Mad Mouse

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The white van is out of the parking lot before I can spot its bumper sticker display, see if there's an ARMY plastered back there.

“Male driver,” Ceepak announces as he dashes down the balcony toward the stairs.

“What else?” I ask, running behind him. “Did it look like an army guy?”

“Couldn't tell. Sun glare.”

Ceepak grabs of the railings and slide-flies down the steps. I try to do the same thing. Rust chunks scrape my palms.

“He's at the corner,” Ceepak says. “Turning onto Sunshine, direction Ocean.”

“Great. That gives us a chance!” Traffic. You want to stay off Ocean Avenue on any summer Saturday because it's basically bumper-to-bumper from nine A.M. on.

We leap into the Explorer. Ceepak snatches the radio mic.

“This is Unit Twelve. Request all available backup. Ten-eighty. White van. We are in pursuit.”

Those asphalt humps in the Smuggler's Cove parking lot feel more like moguls on a ski slope the way Ceepak blasts over them, slamming pedal to rubber floorpad. When we first started working together, Ceepak didn't drive on account of this horrible thing that happened in his Hummer back in Iraq. Now I see the man has driving skills, like the army sent him to Aggressive Driving School or he studied with the stunt guys who drove the Mini Coopers in that movie The Italian Job. We're barreling down this quiet residential street nobody's ever barreled down before and I see the minivan screech into a right turn. We do the same thing.

“This is Twelve,” Ceepak says into the mic. “We are southbound on Sunshine, approaching Oak.”

Make that Pine. We're moving fast and the streets are just clipping along.

“Unit Twelve, this is Six. We're approaching on Spruce.”

Ceepak flicks on the lightbar and sirens. No way the white van doesn't see us coming up behind him, no way he doesn't hear us, no way he can't tell we're the Police and he should slow down, pull over, and stop-now.

But he doesn't, he keeps racing down the road, pushing his soccer-mom van to do 70 mph. If nothing else, he's earning himself a speeding ticket today.

And one for reckless driving, too, because he just hung an incredible tilting Louie-both his right-side tires lift off the pavement. Ours do the same thing when Ceepak mirrors the move and hangs a hard left.

“This is Twelve. Suspect vehicle is now east on Quince heading toward Ocean.

There's a stop sign at Ocean Avenue.

Mr. White Van doesn't stop, earning him traffic ticket number three.

Tires squeal. Cars rock. The van shoots across the intersection. At least he gets everybody on Ocean Avenue to stop for us. We reach Ocean and zoom across because nobody's blocking our path.

Except this one little girl on the other side of the intersection.

Ceepak slams on the brakes.

Maybe she's deaf. Didn't hear the police siren. Maybe she's blind. Didn't see the swirling lights. Whatever. Right now, this seven-year-old sweetie-pie in a pink sundress is in the crosswalk standing behind her baby doll stroller.

Her parents run into the street and grab her. Boy, does the kid give us a dirty look-like we should know that when the sign says “WALK,” she and her dolly have the right-of-way.

Ceepak nods, smiles, and gestures for the little girl to proceed.

“She has the light,” he says.

“He's getting away,” I say while we wait.

Up ahead, I see the white van making another left turn, this time on Shore Drive, which will take him north, back toward town.

“Ceepak? He's going to get away!”

“No he's not, Danny.” Ceepak slams our Ford into reverse. The tires whine and spin and I smell fried rubber. We might need retreads before the morning's over. We whip backwards onto Ocean Avenue.

“This is Twelve,” he says to the radio. “Suspect has turned north on Shore. We will attempt to cut him off at Ocean and Maple.”

Okay. Now I get it. Ceepak's been studying his Sea Haven street maps. He knows Shore Drive dead-ends when it hits Maple because that's where Sunnyside Playland is and they're spread out for two blocks from Ocean Avenue down to the Beach. You can't go very far on Shore before you have to head back up to Ocean.

“We've got Maple blocked on the other side of Ocean,” says a voice I don't recognize over the radio.

“This is Six. We are continuing down Spruce to Shore and will block his retreat.”

“Ten-four,” Ceepak says. He's got the radio mic in one hand and the other one is twisting back and forth on the steering wheel as we wiggle our way up Ocean Avenue, snaking around cars, zigzagging past RVs, generally having a grand old time putting the Explorer through its paces like we're in one of those TV commercials talking about rack-and-pinion steering, which, I hope, is something that comes standard on Fords, especially the ones that leave Detroit and grow up to become police cars.

We near the corner of Ocean and Maple. I hear what I think is a foghorn until I look over and see there's this fire truck straddling the far side of Maple, blocking the street. Guess that's who radioed in earlier. The fire department must've been mobile when all the radio chatter started and dropped by to help. They're blaring their air horn and making so much noise that most vehicles on Ocean Avenue have pulled over to the shoulder of the road so the drivers can cover their ears and cringe. This gives Ceepak and me our own express lane right up the center yellow line.

The minivan shoots up Maple, slams on its brakes when it sees the fire truck blocking its path, and skids into a sharp right turn in front of us.

I can see the bumper very clearly now.

“No ARMY sticker,” I shout. “It's not my guy.”

“Roger that.”

So, naturally, I expect our little chase scene to be over.

I, of course, am wrong.

Ceepak presses down harder on the gas, and now we're, I swear, two inches from the van in front of us. I can read his window decals. Somebody apparently went to Dartmouth. They have a parking permit for a garage. The tiny little decal says they're number 3246. Like I said, we're that close.

