Sizzling Sixteen

THIRTEEN

LULA AND I entered a small reception area and approached the woman at the front desk. I gave her my business card and told her I wanted to speak to Butch Goodey. The woman ran her finger down a roster of names attached to a clipboard and located Goodey.

“He’s helping unload cattle right now,” she said. “The easiest way to find him would be to go around the building from the outside. Just go out the door, turn left, and keep walking. You’ll see an area around the corner where trucks are off-loading, and Butch should be there.”

“I’m glad we didn’t have to go through the building,” Lula said, “because I don’t want to see them chopping up cows. I like thinking meat grows in the supermarket.”

We turned the corner and came to an area where cattle were milling around in a pen.

“What kind of cows do you suppose these are?” Lula asked. “Are these hamburger cows or steak cows?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “All cows pretty much look the same to me.”

“Yeah, but some are bigger than others and some got horns. These cows are hefty black cows. I guess they’re my kind of cow,” Lula said.

I had a photo of Butch. I’d tried to find him before he skipped to Mexico, so I had some idea of what I was looking for, and at 6′6″ and three hundred pounds, he shouldn’t be that hard to spot. I scanned the holding area and picked him out, standing a foot taller than everyone else. He was watching over a gate that fed the cattle from a pen to a ramp that led into the building.

I had cuffs tucked into the back of my jeans, but I wasn’t sure they were big enough to fit around Butch’s wrists. I had Flexi Cuffs hooked onto a belt loop, but it was hard to be sneaky with Flexi Cuffs. My hope was that I could talk him into going downtown with me to re-up for his court hearing.

“Stay here by the cattle truck,” I said to Lula. “I don’t want to spook Butch by having both of us come at him. I’m going to circle around and try to talk to him.”

“Sure,” Lula said. “What do you want me to do if he bolts and runs?”

“Tackle him and cuff him,” I said.

“Okeydokey.”

Butch was feeding the cattle one by one onto the ramp, concentrating on his job. I skirted the holding pen, moving behind an empty cattle truck, and I came up behind him. I had my cuff in my hand, taking measure of his gargantuan wrist, when he turned and saw me.

“You!” he said. “I know you. You’re the bounty hunter.”

“Yes, but…”

“I’m not going to jail. You can’t make me. It wasn’t my fault.”

Butch jumped into the pen with the stupefied cows and ran for the gate by the truck. Lula saw him coming at her, opened the gate to tackle him, and the rest was the stuff nightmares are made of. When the gate creaked open, every cow picked its head up and sniffed freedom. Butch went through the gate first, knocking Lula on her ass against the fence. Butch was followed by a cow stampede. The cows galloped out of the pen, into the parking lot, and scattered. In a matter of seconds, not a single cow could be seen.

Truck drivers and cow wranglers stood open-mouthed, frozen in place for a full minute.

“What the bejeezus was that?” someone finally said.

Lula hauled herself to her feet and adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “I’m gonna sue someone,” she said. “I could have been killed. I’m lucky I wasn’t stampeded on. This cow plant is negligent. I’m calling my lawyer.”

“You were the one who opened the gate,” I told her.

“Yeah, but they should have had a lock on it so I couldn’t do that. And what are we doing with cows in Trenton anyway? How many times do I have to ask that question?”

Someone screamed half a block away, and I heard the sound of cow feet clomping down a street somewhere. Men were pouring out of the plant, organizing search teams. A big black cow trotted into the lot, three men took off after it, and the cow ran away, headed for the 7-Eleven on Broad.

“Well, I guess our business is done here,” Lula said. “Now what?”

“Now we ride around and try to spot Butch.”

And we get out of the parking lot before someone remembers Lula was the one who opened the gate.

“I kind of worked up an appetite being around all those cows,” Lula said, climbing into the Jeep. “I wouldn’t mind getting a burger.”

I plugged the key into the ignition. “After we find Butch.”

“What are we gonna do if we find him?” Lula wanted to know. “Are you gonna run him over with the Jeep? Looks to me like that’s the only way you’ll catch him. He’s as big as one of those cows.”

I drove out of the lot, turned at the corner, and stopped to let a cow cross the street in front of me.

“I bet this happens all the time,” Lula said. “These people are probably used to having cows in their yards. It’s probably like living next to the jail. I bet there’s people escaping from the jail all the time, too.”

