Mind Scrambler (10 page)

“Maybe.”

Now Parker nods up the long hall. Toward the lone surveillance camera.

“Mr. Boyle was the first and only person seen coming down this corridor tonight after the show started.”

 

 

 

 

 

Now my
mind is scrambled worse than that scorched egg in the old “this is your brain on drugs” commercial.

Parker thinks I killed Katie Landry?

“Danny was inside the theater for the entire performance,” says Ceepak. “He was with me. You saw him, Cyrus.”

The big man nods. “They also saw him on the videotape. First person to come backstage after they sealed off the area at seven-fifty-five
PM
.”

“What about the guy guarding the stage door?” I ask. “Samoan-looking dude with a ponytail.”

Parker shakes his head. “You were the only one they saw, Boyle.”

“Impossible. I talked to this guy. He was one of Rock's security people. Had on a jacket. Said
Event Staff.
He was guarding the stage door.”

“Camera didn't see him. Just you.”

“At what time?” asks Ceepak.

“Twenty-one twenty-five.”

Nine twenty-five
PM.

“Look,” says Parker, “the medical examiner shows up, pegs the time of death at sometime prior to nine twenty-five, Boyle is in the clear. For the time being, however, he has to be considered a suspect.”

Ceepak nods. “Agreed.” He turns to face me. “Don't worry, Danny. You will be exonerated. Soon.”

Well, duh. I know I didn't do it. Unless I'm one of those psycho serial killers with an alter ego who takes over my body at night and makes me do all the dirty deeds I only dream of doing. Maybe I'm Dr. Danny and Mr. Hyde.

“Hey,” I say, “I couldn't have done it. I don't own a bolo tie.”

“That may be,” says Parker. “But they're readily available at the souvenir shop in the theater lobby.”

Oops. I didn't inspect the string tie around Katie's neck. I was too busy freaking out.

“It was one of Rock's?”

Ceepak nods. “The silver medallion at the center was embossed with the ‘Rock 'n Wow!' show logo.”

just like the five billion ties they sell wherever Rock takes his show on the road. Like the one Jake and the other dancers wear instead of shirts.

“Come on, Officer Boyle,” says Parker. “You need to stick close to Ceepak and Ceepak needs to help me go find those two kids.”

 

 

We enter another restricted area.

Casino surveillance.

“Welcome to the eye that never blinks,” says Parker as we step into a cramped room that reminds me of the Starship
Enterprise.
I
see a whole wall filled with flat-screen TVs; at least fifty. Another wall is made up of digital video recorders stacked on top of one another inside steel racks. Two guys and one girl sit in swivel chairs at a console with built-in keyboards and computer screens. All of them are chewing gum like crazy, staring at the images flashing up at them. They click their mice, crack their gum, clack their number pads, make different camera angles pop up.

“We got anything, guys?” asks Parker.

“Maybe,” says the woman, who is working her gum the hardest, occasionally pausing to blow out a bubble when she sees something of interest, then popping it when she decides it's time to move on. She never takes her eyes off the screen as it shifts through a rapid-fire series of frame grabs. “They're what? Six and ten?”

“Right,” says Parker. “Boy and girl. Blond.”

“Great. All we get in here is black-and-white.”

“They're in the show.”

She nods. “They float in wearing pajamas, right?”

“Yeah.”

“One of 'em digs tigers?”

“Come again?”

She taps her screen with a pen. “Got a boy here. Seems to be with his sister. She's holding his hand, dragging him along, almost yanking it out of his shoulder socket. Twenty twenty they were outside the Shalimar Theater.”

The kids were both onstage at eight. Katie and her S and M buddy must've torn off the kids' costumes, shoved them into jeans and hoodies, and kicked them out of room AA-4 as soon as they got back there.

“Twenty twenty-two, they're near the shops. Twenty twenty-five they're waltzing across the casino floor. The boy has what looks like a plush tiger strapped to his back. Could be a backpack.”

“My nephew has one of those,” says the guy sitting next to her. He's clicking through a series of shots from another camera: the one in the long hallway backstage. The one where I'm the star; I can see my back walking down the corridor. “They make a monkey, too.”

