Stella, Get Your Man

“Okay, okay, okay!” Jake barked. “Let’s move it!”

“What is that?” I asked.

Spike met my eyes. “Beats me. Looks like a one-man parade.”

“Bring it on!” Nina yelled. “I’m ready to rumble!”

We all jumped, startled. Nina stood in the doorway, her eyes wild with adrenaline, a Bic lighter in one hand and the can of air freshener in the other.

She turned away from us, faced the open waiting-room door and screamed, “I got somethin’ for ya! Do you feel lucky?”

“Oh, Jesus,” I moaned. “Why me?”

“Nina, come on. There’s a time to kick ass and this ain’t it. Follow Jake!” I slid my hand behind my back and pulled the Glock out of my waistband. “I’m the tail on this one,” I called to Jake. “Get them out of here!”

I wanted to say, “See, I told you so!” but, of course, this was definitely not the time for that. We had six men with guns looking to have a close encounter and the only thing standing between us and annihilation was a one-man parade. I looked back out at the street. The song was ending and the groundhog seemed to be signaling the driver to stop. Who in the hell was this guy? Was it Joey Smack in a new costume or what?

As the truck shuddered to a halt, the groundhog in black tie looked up at the office window and began to speak.

“Lucy, darling, I know you’re in there! Let me see your sweet face at yon window!”

He threw his arm up and out toward our office, almost reeling off balance with the force of his movement. I shrank back against the drapes and watched as Joey Smack’s boys stared in helpless frustration. A crowd of onlookers was beginning to gather, not a good omen for your run-of-the-mill mafia retaliatory hit. The mob, on the whole, and Joey, aka “Santa” Smack, in particular, liked anonymity when they killed people.

I felt some of the tension begin to ease out of my neck and shoulders and a smile began to play across my lips. This wasn’t Joey Smack, but who in the world was it and how did he know Aunt Lucy was in my office?

“Lucy, dear, I have loved you from afar, and now I come searching for some sweet remembrance of you, some token I might carry close to my heart until you accept me as your soul mate!”

I turned and stared back at Jake. He was herding the others toward the back exit, the door that led downstairs to the employee parking lot. We might not have a mission statement, but we, by God, had an emergency exit to the first floor.

The music started up again outside, accompanied by a chorus of car horns as the trapped motorists voiced their irritation at the prolonged delay.

“Lucy dearest, I must bid you adieu for now. Parting is such sweet sorrow!” the lovesick groundhog cried.

The truck jerked into gear and lurched forward as the quivering flatbed began inching once again down Lancaster Avenue.

“’Tis a far, far better thing I do…” I heard the guy yell, “than I have ever… Oh, dear!”

The microphone clattered to the floor of the truck as its holder grasped frantically at a rose-covered jukebox for balance. Joey Smack’s men seemed momentarily undecided about pursuing their mission, and I decided to err on the side of caution. I jumped in front of the window, threw it open and leaned out as far as I could.

“Help! Police! Those men have guns!” I yelled. “I think they’re going to rob the bank! Call 911!”

The disbursing crowd stopped, frozen by the new drama.

“Over there!” I yelled, pointing to Joey Smack’s elves. “Call the police!”

If there had been any ambivalence on the part of the six men below me, it was now gone as they headed for their two cars, heads down, hat brims pulled low over their Neanderthal brows.

“Yes!” I crowed triumphantly. I flipped open my cell phone, hit number one on the speed dial and waited.

“Done!” I said when Jake answered. “But not for long. Pull into Aunt Lucy’s garage, sneak them into the house and tell them to grab whatever essentials they need for a week out of town. And I mean essentials like medicines and dentures, not hair gel and accessories.”

Jake chuckled. “That might be a hard sell,” he murmured. “You know your aunt. She’ll pack half the lab and then start on the kitchen.”

“There were six of them,” I said. “They weren’t looking to play. Jake, I think Joey Smack’s mad about more than a sleigh repo. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have a good feeling about it. I think a week away ought to give us enough time to figure out what the hell is going on.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Jake hated anything that seemed like a retreat in the face of enemy combatants, his Delta Force training had made him like that. He hadn’t modified his approach to accommodate the civilian business world, where tanks and machine guns didn’t grow on trees, and the laws forbid the use of deadly force on a casual basis.

