Motor Mouth

TEN

The rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, the sky was heavily overcast, the light was somewhere between gloom and the twilight zone. Hooker’s property was on a country road that was dotted with small race shops and supporting businesses. The structure was classic cinder-block warehouse, smaller than the warehouse we’d gone to earlier. It was surrounded by a cement apron that led to three bays in the back and a door in the front. Beyond the apron was hard-packed dirt and scrubby grass. Beyond the dirt was woods.

Hooker drove to the rear and parked. We got out and walked the property. We stopped when we reached a piece of ground at the far back corner that was newly disturbed. It was slightly mounded and the smell of freshly dug earth hung heavy in the air. There were footprints and tire tracks in the surrounding mud. Details had already been obscured by rain.

“Fuck,” Hooker said. More a sigh than a swear.

I was in total agreement. “How did this happen?” I asked him. “This is a nightmare. I didn’t sign up for this.”

Hooker turned and trudged through the muck, back to the SUV. I followed him, no longer caring where I stepped. I was in mud to my ankles. My hair had succumbed to the relentless drizzle and was plastered to my face. My jeans were soaked through to my underwear. And I was cold clear to the bone.

Beans popped up when Hooker opened the side door. Beans was wearing his excited now what expression, looking like he wanted to be part of the adventure.

“Sorry, big guy,” Hooker said. “Too much mud. You’re going to have to stay in the car.”

Here’s the irony of it. The dog would have loved to roll in the mud, and he had to stay in the car. I wanted to stay in the car, and I had to wallow in the mud.

I grabbed a shovel and the flashlight, and I followed Hooker back to the gravesite. I took a stance, rammed the shovel into the dirt and flung the dirt about ten feet to my side. I just kept ramming the shovel in and throwing the friggin’ dirt away. I looked up and found Hooker watching me.

“You keep digging like that and you’re going to rupture something,” Hooker said. “And you have that look on your face like your underwear’s riding up.”

“I’m wearing a thong. It’s always up.”

“Oh, man,” Hooker said. “I wish you hadn’t told me that. It’s all I’m going to be able to think about.”

“Then I’m happy to be able to supply a diversion, because the other things we have to think about aren’t pleasant.”

Actually, I was digging like a demon because I was furious. There was no justice in the world. This had all started out as a good deed, and good deeds weren’t supposed to end like this. Where’s the reward for being a good person? Where’s the satisfaction?

I plunged my shovel into the dirt and hit something solid. Not a rock. A rock would go chink. This hit with a muffled thud that caused my breath to catch in my chest. I pulled my shovel back and a ragged scrap of material clung to the shovel tip. My mind went numb, and I froze with the shovel a foot off the ground. Cold horror slid through my stomach, my pulse pounded in my ears, and it was lights out. I heard someone call to Hooker. I guess it was me.

When I regained consciousness, I was in the back of the SUV and Beans was standing over me panting. Hooker’s face hovered beside Beans’s big dog head. They both looked worried.

“I think I found Bernie,” I said to Hooker.

“I know. You turned white and went face-first into the mud. Scared the crap out of me. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know. Do I look okay?”

“Yeah. A little muddy, but we’ll get you cleaned up and you’ll be good as new. You can breathe through your nose, right?”

“Yeah. Now that we’ve found him, what should we do with him?”

“We have to move him,” Hooker said.

“No way! It’s so horrible. The rain, and the mud, and the body’s probably all wormy.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s too soon for maggots, but there are some real good night crawlers back there. Big suckers.”

The bells started clanging in my head again.

“I feel like a grave robber,” I whispered.

“Darlin’, we’re doing him a favor. He doesn’t want to be buried behind my shop. He didn’t like me. We’ll put him in a nice clean garbage bag and take him to a better place. We could even buy him flowers.”

“Flowers would be nice.”

I thought I saw Hooker roll his eyes, but I could be wrong. I was still sort of cobwebby.

“Stay here with Beans,” Hooker said. “I can finish up.”

I lay perfectly still, willing my head to clear. Beans flopped down next to me, warm and reassuring. When the feeling returned to my lips and my fingertips, I crawled out of the SUV. It was dark and still drizzling. No moon. No stars. No streetlights. Only degrees of blackness to differentiate between sky and building.

I heard Hooker before I saw him. He was dragging Bernie. And it looked like he had Bernie by the foot, although it was hard to tell since Bernie was bagged and wrapped with bungee cords.

