“She said I should stay calm.”
Simon had also made a phone call, and three minutes later his traveling companion arrived on the scene. They did a pat down on Lucca and Rodriguez and loaded them into the BMW’s backseat.
“Where are the police?” I said, feeling a little panicky. “I don’t hear any sirens. I don’t see any flashing lights. You should have told the dispatcher about the shooting. You should have been more assertive.”
“I was assertive. I just wasn’t freaked.”
“Well, maybe you needed to be freaked because I don’t see any cops on the scene.”
“Well, maybe next time you need to make the stupid call.”
“Count on it.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay.”
We were glaring at each other, standing nose to nose, hands on hips.
Hooker’s mouth curved at the corners with the beginning of a smile. “Did we just have a fight?”
“Discussion.”
“I think it was a fight.”
“It was not a fight.”
“Felt like a fight to me.”
“Forget it. We aren’t having make-up sex.”
“It was worth a try,” Hooker said.
Simon and the other guy got into the BMW and the BMW cruised out of the lot. Hooker and I scrambled for our rental, and we all drove north.
“I learned something interesting from Simon.”
“The guy at the bar?”
“Yeah. He said they weren’t associated with racing. He said Ray had his finger in a lot of other pies.”
“Did he mention any of the other pies by name? Apple, blueberry, poontang?”
“Nope. No mention of poontang pie.”
The BMW worked its way through traffic and, true to form, we lost them after a couple blocks and a couple traffic lights.
“Okay,” Hooker said, “here’s my assessment of the situation. If Gobbles is in the trunk, they’ll find him and probably his status won’t change much. At least not for a while. And as far as we’re concerned, we’re screwed.”
“Anything else?”
“We need to find Ray. And we need to identify the chip buyer. And before we do any of those things we need to go back to Felicia’s because I’m out on my feet.”
FOURTEEN
I woke up with Hooker on top of me, and Beans breathing Saint Bernard breath in my face. The disturbing thing is that I didn’t mind either. I slithered out from under Hooker, went to the Ibarras’ bathroom and took a fast shower, got dressed, grabbed some gallon-size plastic bags from the kitchen, and took Beans for a walk.
It was a little after seven and Felicia’s neighborhood was on the move. Pickup trucks and secondhand sedans motored down the side streets, people stood in line at the bus stop, dogs barked from postage-stamp backyards, and cats sat on stoops, soaking up the first sun of the day. The language spoken was Spanish, the kitchen smells were Cuban, and the skin tones were darker than mine. The rhythm of life felt normal and comforting, the setting seemed exotic.