A Perfect Crime (TWS)

I started with an old standby.

"Hey, what's that over there?"

I pointed at a corner of the room, and all the goons turned to look. That wasn't going to buy me enough time on its own, though.

So I tapped the nearest goon on the shoulder and said "No backsies." Given his build and occupation, he probably hadn't been approved for adulthood yet and was still subject to play laws.

That got one off my back, but there were five more and they were going to protect themselves better. I kept behind the one I'd tagged to slow them down, but I needed another trick.

It was time for the old pineapple.

"Nobody try anything, or I pull the pin," I said, taking the pineapple out of my back pocket. I hoped the lighting was low enough that it passed for a grenade. "I'm here for a talk with the boss, so just let me through and nobody has to get hurt."

There was an awkward pause, and then one of them threw a punch. In desperation, I shoved the pineapple into his face.

"Will all of you cut that out?" the Crone shouted, tapping her cane angrily. "I don't know who this idiot is, but I thought I told you all that standard procedure is to listen to what the idiot has to say before pounding him. Not that I have high expectations, but it's important to follow protocol."

She was reminding me of the kid right then. Still, this was what I'd come for. Maybe I hadn't made the best first impression, but I still had a chance.

Of course, if what I pitched at her didn't catch her interest, there were still some goons ready to pound me. So I had to think carefully about just what I was going to ask.

>"It's the sequel to Breakfast Club where they're all adults going to prison 20 years later."

Wait, no, that's the wrong elevator pitch.

>Just straight up ask him what his men were doing at the apartment building of the victim.

"Well, ma'am, it's like this. I just swam into town - for reasons I won't bore you with - and I wanted to find a, shall we say, sponsor to help me while I get my bearings in here. And maybe bribe someone to get me a citizenship ID and crime license."

"You're proposing a partnership, then? Just what do you have to offer me?"

"Well, I've got a knack for DJ services, and bartending."

"I am quite satisfied in those regards," she said, her eyes narrowing. "Surely you have something more interesting to offer me?"

Right. I wasn't going to be able to get as far as asking questions if I couldn't offer something on the illegal side, something that she wouldn't be able to get herself. Hadn't really thought of that part of it when planning out my fake identity.

So just what sort of criminal enterprise was I going to pretend to offer her a hand in?

you're a police officer willing to aid criminal activities for bribe money

>You've got connections to various national boxing tournaments and may just be able to rig the match in someone's favor.

For a moment - just a moment - I considered saying I was a cop looking for bribe money. My paycheck's a little thin, after all.

But I quickly dismissed the thought. My currency card isn't set up to accept bribes, after all. I'm a rank too low for that, and there's no way I'd be able to pull off a bluff like that.

So I needed to think quickly. I looked around to gauge her interests, and that's when I noticed a few things.

First of all, every one of her goons was wearing boxing gloves. Second, the room was covered in posters for various famous boxing events. She was a boxing fan, then, and that gave me an opening.

"I'm sure a refined lady like you has a good grasp of the boxing scene in this marvelous city," I began. "But there are matches in the wider world that are... shall we say, difficult to watch in here."

"The national championship," she said, thoughtfully. "I haven't seen one since, well, you wouldn't have been born yet, would you. You can bring me news of the championship?"

"Even better. I can get you a champion. Give me a passable boxer, and I can see to it he rises to the top. Against overwhelming odds that would mean quite a bit of money to anyone who bet on him."

I almost gave myself away with a "ne" there, but I realized just in time that a foreigner more than likely wouldn't be used to the Council's intricately planned system of pronouns.

"Money that wouldn't be accepted here," she shot back at me. "I'm not looking for foreign holdings, they're no use in this city. And picking the champion? Not from these worthless goons. None of them could even be plausible as a phony. It's not worth the risk to smuggle one out."

Hmm. I had her interest, but I wasn't closing the deal. I'd need to refine my pitch a bit. Offer her something she couldn't get here in the city, and was willing to take some risks for.

But what?

Cucumbers.

Because of your dj and bartending career, you've met all types of people abroad. You have a connect that can turn that "useless" money into any product the crone wants, effectively laundering it, and smuggle it back into the Big City all under the nose of those pesky customs enforcement officers.

