Read Online Wicked Charms by Janet Evanovich - Free Book Online

thin white hair plastered to the top of his head, pink wrinkled skin hanging from a stooped bone structure, and a nose like an eagle’s beak, he looked like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons. He was wearing a dark blue velour tracksuit with the pants hiked up to his armpits. He wasn’t currently sucking oxygen, but he had a tank and face mask in his scooter basket just in case the need should arise. A small Hispanic woman was sitting on a bench a short distance away.

    Clara approached the woman.
    “Hi, Benita. How is he today?”
    “He asked me to marry him. He said he was feeling frisky.”
    “Are you going to marry him?”
    “No way. The man would bury me.”
    “Hey, Gramps,” Clara said. “How’s it going?”
    “A little slow. Benita won’t marry me.”
    “Did he take his meds?” Clara asked Benita.
    “Yes, ma’am. If he didn’t take his meds he’d be hitting you with his cane.”
    “That’s a lie,” Gramps said. “I don’t hit pretty girls.” He pointed at Diesel. “I’d hit him a good one. He looks like trouble.”
    “These are my friends Lizzy and Diesel,” Clara said. “They want to ask you about Collier.”
    “Collier’s dead,” Gramps said. “Dead as a doornail. I suppose I miss him, but at least I don’t have to listen to that damn poem anymore. He insisted I memorize it. He brought me down to the harbor near every day before he disappeared and made me recite it. The man never read a book in his life but he was obsessed with that poem. ‘I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky / And all I ask is a tall ship and a light to guide her by / I must go down to the seas again, to the dazzling gypsy life / to the tern’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife.’ I’m sure the poem means something but damned if I know what it is.”

    “Did he ever tell you about the treasure he was hunting?” Diesel asked him.
    “Sometimes, but not much. Once he brought me back two pieces of a Spanish coin. He said to guard ’em with my life, and they’d bring me luck. And I guess they did because I made some money in my time. I invested in the stock market and made a fortune. Of course, I lost it all when I bought some swampland in Florida. But then I invested in GM. Started another fortune. Lost that. Lost another one to the dot.com bubble.”
    “Anything else?” Diesel asked, smiling, enjoying himself.
    “I produced a Broadway play in the sixties. Lost a bundle. It was made into a movie in the eighties and I made a bundle. Donated it all to this aquarium, so I could watch the sharks.” He pointed at the tank where a tiger shark swam around a prop treasure chest that was sitting on the sandy bottom of the fake sea. “I call that one Smiley,” Gramps said.
    “Where are the Spanish coin pieces now?” Diesel asked.
    “You’re looking at them,” Gramps said. “Collier was always going on about treasure chests, so I had one made, put the pieces of eight in it, and had it sunk there in the tank. You give people enough money and they most likely will do you a favor. Those pieces of eight are sitting at the bottom of the shark tank, protected by all that water and shark poop.”
    Diesel looked at the Rascal. “I like your wheels.”

    “Had it painted special,” Gramps said. “The ladies love it.”
    The Rascal was fire engine red with yellow and orange flame detailing.
    “I had it souped up,” Gramps said. “I can do fifteen miles per hour in this baby. Truth is, I don’t need it, but it gets me a lot of attention, and Benita has to run to keep up with me. I like to see her run. It makes her boobs bounce up and down.”
    —
    Gramps rolled off to look at the penguins, and Benita followed him. Diesel, Clara, and I remained behind at the shark tank.
    “The way I see it, the problem is all that water,” Diesel said, staring at the treasure chest resting on the bottom of the shark tank.
    “I’d think the problem would be the sharks,”