A man named Felix Hopkins dressed for his annual shopping spree in a trenchcoat lined with dozens of pockets to accommodate the small and quite expensive pieces of jewelry he lifted from counters here and there. A tall, thin distinguished-looking black man with a tidy mustache and gold-rimmed spectacles, he would generally approach the counter and ask to see a cigarette lighter, indicating the one he wanted, and then rip off five or six fountain pens while the clerk was busy getting the lighter out of the display case. His hands worked as swiftly as a magician’s; he had been at the job such a long time now that he didn’t even have to unbutton the coat anymore. And though the pockets inside the coat now contained a gold fountain pen, a platinum watch, a gold money clip, a rhinestone necklace, an assortment of matched gold earrings, a leather-bound traveling clock, and a monogrammed ring with a black onyx stone, he still protested to the arresting officer that he had bought all these items elsewhere, had thrown away the sales slips, and was taking them home to wrap them himself because he didn’t like the shitty job the stores did.
Most of the other shoplifters were junkies, desperate in their need, unmindful of store detectives and city detectives, sorely tempted by the glittering display of goods in what was surely the world’s largest marketplace, knowing only that whatever chances they took might net them a bag or two of heroin before nightfall, guarantee them a Christmas Day free from the pangs of drug-hunger and the pains of withdrawal. They were the pitiful ones, pacing the detention cage at the rear of the squadroom, ready to scream or vomit, knowing that being busted meant cold turkey for Christmas Day, with the only hope being methadone instead—maybe. They were looked upon with disdain by the haughty professionals like Hester Brady of the pregnant bloomers, Felix Hopkins of the pocketed raincoat, and Junius Cooper of the paper-stuffed packages.
Junius Cooper had figured out his dodge all by himself. He was a man of about forty-three, well-dressed, looking somewhat like a harried advertising executive who was rushing around picking up last-minute gifts his secretary had neglected to buy. He came into each department store carrying several shopping bags brimming with gift wrapped parcels. His
This mixed bag of shoplifters mingled in the squadroom with their first cousins, the pickpockets, who similarly looked upon the frantic shopping days before Christmas as their busiest time of the year. A pickpocket enjoys nothing better than a crowd, and the approaching holiday brought the crowds out like cockroaches from under the bathroom sink: crowds in stores, crowds in the streets, crowds in the buses and subways. They worked in pairs or alone, these light-fingered artists, a nudge or a bump, an “Oh, excuse me,” and a purse delicately lifted from a handbag, a hip pocket slit with a razor blade to release the bulging wallet within. There was not a detective in the city who did not carry his wallet in the left-hand pocket of his trousers, close to his balls, rather than in the sucker hip pocket; cops are not immune to pickpockets. They were surrounded by them that afternoon, all of them innocent, naturally, all of them protesting that they knew their rights.
The drunks did not know their rights, and did not particularly care about them. They had all begun celebrating a bit early and had in their exuberance done one thing or another considered illegal in this fair city—things like throwing a bus driver out onto the sidewalk when he refused to make change for a ten-dollar bill, or smashing the window of a taxicab when the driver said he couldn’t possibly make a call to Calm’s Point on the busiest day of the year, or kicking a Salvation Army lady who refused to allow her trombone to be played by a stranger, or pouring a quart of scotch into a mailbox, or urinating on the front steps of the city’s biggest cathedral. Things like that. Minor things like that.
One of the drunks had killed someone.
