On the streets of... #9

'How the hell did you know?' I asked.

We went down to the canteen of the hospital because I was craving a decent cup of coffee. Rourke wanted French fries. He made me pay.

'Mr Ursula DeCotton was the fourth abuser that ended up in hospital in the last two months. The description is always the same: a small girl, attractive with a funny haircut, looking helpless, then when the big man tries to take advantage, and when I say advantage, I mean, her ass or boobs, she beats the crap out of them. None of them can actually remember her face because her cleavage and the colourful wigs took away their attention from it. All we know is that she is white or possibly Asian and looks young but if she really is a vampire, she could be older than my grandmother. So I figured if three jerks were beaten up because they were a little too handsy when they thought nobody could see them, the fourth one probably was knocked out for the same reason. Then I saw his phone and his watch and I knew I was right.'

'So you cheated,' I stated. I tried to steal a piece of fries but he smacked my hand. 'You already knew he was lying.'

He shook his head tiredly.

'Kid, we are the police. About seventy per cent of whatever people tell us is a lie. They don't like us and they don't trust us. I don't say they aren't right about that but that's a completely different story. We still have to do our job to protect those whiny, annoying idiots, so we gotta stay one step ahead of them, all the time. That's the game. We need to play dirty sometimes. Not like real dirty, you get it, but you are allowed to keep an ace or two in your sleeve. As a detective, you need to be the smartest man in the room all the time. Or at least the trickiest bastard around.'

For the first time, I saw him as a real cop. Someone who actually gives a crap about the job. And it looked like he wasn't even that bad. He was certainly better at it than he was at protecting his fries because I managed to magic a few pieces out of his plate. What? I paid for them, after all.

'So now we have to find that girl, right? I mean, it's not like she is a real criminal…'

Rourke looked at me with those intense grey eyes.

'Doesn't matter, kid. She broke the law. We don't get to decide who is a criminal and who isn't. The law does.'

'Yeah, but she is gonna spend real time in jail,' I objected. 'For what, defending herself from a possible rape?'

'You are missing the point again, kid,' Rourke sighed. 'She wanted them to attack her. She wanted to hurt those assholes. As much as I want to buy her a drink and shake her hand in my free time, while I'm on the clock, my job is to find her and arrest her before she kills someone.'

I took a big sip of my coffee. It was much better than the one I bought across the precinct. I shook my head.

'But those guys won't go to jail, right?' I asked. 'God knows what they would have done if that girl couldn't kick their asses, but they will walk free.'

'They will,' nodded Rourke. 'Without the girl, there is nobody to press charges. And even then, it's their word against hers, without any proof. So yeah, they will walk. In this case, anyway.'

'What do you mean?' I asked, frowning.

Rourke grinned. It wasn't a nice grin. It was a "grandma, why is your mouth so big?"- type of grin.

'You see, the first victim, Mr George Abrams was going home to his loving wife when the attack occurred… And someone made sure that the wife would know how it really happened. Mr Abrams had to take a hotel room permanently as he is not allowed in the family nest anymore. Our second victim, Mr Frank StPaul turned out to be in possession of some highly illegal drugs, so someone tipped off the colleagues at the 55th about him. The third victim, Mr Dean Powell is a young and ambitious man, aiming for City Hall or above. He is working in city planning right now. Unfortunately, he likes an extra buck every now and then, so I assume, without knowing it of course, that someone, sooner or later, will find some evidence about him giving away projects for whoever was willing to buy him something nice instead of the ones with the actual best offer.'

That was way too much information in a minute. I blinked. Then drank my coffee. Then blinked again.

'Is it possible that you are, like secretly, deep down, maybe actually not just an egomaniac asshole?' I asked.

'Don't be stupid, kid. I told you: when I'm on the clock, I do what a cop has to do.'

'What about when you aren't on the clock?' I asked.

'That's not your damn business, Paul,' he said but he didn't look angry now. So he was capable of that, good to know.

'It's Pete, by the way,' I corrected him.

'Nobody cares,' Rourke shrugged. 'Let's head back to the precinct. We still have a few hours left of the shift, we can look at some cold cases to see if we can pass them over to some other idiots. It will be good practice.'

'What about the vampire girl? We should go to the crime scenes, right?'

'Oh yeah, you are gonna go there, don't worry. Now if you look carefully, you will see that our little asshole-beater likes to operate in a certain area. So you are gonna dress up like a tough guy, and you are gonna spend every evening out there until the girl tries to kick you in the balls. Enjoy your date tonight, kid, this will be your last free evening for a while.'

Yeah, I was wrong earlier. Rourke was, in fact, a fucking… Help me out, what name I didn't call him yet?

Dickhead. That's good. He was a real dickhead.