Chapter 3

Ted began to feel hot and nauseous in the back seat of the car. He had never travelled well. The rough wool of his socks itched uncomfortably, and he found his feet fidgeting under the seat of the driver, who Ted was sure could feel every tiny jerk and jostle that his toes decided to make on their own. He cracked a window, feeling a desperate need to do something with his hands.

"Too hot?" Violet said beside him, grinning as he flinched, compressing himself into the door instinctually.

"No… Just need some air, is all." Ted said weakly, pointing his face out towards the opening. The smell was all scorched fat, motor oil, paint-fumes and lake scum, but it was better than smelling the stink from the cologne he had put on earlier.

They passed a pawn shop that Ted had hocked his first television to. He saw a catholic school he had applied to teach at once in the distance, soon after. There were a series of grim, graffitied tenements that evoked images of some kind of multi-coloured inferno sweeping along the neighbourhoods. They drove, unperturbed by traffic, undaunted by the sinking sun bringing out the seedier side of the city. The four simply sat in silence as they moved closer to their destination.

Ted found his eyes flitting to all corners of the car's interior. If there were some traces of movement, or moments which illuminated their true intentions, he didn't see them. Violent had brought out a make-up kit, and was staring intently in a handheld mirror as she subtly blotched another thin layer of base in a series of seemingly random spots. Veruca had silently drawn a newspaper from somewhere, and was perusing it in the dying light. The driver, Alain, had an animated head, constantly moving and tilting it to glance at every mirror, back to the road, and towards every person in the car with almost as much vigour as Ted did. He had met the driver's gaze a few times, and he averted his gaze to the street or other places that wouldn't seem prying.

It was one of these glances that produced something noteworthy. Ted glanced into the side mirror where Alain occasionally looked, and saw a brown Buick following half a block behind them. Ted barely paid any note until they had passed North End, when another glance revealed the site of the same vehicle holding its distance.

The sky had begun to shift into a spectrum of bright pink and deep purple, and Ted couldn't quite make out who was inside the car. There was a driver, and someone just as tall behind him, but other cars made finding a clear picture of the inhabitants of the car next to impossible. The next glimpse he had of the interior was a sharp left that dragged them off the main road. No cars followed except for the Buick. Now Ted could see that there were four men in the car, but the freshly illuminated streetlights glared on the windshield of the car enough to obscure the details about them.

They were minutes away from the bar. It was on a small block away from the river, with factories and warehouses littered between there anywhere residential. Nowhere to run if anything went awry. Ted felt the car slow to a crawl, and watched through the mirror to see the distant car match their movements. Did Alain know they were being followed? His focus was shifting so fast that it was hard to determine if it was a speed born from subdued panic or a supreme confidence.

Ted decided to speak. "Are you sure you want to go to The Plague Ship? I just realised that maybe it isn't the best place for any of you."

"Either of us." Veruca responded, putting the newspaper into her handbag that had sat by her feet. "Alain is staying in the car. And I can assure you that we have both been to worse places for worse reasons."

"Oh." The fact made him feel even more uneasy. All it would take was for Alain to hit the gas as soon as their backs were turned, and there'd be no way to get out. Ted pressed on. "But aren't both of you ladies too young to drink?" Ted said with a crooked smile.

Both of the girls started into a fit of giggles. Ted kept on giving his pained smile. "If you're that concerned, then we can both abstain, if you'd like."

"I'm not promising that." Violet said beside him.

"Well, we'll refrain for a time, away. So not to ruin your sterling reputation." Veruca continued, barely being disturbed by the interruption.

They were a block away. And the light had finally peeled away to reveal the night underneath. Streetlights hummed and glowed dimly, not having found their brightest point, and cast dim shadows against chain-link fences and the grubby sidewalk. The Buick hadn't turned on its headlights, and yet it loomed behind them like a murderous sun.

If the car tried to overtake them, and the men in it opened fire, Ted would certainly die, and die first at that. But if they waited, it might mean they were going to lie in wait. Ambush them outside of the car. Ted knew he wasn't anywhere near important enough to be their main target. The girls were though.

He could jump out of the car and make a dash for the bar. It would be unlikely they would hunt him down then and there, and ruin a chance at a clean escape. But could he leave the three of them to die while he made a cowardly escape? He was surprised to find his conscience prickle, like a muscle that had been long dormant, forced back into activity.

Their car began to decelerate, moving to a crawl. The pub was just across the road now. The girls each stirred with sudden activity, clamouring with their belts as the car drifted to a final halt. Ted looked out the back and saw the Buick match their movements a block back. They would be there any second.

