problem and keep Sea Haven safe for wholesome family fun!”
The crowd applauds.
Buzz Baines is good. He has turned my near-death experience and Katie's critical-condition chest wound into a pep rally against the evils of teen drinking. He does it so well, I almost believe him, even though I know he's lying every time his mustache wiggles up and down. That's the thing about a lie-you make it big enough, say it loud enough, repeat it over and over, it starts sounding like the truth. Hell, by now, Baines probably even believes it. He may really think some freshman with a six-pack also scored M118 special ball cartridges with his fake ID at Fritzie's Package Store and jammed them into his BB gun. Undoubtedly Fritzie's sells the bullets right next to the Slim Jims, or maybe over in the racks with the pork rinds, beer nuts, and rocket-propelled grenades.
Baines can get away with this because his bosses, the Concerned Citizens who run Sea Haven, are mostly concerned with their bottom lines, about making enough money this summer to make it through to another one next year. The one reporter who knows the truth, our resident journalist, won't tell anybody what she knows because her newspaper sold a ton of ads for its special Labor Day Weekend Edition. Huge ads. Some restaurants even bought two and three full pages to run their entire menus, to lure Labor Day visitors with the promise of Early Bird Specials and two dozen choices starting at $7.99.
I guess I wouldn't be so upset by all this chicanery and skullduggery-two words I learned from Ceepak- except that I just found the gift Katie planned to surprise me with so we could celebrate my new job.
It's in a square white box tucked on the shelf right underneath the cash register. I see my name written with pink marker on the outside. Katie's loopy handwriting. She drew a cartoon cop car on one side of the box, a sheriff's star on another.
I open the box.
She had somebody in the candy kitchen mold me a chocolate baseball cap and write POLICE on front with curly white icing.
My cop cap. Wow.
Katie was so proud I got the job, that I was becoming a cop, that I was willing to put my life on the line to protect people like wheelchair Jimmy from the bullies, that I'd be out there every day trying to do what was right.
“Danny?”
Ceepak taps me on the shoulder.
“What's up?” I ask.
Ceepak smiles.
“Denise got him. Smuggler's Cove Motel. Mr. Mook used his MasterCard.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It's a five-block run from Schooner's Landing to Smuggler's Cove.
I see a sheet rolling out of the little dot-matrix printer we have up front in the patrol car. We now have a hard copy of Mook's driver's license and his plate number. I hear officers radioing in with possible white van sightings. The guys out here on the street? They're working the case. They're not hiding behind plywood walls covering their asses.
Ceepak is driving real slow because he doesn't want to draw any undue attention to our approach-not because the chief said so but because he doesn't want Mook to hear us coming. So he's doing the posted 25 mph.
The speed limit signs are new on Bayside Boulevard and say stuff like “25 mph: Yes, Your Car Can Actually Go That Slow.” The new signs were Buzz Baines's idea. Tough but friendly. Like a barroom bouncer who still remembers to smile at kittens and puppies when they pop by for a brewski.
Mook's motel, Smuggler's Cove, is one of Sea Haven's seedier establishments. It's tucked off Bayside Boulevard on a side street. Typically, they rent out the same bed several times a day, if you catch my drift. Sometimes they even change the sheets. If you like those
“Do you see his car?” Ceepak asks.
“No.”
The motel parking lot is one of those pothole-filled numbers with heaving humps of cracked asphalt creating random speed bumps every two feet.
“This is twelve,” Ceepak says into the radio microphone. “We're ten-eighty-four.” He means we're on the scene. I climb out of the car, realizing I have at least eighty-three more 10-codes to memorize by Tuesday.
Ceepak and I step into the filthy lobby and squint because it's so dark, what with the pink scarves draped over all the lamps to help set the mood. The place reeks of incense, the kind they sell on sidewalks. A string of little bells jangles when the door glides shut.
“Be right with you,” says a woman from somewhere behind the check-in counter. I hear her groan, like she's having a hard time standing up. “Hang on!” Now she grunts.
The lobby walls are decorated with porn posters.
“Danny!”
Emerging behind the front desk is Donna Pazzarini, my friend Tony's big sister. By big, I mean older as well as huge. She weighs at least three hundred pounds so, all of a sudden, the grunting and groaning I heard make sense. Donna's the kind of girl who typically needs a forklift to help her up out of her chair.
“How you doin', Donna?”
“Good, good. You?”
“Can't complain.”
“Good, good.” She's dusting doughnut sugar off her enormous chest and eyeing Ceepak. “Well, hello handsome.” She tugs up on one of her black bra straps and tucks it back under her sleeveless blouse. “What can I do for you boys?”
“We're looking for someone,” I say.
“They're usually here-the ones people are lookin’ for. You're with the cops now, right, Danny?”
“Yeah.”
“That's what Tony says. I said, ‘Good for Danny,’ you know what I'm saying?”
“We need to inquire about one of your guests,” Ceepak says.
“Short-term or long-term?” Donna lets loose with this rumbling laugh-part belly shaker, part smoker's cough. “We have a lot of ‘guests’ who don't stick around for the free breakfast buffet, you know what I'm saying?” She gestures to a sour-smelling Mr. Coffee machine on the windowsill next to a half-empty box of Dunkin’ Donuts.
“His name is Harley Mook,” I say.
“Sure, sure. Mook. He was here. But he checked out.”
Donna wobbles back around to the other side of the counter, taps the keyboard. I figure she's calling up room records. Instead, I see her slide a King around on a solitaire spread. I guess she was playing with one hand, juggling a doughnut with the other.
“When?” Ceepak asks. “When did Mr. Mook vacate these premises?”
“Little while ago,” says Donna. “Around nine thirty. Seemed like he was in a big hurry all of a sudden. Acting all antsy, you know what I mean?”
“What room was he in?”
Donna squints at her computer screen. I can tell she doesn't like the idea of closing her card game to open whatever program tells her who was in what room.
“Usually, we don't mind when our guests check out early,” she says, clicking and sliding more cards around the screen. “But seeing how this is a holiday weekend I told Mook he had to pay for tonight even if he didn't stay. He gave me a little attitude but, like I said, he seemed eager to leave. Had ants in his pants.”
