“Guess the maid decided Estero’s room didn’t need cleaning,” I said to Hooker.
“I’d tell you what she said, going down the hall, but it was in Spanish, and I’m not sure of the translation. I think it had to do with private parts and ravenous rodents.”
We called down to have the car brought around, clipped the leash onto Beans’s collar and walked him straight out the door of Loews Hotel and into the waiting SUV.
“I’ll find a place to hide,” Hooker said. “You get everything from the room and check us out, and I’ll meet you here in thirty minutes.”
The SUV pulled away and a black stretch limo pulled in. The bellman snapped to attention and Suzanne Huevo swung her ass out of the hotel. She was wearing a black suit and black stiletto heels. Her skirt hem came to just above her knees and the front slit went a lot higher. She had a leopard Itsy Poo bag on her shoulder and a no-shit diamond pin on her lapel.
“Omigod,” she said when she saw me. “You’re what’s-her-name!”
“Barney.”
“Yeah, Barney. Last time I was with you, I was facedown in my macaroni and cheese. How did you get me to my room?”
“Wheelchair.”
“Clever. Was I a spectacle?”
“My friend rescued us. The wheelchair was his idea. And I took an entire table down with me when I stood up. No one noticed you in the wheelchair.”
“Very nice. If you’re here around six o’clock, we can get shit-faced again. As you can see, I’m the grieving widow today. Got a lawyer meeting, a fucking memorial ser vice, and then I’m heading for a bar.”
“Sorry, I’m on my way to check out. How much longer are you going to be here in Miami?”
“As long as it takes. At least through the weekend. They still have Oscar on ice.”
I raced up to the room, gathered our belongings and put them into our two travel bags, and settled our bill. I left the lobby and took a position in the porte cochere, just to the side of the hotel entrance. I had our bags in hand. I was mentally cracking my knuckles, praying that Hooker didn’t drive up simultaneously with Roger Estero. I blew out a sigh of relief when I saw the SUV cruise down the street and turn onto hotel grounds. Hooker stopped in front of me, and Beans stared out at me. He gave a loud woof and the car rocked.
I opened the side door and tossed the bags onto the backseat. I closed the door and was about to get in next to Hooker when I was brought up short by my purse strap. It was Estero, and he wasn’t happy.
“I should have known there was something fishy about the way the dog was acting with you,” Estero said.
I tugged at the strap. “Let go of my bag.”
“I want the dog.”
“It’s Hooker’s dog. If you don’t let go, I’m going to start screaming.”
“Hooker’s a dead man as soon as I get the word. And I don’t care how loud you scream, I’m gonna get that dog back.” He dug his fingers into my arm and dragged me to the rear of the SUV. “Open the door.”
I started shrieking, and Estero clamped a hand over my mouth. I bit him, and he jerked his hand away, taking my bag with him.
I heard someone calling for security. Beans was barking. Hooker was yelling for me to get in the SUV. Estero was screaming threats, trying to get a handhold on my shirt. A bellman wedged himself between Estero and me, I rammed myself into the SUV, and Hooker took off while my door was still open.
I pulled the door shut and turned in my seat to look back at the hotel. “He’s got my purse.”
“Do you want me to go back and get it?”
“No! I want you to go far away from here.”
“How do you feel about North Carolina?”
“North Carolina would be good.”
“Do you have plans for Thanksgiving?”
I had a mental head-slap moment. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. I’d completely forgotten.
“No,” I said. “I usually go home to my parents’ for Thanksgiving, but they’re going on a cruise this year. My dad won it in a raffle at his lodge. How about you?”
“My parents are divorced and holidays are always a tug of war. I avoid them when I can. I was planning on defrosting a Thanksgiving pizza and watching a ball game with Beans. You’re welcome to join me.”
“I can’t believe I forgot Thanksgiving.”
“When I went back to get our stuff from Felicia, her kitchen was filled with women making pies. She invited us to stay, but Gobbles needs to get home. He gets to see his kids on Thanksgiving. It’s a big deal for him.”
