Rolling Thunder

  On the radio, Cliff Skeete haltingly confirmed that “a man working roller coaster security has been shot and killed.”

  Skippy helped out by letting the folks at home know “the asshole I took down is police sergeant Dominic Santucci. He’s been riding my butt since day one on the job.”

  He said it like he was still a cop. Who knows. Maybe in his mind, up there in Skippy Dippy Land, he still is.

  After that newsflash, Elyssa the producer, or the program director, or maybe even Mayor Hugh Sinclair, decided it was time to take the live remote off the air. They played “Love Roller Coaster” because it was all cued up and then moved on to non-theme-park themed tunes.

  Ceepak and I are in the improvised Situation Response Command Center where local and state authorities, tactical and support teams are trying to figure out what the hell we do next. We’re borrowing the food stand where they deep-fry the Oreos and Snickers bars. Nobody’s nibbling or noshing. We’re all too pumped up. You get around this many special-tactics guys and you feel like you’re in a marauding army of black-clad ninja warriors, only with better weaponry than curved swords and nunchucks. In fact, every weapon in the arsenal has been called up. Sniper rifles, submachine guns, flashboom and tear gas grenades, battering rams, ARVs (Armored Rescue Vehicles), not to mention our own stockpile of tactical shotguns like the one (or two) Skippy is toting.

  “There’s a camera on the loading platform,” says Big Paddy O’Malley, whom Officers Forbus and Bonanni hauled down here from headquarters. We need his technical expertise and inside knowledge about the Rolling Thunder. We don’t need his bad attitude. “What the hell does my idiot son think he’s doing?”

  “Mr. O’Malley?” says Ceepak, trying to get the man to focus. “How can we access that video?”

  “Kevin?”

  Kevin O’Malley plops a briefcase up on the counter of the food stand. “We swung by the office. Grabbed the plans.”

  When he snaps open the briefcase, the first thing I see is a wadded-up T-shirt stuffed into a plastic bag. It’s stained with blood.

  “Whoa,” I say. “What’s that?”

  “Something you people probably need. A Sea Haven police officer who moonlights as a security guard for Mr. Mazzilli brought it by our offices earlier in the week.”

  Ceepak’s turn: “What?”

  “He claimed to have removed it from your initial crime scene—the suitcases with Ms. Baker’s dismembered body parts. He expected us to pay him for it.”

  “We did,” says Mr. O’Malley. “But not as much as he wanted.”

  Santucci. That slimy weasel. He did snatch Gail’s Sugar Babies T-shirt. We’d crawl up his butt about it, only he’s already dead.

  “Why are you just now turning this over to us?” asks Detective Botzong. He sounds pissed.

  “Because,” says Big Paddy, “it—”

  “Dad?” advised Kevin. “Don’t. You’re without legal representation.”

  True. We didn’t ask Forbus and Bonanni to bring Louis Rambowski along for the ride. He didn’t figure to be much help.

  “I don’t need a goddamn lawyer, Kevin! Why didn’t we turn this bloody T-shirt over to the police? Because it would have mistakenly linked the dead girl to me and further misled you gentlemen in your efforts to track down the real killer—my goddamn son Skippy.”

  Detective Botzong is still furious. “Where is this goddamn patrol cop you got that boosts evidence from a murder scene? What’s his goddamn name?”

  “Dominic Santucci,” says Ceepak solemnly. “The off-duty police officer whom Mr. O’Malley’s son just murdered.”

  That stops Botzong like a canon blast to the chest.

  “Oh.” He stammers a little. “My condolences on your loss.”

  Ceepak nods, turns to Kevin O’Malley.

  “The video cameras?”

  “Right.” Kevin unrolls a schematic. “The feeds go directly to the control room.”

  “The small building directly across from where Skippy is currently holding his hostages,” says Ceepak, just so he’s clear.

  “Yeah. That’s right. So, obviously, we can’t go over there. However, if I remember correctly—yes, there’s a junction box right there.” He points to the flashy neon sign over the entryway. “The lightning bolts on either side of the lettering are practically pointing to it. Behind the illuminated Entrance sign.”

