Motor Mouth

NINE

Hooker was showered and shaved when I got back to the hotel room. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I borrowed your razor. I made up for its pinkness by swearing a lot while I shaved.”

“The razor is fine. When you start borrowing my underwear, we need to talk.”

I unpacked two cups of coffee and two plastic cups of orange juice from one bag, and I had a second bag filled with breakfast sandwiches. I handed a sandwich to Hooker, kept one for myself, and gave the rest of the bag to Beans. “Everything you could possibly want for breakfast with the exception of pancakes,” I said to Hooker. “An egg, a sausage patty, cheese, and a biscuit.”

“Yum,” Hooker said. And he meant it. Gourmet food was lost on Hooker.

I finished my sandwich, juice, and coffee and took a shower. Hooker was back to watching television when I came out of the bathroom.

“This isn’t good,” he said. “They’re saying the murder weapon that was used on Butchy was also used on Oscar Huevo. I’m now wanted for questioning by the local police and the Miami police. And I hate to tell you this, but they’re looking for you, too.”

“Me?”

And as if on cue, my cell phone rang. It was my mother. “I just got home from the cruise, and I heard your name on television,” she said. “They said you were wanted for murdering two men.”

“No. I’m only wanted for questioning. And it’s all a mistake. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”

“Don’t let them take you to jail. I saw a show on it once. They watch you on television when you go to the bathroom.”

More information than I needed right now.

“My mother,” I said to Hooker when I disconnected. “She suggested I don’t go to jail. She thought I wouldn’t like it.”

“If you don’t want to go to jail, we need to check out of this motel,” Hooker said. “It’s too easy to spot my SUV sitting out there in the lot. There’s an empty factory that’s up for sale on the road to Kannapolis. It’s been vacant for over a year. I took a tour of it a couple months ago, thinking I might want to buy it for a shop. Maybe build my own cars someday. It wasn’t right for a shop, but it might be okay to use as a hiding place while we think this through. There’s no alarm on it, so it’ll be easy entry. And it’s on a secluded stretch of road.”

I added breaking and entering to my mental crime tally.

The building had originally been a tool-and-die factory. When the factory went belly-up, the place had been gutted and used to store motor oil and assorted car-care products. Those products had since moved on, and we now sat in a dark, damp, cavernous cinder-block bunker of a building. It hadn’t been locked, and one of the garage-bay doors had been left open, so we were only guilty of entering. Hooker drove the SUV into the interior and parked close to the wall where we were in shadow and not visible from the outside.

“For a short time it felt like things might get normal,” I said to Hooker. “But now they’re worse than ever.”

“One step forward, two steps backward. Let’s test-drive a couple things. We know Ray was using illegal technology to cheat. We’re not sure why because Ray never seemed to be interested in racing. We also know Ray employs two goons who kill people. And we’re not absolutely sure, but it feels like Ray knew his brother was in the locker. In fact, chances are probably good that Ray killed Oscar.”

“There’s something very high stakes here. Something we don’t understand,” I said to Hooker. “There has to be more going on than cheating at a race.”

“I agree. I think we need to find out why Ray killed his brother.”

“You were thinking Madam Zarra and her crystal ball would tell us?”

“I was thinking Ray would tell us. All we have to do is kidnap Ray and beat the crap out of him until he talks to us.”

I felt my mouth drop open, and I guess I must have looked as horrified as I felt.

“What?” Hooker said.

“Do you have an alternative plan?”

“Not at the moment.”

“What makes you think he’ll talk if we beat him?”

“I’ve been beat on a lot, and I always talk.”

“Let’s go on the assumption that the chip has something to do with the murders. Ray really wants that chip back.”

“If we gave the chip to NASCAR, he could lose the championship,” Hooker said.

“Yeah, but he’s never cared about the car side of the business before. Why does he care so much about the championship now? And his dead brother would take the hit. Ray would say he knew nothing about it. Ray would come out clean. And anyway, NASCAR would impose a fine and some sanctions, but they wouldn’t take the championship away. They’d have to undo too many things that are already in motion. Photo ops and satellite radio tours and television appearances. Not to mention party favors for the banquet next week.”

“So?”

“I think there’s something else going on with the chip.”

“Like it has some secret James Bond code on it that can be used to destroy the world?”

“Nothing that glamorous. I was thinking more about the things Steven told us…a breakthrough in computer technology. Or a new and better battery.”

Hooker looked doubtful. “Do you think someone would kill for a better battery?”

“A better battery could be worth a lot of money.”

