Mad Mouse js-2

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Danny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You look nice today,” she says.

  “Thanks. You, too.”

  “Oh, you like a girl in uniform, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You like girls? Not that there's anything wrong with that.”

  “No,” she laughs. “I like it when, you know.”

  “When I wear my uniform? My cop cap?”

  “It's not so much the hat. It's, I don't know. You're doing something worth doing.”

  “Directing traffic? Writing parking tickets?”

  “Protecting people.”

  “Yeah, well-I think it's cool what you do, too. Teaching kids.”

  “You think you'll go full time?”

  “I put in my application. We'll see. Sometimes, there's a lot of politics involved … only one slot.”

  “Yeah.”

  We sip and sort of smile at each other for a while.

  “You know what makes summer so great, Danny?”

  “What?”

  “It's like dessert. You only get it after you put in a fall, winter, and spring. If it was summer all the time.”

  “We'd be in Hawaii.”

  “Yeah. I think Hawaii would be boring. Nothing to do but nothing to do, you know?”

  “Yeah. I like working,” I say, sort of surprised to hear myself say it. “I mean lately.” I cannot tell a lie, and not because Ceepak would bust me if I did. Katie knows my history. Until now, work had been what I did during the day to pay for the fun I had at night.

  Katie gives me her softest smile, melting my heart faster than a Good Humor bar dropped on August asphalt.

  “Relax, spazz!”

  My head whips right. It's this new instinct I've developed ever since I started working with Ceepak. My radar's always up.

  “We're goin’ for a ride!”

  It's those five muscle boys I saw downstairs. The football team. They're pushing this scared kid in a wheelchair up the ramp from the second level. The kid's head is sort of droopy and tilted sideways. One of his arms seems frozen in front of him, limp at the wrist, dangling like it's dead. Palsied.

  “It's Jimmy,” Katie says. She sounds scared. “Tammy's son. He's … you know …”

  “Let's go on a roller-coaster ride!” The lead jock races ahead of his buddies, shoves Jimmy's chair up the ramp fast-makes him pop a wheelie.

  “No! Stop!” The kid sounds like he's going to cry.

  I look at all the shoppers standing around licking ice cream cones or nibbling monster chocolate chip cookies. Nobody's doing much besides shaking their head.

  I stand up. I don't have a gun. I don't even have my badge or cop cap. It's my day off. I don't know what I think I'm going to do. I just know that these knuckleheads are totally freaking out the poor kid.

  “Ready?” the biggest guy hollers down the slope to his buddies.

  “Ready!” they holler back. “Send the retard down!”

  The one who's holding on to it is about to let go of the wheelchair, about to send Jimmy rolling back down the ramp.

  “Stop!”

  I run over, push him aside, and grab the wheelchair handles.

  “Hey, man! What the fuck?”

  “I'm with the police.”

  “Then arrest this little retard. He blocked traffic, took up the whole fucking ramp.”

  The guys down below thump up the incline. They have me and Jimmy surrounded.

  “I'll take care of this,” I say.

  The big boys move in tighter.

  “You gonna arrest him?”

  “We'll help you roll him over to the jail, dude.”

  “Kid's a retard. He should stay inside.”

  “Yeah, he's scaring away the ladies.”

  “Okay, guys.” I try to channel Ceepak. “Thanks. Now, why don't you move along?”

  “I got a better idea,” the biggest one says. “Why don't you go fuck yourself? We were just having some fun, right retard?”

  Terrified, trembling, Jimmy nods.

  “We were just about to give him a free rolly-coaster ride.”

  “I can't let you do that,” I say.

  “Retards like rolly-coaster rides.”

  “Leave him alone.”

  “Make us.” The circle shrinks. I wonder if I'm cut out for this job I just told Katie I like so damn much.

  A menacing wall of sweaty meat surrounds me. I could use the wheelchair to bulldoze over a couple of them but that would probably leave Jimmy traumatized for life or, at least, pretty bruised.

  “We were just having fun. Right, spazz?”

  “Maybe you should go have it somewhere else.”

  It's Ceepak.

