Fun House (John Ceepak Mystery)

  “So what can the Fibbies tell us?”

  “That Mr. Mandrake likes to gamble.”

  “Right. We knew that. He was down in Atlantic City the Friday Paulie was murdered. Said he goes down there a lot.”

  “Indeed. However, Danny, even with all that practice, he is not very good at it. In fact, the FBI suspects he is deep in debt to certain members of the Lombardo crime syndicate.”

  Okay. That’s a non-Creed crime family. I think. Those were the Pelagatti and Squarcialupi.

  “The Lombardo people could help Mandrake hire two contract killers,” I say. “Easy.”

  Ceepak nods. “Especially if he offered to pay back all that he owed on his gambling debts plus a substantial interest payment.”

  “Which he can do,” I say. “Because the network paid him that bonus and hired him to produce a bunch of new shows.”

  “Exactly.”

  Okay. I would’ve kissed Rita, too, if I had figured all that out and, you know, been married to her.

  Ceepak and I head up the steel staircase attached to the production trailer. Somebody’s inside: I can hear laughter, the kind you hear outside a bar on a Friday night. Late.

  When we enter, I’m gonna let Ceepak ask most of the questions because, when we turned into plainclothes cops, we were at his house, so he was able to strap on his Glock before we took off. My sidearm is secured inside the lockbox in my clothes closet, where it sleeps whenever I go out to grab a beer.

  Ceepak shoves open the rattly door.

  I see Marty Mandrake, Layla Shapiro, Rutger Reinhertz (the director), Grace the stopwatch lady, and about six assorted flunkies sitting around the conference table. The air is thick with cigar smoke. Someone pops open a bottle of champagne.

  “Officers!” says Layla, raising her plastic champagne flute in our general direction. “Glad you could join us!” She has a big stogie stuck in her mouth, too. Puffs on it.

  Marty Mandrake hikes his pants up over his belly as best he can and, cigar jiggling in his teeth, strides across the room to Ceepak. The tobacco tube comes out of his mouth with a wet smack. “Officer Ceepak! I just heard from Mayor Sinclair. I understand that Chief Baines has slipped out of town for a long weekend you’re my new Acting Chief?”

  Ceepak just nods.

  “Great. You saw tonight’s show? The kicker at the end?”

  “Yes.”

  Mandrake winks and grins. Jams the cigar back in his pie hole. “Guess we better beef up security on the boardwalk tomorrow, huh?”

  The room erupts in a chorus of phlegmy laughter.

  “Oh, yes,” says Layla, blowing smoke rings like a frat boy. “Soozy’s life is in ‘danger.’” She does what they call “air quotes” with her fingers when she says the word “danger.”

  I hate air quotes. I figure if you get to do air quotes, I get to do air exclamation points. With my middle finger.

  The script lady, the only one in the crowded trailer not puffing on a stink bomb, has a finger to her ear, pressing an iPhone earbud down her ear canal.

  “Mike Tomasino’s lighting up the call center,” she reports. “AT&T’s about to melt down. He’s doing double what Vinnie and Jenny are polling. Tomasino will be our second finalist, no doubt about it.”

  Mandrake rubs his hands together. “Excellent. America got it right.”

  “You mean they stuck to the script,” jibes Layla.

  “That’s what I said, kid—they got it right!”

  More laughter. Cigar smoke chugs out of mouths like these people are all related to Thomas The Train.

  Mandrake grinds out the tip of his cigar in a cut-crystal bowl and turns to face Ceepak again—oblivious to how darkly my partner is glaring at him. “Champagne, boys? Cigar?”

  “No, thank you,” says Ceepak. “Mr. Mandrake, we’d like to talk to you—”

  “About tomorrow? Sure, sure. Whose genius idea was it to go live with a one-day turnaround?”

  “Yours!” says Layla with a hearty suck-up artist laugh.

  Mandrake beams. “You bet, baby. Gonna be the biggest hit of the year. Ratings will be through the roof. Here’s what you do, guys,” he says to Ceepak and me. “Put your whole department on double overtime. Make it look good. Prickly Pear Productions will pick up the tab. Have your team seal off the boardwalk area around the Fun House, maybe put up a couple of those metal detector things, limit access to spectators with golden tickets courtesy of America’s Golden Tan Spray-On Salons.…”

  “It’s a promotional consideration,” Layla says to Ceepak and me, like we care.

