e is taking him back. I’m not sure why.”
“She loves him.”
“Yeah, well, I love him, too, but I don’t want to live with him. Although, I have to say we had fun yesterday. We watched the game, and it was almost like he was human. What did you do?”
“Blew up a fuel depot, stole twelve rockets and made off with them in a stolen van, got kidnapped by a maniac, and had dinner with a guy who farted fire.”
“That would be funny, but I’m worried it’s all true.”
“It’s been a long couple days.”
“Did he really fart fire?” Morelli asked.
“Yeah. Set his pants on fire and burned my mother’s dining room chair to a crisp.”
“Wish I’d seen it,” Morelli said.
“Men are weird.”
“Cupcake, we’d all like to be able to fart fire.”
“Gotta go.”
“Love you,” Morelli said.
“Me, too,” I said. And I hung up.
Carl was in the kitchen, feeding cereal to Rex, when we got home. Carl would drop in a Fruit Loop, Rex would rush out of his can, stuff the Fruit Loop into his cheek, and rush back to his can. Carl would repeat the drill.
“Cute,” I said. “Carl has a pet.”
“Either that or he’s fattening him up for the kill.”
“Do monkeys eat hamsters?”
Diesel shrugged. “They eat pizza with pepperoni.”
Mental note: First thing tomorrow, take Rex to stay at parents’ house for duration of monkey visit.
I told Diesel about the cement-?block house in the woods, and I repeated my conversation with Munch.
“There’s no point looking for the house,” Diesel said. “Wulf will move Munch. And we’ve caused him sufficient aggravation that he’s probably in the pro cess of moving the whole operation out of the Barrens.”
“He can’t do that overnight. Munch said he had four BlueBec rockets sitting on pads.”
“A rocket that size can be trucked out fairly easily. Most of its weight is in fuel. I just don’t know why we aren’t seeing it. I suppose he could camouflage a single rocket if he put it in a stand of pines. And he might even be able to hide an antenna array. What we should be seeing from the air is command central. He needs a place to house his men, track his rocket, plant his transmitter. And he’d need a generator. Why aren’t we seeing all that?”
“Maybe you’re looking in the wrong part of the Barrens?”
“No. Everything he does is in the same area. I know Banger Road and Marbury Road.”
“Apparently, they have everything in place to send up the sounding rocket, except for the barium. They’re waiting on the barium.”
“I talked to Cuddles. He said it would be in late tomorrow.”
Stephanie Plum 14.5 - Plum Spooky
TWENTY-THREE