Killer Pancake

Dusty.

“He is not my boyfriend. Would you please go away?”

He opened his eyes wide, as if I’d refused to laugh at his joke. Then he touched the badge on my white jacket. “Are you really a chef? I mean, you’re wearing one of those coats. Is your restaurant here in the mall?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. Two of my coworkers are right nearby.” Maybe I could frighten this guy away with the threat of numbers.

“Really?” He looked around. “They won’t mind if I talk to their boss, will they? How long have you been here?”

“Look, mister, please, please, please go away—”

But the guy raised a thick brown eyebrow and didn’t move. Emboldened by my ability to be convincingly dishonest at the hospital, I improvised wildly. “Actually, I work for the department store. You might have read about the accident we had in the mall garage day before yesterday?” He pursed his lips and nodded sympathetically. “That blond fellow over there is an undercover cop who’s questioning a suspect, and I’m supposed to pay attention … so can you please leave so I can do my job?”

He ran his hands over one of the plastic boxes stacked in front of us. “This is so much more interesting than shopping for my niece’s birthday.”

“Are you listening to me? At the moment I’m doing something extremely important and confidential,” I said desperately. When he looked skeptical, I hissed: “Look buster, what I’m trying to tell you is I——work——for—— store——security.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

He took me gently by the arm and said, “We need to have a talk.”

“Get your fingers off me,” I said fiercely, unwilling to give up my hiding spot without a protest. “Let go, or I will pull so hard that I’ll drag you right out of the store with me! And the whole time I’ll be yelling so loud, the security SWAT team will come running!”

The guy grinned. His grip on my arm tightened almost imperceptibly. “We need to have a talk real bad.”

That did it. “Security!” I shrieked, and began to wriggle. I had a brief glimpse of Frances, Harriet, Dusty, and the blond guy gaping as I twisted and flailed and tried to shake the man’s arm off me. In my thrashing, I fell against the piled boxes. The clear containers with all their lipsticks, creams, toners, and soaps tumbled. My tormentor braced his legs and continued to imprison me in a viselike grip.

“Security!” I screamed. I thrashed and felt my hose rip. “Help!” I called again. Why wasn’t anyone helping me? “Somebody from security come now!”

The man leaned down. “Lady, I’m here,” he said.

I’ve had humiliating escalator rides in my day. The afternoon of a banquet for Brunswick sales reps, I lost control of an oversize box of bowling-ball-size handmade chocolates. I shrieked in futile warning as chocolate globes pelted the escalator steps and ten fur-coated women went sprawling: a strike. Another time, two-year-old Arch threw up all over me and several nearby teenage boys. The boys were extremely unsympathetic. This in spite of the fact that at Arch’s age they had probably also overindulged in hot dogs and milk shakes.

Unquestionably, though, this was the most humiliating escalator ride of my life. This stocky, brown-haired guy—this lackey who mumbled that his name was Stan White—was presumably taking me to Nick Gentileschi, head of security at Prince & Grogan. Once we were on the escalator, Stan released my arm and quickly stepped behind my back. It was obviously a practiced maneuver, the kind a policeman or a security guy makes when he thinks his perp might bolt. I can’t say I wasn’t considering it.

I tried to ignore all the staring people. They were below us, they were above us, they were pointing from the descending escalator paralleling ours. The usual high, excited hum of shoppers chatting about what they had bought or what they needed to buy ceased as the onlookers swiftly took in our little twosome—the cowering woman in the chef’s jacket with a rent-a-cop parked right behind her. It was a particular challenge to ignore a gaping Frances Markasian. You could see the mental wheels whirring to compose a headline: Caught Caterer Cringes! Wife of Homicide Investigator Apprehended after Struggle by Fudge Mousse Lip Gloss.

“You are making a huge mistake—” I began to say.

Stan White shook his head regretfully. “Lady, if I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that line….”

Well, this was just great. The steps moved inexorably upward, past the top of the Mignon counter with its display of shiny white bags stuffed with pink tissue paper, past the elephantine Chinese-style planters sprouting fake palm trees. Just don’t let any clients see me, I prayed fervently.

No such luck. A large woman was leaning over the railing next to the escalator at the second floor landing, just above the cosmetics counter. When she straightened up, my heart sank to new depths. The last person I wanted to see at this moment was Babs Meredith Braithwaite. Even so, I might have avoided her if she hadn’t inched over so that the security guy and I collided with her on our rough arrival at the second floor. We stared at each other. Babs’s rust-colored suit trimmed with white was somewhat rumpled; her white blouse was hanging out. Her rust skirt slanted crookedly above her brown and white spectator pumps, as if the skirt were unzipped. Nor was her hair as meticulously poufed as it had been two days before. Today it looked like a windblown bird’s nest. She was clutching her purse, which was open, as if it had been hastily snatched up. She was panting. She looked as if she had just shoplifted a diamond brooch, when all she’d been doing was spying on the Mignon counter, or so I assumed. The nefarious possibility that I could sic Stan the Security Man on her occurred to me.

“There’s somebody back there,” Babs whispered in a trembly voice to Stan and me. Her hand rose toward the racks of gaily colored bathing suits. She added urgently, “Please help me.” She looked the security guy up and down. “Do you work for the store?”

“Yes,” said Stan curtly. “I’m with security.”

“There’s somebody back there!” Her cheeks were aflame, and it wasn’t blush giving the color. I tried to look around Babs’s wide body. Somebody back where?

Stan White touched my upper arm gently to guide me away from Babs and oncoming traffic spilling from the escalator. When I didn’t move, he put his hands on his hips and set his mouth in a stern frown.

Babs whimpered, “Aren’t you going to help me?”

Stan cleared his throat and pointed at me. “Are you with this woman?” he asked Babs. Confused, she shook her head. Stan concluded, firmly, “Then you’ll have to find a salesperson. I can’t help it if there’s nobody back there.”

“But,” Babs said frantically, grabbing his arm, “there’s somebody back there in the dressing room. You’ve got to come and help me.”

Stan White perked up. This interested him. “Is it a man?” he asked. “In the women’s dressing room?”

“It’s somebody behind the mirror,” insisted Babs. “I heard him cough.” Reluctantly, she released Stan’s arm.

“Lady, please.” The security fellow shook his head, “We haven’t done that kind of surveillance for years. It’s against the law.”

Babs clutched her purse. Her vivid cheeks shook with rage. “But, I’m trying to tell you …! Somebody must have broken in behind the mirrors! Aren’t you going to do anything? What kind of security guard are you anyway?”

Stan bristled. “Okay, look. I have to do something else first. Then I’ll check the dressing room, all right? Please, we need to go.”

“Go where?” she demanded shrilly. “What are you doing with this woman?”

“What we’re doing doesn’t fall under the Freedom of Information Act, lady.”

Babs Braithwaite pressed her lips together. “This …” She looked at me. What was I, exactly? “This … woman is going to be catering an important function for us this weekend. She’s also