  He's behind me licking an ice cream cone. The football boys take one look at him, and, suddenly, they aren't so menacing anymore.

  “You heard Officer Boyle,” he says. “You need to move along. You need to do so in an expeditious manner.”

  “What?”

  “Leave. Now.” Ceepak tosses what's left of his waffle cone into a trash bin and wipes his sticky hands with a paper napkin. He crumples the napkin into a tight wad and tosses it into the can, too. When he crushes stuff, you can see the veins and muscles and tendons rippling in his arms. You have to figure his fists will be somewhat furious.

  The five guys step backwards in virtual lockstep. Like they're not really leaving even though they actually are. It's the tough dude retreat, the fadeaway admission of defeat.

  “Watch your back,” one of them remembers to hiss at me. “Watch your back!”

  “You okay, Jimmy?” Katie's beside him now. She's kneeling in front of the wheelchair so she can look Jimmy in the eye, so he can see her familiar smile.

  “I want ice cream.”

  “Then we'll go get you some, okay?” Katie looks back at us. “Thanks, Danny. Mr. Ceepak. You guys are the best.”

  She takes the wheelchair in hand, turns it, and waves, as she heads down the ramp with Jimmy.

  I wave back.

  “That's Katie?” Ceepak says.

  “Yeah.”

  “Nice lady.”

  “Yeah. Real nice.”

  I'm glad Ceepak approves. He has high standards for everything. Women included.

  “Becca suggested I might find you here,” Ceepak says. “She told me to wait until fifteen forty-five.”

  That's army talk for three forty-five P.M. I guess Becca wanted to give Katie and me fifteen minutes alone.

  “What's up?” I ask.

  “Not much. Just wanted to report in on my conversation with the chief.”

  “And?”

  “Are you free tomorrow evening? He'd like to take us out to dinner. I suspect he wants to discuss something with you.”

  “The job?”

  Ceepak refuses to rise to the bait. I never actually thought he would.

  “Not knowing, can't say,” he says.

  It doesn't matter.

  It's The Job.

  It's mine.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Friday morning. September first. I feel like a full-time cop already. I'm working sewer duty. Or maybe it's water main duty. Basically, I'm acting like a human traffic light-signaling cars to slow down and move into the center lane of Ocean Avenue so these backhoes can dig up the street and pull out eight-foot-wide sections of concrete pipe.

  I hope it's a water main. I don't want to think about an eight-foot-wide tube of sewage, even if it is buried underneath a ton of asphalt.

  You've got a lot of time to think about stupid stuff when you're a human traffic light and it's 92 degrees in the shade-of which there is absolutely none in the middle of Ocean Avenue. The heat makes me loopy. If I weren't wearing my cop cap, I think my head would melt.

  Ceepak isn't directing traffic this morning. He's working with the bosses on the battle plan for Monday and the World's Biggest Beach Party and Boogaloo BBQ. I guess they want to make sure security is tight but loose-in o
ther words, that we're all over the place but nobody notices. Every cop on the force, me included, will be on the clock Labor Day. The full-time guys probably score double overtime. I hope that's me next year. Double overtime sounds nice, especially when you think your head is about to melt.

  I'd gone by the house this morning for roll call. Dominic Santucci was in the lobby standing next to the gumball machine. Why the police station has a gumball machine, I don't know. It's not like people on the street say: “I need some gum. Let's go see if the cops have any.” Maybe the gumballs are just for Santucci. He sure chews a lot of them. He likes to chomp while he sizes you up.

  “I hear you're going on a date tonight,” Santucci said smugly. “You and the new chief.” He likes to think he's in the know on departmental scuttlebutt.

  “Yeah. Sorry your boy won't be joining us.”

  “My boy?”

  “I figured, you know, you recommended someone else for the job. One of the other guys. One of the losers?”

  “It ain't over till the fat bastard sings. Capeesh?”

  Santucci tends to mangle his clichés like that, but I let it go, set my snicker on its silent mode.

  Anyway, what he probably doesn't know is that dinner is scheduled for seven P.M. at Morgan's Surf and Turf. That's a swanky restaurant up Ocean Avenue, across the street from the big green water tower.

