Jack shook his head once more and made a face of puzzlement.
“They’re artificial,” said the head chef. “I’m not looking now, but I’ll bet you that each of those chickens has a little brown freckle on the left side of its beak.”
Jack fished a couple of chicken heads from the bin and examined each in turn.
They both had identical freckles.
Jack flung the chicken heads down, dug into the swelling head bin, brought out a handful, gazed at them.
And said, “Identical.”
“Sure enough,” said the head chef.
“This is incredible,” said Jack. “But why hasn’t anyone other than you noticed this?”
“It’s only at the Golden Chicken chain that the chickens arrive with their heads on. They don’t have their heads on in supermarkets.”
“Whoa!” said Jack. “This is deep.”
“Do you believe what I’m telling you?”
“I do,” said Jack. “I do.”
“Well, I’m glad that you do. You’re the first assistant chef I’ve had who did. Mostly they just quit when I tell them. They panic and run. They think I’m mad.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Jack. “But what are you going to do about it?”
“Do?” asked the head chef. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said Jack, “that you know a terrible secret. You have exposed a dreadful conspiracy. It is your duty to pursue this to its source and expose the perpetrator. All of America should know the truth about this.”
“Well,” said the head chef, “I’d never thought of it that way.”
“Well, think about it now. Surely as head chef you could follow this up the chain of command. Identify the single individual behind it.”
“Well, I suppose I could. We head chefs are being invited to head office tomorrow. I could make subtle enquiries there.”
“It is your duty as an American to do so.”
“My duty.” The head chef shook his head. It had a chefs hat on it. The chefs hat wobbled about. And now much of the head chef began to wobble about.
“Your duty,” Jack continued, “even if it costs you your life.”
“My life?” The head chef’s hands began to shake.
“Well, obviously they’ll seek to kill you because of what you know. You are a threat to these alien chicken invaders. They’ll probably want to kill you and grind you up and feed you to the artificial chickens that are coming off the production line.”
“Oh dear,” said the head chef. “Oh my, oh my.”
“You’ll need to disguise the shaking,” said Jack, “when you’re at the meeting tomorrow – with all those agents of the chicken invaders. I’ve heard that chickens can smell fear. They’ll certainly be able to smell yours.”
“Oh dear, oh my, oh my,” said the head chef once more, and now he shook from his hat to his shiny shoes.
“If you don’t come back,” said Jack, “I will continue with your cause. You will not have died, horribly, in vain.”
The head chef fled the kitchen of the Golden Chicken Diner upon wobbly shaking legs and Jack found himself promoted once again.
17
By the time Jack clocked off from his first day at the Golden Chicken Diner, it had to be said that he was a firm believer in the power of the American Dream.
“Head chef?” said Dorothy as she clocked off in a likewise manner.
“Hard work, ambition and faithfulness to the company’s ethic,” said Jack, and almost without laughing.
Although Jack didn’t feel much like laughing. Jack felt anxious and all knotted up inside. Jack worried for Eddie. Feared for his bestest friend.
Jack’s bestest friend was more than a little afeared himself. He was afeared and he was hungry, too. Eddie had spent a most uncomfortable day travelling third class in the luggage compartment of a long black automobile.
There had been some stops for petrol, which Eddie had at first assumed were stops for winding of the key. Until he recalled that the cars of this world were not at all powered by clockwork. And there had been lots of hurlings to the left and the right, which Eddie correctly assumed were from the car turning corners. And there had been slowings down and speedings up and too many hours had passed for Eddie Bear. For as Eddie knew all too well, with each passing hour, indeed with each passing minute, the car was taking him further away, away from his bestest friend Jack.
“I can see that look on your face again,” said Dorothy to Jack. “You are worrying about Eddie.”
“How can I do anything else?” Jack asked outside the diner as he slipped on his nice clean trenchcoat.
Dorothy shrugged and said, “You’re doing all you can. And my, that trenchcoat smells of chicken.”
Jack made that face yet again.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Dorothy. “I’ll take you out tonight, to a club – how would you like that?”
“If it’s a drinking club,” said Jack. Hopefully.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Dorothy,” said Jack, and he looked into the green eyes of the beautiful woman. “Dorothy, one thing. You only had enough money to pay for a couple of cups of coffee earlier. How come you can now afford to take me out to a club?”
“I stole money out of the cash register,” said Dorothy.
“Oh, that’s all right then,” said Jack. “I thought you might have done something dishonest.”
No further words were exchanged upon this matter and Jack and Dorothy walked arm in arm down Hollywood Boulevard.
Dorothy pointed out places of interest and Jack looked on in considerable awe, whilst wishing that Eddie was with him to see them.
“That’s where the Academy Awards ceremony is held each year to honour the achievements of movie stars,” said Dorothy. “One day I will go onto the stage there and receive my award for Best Actress.”
“I thought you were going into producing,” said Jack.
“Yes,” said Dorothy. “Best Actress and Best Producer and I hope you’ll be there, too. You’d look wonderful in a black tuxedo and dicky bow. Very dashing, very romantic.”
At length they reached the Hollywood Wax Museum.
“Would you like to see the movie stars?” asked Dorothy. “They are here in effigy.”
Jack shrugged. “About this drinking club. I’ve had a hard day and I do like to unwind over a dozen or so beers.”
“All in good time, come on.”
Now wax museums are very much like Marmite.
In that you either love ’em or hate ’em. There’s no in between. No, “I think I fancy a visit to the wax museum today, sort of.” It’s either yes indeedy-do, or no siree.
At the door to the wax museum stood the effigy of a golden woman in a white dress, the skirt of which periodically rose through the medium of air-jets beneath to reveal her underwear.
“I like wax museums,” said Jack. “Yes indeedy-do.”
“That’s Marilyn Monroe,” said Dorothy as she purchased the tickets from a man in the ticket booth who looked like a cross between Bella Lugosi and Rin Tin Tin. “She’s the most famous actress in the world.”
“Does she have a nursery rhyme?” Jack asked.
“No, silly,” said Dorothy. “Come on.”
And they entered the wax museum.
It was dark in there – well, they always are, it lends to the necessary ambience. And disguises, of course, the fact that wax museums are generally housed within crumbling buildings with really manky decor, faded damp-stained wallpaper and carpets that dare not speak their name.
But that’s part of their charm.
Jack viewed The Legends of the Old West: William S. Hart, Audie Murphy, Jimmy Stewart, Gabby Hayes, Hopalong Cassidy, Clayton Moore, Roy Rogers and Trigger.
Jack then viewed The Mirthmakers: Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers (whose hand prints Jack had viewed outside Mann’s Chinese Theatre) and Abbott and Costello.
Then The Hollywood Horrors: Lon Chaney Senr., Bella Lugosi, Dwight Frye, Boris Karloff.
“Oh,” said Dorothy. “They scare me.” And she nuzzled close to Jack.
And Jack took to this nuzzling and Jack turned up the face of Dorothy and kissed it, on the forehead and on the cheek and then on the beautiful mouth. And Dorothy kissed Jack and moved his hands from her shoulders down to her bottom.