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“Unless Morelli comes home immediately, I have Bob traveling with me. And I can’t see Bob flying.”
“Good point,” Lula said. “This is an excellent time to snag Hooter. It’s between the early morning crowd and the noon lunch rush. He’s going to be relaxing somewhere, having a maple bacon latte, reviewing his inventory.”
Twenty minutes later I spotted him. He was sitting on a bench, all by himself, in a vest pocket park. “There he is,” I said to Lula.
“Yep,” she said. “I see him. How do you want to do this?”
“I’m going to park on the street behind the little greenway and come up behind him.”
“Take him by surprise.”
“Yeah. I’m not wasting time and energy. I’m going to stun him, and we’ll cuff him and carry him to the car.”
“I like your style,” Lula said. “No bullshit.”
It wasn’t so much style as desperation. I was running out of time and money. I wouldn’t be on an expense account in Maine. I got paid when Vinnie got reimbursed for his bond. End of story. I’d be buying gas with my rent money. I needed the capture payout on Farcus Trundle and Hooter Brown, and I needed it now.
I circled around and parked on a side street that was adjacent to the greenway. I had cuffs in my back pocket and my stun gun in hand. Lula adjusted her girls and tugged her skirt down over her ass. I cracked a window for Bob and locked the SUV.
“Don’t you dare chew, drool, or otherwise destroy this car,” I said to him. “I won’t be long.” I turned to Lula. “Stay back until I tag him.”
“Roger dodger,” Lula said.
I walked straight up to Hooter, stuck my stun gun to the back of his neck, and gave him twenty thousand volts. He squeaked and crumpled. Lula moved in and took his feet, and I got him under the armpits. A couple people stopped and stared, and Lula told them we were taking a friend to get some Narcan. We loaded Hooter into the back of the SUV so he wouldn’t take up Bob’sroom on the back seat. We cuffed him and took off for the police station.
“That went smooth as anything,” Lula said. “Are we good, or what?”
Halfway to the police station, Hooter started to twitch and talk gibberish.
“Hey, Hooter,” Lula said. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get you bailed out and back on the street. You might not make the lunch crowd, but you’ll catch some of the early-shifters going home at three o’clock.”
“Thish shluuush,” Hooter said.
I drove to the rear door of the municipal building, and we rolled Hooter out and helped him walk inside. He was still a little frazzled, and we had to drag him part of the way, but we got him to the docket lieutenant. I filled out the requisite paperwork and was given my body receipt, and Lula and I were on our way back to the office.
“Are you going after Farcus today?” Lula asked.
“Yes.”
“How are you going to do that? He’s not going to be sitting on a park bench.”
“No, but he’s going to underestimate me. He’s going to see me coming and think, ‘Here comes the nitwit who works for Vinnie.’ It will give me an advantage.”
“I appreciate the positive thinking, but either you want to go home and get your itty-bitty gun out of your cookie jar, or else you want to make sure your stun gun has juice.”
“I’ve got lots of juice.”
“Okay then, let’s roll.”
I made a U-turn and drove to Carlory Street. I cruised past Trundle’s house and didn’t see his Range Rover. I continued down the street to the girlfriend. No Range Rover there either.
“He must be out robbing and mugging people,” Lula said.
“Too bad,” I said. “I was on a roll.”
“I just got Duncan Dugan’s brother’s address from Connie,” Lula said. “According to Google, he’s in a small town that’s about forty-five minutes out of Bangor, Maine. That’s sort of in the middle of the state. I bet it’s real picturesque. Like everybody’s got wooden rocking chairs on their front porch. I bet it’s loaded with charming doodads and stuff.”
“It’s a long car ride and we aren’t even sure if Nutsy and Dugan are there.”
