Chris Grabenstein - Whack A Mole

He gives me a sure, sure nod 'n' wink.

As Stacey walks toward me, the tube top is straining to keep everything in place. I try not to pay attention to the struggle.

“Where's the little girls’ room?” she asks, giving me a bored look. Now that we're here maybe she's thinking it's not her kind of scene.

“Go to the bar and make a left.”

She puts her hands on her hips, leans back, checks out the upper deck. “Those your friends?”

I see that Olivia has joined Jess at the railing. They're both cradling longneck Buds. Watching us.

“Yeah.”

“Cool. I'll meet you guys upstairs.”

“Where'd you find her?” Olivia asks.

There's no bullshitting Olivia. She's way too smart. She's goes to med school up in New Brunswick and comes home in the summer to earn money for the stuff all her scholarships don't cover. And Olivia's pretty intense. I guess that's why she and Jess are such a good combo. He's totally mellow-works as a house painter when he's not too busy goofing off or surfing.

“She was hitchhiking,” I say. “Causing a traffic jam near the causeway.”

Jess nods. “So you took prudent police action, right?”

“I figured I needed to take her someplace safe. Yes.”

“Sure,” says Jess. “Someplace safe. Like a seaside bar. Good call. It's like a convent in here.”

“This is only temporary,” I say. “I'm calling Ceepak. We'll try and find her a bed….”

Jess raises an eyebrow.

I fling an onion ring, nail him on the nose.

Olivia shakes her head, takes a pull on her beer. Jess and I reach for the onion rings. We're all sharing a basket before we decide what we actually want to eat.

“So,” she asks, “you think your friend got lost trying to find the bathroom?”

I check my watch. She's right. Stacey should have joined us half a bottle ago.

“I'll be back.” I head downstairs.

The place is packed. Lots of guys and girls making a mosh pit around the bar. Lots of noise. Music. The bleeps and bloops of electronic pinball machines.

I don't see Stacey.

I check the hallway outside the restrooms.

“Excuse me,” I shout to the girl at the head of the line. There's bass-thumping music blasting out of the concert-sized speakers suspended from the ceiling. “Are you waiting for a redhead to come out?”

She looks puzzled.

“What?”

“The girl who's in there-is she a redhead?”

“No. Blonde.” Now she grins. “You like redheads?” She steps into a dusty beam of light.

She's a redhead. She's also extremely drunk.

“I'm looking for my sister,” I lie.

“Too bad.”

The music breaks into a fuzz-box guitar solo that growls enough to cover my exit. I head back into the bar. No Stacey. Frustrated, I decide to head through the crowd and make my way outside.

I see more people clustered just beyond the door, smoking cigarettes and laughing.

Then I see my Jeep.

Both doors are wide open.

I hustle over. The Hello Kitty backpack is gone. The papers and crap I stow up under my sun visor are scattered all over the driver's seat. Looks like everything is still there except, of course, the twenty-dollar bill I keep hidden for emergencies.

Next, I check the cup holder. My coins have been cleaned out, too. At least she left me my Dunkin’ Donuts coffee mug. At least I no longer have to search the yellow pages for the local Runaway Teen Shelter.

My cell phone-which, thank God, I had tucked into my shorts before heading into The Sand Bar-chirps. I wonder if it's Stacey, Little Orange Robbing Hood. I wonder if she found my number somehow, and is calling to laugh at me.

I snap it open.

“Hello?”

“Danny?”

It's Ceepak. I dial down my rage.

“Hey. What's up?”

“Are you busy?”

“Not really. Why?”

All of a sudden I hear this big “woof.”

“What's that?” I ask.

“Barkley,” says Ceepak.

“You're still at the shelter?”

“No. We're home.”

Another woof. I guess it was inevitable. Ceepak adopted the prisoner.

“It's all good, boy.” I hear Ceepak say, and suddenly Barkley is quiet. I think somebody just got another Pupperoni. Ceepak comes back on line. “Sorry about that.”

“What's up?”

“Danny, if it's convenient, can you meet me at Captain Pete's?”

“When?”

“Tonight. Now. Say five, make that ten minutes?”

“Sure. What's up?”

“The captain went treasure hunting this afternoon.”

“Oh. Did he find another old shoe?”

“No. A charm bracelet.”

I roll my eyes. I can't believe this. Ceepak wants me to spend my night off gawking at a charm bracelet?

“Danny?” he says, as if he can read my mind over the telephone.

“Yeah?”

“It should prove extremely interesting. Pete found something else.”

“What?”

“A picture of the girl who lost it.”

I say my goodbyes to Jess and Olivia, snag one last onion ring, and walk the two blocks up Bayside Boulevard to Gardenia Street and Cap'n Pete's Pier House, where he keeps his boat and runs his charter business.

It's not really a house. Looks more like a motel office straddling a dock. There's an ice machine out front, a picnic table, and a little sign detailing the daily tide table and Pete's hourly rates. There's also a wide breezeway along the side of the building that takes you out to the dock and the Reel Fun, Cap'n Pete's trusty sport-fishing vessel.

The building's decorated with funny coconut pirate heads and party lights-brightly colored ones shaped like flamingos, tropical fish, and chili peppers-strung all over the place. Hanging near the front door he has one of those battery-powered parrot-in-a-cage things that flaps its wings and repeats whatever you say. Inside, there's a rubber Billy The Bigmouth Bass that sings “Take Me to the River.”

You go fishing with Cap'n Pete, even if you don't come back with anything but a sunburn, you're guaranteed to have a good time.

Looking around, I don't see Pete anywhere, so I go to the office and knock on the screen door.

“Cap'n Pete?”

No answer. I shield my eyes, peer inside.

The singing fish plaque is hanging on the wall behind the little desk where you hand Pete your credit card or sign the clipboard with the liability waiver papers. Next to it is a framed photo of Pete's wife and kids and, next to that, one of his mother. When we were kids, we used to call his mom, Mrs. Molly Mullen, “Cap'n Hag.” Not to her face, of course. She used to run the office and hated kids. Thought we made everything we touched sticky. Yelled at us to wait outside while our parents went into the office to fork over their cash.

We didn't mind. This meant we got to hang out on the dock with Pete, pick out our fishing rods, laugh at his goofy jokes and riddles. Guess the Cap'n got his funny genes from his father, because his mom sure didn't have any. Maybe that's why she left Pete's dad and moved to Sea Haven.

Anyway, old Molly Mullen died about fifteen years ago, and Pete took over the whole operation. That's when all the decorations went up and children of all ages rejoiced.

I knock again.

“Yo! Cap'n Pete?”

I move around the office, walk under the breezeway, and hit the dock. There's a plastic table out here where Pete cleans and guts fish for the folks who want to cook what they caught but prefer to see it looking like it does at the grocery store. But instead of Styrofoam and shrink-wrap, he tidies up their catch and presents it to them in newspaper. A pile of the Sea Haven Sandpaper, our local weekly, is stacked inside a milk crate.

“Danny?”

It's Cap'n Pete, behind me.