“Is that Officer Boyle?” Ceepak asks.

“Who?”

I step forward. “Me.”

All three computer jockeys look up at me with bleary eyes. They chew their gum in perfect sync. It's like I'm standing in a lineup in front of a barn full of cows.

“Yeah,” says the guy. “That's him. First person backstage.”

“Why is there no one else in that hallway?” asks Ceepak. “Surely during the show it's a highly trafficked area.”

“Not really. There's never anybody back there. Rock's people won't allow it.”

“He has his own security guy back there,” I say. “Big man. Polynesian. Wears a navy blue windbreaker. Stands near the stage door.”

“You mean right here?” He taps on his computer screen at an empty space near the door. “Must be invisible 'cause I've never seen him.”

“What about Katie and the kids?” I ask.

“Hunh?”

“If they go backstage after they do that opening bit, why don't you see them in the hallway?”

“Maybe they used a different exit or something.”

“Wouldn't matter. You'd see them back there. Crossing the
T
where the two corridors intersect.”

“Hey, I don't know,” says the guy, who's used to staring at pictures, not listening to them talk back. “Maybe they didn't go to their rooms.”

“Yes they did! That's where I found her body.”

“Boyle?” says Parker. “First things first. We gotta find the children.”

“But . . .”

“Parker's right,” says Ceepak.

Fine. But I can tell: he and Parker know I'm right. How the hell could Katie end up dead in her room if the camera didn't even see her walking backstage?

“Put your best shot up on the screen,” Parker says to the woman. “Frontal if you've got it. I've met the kids. Know what they look like.”

“Hang on. Here we go. This is a head-on shot. Twenty thirty. They're riding escalator E-three.”

“That's them,” says Parker. “Richie and Britney. Where did they end up?”

“Can't say for certain. I thought they were headed for the ice cream place downstairs. Twenty thirty-two, however, they leave the building.”

“Which exit?”

“Boardwalk.”

“For a chariot ride,” I mumble.

“Come again?” says Parker.

“The boy. He likes the rolling chairs. Calls them chariots.”

 

 

“This way.”

Parker leads us out a side exit—another
Authorized Personnel Only
door. It's faster than trudging across the casino floor.

We come out on a sidewalk running along what must be the service-entrance side of the Xanadu. No flashy lights. No dazzling neon. Just plaster white walls and fluorescent fixtures filled with dead bugs. I see a cluster of uniformed pit people in black vests,
white shirts, and red bow ties taking a smoke break near a bench. Across the street is a very seedy, triple-decker motel: the Royal Lode. I think it used to be the Royal Lodge but the
G
is burned out so the sign reads like a bad toilet joke.

To our right, of course, are the ocean and the bustling boardwalk. Under the streetlights, I can see guys in baggy pants and polo shirts pushing those canopied chairs on wheels. The chariot races are underway.

“Let's go,” says Parker.

The three of us jog up the sidewalk, hit the boardwalk, slow down as the crowd swarms around us.

“Evening, officers,” a voice calls out. “Over here.” It's the Great Mandini—the street magician we met in Starbucks, Gary Burdick's AA sponsor. He's wearing his bright red Chinese tunic and a black cape, shuffling cards behind a table with collapsible legs that's covered with a shimmering blue cloth. A shaggy bunny rabbit sits in a frayed top hat, nibbling on a carrot.

“Looking for someone?” he asks.

Guess we look like we're looking for someone, what with the running-up-the-sidewalk-in-a-bunch bit.

“Two children,” says Ceepak. “Six-year-old boy. Ten-year-old girl.”

The Great Mandini nods. Points. “They went thataway.” He grins. “Always wanted to say that.”

“Blond hair?” says Parker.

Another wise nod. “Very much so. Just like their father, Mr. Richard Rock.”

“You recognized them?”

“Of course. Richie and Britney. I saw their show when it was in previews and the tickets were somewhat less expensive. I was surprised to see the children out this late unsupervised. So I kept one eye on them, the other on my cards.”

“Where did they go?”

