Motor Mouth

could back their way through the circuits and find out exactly what it does.”
    “I thought we knew what it did.”
    “I’d like it to turn out to be some kind of illegal technology, possibly traction control, but I can’t say that I
know
what it does. I’m thrown by the fact that it was just sitting in the knob without a connection to an electronic system. And I don’t know why there were two chips.”
    “Do you know anyone who could find out?”
    “Yes, but no one in Miami.”
    I’d just turned onto Fourth, heading for Collins. I was driving on autopilot, trying not to let Hooker see how rattled I was, trying not to burst into tears because he was hurt. I stopped at a cross street and looked right. A car moved through the intersection. Hooker and I vacantly stared ahead at the car. It was another black BMW. Absolutely unremarkable…except for the big dog nose pressed to a rear side window.
    “Beans!” Hooker shouted.
    I was already on it. I had my left-turn signal blinking and a white-knuckle grip on the wheel. I had to let two cars go through before I could move. I took the corner, and we were both sitting forward, our eyes glued to the BMW. I followed for three blocks, keeping the BMW in sight. The BMW sailed through a yellow light, the car in front of me stopped for the red, and the BMW disappeared from view.
    I did my best to run the BMW down when the light changed, but had no luck. The BMW was gone, last seen heading north.
    “At least we know Beans is okay,” Hooker said.
    More than could be said for Hooker. His eye was getting puffy and a brilliant magenta bruise was flowering on his cheek. I gave up on the search for Beans and headed back to the hotel.
    “You could use some ice,” I told him.
    “Yeah, and it wouldn’t hurt to have some Jack Daniel’s swirling around it,” Hooker said, eyes closed, head back on the headrest.
    I drove to the hotel with my heart aching and my mind working hard to sort through the jumble of bad luck and terrible events that had occurred in the last four days. I needed to make some sense of it all. And I needed to find a way to fix it.
    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