“It must be hard to be separated from your kids.”
“Like losing Beans,” Hooker said.
Traveling by private jet is painless. No waiting in line. No security hassles. No kids kicking the back of your chair. Hooker’s Citation is white with a narrow black-and-gold stripe running the length of the plane, and HOOKER written on the tail. Very sleek. The interior is cream leather and beige carpeting, with a small refreshment center in the front, by the door, and a small but comfortable lavatory in the rear. There are three captain’s chairs on one side of the aisle and two captain’s chairs plus a custom-made dog bed on the other. I was sitting across the aisle from Hooker. He had a movie up on the screen but my mind was elsewhere. It was early evening, and we were flying into Concord, North Carolina. We dropped below the cloud cover, and familiar neighborhoods popped into view. Houses were sprinkled across the countryside and clustered around lakes. We flew over Kannapolis. That was Earnhardt country. Lots of open space and a rickety little town. A big strip mall toward one end. Lake Norman sprawled to the west. Mooresville attached to the northeast end of the lake and Huntersville attached to the southeast end. A lot of the drivers and crew chiefs lived in Huntersville and Mooresville. There were condo complexes, high-end houses and golf-course communities, redneck bars, pretty shopping centers, and some fried-food restaurants.
The Citation touched down and skimmed over the asphalt runway. Five thousand five hundred feet long. It was a small airport used only by private planes. Hangars lined up on one side, with a terminal building in the middle. The NASCAR hangar sat at the far end. The sign on the terminal stated that this was NASCAR country. And it was accurate. NASCAR fans are all over the place, in every state, but you couldn’t throw a stick without hitting one in greater Charlotte. NASCAR was on bumper stickers, personalized license plates, shirts, hats, flags, dog collars, jackets, lamps, clocks, boxer shorts, bobble-head dolls, and pajamas.
Hooker’s black Blazer was parked by the Stiller Racing hangar. We loaded Beans into the back and watched Gobbles walk to a rusted-out Jeep.
“What happened to your ’vette?” Hooker asked him.
“Wife got it in the settlement. She painted it pink.”
“Ow,” Hooker said.
“I appreciate all you did for me,” Gobbles said. “I’m sorry I got you into this shit. I didn’t think it would turn into such a cluster fuck.” He searched through the duffel hanging on his shoulder and came up with the remote. “I still have this. Maybe it’d be better if you keep it…in case something happens to me.”
Hooker pocketed the remote; we got into the Blazer and followed Gobbles out of the lot.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked Hooker.
“No. I have one of those Felicia feelings about Gobbles. I don’t think his problems are over.”
Corporate headquarters for many of the race teams are adjacent to the airfield. Hendrick, Penske, Roush, Huevo, and Stiller had campuses that housed engine shops and fabrication buildings, R & D centers, transporter bays, museums, corporate offices, and the main assembly buildings where the race cars are put together.
Stiller runs three full-time Cup cars and two Busch cars. At any one time, there are sixty race cars in the shop with two hundred new engines ready to race. The lighting is brighter than daylight, the floors are spotless, the inventory mind-boggling.
The season was over until mid-February, and the race-shop complex was a ghost town.
&
nbsp; “Do you need anything at the shop?” Hooker asked.
“Nothing that can’t wait,” I said. “I’m looking forward to getting home.”
Hooker took 85 north and got off at the Huntersville exit. If Disneyland had been built by the Gap, it would look like my Huntersville neighborhood. It’s a contrived town with stores and restaurants at the ground level and apartments above. Surrounding the town are condo complexes. It’s actually a wonderful place to live, especially when you’re new to the area. The joke around the shops is that this is the place race-team members live when their wives throw them out of the house.
Hooker pulled into the lot behind my building, and his phone rang. The conversation was short, and he didn’t look happy when he hung up.
“That was Ray Huevo,” Hooker said. “Your purse got turned over to him, he found the gearshift knob in it, and as he puts it…something was missing.”
