Fun House (12 page)

“Yeah, I’m figuring she’s a tourist. Local girls know better than to walk around town at midnight looking like two-bit tarts.”

True. They usually have the decency to quit around eleven.

“Did Braciole and his date leave the dance club unescorted?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Like I said, I was busy breaking up that thing between Tomasino and Broadwater. I think Ponytail followed Paulie and his floozy out the door.”

“Ponytail?”

“This mug lugging a camera. Has one of those hippy hairdos. He and two other yahoos went chasing after Paulie and Miss Hot Hiney. Some guy with a freaking bright light; another one holding out something fuzzy on a flagpole. Looked like a giant squirrel tail.”

The squirrel tail on the pole would be a boom microphone. Layla taught me that. Back before she met whoever she’d hooked up with last night.

“Thank you, Gus,” says Ceepak.

“You need anything else?”

“Not right now.”

“Good. I’ve got fish to gut. Catch you later.”

Ceepak thumbs the off button. Presses a speed dial.

“Who you calling next?” I ask.

“Prickly Pear Productions. Ms. Shapiro.”

“She’s probably still in the trailer.” Which, I don’t add, is only about fifty feet behind us.

“Danny, to be honest, I’d rather not go back in there again until we absolutely have to.”

I nod. The feeling is mutual.

“Ms. Shapiro? John Ceepak. Quick question. Does one of your cameramen wear his hair in a ponytail?”

He nods so I can see that he has been answered in the affirmative.

“Where might Jimbo and Unit Three be now? Thank you. What? I understand. However, this is extremely urgent.”

Now Ceepak does something I’ve never seen him do before: he makes a duckbill out of his left hand and flaps the thumb and fingers open and shut—giving me the universal “blah-blah-blah” sign.

“Right. Roger that. Okay. Thank you. We have to run.”

Finally, he snaps shut the phone.

“Danny, do you know the Starfish Boutique?”

“It’s on Ocean Avenue. Most expensive clothes on the island.”

“Apparently the cameraman with the ponytail is named Jimbo Green. He is currently filming Jenny Mortadella at the dress shop because she ‘doesn’t have anything decent to wear.’”

Funny. I thought that was the whole point of the Fun House wardrobe: the more indecent, the better.

And then Ceepak adds the kicker: “She needs a black outfit for Mr. Braciole’s funeral. They’re filming it first thing Monday morning.”

15

W
E HEAD DOWN TO
O
CEAN
A
VENUE
.

I’m behind the wheel, wondering what the “weekly competition” will be on
Fun House: The Funeral Edition
.

Casket-tossing?

Competitive pall-bearing?

Maybe they can do a “rose ceremony” with all the funeral flowers. They could form teams and run a gravesite floral-arrangement contest.

We park at the curb outside the Starfish Boutique. Their motto: “Why just be another fish in the sea when you can be the star?” It’s painted on both display windows flanking the front door. The mannequins wear gowns worked over by someone with a BeDazzler.

The glow of a blindingly bright spotlight swings by the window on the left. Jenny Mortadella, led by a sales associate in what they call “glamorous resort wear,” is being trailed by a full camera crew as she heads over to a rack of black garments. Judging by his ponytail, the man operating the camera aimed at Jenny’s badonkadonk is Jimbo Green.

Ceepak pauses at the front door. He’s polite enough to let Jimbo finish his shot.

“What the fuck is this shit?” Jenny brays, slapping her way through the hanging black dresses.

“These represent the finest in funereal fashion,” says the helpful assistant. “Remember, no matter how somber, funerals are, at their heart, social outings. And, just like weddings, there will be a lot of single, emotional people there. A long black dress with a steep neckline can be respectful
and
provocative.”

“I’ll fucking melt. You can’t wear fucking black in the fucking sun!”

“Cut!” shouts Jimbo.

“We’re cutting,” echoes his stopwatch-clipboard guy. Off goes the floodlight. Down comes the squirrel-tail boom microphone. Ceepak pushes open the door.

