At San Francisco International Airport, Pete and Jupe rented a car and drove an hour north to Petaluma. They had no trouble finding Big Barney’s ranch. It was well marked and well known to everyone in town.

The ranch itself looked more like an automobile factory than a chicken farm. There were two huge cinder block buildings, each two stories high and about as long as a football field. Surrounding them was a chain-link fence.

Pete and Jupe stood outside the fence for a moment and stared. Maybe because it was Saturday, no one was around. So the guys opened the gate and walked fifty yards to the first building. A quick check to see if anyone was watching — then they sneaked inside.

They couldn’t believe their eyes — or their ears. Inside they saw not hundreds of chickens, but hundreds of thousands of them in a well-lighted space. The noise was incredible. Light poured in through a green-house-style glass roof, but air conditioning kept the temperature down.

Jupe and Pete grabbed two Chicken Coop visors that were hanging on a peg by the doorway. They put them on so they’d look like employees and started to snoop around.

The first thing they found out was that it was very difficult for human beings to move in this building. Besides the countless chickens, there were long red plastic pipes mounted a few inches from the floor — and they were everywhere. The pipes ran the entire length of the building, like long, low hurdles. Pete and Jupe had to step over them to walk around. These were feeding pipes, with small red plastic bowls attached every eighteen inches. There were also water pipes, with small purple nozzles for the birds to drink from. The entire process of chicken raising was automated, which was why no people were around.

The birds were grouped into long sections according to age, from little purple fuzzy chicks up to fat, full grown, bright-plumed birds. Pete and Jupe walked from section to section.

“Why do some of them look so strange?” Pete asked. “Look at that guy — he’s got the weirdest little wings I’ve ever seen.”

“Genetic engineering,” Jupe said. “A process of planned nutrition and selective breeding so that desirable physical and biological traits become dominant. Some are bred so their wings are big and some so they have big breasts to produce a lot of white meat. That’s why that one looks top-heavy, like it’s going to fall over.”

Suddenly Jupe and Pete saw they were not the only humans in the building. Three men had entered and were looking around. They were standing where Jupe and Pete had come in, among the smallest chicks.

“Quick,” Jupe said. “Look busy.”

“There’s nothing to do,” Pete said. “Everything’s done by machine.”

“Then hide!”

Jupe and Pete ducked down behind a partition that separated one breed of chickens from another. It was a low partition, and they could see over the top of it to watch and eavesdrop on the men who had come in. But the chickens were crowding around them, pecking at their legs.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Jupe said, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. “Every time I see the white ones, I remember that package we got last night.”

But just then the three men moved closer to the guys. One of them wore a red plaid shirt and khaki pants. His white cap, with the Chicken Coop emblem on it, said Hank in big red letters. The other two men looked totally out of place. They wore dark blue suits, and one had mirrored aviator sunglasses. He was young, with short dark hair. When he removed his sunglasses, his blue eyes were like the flames of a blowtorch.

Then Jupe heard Hank say, “Anything else I can show you, Mr. Argenti?”

Michael Argenti? This was one conversation Jupe had to hear!

Michael Argenti looked right through Hank and talked only to the other blue-suited man. “I’ve seen enough,” he said in a dissatisfied tone of voice. “Make some notes and write up a memo. I’m going to have to make some real changes around here. I can see that.”

“Yes, Mr. Argenti,” said the eager assistant, digging out a pen and small notebook from his jacket pocket.

Michael Argenti put his mirrored sunglasses back on and looked at Hank. “What’s your output?”

“From hatched egg to slaughter in nine weeks,” Hank said. “We get fifty thousand full grown about every week.”

“Not enough. The population’s got to be doubled,” Michael Argenti said.

The assistant wrote that down.

“Big Barney doesn’t like the birds too crowded,” said Hank.

“This isn’t a rest home for chickens,” said Michael Argenti with a nasty smile. “It’s a factory. The more units we turn out, the more money we make. At Roast Roost we get mature birds in seven weeks. You’re going to have to be that good, too.”

Michael Argenti looked around the plant again, shaking his head. Then he bent down and took a handful of grain out of one of the feeding bowls. Little chicks pecked at it in his open palm. Michael Argenti looked back at Hank. “The feed’s gotta change, too. But I’ll take care of that personally,” he said. “I’ve got something special in mind.”

By that time, the assistant had the door to the outside standing open. Michael Argenti walked through it and climbed into a stretch Mercedes limo without breaking his stride. As the car drove off Jupe read its license plate.

It said PLUCKER-1.

“Well, Michael Argenti was everything I expected him to be,” Jupe said to Pete as they drove south, heading back toward San Francisco. “A brash, arrogant, ruthless, self-important business animal.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Pete said. “But you left out the word ‘jerk.’ ”

They rode in silence for a while, but around 7:00 p.m., when they were just a few miles outside of the city, Jupe suddenly yelled at Pete, “Pull over”

“What’s wrong?” Pete asked as he steered their small rented car onto the highway off-ramp. Then Pete saw the sign. It was a tall painted chicken with a flashing neon crown, perched on the purple barn roof of a Chicken Coop restaurant. “What happened to a melon a day keeps the pounds away?” Pete asked.

“There have been a number of scientific studies lately which have hypothesized that foods rich in saturated fats may actually be beneficial to people,” Jupe said.

“That’s barn crud and you know it,” Pete said. “But so is your melon diet. So let’s eat!”

Pete parked the car and caught up with Jupe, who was not wasting a second getting into the Chicken Coop restaurant.

Jupe stopped at the doorway, inhaling deeply. “Did you know that the sense of smell is one of the weakest of the five senses?” he told Pete. “After you’ve been in a particular aroma for even a short period of time, you become dulled to it and can’t smell it anymore. That’s why it’s important to savor that first blast of grease when you walk in the door.”

“Give me a break, Jupe. People are waiting behind us to get in,” Pete said.

They walked to the order counter, where a teenage girl in a purple plaid shirt and a khaki skirt stood smiling at them. She wore a white cap that didn’t have a bill. It had a beak. According to the purple writing on her hat, her name was Carly. Carly gave them the official Big Barney greeting.

“Hi there, buddy. Hi there, friend. It’s great to have you back again,” she said. “What’s your order? What’s the scoop? We’ve got it from hen’s teeth to soup. What would you like?”

“I’ll have a six-piece murder to go,” Pete said absently.

“Excuse me?” the girl said.

“Oh — sorry,” Pete said. “Six-piece chicken.”

Then Jupe ordered a full chicken dinner and the two of them found a table by the window. But when they sat down to eat, Pete didn’t touch his food.

“You know,” Pete said, “we’re making a pretty big assumption here. I mean, what if this food — that drumstick you’re about to demolish — is the stuff that’s poisoned?”