Tuesday, August 13, 2013

The Perfidious Perforator!

I

Very early in my career with the NSW Police Force I was involved in back door sort of way in an investigation into a stamp scandal of titanic proportions.
Fresh out of the Academy I was posted to an inner city division investigating fraud and similar white collar crimes. A job that I hated from the very beginning - where was the excitement? Where the danger? I did not even get to wear a gun or bash someone brains in for a whole two years!

One day, which promised to be as dull and boring as the previous 365 I was called into the Senior Detective's office. He smiled at me, right away I knew that it was trouble, that iceberg never smiled. A thin desiccated man of around 60, grey from head to foot...if he had laid down on a slab the pathologist would have immediately tied a label around his big toe! And his office even smelled like some sort of contagious corner of Sydney Hospital. His smile revealed a set of teeth that would have made prince Charles very happy to see them on someone else.

"Yes, Sir?" I said standing in attention by the front of his desk.
"Sit down, Louie." He said pointing to the chair right in front of where I was standing. His voice was not unlike that of Boris Karloff, probably the best Frankenstein monster. This was the second sign that there was only trouble ahead in my future. If I got the third sign I was truly fucked.
"How are you settling in, Louie?" That was it, I was fucked!


II
I had been working under him for just about a full year and he had never asked how i was doing.
"er...fine Sir," I answered without a sign of a tremor in my voice,
"Louie, I have a special job for you...er...sort off the books, you might say." he stopped and stared at me. Measuring me up or more probably fitting me up.
"Yes, Sir." Gutless me answered. he seemed to approve and opened the middle draw of his desk and extracted a thin Manilla folder. Opened and grimaced, then pushed it toward me. "Open it." He said with disgust. I opened it I looked and lifted the only sheet in the file, looking for the rest. "Sir?" I said.
"Do you know what they are ?" he asked and for the first time a flood of emotion coloured his speech, some blood must have actually reached his cheeks as the death pallor was momentarily lost.
"...er...stamps, Sir" I answered not sure which one of us was insane.
"Stamps?" He raised his voice as if I had just called his mother a slut. "Stamps you say?" he repeated raising his voice to unheard of volumes.
"Sir?" I said while my mind was saying 'what the fuck? has he flipped?'
"They are not stamps. young man. They are an abomination!" he screamed, spittle flying in all directions.

...to be continued.


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