Ed McBaines 87th Precinct Mystery Magazine. Volume 1, No. 4. April, 1975

Roundelay by Ed McBain

Every year, just after Thanksgiving, Jimmy would go to four or five of the biggest department stores in the city, and he’d spend perhaps a hundred bucks in each store. That was his initial investment. Four, five hundred dollars, something like that. On this investment, he could count on twenty or thirty gift-wrapped items of various sizes and shapes. As soon as he got back to his room, he would unwrap all the boxes, and put aside all the things he’d bought, which he would later give to his friends and relatives. Then, inside the now-empty store boxes, he would put newspapers, or pebbles, or beer cans he had squashed under his foot, depending on the size of the box and the heft he wanted it to have. Then he would gift-wrap them again, and put the bows and ribbons back on, and he would be ready to start his real Christmas shopping.

On this particular Christmas Eve, Jimmy was about to finish on the last of his many shopping trips. He had perhaps five gift-wrapped items left, each box containing various assorted garbage, but looking very pretty on the outside. He went into an expensive department store carrying the store’s shopping bag full of this gift-wrapped junk, and began searching around for a prospect. There was a good-looking blond lady with splendid legs and a remarkable bosom shopping from counter to counter. She charged everything with a charge plate which she took from a battered leather wallet that had in it at least a dozen charge plates and credit cards. He followed her around the store and noticed that she bought a porcelain pitcher that cost a hundred and seventy-five dollars, which she had gift-wrapped, and which she put into her shopping bag. And then she bought a cut-velvet evening bag, which cost two hundred dollars, as it was imported from Italy, and she also had this gift-wrapped, and into the shopping bag it went.

And she bought a silk scarf that cost fifty-five dollars, and finally she wandered over to the jewelry counter — which Jimmy had been hoping she’d do — and she bought a man’s sterling silver bracelet that cost two hundred and fifty dollars. Her shopping bag was on the floor next to one of her beautiful legs. She gave the clerk her charge plate, and Jimmy busied himself looking at some stuff in the case while the bracelet was being gift-wrapped and the clerk was writing out the sales slip.

Into the shopping bag went the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar sterling silver bracelet. Jimmy hoped she had more shopping to do before she left the store, otherwise he’d have been following her around for nothing for a good half-hour. But sure enough, she went over to the tie counter, and she put the shopping bag on the floor again, and Jimmy put down his bag alongside hers, and fingered- a few nice silk reps, and in a minute he picked up her shopping bag instead of his own, and off he went. He was a block away from the Store, and was just about to drop a quarter into Santa Claus’s big iron pot, in fact, when someone clapped him on the shoulder, and a man’s voice said, “Just a second, buddy,” and he turned and looked up at the biggest person he had ever seen. The man was wearing a brown overcoat and a brown fedora. He was holding something in his hand. Jimmy looked at it.

What it said on the silver badge was “Security Officer.”

“Security Officer,” Ralphie said. “I’ll relieve you of that stolen merchandise, if you don’t mind.”

“Stolen?” Jimmy said. “You’re mistaken. I have sales slips for each and every item in this shopping bag.”

“You are full of crap,” Ralphie said. “I’ve been watching you for the past half-hour. That shopping bag belongs to a blond lady in the store, and I’m going to relieve you of it now, and return it to her. If you want to make a fuss about this, I’m perfectly willing to call the police, and you can spend Christmas in a nice warm cell downtown. Otherwise, just hand it over and get the hell out of here.”

Jimmy handed over the shopping bag without a whimper, and then hurriedly walked away. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, and Ralphie said in his best department store manner, “All right, folks, it’s all over, go about your business now,” and the crowd dispersed.

Ralphie felt pretty proud of himself, and also pretty smart. He had bought the security officer badge two years ago from a junkie who had swiped it in the apartment of a bank guard. It had cost him only five dollars, and he could not even begin to calculate how much it had earned him since. In the store, he had been searching for a prospect for more than an hour when he finally saw a good-looking blond lady with splendid legs and a remarkable bosom, and she was being followed around by this guy who seemed very interested in all these purchases she was charging. Ralphie normally picked only shoplifters for his victims, but he had tipped to the guy’s trick almost immediately, and now he had in his hands a shopping bag that was worth quite a bit of money, instead of a mere wristwatch some dope had quickly stuffed into his pocket. He figured the unexpected haul was good-enough reason to knock off for the day, in fact for the holiday, and he decided to start the yuletide season by hoisting a few in a nice little bar, where most of the clientele were squares.

