A man and a woman in brilliant white uniforms trimmed with blue were moving around on the second deck, setting up for breakfast. Two women strolled out, the world seemingly a better place for their perfect blondness. They were wearing floaty caftan-type things that are worn only by the very fat and the very onboard-ship. They were followed by four men in casual shirts and slacks. The men were power breakfasting. Spanky and Delores followed the power breakfasters. Good thing my stomach was full of pancakes or I might be feeling left out.
Everyone milled around for a few minutes until Ray Huevo appeared. He took his seat and everyone followed his lead. Horse and Baldy weren’t among the invited breakfast guests.
Halfway through breakfast, Spanky glanced my way, and I could see recognition register. He leaned left to catch Ray Huevo’s attention and words were exchanged. Huevo looked in my direction, and I felt the roots of my hair get hot. The meeting of eyes was brief. Huevo barely acknowledged me, immediately dismissing my presence, returning to his role of genial host, eating his omelet, smiling at the blonde at his side.
The white-uniformed waiters poured more coffee and juice. The chef served crepes from a rolling cart. The sun climbed higher in the sky. The breakfast felt endless.
I called Hooker. “Where the heck are you?”
“I’m at Felicia’s. I went back to get our things. I think we’re better off staying in South Beach.”
“What about Gobbles? What’s Gobbles doing?”
“Gobbles is watching television. I told him to stay with Felicia.”
“I’m dying here. I need my iPod. I need sunglasses and sunscreen.”
“I hear you,” Hooker said. And he hung up.
I blew out a sigh and slouched a little lower on the bench.
Baldy appeared on deck and my breath caught in my chest. Baldy bent to speak to Huevo. He was nodding his head. Yes, yes, yes. He looked my way. Damn.
Huevo returned his attention to his breakfast party and Baldy left the boat and walked toward me. He stopped when he got to my bench.
“Miss Barnaby?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Huevo would like me to take you to breakfast.”
“Thanks, but I’ve already had breakfast.”
“Then I’ll escort you to your car.”
“I don’t have a car.”
He shifted foot to foot. I was being difficult.
“I’ve been asked to remove you from this bench. I’d prefer to keep this civil.”
“Me, too,” I said. And I for sure meant it. I wasn’t exactly Batman. I wasn’t even Bruce Willis. I was a little bleached-blond coward.
Baldy reached out for me, and I batted his hand away. “Don’t touch me,” I said.
“I thought you might need some help getting off the bench.”
“News flash. I’m not leaving this bench. I’m meeting a friend here. And he’s real big and mean. And he has a vicious dog.”
“Come on, lady, give me a break. If you don’t cooperate, I’m going to have to pick you up and take you away and shoot you.”
“Touch me and I’ll scream,” I said.
“Goddamn it,” Baldy said. “I hate when my day starts like this.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, and I let out a shriek. He was trying to wrestle me away from the bench, and I was struggling and screaming. A flock of gulls and two pelicans took to the air. A plate dropped and smashed on the deck of the Huevo boat.
“Help! Rape!” I yelled.
A red scald rose from Baldy’s collar and colored his face. People were emerging from inside their boats. A security guard appeared outside the dockmaster’s office. Baldy let go of me and took a step back.
“Okay already. Jesus, just shut up,” he said. “I’m only doing my job.”
“You should get a new job,” I told him, “because this one sucks.”
I sat down on the bench and crossed my legs. Very ladylike. I was there to stay. I was calm. Unperturbed. I looked down at my chest. I could see my heart beating. Baboom, baboom, baboom. Everyone on the boat was looking at me. I gave them a little finger wave and smiled. The people on the boat went back to breakfast. Except for Spanky. Spanky kept staring at me. Finally Delores gave him an elbow and Spanky stopped staring.
I took a couple deep breaths and checked around the bench. Baldy was nowhere to be seen. I sat for about a half hour and Hooker showed up.
