“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.”
I came to the cross street and turned left, and Trundle drove past me in his black Range Rover and turned onto Carlory.
“Holy cow,” Lula said. “That’s like an act of God. That’s a cosmic sign.”
“He was looking ahead. I don’t think he spotted us.”
“I’m telling you, it means something. That weird shit doesn’t happen every day. It all started with the green lights.”
I went a quarter mile down the road, U-turned, and retraced my route back to the girlfriend’s house. The black Range Rover was parked in the driveway.
“Well, here’s a problem,” Lula said. “We have to decide if we want to park behind Farcus and have one of those déjà vu experiences with Ranger’s car. If Farcus smashes Ranger’s car, you know Ranger’s going to come say howdy to Farcus, and that would result in Farcus getting put in your custody. Except then we wouldn’t have a nice car to drive to Maine.”
“I’m not going to park behind the SUV. It’s too far to drag him after I stun him and cuff him.”
“Are we going to engage him in polite chitchat first?” Lula said. “You always like to start off with the horse pucky about helping him to reschedule.”
“I’m short on time and horse pucky. I’m just taking him down.”
I gunned the motor and drove around the Range Rover and over the grass to the front door. Lula and I got out and marched up to the house. Bob guarded the SUV. I tried the doorknob and found it was unlocked, and Lula and I walked into the living room.
“Bail bond enforcement,” I shouted.
Trundle came out of the kitchen with a can of beer in his hand. “What the hell?”
“We’re here to take you into town to get your court date rescheduled,” I said.
“Gee, that sounds like fun,” he said, “but maybe some other time. I just got a beer.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a beer,” I said.
“Help yourself,” Trundle said. “We can make this a party.”
“Yeah, get one for me too,” Lula said. “I’m all about a party.”
I walked past Trundle into the kitchen and pretended to get beer.
“Where’s the little dog?” Lula asked Trundle. “The poodle doodle what’s-her-name.”
“She goes to work with Maxine,” Trundle said.
I came up behind him and pressed the stun gun prongs against his neck. The beer can fell out of his hand, and he dropped to his knees. “F-f-f-fuck,” he said.
I grabbed the cuffs out of my back pocket and struggled to get a bracelet onto his chunky wrist.
“Hey!” he said, wrenching his hand away from me.
He caught sight of the cuff dangling from his wrist, and he swatted me away, sending me sprawling onto the floor. He got to his feet and shook his head in an effort to clear the cobwebs. Lula tackled him, but he didn’t go down. He took a couple steps forward and stopped and did another head shake.
Lula had her arms wrapped around his knees. “Tag him,” she yelled at me. “Tag him again.”
I scrambled to my feet and lunged at him, catching him on the arm. Zzzzzt.
“Ow,” he said. “Now you’re pissing me off.”
Lula still had her arms wrapped around his legs. He looked down at her, grunted, and punted her halfway across the room. I was able to get the prongs on his neck and he went to his knees. I zapped him again and he face-planted. Lula rushed over and helped wrangle his arm into position so I could get the second bracelet on him.
“Done,” I said, and we jumped away from him like we’d just won the calf-roping competition at the county fair.
“We might not have a lot of time to get him into the Rangeman Explorer,” I said.
We rolled him over onto his back, Lula took his legs, and I got him under his armpits. We got him about two inches off the floor and dropped him.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said. “He’s too big. He’s dead weight. We’ll have to drag him.”
I took a leg and Lula took a leg and we dragged him across the floor and out the door. We got him off the small front stoop, down the two steps, and onto the grass. The SUV was parked about ten feet away with Bob looking at us from the front seat, his nose pressed to the window. We dragged Trundle to the back, I opened the rear hatch, and Lula and I looked down at him. He was drooling and his pinky finger was twitching.
“He’s got a twitchy finger,” Lula said. “Maybe you should give him some more volts.”
“No can do. Stun gun is dead. Needs to be recharged.” I cut my eyes to her. “Do you have a stun gun?”
“No. I just have one of those guns that go bang.”
A couple more fingers were twitching now.
“It’s going to be impossible to get him into the SUV once he comes around,” I said. “You take one side and I’ll take the other, and we’ll push him in headfirst.”
We got him halfway in, and Lula ran around and got into the back seat and pulled while I pushed. By the time we got him all the way in I was sweating through my T-shirt. I closed the hatch and jumped behind the wheel. Lula stayed in the back seat, keeping an eye on Trundle. Bob was in front with me. I drove out of the yard and wasted no time getting to the police station. I had about a mile to go when Trundle started swearing and rolling around in the back. He managed to sit up and Lula hauled out her gun.