The bar, at three o’clock, was already jammed with early celebrants, squares in business suits much like the suit Ralphie himself was wearing, advertising copy writers drinking martinis with lemon twists, publishing house secretaries giggling at jokes, suburban matrons wearing hats and gloves and chatting with other suburban matrons wearing hats and gloves — an altogether nice crowd. Ralphie did not leave the shopping bag in the checkroom. He checked only his brown overcoat and his brown fedora, which he felt made him look more like a department store dick, and then he squeezed into a booth in a dark corner of the place, and ordered a double shot of very expensive scotch. The shopping bag was on the seat beside him. He was already counting the money he would get from his favorite fence for the stuff that was in it.

The girl who came up to the table was perhaps twenty-four years old. She had red hair and green eyes. She was wearing a fake fur coat. Under it, she had on a green dress that was very short and also low-cut, affording Ralphie a quick glimpse of splendid legs and a remarkable bosom that were similar to the blond lady’s in the store, but more visible. The girl was holding a whiskey sour in her left hand, and a cigarette in her right hand, and she was smiling very broadly.

“All alone on Christmas Eve?” she asked.

“Would you care to join me perhaps?” he answered politely.

Jenny sat quickly, but she was just as quick to say, “You’ll think I’m brazen.” She had the feeling he didn’t know what “brazen” meant, though, because what he answered was, “No, as a matter of fact I myself often drink socially,” and lifted his glass of whiskey and said, “Cheers, and happy holidays.”

“The same to you,” she said, and lifted her glass and clinked it against his. “There’s nothing so depressing as drinking alone on Christmas Eve, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes,” he said.

Now that they had got the formalities out of the way, Jenny felt it was perfectly all right to engage in conversation. Lighting another cigarette, she told him she was on Christmas vacation from Bryn Mawr, where she was going for her masters in educational psychology, and her father was an enormously wealthy architect, and she got along famously with him despite the so-called generation gap. Her mother was a lovely person, too, engaged in all sorts of charity work and the like. They lived in a rambling house her father had designed, right on the water, and whenever she was home from school she usually played tennis on one of their two clay courts, or else took her father’s sloop out for a sail, though of course she didn’t do either of those things during the Christmas break. What she did at Christmastime was read poetry a lot and play chess with her younger brother who was a graduating senior at Lawrenceville.

“What do you do?” she asked, putting out the cigarette and immediately lighting another one.

“I’m an investment broker,” he said. “I take other people’s money and invest it for them.”

“That must be fascinating work,” she said.

“It is, though of course there’s a large element of danger involved. Why don’t you take off your coat?”

“I’m a little chilly,” she said. “Winter gets into my bones.”

The second round of drinks came, and they lifted their glasses and toasted the holiday season, and Jenny pressed her knee against his under the table and told him he would probably think it brazen of her again, but she felt that in this day and age it was perfectly all right for a woman to take the initiative, as for example she had done when she’d come over to the table and practically invited herself to sit down. Did he think that was indicative of a permissiveness in the society, or merely an expression of self-worth, a woman behaving like a person instead of a passive object to be treated with scorn and disdain?

“Yes,” Ralphie said. “I think so.”

“Oh, hell, I’m out of cigarettes,” she said, and crumpled the package. “I’ll just be gone a minute, the machine’s right around the corner of the bar.”

“I’ll ask the waiter to get you a pack,” he said. “What brand do you smoke?”

She told him the brand, and then she said, “It’ll take forever for the waiter to get them I don’t want you to think I’m a compulsive smoker, but really when I’m engaged in conversation with an attractive and intelligent man, there’s nothing I like better than to have a cigarette in my hand, I don’t know what it is. I also like to smoke after I’ve had sex, especially in the afternoon on a cold day outside in December, like today is,” she said, and looked deep into his eyes.

“Well,” Ralphie said “Well, let me get the cigarettes for you then, there’s no sense waiting for a waiter, is there?” He rose hastily, almost knocking his drink off the table. “Where did you say the machine was?”

“Right around the comer of the bar.”

“I’ll be right back,” he said “Don’t go away now.”

