26

Sunday, Monday.

"Evil... Power... Stop me... Rue the day you ever..." A Lancashire accent puncturing holes in the darkness.
"Number 1?"
"Oh what is it now, Number 2? I've told you never to interrupt me when I'm ranting!"
"The one called Dredly is coming round."
"Ah, finally! Wake him up."
There was a slap of sharp pain to Dredly’s right cheek and the fog parted, focusing into brightness, then shapes solidifying... There was a large, brightly lit room with a white marble floor, inlaid with black marble diamond patterns. No windows. To his right was a glass topped dining table with chrome legs and uncomfortable looking chrome chairs around it. Someone was clearly trying to make an interior design statement! In the wall opposite him an open door led down a long white passageway. There was a faint whiff of disinfectant. To his left... The gnome! Dredly made a vain effort to move, then slumped back. He was manacled by the arms and legs to the chair. Another haircut? The gnome looked pleased with itself.
"You bastard! I'll kill you!" Dredly spat.
"Oh you can't blame him, Mr. Dredly. He was only following orders." Said a high voice with the Lancashire accent and a dollop of smugness.
Dredly looked past the gnome. Sage and Greta! They were strapped into chairs just like him, and beyond them... Half a dozen steps led up to a dais upon which were two ornately carved, but ultimately rather tacky looking, golden thrones. The sort of thing Posh and Becks had at their wedding. Seated upon them like Royalty were a man and a woman. They rose and Dredly was immediately struck by the fact that they looked like partners in a magic act. The man was of medium height and had thin angular features, ferrety eyes and a beaky nose. He was dressed in a purple suit with a tailed jacket, spangled with rhinestones. The jacket shoulders were wide and sharp - clearly built up. The woman next to him was dressed in a black basque with black fishnet tights and six inch stilettos, with a black cloak fastened at her neck with a gold chain. Her breasts were fulsome, but she had vacant looking eyes and a moon face. Her blonde hair was stacked and perched on its top was a ridiculous tiara. Dredly cast his gaze back to the man. He had a cruel mouth.

"I am the man you should be cursing, Mr. Dredly." He said, his voice rising on the word 'I' for emphasis. Who was this silly sounding man? He and the woman started down the steps. His eyes were firmly fixed on Dredly:
"I am The Fabulous Fernaaaaaaa...!" His cry ended in a 'whumph' as he miscued a step and plunged headlong to the floor.

"Colin, are you all right?" The woman exclaimed, rushing down to help him.
"You stupid woman!" He shouted, pushing away her helping hands. "How many times do I have to tell you not to use Mr. Sheen on the steps?"
"But when they're dirty..."
"I'd rather have them dirty than a bloody death-trap! Now I've lost all me gravitas."
"Sounds nasty." Sage observed.
"And you can shut up for a start!" He got up and started limping towards them, "Now, where was I...?"
"Kind of sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, for sure." Greta was trying to be helpful, but she was cursed for it.
"Shut up! God! Of all the kidnap victims we could've got, why did you send us lippy ones?" The magician paused, looking as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders, sighed and then continued, "I am..."
"The Fabulous Fernaaaaaa?" Dredly interjected.
"It's just Fernando, actually."
"Or Colin." Sage added.
"Don't call me Colin." Fernando snapped testily.
"All right... 'Col' it is, then."
"No!" The Fabulous Fernando reddened and spluttered with impotent rage. "Number 2 - menace them so they shut up for a minute!"

The gnome closed in on them, its German accent thick with menace.

"You have all seen what I did to Mr. Dredly's hair, ja? Well be warned, I can do the same - Und more! - to the hair on other, more intimate parts of the body. Keep quiet and listen to Number 1."
Sage, Dredly and Greta became very silent.