“That answers a few questions.”
“Yeah. Ray knew the chip was in the knob. And he wants the chip back. He said we could give it to him the easy way or the hard way.”
“Did he elaborate on the hard way?”
“No. But I think it might involve a lot of bleeding.”
“Maybe we should give him the chip.”
“That’s not going to prevent the bleeding. This has gone too far, and we know too much,” Hooker said. “Not only do we know about the chip, we know about Oscar.”
“I don’t like the direction of this conversation.”
“I think we’re in a lot of trouble. I think we need to find out exactly what functions the chip performs and then go to NASCAR and the police with it. Better a live shoe salesman than a dead race-car driver.”
“We’ve withheld information on a homicide,” I told him.
“We’ll deal.”
“I know a guy at the university in Charlotte who might be able to help us. This guy is a total computer nut. He’d love the chance to check out a new toy. I haven’t seen him in a while, but he’s probably still at the same address. He was living with his parents, and I can’t imagine him ever leaving. He’s a great guy, but he’d starve to death if he didn’t have a keeper. I have his phone number upstairs.”
“I’ll walk Beans and you make the phone call.”
I live on the second floor of a three-story building. A florist is directly below me and Dan Cox is above. Cox is a motor-sports journalist who covers NASCAR. He’s a really nice guy. He’s my age. And he looks like Gumby. Sometimes late at night I hear odd tapping sounds overhead, and I imagine it’s Gumby’s horse Pokey running around.
My apartment has two bedrooms and one and a half baths. My kitchen appliances are new, and the master bathroom has a marble countertop. The rooms are all freshly painted cream, and the carpet is stain free. My bedroom windows look down on a small patio and beyond that a parking lot. My living room windows look out at Main Street, USA.
Topper’s is across the street. Decent food and ice-cold beer on tap. Its décor is a mix of hunt club and speed park. Big leather booths, a bunch of tall bar tables, and a nice long mahogany bar.
When I sit at my desk, I look out the window at Topper’s. Most nights it’s packed, but this was the day before Thanksgiving and there wasn’t much going on. Teams were taking minivacations in the Florida Keys and visiting family.
Steven Sikulski had been easy to lure to the computer lab. I knew his only two weaknesses. A new computer problem to solve and cheesecake. Sikulski was a big, loose-jointed guy who looked like he should be setting out fruit in a supermarket. His face was unlined at fifty and perpetually looked like Sikulski didn’t have a care in the world. And maybe he didn’t.
I’d brought him the required offering of New York cheesecake, and now Hooker and I were pacing behind him, cracking our knuckles, waiting for Sikulski to solve the riddle of the chip.
“The small chip is obviously damaged,” Sikulski said. “It’s a microprocessor with wireless ability, and I’m guessing that the damaged portion contained leads to control some sort of mechanical process. The circuitry isn’t complicated, but the miniaturization is impressive. That’s all I can tell you on a quick look. The second chip is much more interesting. It can send and receive wirelessly. The fact that it was encased in a shell is fascinating. It would indicate that it doesn’t attach to a wiring system. That it can perform its function entirely wirelessly. Perhaps this is a relay of some sort. The primary brain in a complicated routing system. The circuitry is much more sophisticated than the circuitry in the damaged chip. Again, it’s microminiaturized. And here’s the good part…it carries its own power source. It’s riding on a veneer that seems to function as a battery. It’s not my area of expertise, but I suspect the battery is the most exciting part of this little sweetheart. If I had more time, I could work my way through the circuitry and tell you more.”
“Unfortunately, we haven’t got more time. Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Because I know the location of the chips, and because I know their suspected use, I can give you a hypothetical situation. A driver could adjust the mechanical function of a car, such as engine speed, with a remote. For that matter, anyone at the track could signal the circuit board. It’s like one of those remote-control cars for kids, only this chip controls a real car. The puzzle is that there are two chips. It would seem to me the small chip could do the job.”
