Hot Coffee and Cold Blood, or
Looking for the Chink in the Armor…
Dickerson: To answer your annoying, and by now irrelevant question, Mack, because Woo managed to get me to strip down to my boxer shorts and socks, I guess to put me into a vulnerable, as well as humiliating, position, while he kept talking about my wife and kids and the problems I was having with them – something he knew I was real sensitive about at that time and looking to heal wounds – all the while approaching me in a way I couldn’t help, or stop, with a fucking needle. Before I knew it, it was in me, and then I –
Mack: But you let him in, Dickerson. In the first place. I mean, how did you come about doing that? Had you no question for him, such as, “What are you doing here”, or, perhaps, you’d been expecting him…?
Dickerson: I’m not wasting time on that. Yes, I just let him in. I was surprised to see him, but for whatever reason, or no reason at all, I just went ahead and let him in, no questions asked. What can I tell you, Mack? I almost feel like I should say, “I’m sorry”. I saw him in the door, my guard went down, he had this way about him, and he was very good with it, and before I knew it, he was in his lab coat with his black bag open on the kitchen table and then preparing a needle over the sink – and I was in my shorts. And there he is, pressing psychologically, with his words and his wheedling wiles, into my vulnerabilities, into my pain. And that’s all there is to say about that.
Mack: And that’s when he stuck you with the jab, by the kitchen window?
Dickerson: Yeah – but I don’t remember the instant it went in, or where he stuck me.
Syntax: The usual place, Dirk. We found the puncture hole in your left arm.
Mack: What did his blood show? Urine… hair…
Wales: Fantastazine. We’re sure of that now. Developed by the Chinese. New on the black market of hallucinogens at the time. A particularly nasty and vicious one, at that. The known effects square with everything Dirk’s already described to us – especially the overwhelming feeling of being compelled to focus on just one terrifying emanation; the “terrifying”, it would appear from all the information that we now have, being rather inevitable. Enough to kill some with the sheer anxiety of the whole experience itself.
Mack: And that’s when you were wholly engaged at your window, Dickerson, in the kitchen, in your agon with that rook outside, several stories below. That rook took you over completely, based on the record of what you’ve told us, so it’s probably needless to add that if there was anything else going on around you, in your apartment, your mind and your senses shut it all out, or –
Dickerson: There was nothing but the rook, Mack. Except for some gray and grainy light around his edges, peripheral was black, my ears deaf; I was all rubbery-like, numb. But that rook, Mack, that rook was very real. You yourself, Step, you both –
Syntax: The experience peaks sharply, and that’s the optimal moment of vulnerability. Wears off slowly after that, but still keeps one kind of going crazy all day; maybe just that day, maybe for somewhat longer.
Unfortunately, we’ve discovered it stays with you, beyond the moment of injection; which is to say possibly forever, until one dies, and speeding up that inevitable result. Remains on the brain. Also appears to affect one on the genetic level, possibly changing one’s DNA; makes one likely to have repeat manic episodes. Again, until they die.
Dickerson: How likely?
Syntax: Well… more likely than not; let me just put it that way.
Dickerson: Hey, that’s just great, Mack. Thanks so much for getting me started with that fucking Woo. Appreciate it truly… and deeply…
Mack: You goddamn loser. Your sorry ass wanted a job with me, I gave it one. So it was probably that optimal moment of vulnerability, as you call it, Syntax, that Dickerson started shouting at the rook.
Syntax: Yes, most likely, that was –
Dickerson: I yelled at it, Mack. Yelled at it once. Told it to shut up… and it said, “You shut up!” The rook, and John Smith, who was now behind me, said, “You shut up” – both, at the same time. Both of them together. It was two different voices, and the same voice – at the same time…
Jean-Dan Asphalt (not sarcastically, but surprisingly seriously and empathically): So maybe… Smith’s the rook?