The moment he disappeared around the corner of the bar, she picked up his shopping bag and headed for the door. Holding the fake fur closed with one hand, holding the shopping bag in the other hand, she stepped quickly into the street. She was two blocks away from the bar when she realized she was being followed. The man following her was not Ralphie. He was instead a good-looking fellow of about thirty-eight or thirty-nine, with a nice haircut, and a black coat with a little velvet collar. He was carrying a shopping bag identical to her own, with the same store name imprinted on it. He caught her glancing at him over her shoulder, and he grinned. She slowed her pace, allowing him to catch up.

“Hello,” he said, matching his stride to hers. “My name is Andrew.” His voice was cultivated and smooth, he had probably gone to Lawrenceville like her non-existent brother.

“Are you following me?” she asked, and returned his smile.

“I am indeed.”

“Why?”

“I’m interested in having a little party,” he said. “Are you interested in having a little party?”

She stopped stock still in the center of the sidewalk, and looked at him in amazement. This had to be some kind of miracle. A guy looking for a party on Christmas Eve? When most men were rushing home to their loved ones and their blazing fires? In Jenny’s profession, which was the oldest, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were the two worst possible days of the year — which was why a hardworking girl had to stoop to cruising in bars, and ripping off shopping bags loaded with gift-wrapped items.

“What do you say?” Andrew asked.

“That depends,” she said.

“On what?”

“On how much you’ve got to spend,” she said, and her eyes hardened.

“I know a racehorse when I see one,” he said. “Whatever it costs is fine with me.”

“You’re on,” she said, and looped her hand through his arm.

It was a little after four when they entered the hotel room. Jenny stopped talking about her clay tennis courts the moment Andrew locked the door behind them. She put her shopping bag on the floor just inside the door, and Andrew put his identical shopping bag alongside it. Jenny then removed first the fake fur, and then the green dress, and then her shoes, her bra, and her panties. “That will be a hundred dollars, please,” she said, and when Andrew handed her the money, she said, “Merry Christmas,” and grinned and fell upon him with good holiday cheer. They remained in the room for close to two hours, at the end of which time Jenny put on first her bra and panties, then her shoes, and then her green dress and fake fur. She told him she’d had a very nice time, but was late for a chess match with her brother. In her haste, she picked up Andrew’s shopping bag instead of her own. Neither of them noticed the error. She whispered, “Merry Christmas,” again, and he closed the door behind her.

Andrew showered and dressed leisurely. Then he picked up the other shopping bag, and went downstairs, and paid the discreet room clerk, and took the 6:38 back home. He was in the living room of his own house by ten minutes to eight. The fireplace was cheerily blazing with yule logs, the Christmas tree was aglow in the corner. His wife was waiting. She was a good-looking blond lady with splendid legs and a remarkable bosom.

“How was the Christmas party?” she asked.

“Beautiful,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

He had discovered over the years that office Christmas parties were not only not beautiful but were something of a bore besides, rather like a great deal of thunder and lightning promising a rainstorm that never came. Which was why each and every year he stayed at the party only for an obligatory half-hour, and then took to the streets in search of a lady with whom to share his spirit of Christmas joy. He had learned, much to his amazement and delight, that Christmas Eve was a particularly slack time for such ladies.

His wife relieved him of the shopping bag he had carried home, and then took the gifts out one by one, spreading them beneath the tree, where she had already placed the other presents she’d bought that day.

“I’m sorry about the bag,” she said, “I know you hate carrying shopping bags.”

“No problem,” he said, and went to the bar and poured himself a drink.

“But I was running late, and I still had a few more stores to hit, and I didn’t think you’d mind if I just dropped it off at the office.”

“No problem at all,” he said.

“Then you didn’t mind my coming up there?”

“Of course not,” he said.

“The party hadn’t started yet, so I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“I didn’t mind at all.”

“And you didn’t mind carrying the shopping bag on the train?”

“Not at all.”

“Well, good,” she said, and smiled.

At midnight exactly, they went through a ritual that had become custom in the eight short years of their marriage. They had bought each other many gifts, of course, and all of them were under the tree. But at midnight, each selected only one gift from all the others, and silently unwrapped it.

His gift to her was a pink wallet with twelve sections for credit cards and charge plates.

Her gift to him was a sterling silver bracelet.