Good Jokes About Bad Stiffs…
Dickerson: And then you get entangled with him even further – you and Smith, that is… You get so enmeshed with that Chink commie bastard, Mack, you improvise your own stupid psychological lab experiments –
Mack: That’s your characterization, Dickerson…
Dickerson: You actually had him coming over here, wearing his lab coat, for no discernible or apparent reason, ostensibly to help you write up better psychological profiles than the ones we already had on the Ferret, Josh Davies… others, I guess… well, no matter, and again, you continued to involve Smith in the whole thing. Mack, you had him deeply in it – whatever it was.
Mack: Go on.
Dickerson: Because you were, in point of fact, not really working up Ferret profiles, but were actually running psychological, laboratory-like experiments with Smith smack-dab in the center, at the very core, of them. And I don’t know what that fucking Woo did with, or to, Smith, but whatever it was, it was ingenious, in the cruelest way imaginable. In my humble opinion. Not that I have any particular sympathy for Smith. And you’d sit there and just let it go on.
I listened to session after recorded session, and it struck me that a lot of it was just Smith going off on these all but unhinged, emotional jags (and believe me, I know what I’m talking about) – especially when the subject came around to the Ferret. Almost as if mention of the Ferret was a trigger that set Smith off. Until he was exhausted. Almost, I’d say, like he’d been drugged.
Then at the end of each session, Woo would come and recite these airy and all but meaningless four-line poems, like something a child might make up, and Smith’d snap out of it, as if he’d been hypnotized, and-or drugged. Just about the most amazing thing I’d ever heard.
Step: And then Smith kept on being in the middle of it, right up to, and beyond, Woo’s murder. He was at Dirk’s apartment, and I got there later. I didn’t even know Smith’d been there, and Dirk didn’t mention it – of course, he was half out of his mind.
Dickerson: Piss up a rope, Step.
Mack: Which is why, Step, I never had Dickerson arrested.
Popper: How do you mean, Mack?
Mack: First clue – at least for me, anyway – something about this Woo kill wasn’t open and shut like it appeared to be was after the whole ordeal was over, with Dickerson being pulled safely up onto the roof – hey, wasn’t that you, Tom?
Dickerson: I fell. I died.
Popper: Yes, it was. Funny thing about that was, it was a fluke I was in Kyiv at all. I was working out of Kharkiv at the time, and Janey and I had just gotten back from our little visit to the capital, when Janey says to me she forgot to pick up the painting she’d bought on the Uzviz. [Andriyivsky Uzviz (Andreyevsky Spusk in Russian): a popular winding medieval incline of Kyiv’s Podil District filled with artisans’ workshops and souvenirs, frequented by tourists and locals, alike – Eds.]
‘Cause when she bought it, she told the artist she’d pick it up later, but forgot. So I said what the hell and just got on the next train back in the morning, picked up the painting and then dropped by the offices here before making the evening train, or night train, as it were,* figuring I still had plenty of time, you know, for a cup a joe, kick back and shoot the shit with my colleagues, when this whole thing broke out.
[*All the action being recounted in this 5-part narrative takes place in winter, in the period of its shortest days, when daytime in Kyiv ends abruptly at not much past 4 p.m., and with virtually no observable transition from daylight into evening, before the fall of night. Thus, Tom Popper’s remark, far from betraying incompetence or confusion, astutely and comprehensively reflects the reality of the latitude.]
Turns out, I ended up kicking open a cot and spending the night here – of course, after calling Janey and telling her what happened, and that her painting was safe with me…
Mack: We’re happy you could be here to help. Right man at the right time. Otherwise, Dickerson would’ve probably been splat on that sidewalk. Still be scraping him off today.
Dickerson: Needn’t have bothered; it was too late; you never caught my arm, Tom – I died.
Jean-Dan Asphalt: Hey, Dirk – it’s bad enough you fuckin’ killed the guy, so why do you have to –
Dickerson: Killed him, that’s right – and glad I did it. One less yellow, rotten-egg-smelling fucking Chink in this world.
Casper Syntax, Forensics: Say, Dirk, I don’t think you put much of a dent in that demographic!
Almost all the men laugh.
Dickerson: Give me some time…
Mack: As I was saying, I decide to walk over to that little greasy Indian-run convenience store after seeing Step, ah, step out of there, head down, spitting, hands in pockets, and leaving the scene after having watched Dickerson’s mad escapade from roof to roof, and then Popper here grabbing his arm and pulling him to safety.
Dickerson: No such thing. It was too late. I fell. I died.
Step: Well, sure, Mack. Well-lit street, and you had those two searchlights on Dickerson. So, I saw you there, too, Mack; I saw you watching me.
Jean-Dan Asphalt: Hey, Dirk, you can go lie down safely in your grave again after this is over, but for now, just answer the fucking –
Sims: Shut the hell up, Asphalt!
Mack: I walk into the place, just to – well, men, I don’t know quite what to tell you – just to get… an idea, let’s say… of the soft Indian smut Step here likes to pick up every now and then, to see what it’s all about; to try to see what he might see in it, when –
Step: I don’t see anything in it, Mack. I guess none-a-you here indulge your prurient interests every now and then, even ever so lightly, or casually flip through one of those magazines, due to just the slightest bit of curiosity, for amusement’s sake, use up that residual font from your teens, or just to blow off steam.
