Whack A Mole jc-3 Page 8

  I pick up a coil of rope and toss it down to Gus. He wraps it around a cleat. The birds keep circling and squawking.

  “Here you go, you greedy bastards!”

  Gus scoops his hand into a five-gallon bucket and tosses a tangled chunk of chopped squid as far out as he can. The birds dive bomb and attack it.

  “They can have the freaking bait,” Gus says with a raspy laugh. “But the fluke is all mine.” He hoists a Styrofoam chest up and over the side. I grab it.

  “Good day?” Ceepak asks as Gus moves around the cockpit closing things down.

  “Not bad. You ever eat fluke?”

  “Roger that. However, I believe the restaurant called it ‘summer flounder.’”

  “Same difference. I'll be eating good tonight, boys. I cleaned and gutted on the way in. That's why the birdbrains were giving me the winged escort. I told Fran to drag out the corn meal and pickle relish.”

  Fran is Gus's wife. It's why his boat is called the Lady Fran.

  “You boys be sure to think of me when you're grabbing a cup of bad coffee and a shrink-wrapped sandwich over at the Qwick Pick.”

  Gus just described the typical cop's dinner, purchased at any friendly neighborhood convenience store. Of course, this cop usually adds in a bag of chips, some Ring Dings, and a can of Mountain Dew. Ceepak goes with the bag of baby carrots.

  Gus climbs over the gunwale and up onto the dock. “So, what's up? Fran called on the cell, said you boys were looking for me.”

  “Roger that,” says Ceepak. “We need to ask you a couple questions. About an old case.”

  Gus grimaces. His face is brown with leathery seams. His wispy hair has been bleached white by the sun. I can tell he doesn't much want to talk shop, doesn't want to play cops and robbers anymore. He's retired. Put in his time, picked up his pension. Now all he wants to do is fish and breathe in the salty sea air until the day his lungs conk out.

  “Can we make this quick? I'd like to eat my fish while it's still fresh.”

  “Of course,” says Ceepak. “Do you remember a case involving a teenage runaway named Mary Guarneri?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “Perhaps. The girl's mother spoke with you several times. She had reason to believe Mary was in Sea Haven.”

  “What kind of reason?”

  “She received a postcard from her daughter.”

  “Is that so? Hunh. Well, I got to be honest-I don't remember any Mary Guarneri. When was this? Couple years ago or something?”

  “1985.”

  “1985? Jesus, Ceepak. That's freaking ancient history.”

  “Agreed. However, the mother spoke with you several times over the course of that summer. Again right before Christmas. I thought perhaps….”

  “Listen, Ceepak-I realize you're relatively new down here, but let me give it to you straight: we have moms and dads calling about their kids all summer, every summer. Sea Haven is a very popular destination for your juvie types. They figure they can head down here, hang out on the beach, sleep under the boardwalk-live the dream, you know what I'm saying? Nothing but sun, sand, and sex.”

  “We have reason to suspect that this girl could have become the victim of foul play.”

  “What reason?”

  “Recently uncovered evidence.” Ceepak doesn't go into the grisly details.

  “Hey,” Gus says with a shrug, “if her mom called, I'm sure we put her name up on the board with the rest of 'em. But I guarantee you we didn't bust our hump searching for this Mary Guarneri kid. Summers, we're crazy busy. You know that. Forty-some officers. Twelve men a shift. We never had the time or manpower to provide station house adjustments for every kid that comes down the shore looking for a good time without telling her parents about it first.”

  “Did you write up an incident report when Ms. Guarneri called? Maybe if we re-examined your records….”

  Gus shakes his head.

  “You're not listening. There aren't any records, no paper at all. These runaway kids were never what you might call a ‘high priority.’ Most of them were druggies or worse. Now if this kid got into some kind of trouble, say she was ripping people off or, you know, dabbling in drug dealing or prostitution or what have you, then we might have something on her.”

  “Do you have reason to suspect she might have been engaged in criminal activity?”

  “Most of these runaways are troublemakers. I wouldn't be surprised if her parents kicked her out of the house, told her to take a hike.”

  “This particular girl's mother was actively searching for her.”

