Jasmine.

(December, 1998) “I love this job, man. This place is like a fuckin’ candy store.” Raymond says as he’s panning the video camera across the department store from a joystick on our desk. He stops the camera on a young sister conducting a business transaction at the register in the jewelry department. “That’s Brenda,” he says. “I’m going to tap that ass by this time next week.” He switches to another camera that’s positioned behind Brenda - a much better angle that showcases her rather large round ass. He slowly zooms in until the monitor screen is filled with nothing but her ass. “Whenever you do some shit like this, Ro, you gotta flip off the tape.” He points over to the main VCR sitting on top of the largest monitor in the middle of the desk. “Remember where you left off so it looks seamless when you start recording again from that same camera.”

The surveillance equipment buried deep in the annals of an office in the warehouse storage area of Neiman Marcus like Batman’s super computer in the Batcave is a voyeur’s dream -  originally intended for the survelaince of potential shop lifters and dishonest employees, Raymond decided instead to use the more than 30 cameras each with the ability of full 365 degree rotation and capable of zooming in close enough to see the mole on a woman’s cheek to seek out future one night stands. I recently came on this job of loss prevention detective so I could make a little money while I decide what I want to do with the rest of my life. The world of graphic design did not work - stuck up in a sterile office all day, stressed out from trying to meet deadline after deadline, and touching up other people’s projects instead of creating projects of my own turned out not to be my idea of a lifelong career.  After substituting for my mom’s class before she retired from teaching, pursuing a career in education looks like a distinct possibility. But first I have to figure out which university I should attend in order to get teacher certification, then wait until near the end of the semester before I can apply to grad school.  

“Which one are you thinking of tappin’?” Raymond asks - leaned as far back in his office chair as possible, feet propped up on the desk. “Check this out.” I tell him as I switch my joystick controls over to the main monitor and pan over to another sister in the handbag department. “Her name’s Denise.” I tell him as I lean back in my office chair with a smile. “Damn,” Raymond says. “She’s built like a little cheerleader!” He zooms in closer on her petite little muscular frame and pans up and down - viewing her from head to toe. “I gotta hand it to ya, brother, you got taste.” He flips through some of the paperwork our manager left for us to take care of when he pops his eyes at a particular paragraph. “Damn, they’re supposed to be bringing in Christmas help to interview today!” Raymond hops up from his chair so fast the chair bucks around and spins. “Let’s go take a  walk.”

As we walked around to the interview rooms where the new hires sit and await further instructions from the floor manager we ran into a long, long line of women of all races, shapes and sizes. If Ray saw a sister he liked he’d look at me and raise his right eyebrow, then smile as he continued surveying the sea of women. I did a little scoping myself - checking out a few of the women. Some of them were appealing while others were rather plain - some even odd looking. Then I saw her. A gorgeous earthy looking sister I couldn’t keep my eyes off of. Her large dark brown almond-shaped eyes was the first thing that caught my attention. 

 Her lips are full and ripe like plums and nearly dripping with a brownish red lipstick. Her skin is a rich, smooth caramel color like a piece of Brock’s candy. She has long, thin, naturally arched eyebrows and thin dark corn rows pulled back in a thick mane of locs.  I could tell from the  way she was seated as she looked over her paperwork given to her by the floor manager she had an hourglass figure that was out of this world - her waist couldn’t have been much larger than the diameter of a fire hydrant yet she had firm, muscular hips and thighs like an Olympic track star. Ray walked ahead to check out the rest of the women but I ducked into the waiting room to get the know this African goddess.

I picked up a clip board hanging on the wall next to the doorway and began flipping through the papers as if I was looking for something important. I walked over to her to give her a microsecond scan while her attention was diverted by filling out her papers. She was wearing a  two-tone chocolate and tan skin tight jogging suit-type outfit . Her top was unzipped halfway down her cleavage. The tight top had her breasts hugged up even closer like small cantaloupes, making her cleavage look even more irresistible. Her pants hugged around her hips like a piece of wet suede leather stretched around the gas tank of a motorcycle. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I asked her. “What is your name?” She looked up sort of frightened like I was pulling her out of a line-up at a police precinct. “Jasmine.” She said. “Thank you. Welcome to Neiman Marcus.” I said with a smile. “Thanks.” She said as she smiled and made friendly eye contact for a split second and continued filling out her paperwork.

