F'n Debby's Birthday All Over Again
tp001
Flying from Florida is the worst. Why would anyone wanna leave Florida?
Well, cousin Danielle and her fiance, Thomas, who one-time vacationed in Vermont when he was thirteen years old.
He absolutely had to have his wedding in Vermont. Mister “I have a connection!”
And she finds herself in the middle of Grady’s in the Butternut Valley Shopping Center in the Greenville Town Square.
Bored and kinda sick of the motel four walls, she thought the shopping center would be worth an hour or three.
Crystal hadn’t strolled a mall in years. This reminded her of high-school weekends with Debby - still her best friend after all these years. And Crystal saw these earrings, and they were so cheesy, and they looked so much like the pair she tried to steal Debby for her 15th birthday, and Crystal had to miss the party because she was grounded for getting busted.
So Crystal palmed this pair for Debby as a thank you, and a, ahem, connection. And she walks out of the store and - not a chance. Crystal just shook her head. Not just a mall cop, but a mall cop and a cop cop. Of all the god damn...f’n Debby’s birthday all over again. “I’m so sorry, can I just pay for them?”
“I’m sorry ma'am. Please come with us.”
Turns out this place had been getting hit pretty hard over the last six, eight weeks including just this early afternoon which is what put cop cop exactly where Crystal wishes she weren’t.
Cop cop was in no mood - Crystal got stuffed on the same day as Michael Peter Jacobs. He’s the one who brought no-mood cop cop there in the first place.
What a dumb ass. This guy stumbled through the mall under every camera all the way from the West parking lot. He walked a tightrope straight for the Sneaker Shop.
Saw the pair he wanted, took ‘em, and put himself down on a try-on bench. Got to two of three count and shoved one of the pair right down the front of his sweats. He stood up and started walking toward the exit with a lumpy looking sneaker boner and, wouldn't ya know it? he doubled down - shoved the other of the pair like a borrowed lighter into his smoking-hand, sweat-pants pocket - the video looked like he might as well have been smuggling baby pandas.
After taking a moment to wish she had someone to say, "well would you take a look at this guy" to, mall cop went on with it, and collected Michael Peter Jacobs outside the exit. The dumb ass ran back into the store which basically led to him being cornered. They got Jacobs down to the office, and he just went into full-on teenager. Forty-two year-old man, and he immediately melts into, “First time, I’m so sorry. I’m so broke. I didn’t know what else to do.” Just pouring out.
But mall cop ran the record, and Mike Jacobs was a repeat. Book says: gotta call the cops. Cops send Bad Mood Cop Cop, Deputy Sidecar.
Bad Mood Cop Cop is usually Good Mood Cop Cop. Deputy Sidecar is usually the friend people usually need when they call the cops. Not so much that they call her Linda. But a dependable, trustworthy friend on that side of the uniform.
Crystal didn’t meet that Deputy Sidecar ‘cuz Linda Sidecar that morning got news from the realtor representing the nice folks from the city who were probably, maybe buying her house. The sewer inspector turned up a little difficulty with the pipes; in that, the pipe to the street had collapsed. There’d be no sale until the pipe was replaced - months delay...coming into the winter. She thought she’d be cashing a check and onward by Christmas. Now she was in Greenville for the winter: a long Vermont winter.
And five minutes after she got that news she got a call about “Mikey again...smuggling pandas in his sweats at the Butt Valley Shop Center.”
She didn’t know what the heck to do with Andy Dispatcher’s panda call, but she knew no one was dying; she knew this was a dumb fucko that always did this shit; and she knew she’d be doing this for at least the next three/four months with goddamn snow on the ground.