Detective Harry Gomez was having a crappy morning. His sister was visiting, which in and of itself was not really a bad thing. But his sister was one of those people that simply had to travel with their pets. Which in and of itself is also not always a bad thing.But she loved cats.
Which in and of themselves are psychotic little bastards.
Especially these ones.
Especially when Harry was asleep.
And when his face evidently looked like the perfect place to sleep/sharpen claws.
So, two days into the visit, Harry slouched out of the door of his apartment avoiding the looks of people who were having trouble hiding their horror. They were big cats.
Then, as he winced his way into the first bite of a morning bagel (doughnuts are so 1980's) he saw a type 4 criminal* yank a purse from the hands of a woman and take off down the street. At first Harry was shocked. Type 4's were a little rare these days due to a prevailing fear of interfering superheroes. But, unable to resist a chance to live out his childhood dreams, Harry dropped the bagel and hauled ass after number four.
Unfortunately, Harry was living out the childhood dreams of the purse thief** so after about 10 steps he plunged into a manhole that was conveniently missing its cover.
So, after convincing the doctors that most of the damage was from cats and could they just stitch his chin please, Harry finally made it into the precinct.
Which was chaos.
Normally Khaki is not considered a jarring color, but that's cause it's so often seen in watered down chino form or in appropriate settings, like deserts or ancient tunnels. When faced with a horde of chattering khaki clad men crammed in a cell the effect was unsettling. This was coupled by the wildly abrasive tones of the 5 cigar a day sergeant bawling out a uniform.
"Well WHERE the HELL did they get FIREWOOD!?!?!"
"Honestly, sarge, we took all their packs."
"Did you check their POCKETS?"
"Well...sarge..did you look at.."
The sergeant fell silent as he looked at the dense herd of mulitpocketed khaki smiling helpfully at him.
"Damn it. We're going to need more men."
Harry was deeply thankful that this was not his problem and headed for his office.
Waiting in the office as an eager young officer, fairly bouncing up and down on his feet.
"Detective DETECTIVE!!! I GOT HIM!"
Harry considered the current trend of his day and formed severe doubts that the officer had actually gotten this mysterious "HIM".
"Who are we talking about officer?"
"The leader of Los Eruditos sir!"
Harry collapsed into his chair and gazed upward at an unkind god.
Los Eruditos was Harry's current least favorite ( and only) project. I mean, you accidentally shoot a couple of old women and it's like you're not allowed to do real police work anymore? THEY HAD HANDBAGS!!! But that's neither here nor there.
Los Eruditos was a street gang that was seemingly comprised of nothing but type 3
2 criminals***. They had been terrorizing the city for the last 6 months. Or, at least, they had been terrorizing the city libraries. These jokers had some kind of beef with the Dewey Decimal system. They were breaking into city libraries and reorganizing the library according to the library of congress heading system.Obviously this was not a life threatening series of events, but it was proving wildly upsetting to the city's librarians, a surprising amount of whom were related city officials. And so, the job of arresting these heinous book reorganizers had fallen into the lap of disgraced detective Harry Gomez.
As it turned out, these guys were fairly sophisticated and had eluded capture for quite some time. But a couple of weeks ago, they had a breakthrough. A terrified librarian cowering in the bathroom described how the band's leader had spent an inordinate amount of time checking himself out in the mirror. Inspired, Harry had cameras and two way mirrors installed in several unscathed libraries. The image they got was of a large brawny man in a duster with a complicated toolbelt and a bandanna stretched across the lower half of his face. He had glossy black hair, strong eyebrows and extremely blue eyes. But that was about it. This lack of truly identifiable features was one of the leading causes that Harry doubted the officer's GOTHIMness.
"Alright officer, let's see your suspect."
"Sure thing detective!" Then the officer surreptitiously placed a tube of antibiotic ointment on Harry's desk and smiled sympathetically. As the officer left, Harry yanked open his gun/maalox/crayon drawer and raided his supply of antacid.
Harry's suspicions that the good lord hated him deepened as the officer led in a towering man in Khaki. The man sat down in the chair across from Harry's desk with an altogether un-prisoneresque air of contentment. Over his shoulder, Harry was could see some of the men assigned to searching pockets wrestling with several spider monkeys.
The man glanced over his shoulder to see what Harry was looking back and then smiled indulgently at the detective.
"I try to keep the men from bringing too many personal effects, but what are you going to do, eh?"
Harry puzzled over that for a moment and then decided to push on.
"Alright, mister...uh."
"Call me Jim."
"oh, oka-"
"Jungle Jim, if you prefer."
"I really don't."
"Just Jim then is fine, though when we're in front of our respective subordinates, Jungle Jim is more appropriate."
This definitely needed to push on.
"Alright. Jim. The officer who brought you in seems to be under the impression that you are leader of a rogue band library vandals."
The man had leaned forward and was studying the detective intensely. Harry had to admit, the eyes and eyebrows were a dead match. Suddenly he spoke,
"You know, many tribes engage in ritual scarring, either as a beautification or as a right of passage. Scars should be be worn with honor and pride."
Harry stared in glassy eyed silence.
The man waved his massive hands around his face. "I mean, that many scars is a bit horrific but in the right light you could look quite the noble savage."
Harry felt a tightening in the veins in his temple.
"Cats. I was scratched by cats."
Surprisingly, the man nodded sympathetically. "Yes I surmised as much. A tabby and a two greys, all three rather large. You know I have some tips on how to deal with such things."
Harry leaned back, "What? Did my sister put you up to this?"
Jim raised his eyebrows, "My good man, I have not had the pleasure of meeting your sister. Not sure it would be appropriate, all things considered."
Harry shook his head, "Whatever, back to the point. Library vandals."Jim nodded seriously, "Terrible that. And here I thought we had the Vandals all taken care of. I had always supposed that they had just sacked Rome and then gone extinct."
Harry looked down at his desk and wondered whether or not you could hear a gunshot in the next room. Instead he pulled out the picture from the library camera.
"I'd like to show you something, um, Jim."
Jim looked at the picture and then whirled about in his chair, holding a clenched fist up to his mouth.
"You fool!"
*Are you kidding me? We're not going to list all of the categories this detective has for criminals. He always wanted to be a botanist and after failing out university he was left with an obsessive need to classify. He has, like, 656 different types of criminals.
**Who made it home only to find that not only had his ex-girlfriend discovered that he was much better in bed than the aerobics instructor she'd left him for, but that the purse he had snatched was the work bag of the world's finest debutante, multimillionaire diamond thief and that he was now wealthy beyond his dreams and possessed several fine passports. And he never had to do the dishes again, not ever.
***Alright, we relent. Type 32 criminal is listed as "Pain in the Ass student activist."
