The Salted Caper

There were a bunch of hooligans from Central High standing at the checkout of the ACME grocery bugging Annie again. It was bad enough that she was 16 and already 8 months pregnant, but these fools came in every Friday night expecting her to be embarrassed at their obvious winks and snickers as she scanned their illegal beer and looked over their fake ID.

They had a code at ACME printed in a little paper book sent by the Jewel-Osco company that she kept under the dusty cash register. Annie had never used it, not needing anymore grief from the football types at school, but tonight there was a new night manager, a Mr. Suhair ibn Salaf who was fresh out of corporate training and it was his first night on the job.

She could feel the man staring at her back as he eyed the alcohol and the teens mistrustfully. Resigned to being bullied even more at school, she reached up and flipped the little silver switch on her checkout lane, signaling code 15 to the manager.

Mr. Salaf would see it and call the local police to pick the teens up and she'd be lucky if she could walk the halls at school alone after this betrayal. Annie stood and waited, fiddling with the register's buttons and stalling for time so the guys wouldn’t know what she'd done. "Um, pick up, I need a pick up, before I can ring you out," she said. She looked up at her late night bagger, Sam. He was silent as usual. His long hair, dyed black, sat limply on his ACME apron and did little to obscure his Goth tastes. He wore silver rings on each finger and a skull and a dagger hung from each ear, one on each side. He appeared to be staring off into space, or at least, ignoring the jocks.

Mr. Salaf saw Annie's code 15 signaling a robbery and his heart began to pound! A robbery on his first night, he'd be fired, this would be the end. He dropped his stock reports and dialed the "Easy as 1-2-3" security company gritting his way through the automated recording. "Press 1 to report a broken safe," the automaton said.

"Press 2 to order a new safe," she continued.

"Press 3 to request an early pick up."

Mr. Salaf paced his office, occasionally standing on his tippy toes and peeking over the frosted glass at the nervous group of footballers.

"Press 4 to make a suggestion to improve our service."

Finally, the mechanical woman said,

"Press 5 to request auto-lock of your safe in case of emergency."

"5-5-55-55555," he pressed in his agitation. "We're sorry," the woman said, "That is not a valid response, please wait and you will be assisted by a customer service representative shortly."

As elevator music began to play in the background, Mr. Salaf took to breaking pencils and the jocks took to shoving each other around, until a few of them ran out the door to bring the car around.

Click. Silence.

"Hello? Hello? Are you there?" the manager whispered.

"How may I help you?" chimed a young woman loudly.

"I-I need you thoo loack-"

"I'm sorry sir, I can't understand your accent," the woman said cheerfully.

"I need you thoo loack the sface, the men are here thoo get--and they braut the car--and the cuthomers--"

"Oh my God!" the young representative said. "I'll call the bomb squad right now, sir! Hang up now!"

"Waith! he called desperately, "Not the bomth squad, thoo loack the sface! Just to loack the sface!"

Within moments sirens could be heard coming across the bridge, echoing out over the water in the harbor and rattling the plate glass windows. The few late night customers ran out to see what the commotion was, leaving their carts and their groceries sitting willy nilly in the aisles. The jocks ran out the door, leaving only the tall gangly one, owner of the precious fake ID standing at the register unwilling to leave without Annie handing it over.

The silent alarm began to sound, its only signal a small red light flashing on all the phone lines in the store, including the one that Annie used as the store intercom.

Wrought iron bars slid down to protect the front doors, and every entrance sealed itself, then, the lights went out.

There were startled screams and exclamations from customers bumping into carts in the dark so Annie knew there were still some customers in the store.

The police arrived with the bomb squad and armored cars came rolling into the parking lot. An officer jumped out with a bullhorn, his shouting heard clearly inside the store, "Alright, we have a hostage situation here. I've been informed that the infamous Bonanomi twins Sal and Al are inside with their gang, old Lou and young Tommy the twerp, maybe even Fat Ed and Slim Johnny, so watch out! These are old time criminals and they'll stop at nothing. We shoot to kill, got it?"

"Got it!" the combined New Jersey state police force and S.W.A.T. team shouted.

