Hell Hole (19 page)

Authors: Chris Grabenstein

BOOK: Hell Hole

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I turn around. It's like I'm an airplane one inch below the cloud ceiling, only these clouds are black and boiling mad and full of smoke except where they're hot with fire. I can't see six inches in front of my nose.

“How do we get out? I can't see anything!”

“Bend down, feel the chain, follow it. But, Boyle?”

“Yes, sir?”

“You better haul ass or I guarantee we're gonna be crawling up your butt like a cheap pair of underwear!”

I proceed to haul ass.

The Sea Haven volunteer fire department is hosing down the Hell Hole. The fire is, as they say, contained.

The three guys from FDNY engine 23 shake our hands and head back over the chain-link fence to rejoin their families.

“I thought you were on vacation,” Mrs. Morkal busts her husband's chops and hands him a bucket of deep-fried Oreos. Apparently, the firefighters and their families all rented houses pretty close together, over on Oak Street. They invited us to drop by later for a beer if, you know, we aren't too busy.

The anorexic blonde is bundled up in a blanket, sitting in the back of a Sea Haven rescue squad ambulance. She keeps asking for a “fucking cigarette.” I would've figured she'd inhaled enough smoke for one day.

Lieutenant Worthington is lying on a rolling gurney. He's still pretty groggy. Stoned, I guess. Probably doesn't even realize that his pant legs got singed.

“We need to cut these off him,” says the paramedic. “Check for burns.” He pulls out a pair of surgical scissors and starts cutting into the waistband.

“Fucker tried to kill me,” Worthington mumbles as the medic snips through his pants pocket.

Ceepak leans down. Strains to understand what the man is mumbling.

“Come again?”

Worthington's eyes go wide. “Find the camera.”

“Camera?”

“Shareef,” he groans. “He had a camera.”

Worthington's eyes flutter shut. He's okay, I think. Just passed out.

“Jesus,” says the medic when he cuts through the khakis at the thigh.

“Is that a burn?” I ask.

“No, Danny,” says Ceepak. “That appears to be scar tissue from a gunshot wound.”

Skeletor's drug
operation was so huge he might outrank those other New Jersey pharmaceutical giants: Merck and Pfizer.

After the Sea Haven fire department doused everything down and the Hell Hole looked more like the soggy remnants of a campfire after a downpourâall charred wood and oily puddlesâChief Baines swung by with every cop he could scrape together and some agents from the DEA field office down in Atlantic City. Within the hour, they uncovered approximately five million dollars worth of cocaine, heroin, crystal meth, and marijuana, which, fortunately, never caught fire or we might've all stumbled out of the Hell Hole a little more slowly. Probably would've giggled a lot and raced across the boardwalk to wolf down three-dozen fried Snickers bars and stare at the pretty blinking lights.

After uncovering 675 kilograms of various illegal substances, Chief Baines and the DEA agents posed for pictures and talked to TV cameras. Getting his face in tomorrow morning's newspapers over a caption proclaiming
Operation Crackdown Huge Success
will undoubtedly make our boss extremely happy. We'll probably get to keep our brandnew Crown Vic police cruiser.

Skeletor, of course, was nowhere to be found. The chief sent a state police composite artist over to Veggin' on the Beach to work with Gladys and Jerry and try to sketch a likeness of our legendary pharmacist. I hope the artist likes beet juice and falafel balls. Given the burned out hippie couple's charcoal-broiled memory banks, the drawing project could take a while.

Once it's drawn and the picture is shown around town, maybe we'll finally nab this guy Skeletor. At least we closed down his Hot Stuff distribution center and shooting gallery, what Ceepak tells me the DEA slang brochures, if no one else, calls a
get off house
. Apparently, you could rent space in the Hell Hole to cook your nickel deck of horse, big Harry, crown crap, dirt, jive-doo-jee, or reindeer dust (the list of slang words for heroin in Ceepak's brochure is, apparently, quite lengthy), get off and then conk out. The blonde told us Worthington started the fire when his hand trembled too much to hold a candle underneath his spoonful of happy dust. Ceepak and me think the gasoline and diesel fuel helped.