“So,” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Baldy stopped by and tried to evict me, but I told him I was waiting for you.”
Hooker put my hat on my head and slid my sunglasses onto the bridge of my nose. “And he wanted to evict you why?”
“Ray was having a breakfast party and thought I detracted from the scenery.”
“That man has no taste,” Hooker said. “You always pretty things up.” He handed me my iPod and a tube of sunscreen. He took some lip balm out of his pocket and added it to the iPod and the sunscreen. “Want to keep your lips soft…just in case.”
“Always thinking,” I said to Hooker.
He tapped his head with his forefinger. “No grass growing here.”
I stood and stretched. “I need a break. I’m going for a walk.”
“If you’re walking in the direction of the deli, you could bring me a soda. Maybe a sandwich. And some cookies.”
SEVEN
I had a six-pack of diet soda in cans, a bag of cookies, and two ham-and-cheese subs. I was in front of the bench and there was no Hooker. I looked to the boat. No one on deck. Two possibilities. Hooker went looking for a bathroom or he decided to follow someone. Either way, I was surprised he hadn’t called to tell me. I took the walkway to the parking lot and looked for the SUV. The lot was pretty much filled for the day. No one going in or out. I could hear conversation behind a green panel van. It sounded like Hooker. I rounded the van and found Hooker on the ground with Horse and Baldy over him. Horse and Baldy were concentrating on kicking Hooker and weren’t looking in my direction. Baldy was to the side. Horse had his back to me.
“Hey!” I shouted, coming up on Horse.
Horse turned toward me, and I roundhoused him in the face with the six-pack of soda. There was a satisfying crunch and blood spurted out of Horse’s nose. He stood there, stunned for a moment, and I clocked him again in the side of the head. Then I jumped away before either of them could catch me. I ran to the front of the lot screaming, “Fire! Fire!”
I heard car doors open and slam shut and an engine catch. I ran back to Hooker and saw the goon car wheel around and speed out of the lot. Hooker was on his hands and knees. He dragged himself to his feet and gave his head a shake to clear the cobwebs.
“Well, that was friggin’ embarrassing,” Hooker said. “I just got my ass saved by a woman with a six-pack of soda.”
“What were you doing back here with them?”
“They said they wanted to talk to me.”
“And they couldn’t do it by the bench?”
“Looking at it in retrospect…”
I broke a can of soda off from the six-pack and handed it to Hooker. “Boy, you don’t know much. You wouldn’t last ten minutes as a woman. I guess Huevo really doesn’t want anyone sitting on that bench.”
“It’s the cars. He wants his cars. All the while they were kicking me they wanted to know where I’d stashed the cars.”
“Did you tell them?”
“Of course I told them. They were kicking me!”
“Did they do any damage? Are you okay?”
“Remember when I hit the wall at Talladega and flipped four times? I’m a shade past that.”
“Cracked ribs?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Internal bleeding?”
“Hard to tell, but I’m not coughing up blood, so that’s a good sign. They could have kicked a lot harder. They didn’t want to kill me. They just wanted to get my attention and tell me Huevo was serious.”
“We should leave. I wouldn’t want them to think things over and
come back to take a shot at seeing what I know.” Been there, done that.
Hooker limped to the SUV and gingerly eased himself onto the passenger seat. I got behind the wheel, hit the door locks and took off.
“I think we should return to the hotel and regroup,” I told Hooker. “And I’ve been thinking about the chip. There might be people who could back their way through the circuits and find out exactly what it does.”
“I thought we knew what it did.”
“I’d like it to turn out to be some kind of illegal technology, possibly traction control, but I can’t say that I know what it does. I’m thrown by the fact that it was just sitting in the knob without a connection to an electronic system. And I don’t know why there were two chips.”
“Do you know anyone who could find out?”
“Yes, but no one in Miami.”
