‘I just hope you’re not the one to catch the animal, Stan,’ thought Sergeant Solo as they headed for their squad cars, realising that his buddy would probably kill the rapist and murder his own career at the same time.

*      *      *

The woman, tall, blonde, beautiful, and a prostitute, had finished work for the night and was on her way home.   Leg-weary and loaded with money she tried to flag down a cab, but seeing her dishevelled state the cabby drove straight past her.   Sighing her frustration, she forced her tired legs to start walking the twelve blocks back to the seedy apartment building where she lived.

The prostitute was less than a block from her apartment, when she was attacked from behind by the New York Mauler.

“Don’t hurt me!   Don’t hurt me!” she pleaded as he dragged her deep into a dark alleyway.

“Here,” she said, holding out her night’s takings, “over two hundred dollars.   You can have it all, but please just don’t hurt me.”

The man knocked her hand away disdainfully, sending greenbacks scattering across the alley.   He was no common robber.

It won’t be too bad, thought the prostitute as the man started to tear her clothes away.   She sold her body all the time to men, so she figured a freebie wouldn’t hurt her.   But then the man began to beat her mercilessly, blackening both of her eyes and almost flattening the features of her face, before lowering himself on to her.

To the woman, falling in and out of unconsciousness from her head injuries, the rape seemed to go on forever, but finally the man was finished.

Leaving the woman lying on the concrete in the alleyway, the man ignored the greenbacks which fluttered around her, as he dusted himself off, then headed for his car at the other end of the alley.

The radio was squawking in the squad car, as the rapist approached.

“Sergeant Stanly Abbott reporting in,” he said into the mike.   Then in answer to the controller’s question, “Just checking out a possible disturbance, but it turned out to be nothing.   I’m returning to base now.”

THE END