Motor Mouth

SIXTEEN

We were parked four houses down from the estate where they were holding Hooker hostage, the Camry tucked back into the driveway of an ungated and unoccupied house. We’d carefully watched the street for activity, but there’d been nothing to see. No cars coming or going. No one out for a stroll. We watched the sun set in a brilliant display of fluorescent orange and pink. We watched the sky change from dusk to dark.

“This is it,” Rosa said. “Showtime.”

We armed ourselves, got out of the Camry, and started walking down the street. Rosa, Felicia, Suzanne, and me. Beans was left behind, and he wasn’t liking it. Beans was in the car, barking loud enough to raise the dead.

“You got to do something with doggie,” Felicia said. “People gonna call the cops on us.”

I went back to the car, opened the door, and Beans bounded out. I took the leash, and he pranced beside me. He was happy. He was going for a walk with everyone.

“When I die I want to come back as this doggie,” Felicia said.

We stopped when we got to the gate. It was still closed and locked. Beyond the gate we could see the BMW parked in the courtyard. The house was dark. Not a single light burning.

“Maybe they have black-out shades,” Rosa said.

“Maybe they’re watching a movie on television,” Felicia said.

Maybe they’re waiting for us, I thought.

Lights were also off in neighboring houses. This wasn’t high season in Florida. Not a lot of the rich folks in residence. We walked off the road and chose a spot where the shadows were deep.

“We gonna have to alley-oop over the wall,” Felicia said.

Rosa and I linked hands and gave Suzanne a boost up.

“Everything looks quiet inside the wall,” Suzanne whispered. She straddled the wall and silently dropped out of sight.

Felicia was next to go.

“I can’t reach,” she said, one foot in our hands. “I have to climb on your shoulders. Hold still.”

Felicia managed to get onto Rosa’s shoulders, I got my hand under her ass and gave her a shove, and she went over the wall and landed on the other side with a thud.

Rosa and I looked at Beans. He was alert, watching us, watching the wall.

“I swear, he’s waiting to go over,” Rosa said.

“We need one of those bucket trucks the phone company uses.”

“If we can get Felicia over the wall, we can get him over the wall,” Rosa said.

We stood him up on his hind legs with his two front paws against the wall, and we got our hands under his big dog butt.

“Heave,” Rosa said.

We both gave a grunt and got Beans about three feet off the ground.

“Christ,” Rosa said, “it’s like lifting a hundred-and-fifty-pound sandbag.”

“Here, doggie,” Felicia whispered from the other side of the wall. “Nice Beansy.”

“Come to Aunt Sue,” Suzanne cooed. “Come on. You can do it. Come to Aunt Suzy Woozy!”

“On the count of three,” Rosa said. “One, two, three!”

We took a deep breath and hefted Beans up another foot and a half. Somehow he got a back paw on Rosa’s chest and pushed himself high enough to get his two front feet dug into the top of the wall. I got my head under his rear end, and when I stood straight he went over. There was a gasp and a thud and then there was silence.

“Is Beans okay?” I whispered.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Suzanne said. “He landed on Felicia. It might take her a minute to catch her breath.”

Rosa went up next, with a lot more blind determination than grace. She straddled the wall, turned onto her stomach, we locked hands and everyone pulled me over.

We were all plastered against the wall. A swath of grass lay between us and the house. Maybe thirty feet deep. When we ran across the grass, we’d be exposed to view.

“There’s no way around it,” Suzanne said. “We have to make a run for it. When we get to the house, we’ll be hidden again, and we can creep along and try to find a way in.”

We got halfway across the grass, and all the outdoor lights flashed on.

“We tripped the motion sensors,” Suzanne said. “Don’t anyone panic.”

“They gonna let the Dobermans out next,” Felicia said, running onto a patio. “I’m not waiting for that. I’m going in where it’s safe.”

She whacked a patio door with her gun butt, the glass shattered, she reached inside and opened the door, and the alarm system went off.

We all rushed into the house, Beans included. We fumbled our way through the house in the dark, guns drawn, going room by room. No reason to go slowly or quietly. The alarm was whining. The phone was ringing. No one was answering the phone. Undoubtedly the security company calling. Their next call would be to the police.

