upon our way.”
“Ah, yes indeed,” and Jack sought something suitable.
And he would probably have found it also had not a key turned in the lock, the door opened and several burly though jolly and laughing policemen entered the cell and hauled him and Eddie from it.
Chief Inspector Wellington Bellis’s office was definitely “of the genre”. It had much of the look of Bill Winkie’s office about it, but being below ground level it lacked for windows. It didn’t lack for a desk, though, a big and crowded desk, with one of those big desk lamps that they shine into suspects’ eyes.
The walls were lavishly decorated with mug shots, press cuttings and photographs of crime scenes and horribly mutilated corpses. Eddie recognised the victims pictured in several of these gory photographs: the P.P.P.s who had been savagely done to death by the kindly, lovable white-haired old Toymaker’s evil twin during the exciting adventure that he and Jack had had but months before. [7]
Upon the floor was a carpet, which like unto Bill’s dared not to speak its name. And it was onto this carpet that Jack and Eddie were flung.
“This treatment is outrageous,” Jack protested. “I protest,” he also protested. “I demand to speak to my solicitor.”
“All in good time,” said Bellis, settling himself into the chair behind his desk and gesturing to the two that stood before it. “Seat yourselves. Would you care for a cup of tea?”
“A cup of tea?” Jack got to his knees and then his feet.
“Or coffee?” said the chief inspector.
“I’d like a beer,” said Eddie.
Chief Inspector Bellis frowned upon him.
“Or perhaps just a glass of water.” Eddie arose and did further dustings down of himself.
“You’ll have to pardon the officers,” said Bellis, leaning back in his chair and further gesturing to Jack and Eddie. “Sit yourselves down, if you will. The police officers do get a little carried away. They are so enthusiastic about maintaining law and order. They do have the public’s interests at heart.”
“They don’t have one heart between the lot of them,” said Eddie, struggling onto a chair. “They’re all as brutal as.”
“They overcompensate,” said Chief Inspector Bellis. “I expect it’s just the overexuberance of youth, which should really be channelled into sporting activities. That’s what it says in this book I’ve been reading –
Learn to Leap Over Candlesticks In Just Thirty Days
, by J. B. Nimble and J. B. Quick. Perhaps you’ve read it?”
“I’ll purchase a copy as soon as I leave here,” said Eddie. “Do you suppose that will be sooner rather than later, as it were?”
“Well, we’ll have to see about that. There are most serious charges.”
“
Charges
?” said Eddie. “There is more than one charge?”
“You can never have too many charges.” Chief Inspector Bellis grinned from ear to ear, then back again. “It’s like having too many chickens. You can never have too many chickens, can you?”
“Chickens
again
?” said Jack.
“I like chicken again,” said Bellis. “Again and again. I can’t get enough of chicken.”
Jack shook his head. “I am assuming that you are talking about
eating
chicken?” he said.
“Obviously. But it’s such a dilemma, isn’t it?”
Eddie shook his head and wondered where all
this
was leading to.
“You see,” said the chief inspector, “my wife makes me sandwiches for my lunch.”
“Chicken sandwiches?” Jack asked, not out of politeness, but possibly more as a diversionary tactic, in the hope that perhaps Chief Inspector Bellis would just like to chat about sandwiches for a while, before sending him and Eddie on their way.
“That’s the thing,” said Bellis. “I like chicken sandwiches. But I also like egg sandwiches. But you’ll notice that although you mix and match the contents of sandwiches – cheese and onion, egg and cress, chicken and bacon – no one ever eats a chicken and egg
David LaRochelle
Walter Wangerin Jr.
James Axler
Yann Martel
Ian Irvine
Cory Putman Oakes
Ted Krever
Marcus Johnson
T.A. Foster
Lee Goldberg