Fun House

“I thought you were his right-hand man.”

Okay, the “man” thing is my little dig. Layla lets it fly on by.

“He doesn’t want me stealing his thunder.”

“I see.”

“Besides, he has Grace Twittering all the details already.” She shows me her smartphone screen, but I don’t want to lean in to read it.

“What’s it say?”

“Basically, that he hit the numbers for his trigger clause.”

“Huh?”

“The network promised Prickly Pear a bonus if he delivered a certain ratings target. He’s off the charts, thanks to you and me and Ceepak.”

“Really? What’d me and Ceepak do?” I ask, even though I think I know the answer: we made for must-see TV.

“Ever since that Skee-Ball scene,” says Layla, “working the police into the plotlines-hauling Paulie off to jail, that bit with the biker boys in the restaurant parking lot-Fun House has become the surprise smash hit of the summer.”

“And that was your idea? Having the kids do stuff that would get them arrested?”

“I put a bug in Marty’s ear. No one had ever done a reality romance-slash-cop show. It’s a can’t-miss hybrid.”

“What about the steroids? Did you plant those?”

“No comment.”

“Did you tell Skeletor to bump off Paulie? Was that another plot twist?”

“Jesus, Danny! That was just a lucky fucking break. Who knew Skeletor would get that pissed off about his fifteen minutes of fame?”

A lucky break?

Geeze-o, man. Ms. Shapiro is twisted. She’s spent too much time inside TV, what my father calls the idiot box. It’s turned her into an idiot too.

She jabs a thumb over her shoulder at the trailer. “You know what’s going on in there?”

“What?”

“Marty The Old Farty’s career is about to rise from the ashes.”

“Well, have fun rising with him.”

“Me? No way. Prickly Pear was just a foot in the door. I have feelers out. When people hear how I turned this turkey around, they’ll be begging me to work for them.”

I’ve heard enough. Hollywood, especially the New Jersey branch office, makes me sick.

“Let us know when Mr. Mandrake’s ready to talk about Detective Botzong’s bit,” I say. “I’m sure it’ll help boost your ratings even higher.”

“Will do,” says Layla, not even looking up at me, diddling with her BlackBerry keys some more.

Shoulders slumped, I head back to the Crown Vic, my mind swimming in its deep end of dark thoughts.

Marty Mandrake gets a big bonus plus a couple new TV shows.

The TV network gets to charge advertisers more for airtime on Marty Mandrake’s hit show.

Layla probably gets her pick of production jobs.

Even Ceepak’s salary gets doubled when he flies to Ohio following his guest appearances on the reality TV show.

Yep, everybody’s cashing in on this thing except me.

And, of course, Paulie Braciole.

21

Thursday night, there’s a big FUN HOUSE watching party at the Sand Bar, this nightclub with about fifteen giant plasma screen TVs downstairs and a dozen more up on the canopied deck, all of which are usually tuned to whatever sport is currently in season.

This is where me and my friends used to hang. Jess, Olivia, Mook, Katie, Becca. We’d sit around a bucket or two of beers and toss back crabcake sliders and fried zucchini strips so we could tell our mothers we were eating our vegetables. Now Jess and Olivia are married and have moved up to New Brunswick, where she’s finishing med school. Becca is still in town, helping her folks run the Mussel Beach Motel. Mook and Katie are both dead. Murdered.

I’ve been to too many real funerals for a guy my age.

So, tonight, off duty, downstairs at the Sand Bar, it’s just me and my old friend Bud. Not the bartender from Big Kahuna’s; the long-neck bottle of beer.

It’s been a lousy week. We still have no clues. Skeletor has not returned to the red, white, and blue grease pit. We’re not closer to catching Paul Braciole’s killer.

Yeah. I’m in what they call a maudlin mood. That’ll happen when you’re surrounded by mammoth speakers pouring out sappy music and everybody around you is sniffling back tears. Death. It’s a real buzz-killer.

“Tonight,” croons Chip Dale, the Fun House host, in his best “let’s-do-this-for-the-children” telethon voice, “we mourn the passing of a friend. Peter Paul Braciole. A young man so full of life, no one ever thought it could be snatched away from him so quickly.”

The screen fills with a slow-motion video montage of Paulie when he was alive. Tugging up his T-shirt. Flashing his pecs. Repeatedly. The wiggling chest muscles look even weirder at half speed, like some kind of underwater balloon ballet.

“I am The Thing you want,” we hear him say over a syrupy orchestra of strings. “The Thing you wish you could be!”

Here’s Paulie smooching Soozy K in the hot tub. Paulie and Soozy laughing as they pluck live crabs out of a tank at Mama Shucker’s Seafood Shop and, then, Paulie aiming the crab’s snipping pincers at Soozy’s boobs. Paulie flexing his biceps, Soozy pretending to do chin-ups off his bulging arm. The back of Ceepak’s head is in the next shot, one of Paulie stuffing Skee-Balls down the fifty hole.

I look around. People are simultaneously smiling and sniffing. One guy is dabbing at his eyes with a paper napkin. Then he blows his nose into it.

Nobody is nibbling their free popcorn.

Fried clams are going cold. Sliders are going unslid. The Sand Bar resembles a funeral home with bad lighting.

“But the end of one man’s life,” croons Chip Dale, shifting into ominous announcer mode, like the guy who does all the movie trailers, “marks the beginning of the hunt for another man: Paulie’s killer!”

Cue the dramatic music.

And the explosion sound effects.

Boom. Here come those animated graphics. And a very scary shot of Bill Botzong, arms crossed in front of his chest, glaring at the camera from under the brim of his New Jersey State Police hat, a hat I’ve never seen him wear before. Guess the Prickly Pear Productions people didn’t like his black-turtleneck-and-leather-jacket look.

“This is Fun House!” says Chip, strolling down Halibut Street until he’s right in front of the Italian-flag garage door. “Tonight? A special double feature edition: Funeral for a Friend.”

Another boom as that type crumbles to dust.

“To Catch a Criminal!”

He really hits the “K” sounds in both words, just like Marty Mandrake wanted.

Geeze-o, man. I wish Ceepak were here. But he and Rita are watching the program at home. Probably so