THE BRASS RING

8:07 A. M.

Bright, crisp, invigorating and exhilarating was how Jason always described an early southern California beach morning. As he stepped out of his 84 Honda, Jason stopped for a moment and sucked in the mesmerizing beauty of the rugged coastline with placid Pacific swells gently lapping against the beckoning rocky beach below. It was something that had been in his blood ever since he left the Midwest in his teens.

For the last thirty-five years Jason had crawled around the weathered crags and into the salty brine every chance he got. And this weekend was going to be another opportunity to explore the murky depths with his closest friend, Larry, and maybe even find a few abs if they were lucky.

Jason slammed the car door and headed towards the front of Corky’s restaurant where he and Larry had planned to rendezvous. Clad in his customary button-down white shirt with upturned sleeves and blue cords and loafers, Jason looked pretty much the same as he did in those early days except for the sprinkling of graying hair around the temples. He stopped as he saw his reflection in the glass door and wondered how all the years could have passed so quickly.

As he glanced around the parking lot, he didn’t see Larry’s car and realized that he was the first to arrive. At least it would give him a few moments to have some breakfast before Larry got impatient to begin the dive. Larry was the motivator, the organizer, and was the strict taskmaster that kept everything moving. They had remained intimate friends ever since their fraternity days at USC, but Jason could only tolerate so much of Larry’s perfidious personality. When he had enough, they would not see each other for a several months until the next dive or sail or what ever Larry organized.

Corky’s was fairly busy for an early Saturday morning, Jason looked around for a booth overlooking the bay and smiled at the attractive brunette waitress as he made his way across a room resembling an aging Carl Jr’s, Good solid, sexy body, he thought to himself. Maybe he could get something going, but small-town girls were usually so naive that after a romp in the sack there was nothing to talk about. They had seen so little of life. She had probably never been up the coast to San Francisco or even down into Mexico.

The six men in the booth next to Jason never gave him a glance as he sat down, but he couldn’t help noticing what a scruffy lot they were, ruthless types that oozed sleaze and sadism. And they were all wearing dark sunglasses inside the restaurant. Rather odd, he thought, but it takes all kinds to make a world, If the sun bothered their eyes or they wanted to be incognito, that was their decision. Jason could have cared less,

The waitress hurried over to his booth, poured a cup of coffee and handed him a menu. He smiled up at her, then stared at full breasts heaving under a brown candy-striped uniform that was two sizes too small, and murmured, “I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Don’t get too lonesome,” she replied with a giggle, then raised an eyebrow and smiled and wiggled off to another table.

Maybe I should pursue that tonight, Jason thought. She seemed receptive.

“I’ve got five hundred grand in hundreds in this briefcase” came a gruff uncultured voice from the booth behind him.

Jason almost dropped his coffee. Five hundred thousand dollars in the next booth. “Christ’s sake,” he thought, “that’s half a million bucks.” As he turned his head slightly to hear more of the conversation, he glanced down and realized the briefcase was right next to his leg. A half a million bucks. Jason was stunned, like he had been given an electric shock and was struggling to recover. ‘A half a million bucks,’ he murmured to himself. That would solve all my problems, but who were these guys?