Whack A Mole: A John Ceepak Mystery (The John Ceepak Mysteries)

by Chris Grabenstein

  “Lying? Me?”

  “Gus, did you know that Johnny Ceepak forces himself to tell the truth, no matter how injurious it might be to his own personal well-being?”

  “Yeah, I think I heard him say something about that once or twice back when I was….”

  “Did you also know that he will not tolerate lies told by others? Did you know that, Gus? Oh, he's quite rigid about that one. But he's the true offender, the foul….”

  Ceepak grabs the mike out of Gus's hand.

  “This is Ceepak.”

  “Of course it is. Hello, Johnny. How sweet to hear your voice. Yes, indeedy. Johnny Ceepak. The last honest man on earth. Oh, yes. You would never bear false witness against me, would you, Johnny?”

  “Where is Rita?”

  “The lovely Miss Lapczynski?”

  “Where is she?”

  “Did you know she once fornicated with a young man to whom she was not married and then gave birth to his bastard? A child she named T. J.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Reverend Trumble encouraged Miss Lapczynski to renounce her sins and beg God's forgiveness. But Rita left the church and has become something of a backslider. What we call a ‘recidivist.’”

  “Where is she?”

  “Here, Johnny. Here with me. But I suspect you already knew that. Am I right?”

  “Did you hurt her?”

  “No, Johnny. No. Of course not! Not yet. She needs to repent first. God granted her a new life—free from the stigma of her original sin. Yet she chose to throw it all away, to spit in His holy face, to copulate once again outside the sanctity of marriage. Oh yes, Johnny. I know she has shared your bed on a regular basis. I suspected it for months. Your partner, young Danny, he confirmed it.”

  Damn. I did. I made that stupid crack about Rita sleeping over at Ceepak's. I said it to Pete that night at his dock.

  “Rita is the unrepentant, shameless harlot the Lord has placed in my path as a final test.”

  “Mullen, if you harm her….”

  “If I do so, it will be the Lord's choice, not mine! I am but His hands here on earth! I do but His bidding! Tell him, Miss Lapczynski, tell Johnny why you must be punished!”

  The radio cuts out. Cuts back in.

  “John?”

  It's Rita. Her voice weak. Terrified.

  “John?”

  “On your knees!” The charter skipper from hell rattles out of our radio. “Beg the Lord for forgiveness! Tell Him how you sinned! How you spread your whoring legs and took this man, this man who is not your husband, this man to whom you are not even betrothed! Confess how you took him inside your loins over and over and over….”

  Ceepak is pale, straining to hear.

  I hear a tremendous gush of jagged breath rasp out from the radio speaker. Cap'n Pete exhaling or worse.

  The radio goes silent.

  “Forgive me, gentlemen,” Cap'n Pete says finally. “Sorry for that little outburst. It has been quite a long day. I'm certain we're all very tired. And so, we must say good night, gentlemen. His will shall be done. Sleep well, Johnny. Gus. Sleep well, my dear ones. Over and out.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  I don't think the ocean has ever looked so dark.

  It's bleak and endless and unrelenting.

  “I'm sorry,” I say to Ceepak who's standing next to me on the flying bridge, staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on some distant constellation. “I'm the one who jammed us up inside this hell hole. I never should've said anything about you and Rita in front of Pete.”

  Ceepak turns to face me. “You had no way of knowing how he would interpret your remarks. Furthermore, you cannot be held accountable for his actions.”

  “Yeah, but if I had told you about the redhead. If I had told you earlier that I picked her up hitchhiking….”

  “The girl was a distraction, Danny. A red herring meant to throw us off course. If we had apprehended her earlier, some other young woman's Polaroid would have ended up in that final hole. Peter Paul Mullen's primary target was and always has been Rita Lapczynski.”

  “Still, I feel I'm the one who got us into this. If I had….”

  “Danny, I repeat—I do not hold you responsible for our current situation. However, at this juncture, I would appreciate a modicum of silence. We need to concentrate. Focus. Strategize our next move.”

  He squeezes his eyes shut. Brings a hand up to his head. Massages his temples.

