Explosive Eighteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels)

this?”
    “It’s big,” Buggy said.
    “You bet your ass,” Lula told him.
    I whipped the stun gun out, pressed it against Buggy’s arm, and hit the go button.
    “Ow,” Buggy said.
    His eyes didn’t roll back into his head. He didn’t crash to the ground. He didn’t go down to his knees.
    I blasted him again.
    “That stings,” Buggy said. “Stop it.”
    “Must be about body weight,” Lula said. “You need the shit they make for elephants.”
    Buggy grabbed the stun gun out of my hand and threw it into the bushes bordering the house. “Go away,” Buggy said. “And you better not take my car, or that would make me mad.”
    No point getting goofy over this, I told myself. Just very calmly take the RAV, go home, and make a reassessment. Surely there’s a way to capture this man. A big net, maybe. A rhinoceros tranquilizer dart. Get him to follow a trail of cheeseburgers leading to the police station.
    I scrounged through the bushes, found my stun gun, handed Lula the key to the Buick, and smiled pleasantly at Buggy. I turned, walked to the RAV, plugged my key in, and opened the driver’s side door. Buggy grabbed me from behind, and tossed me into the street.
    “Hey, idiot,” Lula said to Buggy. “You can’t do that to her. That’s friggin’ rude.”
    “I’ll do whatever I want,” Buggy said. “It’s my car now.”
    Lula hauled her Glock out of her purse and aimed it at Buggy. “At the risk of gettin’ too personal, I got a delicate intestinal condition today, and you’re not making it any better. And I already explained to you about how car ownership works. Now, you need to get your lard butt outta here, or I’ll put another hole in it.”
    “You don’t scare me,” Buggy said. “You can’t shoot an unarmed man.”
    “Says who?” Lula said. “I shoot unarmed men all the time.”
    I scrambled to my feet, came up behind Buggy, pressed the stun gun prongs to his neck, and held the button down. Buggy went dead still, sank to his knees, and wet his pants.
    “Third time’s a charm,” Lula said.
    I slipped the plastic Flexi-Cuffs around his wrists and secured them behind his back. Buggy was still on his knees, his eyes were glazed, and he was drooling.
    “How are we gonna get him in the car?” Lula stared at him. “He must weigh three hundred pounds, and he got wet pants. We need a forklift to move him. Maybe one of them skyhooks.”
    “Maybe now that he’s cuffed, he’ll be reasonable,” I said.
    Buggy’s eyes snapped into focus. “Grrrrr,” he said.
    Lula looked down at him. “He don’t look reasonable.”
    Buggy struggled to free his hands.
“GRRRRR!”
He came off one knee and then the other. He shook his head as if to clear it, stood, and swayed a little getting his balance.
    “You know that movie where they bring the Frankenstein monster back to life?” Lula said. “This is like that movie. Youknow what happened when Frankenstein first woke up?
He wasn’t happy
.”
    “We need to go downtown and get you rebonded,” I said to Buggy. “It won’t take long.”
    Buggy lunged at me. His hands were bound behind his back, and his gait was awkward. He lunged at me a second time, but I jumped away. He stumbled, went down to the ground, and rolled onto his back. That’s where he stayed, kicking his feet, unable to right himself.
    “He’s like a big giant turtle,” Lula said. “What are we gonna do with him?”
    I didn’t know. We couldn’t lift him. I wasn’t even sure we could drag him. When we got near, he kicked out at us. His face was red and sweating, and veins were popped out in his forehead and corded on his neck.
    “You need to calm yourself,” Lula said to Buggy. “You’re gonna give yourself a stroke. And you’re not a real attractive man to begin with, so you don’t want to make it worse with the whole bulging vein thing. It’s not a good look for you.”
    He was rocking side to side and grunting. “Unh, unh,
UNH
!” And on the last
UNH
, he broke out of the Flexi-Cuffs, rolled to hands and knees, then stood beady-eyed, arms out, mouth open. Killer grizzly.
    “YOW!” Lula said. “Every man for himself.”
    She ran for the Buick, and I ran for the RAV4. I jumped in, pulled the door closed, and took off with Lula following.
    I drove to my parents’ house, parked at the curb, and sat for a couple beats, getting it together. Lula rapped on the driver’s side window, and I got out.
    “You see, that’s what I’m talking about,” Lula