Destination Undetermined

(I’m traveling again this week so I only had time to work on one story. Here is my Florida Weekly entry .)

A man and a woman occupy two seats in an Amtrak station. Their belongings resting on two more. The woman appears slightly disheveled, with her shoelaces untied, outdated clothes, and her hair in need of attention. She has a cane propped between her legs and one arm resting on a roll of foam rubber, a large purse perched on one knee. She stares at the man next to her.

The man is only marginally better dressed. His shirt and pants are from a past decade. He sports a large wristwatch on one arm and a bracelet on the other. A silver chain with a cross dangles from his neck. A baseball cap with a pair of sunglasses perched on the brim completes his ensemble. He travels with a backpack and a cooler bag. One hand clutches a cell phone lying on his thigh. Both people wear masks, as does everyone else in the station.

At first glance, they look like ordinary passengers patiently waiting for their train to arrive, but appearances can be deceiving. The duo spends much of the day and a good deal of the evening at the station, waiting for just the right moment to add to their hoard of stolen goods.

The man and woman are not a couple, but associates, working the traveling throng for whatever they can pickpocket. It takes a great deal of skill and stealth to succeed in this profession. At first, they were competitors trying to get to a mark before the other one could score. Slowly, they realized that by working together, their profit doubled.

The PA speakers blare, “Acela train to Washington D. C. now boarding at track 2.” Immediately, the partners rise from their seats and move toward the platform. The woman enters the crowd of boarding passengers first, moving unsteadily on her cane. She reaches a pre-selected spot in the line where multiple business travelers are standing. Feigning a stumble, she spills her possessions on the floor.

All eyes turn to the woman in distress. Several people in business attire stoop to help the lady gather her belongings. She makes a show of thanking her rescuers, all the while keeping the crowd focused on her. The incident, from start to finish, takes approximately two minutes.

While the woman has the crowd’s full attention, her partner deftly navigates through the assembled passengers. A bump against a man yields one money clip. A nudge as he passes a lady with her purse hanging loosely from her shoulder, and her wallet vanishes. His left hand points towards the stricken lady while the right relieves a passenger of his billfold. With each move, the man adds to his collection of stolen property, careful not to take too much, keeping his chances of being discovered low.

The woman stands, with the aid of the good Samaritans, and continues her trek across the platform and enters the lady’s room. The man walks to a different row of seats. As the train leaves the station, the lady rejoins him. They place the collection of wallets, watches, and phones into his cooler bag.

The duo waits patiently for the next train to arrive. They gather their belongings and join the crush of people leaving the station. All is going precisely as it has every day for the past two weeks. As they pass through the station’s main door, the man feels less pressure on the shoulder where the cooler bag is slung. Instinctively, he reaches down to give the bag a pat, but his hand only finds air and the cut ends of a strap.

His first reaction is to search the crowd for the thief, but his partner keeps him in check. To call for help and create a disturbance will draw too much attention to them. If security finds the bag, they will have to explain how they came by its contents. Better to let this one go.

The partners hold a strategy meeting later that evening. They decide that this station has served its purpose. Time to move on. A new location will be chosen in the morning. The where isn’t all that important. If there is a train or bus station, they’ll have a place to make money.