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Inspector Poon pulled up gingerly
to the curb at ninety miles an hour, scattering a crowd of children
playing road hockey with an explosion of screams and car-terror.
He lit a cigarette and sat in the car for a minute, waiting patiently
for the dashboard to stop spinning.
Sucking
on his burnt fingers, Poon eventually got out of the car, crouched
under the police tape surrounding the Hathaway Mansion, and walked
up the driveway. Police officers mingled outside, drinking coffee
and playing tag.
"Oh,
Jesus," mumbled Captain Mallory, spotting Poon's trademark
lumbering, ungainly, slightly wheezing trot. "Thank God you're
here, Poon. I don't think anybody's stolen the corpse's wallet
yet." Several officers enjoyed a laugh at this.
"Go
fuck your sister, Mallory," said Poon. "My only aim
here is solving this case."
"And
what case would that be, Poon?" asked Mallory, as another
round of titters washed over the crowd.
"You
know... this one," replied Poon hesitatingly, pointing vaguely
in the direction of the house. "The crime. In the... house.
With the perpetrators. And the wallet money."
He darted inside before anyone had the chance to question him
further. Entering into the foyer, he surveyed the scene. In one
corner of the room, he observed a body with fifteen bullet holes
lodged immensely firmly in it. In the other corner, a frantic-eyed
man stood, tightly gripping a revolver. He walked over to the
frantic-eyed man.
"What
have we got here, Detective Fierstein?" he asked knowingly,
surveying the room and whipping out his trusy notepad. "You
figure homicide?"
"I'm...
not a police officer."
"Right."
Poon paused to switch tracks. "You, uh, live here or something?"
"No,"
he replied. "I broke in. I also just shot this man."
His eyes seemed to dart everywhere at once, which looked sufficiently
repulsive to make Poon look somewhere else for a bit until the
man's eyes settled down.
"I
see," said Poon, scratching at his stubbled chin. "May
I ask you a question, sir?"
The
man looked at Poon nervously. "Yes. I just kill thi"
"Could
I borrow... five dollars ?" he asked, firing
up a suspecting brow as he pulled his notepad and pencil up to
his face.
At
this point, Detective Fierstein walked in. "What have you
dug up, Poon?" he asked.
"Ah,
if it isn't the real Detective Fierstein,"
said Poon. "Well, for starters, you can tell me why you committed
murder and then framed this man to stand in as your exact double."
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How
did Poon know Fierstein set the whole thing up?
He didn't, of course. He was just incredibly high
on that most incapacitating of cocainesthe
ol' crack cocaine. Fierstein attempted
to explain to a confused, gun-weilding Poon that
he didn't even slightly resemble the suspect,
as he wasn't rake thin, naked, holding a smoking
gun or sporting a chest-sized tattoo reading Hathaway
Must Die. He
went on to further explain that he had a credible
alibi for his whereabouts during the Hataway murder,
having been in a squad car at the time responding
to a call from Hathaway screaming that he was
being murdered by a rake-thin tattooed man.
He
went on to further explain that Poon was a disgrace
to the force.
Luckily,
Poon was too cranked to the nines on cheap smack
to fall for Fierstein's clever wordplay. All the
excuses in the world couldn't explain why Fierstein,
resembling a dark and intensely furious cloud
of shrieking bats, looked identical to the suspect,
who was also a cloud of shrieking bats.
Just
as Poon was about to make an arrest, his brainfearing
his heart would seize up from the large quantieis
of drugs in his blood streamreleased two
British pints of endorphins into his body. Poon
quickly collapsed into a sweaty, mumbling heap.
His revolver, falling out of his hand, mashed
onto the floor and fired off a quick round in
to Fierstein's thigh.
"Agh!"
Feristein yelled, grabbing at his leg. "My
thigh!"
Under
duress and losing blood fast, Fierstein frantically
confessed to the crime, begging Poon to get up
and bring medical attention. Poon, still a little
sleepy, fell back asleep.
The
case was pronounced closed after Fierstein's funeral.
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