There was a chance. Ted's mind grasped it frantically as they had only seconds left. He would jump out, swinging open the door and jumping straight at the other car's side as it drove past them. It might surprise them enough for the girls to get out and away, or allow the driver an extra precious second to draw a sidearm (if he had one). All he needed was the right timing. They were half a block behind, and were still crawling forward, a snake in the brush about to strike at its prey.

"You know, it's not as bad as I feared. Alain, I think only two for now." Veruca said, cheerily.

The driver nodded and unrolled his window. Then he stuck out his hand, and stuck up two fingers.

Ted watch, frozen, as the brown Buick rolled past them, stopping another half a block down the same street. Two men briskly exited the car, and ran across the road to entire the pub.

"Don't worry, Mr. Turkentine. They won't be privy to anything we discuss tonight. They'll just be inside as a precaution."

"I guess you can't be too careful these days…" Ted found himself muttering, as his stomach heaved from the lack of disaster that he had expected.

The three exited the car and made their way across the street to The Plague Ship.

While a structure of ancient and dilapidated timbers, tinged with rot might've made for a more fitting building suited to the name, the building was in actuality a sooty, grey brick box, with bottle-green coloured glass on the outside to keep its patrons in perpetual gloom. It looked as uninviting as the day that Ted first found it.

Ted walked ahead of the girls and opened the building's peeling red door in a gesture of curtesy. The two walked past with no acknowledgement, and he followed behind, feeling somewhat spurned.

The interior was what some people might have called rustic. Which was to say that it was made from wood and wasn't particularly well put together. All of the wooden surfaces were smoothed, but Ted expected that was from years of shuffling, standing and otherwise existing, that patrons had done alongside them in the building for decades. There was a thin patina of black on the floorboards, which Ted expected had never been cleaned. Round tables with notched and puckered tops that took up the majority of the floorspace were ringed by flimsy stools. However, along the edge of the building opposite the bar, were a row of booths that were rarely occupied. Ted expected it was because of the splintery boxwood that patrons were expected to sit on was somehow less comfortable than the usual seating.

The girls immediately beelined towards them, walking past the few patrons that were there. A salty trio of old stevedore-types that nursed their beers like newborns, a couple of haggard souls that were counting a pile of odd change on their table, either for food, or another round. And of course, the two blocky men in leather jackets that had been sent in before them, positioned at a table by the doorway with blank, hostile expressions on their face.

Veruca took off her jacket and placed it down onto the seat before she sat. Violet simply sat next to her, looking around the roomed, bemused.

"Do we wait here for someone to come with the menus, or is there a specials board we can look at first?" Veruca asked, hands flinching back into her lap from contact with the sticky table.

"Err. No." Ted responded. "You order at the bar. I'll just get us a few drinks first, though."

"A Manhattan for me." Violet said.

Ted stepped over to the bar and waited for the bartender to serve him. As far as he knew, the building was owned by an old-timer and his wife, and they had a chef, a burly African-American man who was several decades their junior, who lived permanently in one of the rooms upstairs with them. The three had a peculiar domestic arrangement that Ted wasn't able to articulate in his own head, but the pub was very informally run, with each of the three taking whatever role was required of them, more than through any strict hierarchy or division of labour. Today the bar seemed to be run by the woman who partly owned it. She had a strong frame, greying red hair made up in a hive, and a soft, wrinkled face that curdled into sourness at the mildest amount of conflict with a customer. Ted cleared his throat, and attempted to be as pleasant as possible.

"I'll have a Pimms with orange juice and two, um… Cranberry juices as well, please." Ted said, beads of sweat rimming on the top of his collar. "And what meals do you do here again? I'm afraid it's been a while since I ordered here."

The woman's lips pursed as she appraised the question. "We do a meat and we do a side. This week its sloppy joes and a side of baked potato. You want it just for you, or for the table?" She looked over at the booth and saw the two girls sitting together, and then looked at Ted as though he was something diseased.

"Um. The table, please." And like that, half of his pay for the week was gone, put into the hands of the lady, who scowled at him the entire time. He patiently waited for both his change and then the drinks, before he tip-toed carefully back to the booth, not wishing to spill a drop of ay of the drinks that had cost him so dearly.

He arrived to find a conversation between the two already in full motion.

"—None of this would be necessary if you'd extended the olive-branch two years ago. Then we wouldn't have to do all this skulking around." Violet was saying, bitterly.

