Motor Mouth

no phone call. Hooker looked at me from across the room. Hooker was better at this than I was. He could compartmentalize. He knew how to focus on one thing and set everything else aside. If Hooker was on a racetrack, his mind was working to win. Hooker had only one sequence of thought. How do I get to the front and stay there. When I was racing, other thoughts would creep in. I had no control over which thoughts would stay and which would get set aside for another time. Why wouldn’t the cute guy in the garage call me? What if I was in a wreck and broke my nose? And there were always lists. Algebra homework, laundry, clean my room, find my house key, call Maureen, study French… So now Hooker had chosen to be in the moment enjoying Felicia’s friends and food, and my mind had chosen to obsess about the phone call.
    Eight o’clock
I pantomimed to Hooker. Hooker glanced down at his watch and excused himself from the people around him. He started toward me and stopped to answer his phone.
    My breath stuck in my chest. This was it.
    Hooker had his head down and he was nodding at the caller…yes, yes, yes. His head came up, our eyes caught, and I didn’t like what I saw. Hooker was concentrating to hear over the room noise, talking into the phone. He disconnected and signaled me to head for the kitchen. I pushed through the crush and met Hooker on the small back stoop. There were a couple people huddled in the yard, laughing and talking. Smokers evicted from Felicia’s house. They smiled but didn’t come forward for an autograph. Smoking took precedence.
    Hooker steered me past them, to the SUV. He slid behind the wheel, and I sat next to him and asked the question. “The phone call?”
    “It was Rodriguez. Ray Huevo is missing. He told Rodriguez and Lucca to wait for him in the car after he talked to us. Said he would be a half hour tops. He never showed. They don’t know who he was meeting or where the meeting took place. They were calling because they decided we snatched Ray. I guess they’ve been out beating the bushes looking for us and finally gave up and made the call. They’re in a panic because the buyer is due to arrive at nine. I don’t know who the buyer is, but Rodriguez and Lucca are scared.”
    I was stunned. Of all the things I expected to hear, this wasn’t even close. “I’m a little flummoxed,” I said to Hooker.
    “Then I’ve got you beat because I’m a
lot
flummoxed.”
    “Maybe Ray got cold feet and took off. Maybe he’s in Rio.”
    “It’s possible, but he seemed like he had other plans when he talked to us.”
    “Something must have gone wrong at his meeting,” I said. “Maybe he’s swimming with the fishes.”
    “God, I hope not. We need him to get us out of this disaster.”
    “What about Gobbles?”
    “I spoke to Gobbles,” Hooker said. “He was there with Rodriguez and Lucca. He sounded rattled.”
    “At least he’s not dead.”
    “Not yet, but I’m worried. Rodriguez and Lucca have a history of solving their problems by shooting people.”
    “It’s odd no one knew who Ray was going to see. He has staff. They keep his calendar, they make his phone calls, they read his e-mails. Even bad guys with secrets have people around them who are entrusted with sensitive information. So I’m thinking the meeting had to either be not important enough to mention to staff, or else something spontaneous, arranged at the last minute.
    “Did Rodriguez say anything about the chip buyer? Who it is? Why the chip is so important?”
    “No,” Hooker said. “Just that the buyer was arriving at nine. For all I know, he could be selling his fancy-ass battery to the battery bunny. Or how about this, maybe the chip is a homing device for an alien probe.”
    “You got that from
Star Trek
.”
    “Yeah, that was a great movie. It had whales and everything.” Hooker plugged the key into the ignition and cranked the motor over. “Let’s drive out to the airport. I want to see who’s arriving tonight.”

THIRTEEN
    Hooker was stretched back in his seat, hands locked behind his head, eyes closed against the ambient light from the terminal.
    “Surveillance doesn’t actually work if you keep your eyes closed,” I told Hooker.
    “Are
your
eyes open?”
    “Yes.”
    “Good enough.”
    We were parked to the side of the Signature terminal, and there wasn’t a lot of activity.
    “The plane’s late,” I said to Hooker.
    “If they’re coming from out of the country, they have