"Sam," Annie whispered as the jock took off for the back of the store.

"What?" he said.

"I think I messed up...it was just a code 18, where Mr. Salaf talks to them and takes the fake ID away..."

"Shit," he said, shaking his head and trying not to stare at her round stomach.

Annie didn't know what to do so she picked up the phone and pressed the intercom button to call the entire store, "Um, could all ACME customers come to the front, please. We have an emergency."

Mrs. Jenks heard the call just fine through her hearing aid, but she was too afraid to come forward, she was afraid she was going to be in big trouble, someone must've heard her little dog "Poo" yipping from her purse. She knew you weren't allowed to bring a dog into the store, but Poo just couldn't be left home alone. She decided to wait in aisle 1 where Poo would be most comfortable among the toys and the nice smell of his kibble.

Sam and Annie waited for customers to come forward, not knowing what they would do when they got there, but no one came.

"I wonder why they don't come?" she thought out loud.

"Sam, you'll have to go and look for the customers," she said after a few more minutes of waiting.

The Bonanomi brothers were presently arguing in aisle 10, they hadn't come to rob the ACME store at all, Slim Johnny was dead and Mrs. Slim had wanted pickled pig's feet and sauerkraut for the wake since it was his favorite meal.

The twins, Sal and Al Bonanomi, argued for robbing the ACME store anyway since they were already going to be accused. They were whispering on the cold floor near jars of Mayonnaise, trying to come up with an ingenious plan on how to smuggle out the money to their brother Fat Ed the lead before they could be taken in for questioning.

Louie the brain wanted nothing to do with the plan, he was retired and just wanted to escape scrutiny of his youthful misdeeds by the local hoo-ha. Tommy the Twerp was off looking for the hard liquor hoping to tie one on for free.

Mr. Salaf was sitting in his office, his head in his hands, trying to figure out how to protect the money in the safe, a whole months take, almost $100,000. He could feel the knife of bringing shame down on his family hanging over his head; he was going to lose his job on the first night. He rested his head on the cool wood of his desk, thinking, hoping, and praying for an idea. Staring at the phone, he spied a jar of Sicilian salted capers returned earlier in the day. He remembered every moment of the transaction, his first return.

The woman who had returned the capers had said she'd bought too many and that they were just great with pork. She went on and on about how he should try it and did he want the recipe, even hinting that she'd be willing to invite him to her home!

"Pork," he thought, "I'll hide it inside pork!"

He rubbed his hands together, warming himself to the idea. "I'll get a big plate from the deli display, Annie will bring me a hind of pork and I'll have her hollow it out and then I'll hide the money inside. I'll leave it right out on the counter where no one will look! No robber is going to foil me!"

He headed off to find Annie and send her for the hind of pork from the meat case, but detoured toward aisle 8 to grab some more capers to make it look more like a real deli display. When he got there, he found the jock and another customer, a young skinny guy who looked a little shifty, sitting in the aisle eating chips and drinking vodka straight from the bottle while picking from a jar of Pantelleria salted capers.

"You thief, you imbecile, you stinking rotten--" Mr. Salaf screamed poking the teen in the chest harder with every angry word. He was so angry he lost his English completely and lapsed into a string of Arabic curses.

The shifty guy ran off into the darkness with the vodka bottle, the kid grunted, but then the safe alarm started sounding with a loud beep-beep-beep, follow by a mechanical voice saying, "Step away from the safe!" The tinny recording sounded just like a cheap car alarm. Mr. Salaf stumbled against a basket, then headed back to his office to try to catch the robbers.

Sal and Al gave it up as a bad job on breaking into the safe, since they had no tools to hand except a paper clip from the desk drawer and Al's excellent ears. They both took off running when the cheesy alarm started sounding.

Mr. Salaf rushed into his office and pulled the money out from inside the trash can where he'd temporarily stashed it, determined to go back for the capers and hide it in the pork.

He slid down aisle 8 in his rush and flew, landing flat out as he tripped over something fleshy. Sam heard the noise and came around the corner calling, "Um, customers, come with me to the front, please."