"No. He's a lost cause to us. He's been under Wonka's thumb for far too long. This is as close as we can get. Now behave or the next time I'm on this side of the pond, I won't call for you. And I do know how much you hate being out of the loop." Veruca said, and Ted could see she was scowling.

Ted coughed loudly as he approached the last few feet of the table. The two girls shifted away from facing one another, and turned to where Ted was about to sit. As he did sit, he carefully placed the glasses down, and pushed each of the cranberry drinks across the table in front of each girl. Violet looked down at it and crinkled her nose at it.

"What is it?"

"Cranberry juice." Ted responded

She pointed over to his own glass. "And what's that?"

"Pimms and Orange Juice."

She sighed. "I was hoping for something a little stronger, but I guess it'll have to do." And she reached across the table to grab it, but was intercepted by a quick slap by Veruca.

"Is this your idea of behaving? I know you're not keen on the idea of berries anymore, but at least you can wait until I get you something." Veruca said to her, resulting in Violet's hand being drawn back to her side.

"I apologise for my friend. We were meant to meet up in New York, but business drew us here. She's rather impatient for us to finish up." Veruca said, sipping her own cranberry juice as she finished speaking.

"I take it I'm that business, then." Ted said. "Or is there a new Salt deshelling factory due to be opened up in the city?"

"No, I don't have anything to do with the company anymore," She had a wan, unhappy look as she said it, but continued. "This is more personal in nature, and you're right to say that you're a part of it."

"You mean about my relationship with Charlie Bucket." Ted said.

"Yes." Veruca said curtly.

Ted glowered back across the table at her. "Well, I'll tell you now, so I don't waste any more of your night for you and your friend. There is no relationship. I'm not special. I'm a teacher who tells children how to do sums and what chemicals will kill you if you drink them. Very few of them learn even those lessons from me."

"You sell yourself short, Mr. Turkentine. By all accounts you're a very able teacher and have made an impression on many of your former pupils." Veruca said with a soft smile.

"And how would you—" He paused. Certain errant thoughts began to float together and become one. "Unless you hired someone. I shouldn't have thought it was a coincidence. Two different parties asking me about Charlie a few days apart, when I haven't been contacted in years. Those two researchers were yours, weren't they?"

Veruca just kept on smiling a soft, smug smile that she had had throughout the conversation.

"We've been funding the Dover Academy of Sciences for years. All it took was a dinner with the head of the department of Social Sciences, where I suggested a novel idea for a study that they could attempt. I've heard in the notes I've received on their progress that the two men leading the project are quite earnest in their enthusiasm for the study."

"The initial plan was for you to work with them voluntarily for some time, and this meeting of ours would be postponed for a future date. But circumstances have occurred which has made this happen much faster." Veruca said, tilting the glass of juice so it almost began to spill, before carefully tilting it to its opposite side.

"And what circumstances are those, exactly?" Ted asked.

"Willy Wonka's death, which, if my information is correct, and it is, will be sometime in the next few days."

The statement stunned Ted. He looked over at the girls to see some hint that it was a trick on their part. Violet seemed bored by the entire conversation happening across from her, and Veruca kept on smiling her unnerving smile.

"You're not going to…" He dropped his voice to a whisper. "…Kill him, are you?"

Both of the girls practically burst with laughter. It took a good ten seconds before they stopped enough for Veruca to take a breath and respond.

"You obviously misunderstand both what I'm capable of and what my intentions are." She said. "Wonka has better protection than you'd imagine. But I'm not interested in the kind of petty revenge that would end in his death." She was no longer smiling, and Ted began to see the marks of subtle frown-lines curl across her face.

"Through the last few years that I've attempted to expose him and his company, there are things that I've discovered that would disgust you and any other person capable of feeling. The lies and the violence that he has used to make his fortune are truly enormous. I don't wish to end his life. I want to end the empire he has erected. For the greater good."

Ted shifted in his seat, irritation prickling underneath his skin. "Some might say that wanting to close down a candy company that gives joy to millions of people, at the request of a feuding millionaire, isn't for the greater good."

"Whoever says that doesn't know the truth of the matter." Veruca said, sombrely. "I have it from the same authority that says that Wonka is dying from natural causes as we speak, that Charlie Bucket is set to inherit everything. They also say that in the past few weeks, when the diagnosis was deemed terminal, that Charlie began looking at people from outside Wonka's influence to help him run things once his mentor has passed on, and that you are placed very highly on that list."

Ted snorted. "I haven't seen the boy in years. Frankly, I'd be astounded if he even remembered me at all."

