Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said; Chapter 6

The guy immediately ahead of Jason evidently went to a shit forger, as he's immediately grabbed and thrown into a police quibble. But, Kathy does good work, as they pass inspection. The men attempt to give him grief about his tracker dot on his natpol card being scraped off, but he just says "I don't know what an electric dot is" and they let him pass.

Kathy was lurking in the darkness. She pops out to say "see, I did good work". Jason realizes she's done it again; by proving the cards are good, Jason now owes her one, and has lost his status as Kathy's victim. Trapped again, Jason and Kathy head back to Kathy's shit apartment, while she tells him about her pet turtle (kept at the good apartment.)

But somebody's waiting back at Kathy's: Mr. McNulty, her handler. He gets off Kathy's shitty couch and extends a hand to Jason; he reaches to shake it and McNulty corrects him: no, I'm not offering to shake your hand, I want to see your IDs. Jason gives McNulty his wallet. McNulty is late middle age, modestly dressed but impeccably groomed, smelling of onions and hot sauce. He's eyeballing Jason with interest. His real leather shoes, his lack of fear. He also notes that Kathy's forgeries are much better than he thought she could do. He asks who planted the tracker dot on Jason's person, and she confirms it was Ed, the hotel clerk. Kathy confesses she told Jason "some things", and McNulty asks about Jack being part of those things. McNulty then informs Jason that Jack is dead: killed three years ago in a traffic accident, and Kathy's belief about the camp in Alaska is a psychotic delusion. (Side note - that means Kathy is working for the police because McNulty is holding a delusion over her.) Kathy naturally denies this, that Jack is alive, and starts to silently weep large tears. McNulty is taking Jason in, naturally, but finishes up his business with Kathy, making sure they were square for the week. "After Jack gets out you won't be able to count on me at all" Kathy says; McNulty cheerfully rejoins that for Kathy, that day will never come, while cheerfully winking at Jason.

Jason thinks "we live in a state of betrayal."

Jason isn't being arrested, he's just being taken along to the station for some biometric ID recordings. Jason almost objects until Kathy shoots him a warning look.

Processing at the station must be a bit different from today, as Jason is put in a vast waiting room filled with people waiting to be summoned. Some gizmo McNulty pinned on Jason's lapel gets him moved out of that room and processed - fill out a form, footprint, voiceprint, EKG scan. McNulty and the officer identify him as - Jason Taverener, age 39, Diesel Engine Mechanic from Wyoming. This is wrong, obviously, but the record is clean and no other records come up in the database, so bingo, that is who Jason is. He's free to go.

Then they pull a classic Columbo; at the police station entrance, a loud page calls him back to processing. They have a 15 year old photo of "Jason", and he is ugly and doesn't look anything like Jason aside from being white and male. McNulty says "you've had plastic surgery" and Jason runs with this, saying "yeah, I mean look at the old me." He explains where the evidently large sums of money came from by improvising a story from scattered details he's glanced at from "Jason's" form. This satisfies McNulty, and Jason is free to go. Then McNulty Columbos Jason *again* - he takes his old IDs and gives him a police temp pass instead. The temp pass is real, and universal, but only lasts a week, the idea being he'll have real IDs reissued by then. For the third time, Jason is free to go.

Jason thinks he's traded up: a totally genuine and real pass for Kathy's forgeries. And the process getting genuine, abet mistaken IDs has started. So no worries about forced labor camps! Unless of course, they decide to arrest him for the counterfeit passes.