Whack A Mole jc-3

by Chris Grabenstein

  I see Cap'n Pete flip backward over the side rail. Hear the splash.

  Gus goes scampering down the ladder. I'm right behind him.

  He heads into the cabin to grab one of those fire extinguishers. The right half of the Reel Fun is totally engulfed with flames. The stack of tires must be soaked with diesel fuel. They bubble up toxic black fumes.

  The fire hasn't reached Rita's chair. Not yet. It licks its way across the deck, picking up speed when the swells rise and tip the boat in her direction. Retreating when it rocks back.

  I head up to the bow, race out on the harpoon pulpit. We've drifted back from Cap'n Pete's stern. There's a two-foot gap between the two fishing boats.

  Gus, behind me, sprays foam at the fire.

  Ceepak uses his knife to cut the restraints off Rita in the portside chair. Her naked skin glistens in the heat of the fire. I see a gutter of flame roll downhill and find Ceepak's shoelace. It burns like a cartoon fuse. Ceepak stomps it out and scoops Rita's slumped body up into his arms.

  “Cover me!” Ceepak yells.

  The pulpit sways. I point my pistol where I last saw Cap'n Pete. I try to lock my feet. Take a solid stance.

  “He's gone!” I yell. “I saw him fall overboard.”

  Ceepak brings Rita to the railing. Gus shoots more foam at the fire.

  I pray to God Rita isn't hurt. I pray to God she isn't dead.

  I reach out my left hand to give Ceepak something to grab on to. I keep my right hand, my gun hand, pointed toward the flames. I bet the Coast Guard can spot the fishing boat from the air now. It's sizzling and sparkling like a floating roadside flare.

  Ceepak hugs Rita closer to his chest and reaches out for my hand.

  Our fingers touch.

  I see movement.

  I swivel right, let Ceepak slip from my grip. He and Rita topple down. Hit the water. Go under.

  Through the flames, I can see Cap'n Pete. He has pulled himself up and over the starboard railing. He must be wearing a bulletproof vest. My shots hit a hard shell of plastic and knocked him backward.

  Pete raises some kind of lance or grappling hook or spiked pole. He holds it up over his head like a demented Eskimo spearfishing for polar bears. He tears through the wall of fire, means to use the weapon on Ceepak and Rita, off the side of his boat. Impale them like trapped sharks thrashing in his nets.

  I pump the trigger on my Glock. I squeeze off one round, work my way up the target, and squeeze off another-because Cap'n Pete won't fall down. When my third bullet tears through the fleshy double chin cowling around his neck, I hear him drop the metal spike, hear it clank behind him on the deck.

  Then he stares at me.

  He looks worried. Scared. Hurt. Sad. Like he wants to ask, “What did I ever do to you, Danny Boyle?”

  But he can't ask anything because he doesn't have a throat anymore, just a big gaping hole in the middle of his neck.

  He stumbles sideways.

  Takes a step. Maybe two.

  His body tumbles over the side of the boat.

  This time, I'm pretty certain he's dead.

  EPILOGUE

  I have the same nightmare again.

  I'm a kid. About nine or ten. My Cub Scout pack is deep-sea fishing on Cap'n Pete's charter boat.

  “Gather round, laddies,” says the skipper. “See young Danny Boyle here? Well, let me tell you, boys-one day he's going to grow up and kill me.”

  The other kids stare at me. Even my best friend Jess, who's grinning and nodding and giving me two thumbs way up because he thinks it's cool that I'm gonna grow up to become a cold-blooded killer.

  Then my Scout pack turns into a bunch of lobsters flailing on the floor in front of a shattered aquarium. And a battery-powered parrot in a puddle starts screeching, “Man overboard! Man overboard!” And a canon fires.

  Then Cap'n Pete's neck explodes.

  That's usually when I wake up.

  I start shivering, no matter the temperature.

  Now I know how it feels.

  I have killed a man.

  • • •

  Ceepak and I took a couple days off.

  I spent most of that time alone in my apartment listening to this one depressing Springsteen CD over and over: Darkness on the Edge of Town. Its tracks are full of sadness and anger and rage all jumbled up together. Songs about badlands and streets on fire, rattlesnake speedways and howling dogs on Main Street, broken hearts and chasing some mirage, living it every day and proving it all night.

  “I wanna find one face that ain't looking through me,” Springsteen snarls. “I wanna find one place, I wanna spit in the face of these badlands.”

  Lucky for me, Ceepak stopped by the apartment half a dozen times on Wednesday. Ten on Thursday.

  He knows what it's like to kill a man.

  He brought me food. Told me his stories. Made me tell mine. Over and over. Then, together, we listened to the CD some more. Listened to the Boss scream about a “twister to blow everything down that ain't got the faith to stand its ground.”

  Ceepak nodded every time Bruce sang that line.

  Ceepak knows about the twisters.

  Thursday night, I nibbled on a Whopper that Ceepak brought me from Burger King. Then I tried to joke about how I dunked him and Rita into the drink that night. How we were lucky Gus's boat didn't catch on fire-even with all that water all around us.

  Then I cried.

  I think my Darkness overdose was bumming me out.

  I was definitely caught in a crossfire I couldn't understand: I did good by doing the worst thing a human being can ever possibly do.

  Friday, we went back to work.

  There's a lot of paperwork to fill out when you shoot somebody. More when you kill them.

  Sergeant Santucci was hovering near the front desk when we walked in for roll call, still trying to bust Ceepak's chops.

  “Pete Mullen? He wasn't even on your suspect list! Jesus, Ceepak. You call yourself a detective?”

