He slid a bar napkin my way. “Give me your number, and I’ll call you when I get off work.”

“Yeah, but the moment will be gone then. I’ll be all cooled off. I don’t stay hot forever, you know.”

“This won’t take long.”

“Okay, I don’t do this for everyone, but I’ll let you look down my shirt if you forget about the guys in the lot. Take it or leave it.”

“That’s it? Look down your shirt?”

“Hey, I’ve got good stuff hidden away under this shirt.”

“I’ll look down your shirt,” the bartender said. “I’ll even throw in a beer.”

“Why are you so interested in those guys in the lot, anyway?” I asked Simon.

“I want to talk to them.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Can’t you talk to them some other time?”

He grinned at me. “Boy, you want me bad. Guess you don’t get around much, huh? When was the last time someone slipped you the old salami?”

Now there was a pretty mental picture. What woman doesn’t have romantic fantasies about a man who refers to a penis as a salami?

“It’s been awhile,” I admitted. And that was true. “Guess that’s why I’m so hungry for your…uh, salami.”

“I’d like to accommodate you,” Simon said, sliding off his stool, “but I have to do this first.”

I jumped off the bar stool and crossed the patio to Hooker.

“We have a problem,” I said to Hooker. “The bartender just told the chip buyer’s expediter that Rodriguez and Lucca were in the parking lot.”

“Expediter?”

“The gorilla at the bar. They’re Americans, but they’re living in Zurich. And Ray has definitely disappeared.”

We crept into a thicket of shrubbery at the edge of the lot and watched as Simon rapped on the BMW’s driver’s-side window with his gun barrel and persuaded Lucca and Rodriguez to get out of the car. They stood talking for a couple minutes. Looked amicable. Simon gestured that they should go to the boat, and Rodriguez shook his head no. Rodriguez didn’t think that was a good idea.

Bang. Simon shot Rodriguez in the foot.

“Fuck,” Rodriguez said. And he sat down hard on the pavement.

I jumped back when the shot went off, and I felt myself go light-headed. Hard to watch someone get shot with such cold calculation. Of course, I’d just whacked the poor guy in the knee with a flashlight, but it had seemed different at the time. I put my head down and did some deep breathing.

Even at this distance, in the dark, I could see Lucca was dumbstruck, eyes glazed.

“Do something,” I whispered to Hooker. “We can’t afford to have Rodriguez and Lucca disappear. We need them.”

“Darlin’, the gorilla has a gun.”

“So do you.”

“Yes, but the gorilla likes to use his. Mine’s just for show.”

“Call the police!”

Hooker punched in the emergency code.

“There’s a mugging going on in the South Beach Marina parking lot,” Hooker whispered into the phone. “Who is this? You want my name? My name is Dickie Bonnano. And you should hurry or someone might get dead or kidnapped.” Hooker snapped his phone closed and pocketed it.

“You didn’t tell the dispatcher about the shooting,” I said.

“I thought that was included in the mugging.”

“Not all muggings involve shootings. A shooting is much more serious than a plain old mugging.”

“Not necessarily. You could get beat to death in a mugging. And you might just get your toe nicked in a shooting.”

“Are the police on their way?” I asked.

“I guess so.”

“What do you mean, you guess so? What did the dispatcher say?”

“She said I should stay calm.”

Simon had also made a phone call, and three minutes later his traveling companion arrived on the scene. They did a pat down on Lucca and Rodriguez and loaded them into the BMW’s backseat.

“Where are the police?” I said, feeling a little panicky. “I don’t hear any sirens. I don’t see any flashing lights. You should have told the dispatcher about the shooting. You should have been more assertive.”

“I was assertive. I just wasn’t freaked.”

“Well, maybe you needed to be freaked because I don’t see any cops on the scene.”

“Well, maybe next time you need to make the stupid call.”

“Count on it.”

“Okay then.”

“Okay.”

We were glaring at each other, standing nose to nose, hands on hips.

Hooker’s mouth curved at the corners with the beginning of a smile. “Did we just have a fight?”

“Discussion.”

“I think it was a fight.”

“It was not a fight.”

“Felt like a fight to me.”

“Forget it. We aren’t having make-up sex.”

“It was worth a try,” Hooker said.

Simon and the other guy got into the BMW and the BMW cruised out of the lot. Hooker and I scrambled for our rental, and we all drove north.

“I learned something interesting from Simon.”

“The guy at the bar?”

“Yeah. He said they weren’t associated with racing. He said Ray had his finger in a lot of other pies.”

“Did he mention any of the other pies by name? Apple, blueberry, poontang?”

“Nope. No mention of poontang pie.”

The BMW worked its way through traffic and, true to form, we lost them after a couple blocks and a couple traffic lights.

“Okay,” Hooker said, “here’s my assessment of the situation. If Gobbles is in the trunk, they’ll find him and probably his status won’t change much. At least not for a while. And as far as we’re concerned, we’re screwed.”

“Anything else?”

“We need to find Ray. And we need to identify the chip buyer. And before we do any of those things we need to go back to Felicia’s because I’m out on my feet.”

FOURTEEN

I woke up with Hooker on top of me, and Beans breathing Saint Bernard breath in my face. The disturbing thing is that I didn’t mind either. I slithered out from under Hooker, went to the Ibarras’ bathroom and took a fast shower, got dressed, grabbed some gallon-size plastic bags from the kitchen, and took Beans for a walk.

It was a little after seven and Felicia’s neighborhood was on the move. Pickup trucks and secondhand sedans motored down the side streets, people stood in line at the bus stop, dogs barked from postage-stamp backyards, and cats sat on stoops, soaking up the first sun of the day. The language spoken was Spanish, the kitchen smells were Cuban, and the skin tones were darker than mine. The rhythm of life felt normal and comforting, the setting seemed exotic.

Felicia’s niece was manning the Ibarra stove when I returned. Hooker was at the table with a pack of kids and an older man I didn’t know. Beans slid under the table, waiting for food to drop to the floor.

“Finish your breakfast,” Lily said to her youngest. “The bus will be here and you won’t be ready again.”

Hooker had coffee, juice, and a breakfast burrito in front of him. He had his hand wrapped around his burrito and his phone to his ear.

“Sure,” Hooker said into the phone. “You bet.”

I poured myself a mug of coffee and took a chair at the table.

“That was Skippy,” Hooker said to me when he disconnected. “He wanted to remind me that it was Tuesday.”

I was surprised Skippy was up this early. Skippy was known to come to track meetings in his pajamas if the meeting was called before nine o’clock.

“Skippy’s starting to sound nervous,” Hooker said. “There’s a ton of media scheduled for tomorrow, including the parade of cars that starts at Times Square.”

It wouldn’t be good for Hooker to miss the parade of cars. This is where the top-ten drivers get into their race cars and drive them through midtown Manhattan. It’s televised and photographed and thousands of fans line the parade route. “Maybe we should go to New York.”

“I’ll get arrested and charged with multiple counts of?” Hooker looked at the kids at the table?“misbehaving.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” I said to Hooker.