Katie's sitting with the other girls around our tiny campfire, smooshing marshmallows and gooey Hershey bars between graham crackers. I bet she's the kind of kindergarten teacher who'd let you have s'mores in class on your birthday. She's that sweet, even though she grew up faster than any of us. Her parents died eight or nine years ago. Car wreck.
I need another beer.
I slog up the sand to the cooler. Mook and Jess are hanging there, probably talking baseball, about the only thing they still have in common. Mook wears this floppy old-man bucket hat he thinks makes him look cool. He has one hand jammed in the pocket of his shorts, the other wrapped around a long-neck bottle of Bud, his thumb acting like a bottle cap. The world is his frat house.
“Hey, Danny …” Mook shakes the Bud bottle. “Think fast.”
He lifts his thumb and sprays me with beer. Now it looks like I just pissed my pants.
Mook's belly jiggles like a Jell-O shot, he's laughing so hard.
“Jesus, Mook.” Jess says it for me.
I forgot about Mook's classic spray-you-in-the-crotch gag. One of his favorites. He also used to buy plastic dog poop at the Joke Joint on the boardwalk and stuff it in your hamburger bun when you weren't looking.
“Very mature, Mook.” I wipe off my shorts.
“You're not going to arrest me, are you, Detective Danny?”
“No. I'll let you off with a warning. This time.”
“You want a beer, Danny?” Jess fishes a long-neck out of the watery ice.
I check my watch.
“What's with the watch?” Mook saw me. “You're actually waiting an hour between brewskis? What a weenie! Your cop pal is a hardass. And that haircut! Who does he think he is? GI Joe?”
If Mook knew Ceepak like I do he'd realize: GI Joe probably plays with a Ceepak Action Figure. The guy's that good. I shake my head, ignore Mook, and mosey away with my beer.
Becca, Olivia, and Katie are sitting in short beach chairs, the kind that put your butt about two inches above the sand. I plop down with them.
“Someone please remind me why we hang out with Mook,” I say.
Becca shrugs. “Because we always have?”
I guess that nails it.
On the radio, the deejay's yammering about “Sea Haven's gigantic Labor Day Beach Party and Boogaloo BBQ. MTV will be broadcasting live. So will we…”
They've been hyping this Labor Day deal all month. Come Monday, the beach will be so crowded, you'll be lucky to find enough sand to spread out a hand towel, maybe a washcloth.
“Here's another hot hit from the sizzling summer of '96!”
The radio throbs with “C'mon 'N Ride It (The Train)”-a bass-thumping dance tune from the Quad City DJs, the same people who gave the world “Whoot, There It Is.” The choo-choo song was big in 1996, the summer The Marshmallow Crew first got together and somebody said, “You know what? We should do this again next summer!”
“Hey, let's dance!” Katie pops up, like she's ready to teach us all the hokey-pokey-the adults-only version.
The girls fling off flip-flops, kick up sand. Becca cranks up the volume on the radio, shimmies her blond hair like she's in a shampoo commercial. I attempt to get my groove thing going. Basically, when I dance, I stand still and sway my hips back and forth. Tonight, I also “move my arm up and down” as the singer suggests. Lyrics like that are extremely helpful for those of us who are dance impaired.
“Hey, isn't dancing on the beach against the law?” Mook brays like an annoying ass. Actually, the herky-jerky moves he is currently making should be ruled illegal. “You gonna haul us off to jail, Danny? Get your picture in the paper again?”
Ceepak and I got some press back in July. The wire services and magazines picked up the Tilt-A-Whirl story. I was semifamous for about a week. On top of being obnoxious, Mook sounds jealous.
Fortunately, any thoughts of Harley Mook drift away when Katie sashays over to dance with me instead of the whole group. She opens up her arms, swings her hips, invites me to move closer.
Then I hear these pops.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
Like someone stomping on Dixie cups up on the street.
I'm hit.
My chest explodes in a big splotch of fluorescent yellow.
Katie's hands drop down and fly behind her. She must be hit, too.
Pop!
A paintball hits the radio and sends it backwards. The batteries tumble out. The music dies.
Pop! Snap! Pop!
We're all hit-splattered with this eerie yellow-green paint that shines like a cracked glow stick. My sternum stings where the paintball whacked me.
“Danny?” It's Becca. She sounds hurt. “Danny?”
She sinks to her knees and brings a hand up to cover her eye.
It's fluorescent yellow and red.
The paint is mixing with her blood.
CHAPTER TWO
Call nine-one-one,” I yell. “We need an ambulance.”
Jess is on it. He whips out his cell phone while I check out Becca.
“Danny?”
She has her hand cupped over her eye. Blood trickles down her cheek, streaking through caked paint.
“It hurts.”
“I know …”
“Motherfucking kids.” Mook's right but not much help.
“Grab some ice, Mook.”
“Danny-you're the cop. Go catch the little fuckers!”
“Go grab some ice,” I say again.
“I'll get it,” says Katie. She's keeping cool, like she must when one of her kids topples off the monkey bars.
“We need to cover the eye socket.” Olivia takes a tiny penlight out of her purse to examine Becca's eye. “It's a blunt trauma injury.”
“Is my eyeball bleeding?”
“You're going to be okay,” answers Olivia. “Danny? We need to tape a protective cover over her eye to prevent further damage. Cut off the bottom of a plastic cup …”
“What about tape?” I ask.
“Don't need it.”
I hear a rip.
Olivia is tearing some strips off her T-shirt.
Becca is rocking slightly to punch through the pain.
She shivers. I grab Jess's beach towel and drape it over her shoulders like a cape-a cape with a gigantic red-and-blue Budman plastered on it, the superhero of beer drinkers everywhere.
Katie returns from the cooler. “Here's some ice.”
“Danny? I need that cup,” Olivia says while she picks crud off Becca's cheek.
I race up to the cooler where we have a stack of Solo cups.
“The EMS guys are on the way,” Jess says and closes his phone.
“Hey, Jess?” I shout.
“Yeah?”
“You and Mook head up to the street. Flag down the ambulance.”
“Right.”
“You should go after those fucking kids who did this!” Mook screams at me. His floppy hat is glowing. They tagged him with a headshot.
“Come on!” Jess gives Mook a shove and they run as best as they can with feet slip-sliding on sand.
“Here you go.” I've managed to tear the cup bottom away from the sides pretty neatly, if I do say so myself.
“Owww.”
Olivia spreads Becca's eye open, spotlights it, checks for debris. The eyeball's iris is purple on the bottom.
Olivia places my plastic circle over the injured eye like a pirate's eye patch. Katie hands her a strip of fabric and she ties a knot behind Becca's head.
I look at my friends and realize we look pretty ridiculous, like we've got some kind of glowing, yellow-green skin rash-the Neon Plague.
• • •
Jess meets the rescue squad ambulance up on the street. He sends the paramedics down to the beach to go get Becca.
“Where's Mook?” I ask.
“Off chasing the bad guys.”
“You saw who did it?”
“No. Mook just ran up the road screaming, ‘Come back, you motherfuckers.’ ”