Anything was possible, but for all the time I’ve lived in Trenton, which was all my life, I’ve never heard of cows making a run for it out of the packing plant.

Two cop cars raced through an intersection one street over. I could hear men shouting to one another, and I heard a cow bellow not far off. A man bolted from between two houses with a cow hot on his heels. The guy scrambled on top of a car, and the cow ran off in another direction.

I doubled back to the plant and spotted Butch getting into his car. The lot was filled with crazed cows and crazed cow catchers, so I decided to follow Butch and attempt a capture somewhere else.

Butch took Broad to Hamilton, found his way to Cluck-in-a-Bucket, and went straight to the drive-through window. He was driving a white Taurus that was a bunch of years old. Easy to follow.

“This is enough to give me religion,” Lula said. “How good is this? We follow some idiot to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. Just when I’m hungry, too. I bet it’s the bottle. You got your bottle, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew it,” Lula said. “The bottle’s working for us.”

Butch put his order in, pulled up to the next window, and I hung back.

“I got a order,” Lula said to me. “Pull up to the window.”

“I’m not getting stuck in the drive-through. If he parks, you can go inside and get your order while I make the capture. If he leaves with his food, you’ll have to wait.”

“Okay, I could do that,” Lula said. “That sounds like a plan.”

Butch got his food and parked nose-in, facing the side of the building. Lula jumped out of the Jeep and hustled inside, and I parked directly behind Butch, blocking his exit. My first choice was to talk to him and convince him to come downtown with me. My second choice was to give him a shot with my stun gun and handcuff him to his car. Then I’d pay a tow truck to drag him to the police station. I’d still be way ahead. Ordinarily, I’d stun a guy and Lula and I would wrestle him into my backseat. Since Butch was three hundred pounds soaking wet, wrestling wasn’t practical.

I trotted up to the Taurus and bent to talk to Butch. He jumped at my voice, a piece of burger fell out of his mouth, and he shrieked like a girl.

“I just want to talk to you,” I said.

“I’m not going to jail!” he yelled at me.

He threw the Taurus into reverse, I hit him once with the stun gun, and he twitched and squeaked, but that was it. The Taurus plowed into Ranger’s Jeep and knocked it back about ten feet, totally bashing in the entire left side. Butch slammed the Taurus into drive, jumped the sidewalk, made a sharp turn, and took off out of the lot.

Lula sashayed out with two bags of food and stood looking at the Jeep. “You’re in trouble,” she said. “You wrecked Ranger’s Jeep.” She looked around. “Where’s Butch?”

“Gone.”

“He must be a real fast eater.”

“I walked up to his car, and he panicked. I hit him with the stun gun, and it had no effect.”

“No shit,” Lula said. “You need a cattle prod for him.”

I hauled my cell phone out and dialed Ranger.

“Babe,” he said.

“Bad news,” I told him. “I sort of wrecked your Jeep.”

“It was only a matter of time,” he said. And he disconnected.

Five minutes later, a Rangeman SUV drove into the parking lot. Hal and another guy got out, looked at the Jeep, and smiled.

“No disrespect,” Hal said to me, “but you’ve done better.”

This was true. I was driving Ranger’s Porsche one time, and it got smashed flat as a pancake by a garbage truck. Hard to top that.

“Raphael will take care of the Jeep,” Hal said. “And I’m at your disposal. Where would you ladies like to go?”

“The bonds office,” I told him. “We need to regroup.”

“HOW’D IT GO?” Connie asked. “Did you catch anyone?”

“Nope,” Lula said. “But we trashed Ranger’s Jeep. And we did some other stuff, but I might not want to talk about it.”

Connie gave me raised eyebrows.

“Lula opened a gate at the packing plant and set a whole bunch of cows loose,” I said. “They’re probably in Bordentown by now.”

“They were like Born Free cows,” Lula said.

“We aren’t doing so good in the money-raising department,” Connie said.

I slouched in the orange chair in front of her desk. “Maybe we should call the police.”

“Or we could ship Vinnie off to Brazil,” Lula said. “We could put him in nitwit protection.”

My phone rang, and I groaned when I saw the number. It was my mother.

“When are you picking him up?” my mother wanted to know.

“Who?”

“You know who! He’s in your father’s chair, watching television, drinking coffee.”

