The Entrepreneurs: a Novel

By R.W. Crossley

The Entrepreneurs is a business book disguised as a novel with humor, romance, danger, and the entrepreneurial imperatives of a startup woven into the entrepreneur's mantra: Build it! Run it! Sell it!

The entrepreneurs are two characters of incongruent backgrounds embracing one goal—wealth. Set on Florida's Gulf Coast, in the disparate worlds of sailing aboard luxury yachts and women's high fashion, Matt Scott and Donatella Donatucci personify the dreams of all neophyte entrepreneurs.

Matt is a hero at forty whose dreams of glory are crushed when he's forced to resign from the Army. Lacking any business experience or contacts, he finds himself unemployed and unemployable. Driven to succeed, Matt retreats to She Said, his sailboat, to develop his Plan B—an entrepreneurial venture—when a chance encounter connects him with DeeDee, a 20-something fashion designer with plans to become the next Coco Chanel. DeeDee is fashion smart, street smart, business smart and, unknown to Matt, the only daughter of a Mafia don.

When DeeDee inserts herself into Plan B—describing the need for a sunset-cruise service where single, young professionals of the opposite gender can meet and mingle in a champagne fueled environment aboard luxury sailboats—Matt embraces the entrepreneurial opportunity. As Matt and DeeDee extend their operations to seaside cities around the globe, they encounter the usual entrepreneurial challenges, and the unusual challenges of philandering husbands and vengeful wives that threaten their new company, Demanding Damsel LLC, and its reputation. These challenges they overcome by creating audacious, imaginative solutions, while attempting unsuccessfully to control their own ids.

Unbeknownst to Matt is that Claudette Lafevre, the libidinous French TV reporter who was responsible for his being cashiered from the Army, and has thwarted his efforts to find a job, now turns her efforts toward ruining his fledgling company. Claudette is a vengeful bitch who is sleeping with the director of DPSD [the French intelligence agency charged with combating the Mafia] in return for his collaboration in destroying Matt—whom he believes is a front for the Sicilian Mafia smuggling counterfeit euros into France.

Of more immediate concern to Matt is FBI Special Agent Michael Mausbacher. Based on logical assumptions derived from his high-tech eavesdropping—inspired by Matt and DeeDee taking on an investing angel who sold his string of Midwest funeral homes to the Detroit mob, and a German banker of dubious background who invests to obtain a green card—Mausbacher and the FBI hierarchy believe DeeDee has duped Matt to create Demanding Damsel as a front for the Mafia's smuggling operations. Tension mounts as the FBI uses its best efforts to stop the flow of millions of counterfeit dollars into the U.S. from the Caribbean, where Demanding Damsel has extensive operations.

When DeeDee wants to sell her share of Demanding Damsel and use the money to create her own fashion house in New York, Matt dangles an investment opportunity that draws the attention of DPSD, the FBI, and the zips [Sicilian Mafia] who make an offer Matt wants to refuse.

The Entrepreneurs creates a new genre by incorporating the "How To" of business into a fast paced novel—showing, not telling! Showing the development of a "Gotta Have" service into a money machine.

The Entrepreneurs takes you inside the creation of a successful startup tutoring readers in the imperatives of entrepreneurial ventures through the eyes of a business neophyte and a street-wise vixen.

The Entrepreneurs will reinvigorate the moribund business book genre as did Christopher Reich's Numbered Account in bygone years.

[As much action, tension, business development, and romance as can be packed into 105,000 words!]

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098332761

Book preview

The Entrepreneurs

Copyright © 2020 by R.W. Crossley

Published by ABI Press

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9781098332754

ISBN eBook: 9781098332761

Publishers Note:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Build It!

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Author’s Notes

The Brokers

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 1

"Ahoy, She Said. Sarasota Harbor Police …show yourself on deck!" The booming loudspeaker-enhanced words bouncing off the interior bulkhead of the master cabin were recognizable in spite of the ear-splitting volume and the loudspeaker-altered inflection. The throaty female voice issuing the brusque command sounded seriously mad, and Matt had a reasonably good idea why.

