Fun House

35

“And?”

I hate when he keeps me hanging like that.

“As I suspected,” says Ceepak, “the FBI has quite an extensive file on Mr. Mandrake. It was first opened in 1971, the year he made his award-winning antiwar documentary about the Vietnam conflict. Apparently, the president at the time was not a fan of Mr. Mandrake’s Nixon Lies, Who Dies?”

“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 amp;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 shit 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.