THE UPSKIRT CON

What I saw this summer day made me sick. I’m not talking about gypmeisters or vagrants hunting for palomas. Not even those hen parties with stuffed penis hats. No, I’m talking about a dangerous phenomenon called upskirt videos.

This is how I single-handedly destroyed a network of upskirt perverts. Their modus operandi is simple. Hide a video camera in duffel bag or something similar. Point the lens so it peeks out a hole, angled up. Press Rec. Since the tendency of girls these days is to go sans panties, their work is easy. And lately it’s been all over this burg. Apparently this devious perv technique is an import from the Tokyo subway system. I read about on the internet. There they call the upskirt pervs panchiras. The only difference is that there they insist on giving the dames 200 dollar tips after upskirting them. It is a great affront and loss of face if the dame refuses the tip.

It was some sweltering day in August. I had just downed a sol y sombra in a joint near the Ramblas. I hit the pissed on flagstones outside, set fire to a Reig. I was looking for action. Preferably the tall and blonde kind. Draught. I grabbed the front brim of my Stetson and pulled it low.

I crossed to the median and was making my way down to bar La Plata off of carrer Ample. I had pretty much the whole stretch of the Ramblas to foot. My eyes peeled, I noticed a man in gray. Gray khakis, gray linen shirt, dark with sweat around the armpits. His shoes were gray, his hair was gray. His bespectacled face was about as remarkable as suction cup shoes on a cat burglar. Gray Man was pulling a little Spanish shopping trolley. Nothing strange about Gray Man.

And that’s the rub. The mucker was so damn nondescript I got that funny feeling in my shorts. I dragged the last of the Reig and mashed it out under my brogue. I shadowed him from twenty feet back. He walked with a casual air. Approached a group of tourists gawking at a living statue of Che Guevara. He positioned himself behind a tourist dame wearing a sleazy summer dress. A dead give away. Why would a native watch the living statues? No native in his right mind would watch those crooks. They’d sooner be playing bocce ball in drag! Then I peeped it.

He angled the shopping trolley in such a way that the lower edge was very close to the girl’s legs. Odd, considering all the possible places he could place his trolley. I closed in at forty-five degrees, about ten feet away. The girl moved and jawed with her male companion. The trolley moved behind her. The whole while the perv looking straight ahead at Che.

I jabbed my typer finger into his puny backside.

“Euhhhha! Qué te pasa?!”

“Pasa algo en tu trolley!”

“Eh? Qué?”

Not wanting to cause embarrassment to the charming tourist broad I grabbed his stick arm and walked him to the edge of the crowd. Near a kiosk covered in Ronaldinho and Messi paraphernalia I gave him the third degree. In Spanglish.

“Tu trolley! Dentro you have … camera!”

“Estás chiflado! Déjame en paz, guiri de mierda!”

“No hablo your talk.” I flipped open my buzzer. Glinting silver. Kovaks P.I.

Just then the charming tourist broad and her beau stepped up.

“See, I knew that creep was up to something! You never listen to me, Ron!”

“Aw, baby there’s no way I could have known! Besides who the hell is this guy. Dressed up like a detective.”

I knew the pervy palooka was getting ready to dust. I knew I had to act fast before the mucker got any funny ideas. I grabbed his shopping trolley and yanked it away from him. I flipped open the top flap of the vinyl bag and pulled out a browned head of lettuce. I bowled it down the center of the Ramblas. Below the head of lettuce there were some loose crumpled up pages of a magazine. Below that, a bunch of wires and knick knacks. I yanked them out. Then I saw it. A little video camera mounted in the chinsiest possible fashion to the bottom of his trolley. With duct tape and an empty can of lube. Gray Man went from stoic indignant to stammering fool in the wink of an eye. I simultaneously reached in and ripped the video camera out of his trolley and grabbed Gray Man by the arm. I held up the video camera for all to see.

“Filthy perverts are taking over the Ramblas. The subway systems. They rub on innocent tourist girls. They leer. They make rude and uninvited comments. They multiply like the lowest form of bacteria and attack the weakest among us! NOW THIS!”

The tourist girl gawked at me in what only can be described as awed admiration. “What! What! What is it!”

“This lousy mucker is part of the upskirt mafia. I’ve seen them on the nightly news. On youtube. THIS CAMERA has been recording UPSKIRT images of you! And thousands of other innocent dames in skirts!”

The girl’s boyfriend blurted out:

“Let me see that camera! The scumbag pervert!”

Then I announced, to the astonishment of all:

“The evidence of their depraved activity isn’t here! His partner in slime, the living statue, is standing on it!”

By this time there was a fairly thick crowd forming around us. Aw, the little bird brains. Innocent happy go lucky fools! I pointed at the fake Che Guevara.

“The video signal was cleverly relayed to a recording device. The recording device is planted right below the living statue’s feet!”

Now, you’re wondering, how did I dope this out? How did I know Gray Man was in cahoots with Fake Che?

Right before this I was in a joint near the Ramblas, shooting down some hooch. I was reading Interviú magazine. Great spread that day. Some saucy dame in her birthday suit on a beach, rolling around in the waves. Then I overheard these two birds chinning at the bar. Something about camera, upskirt and chicas. They were fiddling with a video camera and a remote control device. The remote control device is a common perv technique to throw off suspicion.

One of the pervs was Gray Man. The other was Fake Che. But their little ruse didn’t work on me. Che Guevera would never use a non-communistic remote control device!

I managed to manacle Gray Man and Fake Che together. The mossos came just in time. I turned the muckers over. I helped the upskirt victim negotiate with the bulls so she could get the video depicting her nobler parts back.

When they booked the upskirt pervs they found out they were both wanted as part of an international upskirt ring. Distributing their salacious wares over the world wide web. The hard drives on their computers were bursting with upskirt depravation!

You see, most uptown sharpies and oblivious tourists don’t tumble to the filth around them. The world flits by. Everybody is permanently happy. Like those animatronic dinguses they got in Disneyland. That’s why the upskirt pervs can follow them so easily. The upskirt pervs don’t follow me. Then again, I don’t wear skirts.