Janet Evanovich - Motor Mouth

“Time to get up and go to work.”

“It doesn’t feel like time to go to work. It feels like time to be asleep.” He looked around the room. “Where are we?”

“Felicia’s house.”

Hooker flopped over onto his back and put his hands over his face. “Omigod, did we really steal a hauler?”

“Yep.”

“I was hoping it was a dream.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “And Oscar Huevo?”

“Dead.” I had my shoes on and my bra in my hand. “I’m going to the bathroom and then I’m going downstairs. I smell coffee brewing. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

Ten minutes later, I was across from Hooker at Felicia’s kitchen table. I had a mug of coffee and a plate heaped with French toast and sausage. Felicia and her daughter were at the stove, cooking for what seemed like an endless supply of grandchildren and assorted other relatives.

“This is Sister Marie Elena,” Felicia said, introducing a bent little old lady dressed in black. “She come from the church on the corner when she hear Hooker is visiting. She’s a big fan. And this guy behind her is my husband’s brother Luis.”

Hooker was shaking hands and signing autographs and trying to eat. A kid climbed onto Hooker’s lap and scarfed down one of Hooker’s sausages.

“Who are you?” Hooker asked.

“Billy.”

“My grandnephew,” Felicia said, putting four more sausages on Hooker’s plate. “Lily’s youngest boy. Lily is my sister’s middle child. They’re living with me while they look for a place. They just came here from Orlando. Lily’s husband got transferred.”

Everyone was talking at once, Beans was barking at Felicia’s cat, and the television was blaring from the kitchen counter.

“I have to go,” I shouted at Hooker. “I want to get to the car. I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided to take a look. Just in case.”

Hooker stood up at the table. “I’ll go with you.”

“When Gobbles gets up, tell him to stay in the house,” I told Felicia. “Tell him we’ll be back later.”

“Dinner at six o’clock,” Felicia said. “I’m cooking special Cuban for you. And my friend Marjorie and her husband are coming. They want to meet you. They’re big fans.”

“Sure,” Hooker said.

“But then we have to leave,” I said to Felicia. “We need to get back to North Carolina.”

“I’m in no rush to get back to North Carolina,” Hooker said, grinning down at me. “Maybe we should stay another night.”

“Maybe you should take out more health insurance,” I said to Hooker.

It was early morning and the sky over Miami was a brilliant azure. Not a cloud visible, and already the sun was heating things up. It was the first day of the workweek in a neighborhood of hardworking people. Clumps of Cuban immigrants and first-generation Americans stood waiting at bus stops. Not far off, in South Beach, the traffic was light and the gleaming and immaculate pricey cars of the rich and famous were cooling off in air-conditioned garages after a night on the town. In Little Havana, dusty trucks and workhorse family sedans hustled down streets, carrying kids to relatives’ houses for day care and adults to jobs citywide.

Hooker drove past the front of the warehouse and turned at the corner. He circled the block and we looked for cars occupied by cops, Huevo henchmen, or crazed fans. There were no occupied cars that we could see, and the traffic was minimal, so Hooker found a parking spot on the street and we unloaded Beans. Felicia had given us a key to the side door. We let ourselves in, switched the lights on, and closed and locked the door behind us.

Everything was just as we’d left it. I found a jumpsuit, pulled on a pair of gloves, and went to work on the car.

“What can I do?” Hooker asked.

“You can go through the hauler and make sure there aren’t any more dead people in there.”

Hooker prowled through the hauler and cleaned up after me as I methodically examined the car.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked.

“No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t here. It just means I haven’t found it yet.”

Hooker looked inside the car. “I have to give Huevo credit. They take every opportunity to make the car better. Right down to the gearshift knob.”

“Yeah, I’m taking the knob with me. It’s aluminum and super light. They’ve even used a carved design to shave an ounce off it. I thought we might adapt it for your cars. Steal the concept but change the design.”

The side door opened and Felicia and Rosa bustled in.

“It’s all over the television,” Rosa said. “It’s a big hoohah.” She looked at Beans, sprawled on a blanket we’d lifted out of the hauler. “What’s with him? Why isn’t he trying to knock us over?”

“He’s got a stomach full of French toast and sausage. He’s sleeping it off.”

“Good to remember,” Rosa said.

“We saw pictures of Mr. Dead Guy,” Felicia said. “He was on the news. They have a television at the cigar factory and Rosa saw it and called me so I could put the television on at the fruit stand. First they had pictures of Mr. Dead Guy getting taken away in the truck thing…what’s it called?”

“Meat wagon,” Rosa said.

Felicia shook her finger at Rosa. “Don’t stand near me if you’re going to disrespect the dead. I don’t want God to get confused when he sends the lightning bolt down.”

“You worry too much,” Rosa told Felicia. “God’s a busy guy. He don’t have time to micromanage. What are the chances he heard that? It’s early in the morning. He’s probably having breakfast with Mrs. God.”

Felicia made the sign of the cross two times.

“Anyway, they had him covered up with a blanket in those pictures,” Felicia said. “You couldn’t actually see him. But then they interviewed the restaurant worker who found Mr. Dead Guy, and this is the good part…the worker said this was the work of some kind of monster killer who eats dead flesh. He said Mr. Dead Guy was all wrapped up like a mummy, but that he could see through the plastic wrap that he was shot in the head and that someone ate part of Mr. Dead Guy’s shoulder. And it was someone with real big teeth.”

“And then there was a press conference and the police person said it was true that someone or some thing had eaten part of the deceased. And they think the fact he was all wrapped up might be part of some devil ritual,” Rosa said.

“They didn’t say devil,” Felicia said. “They just said ritual.”

“They didn’t have to say devil,” Rosa said. “What other kind of ritual could it be? You think they used him for shrink-wrap practice at butcher school? Of course it would be a devil ritual.”

“Then they showed some pictures of him before he got wrapped up,” Felicia said. “Pictures of him with his wife. And a picture of him with his race driver.”

“What about the hauler?” Hooker asked Rosa and Felicia. “Did anyone say anything about the missing sixty-nine car hauler?”

“No,” Rosa said. “Nobody said anything about that. And I got a theory. You ever see the girlfriend that goes along with the Mr. Dead Guy race driver? I bet she’s the one ate Mr. Dead Guy.”

“Beans ate Mr. Dead Guy,” Felicia said. “We saw it.”

“Oh yeah,” Rosa said. “I forgot.”

“We gotta get back to work,” Felicia said, heading for the door. “We just wanted to tell you.”

“We need to talk,” Hooker said to me. “Let’s take a break here and find a diner. I didn’t get a chance to eat at Felicia’s house. And after the diner, I need to go shopping. You took your bag with you, but I’ve just got the clothes on my back. I thought I’d be home by now.”