Fun House (John Ceepak Mystery)
Page 4
We hike out of the production trailer and head around the corner toward 102 Halibut Street.
“So, Danny?” says Layla, “you free between five and eight?”
“Huh?”
“We’re wrapping here at five. The crew has three hours to make the move to Morgan’s Surf and Turf. I don’t have to be on set till eight. Thought we could hang.”
One of the things I immediately liked about Layla Shapiro when we met under less-than-ideal conditions was how bold and ballsy she acted in a high-stress situation.
Right now? Not so much.
I mean, Ceepak is walking with us. Ballsy Shapiro? She could care less.
“I’m not sure.” I turn to Ceepak. “Boss?”
“I anticipate we’ll also stand down when the cast is confined to quarters. I, too, need to attend to a few personal matters on the home front.”
I nod. I figure one of the personal matters is calling a certain sheriff’s office up in Ohio to see how soon he can take their chief-of-detectives job. I can tell: John Ceepak is not having a very sunny or funderful day in Sea Haven today.
We climb up the world-famous Fun House steps and hit the deck. The beer pong glasses—filled with flat Budweiser, balls, and bugs—sit on the picnic table, fermenting in the sun.
“This way,” says Layla, sliding open the patio door.
We wade into the living room. It smells like my dirty clothes-basket during the sweaty months.
“Where’s Paulie?” Layla asks Soozy K, who is even shorter than she looks on TV.
“Who the fuck cares?”
I’m thinking these kids need to carry personal bleep boxes.
“The cameras are off, Susan,” says Layla.
“So? My heart is breaking here,” she says with a tanned hip thrust. “I thought, being on this journey together, me and Paulie had made a connection, you know?”
“Sorry, hon. This ain’t The Bachelorette. Where is he?”
“Upstairs. With Mike.”
“Thanks.”
We follow Layla up a hallway littered with empties: beer bottles, vodka bottles, pizza boxes, chicken buckets, hoagie wrappers.
“Guess the maid took the day off,” she jokes.
We’re not laughing. If we did, we wouldn’t be able to breathe through our mouths to fight off the stench of B.O. mixed with Axe body spray.
Now we’re ascending a very steep set of steps. Littered with underwear, socks, and clothing items I don’t recognize. We can hear Mike and Paulie shouting at each other.
“You’re gonna blow it for me, bro,” screams Mike. “My dad’s setting up this endorsement deal. My own Ab Ball infomercial.”
“So?”
“So you do this shit, everybody will think I’m doing it, too, and I can kiss my infomercial deal—”
We enter the cramped attic bedroom.
Conversation ceases. It has a way of doing that whenever two armed cops step into a room.
“Hey, Layla,” mumbles Paulie.
“Hey,” echoes Mike.
They sound like what they really are: two scared kids barely out of high school.
Layla plants her hands on her hips. “Paulie?”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to call your drug dealer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The steroids.”
“They’re not mine.”
“Yes, they are.”
“I swear—”
“Look, Paulie. If you help these gentlemen,” she gestures toward Ceepak and me, “they might let you off the hook.”
“What?”
“Did you know that simple possession of anabolic steroids is a federal offense, punishable by up to one year in prison and/or a minimum fine of one thousand dollars?”
I glance over at Ceepak. He can’t help but grin to hear Layla parrot him so perfectly.
“Remember where Marty found you?” she continues.
“Yeah,” mumbles Paulie.
“You want to go back to your mother’s basement when you get out of jail?”
Paulie curls a lip. Shakes his head.
“Okay. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to call your dealer. Set up a meet.”
“I didn’t go lookin’ for the shit,” says Paulie. “Dude hit me up first.”
“How so?” asks Ceepak.
“I was at the local gym. Beach Bods.”
“Go on.”
“He came up to me. Skinny dude. He’s all like ‘I love your show, man,’ and ‘You got a pretty good bod, man, but science could make you buffer.’ Shit like that.”
“Paul?” says Layla.
“Yeah.”
“I want you to contact this guy.”