"Oooh, that was menacing!" Fernando was beaming, "Well done Number 2!" He looked at the cowed prisoners and gave them a cheesy grin. "Now that I have your attention, perhaps I can tell you why you are here..."
Finally! Sage sat up and took notice. He'd been racking his brains trying to work it out since their adventure had started, so now it had got to some of the whys and wherefores he didn't want to miss any of it.
"Six months ago, you had a very lucky day. You won the Lottery..."
Dredly remembered it well - the wine, the women, the overpriced cab home...
"...And it was a big win - quadruple rollover. And you only had to share it with one other person. Do you know who that person was? Can you guess?"
"Perry Como?" Sage ventured.
"No, you dolt! It was me, bloody me! And you ruined my plans. I rigged the draw. Thirty seconds before the ticket sale deadline, I checked out all the possible lines of numbers that hadn't been chosen and picked one as my own. Then I got the machine to come out with those numbers. Imagine my annoyance when I found that with ten seconds to go, and unbeknownst to me, two people chose the very same numbers..."
"Us." Dredly spoke coldly. As professional gamblers, he and Sage looked very badly on cheats, but at least the mysterious jigsaw was falling into place.
"Yes, you. My dreams of wealth were shattered."
"But you still won 16.66 million pounds. Isn't that enough?" Sage exclaimed.
"Evil schemes are very costly. If you knew the size of the mortgage on this facility..."
"Trouble meeting the monthly payments?" Dredly asked.
"Oh we get by - Pauline's got a second job down the supermarket... But anyway, that's all beside the point."
"Which is?" This was the bit Sage had been waiting for.
"I want my money."
Sage was incredulous. "You mean you dragged us all the way from London to Montana just so we could tell you how to claim your Lottery money? Are you terminally daft? Didn't you read the back of the ticket? All the details are there. Some people really are divots..."
"No, I think he's already got that money. What he wants is the money we won." Dredly explained.
"Your friend is not as dumb as you look." Fernando said to Sage. "I want you to sign over your Lottery winnings to me. After all, I cheated them fair and square."
"But we're never going to do that." Dredly countered, "It's obvious that you're going to get rid of us as soon as we do. We'd be signing our own death warrants."
Pauline giggled. It was girlish, as if she'd just been told a rude joke behind the bike sheds.
"That's just what you said they'd say." She laughed.
"Aye. That's because I'm an evil genius, Pauline. And since I knew that would be your reaction, gentlemen, I have planned something suitably evil and veritably dripping with genius." Fernando looked pleased with himself and his eyes glazed as he launched into the explanation of his master plan.
"You will be given a special cocktail of drugs which will leave your personalities malleable and easy to re-educate. We will then start an extensive brainwashing programme, which will turn you into new people. Halfway through the process, you will be asked to sign a petition. You'll want to sign it, because it will be calling for the building of ice cream vending machines on every street corner in the United States. You will then sign the petition which, of course, will really be a legal document transferring all of your money to me. Then you will finish your re-education and you will be released to lead the rest of your lives as middle managers right here in Billings. Now that's evil!"
"Good Christ! We've got to get out of here!" Sage screamed. It was all too much! Better to die trying to escape than face that living hell. He struggled frantically with his bonds.
"Struggling is futile!" Shouted the gnome, "You do not want to find out what I can do with this!" The vile, ruddy faced demon pulled an aubergine and threatened Sage with it. Sage calmed.
"So you hatched this plot just to get our money?" Dredly asked.
"Yes."
"Seems like a fair enough reason." Dredly admitted. "But what about my shoes?"
"Ah, the squeaky brogues. Clever, yes? They were the bait. You see, while you were celebrating your Lottery win, I was planning, looking for your weaknesses..."
"Drinking our milk!"
"Not personally. I ordered it to be drunk."
"And my Grateful Dead video - you taped over it with Eastenders?" Sage demanded.
"Aye."
Greta could not bear the sacrilege - which just showed how deeply she felt about it, because as a bear she could bear most things... Often while grinning about them. But this was too much.
"You fiend!" She hissed.
"Oh you're too kind!" Fernando was loving every minute of it. He was warming to his new friends. It was almost a pity that they were merely pawns in his game and that they would soon be turned into dribbling idiots.
"After a couple of months of observing your movements I discovered Mr. Dredly's love of brogues. The rest you know. Everything has happened according to my plan. All your adventures, all those tight scrapes, they merely served to soften you up, jangle your nerves so that the re-education would be a success."
"The moustache was one of your agents?"
"Indeed, though it did overstep the mark. It can be very difficult finding good hirsute help these days... But now I think it only fair to return these brogues to their rightful owner. Signor Caracciolo!" Fernando snapped his fingers and a thin old man appeared in the open doorway.
"Release his feet."

