Look Alive Twenty-Five (Stephanie Plum 25)

“This isn’t a breakfast burrito,” Waggle said. “There’s no egg in this. And who made it? Bruce the Bear?”

“It’s two in the morning,” Morelli said. “This was the only burrito w

e could find.”

Morelli hit the button to end the video.

“It deteriorates fast after this. It’s like once something sets him off he completely loses it. He actually asked for a knife. He said he had to stab something.”

“And the second interview this morning?” Ranger asked.

Morelli pulled the second interview up. Waggle was at the table, and he was jiggling his foot so hard his whole body was vibrating.

“He’s strung out,” I said.

Morelli nodded agreement. “We shipped him off to a state facility after this session.”

“Tell me about the television show,” Morelli said, sitting across the table from Waggle, leaning forward a little. Friendly.

“It was my idea,” Waggle said. “I had the idea, and I wrote the script. And they stole it. It was a good idea. It was about a deli for cannibals. It started out like an ordinary deli, but they weren’t making any money, so they got the idea to go gourmet niche.”

He’d started out pale and agitated, but he was getting some color back in his cheeks as he talked about the show.

“They would get people to work in the deli, and then they’d capture them and butcher them and serve them to cannibals. Genius, right? And then for future shows they could put the extra captured humans up for auction, like they do in stockyards. And there could be these cannibal deli places all over the world. So, what do you think?”

“Wow,” Morelli said.

“I even wrote a script for the musical,” Waggle said.

The color went out of Waggle’s cheeks, and his eyes lost focus. “I don’t feel good,” he said. “I need my meds.”

“We’re working on it,” Morelli said. “Why did you actually kidnap people if this was just for a television show?”

“We couldn’t sell the show, so we thought we’d do a reality thing and get some publicity. And it worked. Skoogie finally sold it.”

“What about the people you kidnapped? Where are they?”

“I don’t know. I just came in when they needed me to be in a scene. They took them to the stockyard or the slaughterhouse or something.”

Waggle started to shiver, and someone came in and wrapped a blanket around him.

“Who’s ‘they’?” Morelli asked.

“Skoogie, and a couple guys from some South American place, and the sunshine-truck guy.”

“Does the sunshine-truck guy have a name?” Morelli asked.

“I don’t know his name, but he’s cool,” Waggle said. He looked around. “Is Jillian here? Jillian was supposed to pick me up.”

“Jillian isn’t here,” Morelli said. “You’re in police custody.”

Waggle got crazy eyed. “The bitch said she’d be here.”

Morelli stopped the video. “There isn’t anything worth watching after this.”

“This is too weird,” I said. “Five men were kidnapped because someone wanted to sell a television show?”

“Six men,” Morelli said. “One was returned.”