“Yeah. Eggs, bacon, and biscuits with gravy.”
“Did you try the scrapple?” Ceepak asks.
“No way, dude. That stuff will kill you.”
T. J. crumples up his fry cup.
Ceepak smiles.
“Thanks for your help, T. J. If you run into this fellow again, please give me a call.” Ceepak hands T. J. one of his cards.
“No problem.” T. J. stands up from the table, his eyes drift to the side. He remembers something. “This guy Asswipe?”
“Yes?”
“This one time, he gave me a card. Like a bubblegum card, you know?”
“Do you still have it?”
“Nah. I tossed it in the trash. But he gave it to me once when he wouldn't let me have gun number three. ‘Here you go, kid,’ he said. ‘Go home and whack off to this instead.’ ”
“What was on the card?”
“This blond superhero chick in blue tights.”
“The Invisible Woman?” I ask.
“Yeah. Maybe. It was like a comic-book cover only it was on a trading card. That was the same day he wore the gloves.”
“While he was shooting?”
“Yeah. Surfer gloves. You know-black neoprene. Totally weird. Nobody wears surfer gloves around here except maybe in the winter.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
You ever race through traffic with a siren screaming and roof lights spinning?
Cars pull off to the side of the road to get out of your way. You fly across the causeway bridge. It's pretty cool. Until you remember why you're doing it: you're a cop on your way to Mainland Medical where one of your best friends lies unconscious after doctors dug a bullet out of her chest, a bullet that might've been meant for you.
You remember that, and it's not so cool.
My three other Marshmallow Crew friends are meeting us at the hospital. Ceepak thinks if we brainstorm about the summer of Nineteen ninety-six maybe one of us will remember who the hell Wheezer is and why the hell he might want to kill us.
Meanwhile, back on the island, surf shops have been added to the list of places to go ask questions. T. J. is right. Nobody wears rubber surf gloves in the middle of August except maybe some rifleman who thinks the neoprene will hide his fingerprints. And to make sure he can still squeeze a trigger? He goes and checks himself out at the paintball arcade.
Dr. McDaniels has called some folks over at the state Major Crimes Unit and requested a sketch artist to sit with T. J. A town the size of Sea Haven doesn't have a police sketch artist, so we need to borrow one from the state, unless, of course, we go grab one of those guys who draw caricatures down on the boardwalk. But if we do that, our suspect will have a big bubblehead, gigantic buck teeth, and wear some kind of dopey clown hat.
Our guys have already tracked down a couple of minivans with flat tires, but none with that green beach- pass bumper sticker. The search continues.
We'll find Wheezer.
Especially if any of us can remember who the hell he might be.
Mainland Medical operates what they call the Regional Trauma Center. If you get hurt real bad while you're on vacation, this is where they'll send you.
It's about 3:45. Fifteen minutes before we're supposed to meet with Becca, Olivia, and Jess.
“Can I go see Katie?” I ask the second we park outside the emergency room entrance in a no-parking zone.
Ceepak checks his wristwatch.
“That'll work.”
I hop out and notice we're parked under this covered entryway, a concrete canopy. I guess Ceepak doesn't want to make me an easy target while I dash for the door. Once I'm safely inside, I'm sure he'll go find someplace to park that's legal.
Katie has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit. They let me stand at a window and look in at her. Her red hair is tucked up underneath a pale green shower cap. A forest of metal poles with dangling drip bags surrounds her bed. A spaghetti tangle of tubes snakes down to her thin arm. I know Katie's heart is still beating because I can see her pulse playing on a TV set clamped to one of the poles. I watch the line move up and down and know she's still here even if she's gone.I wonder if Katie remembers Wheezer.I wonder if she'll ever wake up.
Ceepak has commandeered the visitors’ room at the far end of the first floor for our brainstorming session. It's clean and tidy, filled with chalk-colored furniture. Pink. Teal. Blue. Even the carpet is a soft, soothing gray. The sofa is done up in splotchy pinks and purples that sort of match the mass-produced abstract art hanging on all the walls. The kind they sell at those Giant Art Expos at the Holiday Inn.
It's the kind of art that's supposed to calm you down after you've seen a loved one lying unconscious with tubes stuck in her arms and up her nose.
It's not working.
Becca takes a seat in a chair underneath some speckled water lilies. She's wearing sunglasses, even though the room has no windows. She still has that shiner from where the paint ball walloped her in the eye. “Where's Ceepak?”
“He went to the cafeteria to score some coffees.”
Becca's chauffeur, Officer Big Jim Riggs, is guarding the door with two other cops-the guys from the Avondale PD who brought Jess and Olivia to the hospital.
“I could definitely use a coffee,” says Jess. He helps Olivia creak her way down onto the sofa.
“Thanks.” She moves stiffly.
“Guess I'm the only one who hasn't been shot at yet,” Jess says.
“Maybe because you're the one who's shooting at us!” Becca says in a blazing leap of logic.
“What?”
“You're a painter. We were hit with paintballs? Hello? I don't have to be a rocket scientist to put two and two together and get, you know, four or whatever.”
“Becca?” I say.
“What?”
“Jess was with us. On the beach. Remember? He got splattered by a paintball, too?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”
Ceepak walks in balancing a cardboard tray jammed with six lidded cups of coffee. No doughnuts.
“Let me help.” Becca is up and arranges cups on the coffee table in front of us. She does the morning breakfast buffet at her folks’ motel. The girl knows how to set up a coffee service.
Everybody grabs a cup, and we all sip in silence for a second. We quickly discover it's cafeteria coffee. Thin and weak. It tastes more like warm Styrofoam soup than anything else.
Jess dumps his full cup into a plastic-lined trashcan.
“So, who's Wheezer?” he asks Ceepak.
“That,” says Ceepak, “is the million-dollar question. Does the name ring a bell with any of you?”
We all look at each other. “No” seems to be the unanimous answer, judging by the headshakes.
“Sorry,” says Olivia. She grimaces, holds her ribcage.
“I even checked all my old junior high and high school yearbooks,” adds Becca. “No Wheezer. I found a Grabber. He signed my book with these hearts and stuff. I forget who he was.”