  “We’re buying out the vendors and merchants up and down Pier Two,” says Mandrake, using both hands to frame up every point he makes. “Shutting them down for the night.”

  “Except that fried-candy-bar asshole,” says Layla. “He won’t cooperate.”

  “Here’s how we play this thing,” Mandrake says to Ceepak and me. “We all act as if we’re terrified that the crazed killer could make good on his threat to ice Soozy at any minute, even though, between you, me, and the bedpost, that kicker at the end? We texted it to her ourselves.”

  “It was my idea,” says Layla. “Of course, Soozy thought the text was legit.”

  “Only way to get that honest of a reaction out of her,” adds Reinhertz, the director. “Poor kid couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag if you drew a map on the inside flap.”

  “It was our final booster shot,” says Mandrake. “I guarantee we’re gonna see Super Bowl-size ratings tomorrow night. So, we set up all the security, make sure all the news crews see it, build the buzz. But like I said, there’s no real need for alarm; no new threat except the one Layla whipped up. Soozy’s safe.”

  Now Ceepak gets an uncharacteristically devilish glint in his eye. “How can you be so certain of that, Mr. Mandrake?”

  Mandrake looks a little flummoxed. “Because, like I just told you: we texted the threat ourselves. There’s no real danger.”

  “That’s one theory,” says Ceepak. “Here’s another.”

  Oh, man, Ceepak is pissed. I have never seen him jump this ugly in a suspect’s face. Of course, this is the first killer we’ve confronted while he was popping champagne to celebrate his diabolical plot to cash in on a double homicide.

  “What if,” says Ceepak, “you, through your known Atlantic City connections in the Lombardo crime family, hired a team of professional hit men to murder Peter Paul Braciole?”

  All of a sudden, the room goes silent.

  “What if,” Ceepak continues, “upon seeing the ratings success of that first murder, you requested another act of violence from your known crime associates to ensure your ongoing income stream?”

  Now Marty Mandrake’s nose twitches. “So, Acting Chief Ceepak, what the hell have you been drinking tonight?”

  “Iced tea and non-alcoholic Coors beer, a taste I acquired while on combat duty in Iraq, dealing with individuals nearly as duplicitous as you.”

  Okay, as much as I’ve enjoyed seeing Ceepak get steamed, I’m realizing—it may not have been our smartest move. Mandrake is puffing up his chest. Tugging up on his belt.

  “Grace?” he snaps.

  “Yes, sir?” says the script lady.

  “Call Rambowski. Tell him I want to sue this pissant cop for libel, slander, and whatever the hell they call it when a jarhead asshole says unsubstantiated crap he’s gonna regret when I drag the sorry son of a bitch into court.”

  “You should also ask your lawyer to accompany you to police headquarters this evening,” says Ceepak.

  “What?”

  “We need to ask you a few questions about your dealings in Atlantic City.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

  “No, sir. I am in no way kidding.”

  Mandrake squinches up his eyes. “You know, Ceepak, this isn’t the first time jackbooted Gestapo thugs like you have kicked in my door and tried to frame me. I dealt with Tricky Dicky and his CIA goons back in seventy-one. I can sure as sh
it handle you.”

  “Be that as it may,” says Ceepak, “I suggest you—”

  Mandrake cuts him off. “Officer, am I free to go?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Am I free to go?”

  “We’d like you to come to police headquarters.”

  “Officer,” says Mandrake, using the terse but polite tone some ACLU lawyer probably coached him to use back in the seventies when his anti-Vietnam movie came out, “you did not answer my question: Am I free to go?”

  Ceepak’s jaw joint starts popping in and out.

  Mine too.

  Do we have “reasonable suspicion,” which would give us the right to detain Mr. Mandrake for investigatory purposes?

  We have no hard evidence of Mr. Mandrake making contact with members of the Lombardo crime family.

  We have no sales receipts from Murder, Inc. for the rental of two contract killers.

