“Danny and I almost interrupted your conversation,” Ceepak says. “I had to wait for her to hide her phone.”
“Which,” Morgan says, “we found underneath the floorboards, just like you said.”
“You guys think you're so fucking clever,” the chief manages to snarl. “You don't know jack shit.”
Ceepak lowers his weapon and strolls to the door.
“Gus? Can you join us in here?”
“Now what?” the chief is shaking his head in disbelief. I'm keeping my eyes on that top desk drawer and his hands. So is Morgan, thank God, because I still don't have a gun. Everybody else seems to have at least two.
“What's Gus got to do with any of this?” The chief clasps his meaty paws behind his head.
Gus toddles into the room.
“Yes, sir?” he says it to the chief.
“Gus?”
“Oh, hey, Ceepak. Heard all about … you know. Sorry it went down that way, but I'm glad you did what needed to be done, you know what I'm saying?”
“Gus, please escort the chief to a holding cell.”
“What?”
“Arrest him.”
“You can't arrest me!”
Morgan pulls out another sheet of paper. The guy must have pockets in that suit coat like Ceepak has pockets in his pants.
“I, however, can,” he says. “Federal bench warrant. For the kidnapping of Harriet Ashley Hart. Which, as you know, is a federal offense-”
“Bullshit!”
“He kidnapped the little girl?”
“He also stole your gun,” Ceepak says.
“He did what?” Gus starts to steam pink like boiled shrimp.
“That day in March when you said you lost it? The chief took it. He saw you were without a weapon when he first bumped into you at the Surf City Shopping Center, but he didn't mention it,” Ceepak explains. “Instead, he told you to go get your muddy car washed, to make it plausible that Squeegee stole your weapon. You then ran into the chief a second time … outside the florist shop….”
“Yeah.”
“That's when he boosted your gun. While you were inside buying flowers. He'd been tailing you all day.”
“Bullshit!” the chief says. “Ceepak's a liar.”
Gus looks at Ceepak. Looks at the chief.
“No, chief. Ceepak never lies. He's a freaking Boy Scout, remember?”
The chief rolls his eyes.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Gus says.
“Ceepak, you don't know shit!”
“Shut up!” Gus yells. “Remain freaking silent and give me your goddamn gun.”
I can see the folks in the hall staring. Gus neglected to close the door when he came in.
“You just wait, Ceepak. You ever find out the real truth? You'll do like your faggot brother. You'll blow your fucking brains out.”
Morgan's cell phone rings.
“Morgan.” He covers the mouthpiece. “It's McDaniels.”
The call Ceepak's been waiting for.
“What you got? Excellent. I'll tell Ceepak. She's tightened up the time of death.”
We wait some more, but not long.
“Yeah. She says death took place sometime between 6:57 A.M. and 7:02.”
“Not 7:20? 7:25?”
“No.”
“She's certain?”
“As certain as she can be.”
“See?” the chief gloats. “You boys don't know shit.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Gus locks the chief in one of the two windowless holding pens we have in the house.
Mendez is in the other one.
“Yo!” he yells at Ceepak. “You burn down my condo complex? I thought you wanted a time-share….”
“I didn't burn it down,” Ceepak says. “I just couldn't reach the alarm clock you rigged for the trigger.”
The chief interrupts.
“I want to call a lawyer! Now! Move! Get me a phone!”
“Maybe later, chief.” Ceepak says. “After we visit your girlfriend.”
“Trust me, Ceepak-you don't want to do that.”
I don't think Ceepak's trusted the chief ever since he “lied a little” to nail Mendez. He motions for me to follow him out of the cellblock.
“The truth can really ruin your fucking day, Ceepak. You'll see! You fucking Mary Poppins!”
Ceepak doesn't stop to listen, so neither do I.
We walk out the door.
Like Springsteen says:
I'll walk like a man
And I'll keep on walkin’.
Ceepak is stalling on letting the chief make his one phone call because he knows Cosgrove wouldn't call his lawyer.
He'd call his girlfriend.
So we need to drive up to the city before she figures out we're coming.
We climb into the Explorer.
“The FBI has her apartment under surveillance,” Ceepak says, handing me a map of the city with the block circled with wax pencil. “You know the way?”
“Yes, sir.”
We pull out of the parking lot and the radio starts squawking.
“All units, 10–34, Playland Arcade. Repeat. 10–34. Playland Video Arcade. Suspect is considered armed and dangerous….”
Ceepak snatches the radio mike.
“This is Ceepak. We're on it. Roll, Danny. Playland.”
“Sirens?”
“And lights. Come on. Roll!”
I flip the switches. The light bar spins, the siren wails. We squeal tires.
“You know what a 10–34 is, Danny?”
Great. A drive-by pop quiz.
Fortunately, while I race through a red light and cut the tires hard to the left, Ceepak answers his own question.
“It's a 10–24 still in progress. An assault with a deadly weapon.”
Got it.
There's a guy with a deadly weapon inside the Arcade at Playland and the assault is still going on.
I step on the gas, push the pedal all the way to the floor and make my engine roar.
Springsteen would be proud.
* * *
We're the first unit on the scene.
Poor Playland. They were closed all weekend on account of the Tilt-A-Whirl murder. Now they've got somebody with a weapon terrorizing people who'd rather be dropping quarters into coin slots. If this kind of action keeps up, the Family Fun Park may have to change its name to Slayland.
The video arcade building is a vast, open space-like a giant warehouse with Astro-turf green carpet and enough evenly spaced red poles to hold up the roof. Usually, there are all sorts of bells and whistles and ray guns going off the second you step inside the front doors. Today, all I hear is about a hundred kids screaming.
“What's the situation?” Ceepak asks a guy in a red tunic with huge pockets up front sagging with quarters.
He points to the far side of the arcade.
“Some guy's got a pistol!”
“Where?” Ceepak asks, his eyes surveying the situation.
“Dodge City!”
“Where?”
He is obviously a first-time visitor to The Playland Arcade. I, however, know where everything is because this is where much of my youth was misspent. Most of my quarters, too.
“This way,” I say.
Dodge City is this corny shooting gallery that's been in the far corner of the building ever since sometime in 1962. It's this life-size barroom where you shoot a six-gun at a piano player, Black Bart and his gang at the poker table, whiskey bottles-that sort of stuff. When you hit the targets, the mannequins move and say stuff like, “Dang! You shot me, sheriff.” You ring enough bells, shoot enough bad guys, you win a tin star you can pin on your girlfriend's chest.
I wish it were still that easy.
People are panicking, hiding under pool tables, clustered behind Skee Ball targets.
Once again, Ceepak shows no fear.
His gun is out in front, sweeping left, searching right.
“Over there!” a girl screeches from beneath the Alpine Racer. “It's Ben!”
Guess she knows the guy with the gun.
“Follow me.” Ceepak uses pinball machines and giant gumball dispensers for cover. When we get to the Crab Claw, this crane you move around to snag stuffed animals, we see the kid with the gun.