  I'm working this dusty sewer-pipe detail with Skip O'Malley, another summertime cop. I know Skip applied for the full-time job like I did, but he's only twenty-one and hasn't helped solve any major crimes this summer.

  I don't mean to gloat. I guess Ceepak somehow just managed to make me feel like I've got the job in the bag.

  I turn around and see O'Malley at the other end of our detour-directing traffic with one hand, yakking on the cell phone he holds in the other. I know he's got this serious girlfriend so his phone is constantly glued to his ear. They talk so much I don't know what they talk about since they never seem to do anything except talk to each other.

  A black Ford Expedition comes up Ocean. It's the chief's car. I see him behind the wheel.

  I pivot and watch it cut this amazingly dangerous U-turn right in front of me. I would definitely write it up for a tire-squealing stunt like that but, like I said, it's the chief's car. He pulls off to the shoulder on the far side of the intersection.

  I stand up a little straighter and flick my traffic-signaling wrist like a pro, like one of those white-gloved guys you always see on America's Funniest Home Videos, only I don't do the little dance.

  I watch Ceepak climb out of the passenger side and stomp across the intersection-after waiting, of course, for the WALK signal to give him permission.

  “Danny.” He acknowledges me as he marches past.

  I just nod gravely and keep signaling my traffic. From the totally serious look on my face you'd think I'm trying to move motorists around a nuclear power plant meltdown, not a water-pipe installation. I do, however, crane my neck enough to see where Ceepak is going.

  To jump in O'Malley's face.

  Ceepak has his hands on his hips and leans in to give Skipper an earful. I see O'Malley close up his cell phone and clip it to his belt. He's fifty feet away, but I can see him go so bright red I wouldn't be surprised if all the cars down there slam on their brakes. With his big Irish head, he's starting to look like a stoplight.

  Yeah. I gotta figure Skip O'Malley won't be offered the full-time job even if his father is on the town council, which, of course, he is.

  I don't mean to gloat.

  I'm just looking forward to dinner.

  Thankfully, I was able to head home and grab a quick shower after work. Protecting bulldozers all day left me looking like some kind of rusty sand man, dusted with whatever red crap the backhoe scraped off the pipes down in that ditch.

  After my shower, I made a couple of quick phone calls. Reached my folks out in Scottsdale. Told them what was up. Mom was proud. Dad was busy in the garage, tinkering with his golf cart. It's what they drive instead of cars at their condo complex. Knowing my dad, he's souping up the battery-powered engine so he can race guys to the 7-Eleven.

  Next, I called Katie. She wished me luck and said to say “hey” to Olivia. Our friend is a waitress at Morgan's. Katie also recommended I stay away from the crab pie that Morgan's is famous for. “Too much butter. It'll clog your arteries.”

  Wow. She's already worried about my arteries. Wow.

  I told her I'd swing by tomorrow morning with a full report on my big night. She'll be at the taffy shop early because Tammy has to take Jimmy to his Saturday morning physical therapy appointment on the mainland. She also said she had something special she wanted to give me. A surprise.

  I put on my blue button-down shirt.

  It's the only one I own. Soon I'll probably have to buy a tie. Growing up can be expensive.

  Morgan's Surf and Turf is crowded. This is one of those places the adults visiting the island go on that one night of their vacation when they hire a babysitter or get Grandma and Grandpa to look after the kids.

  Morgan's is classy. The napkins here aren't paper and the place-mats don't come with crayons. The waiters and waitresses, even the busboys, all wear black pants and white shirts. Of course, everybody has on a different kind of black pants and a different kind of white shirt, so the uniform is sort of catch-as-catch-can. One dude may have on black Dockers, another black cargo pants, and nobody seems to iron their white shirts, because ironing usually involves steam, and very few folks want to be pumping steam in August. But all in all, the staff at Morgan's Surf and Turf still looks classier than the folks at Rudy Tootie's Root Beer.

  I think I'm thinking about this stuff because I'm nervous, standing up front near the bar, waiting for Ceepak, waiting for the chief-my new boss.

