Motor Mouth - Janet Evanovich [47]
“Why do you suppose Shrin’s car didn’t have the second chip?”
I jacked the car down. “I don’t know. I guess someone could have removed it, but that would mean there was a third Stiller employee involved, and I find that hard to believe. The car was immediately loaded into the truck by its crew, so I doubt Horse or Baldy had access. I’m guessing that for whatever reason, the second chip wasn’t needed.
“I’m meeting Steven at four o’clock. I’m hoping he can tell me something interesting. And this time let’s remember to bring the remote. I thought it might be helpful if we took it with us for Steven to see.”
“This is very interesting,” Sikulski said, studying the new chip. “This is diabolical. It looks to me like this little gem self-destructed.”
He had all three chips under magnification and the guts of the remote exposed. He turned his attention to the chip I’d taken off the 69 engine.
“The two chips appear to be similar. Same size and same materials used in construction,” he said. “They’re both too damaged to get a good read on the circuitry. Do you see this little bump right here on the original engine chip? I suspect this is the self-destruct charge. It wasn’t activated. The remote you brought doesn’t talk to this chip. I could probably blow the charge manually, but it will melt what remains, and probably you don’t want to do that just yet.”
We left Steven with more questions than answers and couldn’t find much to say on the ride back to Huntersville.
“Would you feel safer at my house?” Hooker asked.
“Yes, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
He dropped me at my door and rolled away. I trudged upstairs and went to my desk to catch up on e-mail. A little after seven I took a break and looked out the window at Topper’s. Everyone was back from the holiday and the bar was filling up. I suspected Spanky would be there tonight to bask in his glory. It was the place Hooker would most like not to be, but I thought a Spanky spectacle held some potential. At the very least it was a diversion from my dead-end thoughts.
I swiped on some mascara and lip gloss, gave my hair a shot of hair spray, sashayed across the street to Topper’s, and claimed the bar stool next to my upstairs neighbor Dan.
“Has he come in yet?” I asked.
“Spanky? No. He’s waiting to make an entrance. He’ll be in around eight when he knows the place will be packed. Did you come to see the show?”
“I thought it might be fun.”
“It’s going to be painful. I had to get shit-faced before I could write the story for the last race. I can’t believe this guy won. There’s no justice in this world. I swear, halfway through the season it was like the sixty-nine car was driving itself.”
“Huevo had a good setup on that car.”
“Huevo had a magic setup on that car.” Cox looked around. “Where’s Hooker? He’s usually half an inch behind you.”
“He’s staying in tonight.”
“There were two guys looking for him earlier. Not from around here, but I think I saw them at Homestead. One guy looked like he’d had his head run over by a train.”
Damn! I’d started to relax a tiny bit, thinking maybe we left our problems in Miami. And now I was back to having that horrible hollow feeling in my stomach and my heart was beating a little too fast.
“Was the second guy smaller and bald? And did the big guy have a snake tattooed on the back of his neck?”
“Yep. Friends of yours?”
“No. Not friends.”
Hooker is the rock star of NASCAR. When he’s at the track, cameras are constantly in his face, and the fans follow him everywhere. Hooker genuinely likes the press and the fans, but there are times when there’s just a tad too much enthusiasm and Hooker ends up having half his clothes ripped off. And sometimes, in a state of ill-conceived adoration, the occasional fan will look a lot like a stalker. This year after a well-intentioned fan broke into Hooker’s