  Down below, the engines hum. The waves whoosh. Lady Fran's nose plunges up and down.

  Ceepak opens his eyes. Stares at me.

  “What did you say?” he asks.

  I shake my head sideways, hold up my hands, and mime a quick and silent Nothing.

  “No. Earlier.”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “You mentioned how you felt. You inadvertently echoed a phrase Mullen used in his communiqué.”

  “Hell hole,” says Gus. “They both said ‘hell hole.’”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I feel like I jammed us up—put us in so deep we can't crawl out, in a hell hole.”

  Ceepak is starting to look more like himself.

  “When you two were discussing fishing spots, Mullen advised you to stay clear of the Hell Hole.”

  Gus nods. “Sure. But he didn't need to bother. Everybody knows it's the worst freaking fishing spot there is. Can't catch nothin’ out there but a good nap.”

  “Where's this dead spot, Gus? If it's a location the local boats know to avoid….”

  Gus gets it. “Then it's the perfect spot for Pete to drop anchor with the girls! No one would drift by to bother him.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Scoot over, Danny.”

  I slide sideways, keep both hands clasped on the wheel, keep us heading due east.

  Gus hovers over the control panel and starts plunking keys on the GPS monitor. The green screen flashes. The nautical charts change like a quick-flipping slide show.

  “I got it stored in the memory here. Patch of most unproductive water in the whole freaking Atlantic … maybe it's the spot where they dump the medical waste … you know … the hypodermics that wash up on the beach … maybe the fish faint when they see needles … my wife does….”

  The chart frame he's searching for finally fills the screen. Gus taps the center with his finger.

  “We're in luck, boys. Just need to backtrack a little on a bearing south-by-southwest. Lay in a course, Danny.”

  I guess I should say “Aye, Captain,” like Scotty on Star Trek, but I don't. I just twist and tug the wheel, work the throttles, check the compass, and line us up for a quick run down to Hell.

  We're plowing through breakers. The Lady Fran is doing the Coast Guard one better. She's clipping along at thirty-six knots, plowing up ridges of water in her wake. I wonder what kind of suped-up engines Gus has rigged up under the decking. Somewhere, I suspect, there's a Maserati missing a motor.

  “That's gotta be him,” Gus says. He's staring at the sweeping circle on the long-range radar screen. A blinking blip is sitting smack dab in the middle of the superimposed chart displaying the Hell Hole. “Radar signature appears to be the right size. We should have visual contact in another five or ten minutes. Hang on. I'll be right back.”

  Gus scampers over to the ladder and scurries down. The man is spry. He works the railings and rungs like a scrappy rhesus monkey.

  Ceepak moves around the control console, hanging on to the rails that pen us in as we slice through the crests tossed up by the tide. He wants to be up front so he can be the first to see Mullen's boat.

  Fran is really rocking now. We keep smacking across rollers, the next best thing to a hydroplane.

  “Ceepak!”

  It's Gus, scaling back up the ladder, lugging a chunky pair of binoculars. Ceepak braces the handrails and works his way back.

  “What've you got?”

  “Night-vision capability.” Gus tosses the binoculars to Ceepak. “Couple years back I helped som
e DEA boys bust up this drug-smuggling ring coming up the coast from Florida. The guys gave me these as a thank you. I use them to watch birds. At night. Their body heat makes the infrared lenses go crazy.”

  Ceepak nods. Presses the binoculars to his eyes. Scans the horizon.

  “See anything?” I ask.

  “Negative.”

  Gus leans in to check the arcing circle on the long-range radar. “He's still too far out for visual. But we're gaining on him, boys. He's definitely dropped anchor. Set up shop for the night. Hasn't moved since we first pinged him.”

  Ceepak lowers the field glasses, drapes their strap around his neck to free up his hands. He retrieves his little notebook from his front shirt pocket. Flips through a few pages. Reads something.

  “Gus,” he asks, “do you have a fire extinguisher on board?”

  “Yeah. A couple. Down in the cabin.”

  “We might need them.”

  “What's up?” I ask.

  “I've been contemplating something else Mullen said. About his mission. How he never completely fulfilled the Lord's Commandments.”

