The Cortez removed himself from the bar stool, stretched and then proceeded to walk toward the rest rooms at the rear of the diner.
“I’m thinkin’ it wouldn’t be a good idea to take a piss right now,” said T.J.
“I’m thinkin’ it might be a good idea to shop for some sunscreen for tomorrow’s little boat ride,” added Danny.
“Too obvious. We don’t run away,” whispered Coop. “Just be cool. All will be well.”
Jake clinked bottles with him and he grabbed a jalapeno pepper and bit into it boldly. It didn’t take long before his cheeks were lined in tears, but he refused to say a word.
“Fearless, that’s you, bro’” laughed T.J.
“I think you fixed your plumbing problem, Jake. No more babies for you,” Danny scoffed.
“Forget the sunscreen. Go for the Pepto, maybe some Prep H.” Coop was grinning straight at him. “You know you love this. The fate of your life hanging in the balance, like jumping out of thirteen thousand feet.”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” It was all Jake could say. He wiped his eyes with the napkin, and then started to blow his nose when the General sauntered into the room. He took a detour and approached their table.
“We have some Gringos here, I see.” He gently bowed to Coop. Jake kept the napkin over his nose as if he was going to blow once the General was gone, out of respect for his officialdom.
“Calvin Cooper, sir,” Coop said in exaggerated Southern accent. “This here’s Jack.” He pointed to Jake and he raised one hand, keeping the other on his nose. “We got T.J. and Danny.”
Danny eagerly shook the General’s hand while T.J. waved casually.
“Any of you guys military?” Cortez asked.
“Former,” Coop said pointing to his chest, “Former,” he said pointing to Danny. “Nope and nope,” he said as he pointed to Jake and T.J.
Jake sneezed and blew snot all over the table and the food, which earned him some moans as one by one his buds wadded up their napkins and added them to the table. The General took a brisk step backward and scowled.
“That’s just wrong, Jack, you asshole!” Coop barked.
Jake continued to wipe his nose and then quickly took a drink of water. His eyes were still running and his nose felt bright red. He hoped it added to the disguise. He blew one more time, and this time the General had tolerated all he could. Staring back at Jake like he was a leper, he sneered and returned to the bar.
“We done here?” asked T.J.
“I need a fuckin’ shower,” Danny pouted and pretended to brush remnants of Jake’s sneeze off the front of his shirt.
Cooper left extra money for the cook and waitress and they all stood and smooth as silk, exited the cantina. Jake didn’t start to breathe normally until they got nearly a block away. Normally, they would have browsed in some of the little shops and haggled with the street vendors again, but today, their gait was rather brisk. At the first available alleyway, they turned and got off the main road.
“Holy shit that was close,” Jake whispered.
“Only time I’ve been happy to be sneezed on. Was that all real?” Cooper was shaking his head.
“One hundred percent real,” Jake answered.
“Timing’s good, at least. Jake, you okay?” T.J. put a hand on his shoulder and examined his face.
“Now for my next trick, I’m about to have a bowel movement.” Jake followed it up with a goofy grin.
“I thought to myself why on earth Kyle let you come,” Coop said. “Then I remembered. You’re the comic relief, right?”
They continued through the alleyway and cut across another wider street, but kept to the alleyway all the way back to the outskirts of town, headed toward the rental house. Instead of walking along the dusty roadway with no sidewalk, they moved onto the beach and walked in the clean white sand close to the surf.
Jake realized how clean and invigorating the ocean was. His nose stopped throbbing from the hit his sinuses had taken with the pepper, and he began to swallow again. He reached down and held a palmful of seawater to his lips and nose and rinsed his face off.
The heat had been somewhat oppressive in town, but here by the ocean, a gentle breeze swirled around all of them. The sound of the pounding surf was so strong it was impossible to talk, so each of them went to their private places as they leisurely strolled down the beach.
At the house, they turned up toward the rear sliders, which were locked. Coop went around to the front and unlocked the sliders after he let himself in.
“I’m hitting the bed for a few. Wake me if we’re doing anything?” Jake said.
Cooper was texting and nodded. “Um. Hum.”
“I’m headed for the shower,” said Danny.
“Coop? You want to go for a swim in the ocean?” asked T.J.
“Sure.”
“I’ll join,” added Danny.
“I’m still headed for the bed. Have fun, mermaids.”
From the upstairs bedroom, Jake watched his three Team buds dive into the surf and take turns swimming lanes back and forth at the outer edges of the waves. This would have been a great vacation to take Ginger and the girls to. They would have loved the shopping, and had their picture taken with the little boy who had his pet iguana on his shoulder. They’d pay too much for trinkets and stare at the little girls their own age.
He hoped they’d be able to find the Navy asshole they were looking for.
He splashed water on his face again in the bathroom, careful not to drink any of the water. He opened another bottled water they’d brought and stared out at the window one more time.
A line of four military uniformed men was marching down the beach. He was relieved to note that none of them had medals.
Miss you, Ginger. Hope to come home soon. Kiss the girls for me.