He was already climbing out of his bunk and reaching for his shorts when the bright white light exploded through the glass portholes and flooded his cabin. That would be the spotlight on her patrol boat. It could turn night into day for any boat caught in its cone. Great for illuminating drug runners hiding in dark lagoons or drunk sailors floundering in the bay. Maggie was aiming it at She Said. At anchor. In a crowded harbor. Not good.

Matt planted his feet firmly on the deck and, careful to keep his balance as She Said rolled in the waves of the diminishing storm, quickly slipped into his boating shorts. As he made his way through the salon and up the stairs of the companionway, his mind searched for a way to placate Maggie’s mad. Nothing came to mind as he rolled back the companionway cover and stepped on deck, shielding his eyes against the brilliant light and driving rain. Would you please douse that damn light? he hollered.

She didn’t hear him; the loudspeaker drowned him out, "You are in violation of Sarasota County statutes that expressly prohibit itinerant boaters …like yourself, from anchoring in the harbor for more than thirty consecutive days. If this rust bucket is here one minute beyond sunrise, I’ll run you in."

Maggie, . . .

She cut him off, Officer McCarthy, to you, dirtbag!

Officer McCarthy, he sighed, be reasonable. First, you know this is the best-looking boat in the harbor! That was true, She Said was a 40´ Beneteau-class yacht whose white fiberglass body fairly sparkled. Matt wiped the dew off it every morning before going into the city for breakfast, and rinsed the salt spray off when he returned from sailing every afternoon. He kept the brightwork freshly varnished and highly polished. If there was a speck of rust on her anywhere, he would have removed it with a drop of Stainless Spotless. She Said was definitely not a rust bucket.

"Second, you know I’m next on the list for the first slip that becomes available in the marina. And I just got a call from the marina this afternoon; a slip will open up on Monday. What do you say? Can’t you be reasonable? It’s only three more days."

"Sunrise, dirtbag!" Maggie continued staring at him through the now slacking rain. She was daring him to say something more, anything that would give her an excuse to run him in.

Matt was trying to figure out how to continue pleading his case without giving her the excuse she was looking for when he felt DeeDee reach up from the companionway below and take his hand in hers for balance as she stepped into the open cockpit. She was wearing a white beach towel wrapped around her the way women often do—held together only by a top corner of the towel tucked into the wrap, held up entirely by the tension of the towel across her small breasts.

Dear God, he thought, don’t let that towel come loose. The wind was already catching the loose corner at the bottom, causing it to flap against her knees.

As the spotlight dimmed, Matt silently thanked George, Maggie’s sidekick, who was at the helm of the police boat. He must have had the same concern when he turned off the spotlight.

Maggie shot George a hard, disapproving look, then reached for the flashlight fastened on her equipment belt. Focusing the beam on DeeDee, she continued speaking into the microphone clipped to her collar point. Well, well, well! What do we have here?

The rain was plastering DeeDee’s dark hair to her face and, in the harsh flashlight beam, her slender figure in the dampening towel brought to mind the image of a forlorn waif.

Maggie must have seen her the same way. How old are you young lady?

I’m twenty-four. DeeDee’s voice was overly calm. Resolute. Loaded with trouble. She was daring Maggie. A classic double-dare.

Ha! Let’s see some ID!

Now Maggie, she’s not underage. And would you please turn off the loudspeaker? Everyone in the harbor can hear you. He gestured toward a mega-yacht at anchor some fifty yards away where a couple was standing on deck in the rain watching, and listening.

Officer McCarthy to you, dirtbag! Maggie returned her focus to DeeDee and demanded again, Let’s see some ID!

As DeeDee turned to go back down the companionway, Matt turned his attention back to Maggie. She was now standing grim-faced alongside the cockpit of the patrol boat with one hand on her hip, the other propped loosely on her pistol holster. He knew it was a practiced look, intended to appear threatening to anyone who didn’t know her. Now Maggie, this is not what you —

"Don’t Maggie me. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. She’s young enough to be your daughter …even if she is twenty-four. Which I strongly doubt."

Their conversation, if that’s what it was, was interrupted by DeeDee’s now-demure voice, which carried up the companionway, Matt, where did we put my shorts? My driver’s license is in the pocket.

