“So where do we stand, Dirk?”
“I’d say it’s more like we’re sitting, Step.”
“Yeah, and on what – a case that’s undefined and probably unsolvable to boot. I just don’t get it.”
“There’s nothing to get. The Ferret got loose and there’s no disputing that. Since then, he’s been captured, caged, tried and escaped, supposedly in the interest of this investigation. But what really gets me is how the little creep’s been allowed to stick his nose into the plotline… even manipulating our actions and speech at one point back at that Coffee House on Podil…”
“How could I forget – a peaked Tyrolean hat replete with feather sticking out of the band! What was that all about? And then there’s the bit with him in a lime-green zoot suit.”
“Ok, Ok, Shakespeare… I got pressure from upstairs to keep things interesting. But at least I’ve kept it clean.”
“You’re referring to those X-rated antics on Trukhaniv Island, I presume, yes?”
“I am.”
“Well, for the life of me, I can’t imagine either him or Losser engaging in normal sex. Is that really so hard to understand? I mean, you’re a maniac and I’m a drunk, but what makes those two tick? Come on, Dirk, give me an answer for that one.”
“Don’t know and don’t wanna know… By the way, where do you get off calling me a maniac, anyway? Ok, so I blew my top back in Doctor Wu’s office… But whose idea was it to hook Plum up to the lie machine, huh?”
“Mine, all mine. That son of a bitch thinks he’s a writer – not a journalist or an editor, but a writer… sunk to the level of using cheese-stained refuse from an internationally recognized fast-food chain in lieu of writing paper, last time I checked anyway…”
“I find him a sobering addition to an otherwise dizzying collection of episodes,” says Dickerson, with barely concealed sarcasm.
“Oh, ok, I can see where this is going, hotshot. I’m off the juice, all right? A man needs to unwind once in a while, and not everyone’s a teetotaler like you and Mack. I admit that I overdid it a couple episodes back, but it takes the edge off, see?”
“I see just fine, but how can I know I can count on you to cover my back when you are just as likely to be lying on your own next to a half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker?”
“And how do I know you’re not going to go off into one of your so-called Ferret fantasies in a tight situation, eh? This job requires a cool head, Dickerson – something you obviously don’t have…”
As the partners continue to bicker – their faded gray suit jackets removed, but not their hats, one chewing on a toothpick, the other thumping his fingers on the desk – the camera pans up and out of the sparsely furnished one-room flat somewhere in the center of Kyiv to another unspecified location.
“Just keep following the vodka glass with your eyes, William,” speaks a gravelly and aged voice.
“Can’t you make it a beer bottle… that is to say, a full one … and, er, cold,” says Publowsky nervously.
“I’m afraid not… But if you were to vouchsafe me 10 hryvnias till Tuesday, I might consider opening the window,” responds the South Asian swami in three-cornered shorts. His beard is long and his breath stinks of the contents of that very same shot glass recently emptied of vodka that Wild Bill Publowsky, in a pair of tightly stretched Y-fronts, is now following – or at least trying to follow – with his eyes.
“Now tell me what you see, William.”
“Uh, The Ferret… he’s caged in a courtroom, where I’m serving as a judge for some reason…”
“No, not that scene. You’ve gone back too far. Think of your other job. Imagine yourself again at the Kyiv offices of Boss Lard.”
Publowsky, now sweating profusely and licking his lips at the same time, has closed his eyes tight like a little kid wishing for something to come true. His largely obese trunk section begins to tremble ever so gently, culminating in a brief episode of flatulence that only mildly perturbs the near-naked swami sitting Indian-style only an arm’s-reach away.
“Do you find the secretary tasty, William?”
Publowsky, no longer trembling but sitting calmly, also Indian-style, with a vacant expression on his face, begins to recount in lurid detail how he defiled and nearly devoured Boss Lard’s secretary in front of Lard himself. Simultaneously, the shameless Hindu finishes off the contents of the vodka bottle standing between them, purchased from Publowsky’s meager earnings.
“I see… you have quite an appetite… yes, indeed. Now what can you tell me about the whereabouts of The Ferret, Billy? Please don’t hurry. I have plenty of time.”
“The Ferret…?” asks Publowsky incredulously, although still presumably in a trance.
“Yes, The Ferret. There is still, I believe, a cash reward on this rodent’s head, and I would like very much to learn any information that could lead to his apprehension.”
“Uh… er, I don’t know, really,” says Publowsky in his former nervous state. “I can tell you about a lecture I held on him at an auditorium packed with local notables, including Hound Dog Face and her mother…”
“That won’t be necessary, Billy,” continues the gravelly voice.
“Oh, I helped drag that Boner guy out from a Captain’s of Industry meeting the other day…”
Unbeknownst to the participants in this improvised after-hours meditation session, a mangy pooch in a top hat and trench coat is standing on his hind legs peeking in the window of the dwelling at an unspecified location while taking notes and trying to keep his balance.
“Another poor slob falling for the Eastern wise-guy routine, carried out by the resident darky-cum-sleazeball. New town, same ol’ shenanigans, Milk Bone,” he mutters to himself.
Filed by Dirk Dickerson, July 21, 2013