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.”