Janet Evanovich - Motor Mouth

I jumped back and slammed into the locker on the opposite side of the narrow aisle. A wave of nausea slid through my stomach, and the room dimmed for a moment. In my mind I was screaming, but I think the reality was that my mouth was open and no sound was emerging.

Hooker looked in at me. “See a spider?” His eyes focused on the plastic-wrapped chunk of body parts on the floor. “What the hell is that?”

I was breathless and too horrified to move. “I think it’s a d-d-dead guy. I opened the cabinet, and he fell out.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You need to come take a look, because I seriously think it’s a dead guy, and I’d like to get out of here, but my feet won’t go anywhere.”

Hooker moved next to me, and we both stared down at the body. The eyes were open in a look of unblinking surprise, and there was a big bullet hole in the middle of the forehead. He was maybe in his fifties with a stocky build, and dark brown hair cut short. He was naked and bloody and grotesque. In fact, he was grotesque beyond seeming human, so that after the first shock wore off, it was like looking at a movie prop.

“Shit,” Hooker said. “This really is a dead guy. I hate dead guys. Especially when they’ve got a bullet hole in their forehead, and they’re in a hauler I just stole.”

I glanced at Hooker and saw that he’d broken out in a sweat. “You aren’t going to get sick, or faint, or something, are you?”

“Race-car drivers don’t faint. We’re manly men. I’m pretty close to blowing chow, though. Manly men are allowed to do that.”

“Maybe you should sit down.”

“That sounds like a good idea, but I’m too freaked to move. And here’s more bad news. Do you know who this is?”

“No. Do you?”

“The plastic wrap has his face sort of distorted, but I think this is Oscar Huevo.”

I clapped my hands over my ears. “I didn’t hear that.”

Gobbles wandered in. “Holy fuck,” Gobbles said. “That looks like Oscar Huevo. Holy fucking fuck .”

“Someone has to get me out of here,” I said. “I’m going to be sick.”

Hooker gave me a shove, and we all rushed out and stood gulping air in the middle of the warehouse. Gobbles had started shivering. He was shivering so much I could hear his teeth chattering.

“This is b-b-bad,” he said.

Hooker and I nodded agreement. It was bad.

“Who would want to kill Oscar Huevo?” I asked Hooker.

“The list is probably in the tens of thousands. He was a brilliant businessman, but I’m told he was a ruthless competitor. He had a lot of enemies,” Hooker said.

“We need to call the police.”

“Darlin’, we’re standing in front of a hauler we just hijacked and vandalized. And the dead guy on the floor owns the car that just beat me out of the championship. And if that isn’t bad enough, two Stiller employees are involved in some really bad shit.”

“Do you think Oscar Huevo is the billion-dollar cargo that was going to Mexico?”

“I think it’s a good possibility.”

We fell silent for a couple minutes, all of us absorbing the extent of the disaster.

“I got the icky c-c-creepy c-c-crawlies,” Gobbles said. “M-m-maybe we could just p-p-put Oscar back in the l-l-locker.”

A car door slammed outside the warehouse and Hooker, Gobbles, and I went rigid. A beat later the lock tumbled on the side door and Felicia Ibarra and her pal Rosa Florez walked in. Rosa works in one of the cigar factories on Fifteenth Street. She’s in her forties. She’s half a head shorter than me and twenty pounds heavier. And while I like to think of myself as having an okay shape, I’m built like a boy compared with Rosa.

Beans gave a happy woof and took off at a gallop, chugging across the room like a freight train. He skidded to a stop in front of Felicia, put his two front paws on her chest, and she went down to the floor with Beans on top of her.

Hooker gave a whistle, pulled a dog biscuit out of his pocket, and tossed it across the room. Beans’s head snapped around, his eyes opened wide, and he abandoned Felicia like she was yesterday’s news, thundering off in search of the biscuit.

“He likes you,” Hooker said to Felicia, helping her get to her feet.

“Lucky me,” Felicia said. “It’s a dog, right?”

Rosa hugged Hooker and me. “We just came to say hello. We never see you anymore.” She looked over Hooker’s shoulder and went wide-eyed at the hauler. “Omigod, this is one of those NASCAR trucks, isn’t it? It’s the thing the car goes in. How does it work? Where do you put the car?”

“The car goes in the top,” I told her. “The ramp is on hydraulics. It lifts the car and the car gets rolled into the bay on the top.”

“And who’s this?” she said, eyeing Gobbles.

“This is Gobbles. He also works for Stiller Racing.”

“Ladies,” Gobbles said, bobbing his head.

“Are you a driver?” Rosa wanted to know.

“No, ma’am,” Gobbles said. “I’m a spotter like Barney. And during the week I do some detailing.”

Felicia swept past me to the hauler. “What’s in the downstairs? I always wanted to see this. I just want to look in the door,” she said. “Just take a little peek.”

“No!” Hooker and I said in unison, blocking the way.

Rosa tried to see around Hooker. “Does this truck have one of those lounges with black leather couches where all the drivers have sex?”

“We don’t all have sex there,” Hooker said.

“Is there someone back there now?” Rosa asked. “Someone famous?”

“No,” Hooker said. “No one’s back there.”

“Your mouth is crooked,” Rosa said. “Your mouth always gets that little crook in it when you tell a fib. Who’s back there? It’s not a movie star, is it? I’m not giving up until I find out.”

There was a loud woof and then a thud from inside the hauler. We all turned and looked and saw that Beans had gone into the hauler through the side door and was trying to get Oscar Huevo to play. He’d managed to knock Huevo over, and now he was jumping on him, making growly dog sounds. Huevo didn’t move or squeak, so Beans straddled him and sunk his teeth into what I suspected was Huevo’s shoulder.

“Holy crap!” Hooker said.

He threw a biscuit at Beans, and Beans snapped it up in midair. The next biscuit fell short, and Beans had to jump over Huevo to get it.

I ran to the SUV and opened the back hatch. “Get him to jump in,” I yelled to Hooker. “Throw some biscuits in here.”

Hooker whistled and tossed the biscuits, and Beans galloped across the floor and sailed into the SUV. I slammed the hatch closed and leaned against the car, my hand over my heart.

“What is that?” Felicia wanted to know, looking into the hauler. “It looks like a big bag of chicken parts. No wonder the doggie wanted to chew it. What are you doing with chicken parts? Are you having a barbecue party?” She elbowed Hooker out of her way and stepped into the hauler. “It smells funny in here,” she said, bending for a closer look. “I think these chicken parts are rotten.” She suddenly straightened and made the sign of the cross. “This isn’t chicken parts.”

Hooker blew out a sigh. “It’s a dead guy.”

“Holy mother,” Rosa said. “What are you doing with a dead guy?”

I gave Rosa and Felicia an abbreviated version of the last six hours. Felicia made the sign of the cross at least ten times, and Rosa listened with her mouth open and her eyes half popped out of her head.

“I gotta see this,” Rosa said when I was done. “I gotta see the dead guy.”

We all returned to the hauler and gaped at Huevo.