>A phonecall to mom.

PG-13 rated movies

"That money's not useless. Sure, in here it is, but I've got connections on the outside. You want something, I can get it for you. And I can get it in here."

The Crone looks thoughtful, but shakes her head.

"I don't work through middlemen. It seems to me that this little setup of yours can't give me direct control over the money. That's not how I operate."

She had a point. But I didn't have to act like I was giving up. I had one last chance.

"Okay, so you don't want a part in the big operation. Fine. Not so great for me, but that's not your problem, is it."

"No, it isn't. You'd better have a point to all this."

"I hear your Council recently banned cucumbers."

It was, of course, a wise decision. After all, cucumbers could be used to make pickles, and once you had those in your city, you were asking for nothing but trouble. The Council had our back, that's for sure.

But a twisted deviant like the Crone was sure to want to get her hands on some cucumbers. If not for herself, then to sell to the cucumber connoisseurs.

"You can offer me a supply route for cucumbers from the outside?"

"That's right. A way the Council has no chance of finding out about."

"Now that's a profitable line of business. I wish you hadn't wasted my time with all this other nonsense. Of course, I expect results before I can agree to anything conclusive. Get me one cucumber, and once I've verified it meets my standards, then we can discuss a more long-term contract."

"It's going to take time, I was hoping one of my other pitches would work for you, but yeah, I can get you one. Tomorrow night."

Of course, I didn't intend to keep up the disguise for that long. But I hadn't really gotten anything for all my efforts. I still needed to find out what her men were doing at that residential complex.

And I wasn't leaving before I had something. I had to lead from my pitch into the question, somehow. Make it sound like I needed to know what was going on before I could guarantee my delivery.

But how could I do that?

"a tradition from my homeland is that when a deal is struck, the receiving party tells them about all the murders they committed recently"

before i strike this hot deal, you're not gonna kill me like that guy in that apartment right

> Ask for a list of recent things their gang has done, so you know exactly which variety of cucumber would be the most delectable to send in as an application.

just start pulling your hair out by the roots and screaming "don't FUCK WITH ME. don't you FUCK ME OVER. aaaaAAAAAAAA"

"There's just one thing I need settled, though. See, I need to know just how much I'm putting my neck at risk working with you. And not just for my own sake - it affects just what kind of cucumber I can justify getting for you. If you're likely to run into big trouble with the law, well, I'm not going to get into the more exotic stuff."

She gave me a nasty look. I was on thin ice, but I needed the info.

"I'll make this quick. I haven't been here long, but it's been long enough to get a little bit of info. Maybe you can clear it up. Seems there was a murder last night, and some of your boys were spotted at the scene. Now, I ain't here to pass judgement or anything, but I gotta tread carefully around a murder. For obvious reasons."

"It wasn't us," she snarled. "We had some dealings with the victim, and he was holding out, but we only scheduled a shakedown. The boys found him already dead and emptied what they could from his pockets. Wasn't much, mind. Whoever killed him had probably rifled through them first."

Well, it was a good explanation. It didn't clear anything up about the weird setup on the second floor, though.

"Hang on, boss," one of the boys piped up. "That was last week's shakedown. We had one scheduled for today, some unregistered journalist we were blackmailing, but we had to cancel because he died suddenly."

Well, that was interesting.

"You mean to tell me we missed out on two shakedowns in a row?" the Crone bellowed. "That's the sort of coincidence I don't believe in." She turned her head towards me. "And that means our deal's off. Nothing personal, but when someone's got it in for me, I'm not inclined to take any chances with strangers. Now, leave or I'll send my boys after you."

"Wait! Who's after you? Who's going after your shakedown victims?"

"Why, so you can do business with them? You can just figure that out for yourself. Get out."

I knew when I was pressing my luck, so I ran off. I'd already learned something real interesting. Somebody was going after the Crone's shakedown list, and apparently it was somebody with a grudge.

Of course, I didn't have any real evidence of overstepping the bounds of her license, other than failing to report an unauthorized criminal. And given the communicator message that I hadn't actually seen, admitting that I had posed as one would just get me in more trouble with the Council.

