“I hated that,” I yelled at Hooker. “I don’t know why I went with you. I knew something like that was going to happen. I was almost tortured by the monster with the horse dick. My phone is ruined. And I lost my hat and my sunglasses. And my sneakers are soaked. And they were my favorite sneakers. It’s not like great sneakers grow on trees, you know. And I could have drowned.”
Hooker was staring at my soaked T-shirt and smiling. “Nice,” he said.
Life is simple when you’re a guy. All the world’s problems can be at least momentarily forgotten when in the presence of a wet T-shirt and cold nipples. I blew out a sigh and squished my way to the SUV. I stopped when I got to the car and stared into the empty back window, my teeth clamped into my bottom lip.
Hooker put an arm around me and cuddled me against him. “I miss him, too,” Hooker said. He gave me a brotherly kiss on the top of my head. “Don’t worry. We’ll get him back.”
“I didn’t actually like him all that much when he was around. But now I feel terrible.”
“Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve got until you lose it,” Hooker said.
Everyone in the Ibarra house was off working at the fruit stand, including Gobbles. Hooker and I were alone at the Ibarras’ kitchen table, eating leftovers from the night before.
I was showered and dressed in my only clean outfit: khaki shorts, a white T-shirt, and white sneakers.
Hooker was in shorts, T-shirt, and borrowed flip-flops. “I didn’t count on wet shoes,” he said. “I need to stop someplace and get something to wear besides flip-flops. Hard to kick ass in flip-flops.”
“You never told me what went on in Huevo’s office.”
“He asked me why I stole his cars. I said I didn’t steal his cars. He asked me how my dog came to be in the lounge if I didn’t steal his cars. I said someone stole my dog and planted him in the lounge. He said he wanted his cars back. I said I wanted my dog back. He said if he didn’t get his cars back by the end of the day, he was going to cut off my balls and feed them to my dog. I said at least I had balls. And then he had me thrown overboard.”
“Good thinking.”
“When in doubt, deny everything.”
I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth and stared at him.
“I never denied sleeping with that salesclerk,” he said. “I just don’t remember it.”
“Do you have any plans for keeping your anatomy intact?”
“I’m not too worried. I figure he’ll beat the crap out of me, but he probably won’t cut my balls off, because then I’d most likely die and he’d never find his cars. He wants those cars back bad.”
“Here’s a thought—why don’t you offer to pay Huevo for the cars in exchange for Beans?”
“Yeah, that sounds fair. A million plus for a Saint Bernard whose only talent is drooling.”
“It’s not his only talent. He says hello by knocking people down to the ground. And he can stand on three legs and scratch his ear with his foot. And he has pretty brown eyes.”
“Like me,” Hooker said. “Except I can’t scratch my ear with my foot.”
“Yep. You and Beans are the perfect pair.”
Hooker grinned at me and reached for his cell phone. He went to punch in Huevo’s number and water leaked out. “It’s dead,” Hooker said. “Drowned.”
“Can you get Huevo’s number off it?”
“No, but I can probably get a number from Butch.”
Ten minutes later, Hooker put the Ibarra phone back in its cradle on the kitchen counter.
“Well?” I asked.
“Huevo said he doesn’t want the money. He wants the cars.”
“Maybe it’s the chip that he wants. Maybe you should call him back and offer him the chip.”
Hooker was fidgeting with the gearshift knob we’d lifted off the 69 car. He was turning it upside down and right side up, examining it. “This is a work of art,” he said. “Huevo’s machine shop has designed this knob so it’s strong and comfortable in your hand with minimum weight.”