"My source hasn't been wrong yet." Veruca said, simply.

"Look…" Ted began, waving at the air as if it could banish the parts of the conversation that he didn't want to hear. "Even if all of that were true, what would I do? What could I do, to help you? I mean, do you want me to dump toxic waste in the chocolate? Take secret photographs of these atrocities you claim the company is complicit in?" Ted laughed after said the words. The very idea was surreal.

Veruca sighed and closed her eyes.

"I can't answer that for you. Security is difficult to penetrate, and might even be worse after Wonka dies. I wanted to talk with you now, before you were taken in, and they had a chance to find a point of leverage over you. You might not even see half of what they do behind the scenes. But if you do, you know that there's someone to reach out to now. And if there's a chance in the future that you run into some scandal or distasteful secret that they don't want exposed…We'll find a way to contact you so you can do the right thing."

Ted shook his head sadly. "I… This is all too sudden. I don't even believe half of what you're saying. So far, you've given me no evidence that Wonka is who you say he is. Or that his company is any worse than your own."

Veruca placed both her hands together and looked across the table at Ted. It wasn't a look of superiority or cold calculation, but of the mildest amount of pity. Suddenly, she stood up from her seat.

"Forgive me, but I've had a long day travelling before coming here. I feel the need to visit the rest-room." Without any further explanation, she rose from the table, and walked across the room where a small corridor split between the bathrooms and the kitchens. Ted didn't recall ever going into the bathrooms of The Plague Ship, possibly it was electively from trauma, but he at least had the instinct that any attempt to use the toilets to any degree of functionality would be a long, difficult one.

He stared across the table at Violet. Why was she there with Ted and Veruca? Veruca already had a car full of cronies to defend her. And Violet had yet to add anything intelligent or relevant to their conversation, and had, in fact, derailed it several times. Ted wondered, if Veruca was actually serious about any of the subterfuge and secrecy it at all, or whether it was all a game that she was playing for her own amusement, and that Violet was an accomplice to his manipulation.

"Enjoying the view, you old fart?" Violet said, as she saw him staring at her a little too long.

Ted curled his lip in distaste. He decided to fight her rudeness with a little of his own.

"I was taken with how you don't look the least bit blue."

She gave him a small smile back, and he wondered if she had swallowed the backhanded insult or if she had even detected it was one at all.

"Aww. Thanks. It's a wonder what a few years of skin bleaching and a few hundred dollars in makeup will do to your complexion." Violet said. As she finished, she scraped one of her jet-black painted nails that he had on her left hand, and showed it to him. "Here's something the treatment doesn't quite work on."

He viewed the fingernail from across the table, and he found himself drawing in a breath against his will. The cuticle was a horrific shade of puce, with a faded purple inlaid with veins and blotches of brown and the slightest speckles of black from the polish.

"It was the worst a couple of years after the tour. Things had been pretty stable since then, colour and size-wise, and with thick clothes and a lot of foundation, everything was pretty manageable. I could go to school a few towns away, and hardly anyone would notice who I was. And then…You know what happens when you keep a berry at a warm temperature for a long period of time?"

Ted shook his head. He knew the answer, but he didn't want to

"It starts to rot. Or in my case, ferment." She paused, as the words made her shudder, but she didn't stop speaking.

"First I began to feel it. I'd wake up some mornings a little giddy, and have a little trouble doing things. Dizzy spells, slurred speech, a loss of co-ordination… At first my mom thought that I was drinking… Made me go to a shrink. And when I wasn't getting any better, they took me to rehab. Man, the whole facility just about had stroke trying to figure out how I was sneaking in booze. If it wasn't for Veruca taking an interest… She hired doctors who took my… Problems… seriously, and found out that I was producing my own alcohol on a cellular level. Metabolising sugar and turning it into alcohol. It helps keep the pounds off, but I always have to mind what I eat, or else I'll either get too drunk, or I won't have enough, and shit'll really hit the fan."

To Ted, it sounded ridiculous. Impossible. But he had seen some of the marvels that Wonka had released on the market. Lengthening Liquorice that could stretch out to the length of a football field without losing any structural integrity. Brique-o'-Bracs, the immensely compacted slabs made from twenty different kinds of candy that gave you a different taste with every bite. Jelly Jalopies, that were shaped like little cars, which suddenly exploded with a mouthful of jelly when you bit into them. And the magnificent chocolate that he produced in myriad forms: The way they held their silky consistency no make how much they were cooked, frozen or left outside in the open elements. The fine balance of swelling sweetness and soft bitterness that remained in stalemate with every bite. With everything he made, Wonka seemed to be at the cutting-edge of what was scientifically possible, and while he seemed to market it all with a sense of whimsy, there was the terrible undercurrent that all this could be used to more horrific ends. Like the 50's ads from comic books that expounded the wonderful virtues of radium, but neglected to mention that it made your body turn to soup if you were near it longer than a few minutes.

