3x01, Aruba-Con:
"Wait, I've seen this play before. Leave the merchandise unattended, draw the target out -"
"League of Assassins strategy?"
"No, it's Sink Shower & Stuff. We use it to catch shoplift... it's a trap!"
Note: Hi so remember last chapter (I know you don't, that's okay) when I was like "I have mixed feelings about this one"? Yeah, this one is way worse. So I apologize in advance.
BUT! I am going to hold onto feeling proud of being almost done with my first ever multi-chapter fic! So yeah. Hope you enjoy.
Carl paces back and forth in front of the less-than-neat line of his shift workers. His shoes squeak menacingly on the linoleum.
"We've been having issues," he announces, "with shoplifters."
His expression is deadly serious, hands clasped tightly behind his back, and Sara coughs into her shirt to avoid snickering. Wise to her ways, he gives her a furious glare.
"Now, it's not any one culprit, but a general atmosphere of lawlessness," he continues, "They feel safe. We need to change that." His eyes flit over the row of yawning employees, to Sara, who is at least engaged, because she finds it hilarious. "We need to catch one of them."
"Make an example," Sara offers, forcefully keeping the corners of her mouth turned down. He is not at all fooled but runs with it anyway out of necessity.
"Exactly. So we're going to use an old Sink Shower & Stuff trick: leave the merchandise unattended to catch shoplifters. Today, everyone stay away from the section with the sample hand lotions. I will watch from a distance. When someone pockets something, thinking they're safe, I'll catch them. And our problem will be solved."
"Yes, sir!" Sara says, saluting. His mouth is drawn tight in annoyance, but he doesn't have time to fire her before the store opens, so he gives up and stalks off to stake out the lotions.
And sure enough, he spends the next several hours drifting creepily along the aisles adjacent to the display in question. It's the best day Sara's had in a while, always with something to amuse her. She's entertained for a full hour by the expression of soul-rending conflict on his face when a customer asks him for help and drags him away from his post. And if at least two teenagers come through her checkout line with hands tucked too carefully into large pockets, well. She's not going to spoil Carl's fun by saying anything.
It takes until early afternoon before he actually notices what she's been seeing all day, and the note of triumph in his voice makes it carry further than it should. "Turn out your pockets," he demands, and the edge of girl Sara can see around a shelf goes stiff with panic.
"Uh, I don't, no, I don't want to," she stammers.
Carl approaches with glee. Menacingly, he repeats, "Turn out your pockets."
There's a pause. Then she turns and runs.
Confused chatter arises in the store as she rounds the edge of the aisle and sprints for the door. Carl stands flabbergasted, and Sara considers for a moment. She picks up the next item she's about to ring up, a replacement part of a toilet that has decent heft and close enough to the right shape. "Stop!" Carl shouts fruitlessly, as the girl enters the checkout area of the store and approaches the exit beyond it, and Sara makes her mind up.
"Sorry, I'll get you another one," she directs at the nervous woman whose purchase it is. She draws it back over her shoulder, lets her fingers slip to the right place on the irregular shape, and smoothly sends it on its way. It spins neatly through the air, intersects with the shoplifter's path, and whizzes in front of her legs. She jerks back, overbalances, then flat-out trips, sprawling on the floor and sending sampler bottles of hand sanitizer scattering out of her pocket and across the floor.
Carl arrives puffing behind her a few seconds later. "What the –" he manages, further eloquence restricted by absolute confusion and how he is still trying to catch his breath. "Why would you –"
Pushing herself into a sitting position on the floor below him, the girl's lip trembles. Her cheeks are dusted rosy pink with makeup, she's drowning in an overlarge gray sweatshirt of an impressive brand name, and her eyes well with tears. "I'm sorry," she sobs, quietly but audibly. "I'm so sorry – please don't tell my parents."
Carl has recovered his breath, and seemed ready a moment ago to unleash an impressive condemnation, but in the face of her tears he stalls out. He mouths several inaudible syllables, takes a step or two back, and vacillates in the empty space between the aisles and the checkout.
For the second time in as many minutes, Sara is left the only one prepared to deal with the situation. She vigorously flags down another employee and heads over to the scene that is interrupting everyone in the entire store.
"Jesus, Carl, you're an idiot," she mutters, and storms past him to the girl. "Get up," she demands, and when she's met with only further lip-trembling, she grabs an elbow and hauls the girl to her feet. "Come on." With the would-be thief stumbling behind her, and her manager drifting confusedly in her wake, she heads for a back corner of the store, waving cheerily over her shoulder. "Remember," she calls, "Everything in the tiling section is at discount today!"
A murmur arises, movement resumes, and Sink Shower & Stuff resigns itself to not being able to eavesdrop.
By the time they've made it to a little-trafficked back aisle, Carl has recovered himself enough to argue back. "Freckles, get back to your station," he demands, but it's weak and he knows it. She just takes up the third point of a little triangular huddle and crosses her arms.
"Kid," she begins, and snorts at her wide-eyed confusion. "Yes you. What's your name?"
The girl takes a while to wipe her eyes and sniffle. "Kaelie," she finally says.
"Great. Kaelie, stop dehydrating yourself, it's not working. I've gotten out of too much trouble with fake tears to be fooled myself."
From beside her, Carl clears his throat. "Yes, uh. We aren't fooled," he repeats, and Sara breaks her stern focus on the teen to give him a dubious sideways glance. He clears his throat again.
After a moment, Kaelie wipes her eyes and settles her hands crossed across her chest, still plausibly defensive but with the beginnings of defiance. "It all fell out of my pocket anyway," she mutters.
This time, Carl doesn't need her help. "The bag too," he puts in, and Sara seconds it with an outstretched hand. She is unmoved by both stuttered beginnings of a denial and the careful way Kaelie at first surrenders what is surely not everything in the bag, but soon enough she's confident she's got it all. She sets it all on a shelf and is disappointed that Carl is still too scattered to be offended at lotions next to drain cleaner.
This finished, Kaelie swings her pink bag back behind her hip. "So?" she asks, seeming to have finally left the crocodile tears behind. "Can I go?"
There's an awkward pause, Carl looks to Sara, and it is the most gratifying thing she's ever experienced. "Well," she begins gleefully, "That's up to the manager."
For a moment she drinks in his panic, then continues. "But, if I were the manager – which I hope to God I'll never be – then I would say sure, go. I don't imagine you'll steal from this location again after all this, and stopping you from stealing anywhere else isn't in anybody's power but yours. So mission as accomplished as it's going to be." She straightens her bland uniform shirt with satisfaction and slaps Carl on the shoulder, knocking him forward a step or two. "But I'm going to get back to checkout and leave it up to him."
"Thanks," Carl mutters, face soured by embarrassment, and beside him Kaelie's is twisted by confusion, revealed by a slip of her guarded scowl. That's gratifying too.
In the moment before taking her first step away there's a temptation to answer that confusion. Share something from her own past, tie a bow on. Certainly it's been done for her enough times, and a few lessons even rise to her tongue as parting shots. Martin's had some gems about hard work – there's something about responsibility that's definitely Rip – and even one of the League's maxims about self-motivation that's poetic in Arabic and stilted in English.
But her foot lands on the ground and she's already heading away before she can come up with anything.