EATON'S During The 1960's Second French Revolution

Chapter 22

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ricky arrived for his late day appointment with Tony, and Agnes grudgingly let him back in.

Tony wasn't really thrilled either. The prospect of having to work with an inexperienced young kid was disturbing to Tony. Although he realized that Ricky was smart and was certainly upwardly mobile, he felt like his investigative abilities and qualifications were being questioned by Appleton. But he realized that when the old man's directive came down from on high, he had little choice but to make the best of the situation.

Ricky sat back down and Tony admitted, "Okay, I'm totally frustrated. I've had homicide investigations that were less complicated than these fuckin' shoplifters," Tony pushed the intercom button. "Agatha, could you bring us a couple of cups of coffees, with cream and sugar."

"Sure. Would you like me to go out and get some French pastries with that?" she responded sarcastically.

"I'm not in the mood, Agatha", he curtly responded, releasing the intercom button.

Swiveling his chair towards his one small window overlooking the Woolworth Five & Dime store, Tony became lost in thought for a moment. "Okay. Let's exchange ideas and see if we can figure this out!"

He pressed another intercom button, "Denis, I've got Ricky Livingston in my office. Could you bring in the 'Liftermob' file, and the incident board.

"'Liftermob'?" Ricky quizzed.

Seemingly embarrassed, he explained. "From my days in homicide, we always gave our cases nicknames so we could readily remember them. For example, instead of saying the Jones case, or the Hernandez case, where duplicate names could develop, we used the Central Park case, or the Wall Street attacker case. In our case here, these shoplifters are like mobs.

Ricky looked confused, "Like mobs?"

Yeah, you know, people intent on causing trouble, thus the 'Liftermob' case, Yes? Like the two yahoos who tried to rip off an eleven-hundred-dollar stereo television console system out of Heidi Mullin's department on Friday night," he continued.

"A console TV! Shit, those weigh over one hundred and fifty pounds," Ricky replied in disbelief.

"That's right, so it fits only a mob would try something so stupid! Especially since the department was jammed packed with customers and these two geniuses, wearing coveralls, stick a sales receipt to the top of the console, pick it up, and take it to the freight elevator. You wouldn't believe they got that far, but luckily the operator started asking questions about something that didn't look quite right on the receipt.

Long story, short, when the elevator reached the freight level, they hi-tailed it out, without their console. But unfortunately, we didn't get the alert in time to catch them. The elevator operator gave us a description, but..."

Just then, Denis entered the office with a brown accordion file under his arm. He kicked the door open and struggled with a large white chalk board, teetering from a wooden easel.

Ricky jumped up to grab the easel before it fell.

"Merci," Denis acknowledged.

Denis Charbonneau was a true Frenchman, through and through. His politics were especially sympathetic to the Quebec separation cause, while his previous MPD employment left him with a permanent chip on his shoulder. Although not a registered FLQ member, when conversations developed, Denis chose to have little, or no normal criticism of the terrorist tactics. Additionally, he was a strong proponent of a 'French only' business language in Quebec. At times he inappropriately exercised his unpopular beliefs within the English confines of Eaton's. This left him ostracized amongst many of the English-speaking employees.