The Ferret Gets ZZ to the Airport, Courtesy of The Half Guinea and Milk Bone
The Half Guinea, Who Doesn’t Like His Time Wasted, Forewarns the Ferret That He Now Owes Him a Favor
The Ferret Appears to be Somewhat Unnerved
But these concerns recede in Zippy’s mind with lightning speed, as the man takes both hands off the steering wheel to pull a big, fat cigar from one of his jacket pockets.
‘Hey, do you mind not smoking,’ an increasingly nervous Zippy thinks to ask, but doesn’t, although the man instantly answers the question his hapless passenger has merely thought: “Ah, yes, in fact, I DO mind…” Meanwhile, the Ferret’s going, “… heh… heh… heh…”
And now, with the man’s hands still off the wheel, Zippy feels him pressing on the gas, and the car begins moving faster and faster from city-center towards Podil, down Kyiv’s shoreline drive, the majestic Dnipro River’s iconic Naberezhne Shosse.
The man’s got his metal lighter out, and it features a black woman that dances as he twirls the shiny, fire-raising object around in his large, leathery fingers; and, as if in response to her, the man initiates some bizarre cigar-lighting ritual and performance, shaking his head, and now his body; he flails his arms around spasmodically, while going something like, “… blu-eh-blu-eh… huh-huh-huh-huh… blu-eh-blu-eh…”
And now finally he lights the cigar, which explodes and fills the car cabin with a dense, pungent, and fetid smoke, bringing driving visibility down to zero. And as the Ferret keeps going, “…heh… heh… heh…,” Zippy sees his entire life flee before him and he is absolutely convinced that this very second, he is going to die. He screams, coughs, chokes, and cries.
The blinded car now barrels down the highway, yet, other than the intolerable stink of thickening cigar smoke bruising Zippy’s nasal passages and lungs, nothing truly bad appears to happen.
But now the man turns to his front passenger seat, and says, “Hey, you mind taking over? I’m gettin’ kind-a tired and, you know, I just wanna enjoy me smoke…”
Zippy cannot see through the smoke, his window will not open to clear it, or so that he can scream out of it for help; and the little that he can see is blurred by the water from the salty tears he’s been crying covering the inside of his glasses.
But he swears he’s now witnessing an advanced kind of dog rise up out of the front passenger seat and hop onto the man’s lap, as the man scoots over into the passenger seat, and the dog, which, or who, is dressed like Humphrey Bogart in “Casablanca”, hunkers down behind the wheel. His front paws only symbolically touch the wheel’s top, but otherwise, this man-dog does nothing. His rear legs are nowhere near the pedals, and yet the car continues to rocket on, picking up speed…
“Get me outta here, GET ME OUTTA HERE!!! AAAAAHH… AAAAAAAHHH… AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”
“Heh-heh… heh-heh… heh-heh…”
And now Zippy gets his wish and finds himself flat on his face on the throw-rug in the living room of his otherwise sparsely furnished apartment in Podil – the Ferret standing over him, looking down.
“Heh, dude, what’s wrong with you? Come on, get up. We’ve got no time to lose…”
“But…”
“With that crazy note you wrote admitting to Kate Mustard’s murder, which I tried to advise you against, but you’re so bullheaded sometimes, heh, this apartment’s the first place they’re gonna come lookin’ for you, so we gotta get you to the airport right away!”