  “What?” I say. “Chopping off their ears and noses wasn't enough?”

  “Not if he was attempting to follow a strict and literal interpretation of the Scripture's edict.” Ceepak reads from his notebook: “Ezekiel. Chapter twenty-three. Verse twenty-five. ‘And I will set my jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword: they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.’”

  Gus groans. “Jesus. You think he's gonna go after her son, too? T. J.?”

  “Doubtful,” says Ceepak. “His narcissistic fantasy is completely focused on females. I suspect, however, he intends to follow through on the final command. To do what he never did before because it would have denied him his trophies, his skulls and fleshy souvenirs.”

  “He's going to burn her body?” I say.

  Ceepak nods. “We should assume that is his plan.”

  “Jesus. A fire? He'll sink his own freaking boat!” says Gus.

  “I believe this man in all his delusions would consider such a lethal conflagration to be a glorious conclusion to what he perceives as his lifelong mission.”

  “Freaking nut job,” Gus mutters. “Freaking, fucking nut.”

  A flash of green on the radar screen catches the corner of my eye.

  “Guys?” I say. “We're here.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  He's showing up on the short-range,” I say. “We just pinged him. Bearing seventy-five relative to current course. Range two-point-two nautical miles.”

  Like a gunner in a tank turret, Ceepak swivels with his field glasses to look where I just told him to look.

  Something stings his eyes. He momentarily lowers the binoculars. Blinks to clear his vision.

  “Infrared flare,” he says.

  “Disco birds?” Gus asks. That's what fishermen call the annoying gulls that swoop into the halogen lights off the back of any night-fishing boat while you're cleaning your catch.

  “Negative,” says Ceepak. He puts the glasses back to his eyes, braced this time for the hot spots. “A burning cross. Two.”

  Gus peers off toward the horizon. “Like the goddamn Ku Klux Klan?”

  Ceepak nods. “Mullen has affixed flaming crossbeams to both outrigger poles—port and starboard. They must be wrapped with a kerosene-soaked fabric of some sort….”

  Great. Cap'n Pete has decorated his ship with holy tiki torches. Next he's going to turn his boat into a luau pit.

  “Can you see anything else?” asks Gus. “Do you see Pete? Rita?”

  “Negative. No. Wait. Yes. I am reading thermal images of two bodies in the stern cockpit. One stationary and seated. The other mobile.” He lowers the glasses. “Danny? Cut back on the engines.”

  I do.

  Ceepak goes back to the night-vision goggles.

  “The stationary body is moving. Slightly. Wriggling against apparent restraints.”

  Good. Rita is still alive.

  “Body appears to be tied down in a fighting chair aft of the main cabin,” Ceepak continues.

  Most fishing boats have these padded chairs you strap yourself into. Makes it easier to tangle with a tuna if your seat belt is securely fastened and you're bolted down to the deck.

  “The other body is moving back and forth to the cabin,” he continues. “Keeps bringing out heavy objects. Stacking them. Judging from the thermal silhouette, the cold object being carried appears to be round. Doughnut shaped.”

  I take a wild guess. “Tires?”

  “Roger that. S.O.P. Standard Operating Procedure for insurgents. Tires and diesel fuel. Stack 'em up, soak 'em down. Creates an excellent improvised incendiary device. Generates intense heat.”

  “Freaking psycho,” says Gus. “Burning up his own damn boat. Rig for silent running, Danny.”

  “You want me to kill the motors?”

  “Make 'em as quiet as you can. Line up our bow with his foredeck, aim for a spot just off his port. We'll sneak up on him from his blind spot, use his bulkhead for cover.”

  I turn the wheel, pull down on the throttles.

  Ceepak, I notice, is checking his pistol.

  “Danny? Lock and load.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You boys bring along a spare pop-gun?” asks Gus.

  “Negative,” says Ceepak. “Perhaps you should man the helm from this point on.”

  “Sure. Make me the freaking chauffeur.”

  I step aside. Gus takes the wheel, concentrates on maneuvering us into position for our sneak attack. He makes a final twist of the wheel and pulls back on the throttles.

  The engines stop whining. Move into a purr. Down into a chug.

