When Life Gives You Lemons

Chapter 20- "Long Live Lemons"

Fudge decided that it would be a good idea to switch on her recording device while Mater was infiltrating the Lemon meeting. Maybe it could give them some solid evidence of any criminal activity that occurred. She figured that it would be powerful enough to pick up the audio on Holley's computer. Finn, Holley and Fudge were gonna be listening to everything that was going on. Plus, it didn't require much effort, so it wasn't gonna interfere with her other job.

What was her other job? Well, unless it later came up that they needed to look up any information, Finn decided to just let Fudge watch the race in order to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. After all, they were sure that these Lemons were trying to sabotage the race. So, quickly, Fudge pressed the record button on the watch. Once she was satisfied that it was going, she turned her attention to the track while also trying to listen in on how Mater was doing.

"Wow!" The tow truck was clearly impressed with the casino he was towing Victor Hugo, leader of the Hugo family, through. "This place looks like it's made out of gold."

"That's because it is, Mater", Holley radioed. "Now, be careful what you say."

"Why's that?"

"Because you could easily create suspicion in a situation like this!" Holley explained, trying not to sound exasperated. "Just... don't talk to us!"

"What do you mean 'don't talk to you'?"

"I mean, don't talk to us! This is exactly how you can create suspicion!"

"So, you want me to stop talking to you?"

"Yes!"

"Right now!"

"Mater! The Hugos are looking at you!"

Indeed, they were. The Hugos on either side of Mater were giving him odd looks.

Fudge groaned. "I knew this was a bad idea!" And she wasn't just talking about infiltrating the meeting.

Fudge would never admit it, but although she was worried about Mater, there was a part of her that was relieved to no end that it wasn't her going in and infiltrating.

"You are acting strange today, Ivan", one of the Hugos commented.

Now, Holley had installed a computer screen into Mater's windshield, which only the tow truck himself could see and it had constantly been flashing up with useless information (to the case, anyway) like the odds of a car winning at the casino and what the next spin would be. Now, when Mater looked at the Hugo, he was getting all kinds of facts about him.

"I have no idea what you're talkin' about, Alexander Hugo AKA Chop Shop Alex. Hey, you got a lot of AKAs, Alex, but I guess that makes sense, seein's how you's wanted in France and Germany and Czech Republic..."

"Mater, stop it!" Holley cried.

"Mater, what are you doing?!" Fudge shrieked, horrified. "Shut up!"

As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Fudge regretted using them. She knew she'd made things worse for Mater. His conversation with Finn had seriously dragged the tow truck's confidence down and she'd just gone and done the same thing.

Me and my big mouth! Fudge silently cursed herself.

She didn't think Mater was an idiot. She'd always thought of him as more... naïve, which was exactly how he'd been acting just then. She was just worried about him and really didn't want this case of mistaken identity to be the death of him.

"Okay, okay!" Alexander whispered. "Keep your voice down. You're gonna make me arrested." To the others, he added, "Don't mess with Ivan today. He's in a bad mood."