Hooker kissed the nape of my neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’m getting friendly.”

“There’s no getting friendly. We don’t get friendly anymore.”

Hooker was a good lover for the same reason he was a good race-car driver. He never gave up. It didn’t matter whether he was closing in on the leader, or if he was twenty laps down, he put out the same effort. And if he was in cruising mode, it was only because he was pacing himself and reorganizing. Hooker wasn’t a quitter…not in a car and not in bed. And apparently that characteristic carried over to not giving up on failed relationships. Or hell, what do I know? Maybe he just didn’t spend enough quality time in the bathroom this morning.

“Suppose we go to jail? Suppose the bad guys find us and kill us? Don’t you want to get one last orgasm in?” Hooker asked.

“No!”

Hooker kissed me, and somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, his hand had wandered to my breast. Turns out race-car drivers also aren’t good with no. No isn’t a word they entirely comprehend.

“Not in front of the dog,” I said to Hooker, pushing his hand away.

“The dog isn’t looking.”

“The dog is looking.”

Beans had climbed out of the cargo area and was sitting with his butt on the backseat. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.

“Would you get friendly if the dog wasn’t looking?” Hooker asked.

“No. Could you please put your libido on hold? I have some ideas. We could talk to Spanky’s spotter.”

“You mean we could beat the crap out of him.”

“Yeah, okay, we could beat the crap out of him. Anyway, it seems like there’s some potential for information there. Or we could break into Huevo R and D…”

“Huevo R and D is in Mexico,” Hooker said. “Not that Mexico is impossible, but the police probably have my plane grounded. We’d have to fly commercial. And that would be chancy.”

“How about residences. Does Ray Huevo have a house in the Concord area?”

“Oscar had a house on Lake Norman. I’m not sure how much he used it. I know Mrs. Oscar wasn’t in love with North Carolina. Sometimes I’d hear that Oscar was in town, but I never saw him out and around. I think it was…take care of business and get out of Hicksville. I don’t think Ray has anything here. There might be a corporate condo somewhere.”

“Am I missing anything?”

“The goons. Horse and Baldy. Huevo’s henchmen. We could try to get something out of them.”

“You mean like get them to confess to murdering two people?”

“Yeah,” Hooker said. “Of course we’d have to beat the crap out of them.”

“I’m seeing a pattern here.”

“My talents are limited. Basically, I’m only good at three things. I can drive a car. I can beat the crap out of people. And you know the third thing. It involves a lot of moaning on your part.”

“I don’t moan!”

“Darlin’, you moan.”

“This is embarrassing. Let’s get back to beating the crap out of people. Who would you like to take on first?”

“The spotter, Bernie Miller.” Hooker dialed a number on his cell phone. “I need some help,” he said. “No. Not that kind of help, but thanks, I might need it later. Right now I just need some information. I need an address for Bernie Miller, Spanky’s spotter.”

Hooker cradled the phone between shoulder and ear, listening while he rummaged around in the console and the door pocket. He came up with a pen and a crumpled Dunkin’ Donuts napkin, handed them over to me, and repeated the address. He disconnected and put the SUV in gear.

“Miller is recently divorced, so with a little luck, he’s alone in his house.”

“Who did you call?”

“Nutsy. He offered the use of his plane if I needed to get out of the country fast.”

Nutsy drives the Krank’s Beer car. He’s one of the older drivers and is a real good guy. He knows everyone and has probably forgotten more about racing than I could possibly learn.

“That address you gave me is on the lake,” I said to Hooker. “That’s a pricey neighborhood for a spotter.”

“Maybe he can give you some financial advice while we’re beating on him,” Hooker said, cranking the engine over and putting the SUV in gear.

It wasn’t a long ride to Bernie Miller’s house in terms of miles, but I was having an anxiety attack and the trip seemed endless. It was midday when we cruised into his cul-de-sac. The house looked new. Probably not more than two years old. The yard was neatly trimmed, with sculpted flower beds and bushes that hadn’t yet reached lush status. A gray Taurus was parked in the driveway.

“So, how do we go about this beating thing?” I asked Hooker. “Do we just go up and ring the doorbell and then sucker-punch him when he answers?”

Hooker grinned at me. “Getting into this whole brutality mind-set?”

“Just wondering. Maybe that approach would be too aggressive for a guy with a gray Taurus parked in his driveway. Maybe that’s the approach we’d use if we were talking to a guy in a double-wide.”

“I used to live in a double-wide.”

“And?”

“Just throwing that into the mix,” Hooker said.

“Did you get sucker-punched a lot?”

