Fun House (John Ceepak Mystery)

by Chris Grabenstein

  Geeze-o, man.

  It’s Becca.

  47

  “Boss?” I SAY TO CEEPAK BECAUSE I’LL BE DAMNED IF I’M going to spend the last ten minutes of Becca’s life listening to this cuckoo bird bragging about how freaking smart she is.

  “Forbus? Bonanni?” Ceepak barks to our backups. “Run her in.”

  “What?” Layla protests. “If you think I’m leaving before—” I may not have mentioned it, but Officer Nikki Bonanni won this New Jersey state female bodybuilding championship last winter. She deadlifts Layla off that stool with one hand while Forbus works on the FlexiCuffs. They have Layla hogtied in like five seconds.

  “You try to stop me, you’ll start a bloodbath!”

  Fortunately, the commercials blasting through the outdoor speakers are so loud, they drown her out. Forbus and Bonanni hoist Layla Shapiro between them and start jogging toward the dump-truck end of the pier. Layla’s kicking and screaming the whole way, but no one can hear her over the Coors beer song.

  “I worked inside the Fun House one summer,” I say to Ceepak. “There’s an employee’s entrance around back.”

  “Can we access it without crossing a camera’s field of vision?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ceepak slips his Glock out of its holster. I do the same.

  He gives me the hand-chop “go” signal.

  Hunkered down, we trot around the production trailer, move swiftly but quietly behind the cheering crowd.

  “All right, Soozy and Becca,” I hear Chip Dale. “Give me a new clock. On your mark, get set … go!”

  More cheers.

  Becca is following Soozy into the killing zone.

  Ceepak and I head into the shadows offered by the line of shuttered arcades across from the brightly lit Fun House. I do a hand chop to the left and we loop around the slide exit just as Mike and his partner Dave zoom down to the finish line. The halogen lamp illuminating them is so blazingly bright, it keeps us hidden in the darkness fifteen feet away.

  “Okay, that’s the time to beat.…”

  I push open a gate to a service road, a strip of potholed asphalt just wide enough for a delivery truck to squeeze through. I have my gun up now in both hands as we dash past dumpsters and abandoned golf carts and storage tanks and all the functional crap amusement parks keep hidden from public view. The “employees only” entrance to the Fun House is dead ahead.

  “Danny?” This from Ceepak, behind me. “Down.”

  I duck behind a dumpster.

  Ceepak points to his eyes with two fingers, swings them around to face the door we were running toward.

  Now I see the guy Ceepak already saw. The man turns around and his face is illuminated by the soft glow of a handheld device of some sort. Maybe an iPod. Maybe the world’s tiniest TV. He’s clearly watching the Fun House telecast, keeping an eye out for any trouble.

  My eyes adjust to the darkness.

  I can see that the guy is wearing a wet suit and flippers. At his feet is a duffel bag and two scuba tanks. On his hip, that H&K USP .45.

  “That’s most likely the Mandrake shooter,” whispers Ceepak.

  I nod. It makes sense. When the hit went bad, he ran back to his Port-A-Potty and changed into his wet suit. A lot of surfers wear them. Then he scuba-dived up to the boardwalk, swam a mile and more under water so he could gain access to the pier with a bag full of weapons. He knew we’d have metal detectors and heavy security out front, so he climbed the pilings with his gear slung over his shoulder, came in via the water route.

  “I could take him,” I say because, yes, I am that good with my Glock.

  “Negative,” says Ceepak. Now he taps his ear and I look back to the scuba commando, who maybe used to be a Navy S.E.A.L. He’s wearing a military communications device. Earpiece. Microphone rigged up to his mouth. He taps his chest to activate it.

  “Seven minutes,” we hear him whisper. “Roger that. Execute and extricate.”

  I turn to Ceepak. His eyes are narrow slits. Mine are about to explode with panic.

  Seven minutes till they kill Becca?

  “Do you still know your way through the Fun House?” Ceepak asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you need to be the one to go in.”

  I nod. He’s right.

  “Grab some camera gear if you can. Act like you’re a crew member.”

  That’ll work. I’m already dressed like one.

  “I’ll cover this shooter and take him out the instant you take down the player inside.”

  Again I nod. If he shoots this bad guy before I nail the one inside, Becca dies when scuba man stops communicating the countdown.

  “Six minutes thirty seconds,” we hear the guy say with ice in his voice.

  Ceepak gives me the sharpest hand chop he has ever given me.

  I’m up.

  Moving on tiptoe. Fast.

  Back up the alley. To the gate. Around to the front of the Fun House.

  I see bundles of cable piled in a rolling bin. Grab one.

  I move even faster, make for the big clown-mouth entrance. And—BOOM!—it hits me.

  The guy inside is Sean, the grip in the knit cap who didn’t know what a half-apple was. It has to be. Like Layla said, TV production jobs are hard to come by. You don’t get on a union crew without knowing basic crap like what the hell a half-apple is—unless maybe the people who really hired you have ways of pulling strings to get you into any place you need to be.

