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More cities may soon feel the splat of the pie killers. For $50, Weiner is offering to any taker a "franchise kit" explaining the modus operandi. In Los Angeles, Pie Face International's Don Murdock is processing applications from potential hit men in Detroit, Chicago and New York, and has already taken on two operatives to service the capital area. "In Washington," he says, "the politicians are so removed from the people it takes a pie in the face to get them back to reality."
Vindictive Females. Hit men seldom encounter hostility from their victims. "When you have pie all over your face," explains Weiner, "it's hard to do anything. You can't see and you can't breathe. So you just stand there and grin." But women, in general, do not react well. "They just don't like it one bit," says Murdock. "They aren't good sports." On the other hand, reports a Minneapolis Pie Kill operative, a majority of the clients are "vindictive females."
Recognizing the potential risk in their jobs, hit men often ape the tactics of their counterparts in organized crime, carefully timing and rehearsing their jobs, using accomplices to distract their victims, noting the nearest exits, and leaving cars at the curb with motors running.
At week's end, however, pie throwers across the country heard some unsettling news. In Minneapolis, Pie Kill Agent Jeffery Carpenter, 19, was arrested and charged with simple assault and breach of the peace for trying to pie a woman in a local doughnut store. Though the assault charge was later dropped, Carpenter was warned that he must stay on his best behavior for a year or face jail and a fine. Or, if justice is to be truly served, he might just be pasted with a lemon meringue pie.