Motor Mouth (Alex Barnaby 2)

Hooker inched his way out of the lot, got back onto Concord Mills Boulevard, and pulled off when he saw an island of grass. Five minutes later, Beans and Hooker were back in the car, and they were both soaking wet.

“This sucks,” Hooker said. “We need to do something to turn this around, because it just keeps getting worse, and I’m losing my good mood.”

“Maybe you need lunch.” Food solved all problems in my family.

Concord Mills Boulevard crosses Route 85 and becomes Speedway Boulevard. Every possible fast-food chain has a spot on that stretch of road. Hooker took us to a drive-thru window, and we ordered bags of food. Then we cleverly concealed ourselves behind fogged windows and sheets of rain in the Cracker Barrel parking lot.

I filled our stolen motel ice bucket with water for Beans and gave him a bunch of burgers. Hooker and I had shakes and fries and burgers.

Hooker ate the last of the f

ries and slurped up the last of his shake. “It’s amazing how consuming large quantities of salt and artery-clogging fat always makes me feel happy,” Hooker said.

“Don’t get too happy. We have lots of problems.”

“We need to find those two guys.”

“How are we going to do that? We don’t even know their names.”

Hooker called Nutsy again. “I need some more information. There are two guys looking for me. They’re on the Huevo payroll. Probably working for Ray. Muscle in suits. One guy is big and has a snake tattooed onto the back of his neck. Dark hair cut short. Just recently got his head bashed in. The other guy is bald. I want to know who they are, and it would help if I knew where to find them.”

We moved the SUV back to the mall lot where we felt less conspicuous and waited. Hooker and Beans fell asleep, but I stayed awake. My mind wouldn’t shut down. It was making lists. Pick up the cleaning. Buy baby-shower gift for Nancy Sprague. Try to cut back on the swearing. Call mother more often. Forgive Hooker. Get car ser viced. Have lock fixed on apartment front door. Adopt a cat. Clean out hall closet. Get manicure.

After two hours, I woke Hooker up so he could change locations in the lot. “Do you think we’ll get out of this?” I asked him.

“Sure,” Hooker said. And he went back to sleep.

It was a little after four when Nutsy called. Hooker put his cell phone on speaker mode so I could hear.

“The guys’ names are Joseph Rodriguez and Phillip Lucca,” Nutsy said. “The big guy with the tattoo is Lucca. The little bald guy is Rodriguez. They’re part of Ray Huevo’s entourage. Security detail. Usually travel with Ray, but Ray’s in Miami, and these guys are here. So I don’t know what that means. I imagine it isn’t good since you’re in shit up to your eyeballs and you need this information.”

“Just want to send them a candygram,” Hooker said. “They’ve been nice to me.”

“Yeah, I bet. I don’t know where they’re staying. They’re operating independently of everything here. I’d guess they’re at one of the chains in Concord.”

Hooker disconnected and started calling hotels, asking for Joseph Rodriguez. He hit gold on the fifth try. The desk rang the room, but no one answered.

“Probably out looking for us,” I said to Hooker. “Got a couple bullets left with our names on them.”

“We need a different car,” Hooker said. “The police are looking for us, and the bad guys are looking for us, and everyone probably knows my plate by now.”

I hated to part with the car. It was reliable and comfy. I looked around the lot. “What we need is a different plate. Just swap ours for someone else’s. Most people would never notice if their plate was changed.”

Hooker scrounged around in the console compartment and came up with a small screwdriver. Fifteen minutes later, we had new plates, and Hooker was back in the car, drenched to the skin. He tossed the screwdriver back into the console and turned the heat up full blast.

“If I don’t get dry pretty soon, I’m going to start to mold.”

He put the SUV in gear and drove across the highway to the motel lot. He backed the SUV into a slot at the far end where we had a good view of the lot and the hotel back door. As good a hiding place as we were going to get.

We’d just settled in when the Taurus pulled into the lot. No Lexus. Hooker had his gun out. Rodriguez and Lucca got out of the Taurus and hunched against the rain. Hooker reached for the door handle, and another car pulled into the lot and parked. Hooker took his hand off the door handle.

“This is like when you’re taking a test in school, and you don’t know half the answers, and the fire alarm goes off,” Hooker said. “You’re sort of saved, but you know eventually you’re going to have to go back to the test and you’ll totally screw up.”

Rodriguez and Lucca crossed the lot and disappeared into the building. They were soaking wet, and their shoes and the bottoms of their trousers were muddy.

“It looks like they’ve been digging,” I said to Hooker.

“Yep, the boys have been busy.”