Ch.159Favorite Crime! (6)

#159

Rascal, the spy planted by the Chief, had a face blooming with irritation.

‘How the hell am I supposed to find out Dexter’s schedule?’

Sitting at his desk at OSA headquarters, Rascal was contemplating how to handle this seemingly impossible task ordered by the Chief.

To be precise, the order was to find out both Himena and Dexter’s schedules. Himena was relatively easy to track since she was usually in the Special Investigation Team’s office within OSA headquarters.

The problem was Dexter.

If Dexter were a regular employee, it might be different, but as an honorary member, he rarely came to OSA headquarters.

Moreover, while Rascal knew Dexter frequented Honeygood Prison, he didn’t know a single person connected to the prison.

‘I have no reason to be friendly with criminals or guards.’

In Rascal’s eyes, criminals and prison guards were all the same.

Living for his own self-importance, Rascal wanted to keep his distance from what he considered “lower-class occupations.”

Yet now, by the Chief’s orders, he had to get friendly with them, which was suffocating.

‘This isn’t why I joined OSA!’

Rascal was mentally cursing the Chief for giving him what he considered an incomprehensible order.

Having joined the Space Security Agency, a secret organization unknown to ordinary people, Rascal harbored a sense of superiority.

More precisely, it was a mixture of pride in belonging to a secret organization unknown to common people whom he considered beneath him, and a sense of duty to guide these ignorant masses.

In any case, while Rascal was doing paperwork and pondering how to investigate Dexter’s routine, he heard someone behind him and turned around.

“Excuse me.”

Himena was standing behind Rascal.

When Himena addressed other staff or agents, she would at least use their surname or rank, not just “excuse me.”

It was truly a rock-bottom form of address.

Visibly offended that she hadn’t used his name or surname, Rascal showed his discomfort as he responded.

“…Yes?”

“The Director asked me to deliver this to the Support Department. When I asked other staff, they told me to give it to you.”

Himena spoke in a curt, cold voice while holding some documents.

Rascal imagined that if Dexter weren’t in the picture, Himena would be handing over these documents while trying to flatter him.

‘Being Latina, she would surely have made many charming appeals…’

As heat suddenly rose through his entire body, Rascal briefly closed his eyes. Behind him, Himena’s face turned irritated at his strange behavior.

“Excuse me, where should I put these documents?”

Rascal’s fantasy shattered at Himena’s annoyed voice, and he pointed to a corner of his desk.

“…Here.”

“…What a freak, seriously.”

Himena looked at Rascal with contempt, as if she’d seen something disgusting. After she shuddered and left his desk, Rascal felt rage boiling inside him.

‘What did I do? Did I do anything? Why the fuck is she acting like this when I didn’t do anything?’

It was the first time a woman had looked at him with such contempt.

Of course, due to a major incident Rascal had caused when he first met Dexter, Himena’s opinion of him had plummeted to near zero.

To put it bluntly, she viewed him as no better than a cockroach.

Not remembering that incident and believing everyone thought highly of him, Rascal couldn’t understand Himena’s reaction.

Thinking only what pleased him, Rascal gritted his teeth audibly.

‘Fine, thank you… Himena. Thanks to you, I’ll do even the job I didn’t want to do.’

Using anger as fuel, Rascal pondered how to find out Dexter’s schedule.

* * *

Dexter’s intuition was tingling.

“……”

“What’s wrong?”

Dexter had come to Judy’s house to replace a fluorescent light and was standing on a chair when he suddenly paused and looked toward the window, causing Judy to look at him with concern.

“Nothing, I just felt like someone was watching.”

“Watching… Could it be that thing?”

“That thing? Oh, no, it’s not that.”

Judy’s frightened face was referring to the semi-transparent black hologram from the previous hologram incident.

Not wanting to make her anxious unnecessarily, Dexter shook his head.

“…Just my intuition.”

The problem was that Dexter’s intuition was rarely wrong.

Even while changing the fluorescent light, Dexter glanced toward the window, thinking.

‘I definitely feel like someone is watching me from the window.’

He wanted to check immediately.

But with Judy present, he couldn’t just say he felt someone watching and needed to go investigate.

After replacing the fluorescent light, Dexter climbed down from the chair and said to Judy.

“Let’s turn it on now.”

When Judy flipped the switch, the room immediately brightened.

Judy smiled broadly at the sight.

“Wow. Even with the longest ladder in the house, I couldn’t reach that ceiling.”

“You should call me for things like this.”

“It’s good to know someone tall for situations like this.”

Dexter stared at Judy, feeling like he’d forgotten something.

‘What is it?’

“What’s wrong? Is there something on my face?”

“No, it’s not that. Hmm…”

Dexter lowered his gaze to Judy’s thighs, visible in her shorts, and realized.

“Ah.”

“Yes?”

“The smart band I gave you before. Do you still have it?”

“Yes. It should be in the bedroom… Do you want it now?”

“You can give it to me later.”

Dexter had noticed that Judy’s thighs, which had previously seemed flabby, now maintained a firm, attractive curve, reminding him of the body correction device he had given her under the guise of a smart band.

