Fun House

I just hope it’s not that one about the pool water changing color when you pee in it.

29

We’re cruising south on Beach lane.

I glance up into the rearview mirror.

Eric Hunley is right behind us, tooling along on his Harley, leather fringe flapping in the breeze. He looks like one of the old hippies in that movie Easy Rider.

Over in the passenger seat, Ceepak is cogitating, a form of heavy thinking that, in his case, involves a knuckle pressed to his lips and a partial shuttering of his eyelids.

“So,” I say, “you think, maybe, Soozy killed Paulie?”

The knuckle stays up, but the half-open eyes peer over at me. “Pardon?”

“Eric says Soozy will do anything to win the quarter-million dollars. You think she bumped off Paulie?”

“Firing one perfectly aimed bullet to the head, then hauling his body on the back of a motorcycle to the Knock ’Em Down booth, where she hung him up on the wall in the middle of the stuffed animal prizes?”

Okay. When you say it like that.…

“Well,” I say, refusing to quit while I’m behind, “maybe she borrowed Eric’s motorcycle. Maybe Eric did the shooting. Maybe they did it together.”

“Interesting. Apparently, Danny, you and I are hypothesizing along parallel paths.”

We are? I thought I was just saying stupid stuff to get him to tell me why the heck he’s over there chewing his knuckles.

But he just turns back to his window, stares at the buildings blurring by.

I pull into the parking space out front you’re supposed to use when registering at the Mussel Beach Motel. We’re right outside the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window of the office. I can see Becca inside, aiming a remote at the television set mounted in the corner, right above the window air-conditioner Mr. Adkinson decided to hang through the wall because the only window that slides open was too far away from an electrical outlet.

Ceepak’s already out of the car and looking through the window at the TV set.

“I wonder if that’s the press conference,” he mutters.

On cue, Marty Mandrake and Mayor Sinclair appear on the screen. They’re outdoors, standing behind a Plexiglas-topped podium in front of an ugly white wall where blocky letters spell out “Borough Hall, Sea Haven, N.J.”

Eric Hunley putters into the space next to our cop car, takes off his helmet, shakes out his shaggy hair. In his bare chest and vest, he looks a little like a bloated version of one of those beefcake cover boys on the romance novels my mother likes to read and then store in her bathroom on top of the toilet tank near the dish of pink soaps shaped like seahorses.

“Mr. Hunley?” says Ceepak. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to catch a little of the news conference before we get started with our experiment.”

“No problem. I’ll hang here. Need to give my tan a booster shot.” He closes his eyes, flaps open the vest, leans back to soak in the rays.

“Danny?” says Ceepak.

“I’m with you,” I say and we head into the motel office.

“That’s not him,” says Becca when we whoosh open the glass door.

Ceepak and I must look confused, because she clarifies:

“That guy on the motorcycle. That’s not the guy I saw out back that night. He’s too big. The guy I saw was more, you know, average. Five-seven, five-nine. Slender waist.”

“Thank you, Becca,” says Ceepak. “That’s very helpful.” Now he gestures up to the TV. “Have they started?”

“Yuh-huh. Mayor Sinclair said he hopes everybody is having a sunny, funderful day, and that, to let the terrorists know they can’t scare us, the show must go on.”

On screen, Marty Mandrake steps to the podium. He has to adjust the two gooseneck microphones on the podium because he’s taller than Mayor Sinclair. Then again, so are many Chihuahuas.

“Thank you, Mayor Sinclair. Ladies and gentlemen, as my esteemed colleague just said, Soozy K has received a death threat.…”

“I can’t believe they’re announcing it like this,” grumbles Ceepak.

Me? I believe anything. TV people have no shame. You ever watch that show where people who weigh five hundred pounds dance? Or that one where parents send in video clips of their kids slipping on ice?

“But,” Mandrake continues, “the show must go on. With the help of the Sea Haven Police Department, who have beefed up security around our Fun House, we will complete our exciting summer season, despite the heinous death threat leveled against Soozy with a special, two-night season finale spectacular next Thursday and Friday.”

Somebody applauds. My guess? Mandrake brought along his script girl Grace, the lady with all the stopwatches around her neck.

“You know,” Mandrake continues, giving the cameras an awshucks shuck of his head, “it was Soozy K, herself, who, just this morning, came to me and said ‘Marty, we can’t quit now. If we do, the bad guys win. And then what was all our sacrifice for?’”

Ceepak is shaking his head slowly. I think he’s heard this argument one too many times. He has also seen its consequences. My partner spends a lot of his vacation days and holidays visiting Army buddies in VA hospitals or, worse, cemeteries.

“And it isn’t just about winning the quarter-million dollars for Soozy,” says Mandrake, “because, in the finale, our two remaining contestants will also be playing for their favorite charities. Whoever wins, their charity wins too! Ten thousand dollars!”

The assembled crowd of reporters and assorted Borough Hall hangers-on applauds, even though it sounds like the charities are kind of getting stiffed.

“Soozy has already picked her charity: SPF!”

“Yes!” says Becca, pumping her fist in the air. “Whoo-hoo!”

Okay. I have no idea what an SPF is or why it makes Becca so happy.

Then Marty Mandrake explains:

“The American Skin Cancer Prevention Fund wants to make sure everybody tans safely.”

“I’m president of the local chapter,” says Becca.

Of course she is. Tanning is her life.

“Mike, Vinnie, or Jenny will also be playing for a favorite charity,” says Marty Mandrake. “That is, if your votes put them through to the final round.”

I wonder what charity Jenny Mortadella picked. The Italian Deli Meat Anti-Defamation League?

“Now, to play it safe,” Mandrake says, “the network and I have reached a unanimous decision: Soozy K will receive immunity in next Thursday night’s show. She’s going straight to the Friday finals, which will be broadcast live from the Sea Haven boardwalk behind a ring of steel; the tightest security ever thrown up around a network TV show! We’ll make it fun, but we’ll keep it safe!”

More applause.

I shake my head.

Mandrake sounds like a condom commercial.

30

“They’re putting her through?” says this guy who just walked into the motel lobby, toting a cardboard