His jaw dropped and his brain froze. Why was she doing this? He was certain that her voice had carried across the water to the police boat. The last time he saw her shorts was when she hung them up in the shower stall to dry, after changing into a sweat suit he had loaned her. He was still trying to conjure up an intelligent response when she called out, Never mind. I found them.

When she climbed back onto the deck, she was holding the tuck in place with one hand, waving her license in the other. "Here you are, officer."

Maggie dropped her pose, snatched a boathook from its holding brackets on the police boat’s deck, and reached across the gap between the two boats to grasp one of She Said’s stanchions. Drawing the two boats together, she reached out and took DeeDee’s proffered driver’s license.

With her eyes flitting between DeeDee and the license, Maggie mumbled, Twenty-four? Not likely! With a smirk, she added, One hundred and fifteen pounds? Ha!

Switching off her microphone, Maggie turned toward George. Check it with Central Registry. It’s a Pennsylvania license. Probably fake.

"Yes, ma’am," George responded.

Matt was certain George had his tongue in his check. In the six weeks he had known Maggie and George—they were always paired together on patrol—he had never heard him call Maggie ma’am. This was probably all hugely humorous to him, as he was the one who had coached Matt on how to approach Maggie without seeming to hit on her. Then covered for her when she had spent the night on She Said, in the master cabin, with the master.

The silence was palpable as Maggie stared across the gap between the boats, alternately fixing Matt and DeeDee with her most confrontational tough-cop face. Matt responded by trying to project the demeanor of wrongly accused innocence. He wasn’t certain what DeeDee was up to, as she occasionally turned her face away from Maggie and gave him a confident look of exaggerated nonchalance. She had told him that she studied acting in college before giving it up and going to a fashion school in New York. Said that she wasn’t a very good actress. He was certain of that.

Hey, Maggie! George’s voice exploded out of the police boat’s enclosed cockpit. We caught another call. George poked his head out from around the side of the cockpit, handed the license to Maggie and motioned for her to return it to DeeDee. It checks out. She’s twenty-four. We need to get a move on.

Maggie stiffened visibly, holding her focus on DeeDee. I didn’t hear any call.

Yeah, George said, I had the radio turned down. We need to get up to the university area ASAP!

As Matt watched the police boat drift away from She Said on a large swell, then saw its stern squat low in the water and accelerate into the night, his mind began searching for a missing piece of information. If George had indeed received a radio call, even if the radio speaker was muted, there would have been a bright green light visible on the radio control panel. Matt had had his eye on George, expecting the worst, while George was checking out DeeDee’s license. From where he, Matt, was standing, he would have seen the green light. There had been none. He guessed George was simply trying to end the confrontation. He owed George a beer.

She’s really one mad woman, you know? You two had something going, didn’t you? DeeDee’s voice broke through his thoughts, but before he could answer, she added, You dumped her, didn’t you?

No, I didn’t dump her! I’m guessing she saw us out here on deck between the rain squalls and assumed . . . He let the thought die.

That afternoon, when he first saw DeeDee, he had assumed she was a teenager. She was sailing a small Sunfish sailboat around the harbor. More like trying to sail, while her instructor hollered instructions at her from the shore. Then, as often occurs along the Gulf coast during late afternoons in midsummer, when the cool Gulf air hits the coast and fights the warm air over the land for possession of the airspace over the coastline, the first gust of wind had swept across the harbor without warning and capsized her little instructional sailboat.

He had been watching from the bow of She Said, checking his anchor line. It was all rather amusing until she failed to surface. Then he saw her legs thrashing around underneath the side of the capsized Sunfish and guessed that she was tangled in the boat’s rigging. He dove in and swam toward the little boat. Arrived just as she surfaced. It was only after he helped her aboard She Said and saw her up close that he realized she was a grown woman.

He had offered her all the hospitality of a sailboat at anchor in a storm. On several occasions, during brief breaks in the rain, they had gone on deck and discussed how he would get her to shore. Each time the storm renewed itself with nearby lightning strikes and they had retreated to the salon below.

Between visits to the deck for weather checks, they polished off a makeshift dinner of ham sandwiches and a bottle of wine before deciding the storm wouldn’t blow over until later in the night. He had offered that she could spend the night aboard, in the forward cabin, alone. She had accepted.

