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------- ------- ------- ------- -------“I forgot to tell you, the men’s group is at our house on Wednesday.” -------“Oh, Morrie, that’s nice!” Terry said. -------“Now I got to get the food.” -------“What do they like?” -------“Juice and coffee, cookies, crackers, sardines maybe, smelly cheese.” -------“We have coffee and crackers. You can get sardines and cheese at the Food Giant.” -------Morris glanced at Terry, but she was watching a squirrel climb onto the bird feeder. -------“Good idea,” he said. ------- ------- Morris had eaten all his meals out before he hooked up with Terry. He’d shopped at the deli but never in a big food store. The place was huge. Twenty kinds of orange juice, a whole aisle of bread. Bialys! He put a package in his cart. Nathan’s hotdogs! What else? -------This time of day most shoppers were retirees looking for bargains. When he saw an old lady slip a jar of caviar into her purse, he whispered in her ear. She pushed her cart away without looking at him. -------“What did you say to her?” -------Morris spun around. A young woman, mid-twenties, jeans and no makeup. Why hadn’t he noticed her? -------“I told her only the big crooks get away with it.” ------- “Are you a cop? -------“No.” Morris grinned. “I was a robber.” -------She gave him a look. -------The woman abandoned her shopping cart and headed for the exit. Just before she left she took something from her purse and dropped it in the Food-For-The-Homeless bin. ------- Morris left his cart near the Organic Foods and took the stairs to the rest rooms. On his way back, he passed two tough looking men coming out of the manager’s office. He knew what they were. -------“Smart cookie, that manager,” the one with the briefcase said. -------“Everybody wins,” the other agreed. -------They walked past the table where a heavy woman was giving out samples. The big one grabbed a handful of cheese cubes. -------“Guy must have been hungry,” Morris said, approaching the woman. -------“You see that? He took ‘em with his bare hand like some kind a thug!” -------“Thugs definitely,” Morris said. He speared a piece of pepper cheese with a toothpick. “This is good. Real spicy. I got some guys coming to the house.” -------“Men go for the hot stuff.” She winked. -------He put a package of cheese in his cart. “Say, can I leave my cart here while I check something out?” The men were heading for the exit. -------Morris followed them out and got in his car. He tailed the dark blue Lexus half a mile to the Harbor View Motel and watched while they went into their room. He was about to leave when they came out and drove away. He followed them until they split off toward Chatham. -------“Thought you got lost,” the samples lady said. -------Morris apologized and took his cart. When he had everything for his men’s group, he stopped in the produce section and selected a small pineapple. He tossed a New York Times in the cart, and checked out. -------Back at the Harbor View, he sat in his car for a minute. You don’t have to do this. When he’d made up his mind, he stripped the keys from his key ring and dropped them in his pocket. The lock was a piece of junk. Ten seconds and he was in the room. He set the pineapple on top of the TV and hung the steel key ring from one of its leaves. He stood back to look. He smiled. Boom! -------He spotted the briefcase under a bed and made a detour to the landfill on his way home. Before he got back in his car it was covered with half a ton of garbage. ------- -------Terry came into the kitchen as he was putting groceries in the refrigerator. -------“Success, Morrie?” -------“No problem. Look what I got, Ter. Bialys! And Nathan’s hot dogs! Great place.” ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- |