Felicia and her husband had bought blocks of real estate around their fruit stand at a time when real estate was cheap. Some of the properties were now leased to other businesses, and some of the properties lay fallow. This warehouse was one of the fallow properties, used occasionally for storage of seasonal fruit. It was cinderblock construction with three garage bays and enough room to hold six eighteen-wheelers or a kajillion oranges. The ceiling was high enough to accommodate the hauler. The lighting was adequate. The ambiance left something to be desired, but then we weren't here for ambiance.

Hooker cut the engine, swung down from behind the wheel and jogged over to some empty fruit crates stacked against the rear wall. A couple crowbars and a mallet lay on the floor by the fruit crates. He grabbed a crowbar and in seconds had the remaining storage locker door open. The remote plus a bunch of power cords were in the locker. I plugged the truck into a 220 volt outlet, so we didn't have to run on generator. And then I plugged the cord with the remote into its receptacle. I pushed the control button, and like magic the entire back panel of the truck slid to horizontal and became a ramp. I used the remote to raise the ramp to the second deck, and Gobbles inched his way around the primary car and crawled onto the ramp. He lay there spread eagle, hand to his heart.

"I thought I was going to fucking die," he said. "Swear to God."

I powered us down, and when we reached the cement floor Hooker grabbed Gobbles and dragged him up to his feet.

"We need to talk," Hooker said. "I want to know what's going on."

Gobbles shook his head. "You don't want to know. It isn't good."

"I just hijacked a hauler because of you. Talk to me."

Gobbles blew out a sigh. "I'm in a mess. A couple weeks ago this guy come to me and said he represented a company that was working on this new traction-control technology that they needed to test. He said it was a big secret, and they needed someone who could keep his mouth shut. They were going to pay in cash, and I needed cash real bad. I've got two kids I love, and a wife who wants to suck every last cent out of me, and wicked bad lawyer bills. They said all I had to do was push a button on a remote when the car was going into a corner. Last week it was your car, and this week it was Shrin's. You got loose last week and tore up a fender, but this week... I almost killed him. I swear, I never thought it would cause a crash like that."

I cut my eyes to Hooker and saw his face flush, and I was pretty sure he had some steam coming off the top of his head. "You aren't going to hit him, are you?" I asked Hooker. "I'm thinking about it."

"We don't actually have time for that."

"Just one good shot," Hooker said.

"I didn't have it figured out," Gobbles said. "I thought it would give us an advantage. Everybody wants traction control on their car, right? I thought it was a fluke that Hooker spun out on it. When it made Shrin's car go loose today I knew there was something else going on. As soon as I pushed the button both cars spun out."

"What about Clay? Why did you think Clay was involved and deliberately run down?"

"They had someone on the inside, doing whatever they needed to do to the engine. I didn't know who it was. Didn't want to know. The night I saw Clay get run over I said to myself Clay was the one fixin' the engine. I don't know why they run him over. Maybe he wanted more money. Or maybe they didn't need him any more and were cleaning up. But I'll bet you anything Clay was the one on the inside."

"And you didn't say anything to the police."

"I didn't want to drag us all into a big cheating scandal," Gobbles said. "I still thought I was doing a good thing for the team. I thought Shrin's car had something on it that would help us. Now you see why I was in a tight spot there. It's not like I didn't want to do what was right. I just couldn't decide what was more right than the other. And I didn't even know any names. The big guy and the little guy always come to me. They just show up. I've been calling them Horse and Baldy."

"To their face?"

"Hell, no. They're friggin' scary. "I yessir them to their face."

"You're talking about the two men you pointed out to me when we were on the roof?"

"Yeah."

"Why Horse?"

"I met them in a men's room once, and I, you know, looked. And the other one, the smaller guy is obvious. He's bald as could be.

"Anyway, after the race I was supposed to give Horse and Baldy the remote, and they were supposed to give me my money, but I was worried about what happened to Clay. And I didn't know if the traction control just worked wrong or if they intentionally wrecked our cars. I thought I'd play it safe, and I'd stay someplace where there were lots of people, like the garage area. I hoped they could find me and get the remote, and I'd be done with it, and nothing bad would happen.