Obviously Maggie had seen them on deck at some point. Then waited until he turned off the lights in the master cabin and climbed into his bunk before she came steaming in. Probably thought she would catch them in the bunk together. Probably thought she had.

He was still watching the patrol boat’s wide florescent wake disappear to the north when DeeDee interrupted his thoughts. Yeah, well, if she saw us, and you and she had something going …well, I don’t blame her for being mad.

Oh, right. And you really helped. Coming on deck ready to play drop-the-towel and, he changed the pitch of his voice trying to mimic her, Matt, I can’t find my shorts.

My bad. I didn’t know she was your girlfriend. I just thought she was some tight-ass cop. DeeDee adopted a contrite expression, but in the poor light he couldn’t be certain if it was real or feigned. So, what’s with the boat slip?

This afternoon, I got a call from the marina that a slip will open up on Monday ...right over there …and I’m number one on the waitlist. He pointed to where a long line of sailboat masts were silhouetted against the city lights in the background. But I have to make a security deposit and pay for the first three months’ lease tomorrow morning when the marina office opens, or they’ll call the next guy on the list.

And the marina opens after sunrise.

Exactly!

I really am sorry. Is there anything I can do?

$ $ $

Chapter 2

Claudette, the information I promised you is about your old American boyfriend, Matthew Scott. Pierre-Louis propped himself on his elbow and admired her slender naked backside as she sat on the edge of the bed lighting a cigarette. A pity about the scars on her back, he thought. Otherwise, she had a perfect female body.

Claudette Lefevre turned toward him expectantly, exhaled a large cloud of smoke, and offered him the cigarette. Her pixie face, willowy figure, and wide-eyed innocent facial expressions were well known to European TV news viewers. Her special reports from the battlefields in the Middle East, the stock exchanges of Western Europe, and the burgeoning factories of South Asia were the most-watched news programs on the continent. Her viewers imagined her to be as pure as new snow. They would never imagine her libidinous appetite, or that she considered trading sex for information from restricted sources to be the ultimate win-win—for her.

She had just finished libidoing Pierre-Louis and, while the information he was about to provide her would never be used in a news report, the information was priceless to her. Tell me everything, she said, then slid back under the sheet and pressed a knee against Pierre-Louis.

It appears that he has had a confrontation with the police in Sarasota …that’s in Florida …and he has been run out of town. Something about being caught with an underage girl on his sailboat. That ought to make you happy.

They let him go? What sort of police do they have in that little town?

Probably the same as we have in our resorts. If the girl doesn’t scream ‘rape,’ they ignore it.

Is there nothing you can do? Perhaps send a message of some kind to the American police that will cause them to lock him up?

"Ma chère, the DPSD does not deal with rapists. Besides, I rather imagine the girl was willing. From everything I know about him, that’s not a problem for him. I still fail to understand why you hate him so. You were lovers once, nes pas?"

The officious manner in which he pronounced DPSD was an affectation he had adopted to impress everyone who knew that he was the Director of the Direction de la protection et de la sécurite de la defense [Directorate for Defense Protection and Security], the French intelligence agency charged with conducting counter-espionage operations, and defeating the Mafia.

"Lovers, never! He raped me!"

Claudette, it is I, Pierre-Louis, to whom you are speaking. Not your husband. I know Matthew Scott did not rape you. When you invite a man to your hotel room three days in a row, and have sex with him several times each day, that cannot be rape. Even the European Court would agree. I think.

I don’t want to discuss that. Tell me, when did this happen? Pierre-Louis—he insisted that neither name be used by itself—had called her to arrange this tryst earlier this morning, just after she reached her office. Unusual, he usually called in the late afternoon, when he knew her appetite peaked.

Just several hours ago, he said, with a nonchalant glance.

So, Pierre-Louis was letting her know that he was providing her with near real-time information. Trying to impress her with the efficiency of the DPSD. No doubt he would expect additional compensation for that. Fair enough, she thought, as she mentally calculated the time difference between Paris and the east coast of America. Six hours, that made it four o’clock in the morning in Florida. Hopefully DPSD would not lose him in the dark. Where has he gone? Can you find him?

