Chris Grabenstein: Tilt-a-Whirl

I anticipate a sugar-rush hurricane will hit the table in under five.

“Someone stole a tricycle this morning,” Ceepak says.

“Really?”

He checks his notebook, I guzzle coffee. He's raring to go; my engine isn't even primed.

“From a residence over on Rosewood,” he says. “Chrome-colored three-wheeler. Valued at $350.”

“Three hundred and fifty dollars? For a tricycle?”

“Roger that. It was stolen right off the folks’ front porch. Call came in at 0630.”

Did I mention-Ceepak has a police scanner in his apartment?

“We might want to swing by and see what we can see,” Ceepak says, pulling a white-bellied strawberry off his bran mound.

Now, I'm sure the guys on duty at 6:30 A.M. have already swung by and taken everybody's statement. But Ceepak wants to go “see what he can see,” which means he wants to hunt for footprints or dandelions that came from some lawn on the other side of town or skid marks and tire treads on the driveway. See what kind of forensic evidence we can dig up. See if it's enough to get our own show on the Discovery Channel.

“Sure,” I say, getting in a second gulp of coffee, wishing I hadn't drunk all five of those beers last night. “We ought to swing by. Check it out.”

“Have a good one!” The shopkeeper at the table across from us gets up to leave. He does one of those salute-waves in our direction and drops eight quarters on the table to cover his tip. He hikes up his khakis and strolls to the cash register where they have so many brochures, you could spend your whole vacation reading about stuff you ought to be doing.

I'm not the only one who sees the loose change lying unprotected on the table. One of the monsters sees it too. The boy, about eight or nine, in a surfer tank top soaked with syrup. The shark on front looks like it's bleeding purple because the kid went heavy on the blueberry during his recent bombing run.

His parents are reading the newspaper. Actually, they're hiding behind big sheets of newsprint, trying to forget that the hellions jumping up and down in the booth belong to them. Mom's behind “World Business,” Dad's under “Sports.” If the kids won't let them sleep in, they can at least tune the kids out for however long it takes to eat breakfast.

I make eye contact with the kid.

He sees my arm patch and baseball cap with the humongous word POLICE stitched across the front. Neither seems to faze him. Maybe he can't read.

He saunters over to the table and scoops up the quarters.

I focus on my coffee, stir it some, and pray Ceepak hasn't seen the little brat stealing a waitress's hard-earned tip.

But of course he has.

Ceepak stands.

Like I said, he's six-two, so the midget tough guy stuffing loose change into his pockets has to pay attention when suddenly a giant towers over him, hands on hips, smiling.

“What'ya doin’ there, son?”

“Nothin’.” The kid uses the oldest line in the book.

“Nothing?” Ceepak's smile gets broader. There go the dimples. “Looks to me like you were taking something that doesn't really belong to you….”

“Is there some problem?”

It's the mother. She flutters shut her newspaper and sighs, like Ceepak is ruining her day. I figure she's a lawyer or money manager or some kind of corporate ballbuster up in the city.

“No, ma'am. It's all good,” Ceepak says. “Assuming, of course, your son puts it back.”

“Puts what back?” Down come the baseball scores. Papa Bear is interested too.

“Nothin’.” The kid needs to work on his vocabulary. He only seems to know the one word, and it sure isn't working with Ceepak.

“Is there some problem?” The mother is repeating herself, for dramatic effect or maybe to scare us.

Ceepak doesn't scare easy.

“I believe your son took some quarters that a customer left on the table as a tip….”

“Did not!”

The kid is stupid. While denying the theft, he pulls the quarters out of his shorts and tosses them back onto the table next to an empty glass.

“I just needed change,” the kid says. “For the gumball machine.”

Oh. He wasn't stealing, he was making change! Like the nice ladies in the cages down in Ocean Town do when they take your twenty and give you a cup of quarters for the slot machines.

“He needed quarters,” the mother says. “That's all. Sit down, Trevor. Finish your breakfast.”

Trevor sneers at Ceepak and returns triumphantly to his table.

“Let's see your dollar bills,” Ceepak says.

“What?”

The mother is mortified.

“Officer,” she says, “we are on vacation.” She's spreading out her words and not using contractions and that means she means business, buster.

“If this is how you people down here treat your visitors….”

“Let's see the greenbacks and it's all good.”

The kid has a look on his face: busted!

He doesn't have two dollar bills in his pocket. He doesn't have diddly except lint or a wad of snotty Kleenex.

“That's it,” the father says. “What's your badge number? I'm going to have a word with your supervisor….”

Ceepak smiles.

“I will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate those who do,” he says.

“What?” The father is confused.

So's the mom-she's scrunching up her nose and forehead, exhaling loudly, doing an excellent job looking “flabbergasted.”

Me? I've heard it a hundred times. It's The Code. The Honor Code from West Point or something.

“If your son shows me the dollar bills he was attempting to change, albeit in a rather unorthodox fashion, I will apologize immediately. In fact, I will turn in my badge and leave town in disgrace….”

Ceepak is laying it on thick. Yanking their cranks. I love it when he busts some ballbuster's balls.

The kid starts to sweat.

“Show him your money, Trevor,” the father says.

The kid sweats some more.

I'm sweating too, but mine is because Ceepak insists on sitting here in the booth near the untinted windows. I squint through the glare to see if there is some merciful cloud about to scoot across the sky and save me.

That's when I see her.

A blonde girl. About twelve. Maybe thirteen.

She's stumbling up Ocean Avenue toward The Pancake Palace.

When she gets closer, I see her dress is covered with blood.

So's her face.

The girl is screaming.

The little thief got lucky.

Ceepak forgets all about Trevor and races out the front door. I run after him.

The girl is screaming in the middle of the street, staring down at her dress. I think it used to be white. Her face is freckled with blood, too.

“My faaaa….” She's wailing now.

Cars slam on their brakes, fishtail to stops.

“My faaaa….”

“Traffic!” Ceepak roars. “Lock it down. Now.”

I throw up both of my hands. A line of cars starts backing up down Ocean Avenue. Like I said, this is changeover day and people are in a hurry to get the hell out of town before everybody else gets the hell out ahead of them.

“Help me, please God, help me God, please….”

The girl is hysterical; stretching her arms open wide, turning around in circles. She looks like she's sweating blood. Her whole body is trembling.

Ceepak takes off his windbreaker and drapes it over her shoulders like a cape.

“Easy, sweetie,” he says. I can tell he's trying to keep her warm so she doesn't go into shock. You learn that kind of stuff in the Boy Scouts.

“My fa … fa … fa … ther!”

“Easy….”

“He killed my father!”

“Who?”

“The crazy man. The crazy man! The crazy man!”

She's screaming again.