“No. I used to answer the door with my gun in my hand.”

I looked over at the house. “That could slow down our interview progress. Might be hard to beat the crap out of a man who answers the door with his gun in his hand.”

We’d been idling in the middle of the road, not in front of Miller’s house but one house down. Hooker slowly rolled past Miller’s house and continued down the block to the corner. He hung a U-turn at the corner and came back down the street. He pulled to the curb and parked. We were now on the opposite side of the street from Miller. And again, we were one house down.

“You don’t seem too anxious to do this,” I said to Hooker.

“Scoping out the scene,” Hooker said.

“I thought maybe it was cold feet.”

“I don’t get cold feet. Creepy-crawly scrotum and tight sphincter, a lot. Diarrhea, sometimes. Never cold feet.”

Beans got up, turned around twice, and flopped back down with a big dog sigh.

“Are we waiting for your sphincter to relax?” I asked Hooker.

“I don’t feel comfortable with this. I don’t like the car sitting out in the driveway. I know lots of people never use their garage, but this feels off somehow. And I can’t see Bernie driving a gray Taurus.”

Miller’s garage door slid open, and we both scrunched down in our seats. A car engine cranked over in Bernie’s garage. Horse jogged out of the garage and got into the Taurus. The Taurus engine caught, and the car backed out of the driveway and idled in front of Miller’s house. A blue Lexus sedan backed out of the garage, the garage door slid closed, and the Lexus pulled into the street and rolled past the Taurus. Bernie wasn’t driving the Lexus. Baldy was driving the Lexus.

“This isn’t doing anything for my sphincter,” Hooker said. “In fact, my nuts just went north.”

We followed the Taurus and the Lexus out of the subdivision, south on Odell School Road. After a couple miles the two cars pulled off Odell, onto a rutted dirt road that disappeared into a patch of woods. It was the sort of road used by kids for drinking beer, and smoking weed, and getting unexpectedly pregnant. Hooker cruised past the road and parked in a driveway that belonged to a small yellow-and-white ranch-style house. There was a bike and a plastic wading pool in the front yard. It was November and the pool was empty. We were maybe an eighth of a mile beyond the dirt road.

“Now what?” I asked.

Hooker swiveled in his seat and looked back at Odell. “We sit and wait. I don’t think that dirt road goes anywhere.”

Ten minutes later the two cars reappeared, turned back onto Odell, and continued south, driving past us without so much as a sideways glance. Hooker put the SUV in gear, and followed them.

The air was still cool, but the sky was no longer blue. Clouds had pushed in overhead and threatened rain. The Lexus took Derita Road, and the Taurus followed. We drove past the entrance to the airport. The NASCAR corporate building was to our right. The two cars continued on and finally turned onto Concord Mills Boulevard and minutes later drove into the mall parking lot.

Concord Mills is a monstrous mall. Over two hundred stores, a twenty-four-screen theater, race-car simulators, an indoor and outdoor go-cart track. It was a Saturday, early afternoon, and the lot was packed. The Lexus driver didn’t mess with trying to find a good spot. He went straight to the end of a line of cars where there was room to park. The Taurus parked next to him, both men got out, and they took off for the mall.

We were a row over.

“This is strange,” Hooker said. “Huevo’s henchmen driving two cars, one of which I’m guessing belongs to Bernie, and they go shopping.”

“Maybe it’s not Bernie’s car. Maybe these guys are staying with Bernie, and they’re driving their own cars. Maybe Bernie’s deeper in this mess than we originally thought.”

A drizzling rain had started misting onto the windshield. Hooker had his phone in one hand and the Dunkin’ Donuts napkin with Miller’s address and phone number on it in the other hand. He punched Miller’s number in and waited.

“No answer,” Hooker finally said.

We cut our eyes to the Lexus.

“Maybe Miller’s subleasing his house to the thugs,” I said.

Hooker nodded. “I guess that’s possible.”

We unbuckled our seat belts, got out of the SUV, walked over to the Lexus, and looked inside. Nothing out of the ordinary. Clean. No Dunkin’ Donuts napkins.

“Nice car,” I said, looking it over. “Except it’s got a drip in the rear.” I bent to take a closer look. “Uh-oh.”

“What uh-oh?”

“The drip is red, and I think it’s coming from inside the trunk.”

Hooker came over and squatted next to me. “Uh-oh.” He stood and knocked on the trunk. “Hello?”

No one answered.

Hooker ran his fingers around the trunk. “We need to get this open.”

I tried the driver’s-side door. Open. The morons hadn’t locked the car. I reached inside and popped the trunk.