“Mr. Green?”

Jimbo whirls around, camera mounted on his shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“I’m Officer John Ceepak with the Sea Haven Police Department. This is my partner, Danny Boyle.”

“Yeah, sure! From the parking lot. ‘Give me the fool’s gear.’ Right on.” He gives us a righteous-dude fist pump. “You two rock.”

“Oh, um,
hey
, Danny!” says the sales associate.

I recognize her now, even though she’s wearing grownup clothes. Her name is Lissa. We went to high school together. She always looked great in black, which is all she wore, because, back then, she was like our class’s Goth chick poet. Wrote about sea gulls contemplating suicide a lot.

“We need to ask you a few questions,” Ceepak says to Jimbo.

“Cool.”

“Um, can I take my break now?” asks Lissa.

“Yes, ma’am,” says Ceepak. “That might be a good idea.”

“Five minutes, sweetheart!” says Jimbo. “And you did good with the script. Keep it up, you’ll be a star.”

“Ha,” snarls Jenny. “Fat fucking chance.”

Lissa ignores Jenny and breezes past Ceepak and me. I realize she still smells like patchouli oil and pot. I hear a locker bang open and shut in the storeroom. Probably where she stashes her bong or bowl. I guess she wants to stash her weed some place better so we don’t find it.

“Hey—I’m fucking hungry, here, Jimbo,” says Jenny, painting lip-gloss on her puckered puss.

“New Guy?” Jimbo says to one of the crew guys in khaki shorts and hipster ski cap.

“Yeah?”

“Fix Miss Mortadella a plate at the craft services table.”

The new guy nods. Poor kid. He looks to be my age. Probably what they call a P.A., or production assistant. Lowest man on the TV-crew totem pole. Layla told me that was how she got started in the business.

“And grab me a half-apple,” says Jimbo.

New Guy looks confused. “You don’t want the whole thing?”

Jimbo rolls his eyes. “Where’d Marty find you, kid? The New Jersey Film School For Idiots?”

The other crew guys kind of drop their eyes. I get the sense that Jimbo, despite his peace-loving hippy hairdo, is a first-class buttwipe.

But nobody says anything.

New Guy stands there. Stoic. No emotion at all. But inside, I’ll bet he’s wondering about that fifty thousand dollars he still owes on his college loan so he could attend NYU film school and get a job stepping and fetching.

Ceepak steps forward.

“Apple boxes,” he states with great confidence, because I’m sure that, as soon as
Fun House
landed on our beaches, he spent several nights researching production lingo, “are wooden boxes of varying sizes with holes on each end that are chiefly used in film production. The ‘half-apple’ is typically four inches tall, whereas the ‘full apple’ is eight inches.”

“Well done, Officer,” says Jimbo. “You want a job on my crew?”

“No, thank you.”

New Guy nods thanks to Ceepak, tugs down on his knit cap, heads for the door.

“Half-apples are on the grip truck,” says the man holding the microphone boom like a broomstick. “Round back.”

“Craft services table is back there, too,” adds the spotlight toter.

Guess these two both remember their first days on the job, working for a jerk like Jimbo.

“And, New Guy?” shouts the big man, Jimbo, so his crew will remember who’s the boss.

The kid turns around.

“Hustle, baby. Hustle.”

Out he goes.

Jimbo struts over to Ceepak. “We need to have Jenny stand on something. She’s disappearing, ruining my shot.”

“I heard that,” snaps Jenny as she jabs out her hip, anchors her hand on it.

“I’m just trying to make you look good, babe.”

“Why do I need to wear fucking black?”

“’Cause it’s a fucking funeral,” Jimbo answers. “We’re back in five. Everybody chill. I need to chat with the police officers here.”

“Back in five,” yells the clipboard man.

Ceepak holds open the door. “Bring your camera,” he says.

Jimbo does as he’s told.

The three of us cluster around the front of our parked vehicle.

“What’s up, bro?” Jimbo asks, giving his ponytail an artful flick.

