When Traci finally dozed off, I waited another few minutes and hopped off the porch and walked down the beach before pulling out my cell phone and stared at Officer Krupke’s business card for a long time. Should I call him? The guy was looking for information on the kid, not on the two men who’d attacked the teenager on the beach, and yet, well, it felt pretty horrible to just sit there and not do anything.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. With all my powers, why was I sitting around contemplating turning things over to the cops? Let me tell you, I was thinking exactly the same thing, and kicking myself, wondering why in the heck I hadn’t just packaged up the bad guys earlier in the evening. I know why I didn’t back then, but now I was really in a crack, trying to figure out how to tell the cops, without telling them how I knew, and these were cops who were already pretty suspicious of me to begin with.

And what could I do now? Finding the guys was not going to be easy, and all that bizarre stuff about satellite surveillance on the beach had me more than a little queasy about just flying about the neighborhood looking for them. I was stuck, honestly stuck, and my superpowers didn’t tell me jack-shit about how to handle the situation. If I’d gone to the beach with Lauren, or someone who knew about my powers, at least then I could have asked for advice, but Traci was definitely not in the know as far as superpowers go. She probably suspected something, like how I heard what her brother was doing so quickly, but like all of my friends sort of got used to some of that stuff, and mostly they never asked or made a big deal of it.

I started walking down the beach, still churning over it all and trying to figure things out when I heard something really strange. It was nearly three o’clock in the morning, and for the most part, the beach was dead. There were a few parties going on inside some of the houses, and I saw lights on some of the porches, but for the most part, things were pretty quiet. And if they hadn’t been, I’d have probably had no chance of picking up the click and static of the police radio. I walked down the beach a bit more, and then spotted the patrol car, parked on the access way to the beach, its lights off, with the driver sitting there smoking a cigarette. When I was sure the cop was male, I knew this might be the answer.

Its pretty much a fact of my life that men are a whole lot easier to manipulate than women, especially when there’s no one else around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no super-seductress or anything, and honestly, I’m a complete amateur compared to girls like, well, say Traci, who really can work a social situation. But while I lack a lot in skill, I have raw materials which most girls don’t, and one on one, I can still usually get guys to stumble a bit, especially older guys. In this case, all I had to do was give the guy an “anonymous tip,” and even if I couldn’t charm my way out of it, I could always just disappear into the darkness.

I stepped over to the cruiser, smiling and making a show out of putting my hand in front of my eyes when the guy flashed his light on me. I was wearing the same outfit I'd worn to the party: a white button down blouse and a pair of shorts, and the guy probably was getting some sort of weird effect from that flashlight on my top, because after going up and down me, it stayed pretty much focused there until I got right up to the cruiser window and he finally flicked it off.

"Hiya officer" I chirped as I smiled down at him. "I was, um, kind of wondering if you might be able to help me... um, see, I ...."

Officer Friendly's leer through me for a moment and I stumbled a moment before he cut me off.

"I'll certainly try ma'am" he said smiling as he got out of the car. "What seems to the problem?"

He seemed to puff up a bit and suck up his gut when he looked down at me, so I just sort of laid it all out there, trusting that he'd want to help.

"Um, see here's the thing officer" I said, "I saw two men run and get into a van, like right after that guy was attacked on the beach. I got the license plate number, its 543A621, but, um, like I don't really want to like give myname and all."

"You don't?" he said slightly foggily. Honestly, I think he was still staring down at my chest, which was just fine by me, because if he hadn't been, he might have asked why. I didn't want that.

"Nope, I'd rather not, well, I mean, I don't want to like get involved you know. So, now that I've told you...."

I took a step back and sure enough he stepped forward. Although I easily could have avoided him, at that particular moment, I didn't feel like it. I stood my ground as he walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Miss...." he said, "you worried about, what, getting in trouble with your parents or something?"

Even as I responded, I could feel his hand rubbing my shoulder.

"Something like that" I said looking up into his eyes. I suck at reading people, at least at figuring out what they're going to do. I could tell he was turned on by me, like that took super senses to figure out, but whether that meant he was going to try to rape me, help me out or try and cuff me was something I didn't know. I wasn't going to let any of the bad stuff happen, but how exactly I was going to avoid it was still a question.

"I'm sure you can like just check out the plate, right? See if its stolen or something right?" I said softly.

He nodded, even as he brought his hand to my face.

"Yup, I'm going to do that, hon. And if it is, that'll be enough I guess to check it out, but there's procedures. I need your name and where you live."

I made a split decision then, and took a step to the side just a bit quicker than he could react to and stepped forward again, placing my hand on his. He blinked, even as I spoke.

"You sure about that?" I said, "cause if you like put my name in the file and all, its going to be official and, um, we might not be able to meet like this."

The miserable mother-humper laughed at me. I gave him my best attempt at seduction, and he laughed.

"Save it hon" he said smiling. "I been on the beat long enough to know that ain't no one looks like you interested in an old man like me, so y'aint gonna go that route. And, well, I'll admit I'm tempted to take you up on, well, you're tempting, but I ain't stupid enough to blow my career on some little jailbait tramp bottle blonde, no matter how hot she is. You gonna give me yer name or...."