In the background I could hear my aunt’s voice explaining something technical, probably to Spike. I shivered. If anything happened to her, or in fact to anyone close to me, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself. What had we been thinking, starting up such a risky business without considering the repercussions?

“Can you get out of there safely?” Jake asked. “Do you need backup?”

I looked out at the street. Joey Smack’s men were gone, or at least, out of sight.

“I’m good,” I said. “I’ve got Aunt Lucy’s spare car key on my key chain. I’ll drive her Buick. I’m not coming near the house unless you need me. I’ll head on down to the shore. I’ll call you when I get into town and tell you where to meet me.”

“Good,” he said. There was a brief pause and when he spoke again his voice was soft and husky. “Be very careful.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “I will.”

I flipped the phone shut, still smiling, and locked up the office. I grabbed the paperwork on Mia’s case, pulled up the trapdoor and made my escape through the back exit of the print shop below. Joey Smack’s goons were nowhere in sight. Ten minutes later I was on Route 322, leaving town with nobody on my tail and nothing but the highway to keep me company.

I found myself flipping through the radio stations, looking for road music, not listening to any of it because all I could hear was Jake’s voice in my head. “Be very careful,” he’d said. His tone had been different from anything I’d heard from him before. It wasn’t casual; it was full of unspoken emotion. It wasn’t Jake tossing off an order; it was Jake invested in the outcome, very invested.

Oh, who was I kidding? Jake didn’t really want me. He wanted the thrill of the chase, not a relationship. He wanted to make up for being too scared to follow through with the ceremony during our botched elopement in high school. He didn’t really want me; he wanted to polish his tarnished bad-boy crown.

I stabbed at the radio, looking for something to drown out the embarrassing memory of parking in front of a Maryland justice of the peace’s house and waiting for hours for Jake to show up so we could get married. I cringed as I remembered that I’d only left after the justice of the peace himself had emerged from his front door and started walking purposefully toward the car.

Bruce Springsteen’s voice broke in on the memory singing “Born to Run.” I took my finger away from the scan button and let him have his say. It was the perfect music for a trip to Jersey and a stroll down bad-memory lane.

I’d come back to Pennsylvania for all the wrong reasons. I’d come back, tuck-tailed, because I’d caught my boyfriend in bed with my patrol partner. I’d come back to lick my wounds, and yes, I’ll admit it, I’d come back seeking revenge on Jake. But, revenge was supposed to be a passing encounter on the street.

I had it all worked out in my fantasies. I’d walk by. He’d stop and scratch his head, thinking, “Hey, wasn’t that Stella?” Only, I looked good now and I kicked bad-guy ass for a living. I wasn’t some shy nerd with no experience who believed any line of talk a guy gave her. I was the new-and-improved version of the old Stella Valocchi and Jake Carpenter didn’t stand a chance with me.

So how was it I wound up trusting him when everyone else thought he’d murdered my uncle? Of course, we’d found the real murderer, but that didn’t explain why I’d gone into business with him. And how on earth did I wind up butt naked this afternoon, lying on my bed with his lips dangerously close to providing me with a dose of nirvana I might never be able to forget?

The mere memory of this afternoon’s close encounter brought my heart up into my throat. All right, so maybe I wanted the man, but just on a temporary basis, then I’d be over it. One night of torrid lovemaking and I could put Jake Carpenter behind me. One night and I could move on with my life. Hell, maybe we could even be friends one day.

I mulled that one over for a moment, watching the traffic ahead of me as day turned into night and rush hour dispensed millions of cars onto the highway. Jake and I had to work together. It wasn’t as if we really had any viable alternatives. His auto-body shop had burnt to the ground in a fire. It would be months before the insurance money came through and he finished rebuilding. He needed money, and repo work was usually a cakewalk.

And what did I have to go back to in Florida? A boyfriend and a partner who’d betrayed me by sleeping together. What kind of life was that? No, my days on the force were a thing of the past. I had to find a new career and take care of my aunt. That meant Jake and I had to work together. Romance mixed with business spelled disaster every time. I was living proof of that.