  “Then she's the freaking exception to the rule. Most of these kids, they're like the garbage you fling out your car window, you know what I'm saying? You're happy to be rid of it. Maybe somebody comes along and cleans up your mess, maybe they don't, but you don't really give two shits either way.”

  Ceepak nods but gives Gus the sad eyes that say he could have and should have done better.

  “I gotta go home.” Gus picks up his cooler. “Fran's waiting.”

  Ceepak puts away his notebook, clicks his pen shut.

  “Say ‘hello’ for me.”

  “Yeah.” Gus shambles toward his car. Stops. Turns to face Ceepak. “You might ought to check with that Jesus freak on the boardwalk.”

  “Are you referring to Reverend Trumble?”

  “Yeah. Most of these runaways, sooner or later they get hungry or stink so bad they end up at his place for a hot meal and shower.” Gus shrugs. “Sorry I can't, you know, give you guys anything more.”

  Ceepak smiles. “Don't worry, Gus. It's all good.”

  Gus opens his car door. His lips twitch down into a frown. I get a feeling his fried fluke won't taste so good tonight, no matter how well Fran breads and spices it.

  As his car crunches out of the lot, Ceepak turns to stare at the sun setting behind the skyline of boat antennae. The view kind of reminds me of this fake oil painting that's bolted to the wall in my apartment. My apartment used to be a motel room. Motels use bolts on all their works of art.

  I hear Ceepak sigh.

  “What's up?” I ask, because when he heaves a sigh like that, I always know something is.

  Ceepak turns. Squints. It's not the sun that's causing his eyes to tighten. He's seeing something he'd rather not, something that happened in the past. Something bad.

  “Antwoine James,” he says.

  “Who's he?”

  Ceepak stays quiet. Nods. Finally he says one word: “Exactly.” Then he repeats my question. Slowly. “Who is he?”

  Okay. I think we're entering one of those Ceepak Zen Zones where the complexities of a cruel universe get boiled down to a single simple question that somehow answers everything. At least for him. Me? I've got nothing.

  “Antwoine James was a good man,” he says. “A good soldier. Sixty-seventh Armor Regiment out of Fort Hood, Texas. He was riding in the deuce-and-a-half behind our Hummer … we were on point….”

  He's back in the sandbox. Iraq. The day his topside gunner on the SAW, the Squad Automatic Weapon, took out a taxicab full of innocent civilians. The day the truck behind him was blown to bits by an IED, a roadside bomb.

  “This was early in the conflict. Before we started doing hillbilly armor improvements. Sheet metal sides and firing ports. Of course, the brunt of this particular blast came up through the undercarriage. Side panels wouldn't have helped all that much.”

  Ceepak stops. Water laps against the pilings. Happy gulls chirp in the sky. Soothing seashore sounds surround us, like the mood music you hear on New Age CDs in gift shops. I don't think Ceepak hears any of it. I think he hears exploding bombs and screeching metal and the screams of men who just lost both their arms or legs or worse.

  “Private James did not make it. He died before the choppers arrived. Died with his head in my lap. They shipped his body home in a steel casket with a flag draped over the top. They shipped him home to Dover Air Force base. Delaware.”

  Dover.

 
The circled word I saw in Ceepak's notebook.

  “Unfortunately,” he continues, “Antwoine James had no family except the Army. No home except Fort Hood. He was a tough kid from the streets of Houston who joined the Army because he wanted to become something better. When his body arrived in Dover, no one claimed it. No one was allowed to see his coffin in the newspaper or on TV. There was no one to take his folded flag, the flag given on behalf of a grateful nation.”

  Ceepak says the last two words with as much sarcasm as he ever musters. Then he turns to look me in the eye.

  “I'm afraid the nation was too busy to show its gratitude for a young black soldier who grew up in the wrong part of town. He was considered ‘less dead.’”

  Less dead.

  And so, once again, Ceepak helps me understand the significance of solving the Mary Guarneri puzzle.

  Dover. Private Antwoine James.

  Sea Haven. Runaway Mary Guarneri.

  In Ceepak's world, every life is worthy of honor and respect, no matter how shady the circumstances surrounding it. No man is less dead than any other. No child less missed.

  “You hungry?” I say.

