I aced the firing range when I did my nineteen weeks at the academy. Mostly because I spent my formative years playing
Now I notice the Asian guy is wearing a head mike but he's not saying anything to hustle up a fresh crowd of suckers. All the barkers manning the other games of chance are into their raps, telling everybody how they can be a winner and take home a Tweety for their Sweetie. But this guy directly across from us is, for some reason, keeping mum about his clothesline full of Tweeties.
I also notice he's standing extremely close to his front shelf. His belt buckle is pressed up tight against the plywood.
There are no shooters. No customers.
But the guy is wearing a goofy, dreamy grin.
He slumps down some. Maybe an inch. Now the counter cuts him off above the waist. He wobbles a little. Closes his eyes.
Okay. I know where Stacey is.
“Ceepak?”
“What've you got, Danny?”
I nod toward the booth.
“I think our suspect is over there … under the counter. I think she's, you know, giving that guy a….”
Ceepak nods. I need say no more.
We walk slowly, so as not to draw the guy's attention. Not to worry. His attention is currently fixated somewhere near his zipper.
“Oh, shit!” cries this angry voice behind us.
It's the little cutie on the Whack-A-Mole game. She's smashing her mallet against the glass panel that shows her score.
“Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit!”
She has a 95. Guess you need a 100 to win. Guess you learn those words when you're nine years old these days.
“Fucking piece of fucking shit!”
The glass pane isn't shattering. Her mallet is mostly sponge.
Her colorful choice of words, however, has snapped the guy at Machine Gun Fun out of his trance.
He sees us.
Two cops strolling over to tell him his fly is open.
His hands drop from his hips and fumble under the counter.
His row of toy machine-guns shakes. One pops off its pedestal. The countertop is being bumped from below.
Ceepak starts to trot. So do I.
The Asian guy falls backward like a tight end just chop-blocked his shins. I see a flash of green hair as Stacey bobs up and heads for the rear wall. She pushes and shoves against the stuffed purple bears hanging there. Only it's not a wall. It's a door-a swinging panel. She knocks it open and, once again, flees.
We dart up the boardwalk. Now she's the one working the narrow alley behind the booths.
I see flashes of green hair every time we cross a crack where one booth stops and another starts. Past Splash Down. Skee Ball Bob's. Rat-A-Tat Tattoo. Past this place that sells really good water ices.
“There she is,” yells Ceepak as we near the blinking lights of another zeppole stand. We race to the end of what is basically a parked food trailer and come upon a cluster of picnic tables, where people sit stuffing clumps of sugar-powdered, deep-fried dough into their faces. I wish I could join them.
We stop. Wait. No girl pops out from behind the food cart.
“She must've doubled back!” I yell. “We should….”
Ceepak holds up his left hand. Gives me the halt sign.
He sees something.
“Is your sidearm loaded?” he whispers.
I swallow hard. “Yes, sir.”
“Cover me.”
My hand is shaking, but it finds my holster and unfastens the strap that cradles the Glock in place. My thumb finds the trigger. Caresses it.
Ceepak makes an almost imperceptible tilt of his head to the right.
To one of the picnic tables.
To where Dr. Theodore Winston sits biting into the butt end of his hot dog.
“I'm on point.” Ceepak moves toward the table.
My hand hovers over my Glock.
Ceepak is the one who suggested I go with the.40 caliber Glock 27 instead of the 23; he said with the 23 my hand would be bigger than the gun. All I know is, right now my hand is sweaty. The pistol might be the right size, but it could slip out of my wet grip.
Teddy Winston is alone. He crumples up the tissue paper from his hot dog, wads it into a ball, and tosses it toward an overflowing trash barrel. He misses by a mile.
“Dr. Theodore Winston?” Ceepak says in his most heart-stopping cop voice.
“Yes?” He squints. He has to. The sun's behind Ceepak's head. I'm certain my partner planned it that way. Gives him the tactical advantage.
“Sir, please stand up and place your hands behind your back.”
Ceepak finds a pair of plastic FlexiCuffs on his utility belt. He does so without breaking eye contact with Dr. Winston.
“Am I under arrest?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That's preposterous. What, pray tell, is the charge?”
Ceepak nods toward the crumpled hot dog wrapper lying on the boardwalk.
“First-degree littering.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Dr. Teddy Winston doesn't like it when his fingers get rolled across the inkpad back in the booking room.
The surgeon doesn't seem to think the big man in charge, Sergeant Pender, is treating his delicate digits with the proper respect.
“These hands are insured, you know,” he says.
“Who you with?” asks Pender. “Chubb? I signed up with Chubb to insure my feet. I'm on my feet all day so I figured, you know, I better make sure they're covered. They gave me a bunion rider.”
“I want to call my wife.”
Pender cocks a sly smile. “You sure about that, Doc? From what I hear, Mrs. Winston isn't all that thrilled with your recent choice of recreational activities.”
“She'll call my lawyer.”
“She'll call her divorce lawyer is my guess.”
Ceepak tilts his head to suggest that he and I leave Winston and Pender alone in the tiny fingerprinting room. That way, we can pull the ol’ bad cop, good cop routine. We'll let Pender continue to piss the doctor off. Later, Ceepak and I can waltz into the interrogation room, offer Teddy a cup of coffee, maybe a nice cold Coke, and become his best buddies in the whole wide world.
We close the door and head up the hall leading to the bullpen. We pass the framed pictures of former chiefs