We crept into the kitchen, Beans gave an excited woof, and ran forward. Hard to hear much over the alarm, but there was the sound of something heavy crashing to the floor in front of us. Rosa flipped a switch, the kitchen came up like daylight, and we all gaped at Hooker. He was tied to a kitchen chair that Beans had tipped over. Beans was on top of him, giving him slurpeys, and Hooker was looking stunned.

I ran to Hooker and counted his fingers. Ten! Yahoo!

“Are you okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah, I just got the wind knocked out of me when Beans hit the chair.”

“What about Gobbles?”

“He’s in the house somewhere. I don’t know what kind of condition he’s in. He might be upstairs.”

“I’ll go look for him,” Rosa said.

“Where is everybody else?” I asked Hooker.

“Gone.”

“That’s impossible. There’s only one way in and one way out, and we were watching it.”

“They left by boat,” Hooker said. “Miranda and his two men. And Ray. And the dog shit. I guess Miranda didn’t think he could get much more out of you or me, so he took Ray. If the chip’s in the bag, everyone will be happy. If it isn’t, I imagine Miranda will hold Ray hostage until he duplicates the technology. And if he can’t duplicate the technology, I don’t think things will look good for Ray.”

Felicia was working on Hooker’s ropes with a steak knife.

“How’s it going?” Suzanne asked. “Is he almost cut loose? We need to get out of here before the police arrive. I don’t want a mug shot with my hair looking like this.”

Felicia made a last swipe with the knife, and Hooker wriggled free. He got to his feet and looked around. “Where’s Beans?”

“He was here a minute ago,” I said.

Hooker whistled, and Beans came into the kitchen dragging Rodriguez, who was obviously incredibly dead.

Felicia shook her finger at Beans. “You got to stop playing with the dead people.”

Hooker found a box of crackers in a cupboard. “Here you go, guy,” he said to Beans. “I’ll trade you a cracker for the dead man.”

I followed the drool smears down a hall to a powder room. The door was open, and I could see another body on the floor. I flipped the light on for a better look. It was Lucca. He was on his back, his black eye no longer seeming like much of a problem.

I know Rodriguez and Lucca weren’t such nice guys. And I know they killed a bunch of people. Still, I felt bad they were dead. Okay, maybe not Lucca. I was a little glad Lucca was dead.

I closed the door on Lucca and returned to the kitchen where Hooker and Felicia were trying to get Rodriguez to sit at the table.

“How’s this?” Felicia asked me. “You think this looks natural?”

“Yeah, if you don’t count that he’s been dead for two days, and you had to break both legs to get him to sit, plus his head is facing the wrong way. He looks like something out of the Exorcist movie.” And then I saw the guns on the table. “I’m guessing those guns belong to Rodriguez and Lucca?”

“Simon laid the guns on the table when they brought Rodriguez and Lucca in,” Hooker said. “And then everyone forgot about them. I’m hoping one of those guns was used to shoot Oscar.”

Rodriguez started to list to one side, and Felicia propped him up on his elbow. “We put this guy here in case Officer Dummy is the first on the scene and can’t figure it out.”

We all froze at the sound of gunfire.

“Upstairs,” Hooker said.

There was a loud crash, and then Rosa’s voice. “It’s okay,” she yelled down. “I got Gobbles, and he’s okay.”

I went to the foot of the stairs. “What was the gunfire about?”

“I had to shoot the lock off the bathroom door,” Rosa said. “I always wanted to do that.” Rosa had Gobbles by the back of the shirt, holding him up like he was a baby kitten. “He’s a little wobbly, but he don’t got any holes in him he’s not supposed to have. At least none I can see.”

“I went outside with the garbage,” Gobbles said, eyes glazed, semi-babbling. “It had the turkey carcass in it. It was a real good turkey, too. Nice and moist. Everybody said so. I made a real good Thanksgiving. Everybody left, and I was cleaning up, and next thing I was in the trunk of a car. And then they gave me some kind of shot, and everything was whirly, and I don’t know where I was, and then I was back in the trunk. And when I was in the trunk, I saw Jesus. And the Virgin Mary. And Ozzie Osbourne.”