“Double uh-oh,” Hooker said when the trunk lid popped up.

The red drips were coming from Bernie Miller. He was curled up in the trunk, and he’d been shot…everywhere.

“I wish I wasn’t looking at this,” I said to Hooker.

“You aren’t going to hurl or faint or get hysterical, are you?”

I chewed on my bottom lip. “I might.”

“Look on the positive side. One less guy to beat the crap out of.”

“Yeah, but it’s a crime against nature to do this to a Lexus. The trunk upholstery is going to be ruined.”

This was my best shot at bravado. The alternative was uncontrollable weeping.

Hooker closed the lid. “These guys are stepping up the house cleaning. Since they loaded Bernie into his car and shot him off his property, I’m guessing they were going to make him disappear. The question of the day is…why have they parked him here?”

I glanced back at the mall entrance just as Horse and Baldy came out. They were each holding coffee-to-go cups.

“Looks like they parked him here so they could get their triple-shot cappuccinos,” I said to Hooker.

“Man, that’s harsh. Shoot a guy and then park him so you can get a cup of coffee. That’s so Sopranos.”

The rain had changed from misting to definitely raining, and the men were hustling toward us, heads down, getting wet. We ducked down and scuttled behind a van.

“You should make a citizen’s arrest,” I whispered to Hooker. “This is our big chance. We can catch them red-handed. Where’s your gun?”

“In the SUV.”

Huevo’s men were between us and the SUV.

“Do we have a plan that doesn’t involve a gun?” Hooker asked.

“You could call the police.”

Hooker looked over at the SUV, and his mouth tightened a little at the corners. “Do we have a plan that doesn’t involve a phone?”

The two Huevo men got into their cars, backed out of their parking slots, and drove away. Hooker and I ran for the SUV, and in seconds we were out in the drive lane, moving in the same direction as the Lexus. The rain was slanting in, the windshield wipers beating it away. I was forward in my seat, trying to see.

“I’ve lost them,” I said to Hooker. “I can’t see through the rain.”

Hooker was stuck in traffic. “I can’t see them either, and I can’t move. It starts raining and people get nuts.”

I had the phone in my hand, debating a police call. I had no license numbers to give them. And I had no credibility. The rain was washing the blood off the pavement.

Beans was on his feet and panting. Hooker cracked the windows for him, but Beans kept huffing.

“He probably needs to tinkle,” I said to Hooker. “Or worse.”

Hooker inched his way out of the lot, got back onto Concord Mills Boulevard, and pulled off when he saw an island of grass. Five minutes later, Beans and Hooker were back in the car, and they were both soaking wet.

“This sucks,” Hooker said. “We need to do something to turn this around, because it just keeps getting worse, and I’m losing my good mood.”

“Maybe you need lunch.” Food solved all problems in my family.

Concord Mills Boulevard crosses Route 85 and becomes Speedway Boulevard. Every possible fast-food chain has a spot on that stretch of road. Hooker took us to a drive-thru window, and we ordered bags of food. Then we cleverly concealed ourselves behind fogged windows and sheets of rain in the Cracker Barrel parking lot.

I filled our stolen motel ice bucket with water for Beans and gave him a bunch of burgers. Hooker and I had shakes and fries and burgers.

Hooker ate the last of the fries and slurped up the last of his shake. “It’s amazing how consuming large quantities of salt and artery-clogging fat always makes me feel happy,” Hooker said.

“Don’t get too happy. We have lots of problems.”

“We need to find those two guys.”

“How are we going to do that? We don’t even know their names.”

Hooker called Nutsy again. “I need some more information. There are two guys looking for me. They’re on the Huevo payroll. Probably working for Ray. Muscle in suits. One guy is big and has a snake tattooed onto the back of his neck. Dark hair cut short. Just recently got his head bashed in. The other guy is bald. I want to know who they are, and it would help if I knew where to find them.”

We moved the SUV back to the mall lot where we felt less conspicuous and waited. Hooker and Beans fell asleep, but I stayed awake. My mind wouldn’t shut down. It was making lists. Pick up the cleaning. Buy baby-shower gift for Nancy Sprague. Try to cut back on the swearing. Call mother more often. Forgive Hooker. Get car ser viced. Have lock fixed on apartment front door. Adopt a cat. Clean out hall closet. Get manicure.

After two hours, I woke Hooker up so he could change locations in the lot. “Do you think we’ll get out of this?” I asked him.

“Sure,” Hooker said. And he went back to sleep.

