Knock, knock…
Who is it?
Smith.
Let him in.
A lean taut man with dark-blond hair in his early thirties enters. He’s wearing a fedora and a light gray suit. It’s a small room with a table and three chairs. A single light bulb swings by a wire from the ceiling socket, and a film projector has been set up opposite a plain white screen. There are also some files strewn across the table.
The other two men, dressed in similar fashion to Smith, have taken off their jackets – one is on the back of a chair, and the other hangs on a wall hook. The older man is sporting suspenders over a still powerful build. He says…
Step, this is Smith. He’s going to be helping us on this case.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
Jack Step (Step)
John Smith (Smith)
Older still well-built man (Older Man)
Step: Nice to meet you, Smith. I’ve read some of your reports from Kyiv. Quality stuff (he smiles).
Smith: Thanks, Step. I’m familiar with your work too, and am happy to have the opportunity to collaborate with you.
Older Man: Would you like some coffee?
Smith: Never touch the stuff.
Older Man: Suit yourself (turns on the projector as his partner switches off the light). Do you know who this is?
Welsh Losser – the new air-brushed version, replete with sparkling instead of wall eyes, a fresh face and that same expensive watch protruding into the foreground – appears on the screen; then another photo of him half-drunk and sloppy-mouthed at a fast-food restaurant in Kyiv; then looking stupid with his wife as tourists somewhere in the Ukrainian countryside; then…
Smith: Yes. He’s an aging loser who washed up here from the States over 10 years ago with various half-baked claims to a mysterious past. After getting booted out of the local rag, he got picked up by a self-promoting hillbilly who used to play mouthpiece to a big shot back in D.C. Near as I can tell, he’s now taken to shamelessly reinventing himself and his past for a last hurrah. To what end, the devil only knows.
Step: And the devil could probably give a flying fuck as well.
A new face appears on the screen, grossly out of proportion in a close up.
Older Man: How about this one?
Smith: (restraining a grimace) It’s The Ferret.
Step: Are you sure?
Smith: Of course I am. I’ve been covering the little creep since early this year – from messy cages to courtrooms and cloud cover…
Older Man: Well, you can stop wasting your time.
Smith: What do you mean?
Step: He means that that tadpole-legged little turd is working for us.
Smith: What?
Older Man: That’s right – in a manner of speaking. We picked him up on Trukhaniv Island a few months back, and he spilled his guts faster than we could write it all down.
Step: Yeah, I had to slap him around a little bit to stop all that back-pedaling and doubletalk. But it didn’t take long for him to come around.
Smith: What about the courtroom escape…?
Older Man: We staged it… with the help of one of our Ukrainian moles – Vasily, the court’s sergeant-at-arms.
Smith: Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
Step: Ferret fucked, I believe, is the appropriate term here (smiling again, this time as if to say: no offense, we all make mistakes).
Older Man: (raising his voice somewhat to command attention as he brings up the next set of photos on screen) And this one?
It’s Josh Davies, circa age 50, standing in front of a pumpkin patch on what looks like a typical Midwestern farm. He’s dressed in brand new overalls, the straps of which he’s tugging away from his already dried-up frame, and sporting a proud if purposely stupid smile.
Smith: Yup.
Older Man: And this one?
Now Davies, with a large straw hat covering half his tanned face, is seated at a wicker table somewhere in the tropics test-tasting a brick of pure grade Viagra with a small pen knife.
Then another photo appears on the screen depicting Davies squatting over a small barrel with his pants around his ankles and his teeth clenched.
Older Man: Shit, did you take that one, Step?
Smith: Ok, I get the picture, gentlemen. Losser’s the international front man for Davies’ contraband Viagra operation based in Kyiv. And The Ferret’s feeding you information on both.
Step: (in alto) Wrong. As you already pointed out, Losser isn’t of interest to anyone – especially not us. But he could later serve as a connection to Boss Lard, who might be the biggest fish of all, even if he is swimming in a small pond. As for The Ferret, he’s right where we want him.
Smith: But aren’t you worried about that weasel spilling the beans?
Older Man: That’s the beauty of it. The Ferret lies so much, so often, and so outrageously that no one would believe him anyway. It’s like the boy who cried wolf!
Step: Or the weasel that played journalist…
Older Man:Cut the crap, Step.We’ve got work to do here.
Smith:So what do you need me to do?
Step: (now serious) Get a job with Rico Soiree, Davies’s newest partner in Kyiv. As you may have read in one of my earlier reports, Soiree is now looking for help, to include bringing him an occasional drink.
Smith: It won’t work. He thinks I’m a racist.
Older Man:And I know that you’re one. But in case you haven’t noticed, Smith, there are no portraits of Obama hanging in this dump… hmm. Get the picture?
Smith: All right, I’ll find a way in. But what about Losser? That idiot really thinks he’s a PR executive and rising star in the international service industry – he could fuck the whole thing up without even trying…
Step: If I were you, I’d worry more about Davies – that’s one evil son of a bitch. You wouldn’t believe the childhood memories we downloaded from The Ferret under sedation…
Older Man: Shut your trap, Step.
To be continued…
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, May 22, 2013