book title

Stakeouts have a certain effect on a man, particularly me. One of them, though, isn't hunger. I had eaten two gas station ham salad sandwiches earlier in the day and knew I was going to pay for it. Gas station sandwiches are a weakness of mine. I have a hard time refusing one. It’s a sickness, and I’ve never understood why. Must have been something from my childhood that makes me crave them. Or maybe I’m one bad decision away from being a hobo, and my brain is conditioning my stomach for the inevitable. Whatever it is, I love those fucking sandwiches. And, if nothing else, they keep hunger pangs away.

But there is nothing you can do about body aches from sitting around all day. The thing about growing old is your mind is stuck in your twenties, while your body keeps climbing that stairway to heaven. So, I stayed on my feet at the bar as I waited for Stacy to get off work. I was prepared to go all night exploring a new path for my life. I didn’t want anything to hold me back.

Before we left the Green Parrot Bar, I asked Stacy if I could ask her an awkward question—St. James was her last name—and apparently, she’d told me the night we met. She was cool about it, though.

We drove back to the marina just after eleven. She didn't bring a bag or anything else for that matter. When I asked where her bathing suit was, she said she was born with it. Hot damn. I hurried along and we soon pulled out of the marina and raised sail. Clouds gathered in the eastern sky, but they were far off, and the radar showed them moving northwest. A little rain never hurts anyone anyway. When we hit open water, the wind picked up and we were well on our way.

Stacy had never heard wind against a sail, or the silence that follows a wave hitting the hull of a boat. She had never felt the power of the sea rolling under her and pushing her along. It was, as it is for everyone who sails for the first time, a powerful moment. Spiritual. The sea frees the mind and opens the world to endless possibilities. It makes you small while at the same time making you feel as if you can rule the world if you believe in her. And you do believe in her, but you also know you can never control her. The sea made me think of Stacy, in all her beauty, all her wildness, and I believed in her as she stood at the helm and cried. We were both overwhelmed.

We found a nice spot for a swim and skinny-dipped for an hour. I forgot all about my fear of something eating me alive as I watched Stacy stretch her nude body in the moonlight and dive into the water. We then made love. Making love in the ocean isn’t easy, but we made do. The key is leverage. We used the ladder to the boat. However, I couldn't help but think of the show we were giving to life beneath the sea. Maybe this was where mermaids came from.

After our passionate midnight swim, I cut up some cheese for a late-night snack. Nothing fancy. All I had was cheddar. We drank a bottle of pinot noir and listened to some James Brown. Stacy wasn't into the Godfather of Soul, but I didn't throw her overboard, which says a lot more about her than it does about me. Then she said she wanted to drive the boat again.

We raised the mainsail, caught a breeze, and corralled a good wind. Soon, we were cutting through the water at a steady five knots. The moon was at our backs. I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist as she manned the helm. I wore my bathing suit. Stacy wore one of my buttoned cotton shirts. It hung loosely around her nude body. This was exactly how I imagined my life when I daydreamed.

“This is amazing,” she said.

“Keep her steady.”

I stepped away from her and she said, “Wait. Where are you going?”

“You're doing great. Just keep her on the compass heading.”

We sailed for a half hour. Stacy burst into laughter whenever a wave hit the Hold Fast and water sprayed the cockpit. I didn't want to get too far out to sea, so I ran along the bow and went to work. I lowered the sail, and the Hold Fast slowed to a stop and rolled with the waves. Two-foot swells made maneuvering along the deck a little nerve-wracking and Stacy gasped and yelped. I hurried back to the cockpit, Stacy white-knuckling the helm.

“You can let go now. We'll drift for a while. Watch the night sky. More wine?”

“Ugh, I don't know why I was so nervous. Yes, more wine.”

I went below deck and opened my last bottle of wine, an expensive Malbec from Argentina that I had been saving for a special occasion. I hadn’t had anything particular in mind when I marked the bottle for such, but the night and Stacy seemed special enough. We sat on the bench in the stern of the boat and watched the clouds move in above from the east. We listened to the waves push the Hold Fast. Now and then, a salty mist sprayed across the deck and cleansed us. I held her in my arms as she rested against my chest.

“It's so beautiful out here,” Stacy said.

“At night, when there isn't a cloud in the sky, the stars are brilliant, and you can stare at them for hours.”

