The concrete wharf in the dead of night. Yellow-roofed warehouses lit by the moonlight. The sea itself, slowly churning, gave the scene its absolute serenity.

After showing her ID, going through the security gate was no problem. She, a police officer, was here to investigate a rather... suspicious character who had been spotted by the docks for many nights in a row now. He hadn't done anything wrong, technically, but something seemed off about the fact that he just happened to be there at a time where no one else was. A small rumor in the police station suggested that he was stealing goods from the shipping containers stored in the oh-so-many equally-sized buildings lining this part of the coast. She was tempted to believe. But it was only one rumor. It was just a suggestion.

She had decided to keep an open mind.

Slowly, her motorcycle (with her on it) pattered through the rows of warehouses. She looked around at each intersection, but found nothing extraordinary every time. The vehicle continued.

She actually had her own theory about this person, whoever he was. Beliefs that she had (conjured from thin air to satisfy her curiosity) pictured him as a rowdy, hotshot gangster, flashing guns and shooting them at every available opportunity. He would carouse around town in limos with his boss and crewmates, snapping up money from banks and committing other types of devious (although admittedly typical and unoriginal) crimes with flare, flash, and evil intent.

Yeah, she knew she was wrong. She had a good imagination, though. Everyone told her that, too, and she liked herself for it. (Goodness forbid to the point of vanity, however.) Maybe this was why she had been in the police force for so long. A fertile, creative mind.

An open mind.

Abruptly, she spotted him standing right by the guardrail overlooking the water. The quiet motorcycle stopped. The quiet rider dismounted. And then she began walking towards him, silently.

Her eyes gathered details fast, in just three steps. A man taller than her, moderately built, couldn't make out the head or facial details yet, nice clothes consisting of jeans and a green-brown, clearly worn shirt, no hat. The car parked next to him was nice too, thin and long, a 2004 Greyhound Himalayan, did not look worn in the slightest.

The most gripping detail, strangely, she found when she took the third step. It was a coin that was being fondled slowly by the right hand. Her mind only went back to the outrageous gangster theory for a moment, though, because when she took the fourth step, he spoke.

"'Night, officer."

He had not even turned around. She was about twenty feet away from him at this point. She stopped and checked herself. She wasn't wearing an officer's uniform, nor had she rode her police motorcycle here. (Incognito, low profile, were her orders, and she obeyed.) Struck for a moment in a blank state of mind, she quickly decided to play it safe. She still had the advantage.

Resuming her walk, she settled herself right to the left of him, looking out at the wet waves in silence. A few minutes passed. The sea sloshed. Nothing more. At last, she braved herself and turned to directly face the man. His eyes shifted sideways to observe without turning himself. She took full advantage of this chance.

The man's face read "kind" to her. No glasses. Brown hair and thin eyes of the same color. Nice nose. Chapped mouth. Was this person really such a suspicious character? Again, the blank feeling struck her, and she noticed that the man noticed, as he swiftly turned around to look back at her. It was almost like his examination was the appreciation of the beauty of his lover's face. ...No, that was stupid.

...That was stupid.

"Well."

She shook herself again, and her eyes fell upon the right hand, which was now clenching the coin fiercely. She started to look up into his face, but he turned back to the guardrail, back to the sea, at the last moment. As if in endless bewilderment, she followed suit, and the scene dissolved into its former state.

More silence. The man's fist unclenched slowly, she saw. It gently resumed fondling the coin, which she could now identify as a quarter. What a gangster. It was almost an envious feeling she got this time. Against all her common sense, she just wanted to arrest him for something. She didn't even know why; it was all contradictory in her head. She must be going crazy. Maybe it was the atmosphere? The situation? Nothing had affected her to feel so... so...

"Are you going to arrest me?"

In an instant, with clear minds, the two faced each other once more. His eyes, she noticed now, even though they gazed at her strongly, were not malicious. It signified a preparation to receive judgement.

More silence. An opening of a mouth.

"Have you committed a crime?"

The man acknowledged this as a very good question. Of course, he knew he hadn't, but she didn't. And it was fun to mess with police officers.

He committed to a momentary avoidance of the inquiry. He raised his head, squeezing his coin hand so hard he could feel sweat dripping out. Then his hand unclenched, and the moonlight, perhaps by a bit of luck, bounced off the quarter and made it shine. He gathered it up quickly and spun it on his index finger. Then he moved it, still spinning, to his middle finger, then his ring, then his pinky, keeping excellent balance the whole way.

Now, at this point, he knew she was entranced with the coin. However, if he made the fatal decision to look at her, it would throw her off and the interrogation would resume. Also, he couldn't look at the quarter while he was spinning it: one, because that much focus might throw him off (better to leave it to muscle memory) and two, the aforementioned reason of his audience's enthrallment being stifled by noticing him looking at it as well as her. Therefore, it was a middle ground: stare out at the sea.

The blue sea.

Okay, enough. The coin danced off his hand onto the tiny flat surface of the guardrail. For just a brief moment it lingered, the dropped. It dropped towards the ocean! His precious, lovely coin! It was all going to end with a fatal 'plop', the sound of it hitting the water...

It never came. He slammed his foot into the bottom rail of the fence, making the back lip of his shoe stick out just enough to have the coin fall into it. Now he could look back at the mesmerized woman with a smile. Somehow, this somewhat lucky party trick had, by some means, shifted her whole perspective to see him in a new light.

The foot retreated from the edge of the concrete. Bending his back, he used his left hand to pick the coin out from his smelly shoe. His left hand. The coin was in his left hand.

"No."

And that was that. The caress of the precious coin began afresh.

"Who are you?" It was literally the only thing she could think of to ask.

A broader smile came to the character who was decidedly not suspicious. "My best friend is a gangster."

And with that, the meeting closed. The woman walked away. Her report on this case was going to be strange. The man got into his slim car. He put the quarter – that quarter – back into his right pocket, stretching his left hand to do so.

As the two vehicles both drove away separately, completely oblivious of what had just happened, a cloud rudely blocked the moonlight from transmitting to the yellow-roofed warehouses.

THE END.