“Anyone at the track could control this gizmo?” Hooker asked. “It wouldn’t have to be the driver?”
“I’m speaking hypothetically,” Sikulski said. “The remote would be a simple on/off switch. There’s no reason why someone in the stands couldn’t operate it.”
“Would there be an advantage to a team member operating it? A spotter, for instance.”
“I imagine a spotter would have a better sense of when to turn it on and when to turn it off.” Sikulski closed the file on his computer. “You understand, this wireless technology could have other uses. It’s total James Bond, Mission Impossible shit.”
Hooker and I were in his Mooresville house, in front of his big-screen plasma, watching a ball game, eating Thanksgiving pizza. Beans was on the couch with us, waiting for scraps of crust, looking happy to be home.
I was happy to be home, too, but I couldn’t get rid of the anxiety that periodically fluttered through my chest. Helping Gobbles had seemed like the decent thing to do. And if I had to do it all over again, I’d still try to help him. I just wish it had turned out better. If only we hadn’t left Beans in the hauler…
“I was just so tired,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking right.”
Hooker looked over at me. “I missed the first half of that.”
“I’m worried.”
Hooker slid an arm around my shoulders. “It’ll work out okay. I’ve got a feeling.”
“Another feeling? You’ve got a lot of feelings these days.”
“You don’t know the half of it. I’m a hotbed of feelings. If you’d just stop being mad at me, I’d explain some of them to you.”
“I’m not mad at you. I’m disappointed. You broke my heart.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Do you want the last piece of pizza? Would that make us even?”
“You slept with a salesclerk! You can’t equate that with the last piece of pizza.”
“You don’t know much about men,” Hooker said. “And this isn’t any old pizza. This is extra cheese and pepperoni.”
EIGHT
“Not many people working the day after Thanksgiving,” Hooker said, looking over my shoulder.
I was at my desk in my little cubicle at the Stiller R & D center, and I’d been the only person in the building until Hooker showed up.
“How did you know I was here?”
“Process of elimination. You weren’t home, and it’s too early in the morning for the mall to be open.”
“I wanted to look at race tapes. And I had some models I wanted to run.”
“Trying to gather evidence?”
&
nbsp; “Yes.”
“Having any luck?”
“I went over Shrin’s car and found a chip on the engine. It’s in worse shape than the one I got off the sixty-nine, but I’m hoping Steven can do something with it. I looked at it under a microscope, but I only know enough to see some remains of basic circuitry.”
“What about the second chip? The sister chip to the one you found in the gearshift knob?”
“I didn’t take Nick’s car apart, but I looked in the obvious places and I didn’t find a second chip.”
“Maybe we should take it apart.”
I’d tossed and turned all night with a long list of crimes replaying in my head. Multiple counts of grand-theft auto, destruction of personal property, withholding evidence, assault and battery, mutilation of a dead guy! I didn’t want to add to the list.
“It would be good if we had permission,” I said to Hooker.
“I’ll call Bingo,” Hooker said. “It shouldn’t be a problem. The car is trash anyway.”
Bingo is Nick’s crew chief. He has three terrific kids, and a nice wife, and he was probably at the breakfast table eating leftover pumpkin pie.
I saved my computer program and swiveled in my seat, waiting for Hooker to get off the phone.
“Bingo wants to be here when you tear the car down,” Hooker said.
“No he doesn’t. He has a family, and he doesn’t want to be part of this. Tell him if we find something, we’ll tell him when it’s safe for him to know.”
By noon I was fairly certain there wasn’t a second chip. Either it had been removed, or for some reason it wasn’t part of the program.
Hooker was helping with the cleanup. “Most drivers know about cars,” he said, wiping down a wrench. “I pretty much only know about driving. I can change the oil, I know the language, and I know some engineering, but I can’t rebuild a carburetor. Didn’t have an aversion to it, just never got around to it. I’d drive, and the guys I hung out with would drink beer. And then they’d fix my car, and I’d drink beer.”
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