Janet Evanovich - Motor Mouth

“I’ll show you a moon,” Luis said. “Anybody want to see a moon?”

“ No ,” everyone said. No one wanted to see Luis’s moon.

Two hours later we were still at the table, and Hooker and I were antsy to get back to the warehouse. Hard to relax when the hauler was sitting there beside a mound of scrap metal that used to be two race cars.

“This has been great,” I said to Felicia, “but Hooker and I need to get back to work.”

“What about dessert?” Felicia wanted to know. “I haven’t brought dessert out yet.”

“We’ll be back later for dessert.” A lot later.

“Should I come with you?” Gobbles asked.

Gobbles had been tending bar and looked like he’d been drinking more than serving.

“Going to leave you here, buddy,” Hooker said. “Some body needs to stick around and protect the homestead.”

“That’s me,” Gobbles said. “I’m the homestead protectorer.”

Turns out you work a lot slower when you’re full of pork and fried bread. It was close to ten o’clock and I was struggling with the last large piece of metal when Felicia opened the side door and peeked in at us.

“It’s me,” she said. “I brought you dessert, but I’m afraid to come in and get jumped on by the doggie.”

“It’s okay,” Hooker said. “He’s sleeping in the lounge in the hauler. It’s past his bedtime.”

It was past my bedtime, too. Taking a car apart is hard physical labor, and I was exhausted.

Hooker closed the door to the lounge and went to help Felicia. She was carrying two grocery bags and had a newspaper tucked under her arm.

“I brought the paper,” she said. “It has a big story about the dead guy. I didn’t know if you saw it.”

“Does it say he was killed by a swamp monster?” Hooker asked.

“No. It says the medical examiner believes the man was attacked by a large dog. And that he was already dead when the dog attacked him.”

“Time to get out of Dodge,” Hooker said.

I agreed, but we couldn’t leave before cleaning house.

“What’s this?” Felicia said. “What’s this pile of stuff?”

“Car parts,” Hooker told her.

“Are you making a car?”

“No,” he said. “We unmade a car. Now we have to get rid of the parts.”

Felicia was pulling containers out of the bag and setting them on a toolbox. “That’s a lot of parts. How are you going to get rid of them?”

“Dump truck,” Hooker said.

“You got one?”

“Not yet.”

The last thing to come out of the bag was a thermos of coffee and two cups. “I know someone who has a dump truck,” Felicia said. “Rosa’s uncle owns a junkyard. Sells scrap metal. He’s got a nice big dump truck.” Felicia had her purse on her arm. She took her cell phone out of her purse and punched in a number. “You eat your dessert, and I’ll get the dump truck,” Felicia said.

“We can’t have anyone else involved in this,” Hooker said.

“Don’t worry. We keep it nice and quiet.”

I poured the coffee and Hooker and I laid waste to the dessert. Bananas drenched in rum, some kind of fruitcake smothered in whipped cream, fried dough balls coated with cinnamon sugar, a chocolate cake that had obviously been soaked in booze, an assortment of little cookies, and some sort of parfait that was crumble cake, fruit, whipped cream, and liquor.

“This is the first time I’ve ever gotten buzzed from dessert,” I told Hooker. “My life is dirt, but I’m suddenly feeling very happy.”

Hooker gave me a sideways glance. “How happy are you?”

“Not that happy,” I told him.

Hooker blew out a sigh.

“You wouldn’t take advantage of me in a drunken state, would you?” I asked him.

“Darlin’, I drive stock cars. Of course I’d take advantage of your drunken state. It’s practically required.”

A truck engine rumbled outside the warehouse, and there was a short blast from an air horn.

“That’s Rosa,” Felicia said, going to the bay doors. “I’ll let her in.”

“Tell her to back in,” Hooker said. “I’m going to cut some of the lights.”

The door to the middle bay rolled up, and we could see red brake lights attached to a massive industrial-grade dump truck.

“You’re clear,” Felicia yelled. “Back it up.”

The truck inched into the warehouse, stopping a couple feet short of the pile of scrap metal. Felicia hit the button that rolled the bay door back down. The driver’s-side door to the truck opened, and Rosa swung out, wearing four-inch heels that were clear plastic and rhinestones, a tight black spandex skirt, and a red sweater with a low scoop neck that showed a lot of cleavage.

“I was on a date when you called,” she said to Felicia. “You guys owe me big-time for ruining my love life.”

Hooker was smiling, hands in pockets, rocked back on his heels. “Where’d you learn to drive a dump truck?” he asked Rosa.

“My first husband was a truck driver. I used to go on the road with him sometimes. And sometimes I helped my uncle in the junkyard. You gotta know how to do a lot of different things in my family.”

A car horn beeped outside the warehouse.

“That’s probably my uncle,” Rosa said. “I told him you’d autograph his hat if he loaned us the truck.”

I sensed Hooker do a mental grimace.

“You didn’t tell him about the hauler, did you?” Hooker asked.

“No. I told him there was a big secret in here and he couldn’t come in. So he’s waiting outside for you.”

Rosa, Felicia, and I started throwing pieces onto the dump truck, and Hooker trotted to the door with a pen. He opened the door and took a step back.

“Rosa, there must be fifteen people out here!”

“Yeah,” Rosa said. “You’re such a popular guy. Everybody loves you. Just hurry up because we’re saving the big, heavy pieces for you to put in the truck.”

Twenty minutes later Rosa went to the door, opened it, and stuck her head out. “Hey, Mr. Rock Star, you want to stop signing autographs and help us out here?”

I could hear Hooker yelling though the open door. “This crowd keeps growing! Where are these people coming from?”

“All you people,” Rosa shouted. “You gotta go home and let Hooker come in here now. We got some bimbos in here for him.”

Felicia giggled. “I guess that’s us!”

I didn’t think it was all that funny. I’d actually been his bimbo.

Some laughing and clapping drifted through the open door. Hooker swooped in, and Rosa closed and locked the door behind him. We wrestled the heavy pieces onto the truck, cleaned up the stray nuts and bolts, swept the floor, and dumped the sweepings into the back with the rest of the criminal evidence.

Rosa climbed into the cab and cranked the engine over. “I’ll take this to the junkyard and tomorrow it’ll get compacted into a chunk the size of a loaf of bread.”

“We’ll follow you,” I said.

“You don’t need to do that,” Rosa said. “My cousin Jimmy is going to tie up the dogs and let me in.”

We killed the lights in the warehouse and Felicia opened the bay door. Rosa popped her headlights, the dump truck rumbled out of the warehouse, into the street, and turned left. Felicia rolled the bay door closed, and we put the lights back on in the warehouse. I put the thermos and cake containers back into the bags and walked Felicia out to her car.

“Thanks,” I said. “I really appreciate the help. This didn’t work out exactly as planned.”

“You mean with the dead guy? That’s okay. We’re in the wholesale fruit business. It’s not the first time I had to do cleanup after a dead guy. See you at breakfast.”

I nodded numbly and looked at my watch. Breakfast wasn’t all that far away. Hooker and I put the tools back in the carts and pushed the carts onto the lift. I powered the lift up to the bottom deck and rolled the carts off, into the narrow hauler aisle. We secured the carts and then we secured the pocket doors. I pressed the button that magically turned the lift into the hauler back door and watched it slide into place. We secured the two top-to-bottom corner pieces that held the back panel firmly in place. And then I disconnected the power cord and control and stowed it in the outside compartment. Then we walked through the warehouse, making sure it was exactly as we’d found it. No spare parts or tools left behind for Police Squad to find.