Motor Mouth: A Barnaby Novel

  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.

  Hooker looked at his watch. “Four o’clock,” he said. “Let’s get the hauler out of here and wrap this up. I’m dead on my feet, excuse the expression.”

  “Do you need help backing out of the warehouse?” I asked him.

  “I’m cool. Kill the lights.”

  “You won’t be able to see the door.”

  “I have eyes like a cat.”

  I shut the lights off in the warehouse and stood to the side, watching Hooker move the hauler. He misjudged the door by about six inches and bashed in the left-rear corner of the trailer.

  “Maybe you’re right about the lights,” Hooker said, taking the truck forward.

  I switched the lights on and Hooker made another try, this time succeeding in getting everything out the door and into the street. He pulled forward and sat there at idle. I made sure the warehouse was locked, and then I ran to the SUV and fell in line behind Hooker. Any halfway intelligent person would have had heart palpitations and a sick stomach at this point. I was too tired to be weirded out. I had a backache and very little going on in my head. I followed after Hooker on autopilot, just wanting it all to be over.

  Hooker drove out of Little Havana and took Route 95, heading north to the interstate that stretched, dark and endless, in front of him. Trucks sporadically cruised by in the blackness, only headlights and running lights visible, moving in caravans, looking like highway ghost trains.

  After ten miles Hooker pulled off the interstate, found a strip mall, and parked the truck. I parked behind him, and jumped out of the SUV with the motor still running. I peeled the aluminum wrap off the GPS, gave Hooker a weary thumbs-up, and we climbed into the SUV and hauled ass back to the highway.

  I was behind the wheel, and Hooker was eyes closed, slumped in the seat next to me.

  “Are we the good guys or the bad guys?” he asked me.

  “That’s a tough one. We started out as the good guys. We rescued Gobbles. After that it goes into the gray zone.”

  “At least it’s done, and we got rid of all the evidence without getting caught. We were careful. We used gloves. We wiped everything down. We compacted the cars. No one will tie us to any of this.”

  I pulled into a space behind Felicia’s house, and Hooker and I staggered across the small yard, through the door, and up the stairs to our guest room. Hooker flopped onto the bed and I flopped on top of him.

  “I’m too tired to get undressed,” I said. “I can barely breathe.”

  “I’ve got you beat,” Hooker said. “I’m too tired to get you undressed.”

  FIVE

  I was tangled together with Hooker when I woke up, our legs intertwined, my nose tucked under his chin. He was still asleep, his breathing deep and regular. I looked at my watch. It was almost nine.

  “Hey,” I said to Hooker. “Wake up. It’s almost nine and Beans should go out to tinkle.”

  Hooker half-opened an eye. “Okay. Just give me a minute.”

  “Don’t you dare close your eyes,” I said. “I know you. You’re going to close your eyes and instantly fall asleep again. And Beans should have gone out an hour ago.”

  “He’s not complaining,” Hooker said.

  I looked around the room. “That’s because he isn’t here.”

  “Maybe Felicia came to get him.”

  A tiny, horrible tendril of panic curled in my stomach. “Hooker, do you remember Beans coming into the house with us?”

  Hooker opened both eyes. “No.”

  “Do you remember him being in the SUV with us?”

  “No.”

  Our eyes locked. “Did you ever take him out of the hauler?” I asked Hooker. “He was sleeping in the lounge. You locked him in when Felicia came to help us.”

  “Don’t tell me I left him in the hauler,” Hooker said, hands over his eyes. “I’m still sleeping and this is a nightmare, right? Jesus, pinch me or something.”

  I bit into my lower lip. “I’m going to throw up.”

  “Shit,” Hooker said, on his feet, hunting down his shoes. “I don’t fucking believe this. We were so careful not to leave prints, and then we leave the dog.”

  I had the SUV keys in my hand and my other hand on the doorknob. “Maybe we can get to him before Huevo’s people.”

  I drove because Hooker couldn’t afford to lose his license by doing a hundred on the interstate. I took the off-ramp on two wheels and laid four feet of rubber when I jumped on the brakes in the strip-mall lot where we’d parked the Huevo hauler.

  The SUV rocked to a stop, and Hooker and I sat in frozen silence. No hauler.

  Hooker cut his eyes to me. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”

  I blinked tears away. “No. Are you?”

  “I hope not. I’d feel like a real pussy.”

  “We need to get Beans back.”

  “Yeah, and Beans isn’t our only problem. We just told the Huevo team we stole their hauler and made off with their cars. And we told the guy who killed Oscar Huevo that we found Huevo wrapped up like a Christmas ham.”

  “You’re in big trouble,” I said. “They’re going to come looking for you. Good thing I’m not involved.”

  “I’m going to tell them it was all your idea.”

  I smiled over at Hooker. He might be a jerk when it came to fidelity, but he’d protect me with his last breath. “What do we do now?”

  “They might not be too far in front of us. We could cruise north and try to catch them. They might not even know Beans is in the lounge. Maybe we could sneak in and get Beans when they stop for lunch.”

  I wheeled the car out of the lot and was turning toward the interstate entrance when Hooker’s cell phone rang.

&nb
sp; “Yeah?” Hooker said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” And he disconnected.

  “Who was that?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t give me his name. He said I was a rotten bastard for abandoning my dog. That I didn’t deserve to have a great dog like Beans. And that he was going to kill me.” Hooker slouched in his seat. “I can’t believe I left Beans in the hauler.”

  “We were exhausted. We just weren’t thinking.”

  “That’s no excuse. This is Beans we’re talking about. Beans is…family. He’s special. And he’s kind of dumb. How’s he going to get by without me?”

  “Well, at least the killer likes Beans; that’s a good thing, right?”

  “Of course he likes Beans. How could anyone not like Beans? I tell you, this is war. No more Mr. Nice Guy. I’m getting my damn dog back. I’m going to find this Beans snatcher, and I’m going to get medieval on his ass. Oscar Huevo won’t be the only one with bullet holes and tooth marks in him. This piece-of-shit Beans snatcher is going down.”

  “You’re sounding a little on the edge here,” I said to Hooker. “We need to get Beans back, but maybe you want to chill. You wouldn’t want to do anything rash, right?”

  “When have I ever done anything rash?” Hooker yelled, cords standing out in his neck. “Do I look like I’m going to do something rash?”

  “Yeah. Your face is real red, and your eyes are crazy man. How about we think this out over breakfast. And maybe I can find a diner that has a defibrillator just in case you have a heart attack.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Hooker said. “I just want my goddamn dog back.”

  “Sure. I know that, but we need a plan. And you could think better if your eyes weren’t so popped out of their sockets, right?”

  “Are my eyes popped out of their sockets?”

  “If they popped out any more, they’d be rolling around on the floor.”

  I pulled into the first diner I saw, and I got Hooker settled into a booth. Hooker ordered a ham-and-cheese omelet, bacon, pancakes, home fries, juice, coffee, and a side of biscuits with white gravy. Good thing he was too upset to be hungry, otherwise he might have cleaned out the kitchen and the diner would have had to close.

  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.”