Fun House

20

Monday, we go to church.

For Paul Braciole’s funeral.

We’re working crowd control and traffic outside Our Lady of the Seas Catholic Church, which more or less resembles a brick school building with a steeple and stained-glass windows. Don’t worry. Judging from the television satellite trucks lined up around the block, you’ll be able to watch highlights on all the major entertainment news shows, not to mention this week’s “Funeral for a Friend/To Catch a Killer” edition of Fun House.

We’re on a bit of a break. The TV anchor types are all in their satellite vans, waiting for the funeral to end so they can mob folks streaming out of the church, including several celebrities who dropped by to remember Paulie, a “young man of enormous talent who was taken from us too, too soon,” according to the church-lawn eulogy delivered by Marty Mandrake for the gaggle of reporters jabbing microphones in his face before the services started.

Prickly Pear Productions has hired about a dozen beefy guys in EVENT STAFF windbreakers to keep the crowd of mourning fans behind a hastily erected barricade of interlocking fences running up the sides of the church steps. Since it’s a somber occasion, all the looky-loos are behaving. Holding candles and sobbing. Making memorials out of stuffed animals, flowers, and, yes, tubs of bodybuilding protein powder.

We’re in our police cruiser, parked right at the curb in front of the entrance steps. Even our radio is quiet. Perhaps Dorian Rence is observing a moment of silence in Paulie’s honor.

Ceepak’s cell rings. The personal phone. He always wears two so he doesn’t “blur the line between my private life and my professional responsibilities.”

“Hello?” he says. If it was the business line, he’d say “This is Ceepak. Go.”

I do that slight head-tilt thing that I always think will make it easier for me to eavesdrop.

“I’ll have to call you back,” he says.

Whoever’s on the other side says something that sounds like a mosquito singing: “Bizz bizz-bizz bizz.”

So much for my head-leaning eavesdropping technique.

“Oh,” says Ceepak. “You saw it?”

The mosquito, I think, says “yes” or some other one-syllable buzz.

“Have my television appearances made you reconsider your job offer?”

Okay. It’s the sheriff from Ohio. The one who wants to steal Ceepak away from me, make him head of a detective bureau when he needs to stay here, chasing down skinny drug dealers and babysitting reality TV stars.

“Really? I see. Well, let me say that I am seriously considering your proposal.”

Geeze-o, man. What will I do without Ceepak? I mean, besides make a fool of myself on a regular basis? The guy’s been my partner since day one on the job.

“Thank you, and in a spirit of full disclosure, you should know that Mrs. Ceepak is not overly enthusiastic about making the move.”

Yay, Rita!

“Correct. She is somewhat reluctant to leave the town that has been her home for close to twenty years.”

A smile creeps across my lips. Rita is a total Jersey girl, the kind Springsteen sings about. And, as Ceepak has obviously learned, nothing else matters in this whole wide world when you’re in love with a Jersey girl. I don’t think there’s a song about Ohio Gals, unless you count “Hang On Sloopy,” the state’s Official Rock Song, which was written by The McCoys about a singer named Dorothy Sloop of Steubenville, Ohio, who sometimes used the stage name Sloopy.

It’s amazing what you can learn at bar trivia contests.

Rita Lapscynski-Ceepak (yes, her married name sounds like it could be a breed of small, fluffy dog) came to the beaches of Sea Haven when she was in high school and in trouble. People here were good to her. She made a life. She raised a son. She found Ceepak. No wonder she never wants to leave.

The Ohio mosquito buzzes in Ceepak’s ear a little longer. He glances at his watch.

“Roger that,” he finally says when the buzzing bloodsucker runs out of gas. “I will. Yes. Before Labor Day. You too.”

He closes the clamshell.

Clips it to his belt.

And squints out the side window at the church.

“Well?” I say.

“That was the sheriff of Lorain County, Ohio.”

“But Rita wants to stay here, right?”

He grins. “Officer Boyle, your evidence-gathering skills continue to impress me.”

“Hey, you taught me everything I know. So they want an answer by Labor Day?”

“That is correct.”

“That mean’s you’ve got, what? Two weeks to change Rita’s mind?”

“Something like that.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“It might.”

“No way. Rita’s a Jersey girl.”

“They’re offering us a very substantial pay raise.”

“Really? What, a twenty-, thirty-percent bump?”

Ceepak shakes his head. “Double what I make here.”

Geeze-o, man. Double?

“Well,” I stammer, “you’ll never get to eat decent seafood again.”

“Perhaps. However, Danny, as you may have heard, they now fly fresh seafood into the heartland of America on a daily basis.”

“What? You mean Red Lobster? Bubba Gump Shrimp?”

“Lake Erie is very close to where we might live.”

“There’s no shrimp or scallops in Lake Erie-”

“Did you know, Danny, that every Friday during Lent, several restaurants and churches in the Cleveland area host a fish fry. It’s a northeastern Ohio tradition.”

“Yeah, but-”

We’ll have to save the second half of our New Jersey-Ohio seafood debate for later. The front doors of the church swing open. So do the back doors on two dozen news trucks.

“Let’s split up,” says Ceepak. “You take the front. Lend a hand to the security detail, should they require official intervention.”

I nod. Check my official intervention device, also known as my sidearm.

Ceepak makes a hand chop to the side of the building. “I’ll swing around back and make certain that the funeral home personnel are allowed to perform their somber tasks with a modicum of dignity.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I say as I yank open my door and head up the steps, letting my hand brush the stock of my Glock. I always like to make sure it’s still where I put it.