I’d just turned onto Fourth, heading for Collins. I was driving on autopilot, trying not to let Hooker see how rattled I was, trying not to burst into tears because he was hurt. I stopped at a cross street and looked right. A car moved through the intersection. Hooker and I vacantly stared ahead at the car. It was another black BMW. Absolutely unremarkable…except for the big dog nose pressed to a rear side window.
“Beans!” Hooker shouted.
I was already on it. I had my left-turn signal blinking and a white-knuckle grip on the wheel. I had to let two cars go through before I could move. I took the corner, and we were both sitting forward, our eyes glued to the BMW. I followed for three blocks, keeping the BMW in sight. The BMW sailed through a yellow light, the car in front of me stopped for the red, and the BMW disappeared from view.
I did my best to run the BMW down when the light changed, but had no luck. The BMW was gone, last seen heading north.
“At least we know Beans is okay,” Hooker said.
More than could be said for Hooker. His eye was getting puffy and a brilliant magenta bruise was flowering on his cheek. I gave up on the search for Beans and headed back to the hotel.
“You could use some ice,” I told him.
“Yeah, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some Jack Daniel’s swirling around it,” Hooker said, eyes closed, head back on the headrest.
I drove to the hotel with my heart aching and my mind working hard to sort through the jumble of bad luck and terrible events that had occurred in the last four days. I needed to make some sense of it all. And I needed to find a way to fix it.
I found my way to Loews, handed the SUV over to the valet, and helped Hooker get to the room. We didn’t have a suite like Suzanne, but the room was nice, with a king-size bed, a writing desk and chair, and two club chairs with a small table between them.
Hooker hunkered down in one of the two club chairs. I gave him a ham-and-cheese sub and fashioned an ice pack for his eye. I sat in the other chair and started working my way through an identical sub.
“Do you think Ray Huevo knows his brother was stashed in the hauler?” I asked Hooker.
“He gave no indication that he knew, but I wouldn’t be surprised. He didn’t look too broken up by the death.”
I was standing at the window, looking out at the pool, and my attention was caught by a flash of white and black and brown.
“Omigod,” I said. “Beans.”
Hooker slumped back in his chair. “I know. I feel terrible about Beans. I don’t know where to look.”
“How about the pool?”
“The pool?”
“Yeah, I think that’s Beans down by the pool.”
Hooker came to the window and looked out. “That’s my dog!” He ran to his newly acquired duffel bag and started rummaging around in it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for my gun,” he said. “I’m getting my dog back.”
“You can’t go down there with a gun! We have to be sneaky about this. It looks to me as if they’re passing by the pool area to get to the little dog park. I’ll go down to the lobby and follow them back to their room. Then we just wait for the guy to leave, and we go in and rescue Beans.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t go with me. Everybody knows you. You’ll spook the Beans-napper. Just sit tight and keep the ice on your eye.”
I ran down the hall, punched the elevator button, and seconds later I was in the lobby, hiding out behind a potted palm. I called Hooker on my cell phone.
“Do you see them?” I asked Hooker.
“No. They walked past the pool and disappeared. Wait a minute, here they are. They’re walking back the same way they left. They’re about to come into the hotel.”
I heard Beans panting before I saw him. He wasn’t a hot-weather dog. He was walking beside a guy wearing khaki cargo shorts and a collared knit shirt. In his late thirties. Soft in the middle. They stopped in front of the elevator and the guy pushed the button. When the doors opened, I hurried over and slipped into the elevator with them. Two more people followed.
Beans’s ears instantly went up, his eyes got bright, and he started jumping around doing his happy dance. The guy was trying to control Beans, but Beans was having none of it. He pushed against me, snuffling my leg, leaving a wake of dog slobber from my knee to my crotch.
“He’s usually so well behaved,” the guy said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
“Dogs like me,” I said. “Must be something about the way I smell. Eau de pot roast.”
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor and the guy got out, but Beans wouldn’t leave my side. Beans had his four feet planted and his toenails dug into the elevator floor. The guy pulled at the leash, and Beans sat down. Hard to move Beans when he’s got his mind made up not to move. The two remaining people were nervously crowded into a corner.