“It’s sort of an odd shape for a body,” I said to Hooker.

“Yeah, I don’t know how he got like this. He had to have been folded up in the trunk when he went rigor-mortis central. Only thing I can figure is his arms popped out when he started to bloat.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth and told myself this wasn’t a good time to get hysterical. I could get hysterical later when I found a bathroom and I could drown out my screaming by flushing the toilet.

Beans was dancing around in the back of the SUV, barking, eyes focused on Bernie.

“We can’t put him in the back,” I said to Hooker. “Beans will want to play with him.”

We looked up at the roof rack, and then we looked over at Bernie. He was all odd angles inside the shiny black plastic bags.

“He’s heavy,” Hooker said. “You’re going to have to help me get him up there.”

I gingerly felt the bag.

“I think that’s his head,” Hooker said. “Maybe it would be better if you came over here and took his foot.”

I clenched my teeth and grabbed what I hoped was a foot, and after a lot of maneuvering we got Bernie onto the roof rack. Not sure we could have done it if he wasn’t so stiff. Hooker secured the body with the bungee cords, and we both stepped back.

“That’s not so bad,” Hooker said. “You wouldn’t know it was a body. It looks like we wrapped up a bicycle or something. See, doesn’t it look like he’s got handlebars?”

I clapped my hand over my mouth again.

Hooker tossed the shovels into the back of the SUV and closed the door. “Let’s roll.”

Ten minutes later we were still rolling without incident. The garbage bags were rattling in the wind as we drove, but the bungee cords were holding. We were taking the scenic route, avoiding the highway, Hooker reasoning that it would be easier to retrieve Bernie if he blew off the roof on a country road.

“Where are we going?” I asked Hooker.

“Back to Concord. My original plan was to leave him someplace where he was sure to be found. On the doorstep to Huevo corporate, or maybe take him back to his house. But now I’m thinking I don’t want him found right away. With the kind of luck I’m having, Rodriguez and Lucca will be the ones to find him. And they’d probably rebury him in the same shallow grave. I don’t want to have to dig him up a second time.

“I’d still like to leave him on Huevo property, but someplace where he’d be on ice for a while. I was thinking we could leave him in a motor coach. We keep our coaches parked on shop property, hooked up to electric. The air runs all the time so the coach doesn’t get funky and the veneers stay nice. Huevo probably works the same way. We could put him in Spanky’s coach. Spanky won’t be using it until February. All we have to do is turn the temperature down.”

I stared at Hooker in openmouthed stupefaction.

“What?” Hooker said. “Do you have a better idea?”

The Huevo campus is huge. Acres of landscaped lawn and clusters of perfectly maintained, brilliant white, two-story blocky buildings that house the Huevo offices, cars, transporters, and shops that build the cars. We wound our way between the buildings to the transporter garage, and just as Hooker had predicted, six motor coaches were parked in stalls, hooked to electric. The coaches were dark, no lights burning, not even running lights. There were security floods on the buildings, but not a lot of the light reached to the bus lot.

Hooker parked, and we both got out and looked up at Bernie. He looked none the worse for the trip. His garbage bags were still intact.

“You take the bungee cords off, and I’ll get a towel,” I told Hooker. “I don’t want Bernie getting Spanky’s coach all wet.”

Motor coaches have keypad locks, but everyone in the drivers’ lot uses the same universal code. I was hoping that held true when the coaches were stored. I punched in the standard number of 0’s and blew out a sigh of relief when the door unlocked. I switched my flashlight on, went inside, and found my way to the rear bathroom. I grabbed a couple large towels, leaving one on the bed, taking the other with me.

“Okay, let’s do it,” Hooker said.

We tugged at Bernie, and he tumbled off. A lot easier to get him down than it had been to get him up. Hooker took what he thought was Bernie’s head, and I grabbed Bernie’s foot again, and we tried to wrestle him into the coach.

“The coach door is too narrow,” I said to Hooker after several attempts. “Try turning him again.”

“Darlin’, we’ve turned him every possible way.”

“It’s this thing sticking straight out. It must be his arm. It just doesn’t fit through the door.”

“Go inside and see if you can find something to grease him up with. Maybe if we get him slippery.”

I took the flashlight and went through the cabinets, but they’d all been emptied. I was checking the refrigerator when I heard a sound like a baseball bat hitting a tree trunk.

I went to the coach door and looked out at Hooker. “What was that?”

