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 condo and accidentally set the kitchen on fire trying to make a romantic breakfast for two, Hooker moved out of Huntersville and bought a large house on a large tract of secluded land in Mooresville. And a couple months ago, after a tour bus drove up Hooker’s driveway and dumped thirty people on his front lawn to take pictures, Hooker got security-gated, installed a large, steroid-angered gorilla in the little gatehouse, and had his property ringed with an electric fence. So I wasn’t worried that Hooker would be caught offguard by the two Huevo henchmen.

Nevertheless, I called to warn him. “I’m at Topper’s, and Dan says Horse and Baldy were looking for you earlier.”

“I’ll juice up the fence with a couple extra volts. I’m guessing you’re barside, wanting to see the Spanky spectacle.”

“Yep. Too bad you’ll miss it. It’s going to be awful.”

“Darlin’, you’re hitting a new entertainment low.”

I blew out a sigh because it was true. I disconnected and ordered a beer.

A half hour later, Spanky and Delores graced the room with their grandeur. As was expected, half the bar applauded and half booed. Dan and I did neither.

Dan threw back a handful of bar nuts. “I’m going to puke.”

“You can’t puke. You’re an impartial journalist.”

“No such thing. That crap went out with fedoras. To slightly change the subject, what do you make of Huevo’s murder?”

I sipped my beer. “I haven’t given it much thought. Do you have an angle?”

“No. But I think everything I’ve heard so far is wrong. Everyone is intrigued by the bite marks, but I don’t think they have anything to do with the murder. The medical examiner said they happened later, after Huevo was already dead. I think they’re accidental. I think someone killed Huevo and packaged him up to keep him on ice. Probably just used whatever was at hand. Which would lead me to think this wasn’t planned.”

“Someone just happened to have miles of shrink-wrap?”

Dan shrugged. “It’s a common household item, and some people stockpile. If you shop at the big-box stores, you buy in quantity to save money. The teams do it all the time. Anyway, my theory is that someone killed Huevo and needed to keep things neat, so they wrapped him. They had him sitting in a corner, waiting for it to get dark so they could dispose of the body, and their dog decided Huevo looked tasty.”

“So the killer had a big dog?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. And it was an inside job, because Huevo was found in Spanky’s truck. Someone was making a statement. And by the way, if I knew who the killer was, I’d send him a box of Godiva. Putting Huevo in Spanky’s new Avalanche was genius. I hear Spanky threw up when he saw it. Plus, they impounded the truck as evidence.”

“What kind of statement do you think the killer was making?”

“Don’t know. Sometimes people commit crimes and actually want to get caught, so they leave clues. Sometimes it’s an ego trip and they want to leave a calling card. Or maybe this was a kind of revenge crime. Maybe someone was pissed off that Spanky won. If it had been me, I would have killed Spanky and left him in Huevo’s car, but that’s just me.”

“Anything else?”

“According to the police, they scoured the parking lot and didn’t come up with any evidence that said Huevo was killed there. Huevo and his entourage were staying in one of the big hotels on Brickell. He had a power breakfast scheduled but never showed.”

“I can see you’re fascinated by this,” I said to Dan.

“There’s a story here. I can feel it. We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg. And I don’t think the dog is part of the murder, but I do think he’s a place to start looking. If we go on the assumption that this was an inside job, then we just make a list of everyone who has a dog big enough to have swamp-monster teeth.”

“Have you started the list?”

Dan’s face flushed. “Yeah, but so far there’s only one name on it.”

“Probably you need to work harder on the list.”

“My exact thoughts. There are probably tons of people out there with huge dogs with huge teeth. I just have to hunt them down.”

Spanky and Delores were posing for pictures and signing autographs at the far end of the bar. Hooker’d had some run-ins with Spanky, but my relationship with Spanky was much more distant and cordial. Until finding the chip, I had no real reason for disliking either Spanky or Delores. And for that matter, I still had no reason. According to Steven Sikulski, the chip could be signaled from anywhere on the track. Realistically speaking, there are only two people who would be effective at controlling engine speed. One would be the driver and the other would be the spotter. My money was on the spotter. I didn’t think Spanky was smart enough to pull off cheating at this level.

“An inside job for Oscar Huevo covers a lot of ground,” I said to Dan. “From what I can see, he wasn’t a popular guy. His wife hated him. His brother doesn’t seem too broken up. And he stepped on a lot of toes in two countries. And I hate to rain on your parade, but I’m not so sure of the dog thing. If the Huevos were involved, it was probably a hired gun. The Huevos don’t look like people who do their own killing.”

Dan signaled the waiter for another beer. “Ray Huevo wouldn’t hire out. He has people in his organization who would gladly do the job.”

I took a handful of nuts. “Are you telling me Ray’s a little dark?”

“Ray’s very dark. I did an article on the family a year ago. It was next to impossible to get information on Ray. He doesn’t talk to anyone, and he has offices in a separate building, a half mile from the bulk of Huevo Enterprises. I was eventually allowed entrance to the building but never got beyond the first floor. It’s the R and D arm of Huevo, and God knows what they develop there. People who’ve actually gone through the building tell me it’s filled with chemical labs and computer crap that looks like science fiction.

“I ended up writing nothing about him because I couldn’t verify anything beyond his business address. What I suspect is that anytime something shady goes down, it gets funneled to Ray. Ray has development funds that could buy a third-world country and half the politicians in ours.”

“Do you think Ray is dark enough to kill his brother?”

“I think Ray’s dark enough to do anything, but I don’t know what his motive would be for murder. It looks to me like Ray has his own little empire.”

The dust was starting to settle around Spanky and Delores. The crowd had thinned to just a few hangers-on, and Delores was looking antsy, as if she couldn’t wait to get home to her whips and chains and beat the bejeezus out of Dickie.

“I’m going to convey my congratulations,” I said to Dan. “Are you coming?”

“I spoke to them at the track. Don’t think I could get through it a second time.”

I dropped a five on the bar and made my way over to Spanky. I stuck my hand out and smiled. “Congratulations, you drove a really good race.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Where’s Hooker? I wanted to congratulate him on being second.”