“You want to come in?” she asks.
That vanilla scent from those candles in my apartment? It’s on her skin and in her hair, too. Her chocolate brown eyes are wide and eager. I can feel heat radiating off her body. As the windows start fogging up, I feel like I’m sitting in a cozy sauna with a warm batch of Nestle Toll House cookies.
“Ceepak’s probably waiting up for me,” I say. My voice cracks the way it did back in sixth grade on the word “me.”
“Well, maybe one day, Danny Boyle, you’ll let me show you how much I appreciate all that you’ve done for me.”
“Okay,” I say, making sure it comes out deep and low. “Some day.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
Christine leans in and kisses me. On the cheek. The move jostles everything her halter-top was supposed to be halting.
But somehow, I keep my hands firmly gripped on the steering wheel.
32
I need a beer.
I’m not sure Ceepak has any in his fridge. At least not the real stuff. Ever since his time in Iraq, he’s big on Near Beer-stuff like O’Doul’s and Coors Non-Alcoholic.
So I pull into the parking lot for Neptune’s Nog Discount Liquor Outlet.
It’s another flat-roofed building the size of a small supermarket with every kind of beer neon glowing in its front wall of windows. Bud. Miller. Corona. Sam Adams. Blue Moon.
Inside the store you’ll find aisles lined with shelves crowded by battalions of wine and liquor bottles, not to mention rack after rack of salty snacks. You’ll also see towering stacks of beer packaged in what they call suitcases-24-can cartons with a handy handle for toting down to the beach or up to your motel room.
I pull into the parking lot next to a dinged-up Ford F-150 pickup and douse the headlights so the moths will leave my Jeep alone and go attack the fluorescent tube lights giving the package store its ghoulish green glow.
The instant I climb out of my Jeep, I see Ben Sinclair and a few of his young suburban gangsta buddies leaning against the booze mart’s grocery cart return corral.
They have their hands stuffed into the front of their hoodies or the pockets of jeans hanging halfway down their butt so they can show off their plaid Ralph Lauren boxer shorts.
They’re waiting.
For somebody in the store, judging by the way one of the kids keeps craning his neck and going up on tippy toe.
By kids, I mean neither Ben nor any of his crew are over twenty-one, the minimum legal drinking age.
I know who they’re waiting for.
The same guy me and my underage buds used to wait for outside a package store on a warm June night down the Jersey Shore: an older dude to go inside to buy us our brewskis for a small handling fee.
I hang near my Jeep. Wait to see who Ben’s dude is. Ours was a wino we called Clint The Splint because he always seemed to have one limb or another in a plaster cast. He’d go into Fritzie’s package store and get us anything we wanted for five bucks. Cigarettes. Boone’s Farm. Malt Duck. Colt 45. Slim Jims. Hey, we had to eat something.
I hear sleigh bells tinkle. The front door swishes open.
And out comes Mr. Joseph “Sixpack” Ceepak.
33
I’m wondering what bible verse Mr. Ceepak’s going to quote when I bust him for buying alcohol for minors.
Whistling merrily, he strides out the sliding door and into the harsh glare of those overhead fluorescents. He’s still in his StratosFEAR uniform and wears a cocky grin on his face. One arm is wrapped around a grocery sack full of jingling glass bottles. His other is toting what looks like a filing-cabinet-sized carton of Budweiser. Maybe they’re doing 48-packs now.
Ben and the boys over by the cart corral give off a couple “Booyahs” and swarm like a wolf pack toward Mr. Ceepak.
“You get the Mike’s and vodka, too?” asks Ben.
Mr. Ceepak is about to answer when he sees me step out of the shadows.
“Good evening, Officer Boyle,” he says.
I nudge my head toward his groceries. “That all for you, sir?”
Now Ben and his pals try to act casual but their worried eyes betray them. They’re probably wondering if the old fart Ben hired is going to rip them off for a hundred bucks worth of booze plus whatever handling fee he charges.
“Yeah,” says Mr. Ceepak. “This is all mine.”
One of the kids is about to say something when Ben elbows him in the ribs.
“Setting up housekeeping,” says Mr. Ceepak. “Excuse me. Need to load up my truck.” He gestures toward the dirt splattered workhorse parked next to my Jeep.
“I thought you put down the bottle when you picked up the bible, sir?”
“The two are not mutually exclusive, Officer Boyle. Ecclesiastes nine tells us to ‘Seize life! Eat bread with gusto; drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes, God takes pleasure in your pleasure!’”
“So, you’re just out here pleasuring God, huh?”
“Doin’ my best, Boyle. Doin’ my best.”
“Hey, as long as you don’t drink and drive, I have no problem with you buying enough beer, hard lemonade, and vodka for, oh, I don’t know …”
I make a show of counting heads in Ben’s bunch.
“… five guys. Just so long as you’re not going into liquor stores up and down the island buying booze for kids.”
“What?” Mr. Ceepak wheezes out a laugh. Coughs up a nasty wad of sputum. Puts down his cargo so he can jab another cigarette in his mouth to keep his shriveled lungs’ mucus mines working. “Why would I do something dumb like that?”
“I don’t know.” I turn to Ben. “Back in the day, we’d find a wino to do our shopping for like five bucks.”
“It’s ten now,” says Ben’s dumbest friend before Ben can elbow him again.
Mr. Ceepak laughs his chesty chuckle. Torches his smoke with a butane lighter that’s decorated with a bikini babe.
“Not a bad idea, Boyle. Not bad at all. Ten bucks a pop, huh? Interesting idea. I could use a little extra walking-around money.”
“I thought you were making double, triple overtime sending that chair lift up and down on the boardwalk.”
“Oh, Ben’s daddy pays me good. I ain’t complaining.” He smacks down a wet drag on his cigarette. “But let’s be honest, here. No matter how hard I work, how many hours I put in, I’ll never make a million bucks.”
Ben Sinclair eyeballs the paper sack and giant cardboard beer carton sitting on the ground. He can’t resist. Makes the slightest move for it.
“Whoa,” I say. “Are you trying to steal Mr. Ceepak’s daily recommended intake of adult beverage?”
“It’s ours, dude!” bellows the dumb one.
