Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich [67]
“See, that’s the thing about a potato cannon,” Mooner said. “You can stuff anything into it. You could shoot monkey shit out of a potato cannon. All you gotta do is find a monkey.”
“I know where there’s a monkey,” Lula said.
“Whoa,” Mooner said. “Far out. You want to go get some shit?”
Great. Just what I need. Mooner shooting monkey shit at passing motorists.
“It’s illegal to shoot monkey shit on a Sunday,” I told him. “Have you had lunch?”
Zook was grinning. “We didn’t eat lunch. We launched lunch.”
“I got a deductable, and I don’t know if I’m covered for potatoes,” Lula said, her eyes still narrowed.
I was having a hard time getting worked up over the dent in Lula’s Firebird. I had bigger fish to fry. I had a pinky toe in Morelli’s freezer. And tomorrow I’d have two toes if I didn’t hang a scarf in the upstairs window.
“Everyone inside,” I said. “You stay out here too long, and some new griefer will take over.”
“We’re not playing Minionfire anymore,” Zook said. “We’re in charge of homegrown security now. We got weapons to make and posts to man. We’re keeping the integrity of the crime scene. We’re protecting the house.”
“Yeah, but what about the back?” Lula asked. “You can’t see the back from here.”
“Dude, she’s right,” Mooner said. “Man your potato cannon. Secure the yard!”
Mooner, Zook, and Gary ran inside. Lula and I followed at a slightly slower pace.
“You got a loony bin,” Lula said to me.
Mooner was already at the living room window when we walked into the room. He was holding a two-foot section of white PVC pipe that had a smaller pipe glued toward the base.
“Lieutenant Zook,” he said into a two-way attached to his shirt. “Are you in position?”
“Yessir, Captain,” Zook answered from the kitchen.
“Munitions Expert Gary, are you ready?”
“Yessir,” Gary said.
Gary was in the dining room, halfway between Mooner and Zook. He was wearing a utility belt that carried a can of hairspray and a grill lighter. And he was holding a basket of potatoes. Tucked into the potato basket was a large bag of M&Ms and a large order of fast-food fries still in the cardboard container.
“What’s with the M&Ms and the fries?” Lula wanted to know.
“It’s in case we need a shotgun.”
“Makes sense,” Lula said. And she turned and looked at me and made the crazy signal with her finger going around alongside her head.
Zook’s voice whispered over the two-way. “I got a bandit at two o’clock. I need a partial baked.”
Gary ran into the kitchen and handed Zook a potato. Zook dropped it into his PVC pipe and rammed it down. Gary sprayed hairspray into the pipe and jumped back. Zook pointed the spud gun out the door and phoonf! Zook got knocked on his ass from the kick, and the potato rocketed out of the pipe and caught the digger in the back of his leg. The guy went down like a house of cards and rolled around yelping. He got up and half limped, half ran out of the yard.
I was dumbstruck. I didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or be truly horrified.
Zook got to his feet. “We only use raw potatoes on cars and stuff. We use half-baked on poachers. It leaves a good bruise, but it isn’t lethal. We tried using eggs, but the gun kept misfiring.”
I called Morelli and got his voice mail. “Just checking in,” I said. “And by the way, no reason to get alarmed, but do you have personal liability insurance tacked on to your homeowner’s?”
Lula had her head stuck in the refrigerator. “Where’s the fried chicken? You gotta have fried chicken on Sunday.”
“I want to talk to Stanley Zero’s almost-ex-wife,” I said to Lula. “We can stop at Cluck-in-a-Bucket on the way.”
“Why do you want to talk to his ex?”
“I had good luck with Dom’s ex. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to try Zero’s.”
Lula looked at Gary, standing in the dining room. “You think we should leave the homegrown idiots alone?”
I was between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t trust the three potato heads to make the right decision on anything, but I was panicked over Loretta’s fingers and toes.
“You stay here,” I said to Lula.