Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“Too bad. The sleeveless tee is a good look for you.”

Hooker kept smiling. NASCAR Guy wasn’t threatened by Gay Guy.

“And so what does ‘associate’ mean?” Judey asked. “Because girlfriend, I don’t see associate in his eyes. He’s looking at you like you’re lunch. And shame on you,” Judey said, turning to Hooker. “You have her standing out here in the sun without a hat. Look at her little pink nose and her poor pink scalp. You’re never going to get to first base if you let this pretty little blond sunburn.”

Hooker took his hat off and put it on my head.

“Not that hat,” Judey said. “That hat belongs in a garage. She’s already been there done that. Go get her a nice hat.”

Hooker blew out a sigh. “You’re going to be here when I get back, right?” he said to me.

“Where would I go?”

“God only knows,” Hooker said. And he ambled off.

“He’s gorgeous,” Judey said. “In a brutish kind of way. Totally ripped.”

“He drives NASCAR. And he’s from Texas.”

“Omigod. Say no more. He’s an asshole, isn’t he?”

I looked after Hooker. “Truth is, I’ve known worse. As far as assholes go, he isn’t all that bad.”

I told Judey about the phone call and the missing boat and the searched apartment. I told him about Puke Face, and I was on a description of the second search when Hooker returned. He took his hat off my head and replaced it with a pink hat that said SEXY in pasted-on rhinestones.

“Much better,” Judey said. “Totally tasteless. Very trashy. It’s perfect Miami.”

“I don’t suppose you know any of the Flex crew members?” Hooker asked him.

“Well, of course I do. I know a very nice young man named Todd. And since the boat is tied up at the dock and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, Todd is most likely on the beach.”

Ten minutes later we were all crammed into Hooker’s Porsche. Hooker had the top down, and Judey and Brian were scrunched into the tiny backseat.

“Park at Eleventh,” Judey said. “Todd is always at Eleventh Street.”

The beach was broad at Eleventh and stretched far in both directions. The sand was white and hard packed. Vendors parked on the beach, selling iced coffee and assorted stuff. And bodies seeking skin cancer were everywhere. The bodies were fat and thin and everything in between. Some of the women were topless. Thongs were the order of the day. And a lot of the thongs were sucked into more cheek than I ever wanted to see.

Traffic buzzed in the background, competing with cell phones and MP3 players and with the shushhhh of waves breaking far out and calmly rolling in, swirling around the people who ventured into the water to wade and splash. Freighters and tankers hung on the horizon. A prop plane flew overhead trailing a banner that advertised a club.

We walked into the crowd of greased-up abs and flabs with Judey leading the way and Brian straining at the leash, snapping and snarling at passing dogs.

“

He’s so alpha,” Judey explained. “It’s the German in him.”

“There’s so much on display here,” I said to Hooker. “Doesn’t it ruin the romance? Would you want to date one of these topless, thonged women?”

Hooker looked around. “I want to date all of them. No wait a minute. Not that fat one with the hair on her chin.”

“That’s a man.”

“I don’t want to date him.”

“Jeepers,” Judey said. “I don’t want to date him either.”

“It’s like being in a bakery,” Hooker said. “You look at the doughnuts and you want to eat them. Admit it, you walk into a bakery and you get hungry, right?”

“It’s not the same.”