Conversation · Visual Calculus

That's it. You got it.

Got what?

The whole shebang.

Shebang?

The coat, the hat, the swindle so crooked a yeggman couldn't break it.

Yeggman... that's either a safebreaker or someone who works almost exclusively with egg yolks.

The deaths of Charlie Spillane and Deanna Deneuve, the case Dick Mullen was on -- that's what this crooked swindle must be.

So it was communism that sent them to the dirt-nap?

Don't think like a cop, cops don't solve cases. They slide nippers on the goons and take 'em to the big house, but they don't solve anything.

Who does then?

The dicks, gum-heels, hawkshaws, peepers, sleuths -- men like Mullen and you.

A-khm! This cop here solved 216 cases over 18 years.

So I am a dick?

Bullseye. A snooper. And a damn good one.

I think I've always felt like a private investigator.

If there's any doubt, consult your trusty Dick Mullen book and reconnect with the real you, him. Dick Mullen. You. Him. Youse. Modus: Mullen.

I don't feel like a private investigator.

Private investigators are just disrupting police work and endangering civilians. I'm out. [Discard thought.]

You could've been one of the good ones.

My ledger says I solved 216 cases.

That's because you're a dick in cop's clothing. Underneath -- a snooper through and through.

Actually I think I got that one wrong.

So it was the crooked copper-chief that iced them after all?

So the narcomaniac art-lover rubbed them out after all?

So the killer was the highbinder's twat of a son?

Wait, why are you talking like that?

This is how I always talk. Move on. The swindle -- cracked it like a discount safe.

You're right, he used to be more polite.

Classic case of Mullen-mania, a well-documented condition.

This is why you should never read books.

So Mullen did ice his best friend and the broad?

So they did love each other to death?

Oh, the coat and the hat?

No, I didn't. Whatever it was. [Discard thought.]