Peter Corris - The Big Score

This time Craig didn’t make a sale. He closed the door behind the non-customer and swung the ‘Closed’ sign into place.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘This is it. I got hold of a copy of the book. Cost me a bit but I did it.’

‘How?’

‘Don’t ask, trade secret. The thing is, I put out a monthly newsletter-cum-catalogue. Goes out tomorrow. I’m going to include the book in it. Bait, see?’

‘You reckon your thief keeps an eye on such catalogues?’

‘Bound to, mine in particular. I’m… ahem… a leading player in the field. What I do is give a date when special items in the catalogue become available. That’ll be next week. The punters turn up on the day. It’s a bit of a rush for a while and then it settles down.’

‘What if someone else wants to buy the book?’

‘I thought of that. I’ll tag it as sold from the word go. I’ve installed video surveillance now-cost a bomb, but it’s worth it. Totally concealed, no warning signs the way shops usually have. You can be up there on the mezzanine in my office and watch it. You see the accomplice distract me and the thief move in. I’ll have the book on display with a card all about its history. No real security. You come down and that’s it-both birds snared.’

‘What makes you think I can snare both birds?’

‘Come on, Cliff. Have you had a look at yourself lately? You scare me and I’m sure there’s some kind of badge you can show. I don’t think you’ll need your gun.’

‘What happens then?’

‘We find out what the hell it’s all about. We hope to get all the books back, maybe get some compensation for the damage done to the bookcases. I’m not the only victim of that. What do you say, Cliff? A day of your time, maybe two if they decide to play it cool, which they won’t because they’ll be scared the book’ll go.’

Craig was almost jumping up and down with excitement as he envisaged the scenario. To me, it was all a bit strange and somehow unreal. I couldn’t fully believe in these two wide-ranging, desperado book thieves, but there was something infectious about his enthusiasm.

‘The main interest for me,’ I said, ‘apart from earning my appropriate fee, is what the fuck they’re playing at.’

‘Me, too.’

‘Set it up, Craig. I’m in.’

Craig issued the catalogue and gave Northern Trekking a prominent place with a photograph. It was priced at a hefty four hundred and fifty dollars. The launching of the catalogue, a special evening social event for the regulars to place their orders, would be a couple of days before the items went on sale. I checked on the video surveillance gear. A four-way split screen gave good coverage of the whole shop. Crisp black and white images and a running time clock. The equipment had the capacity to record all four images on a hard disk and transfer them to a cassette or a CD. Must have cost a bomb and was way over the top for a shop like Craig’s, but he was on a mission.

I told Lily, my part-time partner who was staying over at my place that night, about the case and she said it sounded like fun.

‘How’s he going to pay you?’ she asked. ‘In books?’

‘Not a bad idea. Build up a decent credit.’

‘You’ve got an unread pile beside the bed.’

‘That’s because you distract me.’

‘I’m off to Canberra tomorrow for a couple of days. Give you time to catch up.’

As Craig had predicted, there was an early rush at the opening and no chance for anyone to do any stealing. I had a chair that was deliberately not too comfortable, and Craig’s office had a coffee machine. I’d brought sandwiches and a wide-neck bottle to piss in. As stake-outs go, it was one of the most comfortable I’d undertaken.

After a while watching the screens became boring, especially as nothing happened. Then something did: a woman wearing a loose, full-length coat took a book from a shelf and dropped it into an inside pocket. Then she browsed for a second or two before unhurriedly leaving the shop. Nothing I could do. The book she took wasn’t one of the pricey items but Craig was still out a few dollars. He was doing a brisk trade, though, taking orders.

After a while the numbers dropped off and there were empty spaces on the shelves, fewer browsers, fewer placing orders. Danger time. I kept a close watch on people coming through the door. Would they come in singly or in a pair? My bet was singly. Overall, there had been more women than men but there was no reason the thief couldn’t be a woman, or a man with a female accomplice or any other combination. I’d have put my money on a woman to do the distracting and a man to do the lifting. Glass cutting isn’t easy, although this time it wasn’t necessary.

The lights went down and the screens went blank. I’ll swear it was only for a split second, the blink of an eye, but it happened. As soon as the screen was active again I homed in on the stand that held the book. It was still there. I breathed a sigh of relief and went on with my watch. Coffee and sandwiches. The crowd thinned away to almost nothing, and Craig must have told the few people remaining that he was closing because they filed out obediently.

I came down the stairs. ‘Did you see the lights flicker?’ I said. ‘What was that?’

‘Something to do with the grid, I guess. It happens, but I’ve got generator backup because of some manuscripts that have to be kept at a set temperature. You didn’t lose picture, did you?’

‘Blink of an eye only. Anyway, the book’s still there.’

‘That’s disappointing. I felt sure they’d try on day one.’ He drifted over to the display stand. ‘Jesus H Christ!’

I was snooping at the credit card slips. I practically hurdled the counter to get to him. ‘What?’

He held the book in his hand. ‘This is a dummy-a fucking fake.’

We pieced it together. Somehow, someone had tripped the fuses located near the front of the shop. In the time the power was off the book had been switched. Craig was cursing himself for not thinking about the power supply and I was telling him it was my fault for not checking on it. That was true.

‘Shit, I’m out six hundred bucks and we learned nothing.’

‘That’s what you paid for it?’

‘I told you not to ask.’

‘Okay. But when we play back the video we should be able to see who was near the fuse box and who was near the display stand.’

We replayed the footage captured on the hard disk. At the time there were four people in the shop. One stood between two big shelves, spectacles hanging from his mouth, peering at the titles. One was Craig, busying himself behind the counter. Two were on the move, one towards the fuse box, the other towards the display stand. The trouble was, they must have known exactly how the cameras were placed because they kept their backs to them both on the approach and on the retreat. They wore coats and hats and were medium-sized. Impossible to tell their ages and my feeling that the one who’d dealt with the fuses was a woman was just that, a feeling, a guess, based on the way the person moved.

The browser took a book from the shelf, replaced his glasses and went to the counter.

Craig took the order with less than his usual enthusiasm. ‘Picked Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden,’ Craig said when the door closed, shaking his head in disappointment.

‘Good taste.’

‘Yeah, but we learned bugger-all from the exercise.’

‘Not quite. They knew about the cameras and exactly where they were placed. How would they know that?’

‘Search me. I had it done when the shop was closed for the Easter break. Never showed it to anyone except you.’

‘And they knew about the fuse box, although I suppose that’s fairly easy to spot. But it means they’ve spent some time in the shop and checked things out. And had that dummy copy all prepared. Meticulous.’