Chris Grabenstein - Free Fall

While Ceepak tugs the thing off his belt, I’m wondering if Dr. Kurth already has our test results. If so, it’d be a new Indoor Forensics record.

“This is Ceepak, go.”

Yeah. That’s how Ceepak answers his work phone.

“Roger that. Call nine-one-one. We’re on our way.” He clips the phone back to his belt. “Danny?” He reaches behind his back, just to make sure his Glock is still in that cross-draw holster. I stand up and tap my hip under my shirttail to do the same.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Gatehouse.”

“Got you.”

We’re kind of talking in code. No sense scaring Ceepak’s mom by letting her know her ex-husband has come a’callin’.

We hop in my jeep.

“Is it your dad?” I say.

“Negative. His emissary.”

I think emissary means messenger and not a building full of foreign diplomats. I’ll look it up later. Right now, I slap the swirling red light on the hood of my ride. When he sees us coming, Mr. Ceepak’s “emissary” will know he or she just stepped into a pile of serious trouble.

We break The Oceanaire’s posted 15 mph speed limit and whip around the roads snaking back to the gatehouse.

Bruce Southworth, the young security guard, is out of his hut, his clipboard clutched in his hand, like he’ll use the thing as a weapon if he has to.

Young Benjamin Sinclair, decked out in his sloppy StratosFEAR uniform khakis and polo shirt, is straddling the seat of his motor scooter, holding a bunch of flowers wrapped in a cone of clear cellophane. One of the bouquets they sell at the Acme grocery store near the dairy department.

“Yo,” Ben says to Southworth. “Open the freaking gate, dude. Sun’s wilting the flowers, big time.”

“Mrs. Ceepak does not wish to receive anything from anyone associated with her ex-husband,” says Southworth, professionally and politely.

“Roger that,” says Ceepak, as we roll out of my Jeep and march over to the guardhouse.

“Yo!” says Sinclair. “Help me out here, po-po. Tell this clipboard monkey fool to step off and get out of my grill. I just be delivering flowers from your old man. They’re for your old lady.”

“She doesn’t want them,” I say because Ceepak is too busy trying to figure out what the heck Ben just said.

“For real, dawg? Dag. My pops only be sending my moms flowers after she catches him bangin’ some skanky beach babe.”

“Mrs. Ceepak does not want flowers from her ex-husband,” I say.

“Aw, come on. Let me in. I promised Joe Cool I’d make the drop, dawg.”

“The grounds of The Oceanaire are considered private property,” says guardhouse Bruce. “Access to the area beyond this gate is only granted to our residents and their invited guests.”

I’m impressed. The kid’s good.

In the distance, I hear the wail of police sirens.

He also knows how to dial 911.

Ben hears the approaching cop car, too. He tugs down on the strap of his motorcycle helmet. If he wasn’t wearing one, I’d arrest him on the spot for violating the State of New Jersey’s Mandatory Helmet Law.

“Go home, Ben,” I say as the sirens move closer.

“Can’t, Holmes. I’m OTJ. On the job.”

“Then go back to the boardwalk.”

“A’ight, a’ight.”

“Ben?”

“Yo?”

“Why do you talk like that? You go to Pine Barrens. It’s a prep school.”

Ben doesn’t answer, but he does drop his fake ghetto gangsta act.

“What am I supposed to do with these stupid flowers? Give ’em to the other cops when they get here?”

Ceepak steps forward. Snatches the bouquet out of Ben’s hand. I feel sorry for the roses. From the sound of crinkling plastic, I think Ceepak is strangling their stems.

“My mother,” he says, quite calmly, “is an avid gardener. She keeps a compost bin. These will make a excellent contribution to her pile of vegetable peelings and kitchen scraps.”

“She still in Unit Three?” asks Ben with an ugly little smirk.

Ceepak glares at him, hard.

“Yeah,” says Ben. “Mr. Joe Cool knows exactly where his old lady lives, dude. Deal with it.”

Ben putters off on his scooter.

Ceepak and I wait for the on-duty guys to arrive. We fill them in on what went down.

“We’ll cruise up this way a little more often,” says Julie Whitaker, one of the officers in the patrol car. “Keep an eye on things.”

“Appreciate that,” says Ceepak.

He gives Julie a two-finger salute. She snaps one right back.

When Julie and her partner drive away, Ceepak and I head back to Unit Three.

It’s time to talk to Ceepak’s mom about installing a home security system.

Something other than her son.

We tell Mrs. Ceepak about her husband’s presence on the island then try to persuade her to install a burglar alarm (and maybe a machine-gun nest up on the roof).

She thinks a home security system would be a “silly waste of money. That’s why we have the nice young guards in the gatehouse.”

So Ceepak and I decide we’ll try, once more, to persuade his skeevy dad to leave the poor woman (who just happens to be filthy rich) alone.

We have to wait through ten drops of the StratosFEAR ride till Mr. Ceepak gets his 3 P.M. break.

“Roses have always been her favorite,” says Mr. Ceepak. “I used to bring her a single rose every time I took her out on a date.”

Why do I think the young Joe Ceepak used to pluck those roses off a neighbor’s bush ten seconds before knocking on Adele’s front door?

The three of us are squeezed inside a cramped, glassed-in building. The free fall ride’s control shack. Outside, the walls are painted sky blue with wispy clouds. There’s even a sign labeling this tiny booth “Mission Control.”

Inside, the walls are sheets of bare plywood and two-by-fours. Windows ring the upper third of the hexagonical hut, turning it into a hothouse reeking of vomit.

“Sorry about the stench, boys,” says Mr. Ceepak, who sits on a stool near a metal box of chunky control buttons and knobs. A mop handle leans against the wall. Its stringy head is soaking in a murky bucket near Joe Ceepak’s feet.

“Couple college kids got tanked on beer before riding the ride. Blew chunks like puke geysers when they landed. Vomit splattered everywhere. I had Ben mop it up before sending him over to Adele’s. Good kid, that Ben. Hard worker. Type of boy that would make any father proud.”

Mr. Ceepak takes a swig from a quart jug of warm orange juice. I might be the next to hurl.

“You know, Johnny, I would’ve delivered those flowers myself but, like you told Bob and the guys at Sinclair Enterprises, this ride can only stay open if there’s a factory-trained and certified operator running things in the control booth. For now, that’s me. They got me working twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week. Not that I mind. The pay is decent. The overtime is even better. And son, not that you care-I need the cash.”

“Sir,” says Ceepak, “I will only say this one more time: stay away from my mother and her money.”

“Her money? Who said anything about her money?”

“I know why you are here.”

“Well, you should. From what Bob tells me, you’re the one who told them they had to hire me. And for that, I am eternally grateful …”

“For the record,” says Ceepak, “I never instructed Sinclair Enterprises to specifically hire you .”

“Geeze, Johnny. Why do you always have to be such a hard case? Maybe you should talk to a cop shrink. Work on your anger-management issues. Does this town seriously have some kind of law against people surprising their wives with flowers?”

“She is not your wife.”