Janet Evanovich - Motor Mouth

Hooker’s eyes were narrowed, his mouth was tight, and he angrily tapped his fork on the table.

I firmly removed the fork from Hooker’s hand. “Did the killer guy have an accent? Did he sound Mexican?”

“No. No accent.”

“Did he say when he was going to kill you?”

“He didn’t go into detail.”

“Were there noises in the background? Could you tell where he was?”

“It sounded like he was driving. I could hear Beans panting.”

“Did he give any indication of where he was going?”

“No. Nothing.”

The food arrived, and Hooker forked in some omelet. I drank my coffee and stared into my empty cup. I looked around for the waitress but couldn’t find her.

“Have you always had this waitress problem?” Hooker asked.

“Only when I’m with you.”

Hooker swapped coffee cups with me. The waitress appeared and gave him a refill.

I ate the cereal I’d ordered and drank some more coffee. A tear slid down my cheek and plopped onto the Formica tabletop.

“Oh crap,” Hooker said, reaching over, cradling my face in his hands, using his thumb to swipe the tears from my cheek. “I hate when you cry.”

“I’m worried about Beans. I’m trying not to be crazy, but I feel terrible. I bet he misses us.”

“I’m worried about him, too,” Hooker said. “And now some guy wants to kill me.”

I snuffled the tears back. “Yes, but you deserve to die.”

“Jeez,” Hooker said. “You really know how to hold a grudge.”

“A woman scorned.”

“Darlin’, I didn’t scorn you. I just boinked a salesclerk.”

“There were pictures on the Internet!”

Hooker’s cell phone rang.

“’Lo,” Hooker said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

He disconnected, and I gave him raised eyebrows. “Well?”

“That was Ray Huevo…the grieving younger brother of the deceased Oscar. You remember Ray, the brother not eaten by the swamp monster, the brother you saw at the track with Horse and Baldy, the brother who undoubtedly knows the spawn of Satan who has my dog. He wants his cars back.”

“That could be a problem. Does he care if they’re the size of a loaf of bread?”

“Let’s walk through this,” Hooker said. “Someone killed Oscar Huevo, shrink-wrapped him, and stuffed him into a locker in the hauler. We’re assuming it was an inside job, but the truth is, those haulers aren’t locked and anyone could get in and dump a body.”

“Not entirely true. You need a garage pass to get to the hauler area.”

“That narrows it down to a couple thousand.”

“Okay, so a lot of people had access. It’s still not that easy. They had to bring the body in somehow. And we know he was brought in, because there wasn’t any blood in the hauler. Even if they’d scrubbed it down, I think we would have seen some blood or signs of a struggle. Even if they shot him outside the hauler and dragged him in, we’d see blood. And he was naked, with a boner…okay, I guess that could happen in the hauler.”

“No way,” Hooker said. “He didn’t have socks on. Nobody bothers to take their socks off to have sex in the hauler.”

I cut my eyes at him.

“Not that I would know from personal experience,” Hooker said.

“The paper said Oscar Huevo was last seen having dinner with Ray. That was Saturday night. Both brothers were planning on attending the race, but only one showed up. No one saw Oscar at the track. A doorman remembers Oscar going out for a walk after dinner. No one remembers seeing Oscar return from the walk.”

Hooker finished his pancakes and started on the biscuit. “So how did they get the body into the hauler without being seen? There’s always activity around the hauler. Plus, they couldn’t drive him in on a golf cart. The carts are stopped at the gate.”

“Maybe they brought him in after the race. Remember, the sixty-nine hauler was last to leave because they were waiting for a part. Maybe somehow they smuggled the body in then. At a certain point, all the rules are relaxed and carts and vans can move into the garage area.

“And the back of the hauler was still open when we walked Beans. They had the tool cart out so they could work on the truck.”

“Seems like a stretch,” Hooker said, “but I guess it’s possible. Here’s question number two. Ray Huevo just called and said ‘all’s forgiven if he just gets his cars back.’ Why would he say that? If he knows I stole his hauler, why wouldn’t he go to the police? Why didn’t he go to the police in the first place?”

“Because Huevo knows Oscar was stashed in the hauler? And he knows you know that he knows?” I said.

“That’s a lot of ‘ knows’ .” Hooker forked in some more omelet. “And why does Ray care about the cars? It was my understanding that he wasn’t enamored of racing.”

“They’re still Huevo property.”

Hooker shook his head. “It feels too weird to promise forgiveness if I return the cars. I can understand trying to kill me. And I could understand trying to buy me off or blackmailing me into keeping quiet.”

“Be hard to blackmail you. The press hangs all your dirty laundry out to dry in public.”

“Yeah,” Hooker said. “And I have too much money for them to be able to buy me.”

“Let’s face it,” I said to Hooker. “He’s not going to forgive you. He’s just saying that to give you a false sense of security. He’s going to kill you. His goon already tipped his hand.”

“Actually, the Beans snatcher didn’t say why he wanted to kill me. He could be acting independently of Ray Huevo. Like, maybe he just goes around killing people who leave their Saint Bernard’s in hauler lounges.”

Hooker ate his last piece of bacon and pushed back from the table.

“You don’t seem too worried,” I said to him.

“If I could just get my heart rate to drop below stroke level, I’d look even less worried.”

“We should tell someone at NASCAR.”

“Can’t do that,” Hooker said. “I’d be done as a driver. And driving’s all I know.”

“It’s not all you know,” I said.

Hooker grinned. “Darlin’, you’re flirting with me.”

“Trying to cheer you up.”

He signaled for the check. “It’s working.”

I was never the nut in my family. My younger brother, Bill, had that honor. I was the kid who graduated from college with an engineering degree and then took a safe, steady job with a boring insurance company. I was the reliable kid who showed up on time for Sunday dinner and remembered birthdays. Until Hooker. Now I’m working for Stiller Racing and running neck and neck with my brother for loose cannon of the year.

Hooker was driving, and I was riding shotgun, watching the world fly by. Breakfast was a half hour behind us. Miami was in front of us.

“So,” I said. “Now what?”

Hooker swung off the turnpike onto the east-west expressway. “I want my dog back.”

“Looks to me like you’re heading for South Beach.”

“Ray Huevo said he’s on the corporate yacht. I figure that’s a good place to start looking for Beans. It’s one thing to steal a man’s car. It’s an entirely different category of stealing when you’re talking about a man’s dog. And this isn’t even a normal dog. This is Beans.”

“He didn’t say anything about the fact that the holes in his brother’s shoulder matched your dog’s fangs?”

“He didn’t mention his brother or my dog. He just wanted his cars back.”

“Don’t you think that’s odd?”

“I think it’s scary cold.”

“Has it occurred to you that there’s an outside chance Ray won’t be cordial?”

“Spanky and his girlfriend are on that boat celebrating his win. And there’s a full crew. I don’t expect to be offered lunch, but I also don’t think I’ll get shot. I’m not sure what I’ll accomplish, but I don’t know where else to start.”