Ok, I was pissed, and it was probably dumb, but I'd just been humiliated, and now he was reaching for... I took it out of his hand and it turned out to be a pad of paper, so I tossed it on the ground and just stood there waiting for him to breathe or something.

"What the ?" he said finally, staring at me and beginning to reach for his gun. This time I was pissed, so I grabbed his shirt with one hand even as I reached for the gun with the other hand. Unfortunately, the shirt ripped, and his gun hand clamped down on mine. So much for my attempts at subtle intimidation.

I just sort of shoved him down, real gently and planted sat down on his stomach while I extricated my wrist from his grip and tossed his gun to the side. I guess I pissed him off too, because his other hand started coming up, likely to try to knock me off him. As tempting as it was to let him break his hand, I resisted, and just grabbed his hands and smiled.

"You're way too slow old man" I said smiling before I released him and got up, scooping up the gun and turning back at him as he struggled to get up.

"Ok, Officer" I said, "I was nice and you weren't, so now I'm going to leave. Only, um, you got two choices. One, when I leave, I keep your gun and you can figure out how to explain how you lost it, or two...."

He lunged at me and I stepped to the side, giving him a little tap to make sure he hit the ground.

"Two, if you promise not to give me grief and just make something up that doesn't lead back to me, I'll leave your gun right here."

"What the .. how did you move like that?" he said, struggling to get up. I guess he hurt his knee or something.

"Like this?" I said after I'd put on a little burst of speed and seemed to appear a few feet away right over his little pad of paper. I scooped that up too and grinned.

"Come on guy, I don't want to hurt you" I said.

"Hurt me?" he said shaking his head.

"Well, yeah" I said grinning innocently as he took a couple of limping steps towards me. "Not like I'm threatening or anything, but its pretty obvious you can't catch me, and trying has already messed up your knee."

You know the guy did? He pulled out his billy club. Screw this, I said to myself, thinking back to that Monty Python movie Mendel had made me watch once. I just had this vision of the guy coming after me with no legs and no arms. But then I started to giggle at the prospect, and before I knew it, the billy club hit me in the face.

He yiped, not me, and as I wiped my cheek, he was clutching his right arm.

"Bad idea" I said shaking my head as I stepped over and kicked the billy club a couple of ten yards away before turning back to him. He was still standing, so I knocked him down. By pursing my lips and blowing.

After I'd walked over to where he landed, I picked him up gently with one hand under the arm and righted him.

"Are we done with this macho shit yet?" I asked.

"What the fu....?" he replied, but at least he didn't hit me.

"Oh stop cursing at me. I'm jailbait remember. You're corrupting me." Ok, I smiled at that, and to his credit, he almost did too, although he was probably too confused to get it out.

I sighed, which he seemed to like and shrugged as I stepped back.

"Ok, I tried to play nice, but you didn't want to. So, here's the new deal. You mess with me, you put even a description of what I look like on your report, and if it comes back to me ..."

I struggled for a moment, trying to figure out how to make a demonstration without like messing up his gun and leaving evidence or something, and then finally just stared out at the ocean for a couple of secs. A huge rush of steam was suddenly visible in the moonlight.

"Um.. see ...." I said, trying to articulate my threat. He finished it.

"I get the message, girl. I get it" he said shaking his head. "I don't know what you are, but I'm not gonna mess with you, ok? I ... somehow I think you're still not showing me half of what you've got."

I smiled and shrugged again.

"So, if I behave, am I going to have to worry about ...."

I shook my head.

"Nope" I said. "Honestly, I just wanted those guys caught and, well, now you sort of see why I didn't want my name in the report."

"I'll bet...." he said.

I stepped over and picked up his gun, billy club and pad and handed them to him, smiling.

"Youre not hurt too bad are you?" I said with genuine concern. "I tried not to hurt you."

"I'm fine" he said shaking his head as he took his stuff, holding his gun for moment. "If I were to..."

"Don't...." I said.

"I'm just asking" he replied as he put it away.

"Well, since you asked, I don't like being shot at, ok."

"Uh ok. Um...." he replied.

"What?" I said putting my hand on my hip.

"Another question..." he added, "like, suppose I had taken you up on your offer....."

I shrugged.

"If you'd behaved yourself, your knee and arm wouldn't hurt."

"But, um, my...." he gestured down at his crotch and I shook my head.

"It wouldn't have gotten that far. My turn..." I added. "You really can't take an anonymous tip? If I'd been three hundred pounds with no boobs ...."

"I'm supposed to try to get your name" he said.

"Ok, well you tried" I said smiling.

"Yeah, but now I want it for other reasons..." he said under his breath.

I heard it but pretended not to.

"Ok, officer, well I'm gonna go dissappear, ok? Bye."

And I did, at least as far as he was concerned, walking deliberately the wrong way down the beach until I cut back about ten minutes later and walked back to the condo.

That was a very weird encounter. As bizarre as it was, I sort of liked the guy. But it was bizarre, and I knew I'd screwed things up pretty badly by showing him I was different, not to mention messing with a cop. It wasn't at all the way I thought a real superheroine would have handled things. Of course, I wasn't a real one. I mean, suppose I had a costume and mask and all. Would things have gone differently? That's what I'm thinking about now, as I turn off the computer and get at least a couple of hour's sleep.