Motor Mouth: A Barnaby Novel

  “Thoughtful,” Hooker said on a resigned sigh.

  Felicia was at the back door. “We’ve been waiting for you! I just took the chicken off the grill. And I have hot fry bread.”

  I could see Beans bouncing around behind Felicia. He saw Hooker get out of the car, and he pushed past Felicia and bounded down the stairs. He gave a woof and hurled himself into Hooker, taking Hooker to the ground.

  “Guess he missed you,” I said to Hooker.

  “Look, doggie!” Felicia said, waving a piece of bread. “I have a nice big treat for you.”

  Beans’s ears perked up and he swiveled his head in Felicia’s direction. His nose twitched, he shoved off Hooker and galloped at Felicia. Felicia threw the bread into the kitchen, and Beans bounded in after it.

  Hooker picked himself up, ambled to the kitchen door and looked in. “You’ve got a lot of people packed in there,” Hooker said to Felicia.

  “Just family. And no one will tell anyone you’re here. It’s a secret.”

  “I’m relieved,” Hooker said.

  “Hooker’s here!” Felicia shouted into the house.

  Another cheer went up.

  “We’re serving buffet style,” Felicia said. “Help yourself.”

  Every flat surface held food. I fixed myself a plate and looked over at Hooker. He had a piece of chicken in one hand and a Sharpie in the other. He was signing hats and foreheads and eating barbecue. Who says a man can’t multitask?

  “Look at him,” Felicia said to me. “He’s such a sweetie. He’s even nice to Uncle Mickey. Everybody loves him. He thinks they love him because he’s a good driver, but everybody loves him because he’s a good person.”

  Rosa was next to Felicia. “I love him because he got a cute tushie.”

  They turned and looked at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Why do you love him?” Rosa wanted to know.

  “Who says I love him?”

  Rosa forked up some pulled pork. “You have to be nuts not to love him.”

  I remember when I was in high school and I had a terrible crush on this guy who worked in my dad’s garage. I’d go in after school, and he’d flirt with me and say he’d call. So I’d go home and wait, and he wouldn’t call. I’d wait and wait and wait. And he never called. And then one day I heard he got married. All the time he’d been telling me he’d call, he’d been engaged. That’s how tonight was feeling. I was waiting for the phone call. Ten percent of my mind was listening to Rosa, but the other ninety percent was dedicated to the rising panic that the call might not happen. Deep inside, I was a cat on a mouse. Tail twitching, eyes unblinking, whole body vibrating while I stalked the phone call that would make my life right.

  Eight o’clock and no phone call. Hooker looked at me from across the room. Hooker was better at this than I was. He could compartmentalize. He knew how to focus on one thing and set everything else aside. If Hooker was on a racetrack, his mind was working to win. Hooker had only one sequence of thought. How do I get to the front and stay there. When I was racing, other thoughts would creep in. I had no control over which thoughts would stay and which would get set aside for another time. Why wouldn’t the cute guy in the garage call me? What if I was in a wreck and broke my nose? And there were always lists. Algebra homework, laundry, clean my room, find my house key, call Maureen, study French…. So now Hooker had chosen to be in the moment enjoying Felicia’s friends and food, and my mind had chosen to obsess about the phone call.

  Eight o’clock I pantomimed to Hooker. Hooker glanced down at his watch and excused himself from the people around him. He started toward me and stopped to answer his phone.

  My breath stuck in my chest. This was it.

  Hooker had his head down and he was nodding at the caller…yes, yes, yes. His head came up, our eyes caught, and I didn’t like what I saw. Hooker was concentrating to hear over the room noise, talking into the phone. He disconnected and signaled me to head for the kitchen. I pushed through the crush and met Hooker on the small back stoop. There were a couple people huddled in the yard, laughing and talking. Smokers evicted from Felicia’s house. They smiled but didn’t come forward for an autograph. Smoking took precedence.

  Hooker steered me past them, to the SUV. He slid behind the wheel, and I sat next to him and asked the question. “The phone call?”