“Maybe I should adopt him,” I said. “Want me to take him off your hands?”
“Lady, I lose this dog and my life isn’t worth dirt.”
I stepped out of the elevator, and Beans got up and moved to my side. “This isn’t my floor, but I’ll walk you to your room,” I told the dognapper. “Your dog seems to have attached himself to me.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like he knows you.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. I have this happen all the time.”
We walked down the hall to the dognapper’s room, he inserted his key card, then he opened the door.
I pointed to the sign dangling from the doorknob. “I see you have a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.”
“Yeah, I keep it there so the maid doesn’t come in. I can’t take a chance on someone accidentally letting the dog out.” He stepped inside and tugged on the leash. “Come on, big guy. Be a good dog.”
Beans pressed himself against me, and I fondled his head. “I don’t think he wants to go into the room.”
“He’s got to. I got things to do, and I can’t take him with me.”
“I could take him for a walk for you.”
“Thanks for the offer, but he was just out for a walk, and he did everything, if you know what I mean.” He searched through his pockets and came up with a dog biscuit. “I save these for emergencies,” he said. “I don’t give him too many because I don’t want him to get fat.” He threw the dog biscuit into the room, Beans bounded in after it, and the door was slammed shut.
I stood outside, waiting and listening, and a moment later I heard Beans give a woof. There was the sound of a body getting knocked to the floor, and there was some swearing.
I got back into the elevator, returned to the lobby, and called Hooker. “I have a plan. Meet me in the lobby. And try not to be conspicuous.”
A half hour later, Hooker and I were on a couch, our noses buried in a paper, our eyes trained on the elevator. We watched a lot of people go up and come down, but none of them was the Beans-napper. And then, there he was, stepping out of the elevator. He punched a number into his cell phone, talking as he walked to the door. He exited the hotel and got into a car that had just come up from valet p
arking.
“Do you know him?” I asked Hooker.
“Roger Estero. He works for Huevo. His official position is public relations, but he’s really a babysitter for Spanky. He tries to keep Spanky from punching out photographers, and he makes late-night pizza and Pepto-Bismol runs. I think he’s related to Huevo. A nephew or something. Not real bright. If you were even a little smart, you wouldn’t take a job babysitting Spanky.”
We waited until Estero drove away, and then we hustled up to the seventh floor. I found Beans’s room and removed the DO NOT DISTURB sign.
“Okay,” I said to Hooker. “You call room ser vice and tell them you want the room made up. Then as soon as the maid appears and puts the key in the door, you distract her and I’ll sneak in.”
Hooker made the call, and we positioned ourselves at opposite ends of the hall. The door leading to the ser vice elevator opened, and I hid around the corner. Hooker was down the hall fumbling with his key card. I heard the maid’s cart roll out. I heard her at Estero’s door. I heard Hooker approach her.
“Hey there, darlin’,” he said. And much as I hate to admit it, if I’d been the maid, I would have given him my full attention.
Hooker handed the maid a line about not being able to get his door open. He switched to speaking Spanish and I was lost. I peeked around the corner and saw that the door was ajar and the maid was down the hall with her back to me, giggling at something Hooker had said.
I pushed open Estero’s door and slipped inside. Beans was on the bed, ready to pounce, giving me his devil dog look. It was the look he always got just before he knocked me to the ground. I jumped into the bathroom and closed the door.
Moments later, the maid returned. I heard her open the door, heard Beans leap off the bed and gallop across the room. There was an audible gasp and the door to the room slammed shut.
Hooker knocked three times and then two. Our signal. I opened the bathroom doors and looked out at Beans. He was standing, nose pressed to the bottom of the entrance door, sniffing for Hooker. He was drooling and whining. I left the bathroom, opened the door to Hooker, Hooker stepped into the room and Beans knocked him to the ground and sat on him. Happy dog. Happy Hooker.
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