Mr. Salaf realized that he has fallen over a dead body just as Sam realized who the two people on the floor were: the new manager and the jock that he’d yelled at earlier.

"Sir? What have you done?" Sam said, with a horrified look on his face.

Mr. Salaf hauled himself up, calling, "Waith!" after the already fleeing bag boy and leaving the dead guy lying on the floor in a pool of his own alcohol-laden vomit.

Meanwhile, Tommy the Twerp guzzled from the bottle of vodka. He decided that some of those nice salty capers from earlier were in order and set off for aisle 8.

On the way, he followed a shimmery light, right to the dead body of the high school kid he'd been partying with earlier. He stared, frozen in place, until a chill ran over his entire body causing him to look around. He looked up and found a see-though man staring at him, holding a jar of salted capers and laughing. It was a ghost! Tommy ran back up aisle 8 as fast as he could get away from both of them.

As he slid around one end of the aisle, Mr. Salaf hauled Sam the bag boy back up the other end, forcing him to carry the dead guy to the deli. Together, they chucked him in the pork display since it was the only cooler big enough for him to fit.

Mr. Salaf placed each individual pork on top of the body like he was cleaning up a mess in aisle 9. He lined them up neatly end-to-end, placing the last one directly over the dead jock's face. Then he stood with his eyes raised to the ceiling, rubbing his hands together like it was a job well done.

"Why are we hiding him?" Sam dared to ask.

"So the police will think the brothers killed him," was the manager's cryptic reply. Then he walked away, picking up a jar of capers and carrying it with him. He walked to the front of the store yelling ahead, "Annie, get me a ham hock, right away!"

Annie waddled her way to the back, worrying over Sam and wondering what Mr. Salaf is going to do about the police outside. Arriving at the ham cooler, she leaned carefully over her protruding belly, reaching deep into the open meat case.

"What are you doing?" he cried, startling her and causing her to fumble the ham.

"I'm getting a ham for Mr.--," she said. Then she screamed loud enough to be heard outside, her voice full of terror, "He's DEAD!"

She ran off still cradling the ham like a baby calling, "There's a killer loose in the store!"

"ATTENTION!" she screamed into the intercom, "THERE IS A KILLER ON THE LOOSE IN HERE AND WE'RE ALL TRAPPED!"

Just as she hung up the phone Sam caught up with her, "Here, we'll hide in the storeroom, I'll keep you safe," he said, folding her into his arms.

Lou hadn't been seen since the police rolled in, but Sal and Al figured the murderer was either the manager, Tommy or Lou. Tommy swore the ghost was the real murderer who was out to kill them all while they were locked in the darkened ACME store.

Mr. Salaf had disappeared into the deli, highly annoyed that someone kept eating off the plate with the ham and the capers hiding his bank roll.

***

The police were making their move, the wrought iron bars retracted back into the ceiling and the bolts slid back with a grinding screech, popping open the doors and releasing a rush of air into the smog-shrouded morning.

The unmistakable scent of sizzling pork cooked with salted capers floated out on the air and into the nostrils of the waiting policemen.

The first out was Annie, ducking low and holding her heavy belly which was contracting as she leaned into Sam.

He held a perfectly folded paper bag to her mouth for her to control her breathing. As the ambulance nosed its way past the police cars, Sam suggested quietly, “Maybe we can name the baby
‘Stang’ that would be really cool, you know.”

Annie squeezed his hand tighter and scrunched up her face until the EMT pulled the heavy doors closed with the new couple inside.

Along the side of the long concrete building, a thin slit of light illuminated the early morning dimness. The old widow woman, Mrs. Jenks and her yappy little dog escaped unseen into the alley as the backdoor clicked open.

She was lugging a purse full of canned Alpo, two packs of Purina dog treats, a giant can of Metamucil and three large rib-eye steaks, premium cut. Her yappy dog trotted along on a new blue leash hooked to a pink and blue rhinestone collar last seen in aisle 1. She looked carefully right and left before she hefted a bag of Dog Chow into her skinny arms and she disappeared down the sidewalk.