  Ceepak blinks. I think I just shocked him out of his dark musings, which was exactly what I was hoping to do.

  “I'm starving,” I chirp like one of those gulls tracking Gus's boat. “Maybe we should head over to Morgan's. We don't have to do the whole surf and turf deal but maybe we could grab some crab cakes or a bowl of chowder….”

  I'm rambling.

  I'm also not really hungry.

  I just think my partner needs to be reminded of what's still good and decent in this world.

  I think he needs a little Rita time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Morgan's Surf and Turf is one of the few restaurants on the island that actually covers its tables with a tablecloth made out of cloth instead of paper.

  And they don't give you a glass full of crayons to scribble on it, either.

  When we got there, around eight P.M., Rita was working five tables. She looked pleased to see us, even if she was busy. Now we're sitting in a big booth at the back, right near the swinging kitchen doors where we can hear dishes clatter and bells ding and the cook yell in Spanish while we wait for our steaming bowls of Morgan's World Famous Clam Chowder to cool down. Only they spell it “Chowda.” All the restaurants down here do. Guess it makes New Jersey sound more like New England. Maybe Cape Cod.

  I'm also eating crackers. They have good ones at Morgan's, not just your basic Saltines. Morgan's gives you variety: Waverly Wafers, Ritz, Melba Toast-even those Sociables with the baked-in black specks that I think are pepper, maybe poppy seeds. Each cracker couple comes sealed inside its own individually labeled cellophane wrapper and they all sit in a tidy row inside a black-and-gold wire basket.

  Classy.

  I have a pile of tooth-torn cellophane wrappers heaped up next to my fork. I also have a light dusting of crumbs in my lap.

  Not so classy.

  I slurp some soup. It's good. Thick and creamy.

  Ceepak has nibbled maybe the corner off one Saltine. For him, chowda is something you stir with a spoon while you ruminate.

  “Hey, Danny!” It's my friend, Olivia Chibbs, the med student. She works summers at Morgan's, which is why she is currently balancing a mammoth tray loaded down with crab-stuffed lobster tails and something that smells like overcooked broccoli. “Hey, Ceepak.”

  “Good evening, Ms. Chibbs.”

  “Where've you been, Danny?” Olivia asks.

  I point to my cop uniform. “Working.”

  “I thought you were on days.”

  “I am.”

  “It's night.”

  “We needed to put in a little overtime,” says Ceepak. I notice he doesn't offer any additional information as to why we're working later than usual. I think it's his hint for me to do likewise, to keep our current mission under wraps as the chief requested.

  “Do you guys get time-and-a-half when you pull OT?” Olivia asks Ceepak nods. “Yes, ma'am. We surely do.” He nibbles another corner off the same Saltine. For a tower of power, the guy eats like a sparrow on a low-carb diet.

  “Awesome,” says Olivia. “So Danny, Becca's been trying to text you for like two hours.”

  Becca Adkinson is another one of our mutual friends. She and her family run the Mussel Beach Motel over, as the name suggests, near the beach.

  “What's up?”

  “You and Aubrey Hamilton. She's willing to give you a second chance.”

  Aubrey is the girl Olivia and my buddy Jess tried to fix me up with last night.

  “Becca set it all up. Tonight. Nine-thirty. The Sand Bar. Be there. On time, this time!”

  Olivia shoots me a wink and bustles away with her clattering tray.

  “Have I met this girl Aubrey?” Ceepak asks.

  “Maybe. Waitress. Rusty Scupper.” When I'm nervous, I tend to speak in quick, incoherent bursts.

  “Nice girl?”

  “Oh, yeah. Very, you know, nice. Real nice.”

  “You know, Danny, I suspect your friends think it's time you moved on. Tested the romantic waters.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “When one door closes, another door opens.”

  “Yeah,” I crack, “but it's hell in the hallway.”

  “You still miss Katie?”

  I'm about to say, “Nah,” when I remember Ceepak's Code. Not only won't he lie, cheat, or steal, he also won't tolerate anybody who does. I am, therefore, once again compelled to tell him the truth.

  “Yeah. Sort of.”

  He nods his head like the big brother I never had.

  “Understandable. Katie is a wonderful woman.”

