Ceepak stops. Looks left. Right. Assesses our options.
“Backtrack,” he says. I have no idea why. He pivots and heads west. So instead of running toward the Mad Mouse we're heading back up the pier toward the boardwalk shops and lemonade stands and …
… Paintball Blasters. The booth is right in front of us.
Ceepak dashes up to the counter like he wants to take a quick break and pop off a few shots at that cardboard Saddam.
He grabs a rifle, yanks it hard.
“Hey!” It's the old guy in the sleeveless T-shirt. Guess he's running things this morning.
“Is this weapon loaded and charged, sir?”
“Yeah, but you can't-”
Ceepak doesn't listen. He rips the gun off its anchor chain, pulls up a chunk of plywood and a screw.
“You break it, you buy it! You hear me?”
Ceepak twists around, lifts the rifle to his eye, squints, lines up the nose notch, squeezes the trigger.
Pop.
A paint ball smacks Weese's wrist. He drops the duffel but quickly lurches forward to grab it before it falls through the track.
Pop.
The second ball bops him in the right butt cheek, knocking him off balance. The duffel falls through the space between track ties, bounces off braces and crossbeams, tumbles down to the pier below.
Pop. Pop.
Paintballs three and four splatter Weese's shins. Left then right. He spins sideways, pants wet with paint, his feet slip out from under him, he flops onto the track, slides and wobbles down the hill like one of those battery-operated Penguin roller coasters.
The Mad Mouse crowd cheers when Weese comes tumbling down.
“Line jumper!” One guy yells. “That'll show you!”
Cops swarm the ride. Two guys crouch in the little mouse cars, use the ears up front to steady their pistols and take aim at Weese.
Santucci crawls under the girders to retrieve the duffel. Another one of our guys storms up the track, weapon drawn. Weese sits on his butt, his paint-slickened hands held high over his head.
It's over. We got him.
I turn to Ceepak. Check out the paintball weapon he tore off the counter.
“Rifle number three?”
“Roger that,” he says with the hint of a smile. “T. J's right. It's definitely the best.”
CHAPTER FORTY
We watch Santucci stuff George Weese into the back seat of a police cruiser parked on the boardwalk. I never knew you could drive down the boards in anything bigger than a golf cart-style trash hauler. I've seen those scoot up and down the boardwalk before, never a cop car. Guess there's an on-ramp somewhere.
Anyhow, Weese's hands are tied behind his back with flex-cuffs and Santucci has his hand on top of Weese's head, smooshing down that country music comb-back, trying to cram him into the back seat without banging his head against the doorjamb.
“Fucking line jumper!” someone shouts. I think it might be that same girl. Everybody here thinks Weese is being hauled away because he wouldn't wait his turn to ride the Mad Mouse. We're the Courtesy Cops, the Etiquette Enforcers.
“Good work, guys.” Chief Baines is standing next to us. “Damn good work!” He claps Ceepak on the back. “Fantastic.”
Weese is in the back seat staring at me.
It's an unpleasant sensation. The thick lenses in his glasses magnify his eyeballs so they look swollen, bloated with anger. I can see that, just as I had feared, just as Ceepak hypothesized, our suspect hates me.
Man, he hates me a lot.
“Why don't you guys take the rest of the weekend off?” Baines now says. “Enjoy yourselves. Come back tomorrow and grab some barbecue. Heck, you're the two working stiffs who just saved Labor Day!”
“We'd like to tie up a few loose ends,” Ceepak says, sounding like he won't even think about taking time off until he's convinced this thing is completely over. He told me they had a lot of ceasefires back in Iraq. The only problem? People kept firing.
“We need to interrogate the suspect, ASAP.”
“Sure. Sure. We'll call his folks. See if they want a lawyer present. See you back at the house.”
On the drive back to headquarters, I tell Ceepak the whole story of what happened that day on the beach. What we did to George Weese. How we humiliated the Wheezer.
He nods. He understands.
Ripple effects.
When we walk in the front door of the house, everybody starts clapping.
“Way to go, guys!”
“Congratulations.”
It's pretty awesome to walk into a police station as the cops who just cracked the big case and busted the bad guy. Everybody pats us on the back, shakes our hands. Most of the “way-to-go's” go to Ceepak, but I pick up the occasional “attaboy-Danny.”
We head down the hall and see Santucci.
“Where is George Weese?” Ceepak asks.
“We put him in the interrogation room,” says Santucci. Then, he pops a gumball in his mouth, turns to me. “You did okay today, kid.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Thanks, Dom.”
He crunches his gumball a couple of chomps. Waits.
I try again: “Thanks, Sergeant Santucci.”
He winks to let me know I got it right that time.
“We can't talk to him yet,” he says. “His parents want a lawyer in the room before they let the kid answer any questions.”
Ceepak understands. “How much longer until the lawyer arrives?”
“Mr. Weese said it might take a couple of hours. Apparently, their attorney is somewhere out in the bay on his sailboat looking for the wind.”
“Where's the duffel bag?”
“In the back. Dr. McDaniels and her crew set up shop in the empty office.”
“Was it an M-24?” Ceepak asks.
“Yep. Loaded with those special ball cartridges you told us about. Five of them. We saved some lives out there today.”
“Roger that.”
They both smile. Their adrenaline drains. They're coming down off the high you get when you're ripping paintball rifles off plywood counters or chasing bad guys up a Mad Mouse.
It's all good.
“Yeah, that's him.”
Young T. J. Lapczynski is with us in the viewing room. There's a one-way mirror between us and the interrogation room. We can see George Weese, but he can't see us. A cop is in the room with him, sitting in a folding chair near the door.
Weese is at one end of a long table. He stares straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the wall. I don't think he knows we're over here on the other side of the mirror studying him like he's some sort of firefly we trapped in our mayonnaise jar. Maybe he does. If so, he sure doesn't seem to care. There's a cup of coffee and a bottle of Poland Spring water sitting on the table in front of him. So far he hasn't touched either.
“That's definitely the dude who kept hogging number three.”
“You're sure?”
“Totally.”
“Okay. Thanks, T. J. And thanks again for the heads-up.”
T. J. shrugs it off, like it was no big deal.
“I just wanted to, you know, get a shot at my favorite rifle again.”
Ceepak smiles.
“So, you call my mom yet?”
“We've been rather busy.”
“Call her. You guys could get, like, a ten percent discount on any dinner at Morgan's.”
“Ten percent? That'll work.”
“Cool.”
T. J. steps aside and Dan Bloomfield, the guy who owns Aquaman's Comix amp; Collectibles, takes his turn at the window.
“Oh, yes. That's him.”
“You're certain?”
“Definitely. It's not every day some young man strolls in and purchases seven Derek Jeters. He was belligerent about it, too. ‘I only want 1996. Don't try to hustle me into buying shit I don't want.’ That's exactly what he said. And so, obviously, I sold him his cards. However, I did not appreciate the way he talked to me. Sure, the customer is always right, but that doesn't give him the right to be rude and disrespectful!”
We thank him for coming in. He's the last one.
Now we wait for the lawyer.
It's seven P.M. Sunday.