Tracklist:
Ain’t Gone ’N’ Give Up On Love – Stevie Ray Vaughn & Double Trouble
Space Oddity – David Bowie
I Fought The Law – The Clash
16
Charlie Snaps His Fingers and a group of Amish men escorted Dean and Emerson to a bedroom in the second story of the farmhouse. The pair were pushed onto a narrow bed that creaked loudly from old, rusted springs.
“You’ll be sorry, Charlie,” said Dean. “You and all your German-speaking minions are about to feel the incredible sound and considerable fury of the American motivational speaking industry.”
Charlie crossed his huge, muscular arms in the doorway.
“Be that as it may, I’m afraid you must remain here,” he said. “I haven’t completely decided what to do in this situation. It’s likely that one of you will be strangled and buried in a ditch. The other will be sent to Japan to work as a sexy maid in a coffee shop.”
Dean pointed at him. “I don’t speak Japanese and I hate sushi. If you lay a finger on my wife’s neck––”
Charlie held up a palm. “You’d be the one in a ditch.”
“I see.”
“We haven’t done anything to you at all,” said Emerson. “How can you be so cruel?”
“Mr. Martinez and I have an arrangement. I’m not going to be silly enough to tell you what that arrangement is, just know that there is one.”
Dean knelt on the floor, hands clasped. “Mr. Fingers, I’m pleading with you. I absolutely have to be in Charleston tomorrow morning. Just let us go, and that’s it. We won’t tell anyone. We especially won’t say a word about a kidnapped Nick Frost and that other guy, or the reanimated body of Nando Phoenix.”
“Who’s Nando Phoenix?” whispered Emerson.
“The star who committed suicide by shooting himself in the back ten times and falling twelve stories into an ice cream truck,” whispered Dean. “He was actually murdered by his longtime rival Sergio Martinez, the mean guy back in the horse barn.”
Charlie shook his head. “I’m standing right here. The fact remains that the pair of you are the perfect murder victims, fortunately for me and unfortunately for you. You’ve parachuted into the middle of nowhere without a trace. The authorities don’t have a single breadcrumb to follow. You’ve left no cell phone signals, none of the neighbors have seen your faces, and there are absolutely no friends coming to save you.”