“I don’t know, but I think he’ll fit now.”

“What are you holding behind your back?”

“A shovel.”

“That’s disgusting. That’s desecration of the dead.”

“I’m a desperate man,” Hooker said.

We wrangled Bernie through the door, I dried the garbage bag off as best I could in the stairway, and we carted Bernie back to the bedroom and set him on the towel on the bed.

“Maybe we should take the bag off,” I said. “I’d hate to have someone discover him and think he was garbage.”

“No!” Hooker said. “Trust me. You don’t want to do that. He’s a lot better in the bag. A lot better.”

Hooker adjusted the temperature, and we closed the door on Bernie. We walked Beans around so he could tinkle and stretch his legs, and then we all piled into the SUV and headed for the abandoned factory that Hooker hadn’t bought.

The factory was just as we’d left it. No SWAT teams. No flashing police strobes or crime scene tape. Our hidey-hole was still our secret. Inside the building it was pitch black and cold. At least it was dry. It had a bathroom that worked. I took my grocery bag filled with clothes into the bathroom and changed. When I came out Hooker was already dressed and feeding Beans.

We sat in the SUV and ate the rotisserie chicken and drank the beer, then polished off the bags of cookies.

“Do we have a plan for tomorrow?” I asked Hooker.

“Yeah. We abduct Rodriguez and Lucca and beat the crap out of them.”

“And we’re doing this why?”

“To get information. And after we get the information, we’ll get them to confess to everything. I have it all figured out. I can put my cell phone on movie mode and send the confession to the police.”

“Is that legal?”

“Probably not. The police will have to beat their own confession out of Rodriguez and Lucca to make it entirely legal. Our video would be more of a How to Solve the Crime Without Unjustly Arresting Hooker and Barney guide.”

I woke up tucked in between Beans and Hooker. Light was dim in the building interior where Hooker had parked the SUV, but the sun was bright beyond the open garage-bay door. Beans was still asleep, his warm broad back pressed against me, his breathing deep and even. Hooker had me in a stranglehold. His leg was thrown over mine, his arms tightly wrapped around me, his hands inside my shirt, one hand cupping a breast.

“Hey,” I said. “Are you awake?”

“No.”

“You’ve got your hands inside my shirt…again.”

“My hands were cold,” Hooker said. “And your boobs are nice and warm.”

“For a minute there I thought you were getting friendly.”

“Who me?” And he lightly brushed his thumb across my nipple.

“Stop that!” I struggled to slide out from under him and drag myself up to a sitting position. “I’m starving.”

I crawled out of the SUV and cleaned up as best I could in the sink. I washed my hair and finger-combed it dry. Hooker used my toothbrush, but he didn’t tempt fate a second time with the pink razor, so he was looking a little mountain man.

We hit the McDonald’s drive-thru in Concord, and when Hooker reached for the bags of food, he was recognized.

“Omigod,” the girl at the window said. “You’re Sam Hooker. The police are looking for you.”

Hooker handed the bags and coffees over to me. “Sorry,” he said to the girl. “He’s my cousin. Family resemblance. Happens all the time. Sometimes I even sign autographs for him.”

“I hear he’s a real asshole,” the girl said.

Hooker rolled his window up and drove away.

“That went well,” I said to Hooker.

He cut across Speedway Boulevard and looked for a place to hide. It was Sunday morning and the shopping-center lot was empty. Not good for losing ourselves. We finally settled on one of the chain-restaurant lots and dug in.

“So, how much do you know about this interrogation stuff?” I asked Hooker.

“I watch CNN.”

“That’s it? Everything you know about abduction and interrogation you learned from CNN?”

“Darlin’, I drive cars for a living. I don’t have a lot of opportunity for interrogation.”

“What about beating the crap out of people?”

“I have some experience at that,” Hooker said.

“We might need some equipment if we’re going to kidnap Rodriguez and Lucca,” I said. “Maybe we should get some rope to tie them up with. And rubber hoses so you can beat them.”

“I don’t need a rubber hose. But the rope might come in handy. And some doughnuts wouldn’t hurt either.”

Hooker found a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru and ordered a dozen assorted doughnuts. When he reached for the bag, he was recognized again.

“Hey, you’re Sam Hooker,” the girl said. “Can I have your autograph?”

“Sure,” Hooker said. And he signed a napkin and pulled away, back onto Speedway.

“Not going with the cousin routine?” I asked him.

“It seemed like a good line at the time.”