  “It was Rodriguez. Ray Huevo is missing. He told Rodriguez and Lucca to wait for him in the car after he talked to us. Said he would be a half hour tops. He never showed. They don’t know who he was meeting or where the meeting took place. They were calling because they decided we snatched Ray. I guess they’ve been out beating the bushes looking for us and finally gave up and made the call. They’re in a panic because the buyer is due to arrive at nine. I don’t know who the buyer is, but Rodriguez and Lucca are scared.”

  I was stunned. Of all the things I expected to hear, this wasn’t even close. “I’m a little flummoxed,” I said to Hooker.

  “Then I’ve got you beat because I’m a lot flummoxed.”

  “Maybe Ray got cold feet and took off. Maybe he’s in Rio.”

  “It’s possible, but he seemed like he had other plans when he talked to us.”

  “Something must have gone wrong at his meeting,” I said. “Maybe he’s swimming with the fishes.”

  “God, I hope not. We need him to get us out of this disaster.”

  “What about Gobbles?”

  “I spoke to Gobbles,” Hooker said. “He was there with Rodriguez and Lucca. He sounded rattled.”

  “At least he’s not dead.”

  “Not yet, but I’m worried. Rodriguez and Lucca have a history of solving their problems by shooting people.”

  “It’s odd no one knew who Ray was going to see. He has staff. They keep his calendar, they make his phone calls, they read his e-mails. Even bad guys with secrets have people around them who are entrusted with sensitive information. So I’m thinking the meeting had to either be not important enough to mention to staff, or else something spontaneous, arranged at the last minute.

  “Did Rodriguez say anything about the chip buyer? Who it is? Why the chip is so important?”

  “No,” Hooker said. “Just that the buyer was arriving at nine. For all I know, he could be selling his fancy-ass battery to the battery bunny. Or how about this, maybe the chip is a homing device for an alien probe.”

  “You got that from Star Trek.”

  “Yeah, that was a great movie. It had whales and everything.” Hooker plugged the key into the ignition and cranked the motor over. “Let’s drive out to the airport. I want to see who’s arriving tonight.”

  THIRTEEN

  Hooker was stretched back in his seat, hands locked behind his head, eyes closed against the ambient light from the terminal.

  “Surveillance doesn’t actually work if you keep your eyes closed,” I told Hooker.

  “Are your eyes open?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good enough.”

  We were parked to the side of the Signature terminal, and there wasn’t a lot of activity.

  “The plane’s late,” I said to Hooker.

  “If they’re coming from out of the country, they have to go through customs and immigration, and it’s in a different part of the airport. After they clear customs, they’ll get back into the plane, and the plane will taxi them over here. I’ve been through the process at this airport, and it usually goes pretty fast, but the plane still has to get from point A to point B.”

  At nine thirty-five, three men in suits and two men in uniform exited the terminal. The men in uniform and two of the suits carried luggage. Three small rolling suitcases and a computer case. They were traveling light. The third man was luggage free. They were all Caucasian. The uniformed men were young, in their twenties. Flight attendants. The three men in suits were forties to fifties. I didn’t recognize any of them. That didn’t say a lot because I never recognized anyone. Okay, maybe if Brad Pitt walked by. The Russian pr
emier, the queen of England, our own vice president (what’s-his-name), the ambassador to Bulgaria, were all safe with me.

  “Do you think this is our man?” I asked Hooker.

  “Seems to be the only plane with a nine o’clock landing.”

  “Do you recognize any of these guys?”

  “No. They look like average middle-management businessmen.”

  A six-seat limo pulled up, the luggage was loaded, the three suits got into the limo, and the limo pulled away with us a couple car lengths behind. We followed the limo south on Route 95 and then east on 395, across the MacArthur Causeway. The lights of South Beach were directly in front of us. Four behemoth cruise ships parked at the Biscayne Bay cruise ship docks were to my right. I’d expected the limo to take Collins and head for Loews or the Delano or the Ritz. Instead, the limo right turned onto Alton.

