I found my way to Loews, handed the SUV over to the valet, and helped Hooker get to the room. We didn’t have a suite like Suzanne, but the room was nice, with a king-size bed, a writing desk and chair, and two club chairs with a small table between them.
Hooker hunkered down in one of the two club chairs. I gave him a ham-and-cheese sub and fashioned an ice pack for his eye. I sat in the other chair and started working my way through an identical sub.
“Do you think Ray Huevo knows his brother was stashed in the hauler?” I asked Hooker.
“He gave no indication that he knew, but I wouldn’t be surprised. He didn’t look too broken up by the death.”
I was standing at the window, looking out at the pool, and my attention was caught by a flash of white and black and brown.
“Omigod,” I said. “Beans.”
Hooker slumped back in his chair. “I know. I feel terrible about Beans. I don’t know where to look.”
“How about the pool?”
“The pool?”
“Yeah, I think that’s Beans down by the pool.”
Hooker came to the window and looked out. “That’s my dog!” He ran to his newly acquired duffel bag and started rummaging around in it.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for my gun,” he said. “I’m getting my dog back.”
“You can’t go down there with a gun! We have to be sneaky about this. It looks to me as if they’re passing by the pool area to get to the little dog park. I’ll go down to the lobby and follow them back to their room. Then we just wait for the guy to leave, and we go in and rescue Beans.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“You can’t go with me. Everybody knows you. You’ll spook the Beans-napper. Just sit tight and keep the ice on your eye.”
I ran down the hall, punched the elevator button, and seconds later I was in the lobby, hiding out behind a potted palm. I called Hooker on my cell phone.
“Do you see them?” I asked Hooker.
“No. They walked past the pool and disappeared. Wait a minute, here they are. They’re walking back the same way they left. They’re about to come into the hotel.”
I heard Beans panting before I saw him. He wasn’t a hot-weather dog. He was walking beside a guy wearing khaki cargo shorts and a collared knit shirt. In his late thirties. Soft in the middle. They stopped in front of the elevator and the guy pushed the button. When the doors opened, I hurried over and slipped into the elevator with them. Two more people followed.
Beans’s ears instantly went up, his eyes got bright, and he started jumping around doing his happy dance. The guy was trying to control Beans, but Beans was having none of it. He pushed against me, snuffling my leg, leaving a wake of dog slobber from my knee to my crotch.
“He’s usually so well behaved,” the guy said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”
“Dogs like me,” I said. “Must be something about the way I smell. Eau de pot roast.”
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor and the guy got out, but Beans wouldn’t leave my side. Beans had his four feet planted and his toenails dug into the elevator floor. The guy pulled at the leash, and Beans sat down. Hard to move Beans when he’s got his mind made up not to move. The two remaining people were nervously crowded into a corner.
“Maybe I should adopt him,” I said. “Want me to take him off your hands?”
“Lady, I lose this dog and my life isn’t worth dirt.”
I stepped out of the elevator, and Beans got up and moved to my side. “This isn’t my floor, but I’ll walk you to your room,” I told the dognapper. “Your dog seems to have attached himself to me.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like he knows you.”
“Yeah, it’s weird. I have this happen all the time.”
We walked down the hall to the dognapper’s room, he inserted his key card, then he opened the door.