"I hung with you in the garage for as long as I could, but they didn't show, and I was afraid I was going to miss the plane, so I started walking back to the rental van. They came out of nowhere in the parking lot, and Baldy had a gun, and I freaked. I took off and ran back to the garage. I don't think they ran after me, but I didn't care. I didn't stop running until I was back in the garage area. Only thing the haulers were all leaving and there weren't a whole lot of people there any more. The sixty-nine was still open, and there wasn't anyone around, so I climbed in and hid behind the back-up car. It seemed like a smart thing to do at the time. Hard to think good when you're running from someone who wants to shoot you."

"You said Ray Huevo was involved."

"They were standing alongside the truck, and I was trapped inside, and I could hear everything they said."

"Who's they?"

"It sounded like Horse and Baldy and someone else. The third guy was pissed because I got away. He said it was Horse and Baldy's responsibility to clean up after themselves. Then he said there was a billion dollars worth of trouble that had to be shipped out, and Huevo wanted to make sure it got to Mexico.

"Horse said arrangements were complete. He said the item was in the hauler, and the drivers had instructions to take the hauler to Mexico."

I was an engineer, and a spotter for a race team. I'd toyed with the idea of being James Bond for a moment back there, but the moment had passed, and I didn't really want be involved in this... whatever it was.

"I think we should turn this hauler over to the police," I said. "Let them go through the hauler and solve the mystery."

"Don't they need to have a reason to do a search?" Gobbles asked. "Do you think they'd have enough cause to search it from what I'd tell them?"

Hooker and I looked at each other and shrugged. We didn't know.

"I watch CSI Miami all the time," Hooker said, "but they didn't cover this."

"They're going to hunt me down and kill me," Gobbles said. "My kids won't have a daddy. They'll be left with my money-grabbing ex-wife. And she'll get married to some asshole who knows all about the stupid man in the freakin' stupid boat, and he'll probably have a lot of money and take them all to DisneyWorld. And my kids will forget all about me."

Hooker looked at me. Confused. "Man in the boat?"

"It's complicated," I said.

"I was thinking while I was locked up," Gobbles said. "We could search the hauler, and we could find the billion dollar thing. Then maybe we can go to the police with our evidence and get the bad guys arrested. Then they'll be in jail, and they won't be able to kill me. I came up with an alternate plan, but I don't like it as well. It involves kidnapping my kids and moving to Australia."

"I can't wrap my mind around this," Hooker said. "I don't think it's a sure thing that we can send the bad guys to jail. And I'm having a hard time imagining a billion dollars worth of technology." "I think it's on the car," Gobbles said. "I think they fixed it so my car would spin out, and Dickie's car would win. I think NASCAR just isn't looking in the right spot."

"Why would they want to take the hauler to Mexico?" I asked.

"Huevo's R&D team is in Mexico," Hooker said. "He has a shop in Concord, but all research and development is done in Mexico. It's on a separate campus a couple miles away from Huevo corporate headquarters. If the 69 had some incredible technology installed on it, they might want it brought back to R&D. Oscar Huevo is chairman of the board of Huevo Industries and the driving force behind Huevo Motor Sports. His little brother Ray runs R&D."

"And Ray was at the race today," Gobbles said. "Barney and me saw him talking to Horse and Baldy."

I have to admit I could feel my curiosity ratchet up. Gobbles was suggesting there was a billion dollars worth of illegal technology on a race car that was at my disposal. As a member of the racing community I was incensed that the technology might have been used to cause a crash. And as a car junkie and engineer I was dying to get my hands on it.

Hooker glanced over at me. "You're looking like Beans when he sees a thirty-two ounce steak left unattended on a kitchen counter."

"At least I'm not panting and drooling."

"Not yet," Hooker said, "but I know you're capable."

"We're sort of safe here in the warehouse," I said to Hooker. "Maybe we should roll the sixty-nine out and take a peek."

Hooker smiled. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist."

