Chapter 41: Jensen Appleton-Smythe

The shotgun report cut through the night like a blast from a giant foghorn. Within seconds dead silence fell right across everyone in the carpark and everyone in the restaurant.

Slowly all heads turned towards the source of the explosion. All those heads - where possible - found themselves looking towards the main entrance of the buffet restaurant.

Tom stood up on tip toes to see over the heads of the crowd.

“What can you see?” whispered Jamie in a quiet and very nervous tone.

“I’m not sure” whispered back Tom, “ ... some big guy with ... with ... with a shotgun, I think.”

What Tom and anyone else who could see found themselves looking at was a huge mountain of a man holding a shotgun to the sky with one still smoking barrel. This man was not only holding a shotgun but he was also wearing a cook’s apron and a chef’s hat. That apron was covered in flower and also big bloody hand prints from the meat he had just been chopping up. The sight of those bloody hand prints and the shotgun made anyone nearby take one or two steps away - swallowing hard as they did.

As everyone looked and stared the guy with the shotgun looked and stared back. Very slowly he lowered the two barrels towards the crowd and said, “This restaurant is now closed to everyone accept those guys in the middle. Anyone wonna argue with me!?”

The left smoking barrel and the still loaded right barrel now pointed directly at the crowd which sent everyone off very quickly to their cars. The man then went inside waving the shotgun around which cleared the restaurant in thirty seconds flat. Soon the only ones left in the area were the naked Tom, Belinda and Jamie still surrounded by Hank, Terry, Lynn and Jill.

The guy with the shotgun and bloody hand prints approached the very puzzled looking people standing alone in the middle of the carpark. He extended a hand towards Hank Barry and said, “Hi, I’m Jensen Appleton-smythe but people just call me Jay - it’s easier and don’t sound so hob-knobbish!”

Hank very slowly held out his hand to Mr Jensen Appleton-smythe and said, “Hello, Mr. Jens ... sorry, Jay. I’m Hank Barry and thankyou very much for what you just did. We all thought we were gonners until you showed up.”

As Hank shook Jays hand he, along with the others, were able to more fully scrutinize who it was they were dealing with. This guy called Jay was HUGE! He was built like a concrete bunker and just towered over everyone at seven foot tall at the very least. Jay also had a beard that was very nicely trimmed and did nothing to hide the biggest and broadest smile you had ever seen. Jay’s arms were massive too. They looked like tree trunks under the rolled up sleeves of his chef’s tunic. They were also very hairy and combined with their size made the shotgun in Jay’s hand look like a pee-shooter.

Jay shook everyone elses hand as they all introduced themselves and thanked him each individually for showing up the way he did. Once the shotgun was put away Jay explained to them that he was not only the chef but also the owner of the restaurant. When he heard the commotion outside and found out what it was over he decided to clear the whole restaurant and make it available for just one more sitting. That one sitting was going to be exclusively for these guys.