“I’ll leave you to your chicken fish, then.”
“No,” said Jack, “you won’t. I don’t want chicken. I will eat anything that you have, but not chicken.”
“All right! All right!” Guy was back on his feet.
“Get up,” said Jack.
“I am up.”
“Then please, in as few words as possible, offer us an explanation.”
“For what?” asked Guy.
“Would you like me to hit him?” asked Dorothy.
Guy flinched.
“No,” said Jack. “He’s only little.”
“I’m not that little,” said Guy.
“True enough,” said Jack. “I’ll hit you myself.”
“No, please.”
“Then tell us. Everything.”
“Well, like I say, I’ve been fishing these parts for –”
Jack raised his fist.
“No, please, officer, no.”
“Then tell us,” said Jack. “Everything. And you know what I mean by that.”
“It’s not my fault.” Guy wept. “The chickens made me do it.”
“The chickens?” said Jack. “The chickens?”
“Out there.” Guy pointed with a short and trembly finger. “Out there in the desert, twenty miles from here in Area Fifty-Two.”
21
“Area Fifty-Two?” went Jack, a-falling back in his seat. “Chickens from Area Fifty-Two?”
“It’s as true as I’m sitting here, although I’m actually standing up.”
“Chickens,” said Jack to Dorothy.
“Area Fifiy-Two?” said Dorothy to Jack.
“Where the crashed flying saucer was taken. The head chef at the Golden Chicken Diner told me all about it.”
“It’s a ‘chef thing’,” said Guy. “All chefs know about it.”
Jack looked very hard at Guy. “What did the chickens make you do?”
“Did I say chickens?” said Guy. “I meant chicken people. The people who produce the chicken for the Golden Chicken Diners. It all comes from Area Fifty-Two, up the Interstate. The toxic waste from their factory out there in the desert polluted the creek, so I couldn’t catch fish anymore. And I complained. I went out there. And their guys said that if I just kept my mouth shut they’d see to it that I had free supplies of chicken for life to sell as fish.”
“No one is ever going to be fooled by you passing off chicken as fish,” said Jack.
“No one’s ever complained before,” said Guy.
“No one?” said Jack. “How long have you been serving this chicken?”
Guy looked down at his wristlet watch. “Since ten this morning,” he said. “You’re the first folk in the diner today.”
“Right,” said Jack, and he nodded. Thoughtfully.
“Listen, officer,” said Guy, “this is my livelihood. Could you not just eat the chicken and pretend it’s fish? What harm could it do?”
“Mister Haley,” said Jack, “I’m going to ask you a question and I’d like you to think very carefully before you answer it. Do you think you can do that?”
Guy Haley nodded also. Perhaps even a little more thoughtfully than Jack had.
“My question is this,” said Jack. “Why don’t you just sell chicken as chicken?”
“Sell it as chicken,” Guy said. Slowly.
Jack did further noddings.
“Ah,” said Guy. “You mean not pretend it’s fish?”
Jack made an encouraging face. And did a bit more nodding.
“If I might just stop you there,” said Dorothy, with no head noddings involved. “I feel that this conversation has gone quite far enough. Which way is it to Area Fifty-Two, Mister Haley?”
“Not pretend it’s fish,” said Mr Haley.
“Which way?” asked Dorothy.
“Say it’s chicken,” said Mr Haley.
“Which way?” asked Dorothy once more.
“Now let me just get this straight,” said Mr Haley. “What you’re suggesting is –”
But suddenly he was up off his feet and dangling in the air. Dorothy held him at arm’s length and then shook him about. “Which way is it to Area Fifty-Two?” she demanded to be told.
“That way. That way.” Guy Haley pointed. “Five miles up the Interstate there’s a turn-off to the right, a dirt road. It goes all the way there.”
“Thank you,” said Dorothy, lowering Guy to the floor. “We’ll pass on the lunch, I think. Farewell.”
And she and Jack left Haley’s Comet Lounge.
“Well,” said Jack as they stood in the sunlight, “fancy that. What a coincidence, eh? Area Fifty-Two being just up the road. And it being the place where all the chickens for the Golden Chicken Diner are produced.”
“Yes,” said Dorothy. “Fancy that.”
“If I believed in a God,” said Jack, “I would believe that he, she or it was smiling right down on me now. That he, or she, or it, had provided me with the miracle that I’d hoped for earlier.”
“Would you?” said Dorothy. “Would you really?”
“Yes,” said Jack. “I would.”
“Hey, officer,” the tall drab grey man with the short hair called out to Jack from the garage. “Your auto’s all done. Shall I bring it out?”
“Thanks,” said Jack. “Please do.”
Sounds of engine revvings were to be heard and then the tall man drove the black-and-white from the garage.
Jack gawped somewhat at the black-and-white. It had been totally repaired. The bodywork was perfect, resprayed and waxed, too. The windows had been replaced. There was a shiny new back bumper.
The tall man climbed from the car and tossed the keys to Jack.
Jack was all but speechless.
“There’s still a bit of rust inside the tailpipe,” said the tall mechanic. “I hope you don’t mind about that.”
Jack shook his head. “You fixed it all up,” he said. “That is incredible.”
“It’s nothing,” said the mechanic, getting to work on his hands with an oily rag. “After all, this is America.”
“Yes,” said Jack. “Quite so. So, er, what do I owe you?”
The tall mechanic winked. “Nothing at all,” he said. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, if you know what I mean.”
“Not exactly,” said Jack.
“Well,” said the tall mechanic, “I have been guilty of one or two minor misdemeanours, and if you, as a police officer, could turn a blind eye to them, then we’re all square. Is that okay with you?”
“Absolutely,” said Jack, settling himself back behind the steering wheel and taking a sniff at the Magic Tree that now hung from the rear-view mirror. “This is America, after all. Consider yourself forgiven in the eyes of the law.”
“Why, thank you kindly, officer.” The tall mechanic closed the driver’s door upon Jack. Dorothy sat herself down on the passenger seat and patted at the refurbished upholstery.
“I mean, it’s no big deal,” said the tall mechanic. “And I only did twenty-three[43] of them.”
“Twenty-three,” said Jack, sticking the key into the ignition and giving it a little twist. The engine purred beautifully.
“And they all had it coming, those daughters of Satan. High-school girls with their skirts all up to here,” and he gestured to where these skirts were all up to. “Flaunting themselves. And those nuns, too.”
“Excuse me?” said Jack, looking up at the tall mechanic. All shadow-faced now, the sunlight behind him.
“Killed ’em quick and clean. Well, some not so clean, perhaps, but after all the torturing was done, they was begging for death anyway,” said the tall mechanic. “And I only ate the good bits.”
“Right,” said Jack. “Well, we have to be on our way now. Thank you for fixing the car.”