“Do you have your stun gun and pepper spray?”
“Does a chicken have a pecker? I could invade Bulgaria with the shit I've got in my handbag.”
I drove back to the front of the house and dropped Lula off to guard the front door. Then I parked the car two houses down, out of Munson's line of sight, in the alley. Habib and Mitchell parked behind me in the kiddie car, locked their doors, and opened their McDonald's breakfast bags.
I cut through two yards, came up to the back of Munson's house, and carefully looked in his kitchen window. Nothing happening. A box of Band-Aids and a roll of paper towels on the kitchen table. Am I a genius, or what? I stepped back and looked up to the second floor. There was the very faint sound of running water. Munson was taking a shower. Boy, life didn't get much better than this.
I tried the door. Locked. I tried the windows. Locked. I was about to break one when Lula opened the back door.
“Not much of a lock on the front door,” she said.
I had to be the only person in the entire world who couldn't pick a lock.
We stood listening in the kitchen. The water was still running overhead. Lula had pepper spray in one hand and her stun gun in the other. I had one hand free and one hand holding cuffs. We crept up the stairs and paused at the top. The row house was small. Two bedrooms and a bath on the second floor. The doors to the bedrooms were open, and the bedrooms were empty. The bathroom door was closed. Lula stood to one side, poised with the spray. I stood to the other side. We both knew exactly how to do this, because we watched the cop shows on television. Munson wasn't known to carry a gun, and it was unlikely he'd be armed in the shower, but it didn't hurt to be careful.
“On the count of three,” I mouthed to Lula, my hand on the doorknob. “One, two, three!”
Stephanie Plum 6 - Hot Six
9
“WAIT A MINUTE,” Lula said, “he's gonna be naked. Maybe we don't want to see this. I've seen a lot of ugly men in my day. I'm not so anxious to see any more.”
“I don't care about the naked part,” I said. “I care about the part that he won't have a knife or a propane torch.”
“Good point.”
“Okay, I'm counting again. Get ready. One, two, three!”
I opened the bathroom door, and we both jumped in.
Munson ripped the shower curtain aside. “What the hell?”
“You're under arrest,” Lula said. “And we'd appreciate it if you'd get a towel on account of I don't feel like looking at your sad, shriveled privates.”
He had his hair full of shampoo, and he had a big bandage on his foot, which he was protecting with a plastic bag held tight at the ankle with an elastic band.
“I'm crazy!” he shrieked. “I'm freaking crazy, and you'll never take me alive!”
“Yeah, whatever,” Lula said, handing him a towel. “You want to shut that water off now?”
Munson took the towel and snapped it back at Lula.
“Hey!” Lula said, “hold on here. You snap that towel at me again, and you're gonna get a snootful of pepper spray.”
Munson snapped it again. “Fat, fat, fatty,” he sang.
Lula forgot about the pepper spray and lunged for his neck. Munson reached up and turned the shower spray on her and jumped out of the shower. I tried to grab him, but he was wet and slippery with soap, and Lula was flailing around, trying to get away from the water.
“Spray him!” I yelled to Lula. “Electrocute him! Shoot him! Do something!”
Munson knocked the two of us aside and streaked down the stairs. He ran the length of the house and out the back door. I was close behind, and Lula was about ten feet behind me. His foot had to be killing him, but he ran flat out through two yards and then cut off to the alley. I took a flying leap and caught him square in the small of his back. The two of us went down to the ground and rolled around, locked together, swearing and clawing. Munson was trying to scramble away, and I was trying to hang on and cuff him. It would have been easier if he'd had clothes to grab hold of. As it was, I didn't really want to grab what was available.
“Hit him where it hurts!” Lula was yelling. “Hit him where it hurts!”
So I did. A person reaches a point where she just doesn't want to roll around anymore. I hauled back and gave Munson a knee in the gonads.
“Ulk,” Munson said, and assumed the fetal position.