  “On it,” says the head of the T.E.A.M.S. crew. That’s what New Jersey calls the unit of the Technical Response Bureau that’s prepared to deal with what they call “extraordinary police emergencies” such as a psycho putt-putt ball washer holding three dozen innocent civilians hostage on a roller coaster loading dock. The T.E.A.M.S. unit is “a multifaceted entity” that maintains an “all-threats, all-hazards” methodology.

  In other words, these guys know how to steal cable TV.

  In about five minutes, three bruisers in battle gear have us hooked up to the feed from the wide-angle camera taking in Skippy and his hostages; we can see what the snipers can’t.

  First of all, Skippy is up and pacing back and forth, completely shielded by that arched steel ceiling.

  He has most of his prisoners sitting on the concrete floor, huddled up against the rear wall. I see a lone blob I take to be Mr. Ceepak tied or chained to one of the railings where you line up in twos to take your seat in the next roller coaster car. I figure one of the blobs in the clump on the floor is Samantha Starky. She was too close to Cliff Skeete and the action not to have been swept up in this thing.

  Skippy is waggling his Beretta 92FS, a semiautomatic pistol, in the air like he’s making a speech. Who knows what he’s ranting and raving about. Maybe his dad, and Ceepak’s dad, and how Father’s Day sucks.

  I notice two rifles lying on the ground near the bumpy yellow tiles that tell you you’re too close to the track. He brought both shotguns.

  There’s also an empty roller coaster train parked behind Skippy. It came down about the same time he blew Santucci away. Everybody escaped because Skippy was too busy corralling the people trapped in the final switchback barriers.

  The second train got stuck about halfway around the track when the guy pushing the buttons decided it was better to leave the people stranded than to bring them down here where they might get shot. The fire department, with help from the SWAT helicopter, rescued everybody. The roller coaster operator also escaped from the control room right after he shut the thing down.

  “Can we still access the deejay’s feed?” asks the SWAT team leader.

  “We’re working on it,” says the guy who rigged up the TVs. “Just now completing a patch into the WAVY studios. They’ve been keeping the disc jockey’s microphone open for us and are, of course, recording everything.”

  “Jesus, what the hell is he saying?” demands Big Paddy.

  “When you get the feed,” says the SWAT leader, “put it on speakers.”

  “Here we go, sir.” He flips a few switches on a portable console.

  “… what you people don’t know is, my father, Big Fucking Paddy O’Malley, killed my mother. That’s right. That heart attack she had? That wasn’t just a heart attack, okay? No way. He did it to her. How? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe he shot her up with potassium chloride, which, by the way, is what Kevorkian used in his suicide machine, okay? It’s what they use when they do lethal injections and need to stop a prisoner’s heart, okay?”

  This is creepy. We now have sound to go with the picture.

  “Okay?” Skippy screams.

  Thirty-six terrified heads start nodding.

  “It’s true. But you know what? My dad didn’t even need to Kevorkian my mom. Nah. He just needed to keep sleeping around with every stinking slut in town. Girls half his age. Then, you know what? He’d come home. Rub my mom’s face in it. ‘You’re an old, fat cow,’ he’d tell her. ‘That’s why I’m banging a waitress from the Rusty Fucking Scupper on a regular basis.’”

  “I said no such thing!”

  “Eas
y, dad,” says Kevin. “It’s just Skippy.”

  “Dammit to hell, if your snipers don’t kill the lying son of a bitch, I surely will!”

  “Your son, sir,” says Ceepak, “is teetering on the brink of insanity. These are the ravings of a madman.”

  “Just like his goddamn sister, Mary. It’s from his mother’s side, the Ryans. They’re all loony.”

  Chief Baines steps forward. “Patrick? You need to calm down. Let the professionals handle this.”

  “He’s my goddamn son!” he screams.

  On the TV, Skippy freezes.

  Mr. O’Malley shouts even louder. The man is a human bullhorn: “You’re a goddamn disgrace, Skippy O’Malley!”

  Ohmigod. We’re only about one hundred feet away. Skippy can hear him.

  He looks up.

  Directly at the TV camera.

  “Is that you, Daddy?”

  “Get that man out of here,” barks the SWAT commander, pointing to Mr. O’Malley. “The other one, too! Now!”

