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I put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot, into traffic. I had no idea where to go next, but it
seemed like it was time to move on.
“I might know where they’ve got Maria,” Bill said. “When they first brought us out of Salzar’s office there was some confusion about where we were going to go. They were talking about a garage on the Tamiami Trail.”
Bill wasn’t looking great. His face was ashen and there were dark blue smudges under his eyes. Blood had seeped through the bandage around his ribs and stained his shirt.
“How are you feeling?” I asked him.
“Fine,” he said.
“You look awful.”
“Bad pizza.”
“Here’s the deal,” I said to him. “I’m sending you back home with Judey. If you promise to stay in bed, Hooker and I will look for Maria.”
“Not good enough,” Bill said. “You have to promise to find her. And you have to help her get her father out of Cuba.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
There was some thumping and muffled yelling from the trunk.
“The goon is awake,” Judey said.
I turned to Bill and Hooker. “I almost forgot. I have a goon in the trunk, too.”
“We thought it might be helpful to be able to interrogate one of Salzar’s men,” Judey said. “So we put him in the trunk…with the bomb.”
“It was Judey’s idea,” I said. “He’s a crime fighter mastermind.”
“Some people think I look like Magnum,” Judey said. “Do you think I look like Magnum? Maybe around the mouth a little?”
“I’m awake, right?” Hooker said. “This is real?”
FIFTEEN
By the time we got to Judey’s condo building, the guy in the trunk had quieted down.
“What’s Salzar like?” Judey wanted to know. “I only know what I read in the paper.”
“He’s scary,” Hooker said. “Obsessed with the canister. Obsessed with one last grab at power in Cuba. I think at this point he might not be playing with a full deck. I think what probably started out as a smart political move has turned into a last-ditch nightmare. Castro’s time is coming to an end, and the politburo is in a power scramble. If Salzar doesn’t come through with that canister, I’m guessing he’s lost his place in history.”
“I got a creepy phone call from him,” I said.
“He got your number out of my cell phone. He went nuts when he found out you’d escaped,” Hooker said.
It was late afternoon. There were big puffy clouds in the sky and the wind was picking up. It would have been a nice day to be on the beach or drifting around in a boat. A couple blocks over, the almost naked sun worshippers were packing up, and the Ocean Drive waiters were arriving for work. And here I was wearing day-old underwear, sitting in a parking lot with a bomb and a goon in my trunk.
“All righty then,” Judey said. “Let’s get Bill upstairs and comfy. And you’re welcome to come up, too. I could put a pot of coffee on. And I have a cake.”
“Anybody have any ideas about the goon?” I asked.
“He can come, too,” Judey said. “I have plenty of room. We can lock him in my powder room. And before we put him in the powder room we can put on a salsa CD and beat the crap out of him.”
“That sounds like fun,” Bill said.
We opened the trunk and hauled the goon out. He was wild-eyed and soaked through with sweat.
