Mind Scrambler

by Chris Grabenstein

  Zuckerman reads his expressions and tries to explain: “We need to maintain a veil of secrecy over our illusions or we’ll disappoint the loyal fans who flock to Richard’s shows. Look, here’s how I propose we handle the situation.” He flips open his clipboard case. “We will hire, at our own expense, a private investigator. In fact, we already have a PI on retainer, a private contractor who helps us handle ongoing security issues. This gentleman will be charged with locating the missing notebooks and keeping their highly confidential contents under wraps. We see no reason to sidetrack you gentlemen with a second investigation. You do the murder. We’ll handle the burglary.”

  “Sir?” says Ceepak.

  Zuckerman blinks like someone just blew soot in his eyes. “Yes?”

  “The two incidents are most likely linked. The time for secrecy and prevarication is over.”

  In other words, Ceepak’s all done tolerating lies and liars, something he will only do within the confines of a casino theater and only for the short duration of an abracadabra cowboy’s blatantly bogus hocus-pocus. After that, the code kicks in, baby, big-time.

  “Why was the security guard unseen by the camera mounted in the hallway?”

  “As I stated previously, we are not going to answer that,” says Zuckerman. “Not now. Not until you get a court order and, even then, we will need to talk to our own legal representation regarding the privacy and copyright protection issues such an answer might entail.”

  “Who is Jake?” Ceepak zigs to Jake when Rock and Company expect him to keep zagging on about the camera.

  The magician puts down his milk glass. “Jake Pratt? He’s one of my chorus boys. A very talented but very troubled young man.”

  “Why did he miss this evening’s performance?”

  Rock shrugs. “I wish I knew. Boy’s nineteen. Loose as ashes in the wind. But, I tell you what, I’m gonna give ol’ Jake a good tongue-lashing next time I do see him. Might even hand him his walkin’ papers, too.”

  “Do you know where Mr. Pratt is currently located?”

  “Probably in a bar somewhere getting soused,” says Zuckerman.

  Rock gives his manager a head shuck. “Now, David.”

  “The boy’s nothing but trouble, Richard. Always has been. Juvenile delinquent.” Zuckerman turns to Ceepak. “You’ll see. The kid’s got a record. Done time. Big-time.”

  “He was in a home for wayward boys,” says Rock. “But that don’t mean he’s beyond redemption. He’s very talented, David. Don’t misunderestimate him.”

  “Where is Mr. Pratt staying while you’re performing in Atlantic City?” asks Ceepak.

  “I can’t recall,” says Zuckerman. “When we’re on the road, we give the cast and crew a housing allowance. Some of the kids room together. Find a place, split the rent. Mostly motels. Not the Xanadu or any of the other major casinos. We’re generous with our per diems. Not crazy. Most find more affordable accommodations at the local Holiday Inn, Econo Lodge, Super Eight. Places like that.”

  “Do you have a list of the cast members’ current residences?”

  Zuckerman nods. “Sure. Our stage manager Christina Crites has it. Addresses. Phone numbers, too.”

  “We need a copy. ASAP.”

  “Consider it done.”

  Finally. Stubble head cooperates. He actually pulls out his cell, walks into the other room, makes a call.

  “Were Jake Pratt and Katie Landry romantically involved?” Ceepak asks Mr. and Mrs. Rock.

  “I don’t know,” says Rock. “Don’t pay much attention to backstage hooey like that. Although I personally disapprove of premarital sexual relationships, I figure it’s none of my business if folks are eatin’ supper before they say grace.”

  “They were,” says Mrs. Rock.

  “Really?” Her husband seems surprised.

  She smiles at us. “Men. So oblivious.”

  “Were they dating?” asks Ceepak.

  Now she gives my partner a coy little grin as she smoothes out her lap a little.

  “Well, Officer Ceepak, I don’t think they were sipping ice cream sodas down at the corner drugstore, if that’s what you mean. However, Nanny Katie, like many women, was not immune to the allure of a younger man, especially one as attractive as Jake Pratt. Many of the gals in the show felt the same way.”

  Now her mischievous blue eyes tell me something else: Mrs. Rock was one of those “gals.”