(Saturday, 6pm) Ray was already deep into, Linda, one of the new sisters that started about a week ago since he had to arrest Brenda for shoplifting but I was hesitant to make any real progress with Jasmine. Something about her sent my intuition screaming like a four alarm fire. She was too aloof, sly, and evasive for my taste - sure I would take her out to lunch on our break but one thing that particularly sent my alarms ringing was the way one of the warehouse workers eye balled her. He was a hard-looking dude that looked like he was all about the streets - one foot in a jail cell and the other foot on a banana peel. He looked at her like he knew her, like he had hit it or knew of someone that had hit it. If it had been any other guy I probably wouldn’t have cared but something about him and the way he looked at her made me want to keep my distance.

“It’s about that time, man,” Ray says. “A lot of these women are getting canned because they get sticky fingers and think they can score some free gifts for Christmas.” Ray’s mood was more serious and focused lately because we had to arrest several female employees that did everything from accepting fraudulent checks from shadey characters to refunding money to people for merchandise they had just picked up from a nearby rack and stuffed it in a Neiman Marcus bag they stole from somewhere else. “I’m going to take a walk,” Ray says. “Hit me up on the walkie talkie if anything suspicious happens.” I randomly flip from camera to camera - from the first floor to the second floor and back down - slowly rotating, zooming and panning every customer and employee. I frequently flipped to the camera to petite women’s wear where Jasmine and her friend, Tracey, were working. For some reason both of the girls were accumulating a large amount of clothing - it wouldn’t have been so suspicious if they had returned the clothes they picked up after folding the way a typical employee should do but they kept the clothes at their counter. 

My instincts were on fire about these two girls, Jasmine and Linda - I ignored all the other cameras and switched the women’s petite wear camera to the main monitor and started recording. A young thuggish looking dude comes up to the counter with a smile on his face. Jasmine moves toward the guy and starts smiling - her body language is relaxed and she’s talking with the guy more than a store employee would usually talk to a customer. Suddenly, Jasmine starts ringing up several different articles of clothing as if the guy were buying something but he never brought anything to the counter. The sales transaction flashes across the monitor on the far side of the desk that tracks any transaction being made that’s watched on the main monitor. The thuggish guy pulls out a credit card from his pocket and gives Jasmine the card. She swipes it and the information of the card comes across the screen: Elaine Cartwright. That doesn’t look like a black name to me and that sure as hell ain’t his name. I called Ray on the walkie talkie. “Ray,” I said into the walkie talkie. “Yeah, man.” He says in response. “You better get back here, man.” I told him.

Five minutes later he swings open the office door, looks at the main monitor, jumps into the office chair and switches to the camera on the opposite side of Jasmine’s cash register. I pointed to the stack of neatly folded clothes on the counter as shown on the monitor. “She’s been ringing up clothes like crazy on that credit card.” I pointed to the monitor that was tracking the sales transaction. “Elaine Cartwright,” Ray says in a what-the-fuck kind of voice. “That sure as hell ain’t her card.” He says as he writes down the information displayed on the monitor. “You recording this?” He asks me. “Every since she started.” I said. He calls the number of the person’s name showing on the monitor. “May I speak to miss Cartwright?” He says in a professional tone. “Yes, ma’am. I’m calling to find out if you’ve reported a stolen credit card.” He sits there listening to the woman on the other end of the phone for a minute while panning and zooming the camera - picking up every action being made by Jasmine and her friend. “Thank you, Miss Cartwright. We’ll take care of everything.” He hangs up the phone and looks at me with a sad look on his face. “Your girl is busted.” He says as he takes two sets of handcuffs, hands me a pair and he takes a pair and puts them in his back pocket.

“Keep your girl and Linda on the monitor and let me know when that guy leaves.” He says as he walks out of the office. As I maintained visual contact of Jasmine I watched Ray on the other cameras walk across the department store floor almost to the vicinity of Jasmine’s area but just out of the line of her vision. The guy bought all of the merchandise with the credit card but he walked away empty-handed leaving all the clothes with Jasmine. “Did you see that shit, man?” I asked Ray on the walkie talkie. “No. what happened?” He responded. “The dude left all that merchandise with Jasmine.” I told him. “She’s going to try to walk it out herself when she clocks out tonight.” Ray said.

(11:35pm) The employees are lined up outside of the loss prevention office to have their merchandise and personal items checked before leaving. Ray had already called in, Michael, the head detective  for backup to handle this case. We estimated from the transaction monitor the two girls, Jasmine and Linda, had rung up $3,000 worth of merchandise. $2,500 is enough for a felony charge. Ray had already been hanging around the girls all afternoon making them feel confident that we would let them walk out scott free with over $3000 worth of merchandise. As it became their turn to have their merchandise looked over, Michael puts on a friendly smile and makes small talk with Linda while matching the merchandise to the receipt. I called Jasmine into the surveillance room to distract her.