It was a little after four when Nutsy called. Hooker put his cell phone on speaker mode so I could hear.

“The guys’ names are Joseph Rodriguez and Phillip Lucca,” Nutsy said. “The big guy with the tattoo is Lucca. The little bald guy is Rodriguez. They’re part of Ray Huevo’s entourage. Security detail. Usually travel with Ray, but Ray’s in Miami, and these guys are here. So I don’t know what that means. I imagine it isn’t good since you’re in shit up to your eyeballs and you need this information.”

“Just want to send them a candygram,” Hooker said. “They’ve been nice to me.”

“Yeah, I bet. I don’t know where they’re staying. They’re operating independently of everything here. I’d guess they’re at one of the chains in Concord.”

Hooker disconnected and started calling hotels, asking for Joseph Rodriguez. He hit gold on the fifth try. The desk rang the room, but no one answered.

“Probably out looking for us,” I said to Hooker. “Got a couple bullets left with our names on them.”

“We need a different car,” Hooker said. “The police are looking for us, and the bad guys are looking for us, and everyone probably knows my plate by now.”

I hated to part with the car. It was reliable and comfy. I looked around the lot. “What we need is a different plate. Just swap ours for someone else’s. Most people would never notice if their plate was changed.”

Hooker scrounged around in the console compartment and came up with a small screwdriver. Fifteen minutes later, we had new plates, and Hooker was back in the car, drenched to the skin. He tossed the screwdriver back into the console and turned the heat up full blast.

“If I don’t get dry pretty soon, I’m going to start to mold.”

He put the SUV in gear and drove across the highway to the motel lot. He backed the SUV into a slot at the far end where we had a good view of the lot and the hotel back door. As good a hiding place as we were going to get.

We’d just settled in when the Taurus pulled into the lot. No Lexus. Hooker had his gun out. Rodriguez and Lucca got out of the Taurus and hunched against the rain. Hooker reached for the door handle, and another car pulled into the lot and parked. Hooker took his hand off the door handle.

“This is like when you’re taking a test in school, and you don’t know half the answers, and the fire alarm goes off,” Hooker said. “You’re sort of saved, but you know eventually you’re going to have to go back to the test and you’ll totally screw up.”

Rodriguez and Lucca crossed the lot and disappeared into the building. They were soaking wet, and their shoes and the bottoms of their trousers were muddy.

“It looks like they’ve been digging,” I said to Hooker.

“Yep, the boys have been busy.”

“You think they buried the car, too?”

“The car’s probably at the bottom of Lake Norman.”

Hooker’s phone rang. It was Nutsy.

“You know that property you bought for a future shop?” Nutsy said on speaker mode.

“On Gooding Road?”

“Yeah. I had to go by it a while ago, dropping my kid off at a friend’s house. Anyway, I think those guys you were asking about were on your property. I can’t be sure it was them, with the rain and all, but they seemed to fit your description. The big guy had a bashed-in head. They were just standing by their cars. Guess they were looking for you.”

“What kind of cars?”

“A Taurus and a blue Lexus.”

Hooker disconnected and thunked his head on the steering wheel.

“What?” I asked. And then it hit me. “Omigod, you don’t think they buried Bernie on your property? How would they know it was yours?”

“Everyone knows it’s mine. I didn’t buy the tool-and-die building, but I bought this warehouse. I haven’t started construction, but the warehouse has a big sign on it advertising it as the future home of Hooker Motor Sports.” Hooker rolled the engine over. “We’re going to have to check it out. It would be a smart move for them to bury Bernie on my land. It would tie everything up nice and neat. There are three murdered men. One has tooth marks that perfectly match my dog’s teeth. The other two are found on my property. All undoubtedly shot with the same gun. And I’m sure they’re counting on me being too dead to defend myself.”

We drove a half mile and Hooker cut off into a strip mall that was anchored by a Wal-Mart.

He parked and gave me a wad of cash. “Buy a shovel…just in case. I’d go in but I’m afraid I’ll be recognized.”

Twenty minutes later I wheeled a shopping cart out of the store and into the rain. I had two shovels, a flashlight, and a box of giant-sized garbage bags. All just in case. I also had a bag of dog food and three gallons of water for Beans, plus dry clothes for Hooker. And I’d run next door to the supermarket and gotten a rotisserie chicken, some cookies, and a six-pack of beer. I loaded everything onto the backseat and jumped in.

I opened a bag of cookies and fed one to Hooker. “I hope we don’t have to use the shovel. Digging up a water-logged corpse isn’t high on my list of favorite things to do.”