As I make my way up the steps, I notice that some of the fans behind the barriers are decked out in those “Put Down The Corn Cob” T-shirts. Nice. Everybody’s getting rich off of my catchphrase except me, the guy who created it.

As the celebrities start streaming out the door, I can hear organ music. Yep. It’s Elton John’s “Funeral for a Friend”-the sad riff at the top, not the “love lies bleeding in my hand” bit near the end.

Fans start shrieking. Here comes this year’s Bachelorette from that other reality show, the original cast members from Jersey Shore plus the lady who sprained her ankle on Dancing with the Stars and that fashion critic who makes snarky on-camera comments about what everybody else is wearing but never looks in the mirror long enough to check out how weird he looks.

Yes, I feel like I’m working the red carpet at the Oscars or the Emmys or The Reallys, an award I just made up for reality TV shows. I see Soozy K and Jenny Mortadella in their outfits from the Starfish Boutique. Good thing Our Lady of the Seas Catholic Church doesn’t have any nuns left on its staff. They’d be blushing. Jenny and Soozy look like they’re on their way to Satan’s own cleavage convention.

In front of them is Ponytail, walking backward so he can keep his camera trained on the two girls as they sob and shimmy down the church’s marble steps.

Off to the side, out of the camera lens’s field of vision, I see Layla Shapiro. She’s wearing tight black slacks, a black silk blouse, and a wireless headset.

“Smooth out the move,” she whispers at Ponytail, her voice cutting through the squeals and screams from the mob lining the steps, who have apparently forgotten this is a funeral, not a Justin Bieber concert, even though I think he was here to sing “Amazing Grace,” the Elvis version.

“Come on, Soozy,” Layla coaches. “You just lost the man of your dreams. Let America see how that makes you feel.”

Soozy starts sobbing louder. She even blubbers a high-pitched “Boo-hoo” like a caption in a cartoon.

I catch Layla’s eye.

She smiles. Shoots me a wink. I’m guessing Paulie’s funeral is one of the happiest days of young Ms. Shapiro’s life.

Me?

I just want Layla to leave me and my hometown alone.

If she doesn’t, maybe I can move to Ohio too.

Maybe Chief of Detectives Ceepak will need somebody to fetch his coffee and seafood.

I see Layla again around 6 P.M.

We’d set up a six o’clock meeting with Marty Mandrake at the Prickly Pear production trailer to discuss the details for Bill Botzong’s pre-taped appearance on the show Thursday night.

Of course Mandrake can’t see us when he said he would, because some big honchos from network headquarters up in New York have dropped by “unexpectedly” for a “major confab.”

Layla tells me all this when I am sent forth as the emissary from the cop car to the trailer steps, where she sits thumbing her BlackBerry. Detective Botzong and Ceepak hang back.

“Why aren’t you in the meeting?” I ask.

Layla shrugs. “Marty asked me to leave when they started firing up the cigars.”

“I thought you were his right-hand man.”

Okay, the “man” thing is my little dig. Layla lets it fly on by.

“He doesn’t want me stealing his thunder.”

“I see.”

“Besides, he has Grace Twittering all the details already.” She shows me her smartphone screen, but I don’t want to lean in to read it.

“What’s it say?”

“Basically, that he hit the numbers for his trigger clause.”

“Huh?”

“The network promised Prickly Pear a bonus if he delivered a certain ratings target. He’s off the charts, thanks to you and me and Ceepak.”

“Really? What’d me and Ceepak do?” I ask, even though I think I know the answer: we made for must-see TV.

“Ever since that Skee-Ball scene,” says Layla, “working the police into the plotlines-hauling Paulie off to jail, that bit with the biker boys in the restaurant parking lot-Fun House has become the surprise smash hit of the summer.”

“And that was your idea? Having the kids do stuff that would get them arrested?”

“I put a bug in Marty’s ear. No one had ever done a reality romance-slash-cop show. It’s a can’t-miss hybrid.”

“What about the steroids? Did you plant those?”

“No comment.”

“Did you tell Skeletor to bump off Paulie? Was that another plot twist?”

“Jesus, Danny! That was just a lucky fucking break. Who knew Skeletor would get that pissed off about his fifteen minutes of fame?”

A lucky break?

Geeze-o, man. Ms. Shapiro is twisted. She’s spent too much time inside TV, what my father calls the idiot box. It’s turned her into an idiot too.

She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the trailer. “You know what’s going on in there?”

“What?”

“Marty The Old Farty’s career is about to rise from the ashes.”

“Well, have fun rising with him.”

“Me? No way. Prickly Pear was just a foot in the door. I have feelers out. When people hear how I turned this turkey around, they’ll be begging me to work for them.”

I’ve heard enough. Hollywood, especially the New Jersey branch office, makes me sick.

“Let us know when Mr. Mandrake’s ready to talk about Detective Botzong’s bit,” I say. “I’m sure it’ll help boost your ratings even higher.”

“Will do,” says Layla, not even looking up at me, diddling with her BlackBerry keys some more.

Shoulders slumped, I head back to the Crown Vic, my mind swimming in its deep end of dark thoughts.

Marty Mandrake gets a big bonus plus a couple new TV shows.

The TV network gets to charge advertisers more for airtime on Marty Mandrake’s hit show.

Layla probably gets her pick of production jobs.

Even Ceepak’s salary gets doubled when he flies to Ohio following his guest appearances on the reality TV show.

Yep, everybody’s cashing in on this thing except me.

And, of course, Paulie Braciole.