  17

  “Mr. Richard Rock is a great, great man,” says Tupula Tuiasopo. “I’d cut off my right arm for him.”

  Of course he’d need a chainsaw: the arm in question is as wide around as one of those redwood stumps out in California, where, we learned, Mr. Tuiasopo grew up after moving to the mainland from Hawaii. He played football for UCLA, graduated, went into the Hollywood bodyguard business, and has been wearing Event Staff windbreakers for close to fifteen years, ten of them with Richard Rock.

  Such were the preliminaries gleaned when we sat down with Mr. Tuiasopo. We’re in another backstage room. The sign on the door said WARDROBE. The clothes in here could blind you: Mrs. Rock’s glitzy gowns, the dancers’ spangled cowboy hats.

  “I love Richard Rock. Love what he’s doing for the kids, you know?” Tuiasopo tugs at his corded hair rope. “He tells the kids to stay away from drugs. Just say no, you know?”

  “Commendable,” says Ceepak. “Mr. Tuiasopo, where were you at eight PM this evening?”

  “Where I always be.”

  We wait. Tuiasopo rocks in his chair. Guess that’s all he’s got on that one.

  So Ceepak helps him out: “And where are you typically positioned at eight PM?”

  “At the stage door. Eight PM is when the show starts so I need to be backstage, keep that area secure. Can’t let nobody back that way.”

  “Why?”

  “You know.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Security concerns.”

  “What kind of security concerns?”

  “Secrets.”

  “How do you subvert the video feed?”

  “Hunh?”

  I translate: “How come we didn’t see you on the surveillance camera? We saw the door, but not you.”

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  “That’s wild, man.” I’m starting to wonder if Tupula Tuiasopo might’ve “just said yes” when somebody offered him a spliff of Maui wowie, primo bud imported from back home.

  Ceepak tries again: “Mr. Tuiasopo?”

  “Yo. Dude. Call me Toohey.”

  “Do you disable the video camera on a nightly basis?”

  “Can’t say what I do or what I don’t do, except to say I do my job, you know?”

  “Does your job include disabling surveillance equipment?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t, dude. I signed the papers. Stack this thick.” He spreads open his thumb and index finger to indicate the phone book or a nice T-bone. “Richard Rock Enterprises confidentiality agreement. Signed it when they hired me so if I told you what I know, somebody would have to kill me.”

  “Like somebody killed Katie Landry?” I say because the big macadamia nut’s aloha spirit is starting to drive this Jersey boy up the freaking wall.

  “Yeah. I heard about that. Bummed me out bad, man. Nanny Katie was a sweet kid. Cute, too. Didn’t know she was into the kinky costume action. Guess we can never know another person’s soul if they choose to keep it, you know, unknowable.”

  “All we want to know,” I say, “is how the hell you screwed with the goddamn camera!”

  “Danny?” This from Ceepak. With a head shake.

  Toohey holds up both his paws. “Yo, little brother—listen to what the big man says. Chill. Hang loose.” He makes a fist, extends his thumb and pinky, and jiggles his hand. The surfer’s salute.

  “So, tell me,” says Ceepak, “how did you compromise the camera’s integrity?”

  Okay. Fine. Ceepa
k used his grown-up words to ask the same thing I just asked.

  “Like I said, dude—I can’t say. I took an oath of office.”

  “Did you see Miss Landry this evening?” Ceepak asks.

  “Sure, sure. Said, ‘Hey, Katie’ when she and the kids came out the stage door like they always do.”

  “What time?”

  “Usual time.”

  Ceepak finger-drums a solo on his kneecap to let Toohey know we’re waiting for a better answer.

  “Five or six after eight,” he says. “Right after they do the floating pajamas bit with their pops onstage.”

  “Did you see anybody else in the backstage area? In the corridor?”

  “Nobody who wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  “Who did you see?”

  “Somebody from the show.”

  “Who?”

  “Dancer.”

  Ceepak’s neck tendons stretch taut. “Who, Mr. Tuiasopo?”

  “Just this dude.”

  “Who?”

  “Jake. Jake Pratt.”

  “When?” asks Ceepak.