We finished eating and Hooker dropped me off at a Wal-Mart where I bought rope, some chains and locks, pillowcases (because CNN had shown terrorists wearing pillowcases), and a second flashlight. Minutes later, we were back in the motel lot with one eye on the back door and the other eye on the Taurus. And nothing was happening.

“Why aren’t they out looking for us?” Hooker asked.

“Maybe they’re taking Sunday off.”

“There’s no Sunday off if you’re a hit man. Everybody knows that. I could do a lot of damage on a Sunday. I could decide to go to the police. I could talk to the press.”

“All because you were ignored on a Sunday?”

“It could happen,” Hooker said.

“You should call them. Tell them to get their slacker butts out here.”

Hooker grinned. “I like that. That’s not a bad idea.” He called the hotel and asked for Rodriguez. “Hey,” Hooker said when Rodriguez answered. “How’s it going? I was just wondering what you guys were doing? I would have thought you’d be looking for me. Ray’s not going to be happy to find out you’re sitting around in your underwear taking the day off.”

“Who is this?” Rodriguez said.

“Jeez,” Hooker said, “how many guys are you looking for?”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the mall. Thought I’d go to a movie. Get a slice of pizza.”

“Real cocky, aren’t you?”

“So far I haven’t seen anything to get worried about.”

“Asshole.”

Hooker hung up.

“Two out of three people can’t be wrong,” I said to Hooker.

We slouched in our seats and waited to see if Rodriguez and Lucca would go to work. Hard to believe that Hooker was watching a movie or eating pizza, but if it was me, morbid curiosity would dictate that I checked it out.

Sure enough, five minutes later Rodriguez and Lucca emerged from the back door, got into the Taurus, and drove off.

“They came out of the hotel and walked straight to their car,” Hooker said. “Didn’t even look for us.”

“Probably didn’t think we’d be dumb enough to be sitting here.”

“Happens to me all the time,” Hooker said. “People are always underestimating my dumbness.”

The movie theater is twenty-four screens big and attached to the mall. Hooker watched the Taurus turn onto the service road and stop at the light. The light changed and the Taurus crossed Speedway Boulevard.

“One more time to the mall,” Hooker said, putting the SUV in gear.

Probably Hooker could drive the route blindfolded by now.

Rodriguez and Lucca were already out of their car and walking toward the theater entrance when we swung into the lot.

“Now what?” I asked. “Are you going to run over them? Or are you going to snatch them at gunpoint?”

“Race-car drivers aren’t supposed to run over people. You don’t lose points, but you could get a big fine and community ser vice.”

“But it’s okay to kidnap them at gunpoint?”

“The rule book doesn’t actually cover kidnapping.”

Hooker cruised down the lane and stopped behind the Taurus. “Can you do something to their car so it won’t start?”

“Sure.”

I got out and tried the door on the Taurus. Not locked. I popped the hood and disconnected a hose and some wires. I got back in the SUV, and Hooker drove one lane over and parked.

“This is part of your plan, right? Disable their car so they can’t get away?” I asked him.

“Darlin’, I don’t have a plan. I just wanted to mess with them.”

Thirty minutes later, Rodriguez and Lucca sauntered back down the car lane. They were talking, and they each had a soft-drink cup. Lucca was carrying a pizza box. They got in the car and a couple minutes passed. Hooker smiling the whole time.

“I can’t believe you’re getting off on this,” I said. “We’re wanted by the police. We’re about to abduct a couple killers. And you’re having fun with them.”

“You have to take fun where you find it,” Hooker said. “Anyway, this throws them off their game a little. Gives them something to think about besides us.”

The car doors opened and Rodriguez and Lucca got out. They popped the hood and took a look.

“Probably don’t know a gasket from a water pump,” Hooker said.

They slammed the hood down and looked around, hands on hips, pissed off.

Now I was starting to enjoy it. “We have them wondering.”

Rodriguez took out his cell phone and made a call. There was a lot of head nodding. He looked at his watch and wasn’t happy. I’m not proficient at reading lips, but it was obvious what he said into the phone.

“Bad move,” Hooker said. “Not only is that physically impossible, it’s also not going to get the road-ser vice crew out here anytime soon.”

Rodriguez flipped his phone closed and looked around some more. He stared directly at us, and my heart skipped a couple beats before his gaze moved on.

“He didn’t spot us,” I said.

“Might not be at the top of the charts as far as hit men go.”

