“God is giving you a nudge with his big toe,” Grace diagnosed.
“Say what?”
“God has plans for you. I’ve told you all along that Ronnie is your wife, despite all the divorces. God’s getting tired of the way you keep mangling things. So, he’s giving you a push.”
Jake’s mouth dropped open with shock. Yeah, she had been a nun at one time, but she had to be kidding about this religious bunk. “So, that’s your story?”
“And I’m sticking to it.”
“You should listen to her,” Angel said. “She has an in with the Big Guy.”
“I do not,” Grace protested. “Some things are just obvious.”
“Not so obvious to me,” Jake grumbled. “I can’t go through this again. I’m still raw from our last divorce.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something?” Grace shook her head at his defeatist attitude.
“Ya do what ya gotta do.” That was Angel’s half-assed advice, which was almost as bad as the God’s toe business.
“Listen, Jake, you love Ronnie; she loves you.” This from Grace. “That’s more than most marriages in trouble have to go on. It’s a foundation, for heaven’s sake. Build from there.” Grace was getting exasperated with him. He was exasperated with himself.
“Easy for you to say.”
“No, it’s not easy for me to say. I wish I had someone in my life to love me the way you and Ronnie love each other.”
Grace was getting riled up, and Angel didn’t help matters when he offered, “I’ll love you.”
“Get a life,” Grace said. “Like I’d ever stand in your sex line.”
“I beg your pardon.” Angel really appeared to be offended.
Jake laughed, glad to have the attention away from him. But that didn’t last long.
“I never did understand what keeps breaking you and Ronnie up,” Angel said. “Bad sex?”
It was just like Angel to think about sex. The horndog.
“No, sex has always been great with us.”
“Holy crap, what’s wrong with you two, then? Love and sex, what more do you want?” Angel gazed at him as if he were a peculiar bug under a microscope.
“Angel, sometimes you are a world-class jerk. Bad sex?” Grace mimicked. Then she turned to Jake. “Is it the poker?”
“Partly. Correction, it was a big reason with our first marriage. I was doing extreme stuff in the beginning. Putting a second mortgage on the house to fund my gambling, that kind of thing.”
Grace and Angel understood. Lots of professional gamblers took foolish risks at first. Angel, for example, lost his auto body shop. Grace did some nutty things while still in the convent.
“Are you addicted? Are you low on cash? Do you even enjoy the game anymore? Do you need to gamble . . . for the money, I mean?” Talk about cutting right to the bone! Angel should know better, though.
“This last tournament, on top of my last book deal, put me over the million-dollar mark. I’ve salted most of it away in safe stocks and won’t touch that for gambling—ever. I still have a hundred thou in seed money for poker.” He wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t know. In truth, the three of them had done extremely well the past two years.
“Have you told Ronnie that?” Grace asked.
“No.” He’d be damned if he tried to get her back that way. If she didn’t want him with all his warts, well, screw her. “Besides, that wasn’t our only problem.”
“If you offered to give it up—don’t look at me like that—would she come back to you?” Grace asked.
“I doubt it. And, dammit, yes, I could walk away. But I don’t want to. I think I’ll always want to play, at least occasionally.”
“There are two sides to every story. What does Ronnie do to contribute to your breakups?” Grace sure was being persistent today.
“She can be so priggish sometimes. She picks fights with me. She thinks poker is worthless, which pretty much means she thinks I’m worthless. Her grandmother gives witches a bad name, which means Ronnie probably has witch genes. Her grandfather is a nutcase, which means she probably has nut genes, too. Other than that, she’s perfect.”
They both smiled at his portrayal of Ronnie, not believing for one minute that he thought so little of her.
Just then, his cell phone rang. He opened the lid, hoping it wasn’t Trish again. She kept calling, and he didn’t know what to say to her. But, no, it was a strange number, with a New Jersey area code.
“Jensen here,” he said into the phone.