  “He’s going to the boat,” I said to Hooker. “What does that mean?”

  “I’m guessing no one’s told him about the missing Ray.”

  The limo pulled into the marina lot and stopped at idle in front of the walkway leading to the piers. Lights still on. Motor running. Hooker cut his lights and slid into a shadowed slot at the back of the lot.

  Two uniformed crew members came running from dockside. They were followed by someone who was also in uniform but clearly was higher on the food chain. Maybe the captain or purser. The limo driver got out and popped the trunk. The three suits got out, and after a brief conversation, the luggage was turned over to the crew members, and everyone headed for the boat. The limo driver got into his car and drove away.

  “Looks like these guys were invited to stay on the boat and the invitation stands,” Hooker said.

  Hooker and I got out, quietly closed the car doors, skirted the lot, and found a dark bench on the marina boardwalk where we could watch the action. Problem was, there didn’t seem to be any action to watch. The three men had disappeared into the bowels of the ship and all was quiet.

  “This is sort of boring,” Hooker said. “We should do something.”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  He inched closer to me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Do you have any better ideas?”

  “I want to see what’s going on inside the boat. Let’s walk down the pier and look in the windows.”

  We passed through the gate that said OWNERS AND GUESTS ONLY and walked the length of the wood dock. The Huevo boat was still tied up at the very end of the pier. Both decks were lit, but the salon and cabin windows were tinted and not much could be seen. A uniformed crew member stood watch.

  Hooker took his cell phone out of his pocket and called the boat number. We could very faintly hear Huevo’s phone ringing inside the salon. A male voice answered and said that Ray Huevo was not available. Hooker didn’t leave a message.

  “He could be in there,” I said. Wishful thinking.

  “It’s unlikely.”

  “But not impossible. Maybe we could see more from the other side.”

  “Darlin’, there’s water on the other side.”

  “Yeah, we need a boat.”

  Hooker looked down at me. “And you would get one how?”

  “We could borrow one. There are lots of little boats here. I bet no one would mind if we borrowed one for a couple minutes.”

  “You want to steal a boat?”

  “Borrow,” I said.

  “Okay,” Hooker said, taking my hand. “Let’s go for a stroll and look around.”

  We got to the last pier and Hooker stopped in front of a medium-size cabin cruiser. Dark inside. Nobody home.

  “I know the guy who owns this boat,” Hooker said. “He’s only here weekends. And he keeps a dingy tied to the back. It should be easy to borrow.”

  We climbed onto the boat and made our way to the back where the dingy was tied, just as Hooker had predicted. We scrambled into the boat, Hooker released the rope and turned the key. The motor hummed to life and Hooker pushed off.

  “Keep your eyes open,” Hooker said. “I don’t want to run into anything.”

  There was just a sliver of moon in the sky. The piers were lit and some of the boats had their running lights on. A few boats had interior lights on, as well, but not much light reflected onto the black water. The air was still. No wind. Not a lot of tide running.

  Boats occasionally came and went at night here, but none was currently under way. Only us. We came abreast of the Huevo boat and sat at a distance, watching. Not much was happening. Windows and doors were closed and sound wasn’t carrying.

  “Huh,” I said. “Disappointing.”

  Hooker was fidgeting around in the dingy. He’d turned to the back and was poking through a watertight chest. “I might be able to produce some action. At least get everyone on deck so we can take a head count.”

  I looked over his shoulder, into the chest. “What did you have in mind?”

  Hooker pulled a snub-nosed, fat-barreled gun out of the chest. “Flare gun. I could lob a flare over the boat and maybe draw them out.” He two-handed the gun, holding it at arm’s length, raised the barrel so the flare would arc high, and pulled the trigger. A flare went off with a loud phunnf and sailed into the night sky. The flare gracefully curved up and away from us, reached its zenith, fell on a sloping downward trajectory toward the Huevo yacht…and crashed through a window on the first deck.

  “Oops,” Hooker said.

