Fun House

Mr. Braciole during the period of time he hung on the wall.”

Okay. When Ceepak calmly downloads information like that, I know his big brain is off doing something else.

“Cameras,” he mumbles.

“You said there weren’t any.”

He shakes his head. “At the house.”

He doesn’t mean police headquarters, even though we always call it “the house.”

He means the Fun House.

They video everything, 24/7. That’s how I know Soozy K and Mike Tomasino are now whoo-hooing with each other. I saw him crawl into her bed right under this creepy night-vision security cam at the end of the “stalker in the parking lot” episode.

“Dylan? Jeremy?” Ceepak calls to the Murray brothers. “Hold down the fort.”

“You got it,” says Dylan.

“Come on, Danny. We need to go visit our friends at Prickly Pear Productions.”

Great. We’re going to get a sneak preview of coming attractions. See if, last night, all those Fun House cameras had shot anything that might help us catch a killer.

12

We race down the island toward Halibut street.

I’m thinking Skeletor or one of his Creed biker brethren killed Paulie as payback for splashing them all over prime time TV Thursday night. That would explain the very public execution and the motorcycle tire tracks Ceepak had discovered out back behind the Knock ’Em Down booth.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” says Ceepak when I mention my suspicions. “Remember-a mind is like a parachute. It works best when it is open.”

I would groan, but I’m trying to keep an open mind here.

We climb out of our cop car and clamber up those steps to the production trailer.

Inside, when our eyes adjust to the darkness (these guys could grow mushrooms in here), we see Marty Mandrake planted in his director’s chair in a front of a TV monitor. He’s munching grapes again. Organic, I’m guessing.

Grace, the woman with all the stopwatches draped around her neck, is the only other person in the room.

On the small screen they’re both glued to, I can see Soozy K. She’s wearing a black bikini under some kind of black knit wrap. She is also sniffling. Black mascara streaks down her cheeks, making her look like a wet newspaper.

“Paulie and I had something special,” she says to that off-camera interviewer who’s probably not even there. “Sure, it hurt when he hooked up with Jenny, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t still have feelings for him. I didn’t expect it to happen, but we made a connection, you know?” Big sniff. “I’ve never met anyone like Paulie. Never. I’d give anything for us to continue our journey, to have him flash me again.”

Marty Mandrake nearly chokes on a grape, spits it out like a little green cannonball.

“No, no, no!” he hollers into his walkie-talkie. I can hear his voice, a half-second delayed, echoing out of the TV screen. Soozy K pouts like an upset puppy.

“What the fuck?” she snaps, smearing the phony tears off her schnozzle. “What’s your fucking problem now, Marty?”

“You’re killing me here, babe,” Marty screams into his walkie-talkie. “Jesus, kid-you’re supposed to be in fucking mourning.”

“So?” Soozy chomps her gum hard. Yep, she’d had a cud of Dentyne tucked up inside her cheek the whole time she was getting all choked up for the camera. “Paulie screwed me over, Marty! We had an alliance! What’s he doing bumping ugly with that skank Jenny Mortadella?”

Ceepak steps forward. I can tell: he has heard enough.

“Sir?”

Mandrake glances over his left shoulder. Snorts. Then ignores us because, judging from his bright bulging eyes and fast finger snap, he just had a Big Idea. “I got it. This is brilliant, babe. Say ‘I guess we weren’t meant to be.’”

“At least not in this lifetime,” adds Grace who, I’m guessing, reads a lot of those books about teenaged vampires.

“Beautiful!” Mandrake reaches over with both hands. Kisses Miss Stopwatches on her forehead. “I love it.”

“Mr. Mandrake?” Ceepak again. Louder this time.

“What? I’m working here.”

“So are we.”

Mandrake sighs. Picks up his walkie-talkie. “Rutger? Take five. We have visitors.”

They way he says “visitors,” it sounds like we’re the swine flu or something.

“How can I help you two today?” says Mandrake, sounding all sorts of snotty.

Ceepak gestures toward the monitor where Soozy K’s blank-eyed face fills the frame. Her lips flap silently. She must be memorizing her new lines.

“Surely,” says Ceepak, “you have canceled any future Fun House episodes.”

“We thought about it,” says Mandrake. “But then we realized that that would be the selfish reaction. The coward’s way out.”

“Come again?”

Mandrake gives us his I’m-so-earnest-it-hurts face again. “Officer Ceepak, this is a time of great sorrow for me and everyone connected to this show.” Stopwatch Woman nods. Her timekeeping necklaces clack into each other. “Paul Braciole wasn’t just a television star and cultural icon. He was a friend. He was family.”

Why do I get the feeling Mr. Mandrake is trying out the official statement some network PR guy has just written up for him?

“However,” he continues, “Paulie loved this show. Fun House was his home. To quit now, to disappoint millions and millions of Paulie’s loyal fans, well, that wouldn’t be the kind of legacy the Paul Braciole I knew would want to leave behind. No, sir. The show must go on.”

“Mr. Braciole was murdered,” says Ceepak. “His killer is still at large.”

“Which is why, next Thursday night, we will be dedicating a full hour of prime time TV to honor Paul’s memory and to help you guys track that killer down.”

My turn to stammer. “What?”

“It’s Survivor meets Jersey Shore meets America’s Most Wanted,” says Layla Shapiro, who must’ve slipped into the room behind us. She’s carrying a foam-core poster board. “The network art department just e-mailed me a JPG of the graphic they want to go with.”

She flips it around to flash a scary Post Office wanted-poster portrait of Skeletor.

“We pulled his facial features off last week’s episode,” Layla bubbles on. “Had an artist enhance it. I love what she did with the cross-hatching and shadows. Not crazy about the typeface. You still want to call it ‘To Catch a Killer’?”

“You bet,” says Mandrake. “It pops. Got all those K sounds going on. Catch a Killer.”

“Fine,” says Layla. “We’ll open with the ‘Funeral for a Friend’ graphic, slam it out with this.”

Mandrake is up and out of his chair, admiring the gruesome graphic.

“And tell those idiots I want smoke when this image blows the other one away. We’re all tinkle-tinkle piano