BY THE TIME my brain unscrambled, I was tied hands and feet and had duct tape across my mouth. I was rolling around on the floor of a van, bumping into Mooner, who was also bound and taped. It was a panel van with solid sides and two doors in the rear with small windows. The driver and his partner were up front. I didn’t want to go there. I could mostly see sky through the windows. A streetlight flashed by. A tree. No way of knowing where we were going. The driver and his partner weren’t talking.

The van turned from a smooth road to a bumpy road, hooked a corner, and the road was smooth again. It came to a stop, and the rear doors opened. Mo and Eugene looked in at Mooner and me.

“What the hell’s this?” Mo asked.

The driver came around. “What do you mean? It’s Vincent Plum and some girl. She got in the way, so we took her, too. She looks like fun.”

“That’s not Vincent Plum, you moron.”

“How do you know? Have you ever seen Vincent Plum?”

“I saw him when he stuck his head out of his office. We followed him and the girl from the bonds office to the apartment. That’s how we knew where to find them. We would have snatched him then, but Larry was whining and bleeding all over the place.”

Eugene joined the group and looked in at Mooner and me. “What the fuck’s this?”

“Exactly,” Mo said.

“We took the wrong guy,” the driver said.

“No shit,” Eugene said.

“How was I to know? He’s the right height. He’s got brown hair. He’s sort of weasely.”

“Gregor is going to be pissed,” Eugene said. “We already called and told him we had Vinnie. He’s coming out to personally cut off his nuts.”

“Call him and tell him we made a mistake,” the driver said.

“What are you, crazy?” Eugene said. “Remember what happened to Ziggy when he brought Gregor the wrong Dairy Queen Blizzard?”

“Yeah,” the driver said. “Gregor hit him in the head with a hammer, and now Ziggy falls over when he takes a leak.”

“I got an idea,” Eugene said. “Why don’t we douse the van with gasoline, set it on fire, and shove it off a cliff? Then we tell Gregor there was a faulty gas pedal, and the van went out of control and crashed, and we all got out just in time, except we couldn’t rescue Vincent.”

“That might work,” Mo said.

“Wait a minute,” the driver said. “We don’t have to get all that elaborate. Has Gregor ever seen Vincent Plum?”

“Not that I know,” Eugene said.

“Then what’s the problem?” the driver said. “We tell him this is Vincent Plum. That way, Gregor gets to cut someone’s nuts off, and he won’t be disappointed that he made the trip out here.”

“Yeah, but this guy will tell Gregor he’s not Plum,” Mo said.

The driver shrugged. “We’ll leave the tape on his mouth.”