Myth-Nomers & Im-Pervections by Robert Asprin

“Well, well, Mis-ter Skeeve,” he said at last, dropping the paper onto the desk in front of him. “It seems this isn’t the first time you’ve dealt with the police since arriving in this dimension.”

“Uh-oh,” Kalvin-exclaimed, rolling his eyes, “here it comes!”

“What makes you say that, Captain?” I had a hunch it wouldn’t do any good to act innocent. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any other ideas about how to act.

“What makes me say that is the report I just received. I thought I should check with the other precincts to see if they had heard of you, and it seems they have.”

“That’s why they’ve been stalling,” J.R. put in. “To wait until the reports came in. It’s called police efficiency.” The captain ignored him.

“According to this, you’ve had two run-ins with the police already. First for acting suspicious on the public streets . . .”

“I was being polite instead of barreling into people!” I broke in, exasperated. “I’m sorry, I was new here and didn’t know ‘rude’ was the operative word for this dimension. You should put up signs or something warning people that being polite is grounds for harassment on Perv!”

The captain continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “. . . And later that same day, you tried to get out of paying for a pretty expensive meal.”

“I fainted, for Pete’s sake! As soon as I came to, I paid for the meal, even though I hadn’t eaten a bite.”

“Now that in itself sounds a little suspicious,” the captain said, pursing his lips. “Why would you order a meal you couldn’t, or wouldn’t, eat?”