Step: Why didn’t you tell me Smith was there, Dirk – before me? That would’ve changed everything about this…
Dickerson: Well, gee, I don’t know, Step. Maybe because I was jacked up on a near-lethal hallucinogen called Fantastazine – and not on the homemade apple and prune juice combination my mother used to give me to keep my constipated little shit ass regular! Fucking goddamn Fantastazine! Cutting me down, but slow. Changing me into a freak even as I speak – lunatic episodes, lifetime guarantee. Until I fuckin’ prematurely fuckin’ die! Maybe that’s why, Step…
Mack: Hey, Step – you said that by the time you left Dickerson’s place, he was fully dressed, and yet we know he started out in his underwear and his socks. Minor point, I know, but can you –
Step: Well, Mack, he just sort of started putting on his clothes when I was having that drink he’d poured me. Can’t even say I even noticed how he went about doing it, or in what order, or precisely when he did it, but to the best of my recollection, I was downing my Johnnie.
He took the Red Man [Tobacco – Ed.] I gave him and began stuffing it into the corpse’s nose and ears, under the impression it would conceal the smell; except, of course, Woo hadn’t been dead long enough for putrefaction to have started. Not to our human noses, anyway. Perhaps it was meant more as a metaphor, as in ‘something about this stinks’, and I do remember Dickerson saying something very like that. I mean, his eyes were bulging out and he was raging, but…
… but, yes, by then, he was fully dressed. And, anent to my other point, I still stand by what I said in my report – that I’d adjudged him to be potentially dangerous and out of his mind at the time.
And so I left – to go to the convenience store and call in the kill – and whatever demon, or drug, was driving Dickerson, well, it drove him right out the window, as you all know the whole ordeal that followed…
Mack: That’s fine, Step. But, again, minor point, perhaps, but why do you think Dickerson stuffed Woo’s ears and nose with the Red Man, but not his mouth? I mean, wouldn’t that be the easiest and most obvious orifice to stuff tobacco into?
Step: Well, I don’t know, Mack. And since that’s a part Dickerson can’t answer himself, because he doesn’t remember doing it, although he can and does remember Smith being there, right behind him, I’d say it was because there’d been blood coming out of Woo’s mouth, and Dirk didn’t want to soil himself with it. Especially as he’d just finished getting dressed. And then there’s what’s common knowledge among us – that blood is evidence, and you don’t want to touch it…
Mack: No, because if you wanted to get rid of the corpse, you’d want to clean it up. Because there was more blood than where that came from, wasn’t there, Step?
Step: Of course, Mack: Naturally, when Dickerson was stuffing the corpse’s face holes with tobacco, I moved around the body and noted the back of Woo’s head best I could and the blood-matted hair, and then the dried blood on the floor from it – from what looked like a massive head trauma. Easy to miss the first time just sort of looking down at the corpse; had to actually crouch low next to the head and peer under to see it.
That made me think what’d caused the blood to run from his mouth; if it could simply have been the impact of his already broken head hitting the floor when he fell, or maybe somebody’d rapped him one in his sallow puss before bashing in his cantaloupe skull. Much like why was one lens of his glasses cracked? Was he hit before, or did his glasses break when he hit the floor?
Mack: All right, Step. Syntax? Wales?
Wales: Woo was hit hard, once, on the back of the head with a blunt, heavy, cylindrical object, padded around with a towel…
Syntax: Like that section of pipe we found outside Dickerson’s building, exactly where it would be if he’d simply dropped it from his balcony – with his fingerprints all over it…
Wales: Stainless steel. Smooth. Easy to lift prints off – nice and clear and clean…
Sims: Yeah – so much for the “stainless”!
Jean-Dan Asphalt: Shut up!
Syntax: Thick, surprisingly heavy.
Wales: Although Smith –
Mack: Careful, Wales…
Step: No, Wales is right – because a few minutes later, Smith hit Dickerson from behind, except with his gun – but only to knock him out! Because that’s his MO – because the fucking little sneak likes coming up from behind and –
Mack: Step! Knock it off, will ya?! Wales, go ahead…
Wales: – or whoever else the murderer might have been, could have easily gotten Dickerson’s prints all over the pipe while Dickerson was in la-la land – knocked unconscious, according to his own testimony. I mean, we did note the bruise and mound on his head when we finally got him…
Syntax: Plus, the pipe’s short, and therefore easily concealable in one’s inside jacket pocket.
Mack: Which all adds up to suggest that Smith brought it up with him to the apartment and then tossed it over the balcony when he was done using it after getting Dickerson’s prints on it to frame him, himself wearing gloves the whole time because, well, the boy ain’t dumb… What about the towel?