Whump.

We're closer.

Ceepak thumps the guy's bumper.

Mr. White Minivan must not have felt our little love tap. He doesn't slow down or pull over.

I make out two people in the minivan. The driver, who looks to be somebody's dad, mid-forties or early fifties. And the passenger. Female. Younger. A mop of wiry, curly hair bouncing up and down.

Whump.

I guess this why they call them bumpers. We bump the van again, nudging it forward, sending me bouncing.

“Seat belt?” Now Ceepak asks.

“Ten-four.” I strapped myself in back at Smuggler's Cove. It's instinct when Ceepak's behind the wheel.

“Hang on.”

He's done with the love taps. He eases up on the gas for a second. When the space between bumpers widens, he jams back down on the accelerator, twists the steering wheel. We slam into the van's rear end at a slight angle and send the vehicle spinning into a spiraling skid.

Of course the road ahead of the van is clear. Ceepak wouldn't have made his move if it wasn't.

Now the van makes its move-sliding off the road, scooting backwards, careering into the parking lot of Barnacle Bob's Beach Bikes, this hut of a shop where they rent all kinds of bikes and have about a hundred of them lined up in their parking lot. The white van slams into one end! The whole row dominoes down in a rippling wave. One hundred beach bikes lay wounded on their sides, sparkling in the sun.

The van has finally stopped.

“Call in our location.” Ceepak tosses me the radio mic.

He's out the door, gun drawn.

“This is Twelve,” I say. “Our twenty is Barnacle Bob's Beach Bikes. Ocean and Jacaranda. Uh, possible ten … ten … uh-I think we might need an ambulance.”

I really gotta memorize those 10-codes by Tuesday.

I hop out in time to see a girl stumble out of the van. She's wearing some kind of Victoria's Secret swimsuit. She's basically naked except for her stiletto heel sandals. One stiletto must've snapped off because she's limping. Her face is hidden, covered with a tangle of wild curly hair.

Ceepak gets the driver to spread-eagle on the ground. White hair. Fancy Rolex watch. Maybe he's the girl's father.

“Hands behind your back,” Ceepak barks. “Now.”

“You could've killed me,” the guy whimpers into the hot blacktop.

“Now!” Ceepak orders.

“You drive like a fucking maniac!”

“Only when forced to do so, sir.” Ceepak slips a pair of plastic cuffs on the guy's hands. He tugs them snug but not nearly as snug as I would after some idiot almost made me run over a little kid in a crosswalk pushing her dolly's stroller. I do a quick visual inspection of the minivan interior. I see juice boxes and sippy cups on the floor. Scattered Disney DVDs. The idiot kissing asphalt is somebody's dad. I don't think the woman who stumbled out the side door is his wife. I think we caught them sneaking off to Smuggler's Cove-and not just to buy videos in the gift shop.

“Danny?” It's the female. Of course she recognizes me. Like Ceepak said, I know just about everybody on the island.

“Marny?”

“Hey.” She pulls the curls out of her eyes and tries to smile and fluff her hair. She can't do it with her usual flip and flair because some stray hair strands are glued to her lip with blood.

“You okay?”

“I think so.” She tugs on a bikini strap and looks down at her cocoa-brown breasts to see if anything got punctured or jostled out of alignment.

“Who's your friend?”

“Stan. Stan Something.”

“Okay.”

“I swear I didn't know he was mental … driving like that.”

“Unh-hunh.”

“He's from out of town. We kind of hooked up last night and this morning … you know …”

“Right.”

“Hey, Danny? Guess what?”

Marny does this little finger wiggle suggesting I come closer so she can whisper her big secret in my ear. She does this, I know, so I will be forced to stare directly at her gravity-defying breasts and, therefore, be much more likely to believe anything she tells me.

“What?”

“He's rich,” she gushes, her breath reeking of orange juice and champagne. “Really, really, really rich.”

“Cool.” I try not to be too judgmental. Especially since Marny has that bloody lip.

She leans on my arm for balance so she can slide her broken-heeled sandal back on her left foot. “I think he might be married, too.” She holds her finger to her lips to shush me because she thinks it's a big secret.

“You okay?” I ask again.

“Yeah. I think I bit my lip.” She shivers, and goosebumps pop up all over her body.

“Hang on, Marny. I've got a jacket in the car. Some Band-Aids, too.”

“Thanks, Danny.” She gives up on her sandal and sits down on the pavement.

I go to the car to get my navy blue windbreaker. Ceepak is stuffing the driver into our back seat. The guy looks scared. Yeah. His life and wife are flashing in front of his eyes.

“He's not Mook's buddy,” I say. “He's not the guy.”

“Oh, yes, he is,” Ceepak says. “He's the guy who needlessly endangered several lives by attempting to evade a police officer.”

Yeah. Okay. He's that guy.

“Ceepak?” I don't recognize the voice now squawking across our radio. “Ceepak? Come in. Am I pushing the right button?”

“Danny? Can you handle that?”

“Ten-four.” I say, repeating the one code I know I know.

I reach for the radio. The lady keeps squawking. “Listen,” she says, not using any kind of code, “when you boys get done playing Smokey and the Bandit, we have some bullet holes we should talk about. Over.”

“Tell her we're on our way,” Ceepak says.

I'm confused. “Okay. Who is it?”

“Dr. McDaniels. Who else?”