The confrontation begins
“So, it’s true…”
“What’s that, Kowalski?”
“Just exactly what that critical and dismissive Story Notice to your heretofore groundbreaking five-part ‘Woo Kill’ series in Kyiv Unedited said about you, which, I also thought at the time I first read it, was unfair and a little too vicious for the point it was trying to make, but, turns out, it’s true!”
“Oh, that… Yes, in fact, got it right here; and it says, in part: ‘… More like Jack fucking Step from a sleazy left-bank strip bar…’ followed by: ‘More anti-Smith trash to cover the tracks of the aging alcoholics behind this site…’ Yes, you’re right Kowalski. It was vicious – truly so.”
“But… but… it’s true! I mean, here you are, sitting in a… well, sleazy strip bar, on left-bank Kyiv, no less, writing your next story for Kyiv Unedited!”
“Yeah, but, you know, these guys that write those so-called Story Notices? To this day, no one knows who they are. As a result, they just say anything they want, without ever having to face the consequences for their actions. They get to hide behind their anonymity, while I’m out in the field busting my ass gathering all kinds of criminal evidence and detective materials for the stories that go up on that site, with my name all over them, and these no-name Story Notice jokers come in any time they want and just shit all over my work. You know what I mean, Kowalski? Just fucking shit all over it, and we’re never allowed to know who they are. And I put all that time and effort into it. Because we’re not supposed to touch them.”
“Yes, but, but that’s not the point! Because what whoever wrote that Notice was saying, or at least very strongly implying, what you’d written wasn’t… well, it wasn’t true!”
“Ah, leave off, will ya, Kowalski?”
“So… so… it’s true, I mean, that it’s not true?! It’s all just a fabrication? A, a… lie?! But, but that’s unethical!”
“Yeah, Kowalski, and so it is… and so it is…”
“But –”
“A rotting tuna fish sandwich slathered in extra mayonnaise to unsuccessfully disguise the stinking spoilage – that’s what my story was likened to! Oh, the vitriol, the venom. It hurts, Kowalski, it fuckin’ hurts…”
“But –”
“Just took a fucking shit all over it. You’ve got to understand that, Kowalski. Is it truly so hard for you to see? This, this… fucking joker! Invisible! Disguised! And he hides behind it, and I can’t do a thing about it. Meanwhile, I’m all out there, exposed, a visible and open target, in the field, fully transparent, gathering all this –”
“Transparent?! Is there any part of the story that’s true?”
Sure, Steve – Woo was murdered…”
“Okay, that’s a start. How?”
“He was shot.”
“No – no, he wasn’t! There were no bullet holes! No entry or exit wounds! Nowhere in the original story, Hot Coffee and Warm Blood – a true classic, in my opinion – we actually use it at the Curmudgeon as a model for framing our own stories; we hold it up as the unachievable standard to strive for – is there any mention of any gunshot wound! I mean… you were there!”
“That’s right, Kowalski. The original “classic”, as you call it – and, indeed, maybe it is – from which my five-part Woo Kill series took on a life of its own, is correct; pure as the driven snow. I should have put a slug in Woo’s gut myself at the time, and then hit Smith with the murder rap – it would have been much easier that way. Hate that sonofabitch. Damn! What a shame I was such a drunk. Wasted most of my life away in drink, Steve. Just wasted it away…”
“But then that means there was no bludgeoning of the head with a blunt object, like a lead pipe wrapped in a towel, with all that extra blood you discovered under the head by crouching down and then suddenly seeing it, or… or…”
“No, that’s right, Kowalski, there was no crushing blow to the skull. Nothing of the sort. Just a cracked black-framed glasses lens and a little blood that had trickled out of Woo’s mouth, precisely as the original set of stories by the unknown author, or authors, say. And that’s it.”
“But, but then… what about all those other guys; the 13 detectives sitting in a circle at your headquarters in Podil? Is that all a lie, too?”