Wales: Found the crumpled-up face towel with Woo’s blood on it on the other side of the balcony door. The towel taken by the murderer out of Dickerson’s bathroom for the job. Later, when we got back up there with Dickerson, he confirmed it was his.
Syntax: Makes sense, using a towel, for a number of reasons. First, if it was Smith, he’d want to –
Jean-Dan Asphalt: Keep the blood from spurting…
Syntax: That’s right, so as not to mess up his suit. Or if it was anyone else, for that matter – you know: don’t want to get it on you, if you can help it.
Wales: Yeah, and of course another reason is the force of the blow without the towel would have cracked Woo’s skull wide open…
Morne: Yielding the same result, but with a much bigger mess…
Mack: Yeah, but why would the killer, Smith or not, care about leaving any mess, especially if his plan was that Dickerson would be the one implicated… prime suspect…
Jean-Dan Asphalt: He wouldn’t! With Smith, he’d just care about his fuckin’ suit!
A majority of the men laugh.
Mack: Okay… I guess… Ah… any other clues? From the towel, for example?
Syntax: Well, other than Woo’s blood, it’s pretty hard to scrape evidence off a towel, Mack. We got nothing of Smith’s, anyway, or anyone else, for that matter – except, of course, Dickerson. But it’s his towel. Like you said, Smith, or whoever it was, was most assuredly wearing gloves. And, like you said, he wasn’t stupid. Whoever he was, he’d taken precautions. In fact, I’d say he’d been very careful… and very prepared…
Mack: Dickerson, do you remember Smith wearing gloves – when you saw him standing behind you?
Dickerson: No… no gloves, Chief. Just a steaming cup of coffee in one hand – using one of only two cups I had in my kitchen at the time (down to just one, now), and his blue revolver in the other.
Mack: Coffee, eh. Yeah, I heard all that before, and we’ve got that cup here, with Smith’s prints still on it. Your kettle, too. We replaced that for you…
Dickerson: No complaints, Mack – thanks…
Mack: Prints here and there in the kitchen – like he’d relaxed after the hit and gotten himself all comfortable. But just imagine… took his time about it; made some coffee…
Quarry: Playing it cool…
Popper: Like a cucumber…
Morne: I’ll say! Cocky son-of-a-bitch…
Mack: Yes, that’s right, Morne – pretty cocky at that…
Gonzalez: So, will that be all, Senor MacDonald?
Mack: Yes, yes, Senor Gonzalez, I guess that will be all – for today… Oh, except for one more thing? Step…
Step: Yes, Mack…
Mack: Again, just a small detail I’m curious about. Inconsequential, really, but, well… I’d always wanted to know why… well, when you were out there, standing in the door of that little convenience store, watching it all, watching it all as your partner of many years was literally on the brink of falling to his death, why, when it was all over, did you simply spit and walk away?
Step: Why? I’ll tell you why, old ma – (Step reconsiders). So, I’ll tell you why. First, because I was disgusted with Dickerson. I thought he’d done it and gone crazy, or vice versa. Next, I was disgusted with myself – for almost being complicit in the cover up of a murder. And then I was disgusted that I had had to do this thing to my partner and friend when I went ahead and called it in. And when I saw him running and jumping from roof to roof, about to die, yeah, I was all shaken up. He was going to die, and it would be because of me. And if you were in my place, how would you feel about that?
Silence.
Step continues: And I’m disgusted; disgusted right now, at least about one other thing. Maybe there’s more, but I haven’t thought it all through, yet. So I’ll just say, I agree with Dickerson, fully, about this: You did pull Dickerson into this whole Woo thing under a pretext, instead of shooting straight with him, as he himself has said, and that was wrong.
And then you went on to pull Woo into this agency, mixing him all up with Smith, for reasons I cannot plumb, or decipher, or even comprehend, to run those ludicrous lab experiments, and this is where we end up, today. So, I don’t really have to understand your actions, Mack, or why you did, or decided to do, what you did. It was wrong on its face. And I think you were not only wrong in doing it, but that you overstepped your authority in doing it, by a lot, and that you went too far – in fact, way too far…
Detective First Class Jack Step is the first to get up out of his chair and leave…
Sims, of all people, is next to follow…
Filed by Ed Tomorrow, August 6, 2025