  Big guys with tinted goggles grab hold of Kevin and Paddy O’Malley. Lift them up off the ground and forcibly haul them out of the food stand, knocking over a couple of fifty-pound sacks of powdered sugar on the way.

  “Hey, Daddy? Big Paddy?”

  Skippy doesn’t know his father isn’t watching him on TV anymore.

  “This one’s for you, you murdering piece of shit!”

  He wades into the clump of hostages.

  One guy takes a swing at him. Tries to trip him up.

  He misses.

  Skippy turns. Squeezes the trigger on his semiautomatic. Pop!

  The young guy’s head explodes.

  “Does anyone have the shot?” the SWAT Commander shouts into his headpiece’s microphone.

  “Negative” crackles back from every sniper up on the coaster track.

  Pop! Skippy puts a second bullet in what’s left of the brave kid’s brain.

  “Let him know we’re fucking watching!”

  A fusillade of gunfire erupts up and down the wooden scaffolding. Steel pings on steel as the snipers nail the train tracks just outside the cover of the shed roof.

  Skippy freezes. Pulls back his pistol.

  “Cease fire,” shouts the SWAT commander.

  Skippy turns slowly to the camera. “That one was for my fucking father! But if any of you assholes shoot at me again, or toss in a flash-boom, or teargas me, I’ll kill as many of these motherfuckers as I can! Do you hear me, Ceepak? I’ll fucking kill them all!”

  And then Skippy opens up a pocket on his cargo pants and pulls something out.

  He wiggles it over his head.

  He brought a gas mask.

  38

  “WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING NOW?” SAYS CHIEF BAINES.

  On the video monitor, we see Skippy marching up and down in front of his hostages. He looks like a demented insect in his gas mask. His voice comes out nasal and whiny.

  “You? What’s your name?”

  “Ken Erb.”

  “Get up.”

  The guy stands. It’s Mr. Erb. The one who used to fly the bird kites on the beach. Neat guy. Artistic. Into adventures. Figures he’d want to be one of the first to ride the Rolling Thunder.

  “You?”

  A girl stands. Jeez-o, man. It’s Sam.

  “What’s your fucking name?”

  “Samantha Starky.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “Maybe. We met once. I was with—”

  “Shut up. Sit down.”

  “You …”

  “Ceepak?” says the chief. “What the hell is he doing?”

  “I’m not certain, but it appears as if he is culling the hostages.”

  “What?”

  “He is picking a handful of his prisoners.”

  “I can see that! But why? What for?”

  Ceepak shakes his head. “Unclear, sir.”

  “How come he knows you’re here, Officer Ceepak?” asks the SWAT commander, shifting his weight, jostling his gear. He’s giving Ceepak the hairy eyeball.

  “Skippy O’Malley, at one time, served with the Sea Haven Police Department.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Part-timer,” says Chief Baines. “One summer only. Auxiliary cop.”

  “He correctly assumes that I would be here,” adds Ceepak, “given the severity of the situation.”

  Yeah—me and Ceepak. We’re always there when the solid waste hits the rotary blades.

  “John’s here because he’s my top guy in crisis situations,” says the chief. “We’re gonna make him a detective. Have him head up a new division. A detective bureau here in Sea Haven.”

  We are?

  “We need one,” said Baines, as if none of this would’ve happened if we all had different titles.

  Wow. Ceepak’s getting bumped up to detective. I’d say we should go out and celebrate, grab a beer, but we’re kind of busy.

  “I want your name!” Skippy screams at what looks like the sixth victim he’s picked out of the crowd. “I want them to know whose lives they’re fucking with if they fuck with me again!”

  “Layla.”

  Skippy points his pistol at the girl’s head.

  I swear: She does not flinch.

  “You’re fucking making that up!”

  “No, I’m not. My parents liked the song.”

  It’s the sassy girl from the radio.

  “It could’ve been worse. They could’ve named me Ruby Tuesday or something.”

  Skippy grabs her by the arm, flings her over to the group he is quickly assembling on the loading platform, close to the roller coaster cars and the spot where Mr. Ceepak sits on the ground, hands behind his back, the handcuff chains looped around a pole.