“Jake, is that you?” It was Frank. He must be using someone’s cell phone.
“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?”
“Out on Sweet Jinx. We started the Pink Project on Monday.”
“Out? You mean on the ocean?”
“Where else, dumbbell? Did you think we took the boat to the mall?”
Frank’s sarcasm annoyed him, but he put that aside. “Uh, who’s there with you?”
“Brenda, Flossie, LeDeux, Peachey, Famosa, and . . .”
Jake held his breath.
“And Ronnie.”
“On a boat? Ronnie’s out on a boat?”
“Yep. And she’s lovin’ it.”
Jake couldn’t believe his ears. Ronnie had this real fear of water. She could swim but preferred not to. And there was her nausea when near water. “Bet she’s inhaling Pepto by the gallon.”
“She was at first, but now she’s okay.”
“Really?” That irritated him. Ronnie shouldn’t be changing while he wasn’t around to see it. Good thing he didn’t say that aloud. Even he could see how immature that would sound.
“Listen, the battery on Brenda’s satellite phone is runnin’ low. I just called to tell you that you better get your ass here pronto. Ronnie’s about to make a big mistake.”
The fine hairs rose on the back of his neck. “What kind of mistake?”
“Sex.”
“Whaaaat?” Should I ask him? No! Yes! Dammit, how does he always trap me like this?
“These two guys are sniffing around her, like hounds on a poodle.”
“What two guys?” Like I don’t know.
“Famosa and Peachey. She already had a date with Famosa, but Peach is the one about to score . . . I think.”
Score? Oh, shit! Does he mean . . . What else could he mean? “Uh . . . what exactly do you mean by ‘score’?”
Frank said something so crude and graphic that Jake felt his face turn red, and he hardly ever blushed. “How do you know? They’re probably just friends.”
Frank snorted into the telephone. “I’m old, not dead. Don’t you think I can tell when a guy’s got sex on his mind? And that Peach, he could give you a run for your money. Flossie says he has a butt you could crack walnuts on, and Brenda says she heard SEALs can last like two hours in the sack.”
I do not friggin’ believe this. “What do you want me to do?”
“Do you still love her?”
He refused to answer. But he began to finger the worry beads in his pocket.
“This might be your last chance.”
The line went dead.
He was clutching those beads so hard he would probably have dents in his palm.
Angel and Grace looked at him with interest.
“Frank says Ronnie is out on a boat in the middle of the ocean, and you know how scared she is of water. Plus, the old fart says Ronnie is about to get it on with some guy who has a butt that could crack walnuts. And he has the staying power of a . . . Navy SEAL.”
Both their jaws dropped as they gaped at him. Then they burst out laughing.
“I should probably go back and help her. She’s probably terrified, being on the open seas and everything.”
They continued to laugh.
“And, really, Ronnie is naive when it comes to men. She needs me to check the guy out.”
They weren’t buying his motives one bit and went on laughing like hyenas. He thought about throwing his worry beads at them.
/>
“He says this is my last chance.”
They stopped laughing.
He left for home that night.
YMCA, YMCA . . .
Three days later, they still hadn’t located the exact site. Frank sensed they would soon, and his instincts were always good.
He got up before dawn and checked all the equipment that would be used on board once the divers went down, even though they had been checked and rechecked before. A person couldn’t be too careful on a diving operation.
He decided to do his morning push-ups before everyone else awakened. The sun just came over the horizon when he began. A small orange ball against a pale blue palette. Scenes like this convinced him there was a God. “One, two, three . . .”
“Oh, good Lord!” someone shrieked, and he fell flat to the deck like a pancake.
He got up on all fours, clumsily, then managed to sit down, even though his knees and other parts of his body protested. Turning, he saw Ronnie. “What the hell’s wrong with you, girl? Now I have to start over.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Probably.”
“You’re exercising with a cigar in your mouth,” she pointed out, as if he didn’t know.
“It’s not lit.”
“You’re seventy-five years old.”
