but just after i stepped across the threshold of the dennys ( from its cool shaded vestibule with the well used industrial doormat and squat bubble gum machine with pictures of crippled children on top into the parking lot squashed flat and steaming under a towering column of blazing afternoon ) it came to me in a flash that far from disinterested , the men in white vans were ( had to be -- it all added up so neatly , given the waiter , the phantom coffee drinker , the illicit menu scribbler etc ) nothing less than full blown agents of ned , in his pay and employ and in all likelihood at that very moment , focused laser-like on one single objective : fulfilling their key role , whatever it might have been , in neds evil scheme directed at none other than yours truly .