“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 telclass="underline" 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 music over the funeral logo and, then-boom. In comes ‘To Catch a Killer!’ The funeral logo needs to crumble like a wall of bricks. I want an avalanche!”
“Awesome,” says Layla. “Oh-I’m talking to Elton’s people. They might let us use his song for the open. He’s a huge fan.”
I’m guessing “Elton” is Sir Elton John. I think he wrote a song called “Funeral for a Friend.” I know Springsteen sure didn’t.
“I want Elton to perform it!” says Mandrake. “Live! I see candles everywhere. Blowing in the wind. Buffeted by the sea breeze.…”
“The cast joins him on the chorus!” adds Layla.
“Yes! They hold hands and sing!”
“It’s Must-See TV!”
Once again, Ceepak has heard enough.
“You cannot be serious,” he says.
“About what?” asks Mandrake.
“Putting all this on television.”
“Grow up, Bubeleh. It’s already on television. The newsboys are running with it big-time. And not just our network. Fox, CNN, MSNBC. They’re all over it like mayonnaise on bologna.”
Okay, judging by the jaw pops, my partner is now furious. “You should never have run that footage of Skeletor and the motorcycle gang. You may have provoked this attack on your ‘family.’”
“Whoa. Ease up, cowboy.”
“You gave us your word you would not utilize any of that footage until after the arrest of our suspect.”
“When? I don’t remember making any such promise.”
I nod toward Layla. “Your associate did.”
“You have it in writing?” says Mandrake.
“No.”
“So you learned a valuable lesson. Always make people put their promises on paper. That’s why God invented lawyers.”
“We need the footage,” says Ceepak.
Mandrake and Layla both cock their heads sideways.
“What footage?” she says it first.
“From your cameras inside the house and out on the deck.”
“We need to piece together everything we can about the hours before Mr. Braciole’s death,” I add.
“It is quite possible,” says Ceepak, “that your cameras caught him leaving the house with his killer.”
Mandrake puts his hands together to make a prayerful pup tent under his nose.
“You’re right. That would be amazing.”
Layla’s nodding. “Fucking incredible.”
Mandrake runs his hand across the air imagining a movie marquee. “The last minutes of Paulie Braciole’s life. Dead man walking.…”