“We suspect you are the one who engineered today’s attempted hit on Martin Mandrake.”
“Bullshit.”
“That you, somehow, amassed enough funds to hire the same killers Mandrake hired to murder Paul Braciole and Thomas Hess.”
Layla glances around the control room. Everybody is staring at her. Listening to Ceepak.
“People?” she pronounces. “Focus. We’re back in sixty seconds.”
Some of the eyes swing back to their blinking buttons. A lot don’t.
“Officers,” she says, “perhaps we
Ceepak practically yanks her up out the chair. People move faster when propelled by Ceepakian fury.
We head out the door. Gus Davis, Alex Smitten, and a couple SHPD troops are waiting for us at the bottom of the staircase.
“Everything okay, Chief?” Gus asks.
“We need a secure location,” says Ceepak. “Two armed guards.”
Gus gestures toward the All American Snack Shack. “The owner finally went home when the hippies started in with the rock and roll.”
Ceepak hustles Layla into the booth.
Officers Forbus and Bonanni follow after us. Both have their service weapons out of their holsters.
“Sit,” says Ceepak, indicating a batter-splattered stool.
Layla squirms on her stool. “I really need to be-”
“Would you like an attorney?” says Ceepak.
“What? Why would I want an attorney?”
“Because, Ms. Shapiro, as I stated previously, you are a suspect in a murder for hire.”
“And why would I want to kill Marty The Old Farty?”
“That’s a good question,” I answer because I don’t like her smirk. “Especially since Mandrake gave you partial credit for coming up with the True Crime angle for the show.”
Now both cheeks quiver into a sickly smile.
“Partial?” she says, sounding like I just insulted her.
“Yeah. He says you saying ‘it’s
“I can’t believe this shit.” Now her whole face is one twingey, twitchy tell. Her nostrils rabbit open and shut like crazy. Her pupils dilate. “How is Martin The Hack Mandrake even alive, let alone spreading fucking lies like that? Does he have a TV in the cave where he’s hiding from Bobby Lombardo?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Wonderful,” says Layla with a self-satisfied smile. “Tell him to stay tuned for my big finish. Maybe he can try to pretend
“And what, exactly, are you planning for the finish, Ms. Shapiro?” asks Ceepak.
“Something biblical,” she says, her eyes bugging out of her skull. “The slaughter of an innocent!”
46
When I first met layla Shapiro, back in June at the Rolling Thunder, I thought she was ballsy and brave.
She kicked a psycho killer’s shotgun across the floor to me so I could take the bad guy down.
Now I realize she wasn’t being brave.
She’s just crazy. Whacked. Insane. All of the above.
She looks extremely ghoulish, lit up by the blinking red, white, and blue tracer lights trimming the deep-fried candy stand. They dance across her twisted features like a hundred flickering ghost-story flashlights.
“Is someone else going to be killed tonight?” asks Ceepak.
“Of course,” says Layla with a grade school giggle. “But not until the very last minute. You have to draw out the suspense, never take your audience where they want to go right away, and always give yourself just enough time for a tidy denouement that will leave them breathlessly anticipating next year’s show. This is what I promised my new business partners.”
“The Lombardo family?”
Another grade school giggle. “You don’t think I could actually scrape together one million dollars to take out Marty, do you, Officer Ceepak? So I made Mr. Lombardo a very sweet deal. A sixty-forty split. He gets the sixty, I get the forty and full producer credits, of course. I take over Prickly Pear … we’re talking about a whole slate of new shows.…”
“Danny, we need to shut this down.”
“No,” says Layla. “Don’t be an idiot, Officer Ceepak. If you in any way interfere with my storyline, a lot of people will die. I gave very specific instructions. If there is any deviation from the script, the shooters are to use their weapons and explosives and whatever else they brought with them to take out as many civilians as they can to give me my thrilling conclusion without getting caught, because these sorts of people never get caught.”
“If you tamper with my narrative,” says Layla, “trust me: they will retaliate.”
“But no fucking smoke,” mumbles Layla, more interested in her upside-down, hall-of-mirrors reality than what’s happening out here in real reality.
“Who are your shooters?” asks Ceepak.
Layla shrugs. “I don’t know. Nobody knows. Not even Bobby Lombardo. It’s all very hush-hush.”
Ceepak glances at his watch.
“When is the big finish?”
“Ha! Even I don’t know that, which makes it even more exciting, don’t you think? It’ll be raw and real. A total surprise. Sort of like when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Talk about a historic live-TV moment. Nobody saw that one coming.”
“I just asked for a death between nine fifty and nine fifty-five. Before we cut to the final commercial pod. I have a feeling the network will stay live when we hit ten. Push back the rest of their lineup. This is going to be so fucking huge, they’d be idiots if they just tossed to the local news.…”
I glance at my watch. It’s nine-freaking-forty.
“I wish I could be more specific about the timing, but I wanted to build in some flexibility. After all, the two players are artists. They can’t be boxed in.”
Ceepak shoots me a glance. Holds up two fingers.
Layla has confirmed our suspicions and narrowed down our list of targets.
“Who do you intend to kill next?”
“Who do you think?” says Layla with a perverted playfulness.
“Soozy?” I say.
Layla laughs. “And that’s why you’ll never be anything but a flatfoot cop in cargo shorts, Officer Boyle. Do