  “Fine! They can carve Layla on your fucking tombstone if those SWAT assholes shoot at me again! I want one more. You.”

  “No!” The guy on the ground is cowering. Holding up his hands to block the bullets.

  “Get up, you fucking pussy! What’s your name?”

  The guy mumbles something.

  “Louder! So John Ceepak and the snipers climbing the monkey bars and every fucking cop in the goddamn Garden State can hear your name!”

  “Richard.”

  “Richard what?”

  “Heimsack.”

  “Heimsack? That’s your fucking last name?”

  Sam’s friend from Rutgers just nods.

  “Okay, Richard Heimsack, unlock that old fart.” He tosses him the handcuff keys. “His name is Joseph Ceepak. That’s right, everybody listening. It’s Officer John Ceepak’s father. But he’s not the kind of dad who’d be proud to have a son like Officer Ceepak, the biggest fucking Eagle Boy Scout in the goddamn world. The jarhead that jumped in my face for calling my girlfriend on the phone when I was supposed to be directing traffic around a goddamn sewer pipe. He was right. He was right. My bad. But his father? This worthless sack of sleazy shit? He’s no father. He’s a fucking bully and a blowhard. Get him on his feet.”

  Two of the hostage guys help Mr. Ceepak stand. He teeters on wobbly legs.

  “Yes, Mr. Joseph Ceepak, just like Big Paddy O’Malley, is a disgusting excuse for a father. He’s so awful, his son had to take out a restraining order against him! But that’s okay. That’s okay. We can make the bastard pay even if the State of Ohio couldn’t. Oh, yeah. I read up on you, Joseph Ceepak. I know what you’ve done. I know you ruined both your sons’ lives. See, folks, the Bible got it wrong!”

  Man—shy, skinny Skippy sure loves having an audience. He’s ranting and raving like one of those sweaty Sunday morning television preachers.

  “The sins of the father should be visited on the fucking father, not his unfortunate son.”

  Skippy sidles over to his rifles. Picks up a shotgun with his free hand. Aims it at the main group of hostages. Holsters the Beretta. Picks up the other shotgun. Aims it at the group closer to the train.

  “You people with Mr. Ceepak, you an
d he are coming with me. Walk across the roller coaster cars. Go into that fucking trailer on the other side of the tracks. Move it.”

  When they don’t as move quickly as he thinks they should, Skippy fires another shotgun round over their heads. The blast punches a hole through the ceiling. Buckshot rains down. The seven hostages and Mr. Ceepak hurry across the seats of the stationary roller coaster, climb out on the other side, and head for the control room. Except one guy who thinks about running down the exit ramp.

  Skippy fires a warning shot two inches in front of his feet.

  The guy throws up his arms and shuffles over to the control room.

  “Move it, people,” Skippy shouts. They all scramble and bob through the door of the trailer, and I’m reminded of all those horrible images of Nazi soldiers herding Jews onto boxcars bound for Auschwitz.

  “We got to do something,” I say to Ceepak. “Where the hell is the hostage negotiator?”

  “Five minutes out,” says the SWAT Commander.

  “You!” Skippy turns to Cliff Skeete, who’s sitting just in front of the bigger bunch of hostages on the loading dock. He’s still wearing his headphones, still at his dinky little card table with the vinyl WAVY banner flapping off the front. “Skeeter. Your microphone still open?”

  Cliff tosses up both hands. “I don’t know, man.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Get up out of that chair, you lying black bastard. You’re coming with me. Bring your gear. We’ll use it to broadcast my demands.”

  “We ain’t broadcasting no more.”

  Skippy raises the barrel of his shotgun. There’s no need to pump another load into the chamber; the tactical weapon autoloads it for him.

  “Be cool, man. Be cool.”

  Skeeter picks up his cordless microphone and his backpack full of gear.

  “Move it!”

  Cliff walks through the parked train. Skippy cuts across the roller coaster, using the seat behind the one Cliff is crossing so he can move sideways and keep one eye on Cliff, the other on his clump of twenty-some prisoners still sitting on the wooden loading deck.

  They reach the platform on the other side of the tracks. Skippy slings one rifle over his shoulder, prods Cliff with the muzzle of the other.