Chapter 14
GERUD BROUGHT THE plans for the shopping center expansion when he visited his father. He unrolled them over the sunny table in the older man’s yard. Gerud watched his father’s gnarled hands shake as his fingers smoothed over the drawings, stopping to check a legend, and angling his head down to read some of the fine print descriptions.
“So, Gerud, from the looks of this, you are only about forty percent built out. Any reason for this?”
“Well, that’s the way we bought it.”
“So you own this yourself?”
“Actually no, my fath—”
“Just stop with that and say it. Next time you do that I’m going to be angry with you.”
“My father and I own it together. But my brother is in charge of his estate, but I’m going to see if he will let me take it over, since it is technically upside down.”
Peterson frowned and looked up at his son. “Why on earth would you do that?”
“Well,” Gerud shrugged and talked to the hedge next to them as if it was an audience of investors, “To finish out our vision for the place. To show that it can be done.”
“So you have an alligator, and now you want to make babies with her?”
Gerud giggled at the suggestion, which was damn funny.
“It’s not funny, Gerud. If you continue to do business this way, you’ll be broke inside a year. I’m deadly serious.”
“Rob—”
“There you go!”
“Thank you. I think this is an alligator because it is too small and doesn’t draw the traffic if it was built out. There are a number of stores that can’t go in here because there is not enough parking, and the retail space is way too small for them. We’ve been contacted by retailers who wanted to know if we had expansion plans.”
Peterson scanned the drawings and then put his fingers to his lips. “So the parking is here, is that right?”
“Yes, at the present time. But look at that space if it was opened up. Not only would you have a huge lot in front of a big box store, you’d add great accessible parking to the smaller boutique shops by doing so. It’s a win for everyone.”
“At a pretty pe
nny.”
“Well, parking lots are cheap. The storefronts? That’s where the expense is.”
“So you need to attract a good anchor tenant, is that what you’re saying?”
“Exactly.”
Peterson sat back in his wheelchair and took another sip of his milkshake. “What are the features and benefits to an anchor tenant?”
“The obvious one. The golf course.”
“And why is that?”
“Because on any good non-rainy day, and even some rainy ones, they get nearly twelve hundred people on or around this area, not counting families or others who are not golfing.”
“But this is a golfing resort. Why do you think the golf course is the net draw? Look at the surrounding home sites?” His hand swept over the paper. “And here’s a big problem for an anchor tenant.” He placed his forefinger on the end of a cul-de-sac abutting the proposed parking lot. “There is no direct access to the home sites. Only access is either off the highway, here, or from the golf course parking lot, here.”
Gerud looked at the map again and couldn’t believe what Peterson had pointed out to him.
“Tell me, Gerud, would you battle the single lane nearly bumper to bumper traffic that I know exists there during heavy commute hours, and especially on weekends, to go from your driveway, to the highway and then turn back to the center? If I was going to do that, I might go all the way into the next town where there are three big shopping centers.”
“How did you know that?” Gerud asked.
“Because I own one.”
He was dumbfounded. “Which one?”
“Doesn’t matter. Any of them are fine. And we’re all connected so we draw traffic for each other. We try to make it easy for people to get in and hard for them to get out. They’ll spend a day there, or at least do something while they’re waiting for the traffic to thin out.”
Gerud scanned the map again.
“That, right there,” he said, again pointing to the cul-de-sac, “is your alligator.”
“So how do I get them to open it up?”
Peterson shrugged. “You give them something they want. What does the golf course and the homeowners association want?”
Gerud didn’t have an answer for him.
“Have you ever gone over there and stayed at one of those vacation homes?”
“No. I’ve visited, and I’ve played the course several times. My dad and I have together.”
“Do they have a post office?”
“No, they don’t.”
“And if you were going to attend a meeting, a small concert there, or a lecture, where would you go?”
“Well, there are three beautiful hotels here. Tons of convention space too, meeting rooms.”
“Free?”
“Um, I would guess not.”
“Exactly. And they go into Kapulua for their mail, don’t they?”
“I believe so.”
“In that ugly portable building that looks like an old school classroom.”
“Yes.”
“And they have a one year waiting list to get a post office box there.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Because the homeowners association doesn’t allow mailboxes. What a smart idea that was.”
“Wow. You really know your stuff, Rob.”
“Gerud. You don’t make money by accident. You have to plan your attack. A big new post office and a meeting room free for members to use would draw them to your center in droves, if you had good retail support. You have two ice cream shops, some little local retailers, and a good deli. I’ve been in it. He was a good addition. But for a sit-down meal, you have to go pay a hundred bucks at one of the resorts or the links restaurant. What if you had a family with children who can’t afford that? They can’t all eat ice cream every day.”
“You’re quite right.”
“Sir,” Alex interrupted. “You can.”
Peterson threw back his head and laughed. “That’s right,” he said after he composed himself. “I’m special.”
