"Murder To Go" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stine Megan, Stine William H.)
10Just Us Chickens
Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. In the warm morning sunshine, Pete dribbled around Jupe and made a break for the basketball hoop above his garage door. He went up for a back-handed lay-up and all 190 pounds of him stuffed the ball through the net.
“Come on, Jupe,” Pete said, passing the basketball back to him. “Are you playing?”
“I keep thinking about last night and that chicken,” Jupe said.
“You’re telling me,” Pete said, coming up to Jupe. “Yuck — it’s enough to give us nightmares for a week. That’s why you’ve got to get some exercise. It’ll take your mind off having to wash all that blood off your shoes.”
Jupe gagged, remembering the horrible sight of the headless chicken, dripping blood and veins. While he was trying to catch his breath, Pete knocked the ball out of his hands and went in for another lay-up.
“Let’s not relive the moment,” Jupe said with a shudder. “The question is, who sent it? Who wants us to stay away from Big Barney? It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Big Barney would do himself. He’s giving us other signals — inviting us to come closer, to get involved with his business.”
“Jupe,” Pete said seriously, “you’ll figure it out. You always do. I have faith.”
Jupe smiled at his friend and quickly stole the ball from him. Jupe threw a long, arching shot toward the basket — and missed by a mile.
“You’re getting closer,” Pete said. “You’re definitely in the same state.”
Bob’s car horn beeped in the driveway and he hopped out as soon as the VW chugged to a stop.
“Morning, guys,” Bob said. “Seen the paper, Jupe?” He tossed Jupe the morning edition. “Check out the front page of the business section.”
Pete tossed Bob the basketball and they shot a few while Jupe read the news story.
“This is extremely timely,” Jupe said a few minutes later. “Michael Argenti has intensified his efforts to acquire the Chicken Coop restaurants. Hmmm. I’ve got to make a phone call.” He disappeared into Pete’s house. Five minutes later he came out, wearing the famous Jupiter Jones I-told-you-so smile.
“Who’d you call?” asked Pete.
“Michael Argenti,” Jupe said. “I thought it was time that we checked him out. After all, it’s possible that he won’t succeed in buying the Chicken Coop restaurants. In which case, he might settle for merely ruining Big Barney’s business by poisoning his food.”
“What’d Argenti say about that?” asked Pete.
“I didn’t talk to him,” said Jupe. “His secretary said he was out of town today. And do you know where?”
“No, but you’d better know or this is a really dumb conversation,” Pete said.
“Petaluma,” Jupe announced. “Just north of San Francisco. It’s where Big Barney has his chicken farms.”
In less than an hour Jupe and Pete were climbing aboard a commuter plane to San Francisco. They had phoned Juliet and gotten her to agree to pay all their expenses in this investigation — although she didn’t realize that they were also investigating her father. Bob stayed behind because he had some heavy-duty responsibilities at the talent agency. One band was scheduled to play at two different weddings that day, and Bob was supposed to make sure that the band didn’t get too drunk to make it to the second wedding reception on time.
At San Francisco International Airport, Pete and Jupe rented a car and drove an hour north to Petaluma. They had no trouble finding Big Barney’s ranch. It was well marked and well known to everyone in town.
The ranch itself looked more like an automobile factory than a chicken farm. There were two huge cinder block buildings, each two stories high and about as long as a football field. Surrounding them was a chain-link fence.
Pete and Jupe stood outside the fence for a moment and stared. Maybe because it was Saturday, no one was around. So the guys opened the gate and walked fifty yards to the first building. A quick check to see if anyone was watching — then they sneaked inside.
They couldn’t believe their eyes — or their ears. Inside they saw not hundreds of chickens, but hundreds of thousands of them in a well-lighted space. The noise was incredible. Light poured in through a green-house-style glass roof, but air conditioning kept the temperature down.
Jupe and Pete grabbed two Chicken Coop visors that were hanging on a peg by the doorway. They put them on so they’d look like employees and started to snoop around.
The first thing they found out was that it was very difficult for human beings to move in this building. Besides the countless chickens, there were long red plastic pipes mounted a few inches from the floor — and they were everywhere. The pipes ran the entire length of the building, like long, low hurdles. Pete and Jupe had to step over them to walk around. These were feeding pipes, with small red plastic bowls attached every eighteen inches. There were also water pipes, with small purple nozzles for the birds to drink from. The entire process of chicken raising was automated, which was why no people were around.
The birds were grouped into long sections according to age, from little purple fuzzy chicks up to fat, full grown, bright-plumed birds. Pete and Jupe walked from section to section.
“Why do some of them look so strange?” Pete asked. “Look at that guy — he’s got the weirdest little wings I’ve ever seen.”
“Genetic engineering,” Jupe said. “A process of planned nutrition and selective breeding so that desirable physical and biological traits become dominant. Some are bred so their wings are big and some so they have big breasts to produce a lot of white meat. That’s why that one looks top-heavy, like it’s going to fall over.”
Suddenly Jupe and Pete saw they were not the only humans in the building. Three men had entered and were looking around. They were standing where Jupe and Pete had come in, among the smallest chicks.
“Quick,” Jupe said. “Look busy.”
“There’s nothing to do,” Pete said. “Everything’s done by machine.”
“Then hide!”
Jupe and Pete ducked down behind a partition that separated one breed of chickens from another. It was a low partition, and they could see over the top of it to watch and eavesdrop on the men who had come in. But the chickens were crowding around them, pecking at their legs.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” Jupe said, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. “Every time I see the white ones, I remember that package we got last night.”
But just then the three men moved closer to the guys. One of them wore a red plaid shirt and khaki pants. His white cap, with the Chicken Coop emblem on it, said Hank in big red letters. The other two men looked totally out of place. They wore dark blue suits, and one had mirrored aviator sunglasses. He was young, with short dark hair. When he removed his sunglasses, his blue eyes were like the flames of a blowtorch.
Then Jupe heard Hank say, “Anything else I can show you, Mr. Argenti?”
Michael Argenti? This was one conversation Jupe had to hear!
Michael Argenti looked right through Hank and talked only to the other blue-suited man. “I’ve seen enough,” he said in a dissatisfied tone of voice. “Make some notes and write up a memo. I’m going to have to make some real changes around here. I can see that.”
“Yes, Mr. Argenti,” said the eager assistant, digging out a pen and small notebook from his jacket pocket.
Michael Argenti put his mirrored sunglasses back on and looked at Hank. “What’s your output?”
“From hatched egg to slaughter in nine weeks,” Hank said. “We get fifty thousand full grown about every week.”
“Not enough. The population’s got to be doubled,” Michael Argenti said.
The assistant wrote that down.
“Big Barney doesn’t like the birds too crowded,” said Hank.
“This isn’t a rest home for chickens,” said Michael Argenti with a nasty smile. “It’s a factory. The more units we turn out, the more money we make. At Roast Roost we get mature birds in seven weeks. You’re going to have to be that good, too.”
Michael Argenti looked around the plant again, shaking his head. Then he bent down and took a handful of grain out of one of the feeding bowls. Little chicks pecked at it in his open palm. Michael Argenti looked back at Hank. “The feed’s gotta change, too. But I’ll take care of that personally,” he said. “I’ve got something special in mind.”
By that time, the assistant had the door to the outside standing open. Michael Argenti walked through it and climbed into a stretch Mercedes limo without breaking his stride. As the car drove off Jupe read its license plate.