“Must have been crowded in that trunk,” Rosa said.

Rosa and I got Gobbles down the stairs and into the kitchen. We walked him to the middle of the room, and he spotted Rodriguez sitting at the table and totally wigged out.

“You!” Gobbles yelled at Rodriguez. “I didn’t get any leftovers because of you. And leftovers are the best part. Everybody knows that. You don’t fuckin’ kidnap someone Thanksgiving night. I fuckin’ wait all fuckin’ year for those leftovers. I hate you. I hate you!” He grabbed the gun from Rosa, and he shot Rodriguez in the knee.

Nothing happened. Rodriguez didn’t jump, didn’t bleed, didn’t blink.

“You do know he’s dead, right?” Hooker asked Gobbles.

“Yeah. I knew that.”

“Feel better?”

“Yeah,” Gobbles said. “But I surely would like a turkey sandwich.”

I noticed a shoebox left on the table. Gucci. “Someone buys expensive shoes,” I said.

Rosa picked the box up and looked inside. “Uh-oh.”

Felicia, Hooker, Suzanne, and I looked over Rosa’s shoulder. There were two cylinders attached to a small electronic component with a clock counting down. Two minutes left on the clock.

“Bomb!” we all yelled.

Hooker grabbed the box, ran outside, and heaved it toward the water. It hit the dock, went into a skid, and exploded. We were all knocked back, and half the windows blew out.

We didn’t waste any time getting off the property. Too much trouble to alley-oop over the wall again. We ran to the water’s edge, carefully stepped into the waist-high water, scooted around the protruding stucco wall, and dragged our soaked selves onto the bank on the other side.

The white light from headlights and blue emergency strobes raced down the street and stopped in front of the gated house while we tiptoed across the backs of yards. We got to the Camry, squeezed six wet people and a big wet dog into the car, and Rosa drove off, down the street then across the causeway, toward South Beach.

I had so much leftover terror my teeth were chattering and I was shaking.

“D-d-do you think it will work?” I asked Hooker. “D-d-do you think they’ll connect Rodriguez and Lucca with the m-m-murders?”

Hooker had his arms locked around me. “There will be a lot of unanswered questions,” he said, “but I’m hoping we left the murder weapon in the kitchen. I don’t see where the police can dispute a murder weapon loaded with fingerprints.”

“Guess we know why they weren’t worried about leaving you behind,” Rosa said to Hooker. “They were going to blow you up.”

“That charge was left in the kitchen, next to the gas cooktop,” Hooker said. “I’m guessing it would have blown everything up and probably burned the place down.”

I woke up in the little bed in Felicia’s house. Beans was on the floor, still sound asleep. Hooker was on top of me, wide awake, his hand on my breast.

“Your hand is on my breast again,” I said.

“And?”

“You might want to move it lower.”

He slid his hand down a couple inches. “Here?”

“Lower.”

The hand went to just below my hip. “Here?”

“Yeah. Now a little to the right.”

“Darlin’!”

Okay, big surprise. I was going to succumb to his charms…again. And I’d probably regret it…again. But I wouldn’t regret it short term. Short term was going to be good. And who knows, maybe it would work out for us this time. And if it didn’t, I’d be smart enough to keep the key to the golf cart.

An hour later we were still in bed, and Hooker’s cell phone rang.

“I hear on the news that the police found the Huevo murder weapon in the possession of two dead suspects,” Skippy said. “It sounds like you’re off the hook. Are you planning on showing up here anytime soon?”

“Do I have to?”

“We had the parade of cars this morning and your stunt double did a burnout on Forty-second Street and took out Spanky’s car. Marty Smith got to him with a microphone before I could reach him, and it sounded like Marty was interviewing Loni Anderson. If you don’t want rumors going around concerning your sexual affiliation, I think you should get your ass to New York.”

“Did they say anything else about the dead suspects?” Hooker asked Skippy.

“They said the one guy had been chewed up by the swamp monster. Imagine that.”