  Ceepak ignored him.

  Then Santucci was ushered into a little room to talk to the Sea Haven town attorney in order to hash out his personal liability in the settlement deal the township had reached with Mama Shucker's. Sergeant Santucci will probably need to pull some heavy-duty overtime over the next fifty years in order to pay off his portion of the damages.

  Retired Sergeant Gus Davis was at the house, too-using our phones to work out his final travel arrangements. He's flying out to Fresno this weekend with a tiny urn filled with the cremated remains-what we have-of Mary Guarneri's body. He'll present the urn to the girl's mother. He'll probably apologize to her, too.

  Of course, at roll call, Chief Buzz Baines insisted that everybody keep hush-hush about the crazy psycho serial killer who crawled out of his mole hole after hibernating in Sea Haven for fifteen years.

  Unfortunately for Buzz, keeping this thing a secret would be totally impossible.

  First of all, Ceepak stood up and insisted that we send Cap'n Pete's souvenir collection off to the State Forensics Lab and down to the FBI for DNA analysis. He also demanded that we post all our evidence on the Internet and try to link up with the vast network of missing person sites. Try to give a dozen grieving families some sense of closure.

  Second, you have to figure people in town are already talking. Maybe they showed up for their pre-booked fishing charters and discovered that Cap'n Pete and his boat no longer existed. Maybe they went to the Sand Castle Competition and heard rumors about the “buried treasure” the bulldozer guys dug up over near the pirate scene. Maybe Norma told everybody she knows what turned up in the Whaling Museum. Maybe Amy Decosimo let out what strange booty was recently lining the shelves over at The Treasure Chest.

  Word will seep out. The truth usually does. All it needs is a tiny little crack. I think that's why Ceepak never lies. As Gus might put it, “What's the freaking point?”

  And the hitchhiker-the girl who went from being a redhead to a greenhead (no, not one of the flies)?<
br />
  Her name is really Elizabeth, not Stacey, and her mother and father are flying in from Pittsburgh to pick her up and take her home. Put her back on her meds. They say she's sixteen and has “issues.” In the meantime, she's spending her final nights in Sea Haven as our guest. She has a cot in one of our cozier jail cells. Hey-that's what you get for stealing twenty bucks off a cop.

  Seven-thirty P.M., we punch out.

  No overtime this Friday. And the chief gave us both the weekend off. I don't think he wants us guarding the Sand Castle Competition. He's got his reasons.

  “Are you free this evening?” Ceepak asks as we stroll down the front steps of police headquarters.

  “What's up?” I ask.

  “T. J. came home from New York this morning. Rita's having a barbecue to celebrate. We'll be grilling burgers and dogs over at my place.”

  I'm surprised to hear that Ms. Lapczynski is willing to venture anywhere near open flames-propane, charcoal, or otherwise-but I'm in. Burnt meat and cold beer are two of my summertime favorites.

  “Sounds cool,” I say.

  “Good. See you there.”

  I hop into my Jeep and zip over to the Qwick Pick to grab a couple bags of Ruffles. I figure I should bring something to the picnic table.

  I also grab a couple Ring Dings. In case Rita didn't have time to make dessert. And a box of Milk-Bones. For Barkley, the best guard dog ever to shuffle out of the retirement home.

  I toss the groceries into the back of my Jeep and head over to Ceepak's.

  • • •

  “Hey, man. Thanks for saving my mom.” It's T. J. He's manning the grill. He puts down his burger flipper and shakes my hand. “Brewski?”

  “Thanks.”

  He pries open the lid on the Igloo; I fish out a frosty longneck Bud. He's sipping a Dr Pepper-he's sixteen.

  I twist open my beer and look over at Barkley, who's snoozing in the shade underneath the picnic table.

  “I already gave him a couple burgers,” says T. J. “Without cheese. Cheese makes him fart.”

  I nod. “Me too, man.”

  T. J. nods, too. He can relate.

  “Hey, Danny!”

  It's Rita. Up at the top of the stairs. She's coming down the steps balancing a big bowl of potato salad and what appears to be a fresh-baked apple pie. Guess I'll save the Ring Dings for a rainy day. Ceepak's right behind her with bags of buns and squeeze bottles of ketchup and mustard.

  He sets his stuff down on the picnic table.

  “Danny?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Are you free tomorrow evening? Twenty-thirty hours?”

  “So far's I know.”

  “Awesome.” Ceepak takes Rita's hand. “We'd like you to be our best man. Will you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “At our wedding,” says Rita.

  “You guys are getting married?”

  “Roger that.”

  “I'm in charge of walking her down the aisle,” says T. J. “Barkley's going to be the ring bearer. We'll put 'em in a pouch on his collar.”

  “Is this a church wedding?” I ask.

  If it is, I might need to swing by Sears. Pick up a suit.

  “Negative,” says Ceepak.

  I guess he's had enough organized religion for one week.

  “Judge Willoughby will preside,” says Rita. “It's a civil ceremony. On the beach at sunset.”

  “I can't believe this,” I say. “This is so cool! Are you guys like registered anywhere? Do you need salad bowls or something?”

  “Danny?” says Rita, beaming her impossibly radiant smile straight through my heart, making me feel better than I have in days. “Come on-answer the question! Will you stand up for us? Will you be our best man?”

  I smile back.

  “Sure. Absolutely.”

  I say it with great gusto, even though I know it will be an extremely tough act to pull off. Practically impossible.

  It's hard for anybody to be the so-called best man when John Ceepak is already standing there.

  But I'll give it a shot.

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