Motor Mouth (Alex Barnaby 2)

Ten minutes later we’d done enough slash and peel that

we were able to get rolling.

I followed Hooker back out to the highway and trailed behind him. The truck was for the most part white now and didn’t attract a lot of attention. We took 95 South to Flagler and went straight into Little Havana. We passed the Ibarras’ fruit stand, turned left at the next street, and rolled to a stop in front of the warehouse.

I’d called Felicia, and she said the warehouse was ours to use, and she’d leave one of the garage doors open. Hooker lined himself up in front of the open door, pulled the truck into the dark warehouse, and I scooted in around him. I got out of the SUV, ran back to the warehouse door, and pushed the button to close it. When the door shut, I hit the button for the lights and overhead fluorescents flickered on.

Felicia and her husband had bought blocks of real estate around their fruit stand at a time when real estate was cheap. Some of the properties were now leased to other businesses, and some of the properties lay fallow. This warehouse was one of the fallow properties, used occasionally for the storage of seasonal fruit. It was cinder-block construction, with three garage bays and enough room to hold six eighteen-wheelers or a kajillion oranges. The ceiling was high enough to accommodate the hauler. The lighting was adequate. The ambience left something to be desired, but then, we weren’t here for ambience.

Hooker cut the engine, swung down from behind the wheel, and jogged over to some empty fruit crates stacked against the rear wall. A couple crowbars and a mallet lay on the floor by the fruit crates. He grabbed a crowbar and in seconds had the remaining storage-locker door open. The remote plus a bunch of power cords were in the locker. I plugged the truck into a 220-volt outlet so we didn’t have to run on generator. And then I plugged the cord with the remote into its receptacle. I pushed the control button, and like magic the entire back panel of the truck slid to horizontal and became a ramp. I used the remote to raise the ramp to the second deck, and Gobbles inched his way around the primary car and crawled onto the ramp. He lay there spread-eagled, hand to his heart.

“I thought I was going to fucking die,” he said. “Swear to God.”

I powered us down, and when we reached the cement floor, Hooker grabbed Gobbles and dragged him up to his feet.

“We need to talk,” Hooker said. “I want to know what’s going on.”

Gobbles shook his head. “You don’t want to know. It isn’t good.”

“I just hijacked a hauler because of you. Talk to me.”

Gobbles blew out a sigh. “I’m in a mess. A couple weeks ago this guy come to me and said he represented a company that was working on this new traction-control technology that they needed to test. He said it was a big secret, and they needed someone who could keep his mouth shut. They were going to pay in cash, and I needed cash real bad. I’ve got two kids I love, and a wife who wants to suck every last cent out of me, and wicked-bad lawyer bills. They said all I had to do was push a button on a remote when the car was going into a corner. Last week it was your car, and this week it was Shrin’s. You got loose last week and tore up a fender, but this week…I almost killed him. I swear, I never thought it would cause a crash like that.”

I cut my eyes to Hooker and saw his face flush, and I was pretty sure he had some steam coming off the top of his head. “You aren’t going to hit him, are you?” I asked Hooker.

“I’m thinking about it.”

“We don’t actually have time for that.”

“Just one good shot,” Hooker said.

“I didn’t have it figured out,” Gobbles said. “I thought it would give us an advantage. Everybody wants traction control on their car, right? I thought it was a fluke that Hooker spun out on it. When it made Shrin’s car go loose today, I knew there was something else going on. As soon as I pushed the button, both cars spun out.”

“What about Clay? Why did you think Clay was involved and deliberately run down?”

“They had someone on the inside, doing whatever they needed to do to the engine. I didn’t know who it was. Didn’t want to know. The night I saw Clay get run over, I said to myself Clay was the one fixin’ the engine. I don’t know why they run him over. Maybe he wanted more money. Or maybe they didn’t need him anymore and were cleaning up. But I’ll bet you anything Clay was the one on the inside.”

“And you didn’t say anything to the police.”

“I didn’t want to drag us all into a big cheating scandal,” Gobbles said. “I still thought I was doing a good thing for the team. I thought Shrin’s car had something on it that would help us. Now you see why I was in a tight spot there. It’s not like I didn’t want to do what was right. I just couldn’t decide what was more right than the other. And I didn’t even know any names. The big guy and the little guy always come to me. They just show up. I’ve been calling them Horse and Baldy.”

“To their face?”

“Hell, no. They’re friggin’ scary. I yessir them to their face.”

“You’re talking about the two men you pointed out to me when we were on the roof? The two men with Huevo.”

“Yeah.”

“Why Horse?”

“I met them in a men’s room once, and I, you know, looked. And the other one, the smaller guy, is obvious. He’s bald as could be.

“Anyway, after the race I was supposed to give Horse and Baldy the remote, and they were supposed to give me my money, but I was worried about what happened to Clay. And I didn’t know if the traction control just worked wrong or if they intentionally wrecked our cars. I thought I’d play it safe, and I’d stay someplace where there were lots of people, like the garage area. I hoped they could find me and get the remote, and I’d be done with it, and nothing bad would happen.

“I hung with you in the garage for as long as I could, but they didn’t show, and I was afraid I was going to miss the plane, so I started walking back to the rental van. They came from out of nowhere in the parking lot, and Baldy had a gun, and I freaked. I took off and ran back to the garage. I don’t think they ran after me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t stop running until I was back in the garage area. Only thing, the haulers were all leaving and there weren’t a whole lot of people there anymore. The sixty-nine was still open, and there wasn’t anyone around, so I climbed in and hid behind the backup car. It seemed like a smart thing to do at the time. Hard to think good when you’re running from someone who wants to shoot you.”

“You said Ray Huevo was involved.”