“Okay.”
“Set up a buy.”
“Okay.”
“Then tell me where and when.”
“These guys gonna be there for the meet?” He gestures toward Ceepak and me.
“Is that a problem, Paulie?”
“Hell, no. This skinny dude? He’s trouble, man. Has psycho eyes. Wore one of those floppy camouflage hats.”
Ceepak pulls a notepad and pen out of his shirt pocket.
“Can you tell us anything else?”
“You mean like his name?”
“Yeah,” I say. “A name would be good.”
“It’s even freakier than the hat. Dude calls himself ‘Skeletor,’ like the old cartoon. How whacked is that?”
6
I’M SURE CEEPAK CAN’T BELIEVE OUR GOOD FORTUNE.
By doing like Layla suggested, we’re saving all sorts of time.
We kick Mike Tomasino out of the attic bedroom. Boom—Paulie calls his local druggist. Skeletor answers on the second ring. He’s happy to hear from The Thing. Caught the show last night.
They chat about that for a minute.
“So, I need a refill,” says Paulie.
He nods at us. Gives us a big thumbs up. Skeletor will meet Paulie Braciole in the parking lot of Morgan’s Surf and Turf at 8:30 P.M., right before the cameras start rolling inside the restaurant for the etiquette challenge.
Skeletor is such a fan of the show, he wants to visit the set.
The slippery drug dealer, the man who has evaded local, state, and federal authorities for at least two years, will be bringing Paulie some fresh steroids and a “This Is The Thing You Want” T-shirt so Paulie can autograph it for him.
“You handled that quite well,” Ceepak says to Paulie when the phone call ends.
“Thanks, man. Can I go downstairs now?” he asks Layla. “I need to hit the tanning bed.”
“Go,” she says. Paulie hurries down the steps. I think the tanning beds are parked down in the garage since none of the kids in the house is allowed to have a car. Drunks stumbling up and down the beach and boardwalk make for funny TV; drunks driving cars, not so much.
“Danny?” says Ceepak when Paulie is out of the room.
“Yeah?”
“Meet me at Morgan’s at twenty-hundred hours.”
That would be 8 P.M. Thirty minutes before the “buy-and-bust.”
“Wear street clothes. Conceal your sidearm.”
“We’re working this thing undercover?”
“Roger that.”
“Do you think ‘sidearms’ are really necessary?” asks Layla.
“Yes, ma’am. The last time Officer Boyle and I were close to Skeletor, we were almost cremated while still alive.”
Layla nods. I think she gets it. She may work in reality TV. But Ceepak and I have to work in the real world, where really bad people have all sorts of real weapons.
Before leaving the Fun House, Ceepak radios the desk sergeant to finalize the “enhanced security” detail schedule. Mrs. Rence will fax it over to Layla in the production office.
Everybody’s happy, including Gus Davis, who’ll be working the first shift with Alex Smitten, covering the kids while they’re inside Morgan’s Surf & Turf, one of the classiest restaurants on the
island. Gus loves Morgan’s World Famous Crab Pie—a melted cheese-covered concoction of lumpy crabmeat congealed in a cream sauce the consistency of half-melted butter. I figure, at age 66, Gus still has one artery left to clog.
Ceepak has also arranged additional armed backup for when the Skeletor deal goes down at twenty-thirty hours (that’s 8:30, outside the military time zone). Unmarked SHPD patrol cars, two of them, will be parked on the side streets near the restaurant. Ceepak and I, wearing our best beach-bum gear, will be stationed in my Jeep, a few feet away from the spot in the parking lot that Paulie set up as the rendezvous point for his drug transaction/T-shirt signing.
Ceepak and I will both be packing Glock 31.357’s, our brand new, official SHPD service weapons. According to the catalog, these semi-automatics are “characterized by extremely high muzzle velocity and superior precision even at medium range.” I like the Glock because it’s light and because I’ve already won a few ribbons (not to mention a couple friendly wagers) with it down at the firing range.