BY THE TIME they’d finished talking and Gerud had rolled up the plans, his father helped him make a list of things he could do to get his access to the housing development, even creating a plan for three places residents could enter the shopping center so that the burden didn’t fall on one particular street. He had a list of items he was given as homework, things to research.
“So, Gerud, all this is a no go if you can’t negotiate with your brother.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, actually, your first job is to negotiate with the lender on this property. Bank of Hawaii, is it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to have to tell them you won’t be making payments for a year while you develop this. And tell them it might be two years.”
“Wait a minute. Why would they do that?”
Peterson grinned. “Do you think you could sell this thing and get your money out?”
“Hell no. I’ve told them that when they threaten to take it all away.”
“My point exactly. They are prodding you with something, the threat of doing something they have no intention of doing. Your father might have had assets they could go after. But he’s gone now. And you don’t. But if they think you have a backer, they’ll give you time before they own this alligator for themselves, which will not look very nice on their balance sheet.”
“A backer?”
“Me.”
“You would do that, sir?”
“I told you I’d help you, but I intend to make money on it. This isn’t a gift. It’s a loan.”
“Okay.”
“I can see you have questions. Let me answer one of them. Will I be around to get my return? The answer to that is yes. Because if I don’t, then I will haunt you all the days in the rest of your life!”
Chapter 15
GINGER FED THE kids lunch and then called Christy to see if she was okay with her bringing the kids to Adele’s house for a swim. She was feeling the need of some extra eyes to help her with the kids, but actually to calm her nerves. The incident outside the library today still bothered her. Her own home felt small, and the neighborhood wasn’t as nice as Adele’s, so she felt vulnerable. With the workmen and landscapers all around, she thought the sheer numbers of people around would make her feel more protected.
Christy was fine with it, so next she called Adele, who was delighted. “I Monica is bringing Sam over this evening. She has a date with one of the men she met at your father-in-law’s service.”
“Really? That’s nice. I thought the whole team was down with Jake.”
“That’s all she told me sweetie. Someone new perhaps who didn’t get asked to go? Or someone on another Team. But he’s definitely a SEAL.”
“Jake will want to hear all about it. And he’ll check the guy out thoroughly.”
Adele laughed. “Ginger, you are taking this way better than I ever guessed you would. You know, some wives would get downright territorial.”
“Believe me, Adele, I’m learning every day. Every day is a stretch for me. Not at the breaking point yet, and trying to be accepting and flexible. But sometimes I’d like to drop kick Jake for being so irresponsible, and other times I want to drop kick the exes.”
“Well, you come on over here when you can.”
The children were all excited, except Brandon had a problem. He pulled on Ginger’s top and asked her to bend over so he could whisper something.
“I don’t have swimming trunks.”
“Maybe Adele has some. She’s got kids over there all the time. But if not, you can just go in your underwear.”
Brandon fidgeted, biting his lip and staring at his pointed toe trying to dig a hole to China. He crooked his forefinger again, a signal Ginger better lean down again.
“What is it, sweetie?”
“I want commando like Dad does sometimes.”
She was trying to hold it all inside, and finally had to slap her hand acros
s her mouth.
“Then I give you permission to wear those.” She pointed to his shorts.
“What will I wear home, then?”
“You can wear one of my girl’s dresses, or you can wrap your naked body in a towel, my man.”
Brandon looked at her horrified, shocked that she’d said such a thing.
“Why don’t we go to Jasmine’s dresser and see if she has something you can wear that’s plain enough to be worn by a handsome man like yourself.”
“Absolutely no flowers,” he said, pointing to the ceiling with his forefinger.
Ginger asked the girls to watch Maggie for a couple of minutes while she and Brandon went into the girls’ room.
“Yuck!” Brandon said, examining all the pink on the walls and the pictures of Chelsea Fiona taken by a cell phone and then printed out. The dog streaked past them and jumped on Jennifer’s made bed, waiting to watch what they were up to.
“It stinks in here.”
“That would be the perfume Jasmine got for her birthday and Jennifer dropped. Sorry.”
Ginger went to the third drawer in a painted bureau and started sifting through several pairs of long as well as short pants. She found a gray pair of stretchy shorts. “How about this.”
“No. Doesn’t have the thing, you know, there.”
He’d been referring to the zipper or button enclosure like most boys’ pants had.
“Oh that doesn’t matter. You just pull them down if you have to go.”
“No, it will show my thing.”
“Oh.” Ginger noted that her lack of experience with little boys was showing. Inside, she was about ready to bust a gut. But she took his demands very seriously.
At last she found a pair of plain jeans shorts. It also didn’t have an enclosure, but it had stitching to make it look like it had one, and that was acceptable to Brandon.
The problem was solved.
GINGER HELD CHELSEA Fiona under her arm when they walked through Adele’s front door. “I hope you don’t mind. I was worried she’d just yap and yap and I’d get in trouble with the neighbors.”
“Nonsense! I’m the reason you got her. All my fault,” she bent down, took the dog and talked baby talk to him.
Band of Bachelors: Jake2: Book 4 (SEAL Brotherhood) Page 9