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those days,” she said with a shudder as she pulled out her camera and began taking pictures to show her coworkers back home.
    With a tired sigh, Mr. Dempsey bumped the children off the recliner and collapsed onto its worn leather seat cushions. His wife set down her camera and picked up a pair of rusted metal pliers.
    “Can you imagine what would happen if I tried to use this on one of my patients?” she asked her husband with an evil leer. She mashed the handles back and forth over his head as she aimed the pinchers at his mouth. Mr. Dempsey flattened himself against the back of the recliner, his expression one of genuine terror.
    I didn’t have time to worry about the torture Mrs. Dempsey was contemplating for her husband. The youngest of their children had begun to chase a terrified Rupert around the showroom. Isabella watched from the top of a bookcase while Rupert scrambled for cover. The little girl’s wheezing, high-pitched voice filled the room as she squealed with delight, “Kit- tee . . . Kit- tee .”
    It took almost thirty minutes to get Mrs. Dempsey and her brood out the door. Rupert didn’t emerge from hiding until dinnertime, nearly four hours later.
    Customers, I had decided, were overrated—particularly the non-purchasing kind. Rupert and Isabella heartily agreed. I was beginning to appreciate the rationale of Uncle Oscar’s customer-deterrent strategies.
    With a grimace, I glanced down at my orange nylon jumpsuit and thick rubber gloves. One look at this outfit should be enough to scare off even the most tooth-enamored dental hygienist.
    A second series of raps echoed up from the showroom, and I glanced skeptically at the clock mounted onto the still-intact wall on the opposite side of the kitchen.
    In my short year of experience, antique buyers, elusive creatures that they were, rarely visited Jackson Square before early afternoon. Even in my more optimistic days of running the Green Vase, I’d given up manning the cashier counter downstairs until after lunch. A sign posted on the front door clearly advised passersby that the showroom didn’t open until 1:30 p.m. Whoever was trying to gain entrance to the Green Vase this sunny Friday morning was unlikely to be a shopper.
    Given the sounds echoing up from the floor below, the persistent person on the street outside had apparently decided to switch tactics. I began to struggle out of my rubber gloves as the decorative brass handle on the showroom’s front door rattled in its fittings. A moment later, I heard the metal grating of a key sliding into the door’s lock. With a slight clink , the key turned in the keyhole’s fittings.
    “Hello?” I called out tentatively as the unmistakable creak of iron hinges signaled the opening of the front door. Both cats immediately turned to look toward the top of the stairwell that led from the kitchen to the showroom below.
    “Hmmm,” I mused uneasily. I picked up the scraper and slapped its flat metal side against the palm of my hand. I thought I had confiscated all the rogue keys to the Green Vase that inexplicably circulated among Uncle Oscar’s friends and colleagues. Clearly, I had missed one.
    Heavy footsteps clunked across the showroom toward the bottom of the staircase. There was an awkward stilted motion to the stride, as if the walker were carefully measuring his motions to retain his balance.
    “Hello?” I called out again, my voice more demanding in tone. Still, the entrant below did not respond.
    The voiceless, unnamed feet began hiking up the stairs, loudly clapping against each step as if they were encased in concrete. The repeating sound rattled through the second floor, jostling the dishes in the cupboard over the sink.
    I glanced down at the cats. Isabella wore a dour, knowing look on her face as Rupert bounded happily across the room to the entrance of the staircase, his pudgy body wiggling in anticipation of the visitor’s arrival. I put my hands on my hips and turned toward the