Free Hell Hole by Chris Grabenstein

threatening.
    â€œWhat do you want?” is the best he can manage.
    â€œYeah,” adds Mr. Shrimp. “Whattayawant?”
    â€œWe’d like to ask you two gentlemen a few questions,” says Ceepak.
    â€œYou’re cops!” The fifteen-watt refrigerator bulb in Nichols’s brain clicks on. “Last winter. You arrested me.”
    â€œThat’s right. I’m Officer John Ceepak. This is my partner, Officer Danny Boyle.”
    â€œWhere’s your badges?” inquires Mr. Shrimp. He puts a lot of head bobs and shoulder twitches behind every word.
    â€œWe’re off-duty today.”
    â€œSo what’re you doin’ here?”
    â€œWe’d like to talk to you about air bags.”
    â€œYou in the market to buy some?” asks Nichols.
    You look up dumb in the dictionary, you’ll see this man’s mug shot.
    â€œNicky?” snaps Mr. Shrimp.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe’re not here to make a purchase,” says Ceepak. “We’re looking for an air bag that someone illegally removed from a Ford Focus parked
at the exit fifty-two service plaza on the Garden State Parkway last night.”
    â€œIs that so?” Mr. Shrimp jiggles his shoulders. “Well, we was right here, all night.”
    â€œYeah,” adds Nichols. “Except when we went out.”
    â€œNicky?”
    â€œWhat?”
    Mr. Shrimp doesn’t say it; just mouths the words: Shut. Up! He could’ve added, You. Idiot .
    â€œWe know you two gentlemen are actively engaged in the business of selling replacement air bags to unscrupulous auto-body repair shops on the mainland,” says Ceepak.
    Now Nichols looks offended. Well, as offended as he can given his limited range of facial expressions.
    Suddenly, the rap song ends and a new song starts. Heavy metal. The CD player in the old truck must have a shuffle mode—one of those six-CD changers people bolt inside their trunks.
    Like Shareef Smith had bolted inside his Ford until somebody ripped it out!
    I recognize the tune: “Cum on Feel the Noize.” Quiet Riot. The same heavy metal anthem Dixon and his troops were blasting out the windows of their party house last night.

10
    â€œThat’s Echo Company’s theme song!” I say to Ceepak. “They were playing it at that party we broke up! The ten-forty-three!”
    Ceepak nods.
    â€œI’ll bet that’s Smith’s CD changer!” I’m pretty jazzed. “They stole it out of the trunk and it was loaded with Smith’s CDs!”
    â€œNo way. That’s my music, man!” says Mr. Shrimp. “I didn’t steal that shit from anybody.”
    â€œShit” seems like an extremely appropriate descriptor for the fuzzbox power chords currently ringing out of the truck’s gigantic speakers.
    â€œYou like Quiet Riot?” I ask.
    The Riot singers strain to be heard over the chugging drums. Fortunately, the words are all pretty much the same: Come on feel the noise . Over and over. And then a guitar solo. The kind Wayne and Garth used to diddle in the air.
    â€œYou actually like an eighties hair band?”
    Mr. Shrimp puffs out his chest. “You got some kind of problem, Officer?”
    Well, yeah. The song sucks.

    â€œIt’s a free country!” says Nichols.
    I guess so. Especially if you steal everything. Then, yeah, it’s all pretty much free.
    â€œThis is America,” adds the short guy, who’s hurling all of his tough-guy machismo in my general direction because it’s obvious that Ceepak, the six-two tower of power standing to my left, could peel and eat Mr. Shrimp for breakfast. “We can listen to whatever we want!”
    â€œYou stole that CD changer from Corporal Shareef Smith,” I reiterate my point. Loudly. It’s the only way to be heard over the cascading guitar riff. “That’s his song. His CD! His CD changer!”
    â€œYou got any