“So,” said Smithy, curiosity trumping his better judgement, “where did you recruit all these guys?”
“Oh,” said Chaz without turning around, “you’d be amazed what you can find on the dark web. Men. Guns. Drugs.”
“Right,” said Smithy, whose experience of online world purchasing consisted of a failed attempt to buy a framed Iggy Pop picture on eBay in 2007 before giving up on the whole thing as a bad idea. He might not have understood how Chaz had assembled all this, or why, but he guessed he could see the trouble coming that Chaz couldn’t.
“So,” said Chaz, waving his hands at things as he spoke. “Over there – fuel store, armoury, food. We’ve got a twenty-four-hour taco van. I mean, he didn’t think he was going to be twenty-four-hours but try getting some sleep when all these guys get hungry.” Chaz laughed. It sounded exactly as unhinged as Smithy had expected. He recovered, oblivious to the fact nobody had joined in. The hand-waving continued. “And over there is the hangar. Big surprise in there to kick off festivities tomorrow, plus some other stuff. Y’know. Pharmacy. Commissary. Mrs Ramirez did a fine job setting the place up before … Anyway.”
“Mrs Ramirez?” asked Reed. “How is she?”
Chaz kept looking straight ahead. “No idea. She left my employ."
“Oh.”
This was how the world ends, thought Smithy, with an insane man who wants to watch it burn, and an organised woman who was willing to do the admin.
Muroe, who’d been taking it all in silently, kept looking over at Smithy, as if having her worst fears confirmed. She tried to sound relaxed as she asked her question. “This is an awful lot of stuff for just a weekend?”
Chaz laughed and wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Yes. Yes, it would be.”
He stopped outside a single-storey building. Next to the double doors in front of which they were standing was a large, metal, garage-style door.
“Now, the reason we are all here.” Chaz moved across to Smithy and Diller, and placed one hand on a shoulder each. “But first, how rude of me, I must explain to my new midget friend and his boy what this is.”
Smithy and Diller looked at each other. This a-hole had interesting ideas on what was and wasn’t rude. Smithy saw the pleading look in Diller’s eyes and gave him a subtle nod. Now was not the time to start setting this guy straight.
Chaz continued, “I, as a member of the Breddenback family, am part of a long and glorious tradition. It is our humble role to document and preserve the true history of this great land, and not the version peddled to the masses. And so, to do so, we have held a competition, always with carefully selected close friends, where we strive to find those unique objects that truly define our times. We are the collectors. The winner of this private competition becomes the keeper of this secret treasure trove of history through which mankind’s achievements and foibles are so lovingly encapsulated.”
Chaz’s impassioned monologue was slightly undercut by the nosebleed that had begun halfway through it. He carried on, oblivious.
“I asked my friends – Finley here and Rake, who you’ll meet later – to join me in this sacred competition. And, most importantly” – he lifted his hand off Diller’s shoulder and slammed it against Reed’s large chest – “I asked my friend LouLou here – Mr Louis Reed, to give him his full, so richly deserved title – to join too. He did so, and enlisted the services of Ms Muroe here.” Chaz’s face twitched slightly as he waggled a finger at her. “Which was a little bit naughty but not technically against the rules. And, with her help, he has become the first person from outside the Breddenback clan in the competition’s one hundred and thirty-year history to win it. An incredible achievement!”
Chaz grabbed Reed’s face between both hands and squeezed it. In the man’s tight grip Reed’s doughy flesh was comically squished. Reed looked terrified but did his best to smile.
“An achievement which, it has to be said, did not go down well with Grandfather, Father or Mother. Uncle Lawrence didn’t mind, but then, he’s lost it and spends his days licking the furniture.” Chaz released Reed’s face and his voice dropped from its ringmaster pitch to a normal conversational tone. “That’s not to make light of mental illness, you understand. We have all, I’m sure, been touched by it.”
YOU’RE BEING TOUCHED BY IT RIGHT NOW.
Shut up.
Chaz wagged a finger in the air. “But, as I’m sure you’re aware, the Japanese word for ‘crisis’ is the same as ‘opportunity’.”
Smithy caught Diller’s eye just in time for his subtle head-shake to stop him from pointing out that it was, in fact, the Chinese who had the same word for both of those things.
“And,” continued Chaz, “I have taken this as an opportunity to break away from the ties that bind. Against my family’s wishes, I have brought the collection here, so that my good friend LouLou may take possession of it.”
“I don’t really need to—” started Reed, but Chaz’s raised hand silenced him.
“Rules are rules! Without rules, what would we have? Chaos!”
Somewhere in the background, something exploded and people cheered.
“LouLou gets the collection and I have decided to take my own money and use it to make myself a self-made man.”
HIS OWN MONEY? HE MUST HAVE HAD ONE HELL OF A PAPER ROUTE.
“But enough about my humble plans. Let us bask in the magnificence of the collection!”
Chaz grasped the handles on the double doors and threw them open dramatically. He then dived out of the way to avoid the shotgun blast.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The second most noticeable thing about the man standing in the doorway was his immaculate attire: a long black tailcoat, a bow tie, a crisp white shirt, trousers with creases so well defined if they were any sharper they would be in danger of splitting atoms, and black shoes polished to such a shine that you’d be too dazzled to see your own reflection in them. He stood in front of a purple curtain and was sporting what appeared to be a fencing sword, sheathed at his waist.
The most noticeable thing about him was his shotgun, with which he had just blown a massive chunk out of the wooden door.
Chaz was on the ground in front of him, and everyone else in the party was crouched or cowering. Smithy remained standing, looking at the finely tailored man. The advantage of Smithy’s height was that he was unlikely to get shot in the head by anyone blasting blindly at whoever was coming through a doorway. It wasn’t a situation that came up often enough for it to be an enormous consideration, but it had happened frequently enough for him to be thankful for it.
Chaz squealed from his foetal position. “Jesus, Wilkins!”
The man looked down at him, and then settled the shotgun against his shoulder. “Forgive me, Master Breddenback. I did not realise it was you.”
He spoke with a clipped British accent – the sort that probably didn’t really exist but people affected as it floated the boats of the kind of folk who want a butler.
Chaz uncurled himself. “You could have killed me!”
“Respectfully, sir, if I had wanted to kill you, you would now be dead.”