Getting Out Of Bed
The doorbell rang early in the morning, or at least, it was early for me. In true jobless fashion I muttered a few curses and rolled over back to sleep. About an hour or two later I got up, and got ready for a hike in the local area. Down the stairs, pack on my back, out the door, down the alleyway and....
I stopped short when I spotted the door to my car left wide open. The soft top had been cut with knife in three places, not as random vandalism, but with every intention of obtaining access to the vehicle. It was evident the thief had gone through every possible cubbyhole.
In actual fact, I wasn't hugely upset by it. The real damage had already been done to my car some time ago. Thats why it was off the road permanently and contained nothing worth stealing. Given what happened with the police the last time, I wondered if it was really worth notifying them this time, but I suppose whoever did this might do the same to someone else, so I guess it was time to take a deep breath and phone them. They arranged to send a forensic investigator. She drove in from Marlborough and looked askance at my somewhat grimy corpse of a car. She sniffed around, shone a torch into dark corners, then told me it was hopeless. The car was wet after the soft-top was cut open, never mind the doors being left open in the rain, and she explained that her powders would only make a mess in the conditions, and that there little likeliehood of obtaining prints from cloth or textured plastic.
Is it just me, or have I been cruelly misled by crime thrillers? Had there been a dead body involved, would the car have been hauled away and exposed to every possible scientific test to obtain evidence of the guilty party? Maybe, maybe not, but I guess a dead car doesn't qualify as time well spent. It turns out this time I'm not alone. On her way down into the car park, a garage mechanic stopped her to point out the six other cars that had been broken into equally carelessly recently. My neighbour stepped out of his back gate and sympathetically enquired if I'd lost anything. It was him knocking on my door earlier, and his car - unbeknown to me - had been broken into the week before.
A lot of people are having their cars damaged in this area. Irs probably a solitary kid, too high on the excitment of becoming a crook to figure out which cars are actually worth breaking into. I ought to thank my neighbour for trying to let me know it had happened. Perhaps I should have gotten out of bed for all the difference it would have made. I can't help wondering if the police feel the same way.
First Impressions of the Week
He was a well built guy, in black casual clothes, with a subtle display of gold chains around his neck. I had no reason to talk to him other than I wanted a drink and he was standing in the way of the bar. This guy seemed sociable enough and I cracked some lame joke about nightclub bouncers.
"I know bad people" He said. Oh? Really? Is this some sort of gangsta thing? He realised quite quickly I wasn't terrified. Normally with people who know bad people you have a bullet hole inserted somewhere on your person by now, so I figured I wasn't in any danger of that.
"See this? know what this means?" He shoved a black and gold ring in my face. "Dis is da Freemasons. You know what the Freemasons are?"
Yeah... Yeah I do.... But I totally missed the point of his gesture. He wandered away with his mobile phone. So I guess either he's a fake gangsta trying it on, or there's a contract out on my life. I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed.
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