“No, Kowalski, the ring of 13 detectives is true, and each one of those White Christian males is real.”
“But, if the crushing blow to Woo’s skull is… is fiction, then why; I mean, I can’t wrap my head around how or why they all, it seems, agreed with the, the – what can you call it? – whole scenario, and, and…”
“Yeah, Steve, I don’t know, so you’d better ask them. But, sure, they sort of went along with it, and added their own facts and findings to it as the meeting dragged along, and the night wore on. On the whole, really good extempore improvisation by the men. Wouldn’t you say? Speaks to their years of experience and professionalism. Amazing, really, considering how tired we all were.”
“Amazing?! You gotta be kidding me! What a joke! And… and… what about the, the… Fantastazine, or whatever you called it?! That Woo supposedly shot Dickerson up with?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly right – Fantastazine. Isn’t that great? But no, nothing like that at all. Dickerson got a nasty bump to the head, but other than that, he was clean – blood, urine, fingernails, hair…”
“But that’s absolutely and completely inex –”
“Hey, look, Kowalski – you can leave this table now, if you don’t like it. It’s not like I invited you to sit down…”
Kowalski’s self-control is momentary; then he loses all perspective
The man-boy takes a wallop of his whisky to give himself time, and courage – for he’s determined not to leave the table. And he wonders how it is that Jack Step, who has a tumbler-full of Johnnie Walker right in front of him, has not taken so much as even the smallest swig of it. But now the hard stuff heats up and emboldens the man-boy Kowalski to pursue the dead horse further.
“Then what about the sex slavery Dickerson accused Woo of being involved in?”
“Well, what about it? It’s convenient, isn’t it? Most likely true. And there’s always gotta be something, nya, nya…”
“Something?! Then… what about, ah, Dickerson himself? And all the things he said about, well, about what the hell happened? After all, he’s the one that potentially stands accused of Woo’s murder! Unless, of course, it was Smith – like you seem to insist…”
“Oh, I suppose there was some truth in everything Dickerson said. But here you have to be careful, ‘cause with Dickerson, there’s always a place in his narrative where the truth ends and pure confabulation begins.”
“Un-fucking-believable…”
“I said watch it, Steve…”
Though getting drunk, Kowalski still just barely manages to gather his scattered wits about him – tonight, perhaps for the last time… He says:
“And what about the rook?”
“What about it?”
“But that’s… that’s what I’m asking you, Step! Is there any connection between the rook and… and…”
“Nope.” Step grows pensive… and, for some reason, sad… “Okay, look, Kowalski. I didn’t believe in the rook before. But now… now I do. And that’s it. Other than that, the rook had nothing to do with it…”
“All right… okay… So, what do we have? Just a cracked lens and a little blood trickling from Woo’s mouth. Maybe… maybe it was a heart attack. I mean, Woo could’ve broken his glasses in the fall, and also hit the floor in such a way that it broke open a gum or a lip, or something, thus causing the blood from the mouth to –”
“Shit – maybe you’re right, Kowalski. Maybe Woo just dropped dead, and that was that… Never thought of that before… No… no… it was a murder, and it was Smith who whacked Woo, and used Dickerson as the fall guy. Yep, that’s exactly what happened… no doubts about it.”
“But, why do you say that about Dickerson? How do you know? How can you be so sure?”
“I’ll tell you how, Kowalski – because Dickerson doesn’t deserve it, that’s why!”
“In your opinion he doesn’t deserve it, so therefore he’s not the murderer? But that’s outrageous! That doesn’t even make any sense! There’s no logic in that kind of deduction at all!”
“In this job, there never is.”
“So… so… you just make things up?!”
“Yeah, I guess so, Steve… I guess I do at that…”
“You’re… you’re – a monster!!!
Filed by The Man of Reason, September 18, 2025
Bd-bd-bd-bd-bd-bd-bd that’s all folks!