Whack A Mole

CHAPTER NINE

I head back to The Sand Bar.

It's only about nine P.M. but Jess and Olivia are long gone.

Four sorority sisters sipping Aqua Velva-blue cocktails now occupy our table on the upper deck. They wear neon-green wristbands to prove they're old enough to get smashed. They shimmer in Lycra sundresses and muscle-cut T-shirts to show off gym-sculpted muscles and their honey-colored skin.

I love the sentiment stretched across the chest of the blondest blonde: NEW JERSEY. ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE.

I head back down the steps.

It's still the weekend for another three hours. I figure I'll spend it flirting with Debbi, the bartender whose work outfit usually involves tattered logo wear and torn-off short shorts with frayed threads trickling down her thighs. On Debbi, it works. Trust me.

When I reach the bottom of the staircase, I feel like Jacques Cousteau fighting his way through a school of scantily clad tropical fish. All the girls flash ultra-bright smiles because teeth look even whiter when faces go cocoa brown. All of them are twentysomething. They're loose and giddy, made merrier by mango margaritas and pineapple martinis and raspberry mojitos-all served in frosty plastic cups instead of glasses so nobody will be seriously injured once they're totally tanked and start dropping their drinks.

Strings of Coors Light and Bud Light and Corona Light pennants flutter overhead. It looks like the grand opening of an indoor gas station that only pumps low-cal beer.

Lots of T-shirts call out to me as I sidle through the crowd. They're like personal ads these beach bunnies can post on their chests. I see JERSEY FRESH on one. MEN SHOULD BE LIKE DESSERT: SWEET AND RICH on another. One babe seems particularly pleased with hers: on the front it instructs passersby to REMEMBER MY NAME, while on the back it says, YOU’LL BE SCREAMING IT ALL NIGHT.

Oh, the poor neighbors.

But I'll spend my night wondering about Mary Guarneri and who buried her charm bracelet on Oak Beach along with her picture from a milk carton stuffed inside an old-fashioned sandwich bag.

It was Ceepak, of course, who had pointed out that the plastic bag was a relic of School Lunches Past.

“See how the flap tucks in?” he said. “No Ziploc top. No yellowand-blue-makes-green sealing strip. Those were all technological advances yet to come.”

Yes, thanks to my partner, I now know the sandwich bag development timeline.

Ceepak is big on the forensic stuff. In fact, he started the whole metal-detecting, treasure-hunting deal as a way to further hone his investigative skills in the downtime between cases. He finds stuff buried in the sand, takes it home, and tries to decipher its secrets.

You or I might find a coat button on the beach and fling it at an overly annoying sea gull. Ceepak picks up the same button and does enough homework to tell you it most likely came off a very expensive fur coat purchased at Bergdorf's in 1959 and that, coincidentally, the mayor's wife had worn just such a fur coat to the beach one December day back in the early 1960s when Santa Claus used to kick off the Christmas shopping season by coming ashore in a lifeguard's row boat. Then, he'd whip out a Xeroxed article from the December 5, 1962, issue of the Sea Haven Sandpaper and hover his magnifying glass over the accompanying photo to show you where Mrs. Ellen Bullard, the mayor's wife at the time, was missing a button on her coat.

“Why do you think the bracelet was buried?” Cap'n Pete had wondered.

“It's unclear,” Ceepak had replied. “We don't have enough information, just two pieces of a larger puzzle.”

However, he did have more factoids to share with us.

For example, the use of milk carton panels to spread information about missing children wasn't initiated until the mid-1970s. A missing New Yorker named Etan Patz was one of the first so-called “milk carton kids.” The use of this breakfast table search technique hit its peak in the 1980s.

Of course, the World Expo charm had already placed our time capsule in the ’80s. So had Mary's hairdo. Very Charlie's Angels.

Ceepak also brought up Lisa DeFranco-she of the jerk-for-an-exboyfriend and the miserable-excuse-for-a-mom. After all, the same stretch of sand had yielded the 1983 class ring she'd been given.

“Unlike Ms. DeFranco, Mary Guarneri had concerned people actively searching for her. We should be able to learn what happened to her. Perhaps she eventually came home. Or a body was found.” He uttered this last possibility with appropriate gravity.

Cap'n Pete closed up the shoebox. He handed it over to Ceepak, entrusting him with its hidden truths. “I hope you find us an answer. I surely do….”

Ceepak said he would try his best.

