Suddenly looking troubled, and perplexed, Dickerson darts his worried eyes over and down at the big, bucket-like drawer of his standard-issue detective’s desk.
Say, Dirk – there aren’t, by any chance, any sickly, dying rooks, struggling in the bottom drawer of your desk, are there?
No… no rooks, Jack… no rooks…
Good, that means we can continue talking – more or less normally, I guess… at least for now…
So… so… why would the Heavy Hebe call you… us… about his brand-new, state-of-the-art satellite spy system? I mean, don’t you think that’s, don’t you find that, well, with our history with him being what it is, isn’t that a little –
I don’t know – came as sort of a surprise to me, as it did to you, Dirk. It was interesting, and I was happy we went to check it out. But, yeah, it was really out of the blue and… when did the Hebe ever call us? As you say, we have that history between us, and here, out of nowhere he, like, extends an invitation to us as what I took to be nothing less than a goodwill gesture; albeit, a strange one. Wondering, just like you, not only why he’d want us to see his spook gear, but what he’d say he’d be using it for.
And… how did that happen, Jack? We were watching the Zapruder Film, right here, in this very office, and he… the Hebe, just called up, as soon as our conversation began shifting to… the Jews, and…
The Zapruder Film? Were we discussing the JFK assassination, Dirk? Honestly, we could have been, but I don’t remember. I do remember we were talking about something, but what it was… don’t remember; at least not at this moment. But, no, we definitely weren’t watching the Zapruder Film. Well, I will admit, I’ve gone over it repeatedly at my desk, as a sort of tick, trying to find excuses for my laziness, and, ha, I know you’d catch me and tell me to stop – I guess something about it bugged you – so I’d close it up. Put the fucking magazines away. Et cetera. But, no Dirk, we…
Ooohh… I think I get what happened, Dirk. The Hebe calls up just as you thought we were talking about Jews, and maybe we were in the process of mentioning Jack Ruby, or something of the sort, and then the landline rings; I mention the Heavy Hebe’s new satellite spy system to you and that we were going over to the synagogue to check it out on the Hebe’s invitation, and that’s why… when we got there, you –
Ring-ring-ring…
It’s the landline, Dirk; mind getting it?
Ring-ring – Hello?!
Nuuu…
It’s the Heavy Hebe…
Well, ask him what he wants…
What is it that you want?
For it is established fact, without the possibility of question or contradiction, that the Jews had absolutely NOTHING to do with the assassination of JFK!
I heard that, Dirk; hang up on the big, fat Jew bum!
Dickerson slams down the receiver and breaks the fucking phone.
Ah, now you’ve gone and did it. We’re gonna have to get a new one, but with everyone using mobile phones these days, it’s probably gonna be something getting the Ukrainian landline phone monopolist to get its ass over here to install it – especially with this war on, and all. And under all those circumstances, it’s probably gonna cost a whole hell of a lot more to do it. Shit! It’s coming out of your pocket, Dirk! Are you fuckin’ insane, or what?!
Silence.
How’s “The Racialist” coming along.
What’s that?
“The Racialist”. The book you’re writing.
I’m writing a book?
Well, that’s what you said, Dirk; that’s what you claimed, oh, I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago, maybe. It’s supposed to be a fictionalized account of your growing up and coming of age in Detroit; a sort of roman a clef, I guess – something you’d then look to publish as a novel…
Oh, ah, well, it’s actually been a little harder to get it started than I thought, but, ah… ah…
That’s all right, Dirk, neither of us ever claimed to be a writer. I mean, we’ve done enough of it filing all these reports over the years – you know, on all those mostly American grifters and imposters who ran around this city saying they were writers, trying to grab a slice of unearned fame for themselves. Trying to become the proverbial big fish in a small pond. All failures, turned out; each and every one, turning tail and running, heading for the hills, to escape, to hide away in shame… and to die, which a number of them already did; justifying our work against them. So, it hasn’t all been wasted, even if I was drunk most of the time… and you, you know, breaking things in your inexplicable rages, your unpredictable episodes and explosions, beating people up and half to death, putting that bullet in Doctor Woo’s head, burning down the local insane asylum…
Yeah, Jack… yeah…
Silence.
Jack?
Yeah, Dirk.
Why don’t you just kill me? You know. Put an end to it. Just… just… be done with me and get me out of the way? I want it, Jack… I want it. It’s not getting any better – just worse… and…
Get off it, Dirk. I just had you brought over here after getting that big room upstairs all furnished out for you like in a decent, four-star hotel, with a couple of desks, chairs, soft furniture, including a fold-out couch, a bunch of drawers, bookshelves, kitchenette, with a burner range and oven, an entertainment center; hell, even a bar! You wake up in the morning, get dressed, Ira the Nurse takes care of you with the bandages and all, and then proceeds to tidy up your room, while you limp downstairs, where you’re greeted in a respectful way by all your colleagues here, as you hobble into the canteen for your breakfast and coffee, sit down at a table, and hold more-or-less normal small-talk conversations with whomever your fancy struck to sit down with. No one complains. Everyone likes you. And everyone knows to be careful – well, they are; we’re talking about an outfit of professionals with a lot of experience. So, why go and say something as dumb and irrelevant as that?
As what?
Never mind!
But why do I have to live here? What about my flat, not all that far from this office, right here in Podil?
The only flat in Kyiv, no doubt, that anyone almost breaking their necks trying to walk into without first turning on the light would think had been attacked by a drone, only to find out it hadn’t. You’ve reduced that place to dust and rubble. It was dangerous for you to continue living there. We scraped up enough dough around here to pay your landlord for the damage, and then some, and got you out of there, together with what of your personal belongings we could salvage from the wreckage that was still arguably intact and foreseeably useful.
But… why do you need me around. Maybe I could go… be sent…
Where, Dirk: back to the States? Where you have no one? Like me? No one! A family, you say – a wife, couple of kids: but they’re nowhere to be found, and no one fitting that description ever comes around asking for you! We stay, Dirk… we stay!
First, everyone leaves, and then everyone dies. Hell, even Mack wandered off, and no one who’s left around here really even bothers to ask or wonder why. A few of the guys seem to keep tabs on his whereabouts, and at least one of them, our sharpshooter Morne, makes it his business to sort of follow him around. Aside from that, there’s no one here. Just us, Dirk. You and me – and The Great Big Jew. And that’s about it.
And then the war comes swooping in from the East, where it’d been percolating for years before that, but was stuck in the bottom far-right corner of the country, doing its own thing, not really of concern to us here, even though we said it was; not really our war, but then – here it came. And it became ours. Then even more people leave, but we… we stayed.
What else are we supposed to do? We stay behind, Dirk; we’re the ones who get to stay, while everyone else leaves. It’s always that way, Dirk. Everyone goes, but there’s always someone who stays – because that’s their job, that’s their fate, because they have to. And, anyway, look-it, we step out together, go on our capers, we keep each other company, you help me out on cases, shed light on certain things I don’t see, give me fresh insights into problems I thought were incapable of helpful illumination. And that’s what you’ll continue to do. Until –
Jack?
Yeah, Dirk.
What about John Smith?
Through a window neither detective had noted was open, until now, a rook blasts into the room, ushering in a gale of freezing air, and perches atop a wooden chair, one of the several set between them.
“Caw!”
Filed by The Unnamed One Remaining, December 28, 2025: Well, that takes care of that… But we’re not finished yet… and that’s because:
You can only be walleyed if you’re walleyed with both eyes,
but Welsh Losser is walleyed with no eyes but one… nyug-nya…