Sunset Beach(54)

Jonah shrugged. “The man has a point, Drue.”

Ben pushed his chair away from the table. “You don’t have a case. But you do have, I believe, a car that will start. Want to see?”

“More than anything,” Drue said.



* * *



Ben slid behind the steering wheel. With a ridiculously dramatic flourish, he stuck the key in the ignition and turned.

The Bronco’s engine roared to life.

“Hallelujah!” Drue exulted. “OJ has come back from the dead!”

Ben gave it some gas and the motor, miraculously, did not cut off. He got out of the car and Drue impulsively threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

“My hero!”

Ben looked at Jonah, who shrugged. “Looks like our work here is done, Batman.” He picked up his toolbox and headed for Ben’s car.

“Wait,” Drue said. “I need to pay you for the starter. And lunch.”

“Forget it,” Ben said. “I’ll let you take me to dinner one night instead.”

“Just name the night,” Drue said, following him to his Honda.





25


March 1976

The two women turned heads as they walked into Mastry’s Bar, and not just because they were in their work uniforms—white polyester dresses, white hose, white shoes. Both Colleen Boardman Hicks and Vera Cochran were stunners, Colleen with her blond hair, deep tan and short skirt, and Vera with her luscious curves and Cupid’s bow smile.

The lunchtime crowd at Mastry’s was almost exclusively male: some retirees, the geezers who showed up when the bar opened at nine for their breakfast beers; office workers, in dress shirts and ties; cops; mailmen; and a smattering of tourists who’d wandered in off Central Avenue in search of a cold beer and a spring training ball game on the television.

Colleen pointed to a booth at the far wall, and they slid in on opposite sides of the table.

“How did you even find this place?” Vera asked, looking around the dimly lit room.

“Somebody told me they have the best burgers in town,” Colleen said.

“I hope our patients won’t complain when we come back smelling like the inside of a carton of Salems,” Vera said, waving her hand at the smoke cloud that enveloped the room.

“Don’t be such a prisspot,” Colleen said.

The waitress arrived at the table to take their order.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger, medium, with pickles and mustard. No onions. Do you, uh, have Mateus?” Colleen asked.

“You’re gonna drink wine? In the middle of the day?” Vera looked shocked.

“Not today she’s not,” the redhead said. “We don’t serve wine. You want something else? Beer? Maybe a Bloody Mary?”

“Never mind,” Colleen said. “You’ve got Tab, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, then just a cheeseburger and a Tab. Remember, no onions.”

“Got it.”

“And I’ll have a plain burger and a Fresca,” Vera said.

“You girls want fries or no?”

“Yes,” Vera said.

“No thanks,” Colleen said.

The server brought their soft drinks, and the two women sat back and looked around. The walls of the bar were covered with dozens of stuffed and mounted game fish, predominantly tarpon, and old autographed black-and-white photos of baseball players, mostly St. Louis Cardinals, who frequented the bar during spring training games at nearby Al Lang Field.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Colleen asked. She’d spotted the two men at the end of the bar, but was trying not to glance their way.

“Nothing special,” Vera reported. “My sister talked me into babysitting for her two brats. What about you?”

Colleen rolled her eyes. “Dinner party at the in-laws’. It’s Rosemary’s birthday. Not my idea of fun.”

“What have you got against Allen’s family?”

“They hate me,” Colleen said. “Everybody thinks Dr. Hicks is so great, you know, because he’s this beloved doctor, big in Rotary and at the yacht club, but believe me, he is such a phony.” She lowered her voice. “It’s an open secret at Bayfront that he’s screwed half the nurses working there.”

“You’re kidding!” Vera said breathlessly.

“It’s the truth. Of course, I guess you can’t blame him, because most of the time Rosemary is zonked out of her gourd.”

“She drinks?”

Colleen looked around, then lowered her voice. “She likes vodka, because she thinks you can’t smell it on her breath. And diet pills even though she’s a size four. One guess where she gets the pills.”

The server set their plates on the table. “Here you go.”

“Thanks so much,” Colleen said, flashing her brilliant smile. She picked up her knife and cut the cheeseburger into quarters.

Vera watched, then did the same. “I get why you don’t like them, but what do his parents have against you?”

“Where do I start?” Colleen asked. “They don’t approve of the fact that I bleach my hair. They think I dress trashy. They don’t like me working as a dental hygienist. But mostly they hate the fact that I’m not the girl they had all picked out for their baby boy Allen.”