“So?”
“It isn’t safe for you to exert yourself that way. Is it?”
“Now you’re going to worry about me? Pfff!”
“I just don’t want to deal with a dead body here at sea.”
“I promise not to die until we get back to Barnegat.”
“That is not funny.”
“I’ll tell you what’s funny. You worrying about me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you care.”
She snorted.
That snort hurt a bit, so he retorted, “You could use a little exercise yourself. I see some dimples on those thighs of yours.”
Ronnie gasped. If there was anything that was universal to women, it was concern about their thighs. Flossie even bought some $200 cellulite cream one time. He’d instinctively gone for the jugular with Ronnie. In truth, she looked fine . . . more than fine. Jake should be here to see her in that gold bathing suit with the black squiggles around the edges. He’d never let her go then.
“You are a nasty old man,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She dropped down to the floor beside him.
“What are you doing?” he asked suspiciously.
“If you can’t beat them, join them.”
“Well, that’s as clear as fog.”
“If you can do push-ups, then so can I. Besides, as you said, I need to work on my cellulite.”
So it was that five minutes later, they were still doing push-ups side by side. He had to admire his granddaughter. She was keeping up with him just fine.
Then Peach came on deck. “Those are sissy push-ups. You’re doing them wrong.”
He and Ronnie flattened themselves on the deck with a groan. They would have to start over.
“Well, big shot,” Ronnie said, “wanna show us how the big boys do push-ups?”
“Sure.” He smiled at Ronnie in a way Frank did not like. Not one bit. And did he have to walk around in only a bathing suit, showing off all those muscles? It was indecent for a man to be that fit.
“You need to prop yourself on the toes of your shoes and don’t go all the way down. Make your body parallel with the deck when you drop.”
They did several of those, and Frank’s heart about gave out. Then they changed to another “rotation,” this time one-arm push-ups. Peach was yelling, “Push ’em up! Push ’em up! Down! One! Down! Two! Down! Three!” like a badass drill sergeant. That was when Frank said to himself, “Forget this!” and resumed his regular push-ups. Ronnie kept up with Peach as best she could; he was probably doing them easier than he normally would.
Brenda walked up to them then, a coffee cup in her hand. Apparently, coffee was okay on her frickin’ fart diet. “Can I lose weight doing those?” she asked Peach. He and Ronnie sat up and took a breather, resting their forearms on their bent knees.
“Sure, but better yet, you’ll tone your muscles, especially if you add sit-ups and butt crunches to your routine. You’ll definitely lose inches.”
Brenda set her cup on the side and said, “I’m in. I need to look like Pamela Anderson without the boobs in six weeks.”
“I wish I had some weights,” Peach said. “They’re the best for toning and muscle definition. Even ankle weights would be good.”
“I wish I had one of those high-velocity fans,” Brenda said, as she huffed and puffed during her push-ups.
“There’s an air conditioner,” Frank pointed out.
“Yeah, but it’s not powerful enough. It’s hotter than Hades down there when the range and oven are both going full blast.”
“Well, if we’re talking about wishes, I wish I had a Starbucks double mocha latte with whipped cream. Yeah, I know, Brenda, there are way too many calories in the whipped cream. But it’s the best pick-me-up in the world.”
Only women could continue to yammer away when they are working up a sweat, Frank thought.
“Coffee isn’t good for you,” Peach told Ronnie.
Peach, on the other hand, could probably bench press a whale and still keep talking.
“Lots of things aren’t good for a person, but they’re delicious,” Ronnie replied.
Is there some innuendo in what she just said? I hope not. Frank stood and wiped his brow with a forearm. The three of them were going gangbusters. Jake would shit a brick if he could see Ronnie with her rear up in the air like that. And Peach! He glared at Peach, who paid him no attention; he was too busy ogling Ronnie’s rear in the air. Flossie was right. You could crack walnuts on his ass. Frank didn’t like that one bit. Females tended to be attracted by that kind of crap, and he didn’t want Ronnie attracted to anyone but Jake.