And when I got back home, I realized I had a new problem, because the kid had dropped off a bunch of notes with anagrams of hats scrawled on them. Not that the notes themselves were a problem, I wasn't going to read 'em. But it was going to get harder to ditch that eager young cephalawpod if ??? knew my address.

Still, that could wait for tomorrow. I picked up my communicator where I had "lost" it, reported that it had gone missing at a time five minutes before the message on it and I hadn't reported it earlier because I couldn't find my communicator, put my scuba suit away and went to sleep.

Then I remembered the surveillance cameras. I was an old hand at losing my communicator, so it wasn't a problem if that was on there. But the Council would probably want to know why I had a scuba suit on and where I had gone with it.

The truth was right out. Maybe if I'd learned more from the Crone, I could get away with that, but I only had a little info. I was going to need a solid excuse to give the Manegerial Officers in the morning.

What was that going be?

You needed to pick up some shark bait.

you're part of a group of people who find sexual pleasure in wearing scuba suits and there was a "scubie" meet-up (there are always scubie meet-ups and parties in your part of the city, so it's a safe bet).
People might look down on you, but it's always better to tell a lie that is going to make people uncomfortable, cause nobody will question it.

you're not authorized for sexual deviancy; say it was a full-body condom instead

The first thing that came to mind is the "scubie" subculture. But that wouldn't work - I didn't have any Council-approved kinks at all.

Fortunately, that gave me a secondary idea. I'd tell them I needed to get some shark bait, but as the stores that carry that sort of thing have a deviant clientele, I needed the scuba suit to protect myself from their fetishes.

The one problem is that they'd ask which store I'd gone to and check the purchasing records. That's when I'd admit to getting lost on the way and just slinking back home in embarrassment.

With that decided, I settled in for a good Council-mandated resting period.

Unfortunately, when I woke up, the kid was in my living room.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

The kid replied - how else - with a form. A "transfer of residence for the purpose of reforming a re-educated dissident" form.

"Shouldn't I have signed this at some point," I asked, groggily.

"That's entirely optional. The Council approved my transfer three hours ago, so I can learn from you at all hours of the day. Isn't that exciting?"

Great. I was even more stuck with the kid now.

"Well, kid, I gotta go and see the Managerial Officers. And you definitely don't want to tag along for that."

"But it would be extremely informative! I could learn so much about obedience from how you show respect for your superiors."

Ugh. I definitely couldn't handle the kid and the Managerial Officers at the same time without exceeding the daily vomiting limits. How was I going to avoid that mess?

>Say you only have enough bus fare for one person. Make sure to lock the garage door so the kid doesn't notice you own a car.

tell him he needs the managerial officers tag along form, which probably doesnt exist and slip away while he's looking

Move house.

> Look! A distraction! Better fill out a QC-whatever form for the attempt to distract an official detective.

"Now hold on," I began. "You know you can't just walk in and see the Managerial Officers at any time. There's a whole process..."

Of course, the kid immediately produced a filled-out Managerial Officer Tagging Along For Re-Educational Purposes form. It was starting to get more than a little creepy how good ??? was with forms.

"Unfortunately, I only have enough bus credits for myself," I continued. "And I'm pretty sure you don't qualify for provisional credits yet."

Actually, I had no idea if ??? did, but I figured it was worth a shot.

"Don't you have a vehicle in the vehicular adjunct chamber?"

"Yes, but..." I strained for an explanation. "I'm pretty sure it's strictly coded for personal use, not occupational. Plus, its presence on Council-owned property would probably violate several good-taste directives."

I was half-expecting the kid to pull out a form proving me wrong, but ??? just seemed disappointed.

"I'll have to stay here on my own, then. Of course, there's always a risk that without supervision from a law-abiding citizen, I'll resume my foolishly rebellious ways. In which case, of course, the law-abiding citizen who should have been supervising me would naturally be held responsible. But hopefully I'll be able to avoid such temptations."

Ugh. Well, the kid had a point. I made up some excuse about remembering how my vehicular operation license had a special legal enforcement provision covering this exact situation and we drove off.

But getting to the office wasn't the end of the trip. I just had to keep the kid out of the actual meeting with me. Maybe by making that permission form conveniently disappear.

Of course, that would require me to get the form away from the kid first. How was I supposed to do that?