Fun House

there, too-sitting on the piano bench, mooning at Barry, flipping sheet music pages for him.

Vinnie doesn’t stand a chance.

Before Jenny Mortadella sings, they cut to more commercials, what Chip Dale always calls “the break.” The interruptions grow longer and longer.

“How come there are so many commercials?” I grouse out loud.

“The higher the rating for a show,” says Rita, “the more money the network can charge for commercials.”

When Fun House returns, it’s obvious that the producers have stacked the deck against Jenny Mortadella. She gets to sing with a lounge act from Atlantic City, the kind nobody listens to because they’re too busy bopping slot-machine buttons or whooping it up at the bar.

When Jenny and her wrecking-ball partner are done destroying the song, Chip Dale promises that we’ll hear who Soozy thinks totally nailed the song-right after the break.

More commercials.

“Geeze-o, man,” I say, popping open my third beer because it’s almost ten, “they’re raking in the dough tonight.”

“You guys should ask for a cut of the profits,” jokes Rita. “After all, John arresting Paulie, the two of you chasing those motorcycle hoods around Morgan’s parking lot, not to mention the two murders and, now, Soozy K’s death threat-that’s what made Fun House the biggest hit of the summer.”

Ceepak bolts upright on the sofa. His eyes go wide. I’m thinking he is having a stroke or something when he finally speaks:

“Of course!” He kisses Rita full on the lips. “Thank you!”

I’m about to say “What?” when, on the TV, live, Soozy K is screaming “Omigod, omigod!”

Ceepak, Rita, and I turn to the screen, where Soozy is blubbering and staring at her cell phone.

“What is it?” someone-maybe Layla-asks from behind the camera.

“A text message,” says Soozy. “From the killer!”

She shoves her phone toward the camera. The lens zooms in. We read what is written on the phone screen in pixellated type:

“TOMORROW NIGHT. THE SHOW WILL BE LIVE..

YOU WILL BE DEAD.”

34

We’re in Ceepak’s Toyota.

He’s behind the wheel because he, unlike me, has not been imbibing beer.

He’s also remarkably calm.

“It’s all part of his play,” he says.

“Who?”

“Mr. Martin Mandrake.” He reaches down to his belt, unclips his cell phone, and hands it to me. “Danny, could you please press speed-dial fourteen?”

“Sure,” I say. Since New Jersey has a handheld-cell-phone law, no way is Ceepak dialing while driving. “Who is it?”

“Christopher Miller.”

The FBI guy.

“You want me to put it on speakerphone?” I ask after pressing the speed-dial digits.

“Roger that.”

And that, my friends, is how you make a hands-free cell-phone call without tearing apart the interior of your car and doing a bunch of fancy wiring.

“Hello?” A little girl answers the phone.

“Angela, this is your father’s friend, John Ceepak.”

“Hello.”

“Is your daddy home?”

“Yes.”

“May I speak with him?”

“Okay.”

And we wait. We hear the Miller family phone clomping to the floor or a very hard kitchen counter, and Angela, who’s probably ten, screaming “Daddy? It’s Mr. Pea Pack.”

Kids. I guess they’re cute when you’re not in a hurry to find out why your partner said “Of course!” and kissed his wife after she said we should have a profit-sharing deal with Prickly Pear Productions.

“You have your badge?” Ceepak asks while we wait.

“Yeah.” It’s in the back pocket of my jeans.

“Put it on.”

We hit a stoplight. Ceepak slips his shield into this nifty badge-holder he pulls out of the storage bin near the gearshift. He hangs the necklace around his neck. I pin my badge to a belt loop on my shorts. Ceepak and I are now, officially, plainclothes cops!

“John?” Christopher Miller comes on the phone. He’s a big, hulking African American guy, a little over fifty, who still works out every day. He and Ceepak could be cousins if, you know, one of Ceepak’s uncles had been black. “What’s up?”

“My partner and I are on our way over to see Martin Mandrake.”

“The producer on your TV show?”

“Roger that. We need anything and everything you might have on him.”

“John, as I’m sure you’re aware, we don’t normally keep files on innocent citizens. …”

“We suspect that Mr. Mandrake may be implicated in the murders of Peter Paul Braciole as well as Thomas Hess, a.k.a. Skeletor, the drug dealer.”

Miller hesitates. “Care to elaborate?”

“Certainly. But not right now. We are currently en route to the Prickly Pear production office.”

“Okay. I’ll see if we have anything on him. Maybe, if we’re lucky, he cheated on his taxes.”

“Appreciate it.”

“You on your cell?”

“Roger that.”

“Let me make a few calls. Get back to you.”

“10-4. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

And the phone call ends because, I can tell by the tone of his voice, Miller is already thinking about who he should call first.

I thumb the OFF button on Ceepak’s phone.

“So,” I say, “we think Marty did it?”

“The possibility looms large.”

Okay. Usually he just says “It’s a possibility” when considering a suspect for whom we haven’t nailed down the means, opportunity, and motive.

“I think I get the motive,” I say. “He used the killings to bump up the ratings for his show.”

“Correct. And, as you recall, his career was in serious jeopardy prior to the success of Fun House.”

True. Layla called him a “washed-up old hack” and “Marty The Old Farty” on numerous occasions.

“What about the means and opportunity?” I ask.