  It’s how Sean made it past security tonight: he had a bright orange crew badge. And his teammate out back stowed his weapons for him in a prearranged drop zone, or maybe they met up out in the alley. That would explain why Jimbo didn’t have his smoke machine upstairs in the second maze. Why Sean, his P.A., was A.W.O.L.

  Sean would also have been with Jimbo’s crew at Big Kahuna’s when Paulie left with Mandy. He could have alerted his partner, the outside guy, the man on the motorcycle. Sean didn’t stick with Jimbo’s crew when they tailed Mandy and Paulie. He peeled off, met up with his partner.

  Together, they did Paulie in Mandy’s Mustang.

  Now he’s going to kill Becca.

  48

  I RUN INTO FIRST MAZE AND SEE A DOZEN ME’S REFLECTED back in brightly lit silver-framed mirrors.

  The passageways are tight.

  I drop the stupid coil of wire.

  I’m in. Nobody cares who I am or what I’m doing, because the live TV feed is coming from further up ahead, the two camera crews attached to Soozy and Becca, maybe the one with Mike and Dave, breathlessly waiting to see how quickly their competitors complete the course.

  Fortunately, when we worked here, Jess and I used to play “mice in the maze.” First guy to reach the end didn’t win a chunk of cheese, just an after-work beer at the Frosty Mug.

  Up ahead, I hear laughter and squeals. The happy kind. Soozy and Becca. They might be on the second floor already. Maybe in the area called The Side Show. Audio-animatronic mannequins in a bathtub crack corny jokes as you wander past them in the dark. A clown dummy cackles at you.

  I enter a black-lit hallway decorated with glowing clown faces and whirling swirls. Next comes a rolling tunnel, The Barrel Of Laughs. It’s like walking through a psychedelic toilet-paper tube with a spinning clown face at the far end to make you queasy.

  “Fuck me. Another maze?” I hear Soozy shout.

  Becca giggles. “Come on, girl. We can win this thing!”

  I step out of the rolling corridor and onto the oscillating floor where we used to blast air up pretty girls’ skirts.

  Next I’m in the hall of mirrors. The frames are clown faces. Their wide-open mouths distort my reflection. First I’m fat, then I’m stretched thin, now I’ve got a huge head and very little body, next my chest balloons up to the size of an elephant’s.

  I don’t bother checking my watch.

  I’m sure there’s less than two minutes left.

  I need to keep moving forward.

  I climb
the undulating stairs. They’re split down the middle. One side rocks up while the other rocks down. It’s like a spastic escalator.

  Now I’m in the side show with the dummies cracking corny jokes. I move past them fast and step onto a spinning disc that’ll make you all kinds of dizzy because you see a dozen reflections bouncing back at you.

  I’ve reached the entrance to the second maze of mirrors.

  The frames up here are painted colors that radiate bright pinks, purples, and greens under the influence of ultraviolet light.

  My reflection moves forward.

  No. Wait. That’s not me.

  I’m not wearing a knit cap.

  49

  KNIT CAP HAS HIS COMPACT SEMI-AUTOMATIC UP IN A two-handed grip.

  I do the same with my Glock.

  Sixteen images of him creep forward.

  I don’t know which one is really him, which ones are his reflection.

  I inch ahead, match him step for step.

  Now the killer repeats to infinity. His reflection is reflected back so many times, it looks like a receding mineshaft full of shooters. I notice he has a communicator headset, the same as the backdoor lookout’s, strapped on underneath his ski cap.

  A new image flickers off a mirror.

  A blazingly bright light.

  From the camera crew. It swings into a full-filament burn and bounces off the mirrors all around me. I am momentarily blinded.

  I blink. Try to clear the floating sunspots singed into my retina.

  Becca and Soozy jitter into view on half of the endless array of glass panels surrounding me. The shooter is still in the other half. He’s aiming left and right and straight at me. The girls keep moving, bumping into mirrored walls, feeling their way in the dark.

  Knit cap keeps following them, moving stealthily. He is a killer cat. A never-ending column of death.

  The effervescent mirror frames glow under the black light.

  So do the killer’s teeth. Bright white. He’s smiling like a shark.

  And I don’t dare take the shot because I have no idea which image is real, which is a reflection. I’m trapped inside a crazy kaleidoscope of killers.

  Now the shooter’s white teeth move. I read his lips: Roger that.

  He pivots to take his shot.

  His orange I.D. badge glows under the ultraviolet lights.

  Big block letters all around me spell out:

  And in one flat space: C R E W

  That’s the panel I target.

  I don’t have time to try something cute, like shooting the weapon out of his hands.

  I aim for his chest. The floating I.D. badge.

  My Glock explodes. The cramped maze reverberates. Glass shatters as the bullet rips through knit cap’s chest and cracks open the mirror behind him.

  The impact spins him around. He drops to one knee.

  Becca and Soozy are screaming. Their camera crew is panicking. They drop their handheld light. The tungsten filament sizzles and sputters out. I hear stampeding feet as the hit man raises his weapon.

  He sees me. Maybe my reflection.

  His chest wound oozing DayGlo red, he squeezes off a round. A mirror to my right explodes.

