No Contest

The champion shook his head. “No. But it is my dream to be an Extreme Nuggets champion. I eat them every day. It gives me the extreme nutrition I need—”

“Can it. You must be awfully proud how you came from behind and proved everybody wrong.”

For the first time the champion sat up straighter “Yes, sir, I sure am.”

They prepared to depart, and Remo was instructed to tote five of Chiun’s six trunks to the rental car. Chiun took the black lacquered trunk, the one that hissed, and went for a walk. Remo came back to an empty tent, but Chiun arrived minutes later and placed the trunk on the grass. “You may bring this now.”

Remo dutifully placed the black box on his shoulder The chest was still hissing, but far less than it had all morning. Remo did not allow himself to notice. Chiun’s chests were Chiun’s business.

Quimby Summy was in a beautiful daydream. His life was starting fresh. He had become a wealthy man in just seventy-two hours.

How wealthy? He wasn’t exactly sure yet. He spent somewhere around twenty-eight thousand dollars, Australian, to rent a truckload of tents and army cots. Another couple thousand for wages because he sure as shinola wasn’t gonna put up all them tents himself. But the latrine shacks, them he did put together all by himself. And that was just about the end-all of his expenses, which came out to about thirty grand, Aussie dollars, maybe twenty-five grand in American dollars. Now, you add to that the rents he’d collected. Fifty bronze packages at eight hundred dollars. Fifty silver packages at nine hundred. A whopping 150 gold packages at one thou apiece. Them cheap packages were just for show, and they made the math get all tough to figure.

Take out some for the credit-card fees, them bloodsucking leeches. Add a lot more for the little extras that were in high demand. Ma’s vegemite pitas had sold for five bucks each, and he figured his expenses on them were less than twenty-five cents. And he didn’t have to pay his ma a wage. Drinking water was three dollars a bottle compared to ten cents each it cost him. It made him feel like a real businessman to weigh his costs and his income and come up with profits. Made it easy that there wasn’t no wastage. He sold out every damn thing by the second day. Toilet paper—now that’s where he really cleaned up. He brought in two pallets for a couple hundred bucks and sold them off at two dollars a roll on the first day, five dollars each the second day, and then he auctioned off the eight remaining rolls this morning.

Hell, he couldn’t figure it out! It was too damned mathematical. Didn’t matter anyway, cause he knew it was more than he’d ever dreamed of.

He gave a hearty welcome to the pair of stupid American tourists who entered the tent that served as the Jaiboru Junction information-and-tourism bureau and the business office of Quimby Summy Enterprises.

“G’day! Nice day.”

“I guess,” said the morose American, carefully resting a lacquered black chest on the grassy floor of the tent. The small Asian stood next to the chest, expressionless as if he were in his own world. Maybe he was deaf. “I need to talk to you about your guests.”

“What about them?” Summy asked, not really caring.

“Who got here before the competition started—anybody?”

Summy shrugged. “Sure. We had people here a week ago. The Extreme Network people, they arranged to board in Susie’s attic above the tavern, and the athletes stayed with the families in town. Everybody else stayed right here, with me.”

“You seem very proud.”

“Provided a valuable service.” Summy beamed.

“Tell me about the early arrivals. Who were they?”

Summy stroked his chin. “Mostly sportswriters. The network let in writers from all over the world. Free advertising for the network, isn’t it? Photographers, too, you know, but no video takers.”

“Very savvy. Who else?”

“Some tourists came early. One big bunch of Americans got here three days early to scout the track out Told everybody they were just tourists, but a guy from the network says they’re wagerin’ consultants. They sell their bettin’ advice on any kind of competition. The network don’t officially, you know, condone bettin’ on their events.”

The American seemed interested, and Summy realized too late that he was giving away information that he should have been selling, but what the hell. He was rich. He told the American where to find the wagering consultants.

“By the way,” the American asked before he left, “anybody complain about snakes in their tents?”

Summy tilted his greasy head. “What’s that?”

“You know, the guarantee?” The American tapped the sign on the tent wall detailing the money-back guarantee of a stay free of venomous snakes. “Anybody ask for their money back?”