  My boss. I'm getting The Job.

  “Hey, Danny.” It's Olivia, dressed in black pants and a white blouse, looking classy, carrying a black-and-gold wire basket of crackers. “What're you doing here?”

  Morgan's is not where my buds and I typically hang. We're more the Sand Bar types, a bayside beer joint more famous for its party deck than its food. In fact, Olivia usually joins us over there when her shift ends here.

  “I'm meeting Ceepak,” I say. “And Chief Baines.”

  “Wow. The Job?”

  “Yeah. Think so.”

  “Way to go, Danny Boy.”

  She kisses me on the cheek and hustles off, carrying that basket of cellophane-wrapped crackers to its final destination. They've got Waverly Wafers at Morgan's, not just saltines. Like I said, the place is classy.

  “Danny?”

  It's Ceepak. He wears a white shirt, gray slacks, and navy blue blazer. He looks like someone who might wave a wand over you at the airport.

  “Hey.”

  “The chief called. Said he might be running a little late.”

  “Should we wait at the bar?”

  Ceepak shakes his head.

  I get it. You really don't want to be sitting at the bar, knocking back a few cold ones when the chief of police strolls in to offer you a fulltime job on the force.

  “Let's see if we can be seated at our table,” Ceepak suggests.

  “Hi, guys.”

  It's the hostess.

  “Just two?”

  “No,” says Ceepak. “We'll be three altogether.”

  “Oh. Well, we can only seat complete parties.”

  “Of course. We'll wait over here.” Ceepak moves to this leatherette bench near the front door. Rules are rules. “Chief Baines should be along soon,” he says to the hostess. “He's running a little late.”

  “Oh. You're with the Baines party?”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Mr. Baines made a reservation.”

  “Different set of rules?” Ceepak asks.

  “Whole different rule book.” She grabs a stack of menus. She's pretty and more like Ceepak's age. I think she irons her blouse, too. And-she's wearing a black skirt with
black stockings. Very unbeachy. But definitely classy.

  “Follow me.”

  “With pleasure, ma'am,” Ceepak says.

  Is he flirting? I believe he is. He's certainly smiling. His dimples kick in like crazy and his eyes most definitely twinkle.

  The hostess looks at Ceepak over her shoulder, hugs that stack of menus closer to her chest. She dimples back at him.

  Okay. This could get interesting.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I'm Rita,” she says after we sit down, taking the cardboard Reserved sign off our table. “I'll be your server tonight.”

  “I thought you were the hostess,” Ceepak says. I'm wondering if he'll march back up front if Rita proves to be a hostess impersonator and, therefore, not properly authorized to seat us at this table.

  “I am. I mean, I was. I was covering for Norma.”

  She gestures toward the front where I see a little old lady in a ruffled white blouse and ankle-length black skirt, her bluish hair sculpted into a stiff bubble. She leans against the sign that says “Please Wait For Hostess To Seat You,” trying not to knock it over. When Norma's shuffling people to tables, I bet you do indeed wait a while to be seated.

  “Norma had to powder her nose,” Rita whispers.

  “I see. Nice of you to cover for her.”

  Rita places menus in front of us.

  “I do my best,” she says.

  “It's all any of us ever can do,” says Ceepak.

  Rita stops. Not only do we not get the whole Welcome-to-Morgan's routine, I think Ceepak just made her forget tonight's catch of the day.

  “Would you like some water?” she asks, going with the part of the script easiest to memorize.

  “Water would be wonderful.”

  I figure Rita is thirty, maybe thirty-five. I know Ceepak is thirty-four. Rita has a big swoosh of blond hair that's too long to be in style, looks more like that Farrah Fawcett poster from the ’70s, the one they still sell on the boardwalk. Her eyes tell me she's probably somebody's mom because they look tired, maybe even sad. I figure her kid is a teenager. I remember my mom's eyes when my brother and I were teenagers-she looked like we never let her sleep. I also figure Rita is a single mom. Maybe it's the way she looks when Ceepak is polite, like maybe her first guy wasn't so nice.