“How so?”
“Next time you see Jerry, ask him to roll up his sleeve and show you the ‘88’ they carved in his arm with a knife.” She taps her shoulder.
“Why 88?” I ask. “Is that how much he owed them?”
Ceepak shakes his head. “The eighth letter of the alphabet is H. 88 becomes HH, which represents the phrase ‘Heil Hitler.’”
“The Creed?” says Gladys. “Bunch of white supremacist assholes. You need to bust these dudes, John. If you don’t, I will.” She clutches a melon-chopping butcher knife to make her point.
“Gladys,” says Ceepak, “do you know where Skeletor has been operating of late?”
“You mean ever since you two burned down his Hell Hole hideout?”
Actually, we weren’t the ones who burned it down, but Ceepak lets it slide. Gladys is not lying, she’s just operating with faulty intelligence, something, Ceepak says, the Army has to do all the time.
“We know he is still in operation,” says Ceepak. “He has been supplying steroids to members of the Fun House cast.”
“Figures. You don’t get meat like that the natural way. Did you know that two thirds of America’s beef comes from cows pumped up with steroids? All those hormones in hamburgers, that’s why girls are going into puberty at age ten these days.”
Somehow, Ceepak stays on point. “What about Skeletor?”
“From what I hear, ever since the fire, he’s a floater. Moves around. But Jerry said he saw the skinny turdpole hanging out behind that fried candy stand on Pier Two. Right across from the Fun House. The All American Snack Shack, the guy calls it. Jerry says Skeletor was up to his old tricks, dealing dope out of the back of the stall.”
“When was this?” asks Ceepak, probably wondering why we didn’t know about it.
“Couple weeks ago. But like I said, Skeletor’s a floater. Only his regular customers know when he’ll come back to any particular spot.”
Ceepak puts down the apple crisp. Wipes his hands on a brown napkin.
“The candy stand, you say.”
“Yeah. Pier Two. That red, white, and blue booth where they fry Oreos and Snickers and all sorts of shit filled with polyhydrogenated chemicals people can’t even pronounce.”
“Danny?”
We’re off to Pier Two.
At least fried Oreos smell better than boiled beets.
19
Cruising north on Beach Lane toward the boardwalk we get a call from Dr. Rebecca Kurth, the county medical examiner.
She tells us what we already know, what Ceepak and MCU Detective Botzong figured out staring at the hole in Paul Braciole’s head: He died instantaneously from a single bullet that pierced both hemispheres of his brain. He was then hauled from that crime scene to the boardwalk on the back of a motorcycle. The collar of dry blood ringing his neck and the droplets smearing up toward his cheeks were a result of a helmet being forced down over his head and then, later, pulled off.
Of course the killer didn’t give Paulie his spare helmet for protection; it was to hide The Thing’s famous face-even though it was bloody and lifeless-from anybody else driving around town at three in the morning.
That’s when Dr. Kurth says Paulie died.
Not too long after leaving Mandy’s place.
“We need to find that Mustang,” says Ceepak when we’re done checking in with the ME.
“You think that’s where Skeletor killed him? In Mandy Keenan’s car?”
“I think that when we find the car Mr. Braciole borrowed to drive home, we should also find clues pointing us to where he was murdered.”
Right. One step at a time. That’s the Ceepakian way. Me? I like landing on squares with a chute or ladder so you can skip a few of the boring back-and-forth moves in between.
We take a quick detour over to Big Kahuna’s Dance Club. Bud is behind the bar, slicing limes, prepping for what he tells us “might be the busiest Saturday night in shore bar history.” News of Paulie’s death is all over the TV, radio, Facebook, and Twitter. The island is jammed with Fun House fans, all of whom want to say they hit the last club Paulie Braciole ever busted a move in.
Ceepak reminds him that, per state and local fire regulations, occupancy by more than 855 persons is considered dangerous and unlawful.
“We’ll keep it to 854, tops,” says Bud, trying to make a joke.
Ceepak nods. “Be sure you include yourself and the rest of the staff in the head count.”
Bud nods very slowly. “Right.”
“So what can you tell us about the big Fun House shoot last night?” I say.
“Not much. They had like three camera crews crawling all over the place. Ton of guys lugging lights and microphones around behind other guys lugging cameras.” He shrugs. “Other than that, it was the usual crowd. Guys in muscle shirts and hair gel. Girls in whatever shows off their tan best.”
“Did you notice anybody unusually tall?” asks Ceepak.
“You mean like a basketball player?”
“How about anyone super skinny?” I ask.
“Oh, sure.”
“Yeah?”
“You remember Lindsey? From high school?”
“Yeah. Kind of.”
“Dude, I think she’s gone all anorexic on us. Total gristly chicken.”
Bud’s got nothing we can use.
We leave Big Kahuna’s, head up to the boardwalk. When we pull into the municipal parking lot bumping up against the entrance to Pier Two, Bill Botzong calls Ceepak on his business cell.
“I’m putting you on speaker,” he announces. “Danny’s here with me.”
“Well, great to have an audience,” says Botzong, his smooth voice sounding tinny coming out of the tiny telephone. “But I don’t have much to report. We’ve been studying the duct tape.”
I guess I laugh.
And Botzong hears it.
Ceepak too.
“Danny,” he says, “as you might recall, duct tape analysis helped lead to the arrest of two-year-old Caylee Anthony’s killer.”
“And the sticky side’s great at picking up dead skin cells and fingerprint residue,” adds Botzong. “Of course, you have to dip the sample in liquid nitrogen, freeze it to three hundred and sixty degrees below zero so you can slop on the liquids.”
Ceepak’s nodding.
Man. I really need to spend less time watching TMZ, more with CSI.
“Were you able to I.D. the type of duct tape utilized?” asks Ceepak.
“Yep. It’s the same stuff they sell in every Ace Hardware up and down the East Coast. We’ve got nothing.”
Ceepak sighs.
Because we’re basically in the same boat with Botzong.
“Bill, it looks like we’re going to need you to go on TV Thursday night,” Ceepak says.
“Yeah. I just wish I was playing a different role for my network debut.”
“Roger that. We’ll arrange a meeting with Prickly Pear Productions.”
“Who are they?”
“The folks responsible for Fun House.”
The way Ceepak says “responsible,” it’s like they were the rats that carried the bubonic plague to Paris or wherever.
The oily odor of French-frying pancake batter hits us at fifty paces.
Across the boardwalk from the clown-mouth Fun House, I see a red-white-and-blue booth, with red-white-and-blue striped banners, red-white-and-blue blinking light bulbs, and side panels cluttered with hand-lettered red-white-and-blue menu items: Deep Fried Oreo Cookies, Deep Fried Twinkies, Deep Fried Snickers, Milky Way, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and Ho-Ho’s.
America’s two favorites. Junk Food and Deep Fat Frying.
One menu item catches Ceepak’s attention.
“Deep Fried Pepsi Balls?” he mumbles.
Being a junk-food junkie, I explain: “You make the batter with Pepsi syrup, flour, eggs, and butter. Roll the dough into balls and drop ’em into the French fryer. Then you top them with powdered sugar and more Pepsi syrup.”