I sighed and stabbed the scan button again. There was no way I could really sleep with Jake Carpenter. The revenge might be sweet, but the consequences could ruin me. No, it was definitely better not to think about Jake at all, not in that way at least. I felt my heart sink as Aunt Lucy’s Buick began to crawl across the Ben Franklin Bridge into New Jersey. I was feeling sorry for myself. I mean, all I wanted was a normal relationship, with a normal guy. Was that so much to ask?

The cell phone chirped and I lunged for it, happy to have the distraction.

“Hello?”

There was a pause, the crackle of static, and then a voice, low and guttural, spoke.

“You took something of mine,” it said. “You got exactly twelve hours to return it.”

“Mr. Spagnazi,” I said, guessing. “We were employed by the Lifetime Novelty Company to repossess your sled. Take it up with them.”

“I’m taking it up with you. This don’t have nothing to do with them.”

The man was a total lunatic.

“It’s on their lot,” I said patiently. “It’s not my problem.”

I flipped the cell phone shut and tossed it onto the passenger seat. This was insane. We do a simple repossession and look at the consequences: Jake gets shot and Joey Smack loses his mind. I shook my head to clear it, switched off the radio and forced myself to begin thinking about the business at hand. I made a mental to-do list: find a place to stay, ask around about Mia Lange’s brother and get Joey Smack off our backs.

I was winding my way through the lonesome stretch of Jersey Pine Barrens when the cell phone rang again.

“Your aunt talked to her friend with the house in Surfside Isle,” Jake said. He was all business, no “hello,” no concerned tone. Clearly I’d been hallucinating when I’d talked to him last time, but my stomach lurched all the same at the sound of his voice.

“She left a key with the neighbor. The address is 732 Forty-eighth Street. You got that?”

“No problem,” I answered.

“Good. Stop by the local grocery on your way in, too, okay? We’re gonna need beer, and coffee for the morning. I figure we can order pizza later. I’m starved.”

What was I, his mother? I felt my grip tighten on the cell phone. “Anything else?” I asked, my tone sticky sweet.

The sarcasm was lost on him. “Yeah, if you don’t mind, swing in somewhere and pick up a saltwater rig and some tackle. I wanna get some surf fishing in before we leave.”

I flipped the phone shut and tossed it over my shoulder into the back seat. Men! What a piece of work!

“I wanna get some surf fishing in,” I mimicked. “Yeah, and I want to spend a day at the spa and have my hair and nails done afterward.” What a freaking clown.

I looked at the clock on Aunt Lucy’s dash and figured I had a half hour left before I hit Surfside Isle. I settled back in the driver’s seat and tried to catch a glimpse of the ocean, but it was pitch-dark outside. I tried to remember the last time I’d paid a visit to the Jersey shore and found nothing but a few vague memories from high school.

The Shore was where everyone in Glenn Ford went for Senior Week if they couldn’t afford Florida. It was a black-and-white TV, a poor substitute for the living color of Florida with its crystal-blue waters and green palm trees. The Shore was in-your-face action, loud music, the boardwalk and sex.

Where Florida was all talk, Jersey delivered. Jersey didn’t make you act nice or talk pretty to get what you wanted; it shoved it at you with one hand and took your money with the other. The Shore fit the Jake I knew from the old days, but it couldn’t hold me, not any longer. I wanted something with more passion, more feeling behind it. I wanted something wonderful to remember, not an embarrassing encounter I couldn’t forget.

I cruised through Long Beach and thought about summers with my girlfriends, back before I’d known Jake. I remembered a sky-blue bikini with metal star studs, the smell of lemon juice in my hair, and the sting of too many hours spent laughing and playing in the sun. I remembered in flashes a vacation before my parents died, my father laughing and my mother taking pictures. It was good back then.

I sighed and looked past the ghosts, out into the winter’s night, and saw the briefest glimpse of moonlight hitting water. It could be good again, I thought. “Good times always follow the bad,” I murmured, quoting my uncle Benny.

A few miles later I entered Surfside Isle. Even on a winter’s night, with almost everything closed up tight, Surfside Isle demanded attention. The Ferris wheel in the amusement park caught the eye of the moon and glowed like a street-walker wanting attention. Neon signs winked Vacancy, or worse, Closed for the Season. I slowed the Buick to a crawl, passing shops and restaurants. Row after row of shingled cottages looked bereft without their summer visitors.