  The flare exploded with a burst of light that danced around the main salon like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Sound carried out through the gaping hole in the tinted window, and we could hear the hiss of the flare and the panicked voices of the people inside.

  Hooker and I sat in stupefied, bug-eyed silence. There was a small explosion, and then the crackle of fire, and a yellow flame licked up the side of the salon.

  “Oh shit,” Hooker whispered. “If I didn’t have bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”

  “You have some good luck. You have me.”

  “I don’t have you. You won’t even sleep with me.”

  “That’s true, but I’m here with you now.”

  Hooker got that look in his eyes.

  “No,” I said.

  “How about you tie the anchor to my ankle and throw it overboard.”

  “I have a better idea. How about we sneak away before someone sees us sitting out here.”

  Five minutes later, we eased up behind the cabin cruiser, secured the line, and scrambled out of the dingy. Emergency vehicles were on the scene four piers down. Fire and rescue. Police. Lots of people. Strobes flashing. The unintelligible chatter of police band. No one paying attention to Hooker or me. And thank goodness, no smoke or flames shooting out of the Huevo boat.

  Hooker stayed back in the shadows, but I edged closer to the pier. One of the three men who’d flown in earlier stood off to the side on the cement walkway, watching the activity. I moved next to him and gestured to the boat.

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “Something came through the window and started a fire. It didn’t burn much. Everything on the boat is fire resistant.”

  I was thrown for a moment. I’d expected a foreign accent. Russian maybe. His accent was New Jersey. “Wow,” I said. “Was it a firebomb?”

  “I don’t know. They’re investigating. I was below in a stateroom when it happened. I didn’t actually see anything.”

  I was scanning the crowd as I was talking, looking for Ray Huevo. “I can’t help noticing, you’re not wearing Miami clothes. Did you just arrive in Florida?”

  He looked down at his wool suit slacks. “I flew in earlier. It’s been a long day.”

  “Let me guess. Jersey?”

  “Not for a lot of years.”

  “But originally, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess you never really get rid of the Jersey in you.”

  I stuck my hand out. “Alex.”

  “Simon.”

  “Where are you living now?”
/>
  “The world.”

  “That narrows it down,” I said.

  “My employer travels, and I travel with him.”

  “Is your employer originally from New Jersey, too?”

  “Yeah. Originally.”

  He was looking down at me, and there was a quality to his eyes and the set of his mouth that I’d seen before. It was the same look Hooker got…a lot. “And now?” I asked.

  “The world.”

  “Oh yeah. I forgot.”

  I could see him weighing his desire to stay anonymous against his desire to get a playmate for Mr. Frisky. He shifted slightly, leaned a little closer to me, and I knew Mr. Frisky was at the wheel.

  “For the last couple years, we’ve been based in Zurich,” he said.

  “That would explain the suit.”

  “We ran into some problems when we arrived, and I haven’t had a chance to change. What about you? Do you live here?”

  “Sometimes. Mostly I live in the world.”

  “Trying to make fun of me?” he asked.

  “Trying to flirt with you,” I said. Might as well use the few weapons I had in my arsenal, right? I just hoped Hooker was armed and keeping close watch.

  That got a smile from him. “Nice,” he said.

  And just for the record, I was fully aware that he would have smiled and said nice if I had scabs over two-thirds of my body and had an ass like Francis the Talking Horse.

  “So, what is it that you do in Zurich?” I asked him.

  “I’m an expediter.”

  In my neighborhood in Baltimore, an expediter is someone who makes sure things move along smoothly. For instance, if the owner of a bar isn’t making his protection-money payments on time, an expediter might go talk to him and break his kneecaps as a performance incentive.

  “An expediter,” I said. “What kinds of things do you expedite?”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “Making conversation. I read somewhere that men like it when you seem interested in their work.”

  More smiling. “The guy I work for is in the import-and-export business. I facilitate movement.”

  “What does he export? Carburetors?”

  “Maybe we should take this conversation somewhere else,” he said. “Like over to the bar.”