Of course we will find him. On second thought, he paused to admire her talented body, perhaps you and I should go to Florida.

Be serious; I can’t leave Paris now. I have a story to put together for next week. She paused pensively, remembering Matthew. A handsome man with broad shoulders and a hard body. Deep blue eyes set over a strong nose and square jaw. His blond hair was cut too short for her, but he had a wide inviting smile that softened his image even when he was in uniform. Unlike most soldiers she knew, he had an air of easy authority about him. Women and other men all liked him, gravitated to him. Most importantly, he was talented in bed. Then the calamity, and the American army had evacuated her from Baghdad. Revoked her press credentials for the war zone. All because of Matthew Scott. Pierre-Louis, promise me you will find him.

We will find him, but haven’t you already done enough to that man?

Turning onto her side to face him, she gave Pierre-Louis a bemused smile. "Non!"

$ $ $

Chapter 3

The harbor was dark and quiet when Matt fired up She Said’s powerful inboard diesel engine, weighed anchor, switched his mast lights from at-anchor to underway, and pointed her bow toward the wharf. She Said was designed for single handling and, after four months of sailing her alone in the Gulf, Matt was confident of his sailing skills. But not in the dark waters of the harbor, where numerous large yachts swung in wide arcs around their anchor lines.

DeeDee was standing outside the knee-high safety line on the starboard side, prepared to step onto the pier. She was holding on with one hand to the thin wire shrouds that connected the mast to the deck, her other hand was clutching her still damp sailing outfit. In the dim ambient light of the city, Matt could see the soft breeze created by She Said’s forward momentum was lifting her long dark hair off her shoulders. She was indeed beautiful, in spite of having caused him so much trouble.

When she was safely on the pier, she turned toward him and he reminded her, See you in Venice …the Crow’s Nest …at noon. He had already told her how to find the locally famous restaurant at the Venice marina. It was just several miles down the coast.

I’ll take care of everything, she answered. See you then!

Shifting into gear, he waved to acknowledge her response and advanced the throttle just enough to give him steerage, then allowed the outgoing tide to pull She Said away from the pier. He intended to be heading out of the harbor into the Gulf long before sunrise. He had no idea where Maggie might be, but was certain she had him in sight and was looking for a reason to pounce. Probably watching him through her low-light binos. She would be able to see him from any location in the harbor.

He cleared the narrow, shallow channel through Big Pass as the first light of dawn appeared in the pewter sky behind him. Rounding the shoulder of the coast off Siesta Key, he noticed that the sky was slow to brighten. Thick cumulus clouds, full of rain, were hanging low over the eastern horizon, shrouding the sun’s rays. Turning his VHF radio to the weather channel, he learned that another low-pressure cell was moving into the area. The rain would soon return. A depressing thought. It would be too nasty to raise his sails; he’d rely on She Said’s diesel to make the short run down the coast.

He had visited the small pony harbor in Venice on several occasions before launching on extended trips to Fort Myers, Naples, or Key West. Those leisurely sails down the Gulf coast had allowed him uninterrupted opportunities to think about Plan B. [His Plan A—to find a job—had failed. No one wanted to hire a forty-one year old ex-soldier with no business experience or contacts.]

He didn’t really have a Plan B yet, but was certain that something would surface. It shouldn’t be too difficult to conjure up a product or service that the world needed. Something that would make a lot of money. Every time he visited Naples, he met guys at the marina there who had made millions in high-tech start-up companies. They seemed to dream up new gadgets and apps every day. Most of them had started three or four small companies, made several million bucks each time. They all had multi-million dollar condos, seventy-foot sailboats, and trophy girlfriends. Those guys were all about his age, or younger. If they could do it, he could too.

At precisely seven-thirty, when he knew the Sarasota marina office would open, Matt took the radio mike from its holder, switched his VHF radio transmitter to the Channel 22, and broadcast, "Good morning, Sarasota Marina. This is She Said. I departed my anchorage early this morning. A young lady will be at your location in the next few minutes to sign my slip-lease and pay for it. Please give me a call when the paperwork’s finished. Over." He had given DeeDee his American Express card and directions to the marina’s sales office. There shouldn’t be any problem.