  “A little later.”

  “How much later?”

  “I don’t know. Minute or two. I thought it was kind of weird, you know, cause Jake was supposed to be onstage. Like I said, he’s one of the dancers. He’s also supposed to help slide props around and stuff. He’s totally important for the tiger bit.”

  “Where the tiger is turned into a tabby cat?”

  “You seen the show, hunh?”

  “Yes. What are Mr. Pratt’s duties during the tiger trick?”

  “Dance around. Push the mirrors away when nobody’s looking because Mr. Rock has those sparks coming out of his fingertips and Mrs. Rock is wearing that gown over there.” He points at the rack. “It, like, totally shows off her hooters, so nobody’s gonna be lookin’ at what cowboy Jake’s doin’ in the background, not while Mrs. Rock is shaking her bazoombas, am I right, dude?”

  Ceepak nods. Grudgingly.

  “I wonder who Jake’s understudy is.” Toohey kneads his chin thoughtfully. “Somebody else probably had to fill in for him, you know? I mean, if he was coming offstage, he couldn’t be onstage at the same time sliding mirrors. Oh, shit.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think I’m allowed to, you know, say that. About the mirrors. Shit, dude. I am so totally screwed.”

  “Don’t worry,” says Ceepak. “The use of mirrors to mask illusions is not news to anyone who has studied the practice of magic.”

  “For real?”

  “The simple manipulation of reflected space is how Houdini made a giant elephant named Jennie disappear at the Hippodrome in 1918. Angled mirrors in a large box.” He pauses. “Or a small one. Danny?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How far up the hallway is the surveillance camera?”

  “About halfway down, between the stage door and the exit to the casino corridor.”

  “Did you pass any other doors before you reached the camera?”

  “Yeah. One.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “The same, I guess. Gray. Steel. Nothing special.”

  Now Ceepak smiles at Toohey. “So, tell me, Mr. Tuiasopo—who flips the mirror in front of the camera lens prior to curtain time? You or Mr. Rock?”

  “Hah! Neither one! Mr. Zuckerman does it! Heh-heh-heh. Man, dude—for a cop, you are one lousy detective!”

  18

  We abandon Tupula Tuiasopo and head out to the hall, down to where that solitary surveillance camera is mounted.

  We stare up at the eye in the sky. As I noticed earlier, it’s not covered with a dome: just a boxy camera jutting out from the wall on an angled metal arm.

  “See it, Danny?”

  “Yeah. I think. Maybe.” I don’t see a thing.

  Ceepak, however, does. He reaches up, in front of the camera’s lens, and pinches what looks to me to be empty air. However, he snaps off an invisible cover of some sort—like opening up a remote to change the batteries, only you can’t see the remote. He shows me a V-shaped box with mirrors on both its angled sides.

  “The mirrored panels reflect the surrounding wall and ceiling, Danny—rendering the box, itself, invisible.”

  What’s underneath the clever little box is even more interesting. A gizmo of springs and wires hooked up to a pivoting mirror like you’d see if you tore apart your brother’s kaleidoscope the day after Christmas to see how it worked. The pivoting mirror isn’t much bigger than a postage stamp. It’s anchored to the camera lens by a bent copper-wire contraption. Looks like somebody rearranged the parts to one of the plate hangers my mother used to display her Princess Diana collection all over our dining room walls.

  Ceepak does a three-finger chop up the hallway to where it T’s into the corridor leading to the performers’ suites. “The darkness at the far end of the hall matches the shadows near the authorized personnel only entryway.”

  He’s right. I wonder if Rock’s crew adjusted the overhead lighting fixtures to achieve the effect.

  “See the small flip switch?”

  I do once he points to it.

  “The trip trigger is located behind the lens so a person in the camera’s blind spot can activate it. Note also the angle of the mirrored glass. That slight canting creates a safe zone along the right-hand wall, all the way back to the door off the casino corridor. Think of a right triangle.”

  Fine. If I have to.

  “If you know the angle of the mirror, the distance between the two side walls, and assumed a ninety-degree angle at the base of your triangle, you could compute the triangle’s hypotenuse. Simple math, utilizing the Pythagorean theorem.”

