I looked over at Hooker. “She’s not coming back.”
“Darlin’, you’ve gotta have more faith in people. Of course she’ll come back.”
“Yeah, she’ll come back when your coffee cup is empty.”
Hooker dug into his eggs. “Butch says everyone’s in shock over Oscar Huevo. He said a lot of people weren’t all that surprised to hear Huevo was shot, but everyone’s having a cow over the shrink-wrap and the biting thing. Butch said half the garage thinks it’s the work of a werewolf, and the other half thinks it’s a contract hit. And the half that thinks it’s a hit thinks it was bought by Huevo’s wife. Apparently Huevo was getting ready to trade up, and Mrs. Huevo was mucho unhappy with Mr. Huevo.”
I looked into my coffee cup. Empty. I looked for our waitress. Nowhere to be seen.
“Anything about the hauler?” I asked Hooker.
“No. Apparently word hasn’t gotten out that the hauler’s missing.”
I saw the waitress appear on the other side of the room but couldn’t catch her attention.
“NASCAR has to know,” I said to Hooker. “They track those haulers. They’d know when it went off their screen.”
Hooker shrugged. “Season’s over. Maybe they weren’t paying attention. Or maybe the driver called in and said the GPS was broken so NASCAR wouldn’t get involved.”
I clanked my teaspoon on my coffee cup and waved my hand at the waitress, but she had her back to me and didn’t turn around.
“Darlin’, that’s just so sad,” Hooker said, trading coffee cups with me.
I took a sip of coffee. “There are some worried people out there. They’re scrambling to find the hauler, and they’re going to want to find the idiots who stole it because those idiots know Huevo was stuffed into the locker.”
“Good thing we’re the only ones who know we’re the idiots,” Hooker said.
The waitress stopped at our table and filled Hooker’s empty cup. “Anything else, sweetheart?” she asked Hooker. “Everything okay with your breakfast?”
“Everything’s great,” Hooker said. “Thanks.”
She turned and sashayed off, and I gave Hooker a raised eyebrow.
“Sometimes it’s good to be me,” Hooker said, finishing his pancakes.
“So we’re sticking to our plan to check out the car and leave the hauler on the side of the road somewhere.”
“Yeah, except I don’t know what to do about Gobbles. No one knows we’re involved, so we can go home and get on with our lives. Gobbles has a major problem. Gobbles’s life expectancy isn’t good. I have no idea how to fix that.”
Hooker signaled for the check, and the waitress hustled over with it. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like another cup of coffee?” she asked Hooker.
“No,” Hooker said. “We’re good.”
“I hope she gets a melanoma,” I said to Hooker.
Hooker pulled out a wad of cash and left it on the table with the check. “Let’s roll. I need clothes. We’re going to take ten minutes out to shop.”
Miami weather is gorgeous in November, as long as there’s not a hurricane blowing through. It was shirt-sleeve, ride-with-the-top-down weather. Bright sun and no clouds.
The top didn’t go down on the SUV, but we opened the windows and tuned the radio to salsa music. We were relatively mellow, all things considered. Beans was happy with his muffin. Hooker took off in search of a mall, and Beans stuck his head out the driver’s-side back window and his tail out the window on the opposite side of the car. His soft, floppy Saint Bernard ears flapped in the wind, and his big loose Saint Bernard lips ruffled as they caught air. Hooker drove out of Little Havana and headed southwest.
Forty-five minutes later, Hooker had a bag of clothes. One-stop shopping for jeans, T-shirts, underwear, and socks, plus a canvas duffel bag. Life is simple when you’re a guy. We hit a drugstore and Hooker got a toothbrush, a razor, and deodorant.
“That’s it?” I asked him. “Don’t you need shampoo, body wash, shaving gel, toothpaste?”
“I thought I’d use yours. I’d use your razor, but it’s pink.”
“A Texas tough guy can’t shave with a pink razor?”