“Not far. About three hundred yards due north. The girl said she wanted candy apples. The boy wanted a rolling chair ride. They eventually compromised. Hired Royal rolling chair number three-oh-five and proceeded up the boardwalk to my friend Andy's candy-apple stand. You can't miss it. Blinking lights. Smells of hot buttered popcorn and melted caramel.”

“Thank you,” says Parker.

“Semper Fi, gentlemen. Semper Fi.”

What do you know—Mandini's another soldier. Actually a marine.
Semper Fi
is short for “Semper Fidelis,” the Marine Corps motto. “Always faithful.” It's why some people call their dogs Fido. Short for Fidelis. Ceepak taught me that, back when he named his dog Barkley. I don't know what Barkley's short for.

Anyway, Ceepak and Parker, both former military men, shoot Mandini a quick salute. I sort of wave buh-bye. Mandini rubs the fur behind his bunny's ears.

“Godspeed, gentlemen!”

 

 

We run up the boardwalk, bobbing and weaving through the strolling crowds, dodging the rolling chairs. We pass about six psychics and tarot card readers, a couple open-air T-shirt shops, and maybe a dozen Chinese full body massage parlors. Who knew the Chinese were so tense?

“There they are!” I see them first.

“Richie?” yells Parker. “Britney?”

Britney smiles and waves—the queen riding in the back of the homecoming convertible. Her lips are a bright red ring. She looks like my grandmother when she tries to put on lipstick before putting on her glasses. Guess Britney went with the cinnamon-flavored apple.

“Hello, Mr. Parker,” she says. “Did they send you to tell us we can go back now?”

“Who?”

“Jake and Nanny Katie. Jake gave us fifty dollars. Told us to go have some fun. Guess they wanted to have some fun, too, hunh?”

 

 

 

 

 

“You really
can't buy all that much with fifty dollars, can you?”

Britney. What a chatterbox.

“When Jake told us to get lost, he gave us a brand new Ulysses S. Grant—that's the president who's on the fifty-dollar bill, in case you've never seen one—I figured I could score like a billion candy apples but, nooooo. They cost like five dollars each and big baby Richie wanted to ride in one of those stupid push chairs that cost like ten dollars. The man who pushed us? He was from Bosnia. Smelled like ass because he had BO. That means body odor.”

I just sort of nod. We're in this tight little knot, walking down the boardwalk, making our way back to the Xanadu. Parker is up front, talking into his handheld radio, letting the parents know that we found their two adorable children. Ceepak is behind me, covering our “rear flank” as he called it. I glance over my shoulder and
see him scoping out the crowds, searching for a murderer mingling among the mob. Who knew you could do military maneuvers on the boardwalk in Atlantic City?

“Katie made Richie take his homework when they kicked us out,” says Britney. “That's what's in his backpack. She made him take it because she's supposed to be our teacher and Richie is a slow learner. I think he might be dyslexic or retarded or something.”

I am so glad I never had an older sister. Well, I had Katie. She was a couple months older than me, definitely more mature. But Katie was the cool kind of sister, the type who'd clue you in to what girls really think and tell you all sorts of secret stuff about what was hidden inside the girls' bathroom. Kotex machines. Who knew?

“Richie has to take remedial reading. He's doing
Hop on Pop
while I'm reading
Ella Enchanted
and stuff because I can already read at a seventh-grade level even though I just turned ten and would only be in the fifth grade if we went to regular school.”

Richie hasn't said a word since we found him and his sister at the candy-apple stand. Maybe his big sister never lets him talk. Maybe she's right and he has some sort of learning disability.

“You okay, Richie?” I ask.

He nods a
yes
.

“You eat a candy apple?”

He shakes his head
no.

And that is the extent of our conversation.

“So, did Jake and Katie hook up and get busy?” says Britney. “Did they beat cheeks? That's slang, you know. For ‘having sex,' but doing it in a different kind of way. Some ways are pretty gross and look stupid, too. I've seen a book.”

“You're ten?”

“Yes. But I'm very mature for my age. Precocious. That's a word I memorized. Means I'm more developed, especially mentally, even though I'm already getting my boobies, too.”