Is Mary Jane a thief or what? June 3, 1985

 

I told Mary Jane about the change of locks a week or so ago. Safire had them changed and never gave Mary Jane the key.

This was before the break-in on Saturday, and it really pissed Mary Jane off have Safire accuse her of stealing.

For all the time Mary Jane worked at Fotomat not one red cent was ever missing. She would never have kept her job had Bob believed any of the rumors.

If she was a thief, she would have found a way to get her pictures out of the Clifton store, pictures she can’t yet afford to pay for, revealing pictures people believe make her nervous.

Why not just steal those? They would be harder to keep track of than missing cash.

Some believe the friction between Mary Jane and Safire comes as a result of how bossy Safire can be, and Mary Jane stubborn, and having them worked at the same store is bound to lead to friction.

Mary Jane is also a notorious flirt and is extremely popular with the Hackensack police. Safire is a former stripper who prides herself on her efficiency.

The two of them actually started out the best of friends, with Mary Jane spending time with Safire and her husband. Perhaps Mary flirted with him, too. Rumors suggested she did more than flirt. Mary Jane had a reputation of that kind around town. After a while, Safire started calling her a thief.

Safire doesn’t love her husband. He beats the crap out of her. But what is hers is hers, and she apparently told Mary Jane to keep her hands off him.

Mary Jane, however, told me that more than once Safire called her on Sundays begging for her to give Safire an alibi.

“She told me to tell her husband she was with me,” Mary Jane claimed.

But there was also the incident at the booth when “a friend” of Mary Jane’s came to the booth and confused Safire for Mary Jane and hit on her.

“I told him flat out that I wasn’t Mary Jane,” Safire told me later. “That really startled him.”

But he hadn’t come to the booth to make love, he had come to make change, he claimed, asking Safire to give him change for a ten, and when she gave him two fives, he claimed he’d given her a twenty. She was so confused she gave him two more fives and then watched him walk away. Later when she counted her drawer, she came up short ten dollars. She is convinced Mary Jane sent the man -- maybe had him hit on her, too.

From then on, her paranoia grew, suspecting Mary Jane of stealing money and plotting to steal her husband, too.

Maybe it was because Mary Jane would call the booth from home or someplace else for no reason.

“She didn’t have anything to say,” Safire said.

Then last Saturday, Mary Jane called and seemed upset that Safire was still there.

“I had to stay and do inventory,” Safire said. “That meant I had to stay for a couple hours after closing.”

Since the booth was closed on Sunday, Safire didn’t find out about the break-in until she came in Monday morning and found the glass smashed and about 30 rolls of film missing. Oddly enough, she also found a gray sock the thief had apparently dropped, a sock filled with hundred-dollar bills.

Bob had the glass replaced with reinforced plexiglass.  She’s convinced Mary Jane is behind it all. I’m not at all sure.

 

 1985 Menu

 


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