Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

“My publicist,” he said. “That’s the fourth call today. This guy never gives up.”

“This is about the schmooze thing in Homestead?”

“Yeah. I talked to him earlier. The transporter’s there with the PR car. He’s still trying to talk me into making an appearance.”

“Maybe you should go.”

“Don’t want to go. And who’ll protect you if I go?”

“In the beginning you were following me around because you didn’t trust me.”

“Yes, but all that’s changed. That was only partly true, anyway. I was mostly following you around because of the little pink skirt and your long pink legs.”

A blue Crown Vic parked on the opposite side of the street at the far end of the block, and Slick and Gimpy got out.

“I don’t believe this,” Hooker said. “What are the chances?”

Slick still had his arm in the sling, plus he had a huge Band-Aid across his nose, and both his eyes were black and blue. Gimpy was wearing a neck brace and a knee brace. His foot was still bandaged and wrapped in a thing that looked like a Velcro sandal, and he had a single crutch to help him walk.

Neither of the men saw us. They crossed the street and walked into the cigar factory.

“Maybe we should call the police,” Hooker said.

“The police won’t get here in time. We should go in to see if we can help Rosa.”

We were half out of the Mini when the door to the cigar factory crashed open and the crutch flew out, followed by Slick and Gimpy. They went to the ground, stumbled up, and scrambled for the Crown Vic.

The entire factory emptied onto the sidewalk, yelling in Spanish. Rosa and two other women had guns. Pow! Rosa squeezed off a shot that ripped into the rear quarter panel of the Crown Vic. Pow, pow. The other women fired.

Slick cranked the Crown Vic over and laid a quarter of an inch of rubber on takeoff.

“Silly butthole,” one of the old women yelled at the fleeing car.

We walked over to the group.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Some losers came in and tried to take Rosa away, can you imagine?”

“It was those two guys from Key West,” Rosa said. “They say they want to talk to me outside. I say to them I don’t think so. I tell them they can talk to me inside. Then they start to get smart mouth, threatening me if I don’t go outside.”

A chunky old woman with short gray hair and a cigar in her mouth elbowed Rosa. “We show them, hunh? You don’t get smart mouth in this shop. We kick their asses good. We get all over them.”

“You wait here,” Rosa said to Hooker and me. “I’ll get the list.”

The crutch was still in the middle of the road.

/> A dusty pickup truck with gardening equipment in the back rattled up to the crutch and stopped. A man got out, walked to the crutch, and examined it. Then he threw the crutch into the back of the truck and took off.

“You never know when you’re going to need a crutch,” Hooker said.

Rosa swung out of the cigar factory with her big straw bag over her arm and a piece of paper in her hand. She was wearing clear plastic opentoed shoes with four-inch spike heels, blue cotton pants that came to midcalf, and a red T-shirt that advertised a crab house.

“All right,” Rosa said. “I’m ready to go. All we have to do is pick up Felicia.”

Hooker grinned at me. “And to think I was going to waste my time on a fishing trip.”

We stopped at the fruit stand and Felicia crammed herself in next to Rosa.