“But, but…”
“Dude, come on, just take that stupid apron off and throw it over there, and, heh, here’s your, ah, fedora, heh-heh…”
“But, I…”
Next, despite Zamazda’s continued protestations, the Ferret manages to:
- inform Zamazda that he’d already arranged his trip to Los Angeles for him, using his contact at Thin Air, Ukraine’s most recent addition to innovatory, modern-day economy flying, to reserve a seat for Zamazda on the next-scheduled, non-stop flight out to said destination;
- impress upon Zamazda that in its ads on UATV1, Thin Air bills itself as “the one true Economy Class Ukrainian airline,” with its small but growing fleet bought at scrap prices from other airlines and refurbished into top-of-the-line second-rate aero-transport machines, which are “so close to first-class as to be almost indistinguishable…”;
- remind Zamazda to use his recently acquired Diaspora Diners Card he’d so eagerly applied for to pay the fare, especially as this way, he’ll begin racking up the credit history he so desperately needs to finally begin establishing a good and trustworthy name for himself in the world, while also making his demanding wife really proud of him: “At the airport, just go up to the Thin Air window, and they’ll take care of you right away, heh-heh…
“Oh, and when you’re on that long flight to L.A., make sure to go through that 1,500-page manuscript we just dropped in your bag that I printed out for you, running my own photocopier off a memory drive with the downloaded email attachment that Hollywood’s Goldstein sent you, and mark it up real good, so that you can ‘prove’ to him it’s yours, just like he wants you to, you know, to make a deal with you and, ah, pay you lots of money for the script. Yeah, that’s right, heh-heh; and then you’ll be home-free… literally…”
“My bag?! What bag?! I –”
“Yeah, heh, I think it’s mostly got the manuscript in there; otherwise, I think we packed you pretty light – heh-heh…”
“But… but… but…”
“And, anyway, this should be a cakewalk for you, because you’re good at taking things that don’t belong to you and claiming they are yours because the other guy doesn’t deserve to have them… Heh-heh-heh…”
The Half Guinea, appearing suddenly, grabs Zamazda by the seat of his pants and the scruff of his neck and whisks the short, fat man over to the balcony.
“Come on, Ferret, let’s get this fuckin’ show on the road. Milk Bone and me can’t wait around while this piece of shit complains and whines all night. Milk Bo-o-o-o-ne!!!”
Just as the Guinea releases Zamazda, tossing him over the balcony, a used Chinese copter-car rises, flipped on its side, to catch the unconscious Zippy, who falls straight into the older flying van model through its opened sliding door.
The Guinea picks up and throws in after Zamazda his beloved Brooklyn School of Scientists high-school gym bag, with a stylized logo of a 1913 Niels Bohr atom on it. In the bag is, as the Ferret’d said, a manuscript of 1,500 pages, some pens, as well as a pair of red-polka-dot underwear and a pair of black, nylon socks.
The Chinese copter-car whirs in place on its side next the balcony, as Milk Bone waits devotedly for the Half Guinea to also jump in, so they can finally get to Kyiv’s Boryspil International and deposit their unwanted charge at the gate to board the Thin Air flight to California, L.A.
Given Zippy’s new legal status as a confessed murderer and fugitive running from the law, ushering him without risk and unchecked to the Ferret’s desired point and destination was something the Ferret himself, despite all of the gifts he’d received from Josh Davies, would not have been able to do, but the Guinea and Milk Bone, disguised as a couple of intimidating and greatly feared International Transit Authority officials, could do – and with laughable ease. Making this, actually, a major waste of their time.
But at the start of their relationship some years ago, the Half Guinea had told the Ferret, after helping him survive his near-murder by Commix Girl, to by all means call on him for help, but only if the problem to be resolved would prove important to the Guinea, as well.
But while the money in the present scheme was important to the Ferret, it was not so with the Guinea, nor with Milk Bone, either. In fact, not at all. There was no money that was good for them; for money they could not use; for money they did not need, much as the Hunched Cornish had told John Smith about himself some years ago, as well.
“Ferret,” the Guinea says, “you owe me – mostly for my precious time, of which I have a lot, but that doesn’t mean I still like people taking it away from me, like I’m some kind of fuckin’ fool. I can’t believe I actually had to sully my tested, tried, and true ol’ Roman fingers handling this fat piece of little shit. Before, I’d never wanted to know him, not interested, or interesting, never wanted to have anything to do with him. But with this stupid caper you lied to me about, and therefore led me on, you forced me to, and, well, let’s just say the Half Guinea’s not too happy about that. And, for that matter, Milk Bone’s not, either…”
“Heh… Heh…”
“But, as they say, don’t call me, because I will definitely be calling you…”
The Guinea jumps off the balcony into the van, the door slides shut, the vessel rights itself, and they are gone.
“Heh… Heh… Heh…”
Filed by Mister Logic, 4.22.25