Guy looked puzzled. He was puzzled.

“Meat,” said Jack. “Any meat?”

“A burger,” said Guy.

“A burger,” said Jack.

“Certainly, officer. One mackerel burger coming up. And for your lovely daughter?”

“Daughter?” said Jack.

“So sorry, officer, it’s these new shoes, the insteps pinch.”

“I’ll have the sardines,” said Dorothy, perusing the menu. “Do they come with the quahog sauce?”

“Surely do, ma’am. And whiting mayo and chingree chitlins.”

“Mahser on the side?”

“With hilsa and beckti?”

“That’s the way I love it.” And Dorothy smiled at Guy and he smiled back at her.

“And a mackerel burger for your uncle,” said Guy.

“Yes,” said Jack, “With snodgrass and mong-waffle and pungdooey. Oh and add a little clabwangle to my little chikadee while you’re about it.”

Guy bowed and departed.

“You made all that up,” said Dorothy.

“Well, so did you.”

“Here you go then,” said Guy, presenting his discerning patrons with an overloaded tray.

“That was fast!” said Jack.

“This is America,” said Guy, and he placed the tray upon the table and lifted food covers from two plates.

“That’s not what I ordered,” said Jack.

“Nor me,” said Dorothy.

Guy burst into tears.

Dorothy reached out and patted his shoulder. “There’s no need to go upsetting yourself,” she said. “I’m sure that whatever this is, it will be very nice.”

“What is it?” asked Jack, taking up a fork and prodding at the items that lay steaming up on his plate.

“It’s chicken fish,” said the sobbing Guy. “Locally caught and as fresh as the day is long.”

“It’s chicken,” said Jack. “There’s no fish at all involved here.”

“’Tis too,” said Guy.

“’Tis not,” said Jack. “It’s chicken. That’s a chicken leg.”

“It’s a fish leg,” said Guy.

“Fish do not have legs,” Jack informed him.

“Chicken fish do.”

“I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a chicken fish,” said Jack.

“There’s one there on the counter,” said Guy. “I was petting it when you came in.”

“It doesn’t have any legs.”

“I de-legged it earlier. That’s what’s on the plates.”

“Fish don’t have wings, either,” said Dorothy. “There are wings on my plate.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Guy. “Flying fish have wings, everybody knows that.”

“This is definitely chicken.” Jack sniffed at the chicken on his plate.

“Mine’s definitely chicken, too,” said Dorothy.

“You’re sure?” Guy dabbed at his running nose with an oversized red gingham handkerchief. “You’re absolutely sure?”

“Jack here is a police officer,” said Dorothy, “so he knows these things.”

“I knew it!” Guy beat a right-hand fist into a left-hand handkerchief-carrying palm. “I knew it. Chicken fish be damned. I’ve been cheated, officer. I wish to register a complaint.”

“Do you have any fish in this restaurant?” Jack asked.

Guy sniffed.

“That wasn’t an answer,” said Jack.

Guy shrugged.

“Nor was that.”

“All right! All right!” Guy fell to his knees, although given his shortcomings in the tallness department the difference in height that this made was hardly perceptible. “I’m so sorry,” he wailed, and he beat his chest with diminutive fists. “Thirty years I’ve been in business here. Thirty years in these parts, winning every fishing competition, known in these parts as Guy Haley, Champion of Champions. I took an eighty-pound buckling up at the creek in forty-seven. Never been beaten. Never been beaten.”

“Where is this leading?” Jack asked. “Only we are hungry. And we are in a hurry.”

“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.”