This young copper found me asleep in a doorway and my pockets didn’t jingle when he shook me, so he took me along. In the charge room they gave me a feel all over but found no folding money. Why should I own up? At least there was a roof on the place. Old-time coppers would have given you a reef up the tail and told you to beat it, but promotion and their quota of convictions make them more savage nowadays. The old plastic pens were clicking away while they took down all the particulars I gave them. Once you could have a bit of a stoush in the street and no one to worry, but now everyone’s a private eye. First I thought they were picking me up because I did have a little fight earlier that night, and later a little target practice with the blue fluoro lights—you have to hit between the wires with little rocks to get a result—but it was just like them to lumber me when I was horizontal. It was a pretty big station, and they had one of the crime cars there. Did you know there were only five in Sydney?