Seb Wales, Forensics: All right, Jack, no need to get all wound up about it. Mack was just trying to give us the context, set the scene…
Step: Yeah, Mack, okay, but what’s the point.
Mack: Nothing, Step. Just being truthful, is all. Not trying to shame you or –
Step: All right, all right – forget it…
Mack: So, I’m flipping through this magazine when Smith walks in. And the thing of it was, it wasn’t like it was one of those coincidences, when someone just happens to show up where you’re at. No, it was more like he was happy to see me; like he was happy to have found me; no, not so innocent – it was more like he’d sought me out, like he’d been there, somewhere, although I never saw him anywhere near or around the scene, and when it was over, he followed me in there; like he’d wanted to get me alone.
Popper: So, what happened, Mack?
Mack: Nothing – nothing much, that is. I mean, we exchanged a few words, but all the time, it was as if all that Smith wanted to do was create an air, or perhaps it’s more accurate to say, an aura, of normality, around himself, to project, a little too forcefully, a little too… disingenuously, just how normal he, and everything around him, was.
Step: Yeah – sort of like his going on about the Ferret in those lab sessions you held with Woo. Like Dirk, I listened to some of those recordings too. To me it seemed like there was a lot of, “The lady doth protest too much”. And like Dirk said, especially when it came to the Ferret.
Mack: “Methinks”. Precisely, Step! And no drugs needed there, like Dickerson’s suggested.
Step: Well, Mack, that I don’t know; nor am I prepared to speculate on the supposition, so let’s just keep it at my believing Smith to be highly gifted, and in ways none of us had ever been able to completely fathom, and that he was… is… capable of waxing philosophic and poetic on a subject of his choosing for a formidable length of time, though to what end, again, we can only guess.
However, those presumed but unknown ends don’t preclude our ear and gut from picking up the lies and lying in the speech itself and then attempting to deduce the essence of what the speaker is concealing with those lies, including his true motives – and then, therefore, getting at the actual reality behind what he’s saying.
Quarry: Jack, are you suggesting – let me put this delicately, for now – a connection between Smith and… the Ferret?
Step: Yep. No need to be delicate here. I’m absolutely sure of it. Well beyond a hunch. And the connection is strong, and the connection runs deep. Probably why it was Smith who –
Mack: And so, gentlemen, that wasn’t the only thing. Because I immediately started to ask myself why Smith was being so eager to convince me of something I would not have otherwise needed convincing of.
And then I remembered: Smith had called in the murder, just like Step had done. But, instead of calling it in before Step did – given the sequence of the events – he called it in after. Naturally, I found that to be very odd. So when he called me, I said thanks, adding that Step had already called it in and that a team was already on its way there. Little did we know what that scene would turn into by the time we got there.
Jonah Morne, Explosives Technician, Munitions Specialist, In-House Sharpshooter: And to think, I almost shot your ass off that ledge. Hell, you had so much light on you, I didn’t even need my Cat Eye night vision lens to do it…
Dickerson: Didn’t need to. I lost my grip. I fell. I hit the sidewalk. Landed on my skull and back. Got all broken up. Light went out. Died. But at least I was happy to kill that fuckin’ Chink, Woo…
Quarry: And what about Smith, Mack? What did he do – I mean, when you told him Step’d already called it in.
Mack: He just said, oh… ah… oh… okay, and hung up. But it was like he’d forced that part out. I could hear the hesitation in his voice, that hint of panic, the phony sincerity, the strain. When I put that together with his seeking me out at the store, well, arresting Dickerson was suddenly out of the question. I had to reserve judgment and give Dickerson the benefit of my doubt.
Step: I’d been on my way to Dickerson’s place, in any case – from that little convenience store, as a matter of fact – when I got a call, didn’t know who from. Male, unknown number, obviously altered voice. Told me there was a dead man in Dirk’s apartment. Hung up. Thought it might be a prank call; saw it wasn’t when I got there.
Syntax: Smith, using a burner phone… and voice changer.
Wales: Or an accomplice, making the call for Smith – like, say, the Ferret…
Step: Door was closed-to, but open. I walked in, turned on the light, saw Dickerson coming to, in his underwear, in the kitchen under the window. Just stood there, without bothering to help him. Didn’t see Woo in the next room, crumpled on the floor, in his lab coat, dead, until I turned to look, no more than maybe 5 seconds later, bearing out the truth of the call. So when I opened the door, the first thing I did after flicking on the light was make a stupid joke at Dickerson – it’d already gotten into my mouth and was dancing on my tongue even before I’d walked in – which I regret to this day.
Gonzalez, Independent, Freelance Private Detective: And what was that joke, or the nature thereof, Senor Step, if I may be so bold as to ask?
Step: You certainly may, Senor Gonzalez. It was something like: ‘Anyone call about a stiff?”
Mack: All right you numbskulls, we’re not done yet! Let’s break it up for half an hour, or so, have some sandwiches. There’s still some cold pizza in those boxes. Or have some coffee, if you want. But it’ll be your sleepless night, not mine…
Filed by Ed Tomorrow, August 6, 2025