Chris Grabenstein - Tilt-a-Whirl

“How so? Gut feeling?”

“No. This friend of mine? Becca Adkinson? She works the front desk at her family's motel … The Mussel Beach Motel.”

“Mussel Beach?”

“Like, you know-the seafood?”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Becca said she saw these tough guys hanging around the pool all day.”

“Tough guys?”

“Yeah. You know-tats everywhere. Muscles. Scars.” I add the scars part because I think it makes the story a little better and besides I bet at least one of them had a scar-somewhere. “She thought they were a gang or something.”

“I see. And what makes you think one of these gentlemen is our Virgilio Mendez?”

“He was her favorite.”

“Excuse me?”

“Becca liked Mendez's tattoos best. I think they, you know, talked about them. Anyhow, she mentioned his name….”

Ceepak stops walking.

“Good work,” he says, sounding proud.

“Thanks. So why would Ms. Stone insist Hart's calendar was wrong? That all meetings with Mendez had been cancelled? We know he's in town….”

“Perhaps Mr. Mendez knows some things Ms. Stone would rather we did not.”

“You think?”

“It's a possibility.” He winks, letting me know he's saying it for the ten millionth time on purpose. “Excellent work, Danny. Awesome intelligence.”

“So-what do we do? Go back in and bust Ms. Stone?”

“This motel? The Mussel Beach? Do you know where it is?”

“Sure.”

“I'd like to head over there right now. However, the chief ordered us to stand down for the evening.”

“So?”

“We'll contact your friend.”

“Becca.”

“Ask her to ascertain whether Mr. Mendez is still a registered guest.”

“Then what? She can't bust him or anything. Not unless he pulls a tag off a mattress or something….”

“We'll ask Officer Kiger to keep an eye on the motel during his overnight shift. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we'll swing by the motel ourselves, have an early-morning chat with Mr. Mendez.”

We reach my car. It's a hand-me-down I bought “pre-owned” from my mom. A minivan. That's the bad news. The good news? Ceepak has plenty of legroom.

We both climb in. I make the call. Becca tells me Mendez is still there. Went to bed early. I don't ask her how she knows this, she just does. I tell her Adam Kiger will be cruising through her parking lot a bunch tonight. She giggles. Becca digs Adam Kiger. I think they used to date. Maybe they still do.

“So,” Ceepak says when I finish with the phone, “where does one grab a beer at this hour?”

I check my watch. It's almost midnight.

“You want a beer?” I'm in shock.

“Might help me sleep.”

“Yeah. Okay. We could hit The Frosty Mug. It's on the way into town. They're open ’til two or three….”

“That'll work. Let's roll.”

The Frosty Mug isn't very popular with tourists.

It's a dimly lit tavern that smells like spilled beer and fried fish. There's dark maple paneling on the walls made even darker by fifty years of tar and nicotine. Most of the booths have patches of duct tape where the imitation red leather is ripped or torn. No “beachy” decorations to be seen except this one Budweiser neon in the window, which has a glowing green palm tree bent into its glass. If you're hungry, The Mug serves fried fish fillets and French fries and these greasy wads they call Shark Knuckles. If you want vegetables, order the fried cauliflower and dip it in the imitation cheese sauce. It's what I do.

Most tourists think The Frosty Mug is a dump.

That, of course, is why we locals love it.

My buddy Mike Sullivan is behind the bar where two old dudes, wearing flannel shirts in the middle of July, are nursing shots with beers back. They look and smell like fishermen.

We order two bottles of Bud and grab a booth near the window, right under the rotating Clydesdale clock.

I order fries because I see Mike pulling a fresh basket out of the oil vat and shaking on salt.

Ceepak doesn't order food but he unwraps a Power Bar he had stowed inside his cargo pants. I swear, one of these days he's going to pull a meatball sub or an accordion out of one of those pockets.

“MRE,” he says, chomping on the waxy bar. “Meal, Ready to Eat.”

“Like in the army?”

“Roger that. Chief Cosgrove and I choked down some awfully bad food in the service of our country….”

“You guys were together in Germany?”

“Right. MPs. In joint training exercises with our European counterparts … NATO troops….”

And chasing child-molesting chaplains, I could add, but I don't.

“Why'd you quit?”

“Quit?”

From the frown on his face, I can tell Ceepak doesn't like the word “quit.” Quitters never win, winners never quit-that whole deal.

“I mean, why didn't you re-enlist?”

“My time was up.” He shrugs and sloughs it off. “I rotated home.”

“But you were in the Army for … what? Ten, twelve years?”

“Something like that.”

Ceepak pretends like he doesn't know the precise number of days, hours and minutes he served in the military, that he's forgotten about the ton of medals he earned and never talks about. If I was Ceepak? I'd have those medals pinned to my chest even when I wasn't wearing a shirt.

“I would've figured you for a career guy,” I say after we've both had a few swigs of Beechwood-Aged goodness.

“Yeah.”

It gets quiet at the table.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“We need to find Ashley.” He takes a long pull on his bottle and empties it. Then, he starts peeling off the label, scratching at it with his thumbnail.

“Sure.”

“We must not lose another child….”

I wasn't aware we'd lost any children, that Ashley would somehow be “another.”

“Sure.”

I don't say much because I'm getting this feeling that Ceepak wants to do all the talking tonight.

“We do this to protect children, right?”

“Sure. I mean partly. Yeah.”

“We defend those who cannot defend themselves….”

I hold up two fingers to let Mike know we're going to need two more beers.

“We went over there to help … to make a difference….”

Ceepak's back in Iraq. I can see it. He looks like he did after the grenade attack this morning at the dumpster.

“Sure….”

“This morning … that explosion … the M-80 in the dumpster … I feel I owe you an explanation for my behavior.”

“Nah, that's okay.”

“We're partners, Danny. You need to be able to trust me. I apologize for reacting as I did….”

“The ‘grenade!’ deal? That did spook me a little. ‘Grenade!’ Maybe if you just don't yell it in my ear like that any more….”

I'm trying to make it a joke. He isn't smiling.

“The children of Iraq. I still see their faces. The first day we rolled in? Children were lining the road, cheering us, asking for food, money, water-anything. This one boy had cut his foot. I hopped off our Humvee and rendered first aid. He kissed me on the cheek and said something. I don't know what, but I'm pretty sure it was all good….”

Ceepak smiles remembering, but then his face gets somber again.

“Some of the locals didn't want us there. We knew that. We knew it was a bad place where bad things happen….”

“Of course.”

“These three MPs? Friends of mine? They were on routine patrol and the hajis, that's what we called the bad guys, the hajis were up on the rooftops with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s. It's why I still check out the tops of buildings when we drive by….”

“Yeah….” I say, like I even have a clue.

“My three friends came home in body bags.”

He sips from the fresh beer Mike just brought over. I can tell Mike's eavesdropping. So are the two old guys at the bar. It's impossible not to, but you have to listen hard because Ceepak's kind of whispering.