I pulled into the parking lot of the only place in town that appeared to serve food and was still open. The sign in the middle of the big glass window said Marti’s Café. It was the kind of place that probably got overlooked in the summer. It didn’t have the typical beach neon to beckon customers. No plastic swordfish to imply a rich menu of fresh seafood. It was simple, the kind of place locals probably frequent and guard as a jealous secret against the onslaught of tourists. I stepped out of the car and started for the door just as the lone waitress switched the Open sign to Closed.

“Shit!” I swore under my breath. What now?

As if she’d heard me, the woman looked out, saw me, and with a sigh, gestured toward the door. She looked tired, as if it had been a long, slow day. Her pale pink uniform was stained with what looked like spaghetti sauce and coffee. I waited, smiling, as she fumbled to unlock the door. Her wiry red hair fell across her shoulders and she flipped it back impatiently as she struggled with the lock.

“Thanks,” I said as the door swung open.

She looked at me, dark circles under her even darker eyes, and attempted a return smile.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m the only game in town this time of year and you look worse than I feel. What’s another customer, eh? I could use the money, and honey, looking at you, you could use something to eat.”

Damn. Was it that bad? I inspected myself in the mirror above the diner counter and thought, well, yeah, I guess it is. My hair lay flat against the sides of my head. I was pale, even more washed-out because my naturally dark hair was still blond due to an unfortunate undercover assignment that had happened months ago in my former cop life. I looked like a tired ghost.

“Coffee?” the woman asked. She’d gone around the counter to grab the pot of ancient brew off its stand.

“Is it safe?”

“Do you really care? Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.”

“Don’t mind her,” a male voice interrupted. “She talks to everybody like that, don’t you, Marti?”

I’d overlooked the guy at the end of the counter. He was maybe midforties, curly salt-and-pepper hair, tall, wearing jeans and a faded navy T-shirt. From the way he looked at Marti, I figured him for a boyfriend. He looked lovesick. Then I looked at Marti and realized she was completely unaware of his feelings for her. I revised the picture. Maybe he was her husband; marriage is like that sometimes.

“You complaining, Tom?” she asked.

“Not me, babe, never.” He turned his attention to me and smiled, but not the way he smiled at Marti. “Get her to heat up the chili. Her chili’s like…” He hesitated for a moment. “Like…winning the Super Bowl when the other team was favored to cream you.”

Marti actually blushed. I did another mental revision; this was an awakening, a new relationship about to flower.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “I’ll do that. Chili sounds great.”

“You want fries with that?” Marti asked.

Behind her, Tom slowly shook his head.

“No, chili’s fine.”

“You know, I forgot about that corn bread you made,” Tom murmured.

I took the hint. “I love homemade corn bread!”

Marti, seeing the setup, smiled at Tom. I settled back on my stool and felt myself begin to relax. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a raw deal after all. Maybe we’d find Mia’s brother right away and still have time to spend a few days relaxing.

“Do you live here?”

Tom took a sip from his coffee mug. “Well, I did when I was little, but I moved away. I came back a couple of months ago for a two-week visit and haven’t left yet, so I guess you could say I live here.”

“Must be a pretty small town in the winter months,” I said.

Tom smiled. “Just gives me more time to learn the routine around here before the tourists start coming back and all hell breaks loose.”

I tried to drink a sip of my coffee, smelled the acrid scent of burned beans and put the cup back on the counter. Tom’s attention was split between entertaining me and being entertained by Marti. He watched every move she made through the open window into the kitchen, but glanced away if she looked up, too shy to be caught and too entranced to stop staring.

“Yeah, Surfside’s small but it’s grown a lot since I lived here.” He swiveled a little on his stool. “What brings you to the beach in the dead of winter?”

“Well, I met a guy who said he lived here. He made the town sound really beautiful. I thought I’d come visit, maybe run into him again.”

Tom’s attention switched back to me. “He doesn’t know you’re here?”