"Good morning, She Said. Man, you sure named that fancy boat of yours well! I always wondered what that was about. The laughter in the background told him that the sales office was already open and the early customers were enjoying the exchange. The young lady is here, and we finished the paperwork. But if I were you, the speaker paused to let the laughter in the background be appreciated by the boaters monitoring the marina’s radio channel, I’d stay out of Dodge City till Monday. Over."

"Wilco, She Said out. Before Matt could return the mike to its holder, the radio was overloaded with callers stepping over each other to offer him advice. The vitriolic female voices tended toward the view that he should never return to Sarasota. The sympathetic male voices were full of encouragement; one suggested, Any old guy who can land a young babe is all right. That brought intense heat from the women, deflecting their ill will from Matt toward the chauvinist who had made that disgusting" call. Matt switched the radio to MUTE, and focused his mind on how to gracefully rid himself of DeeDee after they met for lunch. She had already caused him more grief than any one woman should be able to accomplish in such a short time.

By one o’clock, Matt was certain he had made a huge mistake. He was sitting in the bar at the Crow’s Nest, alone. DeeDee had not shown. Nor had she called.

He used his smartphone to make a quick check of his credit card account on the Internet and confirmed his 7:28 a.m. payment to the Sarasota marina for $3,520. That would be his security deposit and three month’s lease payment. But there was no explanation for the 10:20am charge of $200 for cash from an ATM provider. She had ripped him off!

That was hard to believe. She had seemed like an honest person. Remembering her little sailing outfit, he recalled that it had looked expensive, not like the rough-looking boating clothes most sailors wore in Florida. And, she was wearing a Rolex. At least he thought it was a Rolex. Looked exactly like the ads for the ladies’ Oyster he often saw in Forbes magazine. He couldn’t imagine why she might steal $200 from him.

She was immature to be sure, but seemed highly intelligent. She had described her experiences working at a major fashion house in Milan. Told him how she had designed the harem pants, whatever they were, that the fashion house had featured in its spring collection earlier this year. Told him that her goal in life was to create a fashion house, to become the next Coco Chanel. When he had asked her what she was doing in Sarasota, she had smoothly changed the subject. He hadn’t pressed her.

As he remembered her in his mind’s eye, her face had the clear, dark complexion of children he had seen along the Mediterranean coast. Her features were perfectly proportioned with expressive brown eyes defined by dark thick lashes over high checks, a perfectly shaped slender nose that was centered above her small delicate mouth. Her body, what he could see of it after she had changed out of her wet outfit into one of his sweat suits, was slender. A small, high rack, narrow hips and small butt. Altogether a sexy package.

Maggie would have seen that, too.

Now Maggie was gone. DeeDee was gone. And his credit card was gone!

$ $ $

Chapter 4

Matt was listening on his phone to an AmEx customer service rep explain what he needed to do in order to cancel his credit card, when DeeDee walked through the door wearing a bright yellow rain slicker with a hood over her head. She immediately made eye contact and marched resolutely toward him, leaving a trail of rainwater dripping in her wake. When still two tables away, she opened her mouth to speak, then noticed the phone at his ear.

When he ended his call, she commenced. Do you know that nobody sells sailing clothes for women? I mean really nice clothes, not the frumpy stuff that makes you look like you’re going to sail to the Arctic.

She shed her slicker while talking, and Matt was surprised to see that she was wearing what looked to be a white tennis outfit. It looked expensive and the short skirt showed off her deeply tanned legs. She had been shopping. That might explain her tardiness, but what about the credit card charge—the $200?

Before settling into a bar stool next to his, she reached into a hip pocket of the undershorts beneath her short skirt and pulled out a wad of money, some paper, and his Am Ex card. Sliding it all across the bar to him, she said, Here’s your card back. I paid the marina so you have your boat slip, and since you didn’t have much cash, I got some for you. The ATM machine would only give me two hundred.

"How did you know I was short of cash? And, how did you manage to get it with my credit card?" She would have had to know his PIN to get cash, and he couldn’t imagine how she might have guessed it.