We can only assume that Skeletor will be packing whatever lethal sidearms have made the New Jersey Skeevy Drug Dealer Association’s approved weapons list this year.
To kill time between 5:30 and 8, Layla and I go on our third date.
Given the tight time parameters, I don’t think it’s going to be, you know, real “third date” material. I’m not sure where the rule about sex being a semi-given on date number three came from, but no way are Layla Shapiro and I going to get intimate during the two and half hours between the Fun House and the crab pie—not that I typically need that much time to, you know, express my intimacy.
Besides, at the risk of sounding girly, I’m not really ready. I like to know someone before I know them in the biblical sense. (Learning that “know” was code for “have sex with” may have been the highpoint of my Catholic education.)
Instead, we head over to the boardwalk.
Turns out Ms. Shapiro has always wanted to see a real Fun House, and we have one on Pier Two. In fact, it’s one of the oldest attractions in Sea Haven. The Fun House isn’t a thrill ride, because you don’t ride: you have to walk through it on foot to experience it. It’s what they call a participatory amusement. It’s also why nobody’s building the rickety things any more. People today, they like to sit in cars after they’ve driven their cars to where they’re going.
We stroll up the boardwalk. Soak in the blinking lights, gaudy sights, and greasy smells. Layla is nibbling on a cyclone of cotton candy. I’m not. I’m still in uniform and nobody wants to see an armed cop looking like a two-year-old with a gob of pink gunk stuck to his nose.
“Thanks for hanging with me, Danny,” says Layla. “I just needed to get away from the Nut House. Take a break.”
“No problem.”
“Marty’s been driving me crazy.”
“How so?”
“The ratings.”
“They’re good, right?”
“Yeah. This week. Next week, who knows? It’s like they say on Project Runway: ‘One day you’re in, the next day you’re out.’”
I’ll take her word for it. I’ve never watched Project Runway. Don’t think it’s about airplanes.
“So where’s this real, live fun house?”
I point to a brightly colored building dead ahead.
“Those big red lips?” says Layla.
“Yeah. The clown’s mouth is the entrance.”
The front of the Sea Haven Fun House is basically a two-story-tall clown face with a huge gaping mouth under demented eyes, because the Fun House clown has the same psychological profile as the one in Stephen King’s It. The red carpet you walk down after giving the ticket-taker five coupons is the big monster’s tongue.
“Do they have those mirrors in there?” asks Layla. “The ones that make you look fat and skinny?”
“Definitely. Two sets of ’em. Wouldn’t be a Fun House without funhouse mirrors. There’s also a barrel of fun—a rolling hallway you have to walk through. And, my favorite, the Turkey Trot.”
Layla laughs. “What’s that?”
“This long corridor with an oscillating floor. Three planks sliding back and forth. I set the indoor world record. Trotted the whole thing in under twenty seconds.”
“Danny, tell me: Exactly how much of your misspent youth was misspent in the Fun House?”
“One whole summer. Right after my second year of high school. My buddy Jess’s dad used to run it. Gave us both summer jobs as ‘custodial engineers.’”
“You were a janitor?”
“No. I think the janitors made more than us.”
“I see.”
“It was a blast,” I say, remembering how the guy in the control booth would blast air up unsuspecting girls’ skirts, giving them their very own Marilyn Monroe moment.
Every once in a while, Jess and I would sneak behind the body-warping mirrors and say funny stuff to the girls checking themselves out, especially if they were girls we knew from school.
Well, we thought it was funny stuff. The girls didn’t always agree. Especially since most of our mirror material included the words “big,” “boobs,” and “butt.” Fortunately, Jess and I knew every nook, cranny, and secret passageway; knew how to get to the exit slide faster than any of the girls chasing us.
“Hey, Danny,” says Layla, “is it too early for a cold one?”
She’s eyeballing this pizza stand tucked in next to the Fun House entrance. It squats underneath a “Draft Beer” sign shaped like a frosty, overflowing mug. A strobing red arrow full of chaser lights points down to the promised land of liquid refreshment.
