I like this moment in Alcatraz Connection. After so...many...times of Lupin pretending to be dead, Zenigata just does not buy it. And I don't mean not buying it with so much emotion and determination like in Mystery of Mamo. I mean with the sort of tiredness of a owner dealing with a naughty dog or cat over and over again.
Fun fact about my Lupin III thingy I ramble about from time to time-
Lupin didn't believe the whole destined to be rivals thing in the beginning. When he first met Zenigata and the inspector had started going on and on about how it was fate for them to meet. And how it was destiny for Pops to arrest him, he'd honestly thought that he was off his rocker. After all, stuff like that was a bunch of nonsense. Basically saying that they were connected like some kind of Red String of Fate??
But then Pops started to actually give the thief an actual challenge.
Lupin was quick to realize that Zenigata was smart. Smart enough to actually get Lupin and get a pair of handcuffs on him when no one else can. Afterwards the gentleman thief began to give Zenigata his attention and unknowingly proved the older man right. That they were destined to be rivals, connected by the Red String of Fate itself.
So when Lupin meets Pops again, in a world where Zenigata didn't join the ICPO and instead became a handyman. It's rather.....difficult for him to swallow. After all what was Lupin III without the infamous inspector Koichi Zenigata on his heels? Who was Lupin III without his favorite cop having his back?? So in an ironic twist Lupin found himself in Zenigata's shoes of trying to convince him, without scaring him off, that them meeting was no mere consequence. That in fact it was destiny that connected them. He finds himself wondering if this was how Pops felt all those years ago when they'd first met, and there are moments where he questions if perhaps he and Zenigata were actually as connected as he was originally shown. And whenever he'd have those doubts, Pops would do something that blew them out of the water, would show glimpses of the inspector he knew in his reality. And he'd find himself holding onto him.
Unaware that tied to his pinkie finger, invisible to the naked eye a bright red string connects him to the handyman in question. Still burning just as brightly as it did in his world.