Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

He held up a small black object between his finger and thumb.

I took it from him and turned it this way and that. There was no doubt about it, it was a bullet, slightly flattened by impact.

“I’m real sorry,” I said. “Look, this is my first day here. All I can do is report it to the management and you can have your breakfast on us.”

“I’m going to have to see a darn dentist,” he complained. “I can’t abide the darn dentist. And what if I’d swallowed it? I could of got lead poisoning.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll show it to the owner just as soon as he gets here.”

“This’ll cost plenty, I bet you. Do you want to take a look?” Before I could stop him he stretched open his mouth and showed me a chipped front incisor and a mouthful of mushed-up hamburger.

* * *

Mr. Le Renges came in at 11:00 a.m. Outside it was starting to get windy and his hair had flapped over to one side like a crow’s wing. Before I could collar him he dived straight into his office and closed the door, presumably to spend some time rearranging his wayward locks. He came out five minutes later, briskly chafing his hands together like a man eager to get down to business.

“Well, John, how did it go?”

“Pretty good, Mr. Le Renges. Place was packed out.”

“Always is. People know a good deal when they see one.”

“Only one problem. A guy found this in his burger.”

I handed him the bullet. He inspected it closely, and then he shook his head.

“That didn’t come from one of our burgers, John.”

“I saw him spit it out myself. He broke one of his front teeth.”

“Oldest trick in the book. Guy needs dental work, he comes into a restaurant and pretends he broke his tooth on something he ate. Gets the restaurant to stump up for his dentist’s bill.”

“Well, it didn’t look that way to me.”

“That’s because you’re not as well-versed in the wiles of dishonest customers as I am. You didn’t apologize, I hope?”

“I didn’t charge him for his breakfast.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, John. That’s practically an admission of liability. Well, let’s hope the bastard doesn’t try to take it any further.”

“Aren’t you going to inform the health and safety people?”

“Of course not.”

“What about your suppliers?”

“You know as well as I do that all ground beef is magnetically screened for metal particles.”

“Sure. But this is a bullet and it’s made of lead and lead isn’t magnetic.”

“They don’t shoot cows, John.”

“Of course not. But anything could have happened. Maybe some kid took a potshot at it when it was standing in a field, and the bullet was lodged in its muscle.”

“John, every one of our burgers is very carefully sourced from people who are really evangelical when it comes to quality meat. There is no way that this bullet came from one of our burgers, and I hope you’re prepared to back me up and say that there was absolutely no sign of any bullet in that customer’s patty when you grilled it.”

“I didn’t actually see it, no. But—”

Mr. Le Renges dropped the bullet into his wastebasket. “Attaboy, John. You’ll be back here bright and early tomorrow morning, then?”

“Early, yes. Bright? Well, maybe.”

* * *

All right, you can call me a hairsplitting go-by-the-book bureaucrat, but the way I see it any job has to be done properly or else it’s not worth getting out of bed in the morning to do it, especially if you have to get out of bed at 5:15. I walked back to the Calais Motor Inn looking for a bite of lunch, and I ordered a fried chicken salad with iceberg lettuce, tomato, bacon bits, cheddar and mozzarella and home-made croutons, with onion strings and fried pickles on the side. But as comforting as all of this was, I couldn’t stop thinking about that bullet and wondering where it had come from. I could understand why Mr. Le Renges didn’t want to report it to the health and safety inspectors, but why didn’t he want to have a hard word with his own supplier?

Velma came up with another beer. “You’re looking serious today, John. I thought you had to be happy by law.”

“Got something on my mind, Velma, that’s all.”

She sat down beside me. “How did the job go?”

“It’s an existence. I grill, therefore I am. But something happened today … I don’t know. It’s made me feel kind of uncomfortable.”

“What do you mean, John?”

“It’s like having my shorts twisted only it’s inside my head. I keep trying to tug it this way and that way and it still feels not quite right.”

“Go on.”

I told her about the bullet and the way in which Mr. Le Renges had insisted that he wasn’t going to report it.

“Well, that happens. You do get customers who bring in a dead fly and hide it in their salad so they won’t have to pay.”

“I know. But, I don’t know.”

* * *

After a double portion of chocolate ice-cream with vanilla-flavored wafers I walked back to Tony’s where the lunchtime session was just finishing. “Mr. Le Renges still here?” I asked Oona.

“He went over to St. Stephen. He won’t be back until six, thank God.”

“You don’t like him much, do you?”

“He gives me the heeby-jeebies, if you must know.”