  “Danny?” Ceepak whispers.

  “Sir?”

  “I suggest you assume a prone position here on the bridge. It will help steady your aim.”

  “Yes, sir.” I lie down on the deck. Brace my gun against the front-most railing. Line up a shot across our bow.

  I hear Ceepak move aft, slide down the ladder, make his way to the bow, and climb out on the harpooning pulpit. He becomes, as always, our forward gunner.

  We're drifting.

  I can see the Reel Fun now.

  On it are silhouetted two fiery crosses jutting out on the chrome-fitted outriggers at the stern. They frame both sides of the boat with flame.

  Of course, I can't see Rita. She's tied up in the back. We're coming at them from the front.

  “One hundred yards and closing,” Gus whispers. “Adding speed.”

  I slide an inch or two forward on my belly, holding my pistol in front of me with both hands. I steady it in a corner where the horizontal railing meets its vertical post.

  “Eighty yards.”

  I peek up and over my gun. Ceepak is crouched in the pulpit that juts forward off the bow. His pistol is pointed straight ahead, too. I wish he had his rifle. Some sort of sniper weapon system. Ceepak can pierce Roosevelt's ear on a dime with a sniper weapon.

  “Sixty yards.”

  Hang on, Rita. The cavalry's coming.

  Suddenly, a light goes on at the front of the Reel Fun.

  A blindingly bright halogen.

  It spotlights Ceepak.

  “Hello, Lady Fran.” Pete's voice crackles over our radio. “You shouldn't be here, Johnny. Not yet, anyway.”

  I crawl backward. Crab sideways. Move behind the control console. Hug the floor behind Gus's feet.

  “You shouldn't be here!”

  Ceepak doesn't answer.

  “Gus!” Cap'n Pete hollers. “Hello, old friend. Welcome!”

  I look up. Above me, I see Gus frozen in a dusty circle of bright light. He reaches down and grabs the radio mike.

  “Give it up, Pete,” he says. “Over.”

  I hear Pete's wet, jolly laugh rumble out of the radio speaker. On
ly it doesn't sound so jolly tonight.

  “Johnny,” Pete's voice spikes. “I have Rita tied up down below.”

  I'm guessing Pete is upstairs in his flybridge like Gus—seated at the helm, manning the halogen spotlight, working the radio.

  “If you want your whore to live a single moment longer, kindly lower that cannon you're aiming at me. That's the good boy. Now, toss it overboard.”

  The radio goes quiet. All I hear are the waves slapping the sides of our boat. I stay low, curled up behind the three-foot-wide control console. I'm practically kissing the no-skid strips pasted on the deck.

  “Now, Johnny!” Pete screams. “Throw your weapon overboard or Rita dies, do you understand?”

  Up front, I hear Ceepak's pistol splash into the water.

  Great.

  I think I just became the forward gunner.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  I'm curled up in a ball, lying undetected on the deck of the fly-bridge, hidden behind the control console.

  However, if Cap'n Pete asks John Ceepak to tell him where I am, I'm totally busted, because Ceepak will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do—maybe not even when multiple lives are at stake.

  The radio crackles with static. “Where's Danny?” asks Pete.

  Great. Here we go.

  “I'm not certain,” says Ceepak.

  Okay. Technically, he's telling the truth. He doesn't know if I'm up here, down in the cabin, or hiding with the live bait in the cooler.

  “Is he there with you?”

  “No.”

  Again, technically true. I am not standing on the harpooning pulpit with Ceepak.

  “Probably best that you left the boy at home,” says Pete.

  Ceepak doesn't answer. Pete forgot to phrase his remark in the form of a question. Blew his chance at becoming a five-time champion on Jeopardy!—or at finding my hiding spot.

  “Gus, please be so kind as to bring your vessel around to my stern.”

  “Ceepak?” Gus calls out.

  “Do as he says.”

  “That's the good boy, Johnny. I'll meet you fellows around back. I have work to do.”

  The radio goes dead.

  Gus eases the throttles forward, turns the wheel, brings us around the Reel Fun's port side, pivots our bow left, takes us dead astern to its aft end.