I fed Beans a couple prunes, and he started to whine and claw at the door.

“He’s ready!” Felicia said. “Get him out. Get the bags.”

“He needs grass,” I told them. “He only goes on grass.”

“Ocean Drive!” Suzanne shouted.

Rosa had the car in gear. “I’ve got it covered. Hang on. We’re only a couple blocks away.”

She rocketed down Collins, hung a left onto Ocean, and slid to a stop at the curb. We all got out and ran with Beans to the grassy stretch of park between the road and beach. Beans reached the grass and abruptly stopped and hunched. I had a plastic bag wrapped around my hand. I was set to catch. Felicia had Beans by the leash. Suzanne and Rosa had spare bags.

“I knew the prunes would work,” Felicia said.

Beans put his head down, squinched his eyes closed, and a box and a half of prunes and God knows what else exploded from his back end in a gelatinous spray that shot out over a ten-foot radius.

We all jumped back bug-eyed.

“Maybe too many prunes,” Rosa said.

Beans picked his head up and smiled. He was done. He felt fine. He pranced around a little at the end of his leash.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s not panic. He’s obviously empty. So the circuit board has to be here somewhere. Everybody look.”

“It’s too small,” Suzanne said. “It would have been hard to find in…you know, a pile. It’s going to be impossible to find in this grass.”

“Maybe they’ll only cut a couple fingers off,” Rosa said. “As long as he’s got his thumb, he could be okay.”

“We have twenty-five minutes,” Felicia said.

“We’ll have to fake it,” I told them. “Everyone look for dog poop. Lots of people walk their dogs here and not everyone cleans up. We’ll fill a bag with whatever poop we can find. Then we’ll give the bag to Miranda, and we’ll tell him we didn’t have time to look for the circuit board. And the more poop the better, so it takes a long time for Miranda to go through it. We need time to make a getaway with Hooker.”

“I’m gonna need some Pepto-Bismol when I’m done here,” Rosa said.

“Sorry,” I said to Suzanne, “you’ll have to replicate the circuit board. But at least your technology won’t get stolen.”

“What’s this?” Simon wanted to know.

“Dog poop,” I said, handing the bag over to him. “We didn’t have time to look through it for the circuit board, but I’m sure it’s in there. Beans is all cleaned out.”

“No kidding. This is a gallon bag of dog shit. Jeez, you could at least have double bagged it.”

“I was in a hurry. I didn’t want Hooker to lose any fingers.” I looked around. “Where’s Hooker?”

“He’s in the car with Fred. I’m going to have to call Miranda on this. I wasn’t expecting a sack of shit.”

“It was the best I could do on short notice,” I said.

Simon and I were standing in the parking lot next to the Royal Palm Deli. Rosa was idling in the slot closest to the driveway. Suzanne and Felicia had Simon in their sights, giving him the squinty-eye, guns in hand, ready to “take him down” should I give the signal. An SUV with tinted windows idled at the other end of the lot. Hard to tell who was inside the SUV.

Simon studied me behind his dark glasses. “Just between you and me, if I hadn’t left you at the bar last night, would I have gotten to nail you?”

“You don’t expect me to tell you, do you?”

He looked at the gallon of dog poop. “I guess I know the answer.”

Simon put the poop in the back of the SUV and flipped his cell phone open. He held a short conversation with someone at the other end, presumably Miranda, the phone was flipped closed, and Simon walked back to me.

“Miranda says we bring the bag and Hooker back to the house, and when we find the circuit board we’ll let Hooker go.”

“The deal was that we’d swap here. I want my poop back.”

“Lady, I’d love to give you your poop back, but no can do. The boss wants the poop.”

I trudged back to the Camry and got in next to Beans. “They’re going to release Hooker when they find the circuit board.”

The black SUV pulled away, and Rosa cranked the Camry over. “Okay, ladies,” she said. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

“What does that mean?” I asked Rosa.

“It means we have to kick some ass and get Hooker out.”

“That sounds good on paper,” I said to Rosa. “But we’re not exactly a SWAT team. I think it’s time to bring in the police.”

Suzanne was in the back with me, sitting on the other side of Beans. “Easy for you to say,” Suzanne said. “You didn’t just kidnap Ray Huevo. I’m in favor of us going in and solving the problem ourselves. I work out, and I can shoot, and I’m in the mood to do some damage,” she said, selecting a gun from the pocket in front of her. “I’m putting my name on this Glock nine.”

We drove to the house and Rosa sat at idle in front of the gate. The gate was closed and attached to a six-foot solid-stucco fence that encircled the property. From what we could see of the grounds, we would have to get over the fence and then cover some open grass before reaching the house. A small metal medallion attached to the front gate told us the property was protected by All Season Security.

“It would be better if we could do this in the dark,” Rosa said.

I looked at the sky. The sun was low. Maybe an hour until sunset. Maybe a little more. An hour felt like a long time to leave Hooker in there with the finger chopper.

“It’ll take them a while to go through a gallon of poop,” Felicia said. “They gonna have to put it in a strainer little by little and power wash it.”

We all made gagging sounds.

“I think we have until the next phone call,” Suzanne said. “If they don’t find the circuit board, they’ll call. They don’t know for certain that this was a setup.”

We were parked four houses down from the estate where they were holding Hooker hostage, the Camry tucked back into the driveway of an ungated and unoccupied house. We’d carefully watched the street for activity, but there’d been nothing to see. No cars coming or going. No one out for a stroll. We watched the sun set in a brilliant display of fluorescent orange and pink. We watched the sky change from dusk to dark.

“This is it,” Rosa said. “Showtime.”

We armed ourselves, got out of the Camry, and started walking down the street. Rosa, Felicia, Suzanne, and me. Beans was left behind, and he wasn’t liking it. Beans was in the car, barking loud enough to raise the dead.

“You got to do something with doggie,” Felicia said. “People gonna call the cops on us.”

I went back to the car, opened the door, and Beans bounded out. I took the leash, and he pranced beside me. He was happy. He was going for a walk with everyone.

“When I die I want to come back as this doggie,” Felicia said.

We stopped when we got to the gate. It was still closed and locked. Beyond the gate we could see the BMW parked in the courtyard. The house was dark. Not a single light burning.

“Maybe they have black-out shades,” Rosa said.

“Maybe they’re watching a movie on television,” Felicia said.

Maybe they’re waiting for us, I thought.

Lights were also off in neighboring houses. This wasn’t high season in Florida. Not a lot of the rich folks in residence. We walked off the road and chose a spot where the shadows were deep.

“We gonna have to alley-oop over the wall,” Felicia said.

Rosa and I linked hands and gave Suzanne a boost up.

“Everything looks quiet inside the wall,” Suzanne whispered. She straddled the wall and silently dropped out of sight.

Felicia was next to go.

“I can’t reach,” she said, one foot in our hands. “I have to climb on your shoulders. Hold still.”

Felicia managed to get onto Rosa’s shoulders, I got my hand under her ass and gave her a shove, and she went over the wall and landed on the other side with a thud.