Stella, Get Your Man

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?