The blonde, a model whoâby the wayâwill be on the cover of
Healthy Living
next month, was treated in the back of the ambulance and released. One of her girlfriends, a super-skinny redhead showing off a lot of bony shoulder blade in her tank top, swung by to pick her up and take her back to the city where, I guess, none of the fashionistas ever eat anything besides egg whites and Metamucil.

Meanwhile, Ceepak and I have spent the last two hours sitting in the visitors' lounge at Mainland Medical, the hospital over in Avondale. They operate what's called the regional trauma center. If, while you're on vacation in Sea Haven, an abandoned amusement park ride happens to burn down and you're inside it injecting illicit drugs, this is where they'll bring your sorry, semi-comatose butt.

“We need to talk with Lieutenant Worthington.” Ceepak restates the obvious to a passing nurse for the fifth time since we were asked to “kindly wait down the hall,” first by this refrigerator-sized orderly armed with an old-fashioned steel bedpan and, then, by the senator's barrel-chested security detail. Two of the guys, the exâNavy SEAL named Graves and a former Green Beret called Parker, are standing
guard outside Worthington's door right now looking like Michael Corleone after his dad, the godfather, got popped.

“The camera Lieutenant Worthington mentioned most likely contains whatever information Shareef Smith intended to show me.” Ceepak's saying it out loud not so much for my benefit but to help himself think.

“What do you think was on it?” I figure I might as well ask a dumb question and get in the game.

“That, Danny, is the question.”

“Until I saw that bullet hole in his thigh, I would've guessed they were pictures that proved Worthington faked his Purple Heart wound, like Dixon said he did.”

Ceepak nods. “The scarring on Worthington's thigh was consistent with a bullet entry wound. It seems he legitimately earned his medal, if not an immediate trip home.”

“So why'd Sergeant Dixon lie to us?”

“Perhaps he was covering for one of his other soldiers who did something worse than fake a war wound.”

“Well, chasing after Worthington almost got us killed.”

“Twice.”

“So whoever tore up Smith's car was searching for his camera.”

“Such would be my supposition as well.”

“That means he has pictures of something bad. Something Dixon or one of the other soldiers didâover there in Iraq. You think one of them was at that prison, Abu Ghraib? You think Rutledge or Dixon or Handy Andy or even Hernandez made a bunch of naked prisoners crawl on top of each other with bags over their heads while Smith snapped pictures?”

“Doubtful. If any of those men had been involved at Abu Ghraib, we would have, most likely, already seen photographic evidence.”

Yeah. Okay. So maybe one of the soldiers did something even worse?

“Do you think one of the soldiers killed Smith?”

“It's a possibility.”

“But how? None of them was at the rest area. Only Worthington. Maybe they all call him Lieutenant Worthless because they know he's a
junkie just like Smith. Maybe the two of them got into a fight in that restroom over their drug stash and one thing led to another. Maybe they were locked inside that toilet stall together, sharing a spoon and a Bic lighter, and one of them had the pistol and got greedy, you know?”

“I don't think that's what happened.”

“So somebody else sneaked away from the party?”

“There are other suspects to consider, Danny.”

“Who?”

Ceepak makes a subtle head tilt in the direction of the two former special forces soldiers standing guard outside Worthington's room: Graves and Parker.

“Geeze-o, man,” I mumble. “The senator's security detail?”

“We already suspect they might've had something to do with sabotaging our vehicle.”

The razor blade. We were chasing them when the tire blew.

“But why?” I ask, since Ceepak's the one who schooled me about motive.

“They work for the senator. Perhaps there is something on that camera he doesn't want us to see.”

Especially if it might prevent Winslow W. Worthington from becoming the next president of these United States.

Four-thirty PM.

Ceepak's been sitting on the couch not saying anything for like fifteen minutes. I stand up, stretch, and fiddle with my radio unit. It's squawking with chatter, mostly stuff about the cleanup going on over at the Hell Hole.

“Hey, they found another twenty kilos of coke,” I report when that news flash screeches through the static. Then I hear one of our guys, Dylan Murray I think, report how he just found “a bunch of burnt cable and some kind of detonator.”

“Guess that confirms it was arson,” I say to Ceepak. “Somebody hotwired the place to burn. Sort of like the Palace Hotel. Remember that?”

He still says nothing.