  We have no confession from even one of the hired hit men, identifying Mr. Martin Mandrake as the person who paid for his or her services.

  Basically, we have a hunch.

  One Ceepak probably shouldn’t have played so publicly so soon.

  “Officer,” says Mandrake, “I will repeat my question one last time: Am I free to go?”

  Ceepak swallows hard. “Yes.”

  And, without saying another word, Marty Mandrake walks out the production trailer door.

  36

  WE SIT OUTSIDE THE PRODUCTION TRAILER IN CEEPAK’S banged-up Toyota for a few very long, extremely quiet minutes.

  I can hear the ocean, and it’s a block and a half away.

  “Danny?” Ceepak finally says.

  “Yeah?”

  “I must apologize. I fear I let my personal feelings interfere with my judgment.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything, I guess.”

  Ceepak shakes his head. “There shouldn’t be. Not for that sort of unprofessional behavior.”

  The thing about Ceepak and his rigid honor code is this: he mostly imposes it on himself. My partner holds himself accountable to a higher standard than he’d ever hold, say, me. I think this comes from being in the military, where all your decisions could be life-and-death ones—for other people, not just for yourself. So when Officer John Ceepak occasionally blows it, it totally bums him out.

  “Well,” I say, digging through the treasure trove of sage Springsteen snippets, “tomorrow there’ll be sunshine and all this darkness past.” I go with “Land Of Hope and Dreams” because I know it’s Ceepak’s favorite.

  Ceepak looks over at me. “I take it you have seen tomorrow’s weather forecast?”

  And then he finally cracks half a smile.

  At least Marty Mandrake didn’t skip town after he heard that we suspect him of masterminding two murders.

  First thing Friday morning, when Acting Chief Ceepak and I show up on Pier Two to supervise the security detail (which is mostly for show, since we now suspect the death threat is a phony one), we see Mandrake working with his crew, organizing things up at the Fun House. I’m dressed in khaki shorts and a navy blue Engine 23 FDNY T-shirt that this guy who helped us out at the Hell Hole last summer, Captain Dave Morkal, sent me for Christmas. Even though I have my badge clipped to a belt loop, I look sloppy enough to work on Mandrake’s crew.

  Ceepak, in his golf shorts and white polo shirt, looks more like a Boy Scout working on his country club merit badge.

  The big-shot producer is, of course, avoiding and ignoring us. And we can’t force him to talk to us until we have some kind of incriminating evidence proving Ceepak’s theory.

  So Mandrake and his crew are running cables, rigging up cameras, acting important. I see another swarm of guys in baggy shorts, hiking sneakers, and T-shirts—with radios, tool belts, and duct tape hanging off their hips—pushing lights on rolling tripods, practicing camera moves, or noshing at the craft services table. All thirty or forty members of the Fun House camera crew have deer-hunter orange CREW I.D.s draped around their necks, showing that they have already been cleared through security.

  I see that rookie, the guy in the knit hat, the one who didn’t know what a “half-apple” was. He’s hanging out under a pop-up tent munching on what appears to be a breakfast burrito, yukking it up with the ponytailed cameraman Jimbo, a guy leaning on his microphone pole, and another dude who’s stuffing fistfuls of free popcorn into his face. Looks like the knit-hat kid caught on to how this production gig works pretty quickly: you work a little, then you stand around and snack.

  Now Ms. Shapiro comes over to the tent, waves and points. I think they call it gesticulating. Anyway, Jimbo and his crew grab one last handful of Oreos and bright orange cheese balls, pick up their camera and gear, and head into the Fun House like Layla told them to. Knit Cap is in charge of lugging a cardboard flat of water bottles and soda pop for everybody.

  I can see why Layla wanted to use the Sea Haven Fun House as the backdrop for the big finale. The brightly colored building looks like a three-story-tall clown castle with striped turrets topped off with colored pompoms: jolly birthday party hats jutting up against the sky. There are clown-face gargoyles all over the second and third floors, not to mention carousel elephants and circus animals, and, of course, red chaser lights spelling out FUN HOUSE in a wildly animated sequence of blinks, flashes, and strobes.

