I mean I became a cop mostly because you get to carry a gun, but hey I didn't know nothing back then. This job... rocks. Catching robbers, murderers, drug traffickers, money launderers, gang members, fake cops... it just felt amazing.
I mean, I guessed so.
I... hadn't... caught any yet.
Anyway, it was my fourth month as a cop, and... Hi. I'm Fardeen Khan. Friends call me Fard. I was an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) in Mumbai Police, in the southern megacity area, and I was looking for something, I guess. They treated the assistants like their H.R. department. The senior detective inspectors did all the actually cool stuff around here and we juniors enjoyed our Excel sheets on our Windows Vista machines (meanwhile our station officer had goddamn Airpods). At best we'd be given patrol duty. Basically drive a cruiser around eating street food and running red lights. That's... actually pretty cool though, heh.
So yeah I was looking for something. I was looking for an actual for-real case that could get me into all the actual cop work. I had tried a lot but most I had achieved was the head constables thought the tea I made was almost as good as the tea stalls from their hometowns. Some days I had even had to keep my gun next to my pillow to sleep without feeling like a loser.
Anyway so one day I was on patrol duty again, and I was heading to my favourite street food place in my wonderful cruiser. Wanna know what it said on the side?
'P O I C E'
That's right boys you better run, it's the Poice. And also the other side said Pie but we don't talk about that.
"Hey man, a kebab roll please."
"Sure, that's fifty rupees."
"Here, thanks."
So I was on the side of the road, a delicious roll in my hand, it was 11:15 am, people were going about their day, squirrels were lecturing cats about tree access rights; and yeah, I was chilling in my car, enjoying my favourite food and totally not watching anime on my phone... Until a man knocked on my window. I got the earphones out and opened it up.
"Officer, hey, I need to show you something," the man was a lean, middle-aged, kinda short dude with a big beard and a depressing hoodie.
"Dude," I said, "If you're trying to rob me, you should know I've got nothing apart from 500 bucks, these earphones, and 18 GB of garbage anime."
"No man, what're you talking about? I got no time to rob, got a kid to care for and a wife to report to. There's a car parked there and I want you to take a look at it, that's it."
I rolled my eyes and got out. The man took me to the car he was talking about. Parked near the bank. A Hyundai SUV. Grey. Small dent on the side.
"So, what about this car?" I folded my arms, unamused.
"Well first of all it has no license plate on it," the man said. "Heh, I thought you'd have noticed that by now."
"Oh." He was right, how could I not notice that? The car had no license plates, and it looked like they had been kinda ripped right off.
"Yeah, I really think the bank might be in danger, Officer."
"Hmm... That's a possibility, but we need more. Do you know anything else about this car?"
"Yes sir I know whose car this is."
"You do?"
"Yeah. It's my neighbour's. I live right there," the man pointed to a little two-story apartment building on the other side of the road.
"Okay so, tell me about your neighbour?"
"He's fat, he moved into the building four days ago, for three days he has an SUV without a license plate parked fifty metres away from a bank on a public spot with a parking time limit of like two hours, and he looks like an Azerbaijani guinea pig," he said as he put on a stupid grin. "Oh and his name is Dru."
"Okay, Mister," I turned to look at the apartment building again. "Let's go to your building and pay Dru the Azerbaijani guinea pig a visit."
