires of friendship are fed with the fuel of shared passion, purpose and collective success.
“I have learned to never underestimate the creative cunning of the criminal mind…or the sheer stupidity of its greedy selflessness. Quite honestly, I had no idea the simple markings of ultra violet light pens would be overlooked by these jelly heads and I was even more surprised when the FBI and the department of Homeland Security traced them back to some of the enemies of our nation… and found them so useful in indicting so many being used as criminal dupes by the evil doers.”
Landers paused reflectively…looking contemplative then suddenly shouted with unrestrained excitement.
“But, I am willing to take full credit for the wholly unattended and accidental spectacular results!”
Raucous laughter mixed with wild cheering ensued. The prim and proper Miss Betty stared at Landers shaking her head like a teacher at a mischievous student. Her southern sensibilities were shocked at Lander’s piercing honesty that often mingled with his naked, colorful wit. She was never quite sure what was going to come out of her brash Yankee bosses’ mouth. She tried unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle, then a wide grin
split her face, followed by unrestrained knee slapping belly laughter.
Landers drove home after the celebration to his wife the Petite Flower, a west Texas spitfire who owned his heart. She squealed with glee when he relayed the details of the party and as always reflected back his satisfaction in finishing a case and taking down some bad, bad…really bad guys.
The End
I hope those reading this at TBP enjoyed it half a much as I enjoyed writing it. To all the people whose real life personalities I used, including the bad guys thanks for the inspiration.
Thank you for the effort Mark. It sounds like you’ve had a splendid time doing what you loved doing.
It doesn’t get any better than that :).
That was me Mark.
Thanks Warts!
You are correct sir!
The only thing more fun about investigating and successfully taking down bad guys and bad gals is writing about it and getting it published.
Within my field this serial was a big hit in 2003, I enjoyed revisting it.