“Not that I saw. I got pulled into a room by the church’s security team yesterday,” said Diller, grabbing some muesli.
“Shit. Really?”
“Relax. They were asking me if I thought any of the women at the convention had been behaving weirdly.”
“What did you say?” Smithy helped himself to some hash browns.
“I asked what they meant by ‘unusual behaviour’. Rhonda thinks Joe Biden is reading her thoughts, and there’s a lady from Portugal who has an urn containing the ashes of her eleven dead cats. Keeps asking people to touch it to feel the positive energy.”
“Right,” said Smithy.
“Don’t get me wrong, they’re mostly nice people who’ve been reeled in. My point is, Dionne was right – the church is convinced that women are trying to bring them down.”
Diller reached out and helped himself to some vegetarian sausages. He didn’t really understand why people felt the need to make vegetable protein look like meat, but he appreciated this wasn’t the time to discuss it.
“The finances?” asked Smithy, straining to reach the green beans.
“Need a hand?” asked a server.
“No thank you,” said Smithy, getting what he needed.
The buffet wasn’t set up for someone of Smithy’s height, but Diller, better than anyone, knew how annoyed his friend got by offers of unasked-for assistance. He still remembered the incident when the waiter in a diner offered him a booster seat.
“So,” said Smithy. “The finances?”
Diller nodded. “Insane. Forget everyone paying five hundred dollars for their ticket to the conference. There are platinum club members dropping ten grand to get special perks like meeting Martha. Every talk has a sales pitch for something at the end. They’re milking their congregation dry and, not for nothing, a lot of these people can’t afford it.” He started to spoon button mushrooms onto his plate. “Putting it on credit cards, a couple of people re-mortgaged homes, one woman I met is spending the money her kids gave her for a hip operation. These leeches make me sick. I reckon they’re pulling in about four million from this week, easy.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” Diller shoved the ladle back into the mushrooms with considerably more force than necessary.
“Easy, Dill.”
“Sorry.”
“That’s alright. You’ve done great work.”
“How’s your end going?”
“Good. I’ve been following the people in the background. Dionne was right. That guy Freddie Draper is running the whole thing, and yet his name doesn’t appear anywhere.”
They moved across to the pancake station, where a five-kid family from Idaho were helpfully forming an orderly queue.
“OK,” said Smithy to Diller, who was now standing behind him. “Dionne has been in contact. The next thing I’m going to tell you might shock you, so, y’know, remain calm.”
The nine-year-old boy in front of Smithy looked over his shoulder at him. Smithy smiled at the scowling child and then turned his head so that Diller could hear better. “Bunny is in prison.”
There was silence behind him. Smithy took a step forward as the kid’s older sister finally made up her mind on toppings.
“Dill?”
“Sorry,” said Diller. “I think I misheard you. I thought you said Bunny is in prison.”
“I did.”
“What?”
At this, several members of the family turned to look at Diller. He and Smithy both smiled.
“Keep your voice down.”
“How …” Diller said nothing else, apparently lost for words.
“It’s a long story,” said Smithy, who in truth hadn’t been given all of it. “The Sisters have asked for our help to get him out.”
“OK. I’ll do it.”
Smithy sighed. “At least check what it is first, before you say yes.”
“Bunny’s our friend.”
“I know, but …”
The line moved forward again. In the time it took a sixteen-year-old girl to ask about the gluten-free options in the exciting world of pancakes, Smithy managed to explain almost all of what Diller’s part in the plan was. Most of it, while shady, was legal.
In the time it took the six-year-old to order, drop, cry about and get reissued with a pancake, Smithy managed to explain his part in the plan.
“You are kidding?” asked Diller.
“I wish I was.” Smithy’s part was almost entirely illegal, and as far as he was concerned, that wasn’t even the biggest problem with it.
“And you’re OK with that?”
“I owe Bunny,” said Smithy.
They moved forward another place. The nine-year-old was now up. He wanted the same thing he had yesterday, but helpfully, he didn’t remember what that was. His father and the chef took shots at guessing, which seemed to irritate the kid.
“There’s one last thing,” said Smithy.
He then explained the last part of Diller’s role in the plan. That bit was illegal, but Diller didn’t consider that to be the biggest problem with it either.
“Oh God,” said Diller, his palms growing suddenly sweaty.
“Relax,” said Smithy.
As a rule, he didn’t take any interest in other people’s romantic lives. However, his girlfriend Cheryl had noticed that when Diller came over for dinner he was messaging someone a lot, and he had a tendency to smile at his phone. She did not share Smithy’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” stance on these things, and she had asked a lot of questions. Diller had attempted to dance around the questions, but he’d eventually cracked.
Smithy was now up, the nine-year-old having given up on his pursuit of a repeat of the perfect pancake experience and gone off to have an adverse effect on the made-to-order omelette guy’s blood pressure instead. The kid’s apologetically smiling father went trailing in his wake.
Smithy looked at the pancake chef’s last attempt to satisfy the kid and said, “Don’t toss that. I’ll eat it. Looks good.”
The guy smiled at Smithy and turned his attention to Diller. “Sir?”
Diller had a faraway look in his eyes.
“Sir?”
Diller snapped back to reality. “It’s OK, thank you. I think I just lost my appetite.”
Chapter Thirty
Zoya concentrated on the monitor in front of her while attempting to ignore the woman sitting at her side.
She checked the electronic clock hanging above her on the wall, cracked her knuckles and picked up the controller. It was for Birdie, the drone she had designed, built and been carefully refining over the last