I entered the trailer through the rear pocket doors, and Hooker, Gobbles and I pulled the two large toolboxes out of the aisle, onto the ramp, and rolled them onto the warehouse floor.

We all got onto the ramp, I powered us up to the second deck, we rolled the primary car out, set chocks to keep it stable, and I powered the ramp back down. We rolled the car off the ramp and onto the floor, and I got ready to go to work, helping myself to some disposable gloves, opening the toolboxes, releasing the hood latches.

We'd let Beans out to stretch his legs, and he was running around, acting goofy, looking to play. Hooker took a hand towel from the tool chest, tossed it to Beans, and Beans caught it and tore it to shreds.

"He's just a big puppy," Hooker said.

"Keep your eye on him so he doesn't eat a wrench or a lug nut. I'm going to borrow a jumpsuit from the Huevo hauler."

The first locker I tried was empty. I opened the door to the second locker and a shrink-wrapped body fell out. It was buck naked. It was completely encased in layers and layers of plastic wrap. With the exception of the gruesomely distorted face and open, unseeing eyes, the shrink-wrapped corpse looked a lot like 180 pounds of expired raw chicken parts packaged for supermarket bulk sales.

I jumped back and slammed into the locker on the opposite side of the narrow aisle. A wave of nausea slid through my stomach, and the room dimmed for a moment. In my mind I was screaming, but I think the reality was that my mouth was open and no sound was emerging.

Hooker looked in at me. "See a spider?" His eyes focused on the plastic wrapped chunk of body parts on the floor. "What the hell is that?"

I was breathless and too horrified to move. "I think it's a d-d-dead guy. I opened the cabinet, and he fell out."

"Yeah, right."

"You need to come take a look, because I seriously think it's a dead guy, and I'd like to get out of here, but my feet won't go anywhere."

Hooker moved next to me, and we both stared down at the body. The eyes were open in a look of unblinking surprise, and there was a big bullet hole in the middle of the forehead. He was maybe in his fifties with a stocky build, and dark brown hair cut short.

He was naked and bloody and grotesque. In fact he was grotesque beyond seeming human, so that after the first shock wore off it was like looking at a movie prop.

"Shit," Hooker said. "This really is a dead guy. I hate dead guys. Especially when they've got a bullet hole in their forehead, and they're in a hauler I just stole."

I glanced at Hooker and saw that he'd broken out in a sweat. "You aren't going to get sick or faint, or something, are you?" "Race car drivers don't faint. We're manly men. I'm pretty close to blowing chow, though. Manly men are allowed to do that."

"Maybe you should sit down."

"That sounds like a good idea, but I'm too freaked to move. And here's more bad news. Do you know who this is?"

"No. Do you?"

"The plastic wrap has his face sort of distorted, but I think this is Oscar Huevo."

I clapped my hands over my ears. "I didn't hear that."

Gobbles wandered in. "Holy fuck," Gobbles said. "That looks like Oscar Huevo. Holy fucking fuck."

"Someone has to get me out of here," I said. "I'm going to be sick."

Hooker gave me a shove, and we all rushed out and stood gulping air in the middle of the warehouse. Gobbles had started shivering. He was shivering so much I could hear his teeth chattering.

"This is b-b-bad," he said.

Hooker and I nodded agreement. It was bad.

"Who would want to kill Oscar Huevo?" I asked Hooker.

"The list is probably in the tens of thousands. He was a brilliant businessman, but I'm told he was a ruthless competitor. He had a lot of enemies," Hooker said.

"We need to call the police."

"Darlin', we're standing in front of a hauler we just hijacked and vandalized. And the dead guy on the floor owns the car that just beat me out of the championship. And if that isn't bad enough, two Stiller employees are involved in some really bad shit."

"Do you think Oscar Huevo is the billion dollar cargo that was going to Mexico?"

"I think it's a good possibility."

We fell silent for a couple minutes, all of us absorbing the extent of the disaster.

"This is t-t-too much evidence," Gobbles said. "I got the icky c-c-creepy c-c-crawlies. M-m-maybe we could just p-p-put Oscar back in the l-l-locker."

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