He's thinking. I should probably shut up. Turn off my radio and my mouth. Maybe go find us both some coffee.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a quarter?”

“I think so.” I dig in my pockets. Find two.

Ceepak takes them and marches over to the bank of pay phones bolted to the wall. He drops in a coin, presses in the numbers.

“Hello, dear. Yes. We're still at the hospital. Waiting to talk to Lieutenant Worthington. Yes. I think so. Could you please do me a favor? We need to look at all of Shareef Smith's cell phone bills. No. The sisters won't have to go home. With his next of kin's permission, we should be able to obtain the information directly from the service provider. Right. Good. I'm still without a mobile phone so I need to ask a second favor. That's right. You can coordinate with Denise Diego, the tech officer. Right. Thank you, Rita. We will. Me too.”

He hangs up.

“Who do you think Smith called?” I ask.

“His friend.”

“Worthington?”

“Roger that. We'll also be able to ascertain who, if anybody, called Smith.”

“Officer Ceepak?”

Ohmigod. Mount Rushmore himself is striding down the hall. Senator Worthington or, as I now like to call him, suspect number five. Or thirteen. Depends on whether you count him as a single or lump him in with all eight of his bodyguards.

“I want to thank you two gentlemen for rescuing my son.”

He sticks out his hand. I shake it. Now it's Ceepak's turn.

He doesn't take it.

“We need to talk to your son, sir.”

“I'm afraid that's impossible. He is very heavily sedated.”

Yeah. He was that way when we found him too.

Ceepak keeps pushing: “We believe your son has information vital to an ongoing investigation.”

“And what is it you're investigating?”

Ceepak pauses.

I jump in: “Somebody stole air bags and a CD player out of Shareef Smith's car!”

“Really?” Man, does that come out icy. The hospital could turn off their central air. “Well, officers, I hope you will understand if I insist that my son be allowed to recuperate a short while longer. I'm certain there is no critical urgency for you to apprehend these petty car thieves.”

“There's more to it,” says Ceepak.

“Is that so? More? I see. Are you attempting to operate outside the legal limits of your current jurisdiction?”

“We're searching for the truth.”

“Always a noble cause. Do we all seek the truth? Of course we do. But can the truth, once found, do more damage than good? Indeed it can, gentlemen, for this country is at war and in dire need of heroes. Does my son's military record serve a higher purpose, no matter what his personal failings? Good heavens, yes. Therefore, in this specific instance, containing what you might consider the âtruth' is, as I'm sure you'll agree, the nobler path for us all to follow.”

Ceepak looks annoyed. No, pissed. I don't think he can make his eyes any more intense without popping them out of their sockets.

“We are not interested in exposing the truth about your son's drug addictionâ”

“It's not an addiction. A weakness? I suppose one could call it that. A painful and unfortunate habit picked up while he willingly and selflessly served his country on treacherous foreign soil.”

I glance down.

Oh, yeah. He's wearing the boots. Might ruin his presidential plans if the press found out the whole truth about the man who wore them first. That guy on
Meet the Press
might ask Senator Worthington if he ever found any tiny bags of white powder hidden inside his boots' hollowed-out heels.

“Your son told us something when we pulled him out of the fire,” says Ceepak.

“The ramblings of an incoherent and traumatized victim.”

“He mentioned a camera.”

“I'm certain he mentioned a great many things in his delirium.”

“No, just the one. He urged us to find Corporal Smith's camera.”

“Oh, right. The African American. Tragic how he chose to end his life”

“We don't believe it was his choice.”

The senator smiles. Holds up a hand to silence Ceepak. “Officer Ceepak, if I were in your position, if I were a beat cop on a small town police force, I would not concern myself with anything my son might have said while, undoubtedly, in an advanced state of shock. My goodness, he was trapped in a fire. Almost died. I would also not waste any more time waiting here to talk to my son because that is simply not going to happen. Do we understand each other?”

Yeah. I think we do.

“Come on, Danny,” says Ceepak.

“Good day, gentlemen,” says the senator. It sounds like he's gloating. “Ohâand best of luck catching those car thieves.”

Ceepak stops. Turns around to face the senator.

He even smiles.

“Thank you, sir. We appreciate your words of support. Oh, by the way,” he adds, “we're getting closer all the time. Much closer.”