“Yeah, and they’ve killed two men. Probably three. Imagine how many people they could have killed if they were really good.”

“At least three more,” Hooker said.

Rodriguez ran his hand over his bald head and looked at his watch again. There was a discussion, and Rodriguez got behind the wheel and horse-wanger Lucca returned to the mall.

“Divide and conquer,” Hooker said. “It’ll be easier to snag just one of them. Let’s move.”

We got out and walked over to the Taurus. Hooker had his gun in one hand and his other hand on the Taurus door handle. He yanked the door open and pointed the gun at Rodriguez.

“Get out,” Hooker said.

Rodriguez looked at Hooker, and then he looked at the gun.

“No,” Rodriguez said.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I’m not getting out.”

“If you don’t get out, I’ll shoot you.”

Rodriguez stared Hooker down. “I don’t think so. You’re not a shooter. I bet you never shot anything.”

“I hunt,” Hooker said.

“Oh yeah? What do you hunt, bunnies?”

“Sometimes.”

I tried not to grimace. “That’s disgusting.”

“Women don’t understand about hunting,” Rodriguez said to Hooker. “You gotta have cojones to hunt.”

I did an eye roll. “Now that you two big-game hunters have bonded, how about getting out of the car.”

“Forget it,” Rodriguez said.

“Okay,” I said to Hooker. “Shoot him.”

Hooker’s eyes opened wide. “Now? Here?”

“Now! Just friggin’ shoot him.”

Hooker looked around the lot. “There are people…”

“For crying out loud,” I said. “Give me the gun.”

“No!” Rodriguez said. “Don’t give her the gun. I’ll get out. Christ, she almost killed Lucca with that six-pack.”

Hooker and I took a step back and Rodriguez got out.

“Hands on the car,” Hooker said.

Rodriguez turned and put his hands on the car, and I did a pat down. I took a gun from a side holster and a gun from an ankle holster and his cell phone.

Hooker’s phone rang. “Yeah?” Hooker said. “Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.” He shifted from side to side. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. No problem. I’ll be there. I’m ready to get on the plane.”

“Who was that?” I asked Hooker when he disconnected.

“Skippy. He wanted to make sure I remembered about the banquet. He said murder charges wouldn’t exempt me.”

It was Sunday, and Skippy was probably already in New York preparing for an entire week of NASCAR promotion with the top-ten winning drivers. And he was justifiably worried that he’d have only nine guys safely tucked away in their rooms at the Waldorf. Probably at this very moment his thumbs were flying over his BlackBerry, composing a damage-control article on Hooker and me that could be shipped out to the media at a moment’s notice.

Hooker reached into the car and popped the trunk. “Get in,” he said to Rodriguez.

Rodriguez paled. “You’re kidding.”

Rodriguez was thinking about Bernie Miller. Thinking about how easy it was to shoot a guy in a trunk. And I was thinking I liked seeing Rodriguez coming to terms with it. This wasn’t the movies. This was real life. And shooting people in real life wasn’t nice. Especially when you were the guy getting shot.

“I could shoot you now,” I said. “Be easy to get you in the trunk with a couple bullets in your head.”

I couldn’t believe I was saying this. I had to get somebody else to kill a spider. And I hated spiders. Not only was I saying all these dumb tough-cookie things…I was almost believing them.

Rodriguez looked into the trunk. “I’ve never climbed into a trunk before. I’m gonna feel like an idiot.”

Guess this was one of those situations where having cojones doesn’t do you a lot of good, eh?

Hooker made an impatient sound and raised his gun, and Rodriguez went into the trunk headfirst. He had his ass up in the air, looking like Pooh Bear going into the rabbit hole, and I almost burst out laughing. Not because it was all that funny, but because I was borderline hysterical.

A bunch of high school kids walked by on their way to the mall.

“Hey, it’s Sam Hooker,” one of them said. “Dude!”

“Hey, man, can I have your autograph?”

“Sure,” Hooker said, handing me the gun. “You got a pen?” he asked the kid.

“What’s with the guy in the trunk?” one of the kids wanted to know.

“We’re kidnapping him,” Hooker said.

“Way to go,” the kid said.

The kids left, and we closed the lid on Rodriguez.

“You drive the SUV, and I’ll take the Taurus,” Hooker said. “We’ll take him to the factory.”

I reattached the hose and wires on the Taurus, jogged to the SUV, Hooker backed the Taurus out, and we took off.