All three of them were sweating like hogs by then. He knew for sure that he was out of his league when Peach gasped out that old SEAL motto, “Pain is your friend, ladies. Welcome the pain.”
Frank snorted his opinion of that. Pain was a sign that your body couldn’t take any more, in his opinion. But what he said, instead, was, “I wish Jake was here.”
No one reacted to his wish. Not even Ronnie.
Jake better get here pretty soon.
If he’s coming at all.
Maybe he better go find that St. Jude statue that Louise Rivard, LeDeux’s great-aunt, had given him and all the other members of the crew. He was starting to panic; things were a little bit hopeless.
What if Ronnie discovered he wasn’t poor as a church mouse before Jake got here? Once she was reunited with Jake, he figured she would be too happy to care. But if Jake didn’t show up first . . . whoo-boy!
St. Jude, are you up there?
Making my way back to you, babe . . .
Jake flew into Newark that evening.
Angel had agreed to ship his bike back for him. Grace had hugged him and promised to pray for him.
Scary, that, someone praying for him. But, truthfully, he didn’t know how Ronnie would react to his coming back. Would she welcome him or tell him to hit the road, for good?
But first things first. He had to go down to Brigantine and break things off for good with Trish. It wasn’t fair to her, leaving her hanging in the wind, using her as a backup in case Ronnie gave him the no-go. Easier said than done when he got there. Trish cried. A lot. He felt lower than shark shit, as Frank would say, because he did care about her. Just not enough for a lifetime commitment.
Ronnie was another story altogether. He had no clue why he was here or what he hoped to accomplish; he just knew that he had to try . . . something. It was a bit like flying into the mist, letting happen what happened. Putting himself in fate’s hands—or God’s. Grace must be rubbing off on me.
But that was all behind him now. He drove into the parking lot of the Barnegat wharf where
Frank had his warehouse. He didn’t know what he was going to do next since Sweet Jinx was presumably still out to sea, but it seemed like a good starting place.
Right away, he noticed Anthony Menotti lounging against one of the piers, standing guard, he supposed, though there wasn’t much to guard. His brother was probably out on the boat.
He walked over. “Hey, Tony. You heard anything from the boat today?”
He nodded. “They still haven’t found the site. Maybe later today.”
“Any chance you know where they are?”
He gave him a look that pretty much said he was a dunce if he thought otherwise.
“What say we ride out and see what’s happening?”
Tony didn’t immediately say that it would be impossible, which led Jake to think they could, if he did a good enough job convincing his Mafia friend. “Why?”
Think quick, buddy. Think. “You could relieve your brother. I could pick up some fresh food supplies; they must be dying for fruit and a good steak, rather than fish. And, dammit, I need to see my wife . . . my ex-wife.”
Grinning at the last, only honest explanation Jake had given, Tony pointed out, “Frank is obsessive about keeping the site secret. He thinks other wreck divers would sniff out his site and steal the treasure.”
Jake reluctantly agreed that was a possibility. But then he thought of something. “I’ll bet you could lose a car chasing you, right?”
“Right.”
“There you go!”
“What does that have to do with . . . oh, I see. You’re challenging me to a boat chase, if necessary, to get us out there?”
“Bingo!”
Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he looked at Jake, then out to the watery horizon, then back at Jake. “I’ll do it, but not for any reasons you mentioned.”
“Oh?”
“I’m bored out of my skin here. It’s so bad I’ve been thinking about buying a paint-by-number set.”
Humor from the morbid mob brother? Amazing! “You go hire a boat. I’ll go to the store,” Jake suggested. “But be careful who you rent from. They might pass the word to one of Frank’s pirates.”
“I’ll just buy a boat. Meet me here in an hour.”
Just buy a boat? And have it ready to go in an hour? Okaaay! I do not want to know how that’s going to happen.