Me, I was going back to The Sand Bar.

Tonight is not my night.

I finally find a stool at the bar but Debbi, my tattered T-shirt temptress, is not the bartender. I guess she doesn't work Sundays anymore. Instead, I get Ralph.

“Hey, Danny.”

“Hey, Ralph.”

We're both kind of bar-shouting-speaking loud enough to be heard over the din of drunks.

“Where's Katie?” Ralph asks.

“California.”

He nods. Small talk is officially over. “What are you drinking?”

“Beer.”

“Bud?”

“Yeah.”

“Glass?”

“Nah.”

He marches over to the cooler to fish me out a longneck.

Ralph has been doing this bartending gig way too long. He's about forty-five and hates his job. I know this because I worked here one summer as what they call a “bar-back.” I was the guy who went downstairs to the ice machine and scooped up the five-gallon buckets of cubes to dump into the ice bin. Mostly, I stood around and cleaned glasses and listened to Ralph gripe about the “skanks” and “sluts” he had to serve.

Ralph looks angry, too. Shaves his beard and head every third day-wears stubble in both departments on the days in between. And when he slices up limes and lemons into wedges, I believe he gives them names first.

“Here's your beer.”

“Thanks, man.”

I put a five on the counter.

Ralph waves it off. “Keep it. You're family.” He strokes his chin. “Not like these other motherfuckers….”

Then he flashes a big fake grin.

“Hey, whataya need, pal?” he says to some guy in a pink polo shirt standing behind me.

“Coors Light and a piña colada.”

“Comin’ right up.”

I sip my Bud.

“Asshole,” Ralph mutters.

I notice that Pinkie has moved away from the bar to wait for his drink order alongside his lady friend.

“Blender crap.” This is Ralph at his best. “All night long it's fucking blender crap.” He only disses his customers to their backs-the tips work out better that way.

He attacks the ice with the blender jug, using it like a snow shovel.

“I'm getting too old for this shit, Danny Boy.”

“Yeah.”

Ralph has lived in Sea Haven all his life. Maybe he stays in town because he has just about the coolest house in the world: it's a boat. A houseboat-pretty much the same great set-up as that private investigator from Florida in those old paperback mysteries my dad loves.

Ralph tips juice bottles, booze bottles-sloshes all sorts of syrupy stuff into the ice. He jams the jug onto its base, slaps on the lid, punches the grind button. I think this is his favorite part of the job- listening to sharp steel gnashing against hard ice.

While I'm watching him, a guy moves behind the empty stool immediately to my left. He's in my peripheral vision zone, so I turn. Our eyes meet. Now I need to nod.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.” He says the same thing. Nods. Doesn't sit. We've both firmly established that neither one of us is gay.

Ralph pours the finished concoction into a frou-frou glass. It comes out slow and thick-like cold applesauce.

Pinkie returns for his order, slaps a soggy ten on the bar, and says, “Keep the change.”

“It's twelve bucks,” says Ralph.

Pinkie puts another five on the counter and wiggles away in time to the rap number rocking the rafters. I check out his girl. She, of course, is wearing a T-shirt: JERSEY GIRL. I NEVER PUMP MYSELF. Some gag writer hit pay dirt when he realized how the New Jersey state ordinance prohibiting self-serve gas stations could actually sound fashionably sleazy.

“What do you need?” Ralph now asks the guy who came up to the bar after Pinkie.

“What was that he had?”

“A royal pain-in-the-ass piña colada.”

“I see. How about a beer?”

Ralph stalks back to the cooler.

“Is he always in such a good mood?”

“Nah. I think he took his meds tonight. Usually he's real crabby.”

The newcomer nods. He doesn't really belong here. Sure, he has on a T-shirt, but all it says is PRINCETON. And, I'm sorry, his blue jeans are creased. He obviously sends them out to the cleaners, probably has them starched, too. The same with the tee. It's too crisp. Plus, the guy is about fifty. Hard to tell exactly how old he is because he's fit and trim and has his white hair all crimped and spiky and gelled like he's still twenty-two. He also smells. Like a muskrat frolicking in a very expensive pine forest.

“You know, I believe that fellow worked here back in the good old days,” he says.

“Really? Ralph?”

“Uhm-hmm. Of course, he was a lot younger. Had hair. I was in college. Med school. Came down the shore to unwind.”

While he yaks away, I realize: I've seen him before.

Didn't like him then, either.