“Looking at it in retrospect…”

I broke a can of soda off from the six-pack and handed it to Hooker. “Boy, you don’t know much. You wouldn’t last ten minutes as a woman. I guess Huevo really doesn’t want anyone sitting on that bench.”

“It’s the cars. He wants his cars. All the while they were kicking me they wanted to know where I’d stashed the cars.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Of course I told them. They were kicking me!”

“Did they do any damage? Are you okay?”

“Remember when I hit the wall at Talladega and flipped four times? I’m a shade past that.”

“Cracked ribs?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Internal bleeding?”

“Hard to tell, but I’m not coughing up blood, so that’s a good sign. They could have kicked a lot harder. They didn’t want to kill me. They just wanted to get my attention and tell me Huevo was serious.”

“We should leave. I wouldn’t want them to think things over and come back to take a shot at seeing what I know.” Been there, done that.

Hooker limped to the SUV and gingerly eased himself onto the passenger seat. I got behind the wheel, hit the door locks and took off.

“I think we should return to the hotel and regroup,” I told Hooker. “And I’ve been thinking about the chip. There might be people who 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 button. When the doors opened, I hurried over and slipped into the elevator with them. Two more people followed.

Beans’s ears instantly went up, his eyes got bright, and he started jumping around doing his happy dance. The guy was trying to control Beans, but Beans was having none of it. He pushed against me, snuffling my leg, leaving a wake of dog slobber from my knee to my crotch.

“He’s usually so well behaved,” the guy said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“Dogs like me,” I said. “Must be something about the way I smell. Eau de pot roast.”

The elevator stopped at the sixth floor and the guy got out, but Beans wouldn’t leave my side. Beans had his four feet planted and his toenails dug into the elevator floor. The guy pulled at the leash, and Beans sat down. Hard to move Beans when he’s got his mind made up not to move. The two remaining people were nervously crowded into a corner.

“Maybe I should adopt him,” I said. “Want me to take him off your hands?”

“Lady, I lose this dog and my life isn’t worth dirt.”

I stepped out of the elevator, and Beans got up and moved to my side. “This isn’t my floor, but I’ll walk you to your room,” I told the dognapper. “Your dog seems to have attached himself to me.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s like he knows you.”

“Yeah, it’s weird. I have this happen all the time.”

We walked down the hall to the dognapper’s room, he inserted his key card, then he opened the door.

I pointed to the sign dangling from the doorknob. “I see you have a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.”

“Yeah, I keep it there so the maid doesn’t come in. I can’t take a chance on someone accidentally letting the dog out.” He stepped inside and tugged on the leash. “Come on, big guy. Be a good dog.”

Beans pressed himself against me, and I fondled his head. “I don’t think he wants to go into the room.”

“He’s got to. I got things to do, and I can’t take him with me.”

“I could take him for a walk for you.”

“Thanks for the offer, but he was just out for a walk, and he did everything, if you know what I mean.” He searched through his pockets and came up with a dog biscuit. “I save these for emergencies,” he said. “I don’t give him too many because I don’t want him to get fat.” He threw the dog biscuit into the room, Beans bounded in after it, and the door was slammed shut.