“Last night,” says Ceepak, “you followed Paul Braciole out of the Big Kahuna dance club?”

“That’s right. Me, Chuck, and Rich. We peeled off from the pack. Rutger sent us after Paulie and his hot date. Very attractive local lady in an extremely tight skirt. Her butt shimmered, man. I wish we could’ve hosed down the streets, got that slick surface going, like we do in car commercials. But this is reality TV. No time to light right.”

“Chuck and Rich?” says Ceepak.

Jimbo jabs his thumb toward the dress shop. “My sound and light guys.”

“Where did Mr. Braciole and his date go?”

“A couple blocks north. 136 Red Snapper Street.”

Ceepak makes a face to let Jimbo know he’s impressed. “You’re certain about the address?”

“Yeah. We were camped out in the front yard till like three in the morning.”

Ceepak has his notepad and pencil out. “How so?”

Jimbo flicks his ponytail again. Maybe he’s like a horse, uses it to swat flies. “Like I said, me and my boys, we tailed Paulie and his hot little honey out of the dance club, hoping to catch some hot and heavy action. Now, if they had headed back to the Fun House, we would have, you know, been able to follow them inside, tailed ’em all the way into the bedroom, might have even hung around to catch a little nookie action.”

Ceepak’s left eye twitches. “Go on,” he says.

While he talks, Jimbo monkeys with buttons on his camera, peers into the viewfinder.

“This house on Red Snapper being the girl’s abode,” he says, while squinting into that little rubber-cupped box, “we can’t go in without an invitation, which, you know, wasn’t exactly forthcoming. In fact, yeah … here we go.” He holds up the camera so Ceepak can peek at the playback. “Check it out.”

Ceepak does.

“I see,” he says after a few seconds. He pulls back from the camera.

“You see Paulie give me the finger?”

Ceepak just nods.

“I hope Marty cuts it into the show, seeing how I got the last fucking shot of Paulie before, you know, he got whacked by the stalker or whatever. But they probably won’t use it. Paulie flipping me off doesn’t fit in with this week’s narrative. That ‘Funeral for a Friend’ jive Marty pitched the network. Ratings will be through the roof. Just like Princess Diana.”

Ceepak reaches for the radio clipped to his utility belt.

“Excuse me,” he says to Jimbo. “We need to send a unit over to the house on Red Snapper. Interview the woman.”

“Cool. Can we roll with you dudes? We’re pretty unobtrusive. We’d shoot you grilling the chick, catch it all guerilla gonzo style.”

“Not gonna happen,” I say as Ceepak radios in a request for the first available unit to respond to 136 Red Snapper Street, to hold a “blonde female, approximately five feet, two inches tall, one hundred pounds, with a mole on her left cheek” for questioning.

Ceepak. While watching a video of a drunken girl in a skimpy skirt bopping up a dark street, he keeps his eye on the distinguishing characteristics.

“Hey, if it helps,” says Jimbo, “the chick’s name is Mandy.”

Ceepak, gripping his radio mic in one hand, cocks an eyebrow.

“She was wearing that T-shirt over her sausage dress,” Jimbo explains. “You know—the one that says ‘Remember my name. You’ll be screaming it later.’ So Paulie, he’s such a joker, he says ‘What am I gonna scream, baby?’ and the chick with the hooters says ‘Mandy.’”

Ceepak adds the name “Mandy” to his bulletin then clips the radio back on his belt.

“How long did you stay outside the house?” he asks.

“Till Mandy came back out, pretty close to three
A.M.
”

“I take it Paulie was not with her?”

“That’s right. She came out in this skimpy bathrobe, even shorter than that skirt she’d been wearing at the club. Told us we were wasting our time: Paulie was gone. ‘I have a back door, numbnuts,’ were her exact words.” He holds up the camera. “You want me to find the clip?”

“No, thank you,” says Ceepak. “We’ll talk to her ourselves. I’m curious as to why Paulie left.”