Dedication
Initially, this book was supposed to be dedicated in loving memory of my partner, Kara Louise Irvine, who left this world in September 2019, taking with her all of my heart, but since then, the whole world has received a wake-up call.
So much has changed for so many of us.
With that in mind, I would like to dedicate this novel not only to Kara, but in loving memory of everyone who unfortunately has lost their battle against COVID-19. We weren’t prepared.
To everyone else – that battle carries on, so please stay safe.
One
Los Angeles, California, Saturday, December 5th
There were exactly three weeks until Christmas Day. To Angela Wood, that Saturday officially marked the beginning of what she called ‘high season’. Shopping malls, main streets, even tiny corner shops would already be covered in fake snow, flashing lights and colorful decorations, all of them heaving with people eager to spend, searching for those perfect gifts. It was the one time of the year when, with a shrug, most people would turn a blind eye to the state of their finances and say to themselves, ‘Oh, what the hell, it’s Christmas’ – and with that they would dig deep and go beyond their means, spending more, sometimes a hell of a lot more than their bank accounts would’ve allowed them to.
To Angela, ‘high season’ meant happy people with fat wallets in their pockets and handbags, because as Christmas approached, for a limited period, real cash tended to make a comeback. In this day and age, on any given day, most denizens of Los Angeles carried no cash with them, not even small change – everything was touch-and-go – from buying a single pack of gum from a corner store to spending an absolute fortune on Rodeo Drive. No cash, no mess, no fuss. The era of electronic purchases had well and truly arrived. Not that it mattered that much to any salesperson or shop owner anyway. But Angela was no salesperson. She was no business owner either. What she was, was a master pickpocket and, as such, touch-and-go didn’t really work for her. Sure, she could and did make use of credit cards and smartphones when she got them, but in her world, cash was king, and that was why ‘high season’ always put a smile on her face.
This year Angela decided to start her high season by paying a visit to a cozy shopping street in Tujunga Village.
Located near Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, Tujunga Avenue was nestled between the neighborhoods of Colfax Meadows and Woodbridge Park. ‘The Village’ was the trendy block-long stretch where one would find a very diverse and charming variety of shops, boutiques, restaurants, bars and cafés. Not surprisingly, The Village attracted a significant number of shoppers all year round, especially over the week-ends. During ‘high season’, that number would multiply exponentially, flooding the street with an ocean of happy people and their loaded wallets.
Whenever possible, Angela preferred to work at night, which was another reason why she loved the festive season so much. To accommodate the heavy number of customers, most shops stayed open later than usual throughout the month of December. Knowing that, Angela got to Tujunga Village just as the sun was beginning to dip behind the horizon, and as she approached The Village from the Woodbridge side she was pleased to see that the number of shoppers crowding the street seemed to have doubled, compared to just a year ago.
‘Oh, I so love Christmas season,’ Angela said to herself, as she cracked her knuckles against the palms of her hands before slipping on a pair of very thin, red leather gloves.
With the sun just about to bid a final goodnight to the City of Angels, the temperature on the streets had slipped down to eight degrees Celsius, not bad for a winter night where Angela was from, but in a city where the heat and the sun were considered honorary residents, eight degrees was more than enough to cause any proud Angeleno to search their wardrobes for the thickest and warmest coat they could find. For someone like Angela, thick winter coats were a blessing in disguise, because most people made good use of their outside pockets. Such coats offered a thicker layer of insulation between the person’s body and those outside pockets, which meant that one didn’t even need to be a proficient pick-pocket to be able to relieve a victim of their possessions. In a crowded environment, where bumping into another person on the street or inside a store was certainly excusable, picking somebody’s pocket became an even easier task. To a highly skilled expert like Angela, a congested Tujunga Village where eighty percent of people were wearing thick coats was like a free gift shop.
‘Let’s do this,’ Angela said as she joined the crowd, her eyes like a hawk’s searching for prey.
Before she had even made it halfway down the block-long stretch, Angela had already snatched three wallets. It could easily have been more, a lot more, but during ‘high season’ Angela had no reason to ‘pick-blind’ – snatch a wallet without having a good idea of what she was getting.
Her approach was simple and uncomplicated – observe as a customer paid for an item either in store or on the streets. The advantage of that simplistic approach was two-fold: One – Angela could easily identify who was carrying cash and who wasn’t. Two – she could see where the target had placed their wallet – coat pocket, jacket pocket, handbag, etc. With that done, all that was left for Angela to do was tail the target and wait for the right moment to strike, and she never rushed. This time around, it took her only fifteen minutes to get to what Angela called ‘checking time’.
Angela never allowed greed to take over. Not anymore. The one time she did, it had been her downfall, costing her a short stint in jail, a place she swore she’d never go back to. Since then, she would only pick a maximum of three wallets at a time, before checking them for cash and credit cards. If she had made enough, she would call it a day. If not, she would dispose of the wallets before going back to the streets for a second round.
After lifting her third wallet, Angela needed a safe place to check the contents of her pickings. Tucked away just behind the historic and always busy Vitello’s restaurant, right at the heart of Tujunga Village, was the Rendition Room – a 1930s-themed, speakeasy cocktail bar, the restroom of which would be perfect for what Angela needed to do
Angela had been to the Rendition Room a couple of times before, but she had never seen that place so busy. In the ladies’ restroom, she had to wait in line for over five minutes before she could use one of the cubicles. Once in there, she checked the wallets for how much cash they had, and she couldn’t be any happier.
Six hundred and eighty-seven bucks for less than fifteen minutes’ work, she thought to herself, as she hid most of the cash inside her bra. Not bad for day one.
For a split second, she considered going back out onto The Village for a second round. ‘There’s so much more out there,’ ‘Reckless Angela’ tried to whisper in her ear. ‘You could make one month’s picking in one night.’
But ‘Sensible Angela’ was right there too and, in a heartbeat, she slapped that idea back into oblivion.
‘We’re done here, Angela. You know much better than this. Instead of doing the dumb thing, why don’t you go celebrate and have a drink? After all, you’re in a cocktail bar.’
Angela did know much better than that. Since doing jail time, she never argued with reason anymore.