collar or no-collar. It took up half a block, with some of that space devoted to holding pens, where the cattle went in, and some to loading docks, where the hamburger meat came out.
At nine-thirty in the morning, the plant was in full swing. It was going to be a glorious, sunny, warm day and the area around the plant smelled faintly of cow.
“You know what this makes me think about?” Lula said, jumping down from the Jeep, standing in the parking lot. “It makes me think I could use a new leather handbag. If we get done early today, we should go to the mall.”
I didn’t think we were going to get done early. I expected this was going to be a very long day. It was Thursday, and there was no way we could get all of the money by bringing in a few skips. If we didn’t come up with over a million dollars by tomorrow, Grandma Plum and Aunt Mim were going to be wearing black.
THIRTEEN
LULA AND I entered a small reception area and approached the woman at the front desk. I gave her my business card and told her I wanted to speak to Butch Goodey. The woman ran her finger down a roster of names attached to a clipboard and located Goodey.
“He’s helping unload cattle right now,” she said. “The easiest way to find him would be to go around the building from the outside. Just go out the door, turn left, and keep walking. You’ll see an area around the corner where trucks are off-loading, and Butch should be there.”
“I’m glad we didn’t have to go through the building,” Lula said, “because I don’t want to see them chopping up cows. I like thinking meat grows in the supermarket.”
We turned the corner and came to an area where cattle were milling around in a pen.
“What kind of cows do you suppose these are?” Lula asked. “Are these hamburger cows or steak cows?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “All cows pretty much look the same to me.”
“Yeah, but some are bigger than others and some got horns. These cows are hefty black cows. I guess they’re my kind of cow,” Lula said.
I had a photo of Butch. I’d tried to find him before he skipped to Mexico, so I had some idea of what I was looking for, and at 6?6? and three hundred pounds, he shouldn’t be that hard to spot. I scanned the holding area and picked him out, standing a foot taller than everyone else. He was watching over a gate that fed the cattle from a pen to a ramp that led into the building.
I had cuffs tucked into the back of my jeans, but I wasn’t sure they were big enough to fit around Butch’s wrists. I had Flexi Cuffs hooked onto a belt loop, but it was hard to be sneaky with Flexi Cuffs. My hope was that I could talk him into going downtown with me to re-up for his court hearing.
“Stay here by the cattle truck,” I said to Lula. “I don’t want to spook Butch by having both of us come at him. I’m going to circle around and try to talk to him.”
“Sure,” Lula said. “What do you want me to do if he bolts and runs?”
“Tackle him and cuff him,” I said.
“Okeydokey.”
Butch was feeding the cattle one by one onto the ramp, concentrating on his job. I skirted the holding pen, moving behind an empty cattle truck, and I came up behind him. I had my cuff in my hand, taking measure of his gargantuan wrist, when he turned and saw me.
“You!” he said. “I know you. You’re the bounty hunter.”
“Yes, but…”
“I’m not going to jail. You can’t make me. It wasn’t my fault.”
Butch jumped into the pen with the stupefied cows and ran for the gate by the truck. Lula saw him coming at her, opened the gate to tackle him, and the rest was the stuff nightmares are made of. When the gate creaked open, every cow picked its head up and sniffed freedom. Butch went through the gate first, knocking Lula on her ass against the fence. Butch was followed by a cow stampede. The cows galloped out of the pen, into the parking lot, and scattered. In a matter of seconds, not a single cow could be seen.
Truck drivers and cow wranglers stood open-mouthed, frozen in place for a full minute.
“What the bejeezus was that?” someone finally said.
Lula hauled herself to her feet and adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “I’m gonna sue someone,” she said. “I could have been killed. I’m lucky I wasn’t stampeded on. This cow plant is negligent. I’m calling my lawyer.”
“You were the one who opened the gate,” I told her.
“Yeah, but they should have had a lock on it so I couldn’t do that. And what are we doing with cows in Trenton anyway? How many times do I have to ask that question?”
Someone screamed half a block away, and I heard the sound of cow feet clomping down a street somewhere. Men were pouring out of the plant, organizing search teams. A big black cow trotted into the lot, three men took off after it, and the cow ran away, headed for the 7-Eleven on Broad.
“Well, I guess our business is done here,” Lula said. “Now what?”
“Now we ride around and try to spot Butch.”
And we get out of the parking lot before someone remembers Lula was the one who opened the gate.
“I kind of worked up an appetite being around all those cows,” Lula said, climbing into the Jeep. “I wouldn’t mind getting a burger.”
I plugged the key into the ignition. “After we find Butch.”
“What are we gonna do if we find him?” Lula wanted to know. “Are you gonna run him over with the Jeep? Looks to me like that’s the only way you’ll catch him. He’s as big as one of those cows.”
I drove out of the lot, turned at the corner, and stopped to let a cow cross the street in front of me.
“I bet this happens all the time,” Lula said. “These people are probably used to having cows in their yards. It’s probably like living next to the jail. I bet there’s people escaping from the jail all the time, too.”
Anything was possible, but for all the time I’ve lived in Trenton, which was all my life, I’ve never heard of cows making a run for it out of the packing plant.
Two cop cars raced through an intersection one street over. I could hear men shouting to one another, and I heard a cow bellow not far off. A man bolted from between two houses with a cow hot on his heels. The guy scrambled on top of a car, and the cow ran off in another direction.
I doubled back to the plant and spotted Butch getting into his car. The lot was filled with crazed cows and crazed cow catchers, so I decided to follow Butch and attempt a capture somewhere else.
Butch took Broad to Hamilton, found his way to Cluck-in-a-Bucket, and went straight to the drive-through window. He was driving a white Taurus that was a bunch of years old. Easy to follow.
“This is enough to give me religion,” Lula said. “How good is this? We follow some idiot to Cluck-in-a-Bucket. Just when I’m hungry, too. I bet it’s the bottle. You got your bottle, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it,” Lula said. “The bottle’s working for us.”
Butch put his order in, pulled up to the next window, and I hung back.
“I got a order,” Lula said to me. “Pull up to the window.”
“I’m not getting stuck in the drive-through. If he parks, you can go inside and get your order while I make the capture. If he leaves with his food, you’ll have to wait.”
“Okay, I could do that,” Lula said. “That sounds like a plan.”
Butch got his food and parked nose-in, facing the side of the building. Lula jumped out of the Jeep and hustled inside, and I parked directly behind Butch, blocking his exit. My first choice was to talk to him and convince him to come downtown with me. My second choice was to give him a shot with my stun gun and handcuff him to his car. Then I’d pay a tow truck to drag him to the police station. I’d still be way ahead. Ordinarily, I’d stun a guy and Lula and I would wrestle him into my backseat. Since Butch was three hundred pounds soaking wet, wrestling wasn’t practical.
I trotted up to the Taurus and bent to talk to Butch. He jumped at my voice, a piece of burger fell out of his mouth, and he shrieked like a girl.
“I just want to talk to you,” I said.
