Whack A Mole

Ceepak leaps off the nose pulpit, boards the Reel Fun.

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