“You two ever talk about it?”
“Maybe. Once. He said he wished he had this special hopper that pumped UV rays into the balls so they glowed or something. Sounded expensive as shit.”
“Set!” Grandpa hollers and shuffles back to his stool, picking up his wet cigar butt on the way. I see that the plywood wall he sits behind has been pelted, too. I guess when you get bored nailing the targets you can always try to nail a live geezer.
“Crank it up!”
I hear an air pump hammer-like on a power washer. The guns are pressurized.
“Send him flying!”
A motor whirrs. A chain clicks on a pulley. All of a sudden, the Saddam Hussein target slides back and forth, while Osama stays still.
“Saddam moves around a lot.” The guy chuckles, sure he's hooked another sucker. “Before we nabbed him, he was always running from one spider hole to another.”
“Does your target move as well?”
“Nah. Osama's just sitting there, hiding in his cave.”
“I see.”
“Hey, pal-you're the one who picked Saddam.”
“Actually, you picked him for me.”
“What? You think I'm cheating or something?”
“I don't think it. I know it.”
“Oh, so now you want out? You just want to talk big, flash your cash, then back down?”
“No,” Ceepak says. “I just want to be clear.” He puts the tiny rifle stock up to his shoulder.
“Thirty balls, pal.”
“Thirty. Roger that.”
“Fire at will.”
I hear that pop, pop, pop again, only now it's in total stereo. Like everybody on both sides of the boardwalk is stomping on paper cups. I also hear a lot of thwacks, paint splatting on pressboard.
The guy who runs the booth? He's good. A couple of his shots miss Osama's head. Some splatter on his robe below the neck. One or two whoosh past the turban altogether. But he's basically nailing his target. I'd say about two dozen paintballs explode dead center on Osama's nose and obliterate his face in no time flat. Like I said, the guy's good.
But he's no John Ceepak.
Every single one of Ceepak's shots hits Saddam smack in that bushy mustache. No misses. No near misses. All thirty shots hit the exact same spot on the moving target. He's just stacking whacks on top of each other.
Those medals Ceepak got in the army? A couple were for marksmanship.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Ring Toss,” the arcade guy mumbles.
“Excuse me?” Ceepak puts down his air gun.
“T. J. He works mornings up at the Ring Toss.”
“I know where it is,” I say.
This superskinny guy in chocolate chip desert camo shorts, a matching T-shirt, and what they call a boony hat steps out of the crowd.
“Wanna shoot again?” he says to Ceepak.
“No, thank you.”
“You army?”
“No, sir.”
“But you used to be, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Figures.”
When I say this guy's skinny, I mean he's a six-six skeleton, like somebody who just crawled out of a tomb.
“Army asshole.”
“Sir,” Ceepak says, “I need to leave. Perhaps you should consider doing the same.”
“Perhaps you should consider kissing my ass,” he says and grins. His teeth are bony too, like he doesn't have any gums. “You army creeps make me sick!”
Ceepak points at the guy's camo getup.
“You served?”
“No.” The smile slams shut. He fidgets with that hat. “They wouldn't take me. But I could take you, man. I could take you down.”
I start to feel sorry for him. Under that boony hat, I figure he's got a few loose lug nuts.
Now he jabs a bony finger at me.
“I could take you down, too, punk.”
I want to smack the guy's hand, get that gnarly finger out of my face.
“Danny?” says Ceepak, poker-faced. “We need to move along.”
“Right.”
We walk away.
“We need to maintain focus on our mission.”
“Yes, sir. The Ring Toss is just another block up.”
We reach W-A-V-Y's live boardwalk broadcast booth. Music thumps out of humongous outdoor speakers. When the song fades, the deejay yammers.
“Hey, this is Skeeter-burning up the Jersey Shore on W-A-V-Y. I'm joined by a very special guest …”
“Sea Haven's own-Mayor Hugh Sinclair.”
Oh. Him.
“Great to be here, Cliff.”
Cliff Skeete and I went to high school together. We even tried to run this party-music deejay business for a couple of months. It didn't pan out. There was this incident at a wedding. All I can say in my defense is that I was very hungry and the cake had excellent frosting.
Cliff catches my eye and gives me a wave. They wave a lot at W-A-V-Y, the “Crazy Wave of Sound for Sea Haven and the Jersey Shore,” as they say between songs. Constantly.
“I hope everyone's having a sunny, funderful day,” says Mayor Sinclair. He says that all the time. It's the town's official slogan even though it's stupid. “Skeeter, I want to personally invite you and all your listeners to the World's Biggest Beach Party and Boogaloo BBQ!”
I think this newly dreamed-up Labor Day deal is supposed to be some kind of mass hypnosis designed to make us all forget what happened at the Tilt-A-Whirl back in July. I know it won't work on me, but I'm always up for a good party. This one should be awesome. Big-name bands. Cheap, greasy food. Girls in teeny bikinis. I think they're having a “Best Tan” contest. Maybe they'll need an extra judge. Maybe Skeeter will put in a good word for me.
Up ahead, I see “The Lord of the Rings Toss.” Of course it's not in any way officially tied to the movie. Somebody just ripped off the poster art and used it for their plywood signs. They've even painted in some characters who sort of look like Gandalf and the Elf guy with the arrows.
A kid, probably fifteen or sixteen, works inside the game shed. He's the one who pulls plastic rings off these two-liter soda bottles filled with black water. The rings are gold, just like Frodo's, only Frodo's wasn't spray- painted.
The kid has bleach-blond dreadlocks pulled back by a wide white headband that makes the dreads stick up
