"Do you have the receipt for this item, Miss Quinn?" asked the cashier, who happened to be a different one from the previous day. "As I'm sure you were informed by my colleague, we can't accept any items for our Christmas Day delivery service without the receipt."
"Yeah, he did mention that," agreed Harley. "Is he here? Only I think I already explained my situation to him, which would save me from explaining it again…"
"He's been fired, Miss Quinn," interrupted the cashier.
"What? Fired? Why?" asked Harley, confused.
"He barged into the CEO's office yesterday after his shift was over and lectured him about the spirit of the season," retorted the cashier. "He said that notorious supercriminals treated their employees better than he did, and he demanded paid vacation and dental insurance. And so the boss fired him."
"Well, I feel partially responsible for that," said Harley. "It's a bad time to be out of work too. Oh well," she said, shrugging. "I guess I'll have to explain my situation to you…"
"First I need to see your receipt," interrupted the cashier.
"Roc, Mr. J must have given that to you," said Harley, turning to the henchman desperately.
"He didn't hand me anything but the box," insisted Rocco.
"Would it be in the box?" asked the cashier. "Why don't you check?"
"Uh…no," said Rocco, firmly. "No, we can't open this."
"Why not?" asked the cashier.
"Because," retorted Rocco. "Because…it would ruin this nice wrapping job of the boss's."
"That's right," agreed Harley. "Mr. J would be furious if he found out."
"We can re-wrap it professionally…" began the cashier.
"Can't you just take my word for it without the receipt?" interrupted Harley.
"Forgive me, Miss Quinn, but I'd have to be crazy to take your word for anything," retorted the cashier.
"The other guy was nicer," said Harley, glaring at him. "And he knew what was meant by the words 'customer service.' Unlike you, buddy. The customer is always right, you know, and I'm a customer."
"You can't prove that without the receipt, can you?" asked the cashier. "I'm very sorry we can't help you today," he added, insincerely. "Good day, Miss Quinn."
Harley said nothing, but suddenly whistled. "Babies, get 'im!" she shouted.
The hyenas leapt over the counter to attack the cashier. "Roc, hold off the security guards!" shouted Harley, grabbing the box from him as she leapt over the counter, past the screaming cashier being mauled by the hyenas, and raced into the backroom of the store. She was immediately confronted with dozens of rows of identical boxes, and swore loudly.
"Criminey, they gotta be here somewhere!" she cried, racing down random shelves. The boxes appeared to be organized alphabetically by address, and Harley managed to locate the address of their hideout, and the warehouse, grabbing the boxes down from each spot. She heard a commotion from outside as she balanced the three boxes in her arms and ducked behind a row of shelves.
"C'mon, c'mon!" she muttered, tearing the labels off the boxes. "Ok, this one goes to the warehouse, and this one goes to our hideout, and this one goes…"
She trailed off as she stared at the three identical boxes, realizing with mounting horror that she had no idea which box was which. She put her ear to one of the boxes, trying to hear the ticking of the bomb, but at that moment, the guards burst into the backroom, demanding that she come out with her hands up. She heard them coming closer, and then looked from the labels to the boxes.
"Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," she whispered, pointing at each box in turn while shuffling the labels. "Hang a Batman over the road, when a car comes, let him go, eeny, meeny, miny moe!" she exclaimed, putting the three labels randomly onto the three boxes.
"Hands up, Quinn!" shouted a guard as he rounded the corner and saw her.
"They're up!" she exclaimed, obeying him. "And nothing up my sleeve!" she added, as the Joker's patented laughing gas marbles dropped from her sleeve. They fell onto the ground and immediately released clouds of green Joker toxin into the air.
"Shame about the killer toys – guess you were on the naughty list!" shouted Harley, as she raced out of the room. She threw down more marbles in front of the guards restraining Rocco and the hyenas, and then grabbed Rocco's hand and their leashes and pelted toward the door.
"I don't think we'll be welcome back there," commented Harley, as they drove away from the scene of the crime. "So I really hope Mr. J never wants to do another Bergduffs box bomb."
"He won't have time before Christmas," replied Rocco. "You got all the labels switched, huh?"
"I don't really know," admitted Harley. "I hope so."
"What do you mean you don't know?" asked Rocco, concerned.
"The boxes all looked the same!" exclaimed Harley. "So I might have mixed up what box needed to go where!"
"But Harley, what if you accidentally sent one of the bombs to the hideout?" asked Rocco. "You've got a 66% chance of doing that…"
"I can do basic math, Roc!" snapped Harley. "And I'm fine with the 33% odds of getting my coat! Harvey's always doing things with fifty-fifty odds, and it's not much smaller than that!"
"They're not good odds though, are they?" asked Rocco.
"Look, on Christmas Day, when the box arrives at the hideout, I'm just gonna tell Mr. J the truth," retorted Harley. "And I'm gonna recommend he disposes of the box before it can explode. He'll probably punish me for messing up his schemes, but I don't care! I ain't gonna let him blow up our friends on Christmas Day! If I had just insisted on that point and been honest and firm with him from the beginning, I wouldn't be in this mess! I mean, he would have punished me then rather than on Christmas, but it's better to get it out of the way and save myself a Christmas headache. I guess there's a lesson in there somewhere, huh?"
"I...guess," agreed Rocco, slowly. "But I'm struggling to see what it is."
"Don't strain yourself," replied Harley. "Personally, I hate stories with morals – preachy nonsense if you ask me. If I wanted to be preached at, I'd go to church! And I might do that, since Mr. J might actually kill me on Christmas, and it would probably be a good idea to be absolved of my sins or something."
"Yeah, but I think in order to be forgiven, you gotta stop doing the sin," pointed out Rocco.
"Well, that's definitely not gonna happen," said Harley, shaking her head. "I ain't ever gonna stop doing Mr. J. Even if he kills me, I'm gonna come back to him as a ghost, and it'll be like that pottery scene in Ghost. Or that blowjob scene in Ghostbusters. I'm gonna haunt him forever. Which is probably why he hasn't killed me yet – he can't take that chance. And I hope he'll remember that on Christmas Day."