“Lucille kicked him out.”

“Good for her,” my mother said. “I’d kick him out, too, but I can’t get him out of the chair. When are you coming to get him?”

“Here’s the thing,” I said to my mother. “He doesn’t have anyplace to stay.”

“He can’t stay here. And I swear I’ll never make you another pineapple upside-down cake if you don’t get him out of here.”

“I’ll be right there.” I grabbed my tote bag and stood. “We have to get Vinnie,” I said to Lula. “My mother’s done with him.”

“You can’t bring him back here,” Connie said.

“Can I put him in your house?”

“Not even for a moment.”

I looked at Lula.

“Nuh-uh,” Lula said. “I don’t even like him. And soon as he’s left alone, he’ll be tryin’ all my special dresses on.” Lula’s attention moved to the plateglass window in the front of the office. “It’s the Moon Man,” she said.

Mooner pushed the door open and gave us the peace sign. “Ladies,” he said. “How goes it?”

“It goes okay,” I said. “How goes it with you?”

“I don’t know. I think they might have put some wacky mushrooms on my pizza last night. I was driving down Broad Street just now, and I swear I thought a cow was walking down the street.”

“Hunh,” Lula said. “That’s crazy, all right.”

“Some cows got loose at the packing plant this morning,” I told Mooner.

Mooner clapped a hand to his heart. “That’s a mega relief. Last time I saw cows walking down the street, I had to go into rehab.”

“What were you doing on Broad?” I asked him.

“I was handing out fliers. I got some for you, too.” Mooner put a stack of papers on Connie’s desk. “The Alliance is having its annual Hobbit Con, and I’m in charge this year. It’s an awesome honor.”

“I’ve never been to a Hobbit Con,” Lula said. “What do you do there?”

“You dress up like a Hobbit,” Mooner said. “And you get a Hobbit name. And there’s all kinds of Hobbit food. And there are Hobbit games. And Hobbit music.”

“I might like that,” Lula said, taking a flier off Connie’s desk and reading it. “I’m always open to new experiences. Do you got a Hobbit name?” Lula asked him.

“Bungo Goodchild,” Mooner said.

“I could see that,” Lula said. “What would my name be?”

“You could be Alvyan Jumpswell of Fair Downs,” Mooner said. “And Connie could be Primula Boffin.”

“What if I don’t want to be Primula Boffin?” Connie said.

“What about Stephanie?” Lula wanted to know. “What’s her Hobbit name?”

“Ysellyra Thorney.”

“Yeah, she looks like a Ysellyra Thorney,” Lula said.

“I have a problem,” I said to Mooner. “Vinnie’s wife kicked him out of the house, and he hasn’t got any place to stay. Do you suppose you could babysit him for me this afternoon and maybe tonight?”

“Whoa, I’d be honored,” Mooner said. “Vinnie’s the dude. He’s like famous. He runs ASC.”

“What’s ASC?” I asked Mooner.

“Alternative Sex Convention. It’s like cutting-edge.”

“That’s a shocker,” Connie said.

“Yeah,” Mooner said. “ASC is huge. Maybe Vinnie can give me some pointers.”

“Unless you got Hobbits that wear chaps and nothin’ else, you probably don’t want any of Vinnie’s pointers,” Lula said.

“Do you remember where my parents live?” I asked Mooner.

“Yep. I could find it with my eyes closed.”

I wrote the address on the back of my card and gave it to Mooner. “Just in case,” I said. “Call me if there are problems. Don’t let Vinnie out of your sight, and stay away from Stark Street.”

Mooner ambled out of the office, and moments later, we heard a backfire and the Moon Bus chugged down the street.

“Do you think you can trust him to keep Vinnie under wraps?” Lula asked me.

“If Vinnie wants to stay alive, he’ll make sure he stays hidden.”

I called my parents’ house and asked for Vinnie.

“Mooner is coming to get you,” I told Vinnie. “He’s going to let you stay in his RV. Do not leave the RV!”

I glanced at my watch. “It’s coming up to lunchtime,” I said to Lula. “Let’s look for Chopper.”

“What about Butch?” Connie wanted to know.

“I need an address. I doubt he’ll go back to work. And if I’m going to get him, I need to do it fast. He doesn’t want to go to jail. He’s going to run again.”