Here, Violet seemed to be one of those victims of the weird-science that Wonka flaunted, and that Ted usually tried to ignore for his own peace-of-mind. Even with the stories held in Veruca's book, he had brushed them off as exaggerations made up by a child who couldn't comprehend a complicated reality. He had no doubt that the children had been traumatised (though, perhaps that was innocent and unintended on his part), and they felt unappreciated compared to Charlie Bucket. Why wouldn't they feel like exaggerating a little? But the smudged and mottled skin that he was staring at was making him doubt that assertion, making him think that maybe the truth was just as strange and horrifying as it had first been presented.

"That's why you wanted a drink as soon as you got in here." Ted said, suddenly understanding.

"Bingo." Violet said, though she sounded far less satisfied than she had earlier. The conversation seemed to have peeled away the mirth that she wore as a kind of make-up in her interactions. Suddenly, a more morose, serious, scared side of the young woman seemed to have emerged.

"If they had gotten to it earlier, maybe it could have been managed. But there's no point in trying to quit drinking and drag yourself through the shakes, the aches and the nightmares when you could wake up sauced one day for no reason you can figure out." Violet said in a tired tone.

Ted had struggled with alcohol for a time. He used it to cope with loneliness, with boredom and with the sense of failure that clung to his back like something with sharp claws. Sometimes he looked at himself in the mirror after too many drinks, with self-loathing for how he had made it a crutch for living. Now, all those thoughts seemed puny compared to the shame that he felt, confronted with someone put into such a hopeless situation that wasn't her doing.

He put a hand over across the table and gave her hand a brief, but tended pat.

"I'm sorry." He said, unable to come up with anything else that could evoke a solace and sympathy that he knew she deserved.

"It's okay." She said, and he could tell she had heard it all the pitying replies and apologies before, but that she didn't hold it against him.

"Could've been worse. Could've been Mike."

He remembered that he had passed only recently. "Were the two of you… close?"

Violet seemed to consider it for a while.

"I don't know. He was easier to talk to whenever Vee was overseas, but he couldn't travel. But I called a few times a year. Visited a couple of times. I didn't know hm before the tour, but you have no idea how much it… Broke him. And not just physically. From what I saw of him before it all, he was this… Firecracker that exploded at you right in your face. Then, seeing him in bed, strung out on pain-killers, struggling to move his limbs at he got older… He always tried to smile and crack a joke, but you could tell underneath that he wanted to scream." She stopped talking, as though she had hit a mental wall.

"You and Veruca are close though." Ted said, shifting the conversation to something more relevant.

"Yeah, well. She comes over here every few months for a couple of weeks. She's busy for a lot of it, but she shares whatever free-time she can between her own work and my job. I'm glad for it. I really am."

And Ted could see the earnestness in that statement. He decided to press on a bit, and try and figure out a bit more about his prospective… Patron? Employer? Manipulator?

"Do you think she gets anything out of her relationship with you?" He said, deciding to be frank.

Violet looked torn, as if she were weighing things u in her head that she hadn't spoken out loud before.

"Look. When I was twelve or thirteen and she called me up out of the blue telling me that she wanted to get in touch with the three others… I thought that Veruca was using us to get revenge for what Wonka did to her. And I thought so little of her, considering how little her trip into the garbage was compared to me. But how could I refuse to help, considering what happened to me and the other two, and all of our parents, who had to help hold us together? How else were we supposed to get even? To get justice?"

Her brow wrinkled with thought. "And she still is. I still am too. But I've also seen behind what drives her. Did you know that her father has barely spoken to her since the tour? That he only gave her money for her campaign against Wonka because it was hurting his business? And then when it started to cost too much, the other board members forced him to cut her out of anything to do with the business, and he didn't protest a word against it. That's what's been taken from her. Her future. Her dad's love for her. And she's still going. And do you know why?

"Because she's changed. Maybe she wasn't broken enough by Wonka, but she's used all of her rage that she feels about the unfairness and injustice that she's seen and experienced, the stuff that goes into making sure chocolate gets to the customer… She's used it to build something better. She really believes that without Wonka, the world can be a better place, no matter what anyone else says. And I'm in her corner to back her up."