While Judy went to retrieve the body correction device, Dexter fell into brief thought.

‘Come to think of it, it was originally for Aisha, but I never gave it to her.’

Dexter couldn’t understand why a 9-year-old kid would save up her allowance to buy such a thing.

‘Did she want to become an adult with it?’

Aisha wasn’t unattractive and knew it, so it probably wasn’t just about appearance that made her save up to buy it.

The problem was that body correction devices were programmed to block children from using them for safety reasons, as they were only for adults.

‘Thanks to that, only Jesse and Judy benefited.’

Aisha never tried it on to avoid being caught by her father Preston, so she didn’t know she had wasted her allowance.

Dexter took the body correction device from Judy and casually put it in his pocket.

“Oh, I made cookies earlier, and they should be perfectly cooled now. Would you like some with tea?”

“Cookies?”

“Chocolate chip and almond.”

“Ah, that sounds good.”

Dexter nodded with a pleased smile as Judy pointed toward the living room.

“I’ll bring them right away, so please sit on the sofa.”

While Dexter obediently headed to the living room and sat on the sofa…

“……”

The tingling sensation returned.

Dexter’s intuition was activating.

‘It feels like that gaze from earlier.’

The problem was that he didn’t sense any hostility, just someone observing from a distance.

‘Me? Or Judy?’

Not knowing who was being observed, Dexter sat on the sofa, thinking deeply.

After brief consideration, there was only one way to check.

“I left something in my car, I’ll go get it.”

“Huh? Oh, your car? Go ahead.”

Judy, who was boiling water, smiled and sent Dexter off.

Dexter returned a light smile to Judy, but the moment he turned away, his face hardened.

‘If they’re observing Judy, I’ll half-kill them first.’

To maintain his cover, Dexter left Judy’s house with an expression full of annoyance, scratching his shoulder.

While displaying such behavior and heading toward his pickup truck, Dexter quickly surveyed the surroundings.

The residential area was empty on a weekday afternoon after lunch, making it easy to spot any suspicious vehicles.

‘That’s it.’

There was a teal van with only the word “Plumber” plastered on it without much effort.

‘What kind of plumber looks like that?’

Thanks to Las Vegas’s bright sunlight, Dexter could clearly see the person inside the plumber’s van.

A thin, middle-aged man with a mustache, obviously not a plumber, was wearing sunglasses and intently watching Dexter.

Even though Dexter was glancing at him, the man didn’t seem to notice and was quite blatantly staring at Dexter.

‘So it’s not Judy, but me? Why me?’

Since Dexter had no means to respond if the man had a gun, he entered his pickup truck to look for a weapon.

‘Since we’re in a residential area, I can’t freely use weapons… Should I take this?’

There was a blaster in the glove compartment that Dexter always carried, but it was lethal with high firepower and loud noise, making it inappropriate.

With no suitable weapon in sight.

What caught Dexter’s eye was a tire wrench used for changing tires.

‘This will do.’

With the tire wrench tucked behind his waist, Dexter exited the pickup truck and slowly walked toward the plumber’s van.

The mustached man who had been intently watching Dexter clearly didn’t expect Dexter to head toward him after leaving the truck, as he showed visible panic.

Seeing him sweating profusely inside the car, Dexter approached the plumber’s van with a momentarily sympathetic expression and said:

“Mister, open up.”

As soon as the mustached man saw Dexter’s expression as he tapped on the window, he suddenly started the engine.

“Mister, I won’t hit you, so open the door. Don’t think about running away.”

The mustached man, panicking, stepped hard on the accelerator to leave as soon as the engine started, causing Dexter to sigh deeply.

Immediately pulling out the tire wrench from his waist, Dexter swung it strongly at the driver’s side window.

-THWACK!

“Eek!”

The window was sturdier than expected and didn’t break immediately, allowing the mustached man to start driving away in terror.

“Stay away! Stay away!”

As the van departed, Dexter stuck close to it and said:

“Don’t make me chase you in this heat.”

Being an old van, it moved slower than other cars through the residential area, and moreover, Dexter kept swinging the tire wrench at the window.

-THWACK!

“Stop!”

“Are you crazy?!”

There’s a limit to how long a person can chase a car.

As the mustached man’s van tried to move faster than Dexter could run, Dexter properly exerted strength in the arm holding the tire wrench.

“Hnngh!”

Before the driving mustached man could change his expression in shock at Dexter’s suddenly reddened, swollen arm muscles, Dexter channeled all the strength from his bulging arm muscles into the tire wrench.

And swung it.

-THWACK!

As the window shattered, unable to withstand the momentary force, Dexter grinned, dropped the tire wrench, and grabbed the mustached man by the collar.

“Stop or you die.”

This was essentially Dexter’s final warning.

Any further refusal could lead to unpredictable consequences, and especially after seeing those reddened, bulging arm muscles, the man abandoned any thought of resistance.

The mustached man shook his head vigorously and pulled the van over to the side of the road.