Detectives entered the ACME in search of a killer, watching for dead customers and looking for wounded. The new Muslim manager, Mr. Salaf was found sitting on the deli floor, eating a giant ham complete with capers and various sides he'd scooped up out of the deli display, using his bare hands as the spoon.

Upon further investigation by deputies, the safe in Mr. Salaf’s office was found sitting with its door hanging off, empty.

Sal and Al were captured as they attempted to hide in a giant vat of children’s balls. They got carted off to prison, for rigging the elevator on Slim Johnny who was sleeping with their baby sister Busty Jenny and cheatin’ on Mrs. Slim Johnny the whole time.

Tommy the Twerp was found passed out in aisle 8 by the investigating detectives. He was taken to the New Jersey state lunatic asylum for a psychiatric evaluation. He swore until the day he died that a ghost haunted the ACME store killing and haunting all customers who bought island of Pantelleria salted capers.

Brainy Lou escaped being trapped in the grocery store, but no one knows how. He was later spotted flashing his bank roll at the all night Waffle House in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania and sweeping his favorite waitress, Big Bertha, off to Vegas for some burlesque entertainment. He always said she made the best waffles around!

Fat Ed the Lead put the pedal to the metal and got out of Jersey until the heat died down, but he resented not being in on the caper, even if it had all gone wrong. He swore revenge by the mother Mary on the Bonanomi twins and then shacked up with Slim Johnny’s widow, bidding his time until they got out of New Jersey State Prison in 10-15.

***

Throughout the incident of the salted caper, The Trentonian newspaper was splattered with a series of carefully misconstrued headlines which only confused the matter more.

The Late edition read: “Local ACME supermarket robbed by the infamous Jersey Bonanomi brothers!”

The Late, Late edition said, “Central high student’s prank, locks down ACME, destroys ACME store in giant blast!”

The Early edition said, “Killer on the loose in darkened ACME, twenty dead and counting!”

The Morning edition said “New Muslim manager eats capered pork!”

By the next afternoon the headline read, “County Coroner questioned: 1 dead, fault of vodka & salted capers?”

The last headline anyone in Jersey saw on the matter came several weeks later after everyone had practically forgotten the incident all together. It had been buried beneath a slew of headlines about a garbage strike stinking up the city in the middle of the hottest summer on record for the past 71 years, topping the 106 degree record held since the scorcher on July 9, 1936.

With temperatures soaring up to 109 degrees each afternoon, everyone was inside trying to cool off and even those who had to work didn’t do much more than hang out by the water cooler and fan their shirts open in front of the blasting window air conditioner trying to cool off. The problem was that fans and air conditioners only served to suck the baking stink inside. It was for this reason that the “Late edition,” the “Late, Late edition,” “the Early edition” and the “Morning edition” had all been looking the much same.

Still, vigilant readers of every edition might have been intrigued by a small article inserted into only the Early edition just this morning; the headline was so small that it could hardly be called a headline at all. It had been slipped into page 11B of the city section, a place hardly anyone ever looked. It read, “8 missing, Trentonian arts & entertainment reporter included.”

Readers who scanned the first few lines would have found this interesting little snippet:

Kristina Blasen, a 29-year-old staff reporter for the Trentonian , was reported missing this morning at the local Trenton police precinct by Trentonian editor and publisher, Bill Murray.

The official report listed Murray’s explanation for the delay as, “I thought she was still working on assignment, I didn’t worry until she missed a few too many deadlines.”

He listed her last known assignment as a self-assigned piece, hitting the streets and talking to shoppers about their favorite store brands and how to save money while buying groceries for a family on a tight budget.

In a later comment to Cecily Tynan from Channel 6 news he said, “She was out on a fluff piece, her usual fare, but I was really impressed she provided the information for those ACME headlines we ran a few weeks ago! She called them in on her cell phone— I mean, that’s what a reporter does, you know? I just thought she was standing outside the store when she called in on the news tip line—now I’m not so sure…”

Local police are still on the lookout for at least four other ACME shoppers who may have more information in the whereabouts of the itinerant reporter.