  “Yeah. Must be why she moved all the way across the country to get away from me.”

  Now Ceepak shakes his head. “Not you, Danny. The memories. Her secret sadness. I believe Springsteen says it best….”

  Of course he does.

  “‘Some day they just cut it loose, cut it loose or let it drag 'em down.’”

  He's quoting “Darkness on the Edge of Town” again.

  “Danny, Katie had to cut herself free from Sea Haven and what happened here or it would have dragged her down for the rest of her life.”

  As usual, The Boss and Ceepak are correct, but it doesn't really make me feel any better. So, I tear open another cracker wrapper.

  Ceepak tilts his wrist, checks his watch.

  “You should definitely meet up with this young lady. Aubrey. It's only twenty-fifteen. Finish your soup and we'll swing by the house so you can pick up your Jeep.”

  “Don't you want to go talk to Trumble like Gus suggested? He's right, you know. A lot of the teenage runaways eventually end up there.”

  “10-4. However, I feel it might be best if we pay the Reverend a visit first thing tomorrow morning while he's serving breakfast. I find people are often most forthcoming when they're too busy to play games or plot deceptions. Who knows-maybe our redheaded friend will be there as well.”

  The thief from the beach. I had forgotten all about her.

  Ceepak leans back in the booth and stares off into space, his face softening. I swivel in my seat to see what he sees, what he's smiling at.

  Of course. It's Rita. She's over by the bar with her soft blonde hair backlit by the golden glow of a neon Corona Beer sign. She beams back at him and waves something in our general direction.

  “Wonder what that might be….” As if she heard him, Rita does a quick scan of her crowded tables to make sure everybody has everything they need for the next two seconds, and then darts across the dining room to join us.

  “Look you guys-T. J. went to the top of the Empire State Building!”

  She puts a postcard down on our table.

  “That's wonderful,” says Ceepak.

  “John, he's having such a great time….”

  Ceepak sort of blushes. He doesn't want the whole world knowing he paid for Rita's s
ixteen-year-old kid to go see King Kong's perch. Not that he's embarrassed about doing it. It's praise that usually makes Ceepak feel all squirmy. I think it's why he never talks about the ton of medals he earned in the Army.

  “Neither one of us can ever thank you enough,” says Rita. “He went to Greenwich Village and this free rock concert in Central Park….”

  Ceepak allows a slight smile to cross his lips.

  “I never could have afforded to send him up to my sister's … not on my own … I mean not with everything else … you know, back-to-school clothes and school supplies and….”

  “Rita, I'm very glad to hear that T. J.'s having fun,” Ceepak says softly. “He's a good kid.”

  Rita leans down because she can't resist giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

  Ceepak's grin grows so wide his wiggling dimples look like parentheses quivering on either side of his nose.

  Rita giggles when she finds a tear in her eye.

  “Look at me. I'm a mess.” She dabs it away with her thumb. “Thanks again, honey.”

  “You are very welcome.”

  Romance fills the air. Almost enough to cover up the smell of overcooked broccoli and lobster brine. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky. If not tonight, sometime soon. If not Aubrey, someone else.

  “He'll be home on Friday,” says Rita, composing herself, brushing invisible wrinkles out of her crisp white blouse. “They need him on the boardwalk. Apparently, they're expecting big crowds on account of the Sand Castle Competition.”

  T. J. works part-time at this game booth on the boardwalk, helping people lose their money by flinging rubber rings at two-liter Coke bottles in a frantic attempt to win their girlfriend some kind of cuddly stuffed monkey.

  “Miss?”

  A man three tables away, a huge man with a napkin tucked under his three chins and a glob of sour cream dotting the tip of his nose, is waving his arm like a little boy who needs permission to use the bathroom.

  “We need more butter, miss.”

  “Right away!” Rita says.

  She scoots into the kitchen. Ceepak watches her fly through the swinging double doors. I look down and check out T. J.'s postcard. Naturally it reminds me of the one Mary Guarneri sent her mother all those years back. The one she signed “Ruth,” for whatever reason. When I look up, I can tell Ceepak is thinking the exact same thing. He pushes his chowder bowl aside and reaches into a cargo pants pocket to pull out a stack of Polaroids.