“You gotta admit, he makes a cute chicken,” Lula said, watching Stuart strut around on his big yellow chicken feet. “Too bad we gotta bust his ass.”
Easy for her to say. She didn't have orange hair. I pushed through the front door and crossed the room. I was about ten feet away when Stuart turned and our eyes locked.
“Hello, Stuart,” I said.
There was a young woman standing next to Stuart. She was wearing a red-and-yellow Cluck in a Bucket uniform, and she was holding a stack of Cluck in a Bucket giveaway hats. She gave me her best “don't ruin the fun” look and wagged her finger. “His name isn't Stuart,” she said. “Today his name is Mr. Cluck.”
“Oh yeah?” Lula said. “Well we're gonna haul Mr. Cluck's cute little chicken tushy off to jail. What do you think of that?”
“They're crazy,” Stuart said to the Cluck in a Bucket woman. “They're stalkers. They won't leave me alone. They got me fired from my last job because they kept harassing me.”
“That's a load of horse pucky,” Lula said. “If we were gonna stalk someone it wouldn't be no chicken impersonator working for minimum wage.”
“Excuse me,” I said, elbowing Lula away from Stuart, turning the force of my most professional smile on the young woman with the hats. “Mr. Baggett is in violation of a bond agreement and needs to reinstate himself with the court.”
“Harry,” the young woman yelled, waving to a man behind the service counter. “Call the police. We've got a situation here.”
“Damn,” Lula said. “I hate when people call the police.”
“You're ruining everything,” Stuart said to me. “Why can't you leave me alone? Who's going to be Mr. Cluck if you take me in?”
I pulled the cuffs out of my pocket. “Don't give me a hard time, Stuart.”
“You can't put cuffs on Mr. Cluck!” Stuart said. “What will all these kids think?”
“Wouldn't get my hopes up that they'd give a hello,” Lula said. “Isn't like you're Santa Claus. Truth is, you're just some whiny little guy dressed up in a bad suit.”
“This isn't a big deal,” I said to Stuart as calmly as possible. “I'm going to cuff you and walk you out the door, and if we do it quickly and quietly no one will notice.”
I reached out to snap the cuffs on Stuart, and he batted me away with his chicken wing. “Leave me alone,” Stuart said, knocking the cuffs out of my hand, sending them sailing across the room. “I'm not going to jail!” He grabbed the mustard and the special-sauce squirters off the condiments counter. “Stand back!” he said.
I had pepper spray and a stun gun, but it seemed like excessive force to use them against a chicken armed with special sauce.
“I haven't got all day,” Lula said to Stuart. “I want to get some chicken and go back to work, and you're holding me up. Put those stupid squirters down.”
“Don't underestimate these squirters,” Stuart said. “I could do a lot of damage with these squirters.” He held the red squirter up. “See this? This isn't just any old special sauce. This is extra spicy.”
“Oh boy,” Lula said. “Think he's been sniffing aerosol from the roach spray.”
Lula took a step toward Stuart, and SQUISH, Stuart gave Lula a blast of mustard to the chest.
Lula stopped in her tracks. “What the . . .”
SPLOT! Special sauce on top of the mustard.
“Did you see that?” Lula said, her voice pitched so high she sounded like Minnie Mouse. “He squirted me with special sauce! I'm gonna have to get this jacket dry-cleaned.”
“It was your own fault, Fatty,” Stuart said. “You made me do it.”
“That's it,” Lula said. “Out of my way. I'm gonna kill him.” She lunged forward, hands reaching for Stuart's chicken neck, slipped on some mustard that had leaked out of Stuart's squirter and went down on her ass.
Stuart took off, shoving his way around tables and customers. I took off after him and caught him with a flying tackle. We both crashed to the floor in a flurry of chicken feathers, Stuart squirting his squirters, and me swearing and grabbing. We rolled around like this for what seemed like an eternity, until I finally got hold of something that wasn't a fake chicken part.
I was breast to breast, on top of Mr. Cluck, twisting his nose in a damn good impression of Moe and Curly, when I felt hands forcefully lifting me off, disengaging my nose hold.
One set of hands belonged to Carl Costanza. The other set of hands belonged to a cop I'd seen around but didn't know on a first-name basis. Both cops were smiling, rocking back on their heels, thumbs stuck into their gun belts.
“I heard about your cousin Vinnie and what he did to that duck,” Carl said to me. “Still, I'm surprised to find you on top of a chicken. I always thought you were more like the Mazur side of the family.”