The man walked quickly and quietly across the floor, carrying a small tool kit. He knelt before Dredly and started to work. They watched in fascination as his wrinkled, liver-spotted hands set to their task. Yes, he was old, but his experience of foul footwear was clearly very great. Within a minute there was a distinct 'click', then another. Dredly let out a long sigh. What a relief! The tightness was gone, all discomfort melting away.
"Oh that is bliss!" He gasped. "Who needs the help of the Shoe Whisperer when there's a man like this around!"
Fernando laughed.
"What's so funny?" Sage demanded.
"Your friend there. Still looking for his precious Shoe Whisperer when the man is kneeling right in front of him."
"You are the Shoe Whisperer?" Dredly's words were hushed with awe.
The old man looked up at him with a glint in his eye. "Si. It's the best money-making scam I've got." Said the old man in sing-song Italian English.
"I a-rig a supply of expensive shoes so that they're difficult to break in, then a-contact the dumb bastardos who've bought them and can't get them off their feet. I claim I am a-the Shoe Whisperer and that I felt their footwear calling to me. I a-tell them that I can break in their footwear, then arrange a meeting with them in some suitably remote and mysteriously rugged location, do an Oscar-Winning performance whispering to the shoes and collect a packet of moneys. It a-work like the charm, si?"
Dredly felt deflated, like the day he had been told that Santa didn't exist. He had really wanted to believe in the Shoe Whisperer, in the fact that there was a man with a magical power over stubborn brogues, but now... Now he knew the truth. It was all a tawdry 'scam' without romance, without poetry, without a mysteriously rugged location.
"They are comfortable now, yes?" The old Mafia shoemaker asked, his accent thick with Florentine tones.
"Yes." Dredly no longer cared.
"Is top quality leather. The best. So soft! Que bella!"
"They can't be that good - they squeak." Sage pointed out.
The Italian laughed. "That is not the leather - see?"
And with that he depressed a point on each of the heels. The backs of the heels flipped open and two white mice scurried into Caracciolo's waiting hands.

"Mice?" Sage was amazed.
"Si. They were unconscious when I inserted them into the hollow heels. Then, after he bought the shoes, they awakened. Each time he put a-pressure on the heel, they were squeezed and they squeaked in annoyance and a-pain. Inside the hollow heels there was water and sunflower seeds enough for their survival. Now they have done their job I can give them back to my grandson."
"You did that to your grandson's pets?" Sage was horrified.
"Ha! He helped me fit them. One day he will take over as the world's leading maker of fatal footwear." His voice swelled with pride.
"Man, these guys are all psychos!" Greta was deeply disturbed by the proceedings.
"You poor fool!" Said Fernando, turning to Greta. "I almost feel sorry for you. You are innocent and yet you will pay along with your friends."
"You want the £97 I've got in my Building Society?"
"No, I mean you're going to pay by being turned into a middle manager... Although 97 quid would get us a slap up meal after all this is over, so I'll take it. Ta."
"Bummer!" Greta rued opening her big mouth.
"Now, I think that's enough of the pleasantries..."
"You call this pleasant?" Asked Sage.
"Well he is a very nasty man." Pauline replied.
"Yes..." Said Fernando, pulling a gas mask from his voluminous back pocket. Pauline, the gnome and Caracciolo followed his lead and put on their masks. Sage looked questioningly at Dredly. Dredly shrugged.
"These are for our safety." Fernando explained as he prepared to put his mask on. "Your feet have been locked into those shoes for many days and you've been running around a lot. When Signor Caracciolo takes them off, the stench will be quite overpowering. It's a sweet irony. You will be knocked unconscious by your own cheesy feet."
"You're not a very nice man!" Sage shouted.
"Signor Caracciolo, if you would do the honours." Fernando pulled on his mask and Caracciolo went to work. Dredly squirmed in his chair. Sage and Greta stared in fear at his feet. The first shoe came off with a 'schlop'.
"No! No!" Dredly cried at the vicious assault on his nasal passages. The other shoe was being pulled off. Everything was Stilton. Sage's voice rose out of the growing mist:
"Why didn't you get odour eaters...?"

Can the smell of Dredly's feet be any cheesier than some of our jokes? And will this foot-orientated chapter gain us a new following with online foot fetishists?

Find out in the next rather fetid chapter...