Ted sat across the table, mildly stunned by the young woman's speech. It was genuine. The words stumbled out of Violet's mouth with the tremor of unrehearsed sincerity. For a moment, he felt his feelings lurch in sympathy with her and Veruca's aims, but before he could convince himself, he was struck with a cold shard of cynicism. This was why Veruca had brought Violet along. To give a human face to the suffering, as well as to personalize herself with the opinion of someone close to her. He was still touched by Violet's story, but he erected a small barrier in his own mind, wary that nothing could be taken as wholly innocent, or free from suspicion.

Regardless of what he was thinking, he still clutched her hand. He took it away quickly, brought up his (thankfully clean) handkerchief from his front pocket and wiped the rim of his drink, hardly sipped at, before he slid it over the table towards her.

"Here. I'm sorry I didn't get you anything before."

She pushed it back towards him quickly, shaking her head.

"Don't worry about it. My own fault for not bringing my flask. I only left it because Vee promised a big night out. I can wait a few minutes."

Ted was about to ask her if she wanted him to get something from the bar for her, when Veruca suddenly returned, almost diving back into her seat beside Violet. She smiled across the table at Ted, causing him to shift back into his seat defensively.

"Sorry for the wait. I decided to alter some of the orders while I was up."

Ted was once again cut from asking a question, as the landlady suddenly appeared by the table holding two large cocktail glasses, one filled with a pale yellow liquid as thick and opaque as custard, and another with a bloody amber coloured fluid holding a shrivelled maraschino cherry, which was floating in the middle.

"Here you are miss. I hope everything is to your satisfaction. Ah, anything else for the table, maybe for the gentleman?" The woman practically simpered in deference to Veruca. Ted could see shivers of excitement travelling through the landlady's wobbly body.

"I'm still finishing mine. Thank you." Ted replied.

"That will be all for now. But thank you for your hospitality." Veruca said, her words purring with absolute satisfaction at her status. The landlady bobbed away from the table, and Ted swore he saw her make a small curtsey on the way back around the corner.

"A Snowball with extra advocaat for you Violet, and a Cosmopolitan for myself." Veruca said, pushing the glass with the yellow liquid to her friend, and sipping at her own cocktail, swishing a small amount in her mouth and blanching at the flavour, before going back for another sip.

Ted knew better than to ask if she should be drinking. Or how much she'd spent buttering up the owners and making a fuss. He wanted to admit that he found the fuss embarrassing, and he liked The Plague Ship (even though it had been a while since he'd been there) because it was casual, and that he could drink all night without feeling like he was getting in anyone's way. He knew that he would have the awkward reputation of being seen sitting with two cashed up teenagers who ordered cocktails and ordered off the menu. He'd never again have the comforting identity as one of those faces that blended in, and was at best idly remembered from long ago. Instead, he decided to pull his discomfort under the surface, and needle his host a little.

"I hope they opened a new jar of cherries for you. I remember hearing in a conversation last time I was here that they've had the one on the bar's shelf since the Kennedy assassination." He said, taking a large sip of his own drink. He watched as Veruca delicately spit out her mouthful back into the glass, and put her cocktail back into the table. "I suppose that's what I deserve for tipping ahead."

Violet however, had drained her glass already, and had already banged it down on the table as if it were a stein instead of a glass. Her hand drew over the table towards Veruca's abandoned cocktail, and without a word dragged it over towards herself.

"So, where were we? You were wondering about whether you could trust my intentions. Whether what I was doing was good and pure." Veruca said.

"Something along those lines." Ted responded.

"Well, I can't confess that they are." The young woman said, surprising Ted with her forthrightness. "I want to see Wonka's works destroyed, and his legacy atomised. Some might think it brutal, and grotesquely petty. And I will admit… It is. But it isn't just me that Wonka has harmed, Mr. Turkentine. It isn't even just a few children that he bullied and whose lives were destroyed. The joy that he has brought to some lives has had a terrible, bloody cost for the rest of the world. And seeing it, I would rather it didn't exist.

"You have a choice to right the wrong in front of you, like the rest of us, Mr. Turkentine. And sometimes that might require you to make a choice between allying with a lesser evil. That doesn't make you a monster."

Ted was about to reply when the landlord came striding towards the table with two armfuls of plates, practically dropping them on the tabletop in front of them.

"Jacket potatoes, cornbread, steak cut fries, fresh gravy and pan seared pork-chops, medium-rare. Was that all, Ma'am?" He said, practically huffing from exhaustion from the speed he had ran to the table with.

