Free Fall

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.

I scratch the back of my head. “It’s yours? Mr. Ceepak says it’s his. I don’t know. This is a difficult situation. Maybe I better call the cops. Have them come up here and help us figure this thing out. Oh, wait. I am a cop …”

“Go home, boys,” snarls Mr. Ceepak. “We’ll talk tomorrow, Ben.”

“B-b-but …”

“Beat it. Now.”

The dumb one puts on his tough guy act. “Yo, old man. You owe us …”

“I don’t owe you crap, kid.” Mr. Ceepak finger-flicks the glowing butt of his cigarette at the boy. “Get lost. All of you. Unless you want Boyle here to arrest your pimply butts.”

“Come on, Ethan,” says Ben.

Muttering and mumbling, the young men shuffle off into the darkness.

Mr. Ceepak pops a fresh cigarette into his lips.

“You know, Boyle,” he says, sending the cancer stick wiggling up and down, “the last time I was in the can, my cellmate was a CPA.”

“Huh. I guess you really do meet the most interesting people in jail.”

“Oh, you do, Boyle. You do. This guy, Richard Michael Johnson, he was sharp. Swindled the bank he worked for out of a million bucks just by rounding down numbers on his computer. Nobody noticed. Not until he got greedy. Anyway, he told me all a man really needs is one million dollars to be beer and pretzels rich for the rest of his life.”

“What’s ‘beer and pretzels’ rich?”

“Less than Wine and Cheese. Nowhere near Caviar and Champagne. I get my hands on a million bucks, Boyle, I’m a happy camper. I go back to my trailer park in Ohio, drink beer and eat pretzels all day long.”

“What about protein?”

“What?”

“That’s a lot of carbs, sir. Beer. Pretzels. Where’s the beef? Maybe you should go to Mickey Dee’s and order off the Dollar Menu. You could get a McChicken …”

“Cute, Boyle,” says Mr. Ceepak, bending down to pick up his groceries, that flicking cigarette perfectly balanced in his lips. “You’re still a wise ass, huh?”

“It’s what I do best, sir.”

“Yeah, well, do me a favor. Tell Johnny I’m not greedy. Adele cleared two point three million when her whacky old aunt kicked the bucket. By rights, we should’ve split that payday fifty-fifty. But like I said, I’m not greedy. All I want are my beer and my pretzels. One million bucks, Boyle. That’s all it costs for you boys to never, ever see me again.”

“I thought all we had to do was save your sorry life at the Rolling Thunder roller coaster.”

“That was nothing special. You two are cops. It’s your job. You had to save me or they’d dock your pay.”

“Look, sir,” I say, because it’s getting late and I’m getting tired of the same-old, same-old with Joe Sixpack. “Your ex-wife is not going to give you a dime. End of story.”

“She should. It’s all over the bible. ‘Wives be submissive to your husbands!’”

“Right. I’ll tell Adele you said that.”

“That’s okay. I’ll swing by some day and tell her myself. After all, you and Johnny can’t guard her 24/7 now, can you?”