She tapped her forehead with her forefingers, "Duh! When you told me to use your card for breakfast, I figured you were short of cash. And Matt is a four-letter word. That would make your PIN three, two, five, five. Apparently sensing that he didn’t comprehend how she knew that, she fished her iPhone out of her handbag, opened it and pointed to the keypad, M-A-T-T on a telephone is three, two, five, five. That’s why you selected that PIN isn’t it? So you can remember the numbers. Everyone does it that way."

That was news to him. After pocketing the cash, he idly straightened the credit card receipts she had given him, and came to a small slip of paper with a curious ballpoint printing on it. The letters of the three words were printed backward. Turning the paper over, holding it up to the light, and reading through the thin paper, he read: GET OVER IT!

He knew instantly. You didn’t!

I did, she said firmly. That bitch dissed me …and you. You should have heard the talk in the marina this morning. That’s all anyone was talking about. How you dumped her, and how she made a fool out of herself. Even the man at the boat rental had heard about it. By the way, he said to thank you for getting the little Sunfish to the beach. He had already retrieved it when I saw him to get my deposit back.

She had been talking too fast for him to interrupt, but when she finished he said, I didn’t dump her! She probably saw us on deck and drew the wrong conclusion.

Whatever.

He glared at her until the thought returned to him. Maggie and George often tied up their patrol boat at the end of the pier in the marina when they went off shift; no one would bother it there. In his mind, Matt formed an image of DeeDee seeing it there this morning, and writing her message backwards on the boat’s windscreen so that Maggie would read it as soon as she came on duty this evening. Maggie would have a spasm.

So where did you write this? Don’t tell me it was on the patrol boat!

Okay!

Okay, what?

Okay, I won’t tell you.

You did.

I did. And I ruined a very fine lipstick doing it. She returned his hard look and asked blithely, Can we order lunch? I’m starved.

After the waitress took their order, DeeDee launched into a new topic in her rapid-fire east coast twang. Did you know that no one is selling really chic clothes for a woman that wants to look good when she’s sailing?

No, he didn’t know there were no clothes to make a woman look good when she was sailing. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why anyone would care. Sailing was not a fashion event. All of his sailing pals’ wives and girlfriends wore loose-fitting, comfortable clothes. A shirt and shorts. Usually white, to reflect the sun. Nothing expensive. Nothing that would get hung up on a boat’s rigging or couldn’t survive an occasional drenching in salt water. Anything, really, that could be washed in a marina’s laundromat.

He was still thinking about that as she said, So I got this outfit; it will have to do for today.

Apparently she was inviting herself to sail with him this afternoon. That wouldn’t work. DeeDee, we have a problem here. This little marina doesn’t have any transient slips available for the weekend. They let me dock for lunch, but I have to be gone by three o’clock. I plan on sailing up to the Tampa area for the weekend. There are plenty of transient slips available up there. I won’t get back to Sarasota till Monday noon.

Okay, I’ll get my duffle out of the car. I’m sure they’ll let me park it here over the weekend.

The sweet heavy aroma of freshly fried grouper wafting up from the waitress’s tray announced the arrival of their fish sandwiches and fries, and gave him a pause to ponder where their conversation was going. She was really a pushy young woman.

I want to learn how to sail, she said as he pounded ketchup onto his fries. Now that I know there’s a market niche for women’s sailing apparel that’s not being filled, I want to learn everything I can about sailing.

What the hell, he decided, he’d been behind the power curve ever since she had walked through the restaurant door. He’d play along and see what happened.

$ $ $

Chapter 5

Matt pointed She Said’s bow into the wind and throttled back the diesel to idling speed as soon as they cleared the last channel marker. The rain had stopped before they left the restaurant, and the sky was now crystalline blue. The air had that fresh after-rain smell to it, and the breeze was out of the west at about twelve knots. It was a perfect afternoon for sailing.

DeeDee was perched on the bench at the rear of the open cockpit in a reclining look-at-me pose, wearing one of Matt’s long-sleeved white dress shirts over her tennis outfit. He had convinced her to lather with sunscreen and put on the shirt to protect herself from the sun, explaining that when the sun reflected off the water it would fry her if she wasn’t covered. She had agreed, reluctantly. Said the shirt made her look frumpy. She had a lot to learn about sailing and sailing clothes.

Motioning for DeeDee to take the helm on the starboard side, he told her, "Move the wheel left or right to