"Ah, if you would be so helpful to pour us another two cosmopolitans. Without any cherries this time, please." Veruca said icily.

"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am." The landlord said as he backed into an empty table behind him as he made his way back to the bar.

Ted eyed the food that had come suspiciously quickly, but couldn't find any visual fault in it. Perhaps they were cooking up a dinner for themselves when Veruca had meddled with the original order. Ted decided no good would come of questioning it, and decided to tuck into his plate as quickly as he could, scavenging fries and savaging the potato and gravy. He didn't touch the steak though. He didn't want to touch anything made of meat that came from the kitchen without it being burnt black first.

"If I were to, hypothetically, want to get in touch with you after I was, again hypothetically, employed in the near future, how would I? And could I get help if I needed?" He asked between mouthfuls, keeping his eyes down on his plate.

"Hypothetically, there would be a drop, hidden under a rock in Wonka's pleasure-garden, next to the stairs which hasn't been touched, despite various remodels. Hypothetically, all you would need to do is lift it, and underneath would be a golden egg. It's hollow, and you would put any correspondences, pictures or the like in there. Or even a short note requesting contact, if you needed it."

"Hypothetically." Ted added onto the end of her sentence.

"Of course. And, if the writing was in a different hand, of if the drop was being watched, you wouldn't hear a thing from my contact. So, it would, hypothetically, need your complete discretion and powers of subtlety."

Ted nodded as he scoffed down his food. He raised his eyes, and saw Veruca eyeing him pitifully for his eating habits, but she seemed to turn a blind eye to Violet beside her, who was attacking her food just as desperately.

"Would I be in any danger if they found out I was helping you?" Ted asked, skewering his fork into a potato.

"Yes." Veruca said. "They would probably kill you."

Ted also nodded to that as he chewed.

"Alright." He replied. "We'll see what happens."

He enjoyed the rest of his meal in silence, occasionally sipping from his glass. Violet cut chunks of her steak into manageable cubes before popping them in her mouth, one after another. Veruca dipped her fries in the gravy, but ate little.

"Any plans for later?" He asked, trying to make some small-talk.

"Well, this is supposed to be a night of celebration. Violet suggested we go to a nightclub and enjoy one of those new, avantgarde types of music that they're making, what were they calling it, again, Vi?"

"Industrial." Violet replied with a mouth full of fries. "Wanna come?" She said, looking at Ted.

He knew it was a question that didn't require a serious answer, and the three of them all began to laugh at once. Ted put down his cutlery and wiped his mouth with his pocket-square.

"I think I've heard enough to understand what you want, Ms. Salt." He said to Veruca, rising from the table. "But I think its time I went home. I have a lot to think about, and I can't do much of that chaperoning two young women."

Veruca stayed seated, but her eyes fluttered over him, trying to piece together his final thoughts. There was a chance it would be the last time they would see one another, regardless of what he decided later on, and it was important that she was able to measure him up. He did his best to remain stone-faced and unreadable. "Best of luck to you in your future endeavours, Mr. Turkentine. Whatever you might choose." She stated.

"It was a pleasure to meet the two of you. Goodnight." He said, flashing a glance towards Violet. There was a touch of disappointment on her features, though he wasn't sure if it was from genuine fondness, or from the loss of a plaything so newly acquired. He rose, and turned away from the two.

As he walked out towards the front, he saw the Chef, a few smudges of gravy on the corners of his bright apron, holding onto the landlady, and the Landlord pouring three flutes of sparkling wine, while the tip jar on the counter held a roll of notes in it.

He walked several blocks before he managed to hail down a cab, and he stammered through the best route to take to get him home. He eyed the cab driver suspiciously, wondering if he was somehow another agent hired by Veruca, or Wonka, or whoever was supposed to be watching him. But the cabbie caught him staring, and gave Ted a bug-eyed look of contempt, before turning his head towards the road with a look of disgust. Ted figured he was probably on the up-and-up.

As he got out of the cab, he felt an enormous weight of sadness on him. He had started to believe in the impossible. That something drastic and dramatic and, most of all, important, was finally going to happen in his life. Something he had waited for all throughout his childhood, adolescence, and even an embarrassingly long amount of his adulthood. The yearning for his actions to make a difference, and for him to be part of the wider world in a way that displaced his feelings of inadequacy.

But now, it came with a cost. He was part of an ongoing drama that he felt no particular investment in. Even the thought of Charlie Bucket actually remembering him and wanting to bring him into the fold, to give him a chance to invent and oversea Wonka's business with him, felt disarmingly odd. What had he done to earn that level of trust? Nothing. No more than any other child he had taught over the years.