“Sounds lonely.”

“But you still love it.”

“I could get used to this,” she said.

“Everybody could. They just don't know it, yet.”

We drank our wine, and neither one of us spoke for a long time. There was no need for words. The world is filled with too many as is. It was nice to be with Stacy, to feel her breathing, to smell her, to feel her warmth. I hadn’t been emotionally close to a woman since Aliyah Williams, and that was only happenstance, a convenient affair that became inconvenient.

There was a break in the clouds. Stars twinkled overhead and I went through the constellations for her.

“Is that the Milky Way?” she asked.

“Can you chart a course by the stars?”

“If I had to. It wouldn't be perfect, though. Thank God for GPS.”

“They never change.”

“Since man began to explore the waters with no clue what they would find.”

“I think they had a pretty good idea,” she said. “Gold.”

“I mean before that, though.”

“There was nothing before that. It was always about getting rich.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I said.

“Speaking of which. Are you?”

“Would a rich man have a shitty boat like this?”

“It’s not shitty.”

“It’s not a rich man’s boat.”

“I thought maybe you were eccentric.”

I laughed. It was the first time I had laughed in days.

“No,” I said. “I’m a retired cop. Got half a pension, some savings, and this boat. That’s it. You can swim for safety now or wait until we get to dry land and run.”

Stacy looked up at me and smiled.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t like weirdos anyway.”

“Well, I never really said I wasn’t.”

“How long will you stay in Key West?”

“As long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes?”

She pulled my arms around her, and I held her tighter. We were falling for each other, and I was all right with that. It’s not every day a man and woman catch a falling star.

“You know there's sunken treasure around here?” Stacy said.

“That's the rumor.”

“All you gotta do is find it. You got a boat. Could spend your days hunting and your nights fucking.”

“Holy shit, you point the way and I’ll split it with you.”

“Seriously,” she said. “It happens. Some guy even tried to pay his tab with the treasure he found.”

“He said he got the emerald from a new claim. It was the only reason I took it.”

“Really? That guy from the other night?”

“You remember him?”

“Yeah, Carl Polk. He’s a treasure hunter? That’s news to me.”

“How do you know Carl Polk?”

“The guy with the teeth. Haven’t had the pleasure. Just heard about him.”

“Yeah, well, he’s also an idiot.”

“What was his tab?”

“Couple hundred maybe.”

“And he paid it off with an emerald?”

“Like I said. Idiot.”

I sat up and moved Stacy off me.

“Yeah, but an emerald? Come on. Even an idiot knows the difference between a couple thousand and a couple hundred. Why didn't he just sell it?”

“Because it wasn't real.”

“He gave you a fake emerald?”

“It was a real emerald, but it wasn't from a sunken ship. Big difference. Huge difference, turns out.” Stacy could see I wasn't getting it. “My friend Larry Lockwood told me.”

“Who the hell is Larry Lockwood?”

“He’s an old friend, a real treasure hunter. Knows everything and anything about this stuff. He’s the one I sold it to. Lockwood’s Treasure Adventures?”

The name sounded familiar, but I didn’t know why. I shrugged.

“He only found the biggest treasure claim in the Florida Keys, probably the world.”

“And you dated him?”

“That’s what you got from all that?”

I shrugged again. I was just as surprised as Stacy. I hadn’t thought I was capable of jealousy. She was teaching me all kinds of new things about myself.

Stacy sighed, then leaned in and kissed me, soft and wet. I took a deep breath and held it. I might have been close to swooning but wasn’t sure if men did, so I didn’t.

“That was a long time ago,” she said.

“Long enough for you not to worry about, sailor.”

She reached down between my legs and grabbed hold of the real captain of the ship. I flinched and she smiled like a green-eyed devil.

“Is this what you call the mainmast?” she asked.

She leaned in and kissed me again. Only this time it wasn’t soft and wet. We kissed hard and passionately. There was a lot of heavy breathing and hands everywhere. In the sky overhead, thunder rumbled. The gods approved.

“Round two?” she said.

I arched my eyebrows at her.

“Ever made love on a boat?” she asked.

“Well, there was this one time in the Navy, but I don't like to talk about it.”

Stacy laughed. A great laugh, mellow and melodic and breathy. She squeezed me again and we kissed once more. Then we made love with the stars above, the sea rolling beneath us, and a storm blowing in.