“Well, I’m still in uniform,” I say.
“I’ll drink. You can observe. Slap the cuffs on me if I get out of line.”
“That’ll work,” I say.
We head into the pizza joint, find a couple swivel stools at the counter. Layla has a beer, almost as tall and frosty as the one on the neon sign. I order a Coke so everybody can see that their public servant is not drinking a beer. Unless they think it’s a Guinness or something. Darn. Didn’t think of that.
“Marty’s a snake and a hack,” says Layla after her third sip of beer, which, I guess, has completely washed away the lingering sweetness of the cotton candy.
“Really?” I’m sipping my soda through a straw now. Nobody drinks Guinness with a straw.
“He’s a backstabber and a hack. All he knows are crappy cliches, because that’s all he’s ever done. His last three shows totally tanked. That one about the oversexed cougars looking for love with pizza delivery boys? Hot To Trot? Nobody watched it. And the only reason he wanted to do Fun House was so he could be closer to Atlantic City. He didn’t have any ideas on what to do with the kids in the house; he just wanted to hit the casinos on his nights off. That’s why he needs me. To do his thinking for him, because I have ideas like some people have pimples. They just pop up.”
“Like putting steroids in the show?”
“It’s reality, Danny. Steroid use to keep your body buff is a very real, very contemporary issue. When drugs turn up, like they did today, we shoot it. It’s a conflict that hits home with males 18 to 24, the sweet spot of our target audience demographics. You live around here?”
Okay. That was rather random.
“Excuse me?”
“Your apartment. Is it close?”
“Not really. I’m about thirty minutes south.”
Down where the rents are cheaper.
Layla whips out her iPhone. Swipes her fingers across the face. “It’s six-fifteen. Maybe we should skip the Fun House.”
“Huh?”
“You need to change into your undercover clothes, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And get to the restaurant to meet Ceepak by eight.”
“Right. Twenty hundred hours.”
“Six-fifteen to six-forty-five, six-forty-five to seven-fifteen. That’s just the travel time.”
She’s right. I need to boogie.
Layla gulps down the foamy dregs at the bottom of her plastic beer glass. Slams it on the counter. “How long will it take you to change?”
I shrug. “Not long.”
“Five, ten minutes?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Seven-fifteen to seven twenty-five. We’ve still got thirty-five minutes.”
“Oh. Okay. You want to grab a slice or something?”
Layla smiles at me.
“What?”
“Danny, how long do you need to take a shower before you change clothes?”
“Don’t worry about it. I took one this morning.”
“How long?”
“Another five minutes.”
“Good. That gives us thirty minutes.”
Now I’m confused.
Layla reaches over, puts one hand on each of my thighs.
“Danny? It’s our third date.”
Oh.
I think I know how she wants to spend those thirty minutes.
And it’s not eating pizza.
7
MY HAIR’S STILL DAMP WHEN I WHIP MY JEEP INTO THE PARKING lot of Morgan’s Surf & Turf.
Yes, I grabbed a shower.
No, Layla and I did not hook up, get busy, or “know” each other.
She offered. I turned her down.
Fine. Go ahead. Kick me out of the red-blooded-American-male club.
“Drop me off at the front door, okay?” she says. “Pull into the handicap parking slot.”
It’s empty. I’m not parking. Technically. I pull in.
In the rearview mirror, I can see Ceepak standing with a short woman in the only other empty parking spot in Morgan’s gigantic lot.
The woman is leaning on the handle of a rolling case of some sort. Ceepak, on the other hand, is glaring at me. He would never, ever pull in to a designated handicapped-drivers-only spot. To do so would be considered cheating.
“Good luck,” says Layla as she blows me one of those Hollywood style “m’waw” air kisses and hops out of the Jeep. “I need to check inside. See if the watermelons arrived. Catch you later, Danny.”
She bops up the walkway to the restaurant’s front doors.
Tons of people are streaming in and out of the restaurant. The Early Bird specials leaving; the 8 o’clock reservations arriving.
Layla shoves open the front door.