But the worst part of all was the feeling of betrayal. Not of betrayal that he had done yet, but of the betrayal he would inevitably have to commit. Looking at Violet, and hearing of Veruca's own personal sacrifices that she hadn't divulged to him had made him more sympathetic to their experiences, and he felt the righteousness in their quest for satisfaction over Wonka was a just one. But then he thought of the countless kids in his classrooms that had been enchanted by the candy that Wonka made over the years, even if it rotted their teeth and took their money, it brightened their lives immensely, especially for those who had little else in their lives to look forward to. And what if (or when, as circumstances seemed to be pointing towards) he met Charlie Bucket again, would he look into his eyes and see the poor boy that he had once known, and work to take away his dreams from behind his back?

And there was the gut-feeling that somewhere up ahead in the future that he would have to betray himself and his own morals in order to order to try and uphold them.

He fretted as he walked up from the stairwell to his front door, and lifted his key up to the lock. Before he did though, he saw that his door was open a crack, less than half an inch. He found himself mentally checking if he had run out of the door without closing up properly. He could never recall ever doing it before, but maybe there was a first time for everything. Then he chided himself for wishful thinking.

He opened the door.

Inside, the apartment was gloomy, with the hallway and kitchen light's off, but he saw at the living room that the lamp that was normally buried in an avalanche of papers that he had put off grading indefinitely, was on, and three a strangled light across the whole inside. He also saw another source of light, and he realised it was the television, occasionally blaring with light before dimming to almost complete darkness. He definitely hadn't left them on.

He reached over by the door and grabbed the closest thing he could think to use of as a weapon, his umbrella, which he brought up high above his head. He gave a gentle cough before raising his voice enough to reach every corner of his apartment.

"Whoever it is, come out now with your hands up! I've got a gun. Two guns, actually. And there's a bunch of policemen downstairs who know I'm up here, so you'd better give yourself up now!" Ted did everything he could to keep the tremor in his body from being apparent in his voice.

He saw what he thought was a shadow begin to shift across the armchair that he normally had placed in from of the television, when he did a doubletake and found it wasn't a shadow, but a parson in a black coat and hat, who seemed to have blended in perfectly to the darkness being thrown across the room. He rose slowly, and to Ted's surprise, gave a small wave.

"Ah, Mr. Turkentine, You're back. I was wondering when your meeting with Ms. Salt would be over."

He approached, and Ted thought the face must belong to Death itself. The skin was gaunt, stretched over a deeply protruding skull. The eyes were pale, yet keen, hidden behind a small pair of wire-rimmed glasses. It was the cold, terrifying face of what Ted imagined an assassin would be.

Ted raised the umbrella far above his head and heard it scratch the top of his ceiling, as the man approached with his hand outstretched. He looked up at the accessory in Ted's hands and looked back at Ted's face inquiringly.

"I was hoping you'd be a bit more relaxed from your time at your bar though. Would you like a seat? I brought a bottle of something if you'd like it." He walked around Ted, who had frozen in place, and made his way over to the kitchen. There was a rattle of glasses, and he heard his refrigerator being opened. About twenty seconds later, the man came over holding two glasses full of a brown liquid. He offered one to Ted, who, his arms getting tired, decided to lower his umbrella, accepted it with a free hand.

He sniffed at it while the man went back over to the television staring into the screen intently like a fortune teller staring into a crystal ball.

"Are you here to kill me?" Ted asked.

The man looked at him with a look that was familiar to Ted, of that of a teacher trying to tell something to a very slow student.

"I wouldn't have poured you a glass, if I was. A thirty-year single malt, in case you were wondering." Then he turned his attention back towards the television screen.

Ted finally felt that he could move. He walked into the lounge.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" Ted tried to say it in a demanding tone, but the words came out in barely more than a whisper.

The man turned to him and gave a look of subtle satisfaction, almost proud that Ted had finally arrived to the point.

"Mr. Turkentine. You can call me Mr. Wilkinson. And I am here because events have proceeded on a course where I had to meet with you tonight. There are things that you need to know. About me, and my relationship with Willy Wonka."

Ted flinched as he found the intense eyes gaze into his own, and he turned to glance at the television as a way of reprieve. On the screen however, a reporter was fixed at a desk, grimly reading from a sheet of paper, and on a banner at the bottom of the screen, Ted could read a sentence: WILLY WONKA, DEAD AT 61.