Motor Mouth (Alex Barnaby 2)

Hooker maneuvered the truck out of the flower bed, onto the feeder road and then onto the highway, heading south. He turned his lights on, brought the rig up to speed, and we both went into cruising mode. After a few minutes, I realized cars were pulling up to the truck to get a better look. Every inch of a car hauler is a rolling advertisement for the car and the sponsor. They’re works of art. The 69 was decorated in Spanky’s colors with a bigger-than-life-size picture of Spanky and his race car.

I called Hooker on his cell phone. “We have a problem,” I told him. “Everyone’s interested in the hauler. Some people are taking pictures. You should have brought the briefs to put over your head.”

“Hard to feel righ teous when you’ve got your underwear on your head,” Hooker said. “Anyway, I’m taking the next exit. I saw a sign for ser vices. I’ll find a dark place to hide, and you can go to a gas station and steal something helpful.”

Hooker crawled off the exit, turned right, and rolled down the road. After about a half mile, he came to a small strip mall that was lights off for the night. His turn signal went on, he slipped into the lot, and he disappeared behind the buildings. I made a U-turn and drove back to a gas station and convenience store.

Ten minutes later, I pulled around the end of the strip mall and caught Hooker in my headlights. The hauler was at idle. The headlights and running lights were off. Hooker was lounging against the hauler.

I parked and ran over with a small screwdriver I’d bought at the convenience store. I ripped the packaging apart and gave Hooker the screwdriver.

“This was the best I could do. The garage was closed.”

Hooker rammed the screwdriver between the bay door and the outside rim of the truck and leaned into it. The metal bent and the lock gave. We searched the bay. No remote.

“Try forcing the side door,” I said to Hooker. “We can’t get to the ceiling hatch or the back door because the aisle will be filled with the tool carts, but I can get to the lounge and maybe find a key for the other locker. Or maybe they left the remote in the lounge.”

Hooker popped the side door, and I jumped inside and flipped on a light. I rapped on the ceiling and yelled up to Gobbles, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Gobbles yelled back, his voice muffled by the sheet-metal slab under him. “What’s going on?”

“We can’t find the remote to open the back door.”

I searched all the drawers and cabinets. No remote. No key. No helpful crowbars lying around. No power equipment that would slice through metal.

Hooker appeared in the doorway. “I broke the screwdriver trying to get the second bay open. Did you find anything in here?”

“No.”

Hooker looked at his watch. “The drivers are probably out of the diner by now, calling the police.”

“They won’t call the police,” Gobbles yelled down. “There’s something in here that’s worth a billion dollars, and they don’t want anyone to find it.”

Hooker looked up at the ceiling. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I wish,” Gobbles said. “I heard them talking outside the hauler. They were taking this truck to Mexico. You’ve got to get me out. They’ll kill me if they find me in here.”

“We need a little more time and a lot bigger screwdriver,” Hooker said.

“Okay, let’s not panic. We need time and tools and a better place to hide this thing,” I said. “Who do we know?”

“Has to be someone we trust,” Hooker said. “Someone close. Someone with a garage or an airplane hangar or an empty warehouse. It would be good to get under cover for a couple minutes in case we have to cut Gobbles out.”

“Felicia Ibarra,” I said. “We can use that abandoned warehouse behind her fruit stand.”

Felicia Ibarra was a chunky little Cuban immigrant lady who was in her early sixties. She was surprisingly wealthy, owning an entire block of real estate in Little Havana that was just short of prime. And she was frighteningly kick-ass, having once shot a guy on my behalf.

Hooker locked eyes with me for a beat. “Our motives might be good, but no matter how you spin it, this is grand-theft auto, big-time. If I get caught on the road in this rig, my career will be over.”

“If you get caught, you’ll be dead,” Gobbles yelled down.

Hooker was hands on hips. “That makes me feel a lot better.”

“Let me drive,” I said to Hooker. “I could do grand-theft auto better than you. You’d just have to promise to come visit me once in a while.”

“Yeah, right. I could almost live with that. See if you can disable the GPS. I’m going to try to rip some of this shrink-wrap off the outside so we’re not so recognizable.”

I was able to squeeze my arm in far enough to reach a roll of aluminum foil sitting on the kitchenette counter. I ripped a couple chunks off the roll, swung out of the hauler, and climbed onto the back of the cab. The antenna had been placed in the usual location, between the exhaust pipes. I wrapped the antenna in aluminum foil and jumped off. Turns out it’s pretty easy to screw up a GPS system.