“What do you think about going out Friday night?” I asked her. She smiles and leans toward me from her chair as if she wanted to kiss me. “That sounds cool to me.” She says in a soft, flirtatious tone. The body language is obviously fake. She had given the guy that gave her the stolen credit card more flirtatious body language in 15 minutes than she had given me in three weeks of working here - all of a sudden she’s hot for me - yeah right. “You know in this short time we’ve been going out to lunch together I’ve been getting more into you,” I told her. “So what do you think our chances are of taking this to the next level?” I asked. “I think the chances are pretty good.” She says as she gradually increases her smile and crosses her legs - pointing her crossed leg towards me and bobbing her foot up and down. “So how is it that such a fine ass sister like you has been single all this time?”  I asked her with a sly grin. “Well, I just broke up not too long ago with my boyfriend,” she says as her smile slowly fades. “He was very abusive and controlling.” While she’s talking Ray comes in and gives me a look. He taps his badge signaling that the police were here and waiting outside.

I look back at Jasmine with a bigger smile. “Guess what, Jasmine?” I tell her as I push my seat back to give her enough space to walk out. Just as the last words spilled out of her mouth two uniformed cops walked in the office, walkie talkies blaring with dispatch calls. The expression on Jasmine’s face changed from flirtatious to sadness. She frowned and her eyes started to water up. “Jasmine Barnes?” One of the officers asked as he looks at a small black notebook pad in his hand. “Yes, that’s me.” She says, hands trembling like leaves. “Could you step this way, ma’am?” As she walks toward the police officer she tries valiantly to hold back her tears but when the officer turns her around, pulls her hands behind her back, and places handcuffs on her wrists she begins bellowing.

She bends over slightly as if she’s going the throw up and tears hit the floor like small beads. “You have the right to remain silent,” The assisting officer reads to Jasmine. “Anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. Do you understand these rights?” The officer asks in a cold mechanized voice.  “Y-y-yessss.” Jasmine says in a wilted tone. From the point of having the handcuffs placed on her wrists she couldn’t look me in the face. My heart sunk to my feet to see such a beautiful, delicate sister being handled like a slave by the two white police officers towering over her like two sentinel robots. Watching her cry uncontrollably ripped at my soul. Somehow, even though I know she committed a crime I felt like I betrayed her. Nevertheless, my own feelings of betrayal quickly overcame the guilt

She knew what my job was and she even knew the cameras were watching her. but she committed the crime anyway - thinking I was going to be gullible enough to risk my own job just for her. The investigating detective drove me down to the Jefferson County courthouse to process Jasmine’s paperwork personally. “That girl is too pretty to be sitting in jail” He said as we drove to the courthouse. “Yeah, tell me about it.” I said to the detective. That just made me burn that much more with anger. I set her bond as high as the legally possible - $5000. My anger continued to eat away at me as she sat in jail for several days knowing she was taking the fall for some son-of-a-bitch that didn’t give a damn about her to begin with or he wouldn’t have used her as a fall guy. Since we didn’t get a good shot of the guy’s face that gave her the credit card we couldn’t go after him. All we needed was the actual person that committed the transaction, Jasmine, so there was no need to pursue him anyway. But I had to make an effort to go after the guy. I visited her in the jail cell to see if she would tell me who the guy was that gave her the credit card.

The jailer escorted me to her cell, unlocked the bars and let me in, then he walked away to give us privacy. Jasmine was huddled up in the corner of her tiny cot. All around her eyes were swollen and red from crying and rubbing. Without her make-up on she looked old and weathered like she had been stranded in the Nevada desert for days without water. “Why the hell are you trying to protect this guy, Jasmine?” I asked her as she sat there, lips chapped and trembling. “I don’t want him to get in trouble.” I raised up to her and looked her dead in the eyes - I almost wanted to slap those thick lips off of her face but I restrained myself.

“You’re the one that’s going to prison for a felony charge! What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked her in a low grunt. “He said he found the credit card at a gas station.” She said as she started crying again. Damn - this girl is even dumber than I thought. “It doesn’t matter how he got the card. I need to know his name!” I told her in a louder grunt as not to get the attention of the jailer. “No.” She said in a faded whimper. I backed away to the far corner of the jail cell and looked at her in disgust. Hell, I only signed up for this job just to have somewhere to collect my thoughts away from graphic design until I could figure out what to do next with my life. Now I’m up in this mess over this girl about to go to prison.

At that very point I remembered how I took her to the detective’s office and showed her the location of the cameras that were targeted on her department and she smiled like it was nothing - as if she thought she already had me in the bag and primed to look the other way when she committed her crime. Right then and there I decided to completely cut myself loose from this girl. “Enjoy your stay in prison.” I told her as I walked out of her cell.

Comments

[Zen]

Dayam, sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do. However difficult.