  Wow. Pythagoras. Twice in one day. That hasn’t happened since eighth grade.

  “Triangulating from the camera lens, you would know the complementary triangle said hypotenuse created along the right-hand wall and, if you stayed within that triangle’s confines, you could pass underneath the camera and enter the shielded area on the far side undetected.” He turns and chops his hand up the hall again, up toward the T and Katie’s room. “All movement beyond this point, including all activity at or around the real stage door, would remain unseen.”

  “And then somebody flips the mirror back—right after the show’s over.”

  Ceepak nods. “Clarifying why you are seen as the first person entering this area. You were the first one to enter its field of vision after the mirror was flipped away from the lens at the conclusion of this evening’s performance.”

  “I’ll bet Tuiasopo flipped the switch! Right after I walked by the stage door.”

  “Perhaps. I suspect that, on closer examination, we might notice the slightest flash or jolt in the video playback prior to your entrance.”

  “If that little black-and-white camera is sophisticated enough to pick up something so subtle.”

  “Which they, most likely, are not,” says Ceepak. “Remember, Danny: Mr. Rock is a master illusionist. He and his engineers understand physics. Trigonometry. Optics. All of this was taken into consideration when designing what appears to our untrained eyes to be nothing more than a miniature mirror attached to a thin metal spring.”

  The double doors at the far end of the hall squeak open.

  “Thank you, Officer,” says a familiar female voice. “Have your son give me a call the next time he’s in Sea Haven.”

  Becca Adkinson.

  One of my best buds from back home.

  One of Katie’s, too.

  19

  “Ceepak called me”

  I nod.

  Becca Adkinson and I are sitting backstage at the Shalimar Theater on a couple stools we found in the wings—back near the ropes and pulleys and counterweights they use to fly in the scenery. It’s pretty dark. The only light comes from center stage, where a naked 300-watt bulb stands guard in a cage at the top of a pole.

  The shadows here at the side of the stage are long and jagged, which is fine by Becca and
me because we’re used to sitting in the dark to talk about serious stuff. It’s what we’d do back home: find a beach bench, sit under the stars, listen to the waves crash against the shore, and talk about all the things you can never really talk about under bright fluorescent tubes. It’s easier for guys to talk in the dark because you can’t see your listener’s face; can’t tell if she’s yawning, staring blankly, or laughing. Darkness is why we have pillow talk, why we say stuff in bed we might regret saying anywhere else.

  “I’ve been crying for hours,” Becca says between sniffles.

  I just nod.

  I haven’t had time to cry. Don’t know when or if I will. I don’t cry much. Except at movies about dogs that die before they should. Or when Mr. Gower, the drunken druggist in that Christmas movie, slaps George Bailey on his bum ear.

  Becca sniffles and trembles out a small laugh. “I probably look like hell.”

  I nod again. Reflex.

  “Gee, thanks, Danny-boy.”

  “Sorry.”

  Becca is blond, built, and, since she basically grew up on a beach, very concerned about outward physical appearances. Goes to the gym six days a week. Hits the tanning salon for a spray-on job in February. If you spend the majority of your working life in a bathing suit, this sort of body-obsession stuff happens.

  Becca’s folks own the Mussel Beach Motel back home in Sea Haven. She’s been helping them run it since she was old enough to fold towels or put a plastic-wrapped toothpaste cup next to a sink. Instead of LEGOs or blocks, she built dollhouses out of little bars of hotel soap. Her Barbie’s hair always smelled like Camay.

  “Jess and Olivia wanted to come down,” she says. “The Delianides sisters, too. I told them not to.”

  “Probably smart.”

  “Yeah.” Becca shakes her head. “I can’t believe the marshmallow crew lost another member.” She digs in her tiny purse, searching for a fresh Kleenex. Finds a Starbucks napkin instead.

  The marshmallow crew is what the six of us used to call ourselves when we were kids. Becca, Jess, Olivia, Katie, Mook, Me. We would hang out on the beach all summer long, toast marshmallows on illegal bonfires we kept kindled way past midnight because we were toasted on beer and Boone’s Farm wine.