“What?”
“How was I to know? I left the room for three seconds and when I come back, Mr. Sneaky Dog had his tongue on the table and the chip was gone.”
I was speechless.
“It could be worse,” Felicia said. “At least we know where it is. You just have to wait for him to poopie.”
“Hello,” Hooker said. “Are you still there?”
“The chip is temporarily unavailable,” I told him. “Let me talk to Miranda.”
There was some fumbling and Miranda came on the phone.
“Listen,” I said, “there’s a small problem here, and the chip is temporarily unavailable, but we know exactly where it is, and we’re going to get it to you as soon as possible. Now here’s the thing, if one hair is out of place on Sam Hooker’s head you’ll never see the chip.”
“Now here’s my thing. Get me the chip or you’re going to have a dead boyfriend.”
“Technically, he isn’t my boyfriend.”
“You’ve got twenty-four hours,” Miranda said. He gave me his cell phone number and disconnected.
“We have twenty-four hours to swap the chip for Hooker,” I said to Rosa and Felicia.
“Maybe we feed doggie some prunes and it make things go faster,” Felicia said. “Works for me.”
“Maybe we wait for the bad guys to return and we kick their ass,” Rosa said.
I thought they both sounded like okay ideas. “Let’s get out of here,” I said. “One of you can do surveillance on the hotel, and the other can come with me to buy prunes.”
“I don’t want to do surveillance,” Rosa said. “It’s just sitting and waiting.”
“I don’t want to do it either,” Felicia said. “I want to be where the action is. I’ll call my nephew Carl. He can do surveillance. He’s between jobs. He’d be happy to have something to do.”
“Carl,” Rosa said. “I know him. Wasn’t he busted for possession?”
“Yeah, but he’s clean now. He lives in a group home a couple blocks from here, and he’s probably sitting around watching television. He used to bag at a supermarket, but they switched to plastic bags, and he couldn’t get the hang of it.”
Ten minutes later, we were out of the hotel and across the street with Carl. He was a chunky five seven, with dark skin, shoulder-length black hair, too big jeans, and a shiny gold tooth in the front of his mouth. We sat him on a curbside bench and gave him descriptions of the men and cars, including Hooker. He had a cell phone, a quart bottle of soda, mirrored sunglasses, and a ball cap…everything he needed for a day of Miami surveillance.
“Carl don’t look too bright,” Rosa said when we got back to the Camry.
“He’s fried his brain a little with the drugs, but he’ll be fine,” Felicia said. “He’s very conscientious. He found Jesus.”
“He looks like he found Him in a pool hall,” Rosa said.
“There’s a convenience store attached to the marina,” I told Rosa. “We might be able to buy prunes there, and we can check the parking lot for the black BMW.”
Beans was sitting beside me on the backseat, breathing hot dog breath down Felicia’s neck.
“Someone give doggie a mint,” Felicia said. “He needs a mint real bad. Next time no breakfast burritos for him.”
“We’ll get mints when we get the prunes,” I told her.
“I brought him with because we have to watch him all the time so we don’t miss the big event,” Felicia said.
I didn’t want to think about the big event. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to find the teeny-tiny chip in the midst of the big event. I was going to need a contamination suit and gas mask.
Rosa went all the way on Collins, rolled past Joe’s Stone Crabs, and cut into the parking lot next to Monty’s. She crept up and down the aisles, so we could check out the cars, but we didn’t see the BMW.