Motor Mouth - Janet Evanovich [27]
I had the SUV keys in my hand and my other hand on the doorknob. “Maybe we can get to him before Huevo’s people.”
I drove because Hooker couldn’t afford to lose his license by doing a hundred on the interstate. I took the off-ramp on two wheels and laid four feet of rubber when I jumped on the brakes in the strip-mall lot where we’d parked the Huevo hauler.
The SUV rocked to a stop, and Hooker and I sat in frozen silence. No hauler.
Hooker cut his eyes to me. “You aren’t going to cry, are you?”
I blinked tears away. “No. Are you?”
“I hope not. I’d feel like a real pussy.”
“We need to get Beans back.”
“Yeah, and Beans isn’t our only problem. We just told the Huevo team we stole their hauler and made off with their cars. And we told the guy who killed Oscar Huevo that we found Huevo wrapped up like a Christmas ham.”
“You’re in big trouble,” I said. “They’re going to come looking for you. Good thing I’m not involved.”
“I’m going to tell them it was all your idea.”
I smiled over at Hooker. He might be a jerk when it came to fidelity, but he’d protect me with his last breath. “What do we do now?”
“They might not be too far in front of us. We could cruise north and try to catch them. They might not even know Beans is in the lounge. Maybe we could sneak in and get Beans when they stop for lunch.”
I wheeled the car out of the lot and was turning toward the interstate entrance when Hooker’s cell phone rang.
“Yeah?” Hooker said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” And he disconnected.
“Who was that?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t give me his name. He said I was a rotten bastard for abandoning my dog. That I didn’t deserve to have a great dog like Beans. And that he was going to kill me.” Hooker slouched in his seat. “I can’t believe I left Beans in the hauler.”
“We were exhausted. We just weren’t thinking.”
“That’s no excuse. This is Beans we’re talking about. Beans is…family. He’s special. And he’s kind of dumb. How’s he going to get by without me?”
“Well, at least the killer likes Beans; that’s a good thing, right?”
“Of course he likes Beans. How could anyone not like Beans? I tell you, this is war. No more Mr. Nice Guy. I’m getting my damn dog back. I’m going to find this Beans snatcher, and I’m going to get medieval on his ass. Oscar Huevo won’t be the only one with bullet holes and tooth marks in him. This piece-of-shit Beans snatcher is going down.”
“You’re sounding a little on the edge here,” I said to Hooker. “We need to get Beans back, but maybe you want to chill. You wouldn’t want to do anything rash, right?”
“When have I ever done anything rash?” Hooker yelled, cords standing out in his neck. “Do I look like I’m going to do something rash?”
“Yeah. Your face is real red, and your eyes are crazy man. How about we think this out over breakfast. And maybe I can find a diner that has a defibrillator just in case you have a heart attack.”
“I’m not hungry,” Hooker said. “I just want my goddamn dog back.”
“Sure. I know that, but we need a plan. And you could think better if your eyes weren’t so popped out of their sockets, right?”
“Are my eyes popped out of their sockets?”
“If they popped out any more, they’d be rolling around on the floor.”
I pulled into the first diner I saw, and I got Hooker settled into a booth. Hooker ordered a ham-and-cheese omelet, bacon, pancakes, home fries, juice, coffee, and a side of biscuits with white gravy. Good thing he was too upset to be hungry, otherwise he might have cleaned out the kitchen and the diner would have had to close.
Hooker’s eyes were narrowed, his mouth was tight, and he angrily tapped his fork on the table.
I firmly removed the fork from Hooker’s hand. “Did the killer guy have an accent? Did he sound Mexican?”
“No. No accent.”
“Did he say when he was going to kill you?”
“He didn’t go into detail.”
“Were there noises in the background? Could you tell where he was?”
“It sounded like he was driving. I could hear Beans panting.”
“Did he give any indication of where he was going?”
“No. Nothing.”
The food arrived, and Hooker