Free Fall Read Online Free Page B

Sorry.”
    â€œYou doing anything tonight?” he asks.
    I shrug. “Not really.”
    â€œBunch of us are having a kegger over at Mike Malenock’s place. Wanna come?”
    â€œSounds like fun,” I say, vaguely remembering when it really would’ve sounded that way. “But, well, I promised somebody I’d help them move their stuff tonight.”
    â€œWell, if you guys get thirsty when you’re done with the move, come to the kegger. You goin’ in to check out ‘Urban Termination II?’”
    â€œThought I might.”
    â€œDon’t worry, dude. I cruised by earlier. You’re still the high score. All three top spots.”
    Josh and I knock knuckles. He’s wearing these big Hamburger Helper-sized white gloves. It’s like I’m hanging out with Mickey Mouse’s slightly seedier New Jersey cousin.
    The video arcade game Urban Termination II is one of the many ways I hone the cop skill that, not to brag, has made me somewhat legendary amongst the boys in blue up and down the Jersey Shore. I have, shall we say, a special talent.
    I can shoot stuff real good.
    Sometimes, when we’re out at the firing range, Ceepak even calls me “Deadeye Danny.” Says I could’ve qualified as a Sharpshooter or Marksman if, you know, I had joined the Army first.
    Inside Sunnyside Playland, I nail a bunch of bad guys with a purple plastic pistol and listen to the whoops and ba-ba-dings and the voice growling, “die sucker die” every time I blast a thug mugging a granny.
    A crowd of kids gathers around me.
    It’s fun.
    For a full fifteen minutes.
    I collect the winning tickets that spool out of the machine when I top my top score and hand them off to one of my fans, who only needs “two hundred thousand more points” before he wins a Walkman. Yes, a Walkman. The prizes at Sunnyside Playland aren’t what you might call contemporary.
    Fun with a gun done, I grab an early dinner at The Dinky Dinghy, the seafood shack famous for its “Oo-La-La Lobster.” I go with a Crispy Cape Codwich because you don’t need to wear a bib when you eat it.
    Then I head for home.
    Christine Lemonopolous does not call. Guess she didn’t need my help moving her belongings out of Mrs. Oppenheimer’s McMansion.
    I don’t go to Josh and Mike’s kegger, either. If I did, I might have to arrest myself for a D and D. That’s drunk and disorderly.
    And Ceepak would hear about it. Probably on his police scanner two seconds after it happened.
    Instead, I just go to bed.
    Sunday morning, I resist the urge to swing by Dr. Arnold Rosen’s beach bungalow to check in with Christine again. Instead, I actually go to church, something I’ve started doing a little more often lately—even though my mom and dad aren’t in town to make me. They moved to Arizona a few years ago. It’s “a dry heat.”
    I guess I go to church because of The Job.
    The deaths I have witnessed.
    The deaths I have caused.
    After church, I head home, have a couple beers, watch baseball, order a pizza.
    I spend a couple more minutes thinking about Christine. Wondering why I never noticed how hot she was before. But then I remember I only ever saw Christine when she was with Katie and gawking at your girlfriend’s girlfriends, saying stuff like, “Wow, check out Christine’s hooters,” would, basically, be stupid, not to mention rude.
    I call my mom and dad in Arizona. My brother, Jeffrey, has moved out there, too. He’s at their house, smoking Turkey Jalapeno Sausages over pecan logs. I’m told they do this sort of thing in Arizona.
    â€œWhen are you moving out this way, Danny?” he asks.
    â€œ How about never? ” I want to reply.
    But I don’t.
    Instead, I give the answer I give every time we talk: “We’ll see.”
    Eventually, after my brother tells me how awesome Arizona is and how I could make a