  I fire again.

  He won’t be able to.

  He flies backward into a sheet of silver glass that crackles into a spider web of slivers.

  He is dead.

  I glance at my watch.

  It’s 9:54:30.

  I just gave Layla Shapiro her big ending.

  50

  TURNS OUT THAT THE INSTANT CEEPAK HEARD ME FIRE THAT first round, he took down the backdoor dude with a single bullet to his left kneecap.

  “I had several minutes to line up the shot,” he tells me. “You, Danny, did not.”

  They haul scuba man to the hospital.

  I tremble.

  I’ve killed yet another human being. Make that two indelible ink spots on my immortal soul. My chances of skating into heaven grow slimmer and slimmer the longer I stay on the job. Pretty soon I’ll be a camel facing the eye of a needle, and not because I’m rich.

  Of course Becca Adkinson hugged me and kissed me when she found out I was the one who had taken down the bad guy who’d had his sights set on her.

  Then Soozy K bopped over and made a big show of planting wet sloppy kisses all over my face because Jimbo and his crew had found a fresh camera light and were shooting us live for the network and local news feeds.

  I thanked Soozy and went back to Becca, who needed a blanket. She was shivering in her bikini, never the best costume to be wearing when you have that much adrenaline coursing through your veins.

  “When did you become this awesome?” Becca asked me, realizing, maybe for the first time, that I’m no longer the kid who used to swing with her upside down on the monkey bars back at Holy Innocents Elementary. “You totally saved my life, Danny Boy.”

  I tried to shrug off the compliment. “We’re pals. You would have done the same thing for me.”

  “Nuh-unh. I hate guns. They’re so freaking loud!”

  On Monday morning, after my big weekend of fame and doing TV interviews, I went to work and discovered I had a brand-new boss.

  Because this time, when they offered him the full-time police chief job, Ceepak took it.

  Seems he needs the pay bump so he and Rita can buy a house with what they call a mother-in-law apartment. Mrs. Ceepak—my partner’s mom, not Rita—is moving to Sea Haven “right after Halloween.” Guess she wants to see the Ohio trick-or-treaters one last time. Drop a big ol’ slab of walleye candy in their bags.

  Roberto Lombardo goes to trial next spring. He is currently being held without bail in a jail somewhere with lots of barbed wire and guards.

  Layla Shapiro is undergoing psychiatric evaluation to see if she is mentally fit to stand trial. If not, they’ll just keep her locked up in a hospital ward for the rest of her life. She’ll be able to watch TV all day, every day.

  Martin Mandrake has disappeared into the Federal Witness Protection Program. But if you start hearing about plans for a reality TV Series based in, say, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, chances are it’ll be another Marty The Old Farty production.

  Oh, and here’s the best news about the coming off-season down the shore: Becca’s dad is officially running for mayor. After the shootout in the Fun House, when his daughter nearly died because of the grubby deal Hugh Sinclair made with even grubbier TV people, Mr. A. pulled out that clipboard and got double the number of signatures he needed.

  Come the first Tuesday in November, Mayor Hugh Sinclair will be just like the star of that other reality TV series: America’s Biggest Loser.

  Which is a good thing.

  We need to clean this place up.

  Throw out the trash.

  Air out our dirty laundry.

  Quit sweeping stuff under the rug.

  Because, like I said, Ceepak’s mom is coming to town.

  Thank You

  FIRST, TO TORY BRADY AND SHERRI BUNTING WHO, IN 2010, both sent me e-mails about the real Officer Daniel R. Boyle. Here is what Ms. Bunting wrote:

  “A friend wanted me to contact you about your Ceepak mysteries. Seems you use the name Danny Boyle as one of the police and her brother was an officer with Philadelphia police department until his untimely death in 1991. Her mother just picked up the first two books and has ordered a few more. Seeing just his name in print brings a kind of joy to their hearts. To see them this happy over such an odd coincidence is beyond words. I just wanted to thank you for the stroke of karma that made you choose his name. Also, our Danny Boyle attended Holy Innocents School. Weird. Sending a link for you to the fallen officers page. Again thanks for putting a smile on their faces!”

  If you visit his Fallen Officer page (http://www.odmp.org/officer/176-police-officer-daniel-r.-boyle), you’ll learn that the real Officer Boyle, age 21, succumbed to a gunshot wound sustained after stopping a stolen car. Officer Boyle had served with the Philadelphia Poli
ce Department for one year. His “End of Watch” was February 6, 1991.

  I’d also like to thank Chief Michael Bradley of the Long Beach Island, New Jersey Police Department, who not only serves his community so well but also acts as my police procedure technical adviser.

  As always, I’d like to thank my wife, J.J. Myers, who has been the first reader of every book I have ever written and is the world’s best (not to mention best-looking) editor.

  To my agent Eric, Claiborne & Jessica at Pegasus Books, and all the readers who have faithfully followed Danny and Ceepak since they first climbed aboard the Tilt A Whirl seven books ago, back in 2005.

  Thanks!

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 2011 by Chris Grabenstein

  interior design by Maria Fernandez

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