  The main entrance to the castle is that wide-open clown mouth (picture Mick Jagger working for Ringling Brothers). The entryway is maybe fifteen feet tall, with a red-tongue carpet leading the way into the first mirror maze. To the right of the entrance is a “Shoot The Clown In His Mouth, Pop The Balloon” water gun shooting gallery. After the laughing clown dummies inside the Fun House torment you with their mirror mazes, spinning floor, DayGlo tumble tunnel, and slide-in-the-dark exit ramp, folks like to give the jokers a little payback.

  At least that’s how it was the summer I worked the Fun House. There was nothing better after finally escaping the madness than aiming your water pistol at a frozen fiberglass Bozo and bursting his balloon.

  Ceepak, who used to run security outside the Green Zone in Baghdad, knows how to lock down the boardwalk surrounding the TV shoot. He has Joey Thalken, this friend of ours from the Sea Haven Sanitation Department, commandeer all sorts of salt-dumping trucks from maintenance yards off the Turnpike where the big, burly vehicles spend their summers dreaming about blizzards.

  “Load them up with sand,” Ceepak tells Joey T. “Park them there and there.” He hand-gestures to the point where the boardwalk steps connect with the public parking lot. “Block all vehicular access.”

  “Okay,” says Joey, “but how would, you know, a car with like a suicide bomber in it be able to climb up all those steps?”

  “You make a good point, Joe,” says Ceepak. “Give me a third truck at the bottom of the handicap access ramp in case, once again, the attack is mounted on motorcycles.”

  “Cool,” says Joey T as he and his SHSD buddies set up a barricade of heavyweight dump trucks at all possible access points to Pier Two.

  Meanwhile, half a dozen SHPD cops are linking sections of aluminum fencing together, stringing them across the boardwalk, leaving only a six-foot-wide access point, soon plugged with a pair of airport-style metal detectors rented from whoever rents them to the Secret Service when the president visits New Jersey.

  While Ceepak supervises Joey T and the trucks, I amble over to the Fun House because I see Layla near the Squirt Gun Arcade. She’s carrying a clipboard and talking to somebody through a headset wired to a walkie-talkie.

  I’m hoping that, since we sort of had a connection once upon a time—oh, a few weeks ago—she might spill what she knows about her boss and his connections with a certain Atlantic City crime family.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She holds up a hand to let me know she is busy but almost done barking orders at whoever’s on the other end of her radio transmission. “I don’t give a shit. Marty wants smoke in the mirror maze. The sec
ond one. Upstairs. Right. I don’t care. Just do it.” She’s snarling. “Tell the fire marshal to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.”

  Okay. Don’t think Dunkin’ Donuts is ever gonna use that as their slogan.

  Layla jabs a button on the radio slung low on her hip, much like her cargo shorts. The girl likes displaying her ripped midriff. She tosses back her hair and smiles.

  “Officer Boyle. Whazzup? You and your partner hatch any more harebrained theories about who killed Paulie and Skeletor?”

  “Nah. We’re sticking with the one we’ve got.”

  “That Marty did it?”

  “No. That he hired other people to do it for him.”

  “So he could pump up our ratings?”

  “Hey, you’re the number one show in America.”

  “Because of my idea to work in the ‘cops’ angle. That’s when the numbers started trending up. Sorry, Officer Boyle. Your boss Ceepak had more to do with making this show a hit than my boss Marty.”

  “So what about his Friday-night trips down to A.C.?”

  “What can I tell you, the man likes to gamble. Me? I prefer a sure thing.”

  “Are there any?”

  “Sure: sex and violence. They sell. Always have. It’s why all those buff gladiators back in Rome wore skirts but no shirts. It’s why the motorcycle episode was huge. Sexy college kids. Violent dudes on motorbikes. Works every time.”

  “You know, Layla, you and me—”

  “Met cute. Dated a couple times. It was fun, now it’s done.”

  “But—”

  “What? You think I owe you something because you saved my life back at the Rolling Thunder? Fine. Here’s the dealio: no way Marty Mandrake did or engineered to have done what you and Ceepak think he did or had done. He’s not that clever. Lacks imagination. Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have to find a puppy dog.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell anybody, it’s a secret till we go live, but America voted for Mike Tomasino.”