The thick metal door swings open and bangs against the bricks of the building on Red Army Street. A lone, thin figure flies out of the entrance, bare head first, a beige baseball cap fallen off and onto the pavement.
“And don’t come back without an invite.”
Josh Davies’s woman, the lovely long-legged architect who had been sleeping all but nude with her head buried beneath a pillow, stands behind her man, looking over his shoulder, passively supporting his every action to come, empathizing with his simmering indignation, silently echoing his forewarnings of most certain violence if what just happened reoccurs.
When the metal door slams shut, Stephan is sitting on the sidewalk with his legs open and outstretched in front of him, gathering the willpower to stand, to retrieve his cap and be on his way. He’s already made up his mind not to look around to see if anyone has seen him manhandled and tossed onto the street by an octogenarian in a moldy maroon housecoat.
*
“But why did he go there in the first place?” asks Zippy. “Why did he visit an old man amply described on the pages of this site as a maniac, a murderer, a misanthrope?”
“You’d have to ask Stephan, of course, if that’s really who that is,” replies The Ferret, who’s sitting behind a larger-than-life desk with several framed pictures of his children at play. They’re cluttered around an ugly brass trophy or possibly a paperweight of a weasel standing upright and holding a shovel.
“What do you mean: ‘if that’s really who that is’? It sure looks and sounds like Stephan. And I ought to know, with his having wrapped chains around my neck and choked the life out of me in front of a courtroom full of people.”
But The Ferret makes no effort to elucidate his apparently purposely enigmatic comment, as Zippy looks on in something short of amazement soon turned to a condescending superiority, so effectively expressed by the shameless peering of his beady eyes, the ever-so-subtle curl of his thin upper lip.
Zippy neither trusted nor liked The Ferret, pretty much like everyone else. But having heard of The Ferret’s recent renown as a fearless sleuth turned rescuer, Zippy was eager to meet him, possibly to some advantage toward an employment opportunity, to see The Ferret’s new office, to ask as many pointed and probing questions as he could, all the while knowing that The Ferret would dodge, ignore, twist and throw back at him any queries posed.
“We’ll I’ll tell you what I would have done,” says Zippy and begins to relate his tale of yet-to-come valor, imagined but justified revenge, an ass-kicking waiting to happen… but to whom?
‘Zippy espies the suspect Stephan making his way home along Red Army Street.
‘“Hey you! Where do you think you’re going,” whines Zippy, now dressed in a light-blue body stocking with a big yellow Z splashed across the chest.
‘The suspect Stephan stops, his shoulders still hunched, his baseball cap shading a clean-shaven face.
‘“I said ‘Stop!’,” shouts Zippy, one arm now extended like a traffic cop, the other bent overhead like an action hero.
‘But the suspect Stephan, after making a quick if furtive surveillance of the street surroundings, darts into a store: Women’s Furs. Zippy follows in pursuit.
‘“May I help you, Sir,” asks the saleswoman.
‘“I’m looking for Saint Stephan.”
‘“Well, he’s not in here. May I suggest the Lavra. I believe it’s still open and just a short journey away by public transport.”
‘But Zippy crashes into a rack of furs, seizing the beige baseball cap in his clutches, as the heavily laden rack is overturned onto the salesroom floor together with Zippy.’
“And then what happens,” asks The Ferret.
“Then, I quickly beat him up and drag him onto the street and into the arms of a group of waiting Ukrainian police officers.”
“But it sounds like you only got his cap.”
Zippy begins [fragment inconclusive].
“Didn’t Stephan – if that’s who this really is – just give you the slip … in your own revenge fantasy?”
Zippy is now [fragment fragmented, indecipherable].
The Ferret studies his visitor for a few seconds and then grabs a rag and begins to dust off one of the pictures of his children frolicking in a pile of woodchips with a shiny stainless-steel exercise wheel in the background.
“And why do you think he ducked into a fur coat store? An accomplished deceiver, he cannot be so stupid as to cut off his own escape route? Did you not check to ensure that he hadn’t buried himself in a bundle of furs and then made his way onto the street while you struggled to get hold of his cap? And what about that sales woman who tried to steer you to a monastery of all places? Could she not be an accomplice in the whole affair, possibly the one who tipped ‘Stephan’ off to where Davies lived in the first place? Maybe she’s acquainted with the old man and his youngish wife and let ‘Stephan’ in through a back entrance?”
Zippy’s small mouth has taken on the form of a simple hole.
“But all this is irrelevant, because this guy is not Stephan, and therefore not the one who choked the life out of you in the courtroom. And therefore you had no reason for trying to catch and beat him in the first place. Even Davies recognized him as an imposter and that’s why he threw him out.”
To be continued at a later date by a completely different author.
No Author. Undated. Story Damaged. Filing date approximated to between (but not inclusive of) June 23 and September 7, 2017. But that’s all right, since it fairly hankers after incredulity. Verdict: Apocrypha