“Of course I don’t have a car. Do I look like I could afford a car? And I’m too young to drive, anyway.”

“I’ve got to find him. How could you let this happen?” Jack turned bitter eyes upon Dorothy. “I left him in your care.”

Dorothy’s eyes weren’t bitter, but they flashed an emerald fire. “You did no such thing,” she said to Jack. “You left him with me in the hope that I could win him over.”

“You’re part of this.” Jack made fists and shook them all about. “You’re in on it. This is all a conspiracy.”

“Now you are being ridiculous. Come back inside and sit down with me and then we’ll talk about this.”

“I’ve no time to talk. They’ve got Eddie and if I can’t get to him quickly he’ll die.”

“If they’d wanted to kill him,” said Dorothy, “they could have done it there and then in the diner. Ripping a teddy bear apart would hardly have caused the customers much concern.”

Jack put his hands to his head and raked them through his hair. Knocked his hat off, stooped to pick it up, kicked it instead and watched as it rolled beneath the wheels of a passing car to be ground to an ugly flatness.

Dorothy stifled a smirk. This was no laughing matter.

“Let’s go inside,” she said.

“I can’t.” There was a tear in Jack’s left eye. “It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have left him. I should have protected him at all times. If any harm comes to him –”

“No harm will come to him.”

“That’s a very foolish thing to say.”

“I’ve said that if they’d wanted to kill him they would have. They’ve taken him captive, probably as a hostage, probably to use to bargain with you.”

“With me?”

“To get you to stay out of their affairs.”

“That’s not going to happen,” said Jack. “I’ll track this other me down and if he’s harmed Eddie, I’ll kill him. I’ll probably have to kill him anyway, but if he’s harmed Eddie, I’ll kill him worse.”

Dorothy’s green eyes fairly glittered. “You really love that bear,” she said. “You really, truly do.”

“Of course I do,” Jack said. “He’s my bestest friend. We’ve been through a lot together, Eddie and me. And he’s saved my life more then once.”

“Come back inside, then, and we’ll work out some plan together. We’ll get him back somehow.”

Jack followed Dorothy back to the diner. “I’m so sorry, Eddie,” he said.

Eddie Bear was rather sorry, too. Sorrowful was Eddie Bear, puzzled somewhat, scared a bit and quite uncomfortable also.

He was all in the darkness and all getting bumped about.

“How did I let this happen?” Eddie asked himself. “How could I have been so stupid? I’m as stupid as. How didn’t I know that it was the wrong Jack? Why didn’t I smell a rat?”

But Eddie Bear had not smelled a rat and neither had he smelled that that Jack wasn’t Jack. So to speak.

And this worried Eddie more than most things.

“I don’t understand this.” Eddie sniffed at the air. Hot air, it was, and humid, too, as can be the way of it in the boot of a car on a hot and sunlit day. Eddie sniffed the air some more and then he growly grumbled. “I’ve lost my sense of smell,” he growly grumbled. “I can’t smell anything. Why has this happened? Do I have a cold? This can’t be right – my nose has never let me down before and OUCH!”

The car, in whose boot Eddie was presently domiciled, bumped over something, possibly a sleeping policeman, and Eddie was bounced about something wicked.

“I’ll have things to say when I get out of here,” said Eddie Bear.

“And he’ll die,” Jack told Dorothy over another coffee. “He has three days left at the most. If I don’t get him back to his own world before then, he’ll die.”

“And how did you arrive at this revelation?” Dorothy asked.

“I have my sources,” said Jack. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“So we have to do something fast.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” said Jack. “I’ll do this on my own.”

“We’ve been through all that. You need me, Jack. You won’t last long here on your own. You’ll get stopped by the police, they’ll ask you for ID, you won’t have any and they’ll take you off to juvenile hall.”

Jack did grindings of the teeth. He felt utterly helpless. Utterly impotent. Neither of these were nice ways to feel. The second in particular didn’t bear thinking about. So Jack did some heavy thinking about other things. And certain thoughts entered his head. Regarding his most recent conversation with Wallah the calculating pocket.

Wallah’s advice to Jack, based upon her calculations, had been that he must take employment at a Golden Chicken Diner and penetrate the higher echelons by utilising the American Dream. Also that Dorothy would prove to be a useful asset during the short term, if ultimately a disaster.

Jack leaned forwards, elbows on the table, and buried his face in his hands.

Dorothy said, “Let’s think about this, Jack. Work together, throw some ideas around.”

Jack groaned.

Dorothy continued, “I think we have established that whoever is the brains behind the Golden Chicken Diner is the most likely candidate for being behind the murders in Toy City.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “Of course.”

“Well, not necessarily ‘of course’ – there could be other options to choose from. But he or she –”

“Or it,” said Jack.

“He, she or it is the most likely candidate. That entity is the one that you have to find and deal with.”

“And I will,” said Jack.

“So the questions is, how?”

Jack nodded through his fingers.

“Well,” said Dorothy, “the most logical thing to do, in my opinion, would be to gain employment at one of the Golden Chicken Diners, then work your way up into a position that would gain you access to this, er, entity.”

“Eh?” said Jack, and he looked up through his fingers.

“It’s the most logical solution,” said Dorothy. “By my calculations, it’s the best chance you’d have.”

“By your calculations?”

“Yes. You see, it’s an American thing – the belief that anyone in this country can do anything, if they just try hard enough. That they’ll get a fair deal if they try. It’s called pursuing the American Dream.”

“I know what it’s called,” said Jack.

“You do?”

“I do. Do you really think it would work?”

“It might with my help.”

“Ah,” said Jack.

“You have no ID,” said Dorothy. “You’re, well, an illegal alien, really. You’d need a work visa. But there are ways. I could help.”

“I have no choice,” said Jack, and he threw up his hands, knocking over his coffee, which trickled into his lap. “Oh damn,” went Jack. “I think this trenchcoat is done for.”

Dorothy giggled, prettily.

Jack smiled wanly towards her. “When I said I had no choice,” said he, “I didn’t mean it in a bad way towards you. I’m very grateful for your help. So how do we go about getting jobs?”

“Just leave that to me.”

Now it is a fact well known to those who know it well that in America, in accordance with the American Dream, you can always get a job in a diner. No matter your lack of qualifications, the fact that you cannot add up to ten, the fact that you have rather strange ways about you, a curious squint, buck teeth, answer to the name of Joe-Bob and hail from a backwoods community where your father is your brother and your aunty your uncle (although it has to be said that there is a more than average chance that you will be very good at playing the banjo), you can always get work in a diner.

In England (a small but beautifully formed kingdom somewhat to the east of America) it is the case that you can always get a job in a pub. Here, of course, you will not be expected to be able to count up to ten, as, if you are, like Jack, an illegal alien (probably from Australia, in the case of England), it will be expected that you will short-change the customers. Oh, and be an alcoholic, which is apparently a necessary qualification.