I tried to look embarrassed. “Well, no. You see, we met in a park two years ago in…New York, Central Park, and well, somehow we just started talking. He said I should come to Surfside Isle and look him up if I could, but…”

I looked down at my hands and bit the inside of my cheek thinking I should’ve taken up acting.

“I feel so stupid. See, he gave me his card and I lost it.”

Tom laughed, a rich, deep chuckle that made Marti look up from her place behind the window.

“You lost it? So you just came here looking for a guy who lives somewhere in Surfside Isle but you don’t know where? What’s his name? And why did you wait two years?”

I kept my head down. “I don’t know,” I murmured. “I can’t remember his name. You see, I was dating someone and so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but I kept thinking about him, I don’t know why, and when Glen and I broke it off, I suppose I…oh, I know, it’s stupid!”

Tom almost fell off his chair laughing. Marti slid chili and corn bread up onto the window’s counter and walked through the door to join us.

“What’s so funny about that?” she asked. “You mean to say you never met somebody, looked into their eyes and felt they could be the one? And then something happens and—” she snapped her fingers “—just like that, they’re gone and you never got a chance to see what was there. That never happened to you?”

Tom looked right into Marti’s eyes and smiled. “Yes,” he said. “And I made a resolution about that kind of thing. I don’t waste opportunities anymore.”

The force of Tom’s intensity seemed to radiate into the room, filling it with feeling and unspoken emotion. If it had been a two-by-four, the realization couldn’t have hit Marti any harder. Her eyes widened, her mouth fell open, and she turned bright red.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh!”

I watched my chili grow cold in the pass-through window behind her for a long minute as Marti and Tom stood staring at each other, oblivious to anything and everything but their own, newly created world. It was Marti who dropped back into the reality of the moment and realized where she was.

“Your chili!” she said, practically throwing the bowl from shelf to counter.

“Thank you!” I scooted back as the bowl slid toward me, sloshing dangerously.

Marti picked up a rag and began swiping furiously at the counter between us, ignoring Tom.

“You don’t remember his name?” she asked.

I shook my head. The chili was hot and deliciously spicy. I’d almost lost interest in Mia Lange and her brother. Almost.

“What’s he look like?”

I choked. What the hell did he look like?

“Well, he’s about forty, I’d say, and um…well, you know…cute…average height, great eyes.”

I shoveled chili into my mouth and avoided eye contact. They had to think I was a total ditz. I couldn’t even describe him to them. Fortunately, Marti and Tom were too wrapped up in each other to pay too much attention to me. They tried, but I knew they were just waiting for me to leave so they could talk.

They made a halfhearted attempt to review the café’s regulars. By the time I’d finished the corn bread, they agreed that they hadn’t seen any “cute” men in their forties who lived year-round in Surfside Isle, but they did know how to direct me to my rental house.

I left with a clear idea of where I was heading, but the sinking feeling that finding Mia Lange’s brother would be no easy task.

My cell phone rang as I started the car.

“You buy bait?” Jake asked without preamble.

“No,” I answered. “Did you really think anyplace would be open this time of year?”

Jake sighed. “There are no problems,” he said, “only solutions. That’s why I’m calling. I stopped a while back and took care of it.”

In the background I heard Nina yell, “I told him it could wait!”

“Well, you can buy all the bait you want, but you’re not fishing until we find our client’s brother.”

Jake snorted. “How hard can that be? A small beach town can’t have too many regulars.”

I rolled my eyes and visualized myself punting him like a football out into the surf off Surfside Isle.

“We’ll be there soon,” he said. “We’re just crossing the bridge. How’s the house?”

“I don’t know. I’m just pulling up in front of it now. You’ll see for yourself in about twenty minutes.”

I rolled slowly down Forty-eight Street and pulled into the driveway of a small, brown-shingled cottage. The street was desolate. A few houses, including the neighbor to the left of our house, had lights on, but that was it. No one moved in front of the windows, no one walked down the sidewalks, nothing passed under the few lonely street lamps.

“The neighbor on the right has the key,” he instructed.

“The neighbor on the left,” I said.

Jake sighed. “She said right.”

“Depends on how you look at it,” I snapped. “See you when you get here.” I closed the phone, cut the engine and got out of the car before he could call back.

“Do I look like I need supervision?” I asked the car. “I didn’t think so!”