Shoplifting

I just couldn't do it. I don't know what it is. It's not embarrassment. No, that's not it. You see, you are putting your head in a noose: that's what it seems to me.' Derek, an armed robber with a long record of bank jobs, was talking about hoisting (shop-lifting). 'No, I just couldn't do it. 1 mean just going in there.' He paused to try to find a more exact way of fixing his antipathy. 'I tell you what. It's too blatant* for my liking.'

It seemed a funny way to put it. Pushing a couple of ties in your pocket at a shop was hardly the last word in extroversion.

But my ideas of shop-lifting were still bound up with teenage memories of nicking packets of chewing gum from the local newsagents. A lot of guilt and not much loot. After a few conversations with professional hoisters, I realized that 'blatant' was just about right.

Nobody took a couple of ties: they took the whole rack. The first mem­ber of the gang would walk in nice and purposefully. Their job was to set up the goods: perhaps put an elastic band round the ends of a few dozen silk scarves; move the valuable pieces of jewellery nearer the edge of the counter; slide the ties on the rack into a compact bunch. Then, while some­body else diverts the assistant or provides some sort of masking, the third member lifts the lot.

If the walk to the door is a little long, then there may be someone else to take over for the last stretch. No one is in possession for more than a few seconds, and there's always a couple of spare bodies to obstruct any­one who seems to be getting too near the carrier. Store detectives who move forward with well-founded suspicions may still find themselves clutching empty air.

'There's one other little angle,' said one detective. 'I often pop round the back stairs; that's where you'll occasionally find one of them, trying to relax and get themselves in the right mood before starting the next job.'

(From: New Society. — September 14, 1992)

*blatant— ужасный, вопиющий

Vocabulary

embarrassment (n) — смущение, затруднение

embarrass (v)

noose (n)— ловушка, петля

hoisting = shop-lifting (n) — кража из магазина

hoister (n)

antipathy(n) — антипатия, отвращение

extroversion(n) — стремление к материальному благу

to be bound up— быть тесно связанным с чем-либо

loot(n) — награбленное; добыча (the) gang (n) — банда

the goods— товары

valuable(adj) — ценный, дорогой

divert(v) — отвлекать внимание

obstruct(v) — преграждать, препятствовать

suspicion (n) — подозрение

suspect (v) somebody or something

relax(v) — 1.делать передышку; 2. расслабиться, ослабить внимание