Chris Grabenstein - Fun House

“Why are you telling us all this?” asks Ceepak. “Why would your friend Georgio endanger his own life to pass along the confidential conversations of a reputed mob boss?”

“I told you: none of us like seeing our name dragged through the mud like this. Saying we took out Skeletor, a brother? That’s shit-canning everything the Brotherhood stands for, man.”

“But you realize, none of this is actionable. As I already stated, it’s all hearsay-”

“Hell, you can at least start looking at somebody besides us for doing Skeletor like that. The Paulie punk, too.”

“Trust me, sir, we are. However-”

“Sorry, fellas. I can’t give you nothing else,” says Axel. “Georgio wasn’t wearing a wire or nothing, not when he’s chauffeuring Bobby Lombardo around town. He did that, he’d be a dead man.”

“Well,” I say, “maybe your friend Georgio can help us I.D. the contract killer.”

Axel is shaking his head before I finish.

“No way. First, he would never do that unless, like I said, he wanted to send his wife over to the funeral home so she could start picking out what color casket to bury him in. Second, he wouldn’t know who the killer is. Neither would Bobby Lombardo.”

“But Lombardo called the hit man.”

“That’s not how it works. Bobby reaches out to someone who reaches out to someone else who talks to people who talk to people. At the end of the day, nobody knows who the hired gun is. Everybody can deny everything. Money moves around in a screwy circle can’t nobody follow, but everybody gets to dip their beak and take a cut. It’s why these things take time to set up and are impossible to cancel, once you give the green light.”

“There’s no ‘off’ switch?” I say.

“No. Not in the last 24 hours or whatever. The doer goes dark. Executes his mission.”

“May we keep these photographs?” asks Ceepak.

“Sure,” says Axel, slipping his sunglasses back on. “I went with the double prints instead of the free roll of film.”

I think he’s making a joke.

Ceepak isn’t smiling. He slides the three pictures back into their envelope. “Here is my business card. If you hear anything else, please call. Any time. Day or night. Danny?”

We head out the doorway and hit the boardwalk.

“So,” I say, when I’m sure the biker boy can no longer hear us, “we need to go back to the Fun House and talk to Layla, right?”

“Roger that. We can certainly ask her why she was getting into a Lincoln Town Car with reputed members of the mob.”

Yeah. Didn’t her parents teach her about getting into a car with strange mobsters?

We’re headed down the steps to the parking lot when our radios start squawking at us.

“This is base for Ceepak. Base for Ceepak.”

Ceepak yanks the small handy-talkie off his civilian belt.

“This is Ceepak. Go.”

“We have a Code 13.”

Geeze-o, man! That’s a shooting.

“What’s the 10–28?”

“Hickory Street and Shore Drive. He was at the stop sign.”

“Who?”

“The guy who almost got shot,” says Mrs. Rence, her voice panicked-like mine would be if I were the one back at the house making this radio call.

“Dorian?” says Ceepak, rock-solid as always. “Slow down. Please I.D. the victim.”

“Martin Mandrake.”

Geeze-o, man.

“Some guy wearing a motorcycle helmet tried to shoot him!”

Mandrake wasn’t wounded, just stunned.

Apparently, after the shooter missed, Marty stomped on his hot little Mercedes’s accelerator and tore up Shore Drive from the Hickory Street intersection at like sixty miles an hour, completely ignoring all those cute 15 MPH speed-limit signs, the ones that say “Yes, You Can Drive That Slow.”

When he hit Dogwood Street, Officers Ken Green and Kent Peterman, who were on patrol in that residential area-and not used to seeing sporty convertibles drag-racing up the road everybody else uses for bike riding, jogging, and pushing their grandkids’ strollers-flipped on their lights and siren and initiated pursuit.

One block north of Dogwood is the Cherry Street parking lot for police headquarters.

When Mandrake saw the cop car chasing him plus all the cop cars lined up in tidy rows in the lot, he screeched into a hard left turn, pulled up to the curb in front of the station house, hopped out of his convertible (with the engine still running), and ran in the front door of the SHPD “screaming like he was having a heart attack,” according to Officers Green and Peterman, even though I think, technically, screaming is sort of impossible when you’re having a heart attack, what with the chest pains and difficulty breathing.

Anyway, Ceepak and I are currently headed down to the house to have a word or two with Mr. Mandrake.

Ceepak radioed Mrs. Rence to have her pull the file we have going on Paulie Braciole’s killer. He wants Marty Mandrake to look at those security-camera still frames, see if his motorcycle dude looked like the one hauling Paulie’s body over to the Knock ’Em Down.

We issued an APB for an assailant in a helmet and racing suit on a motorcycle, but both Ceepak and I are pretty certain that, as soon as the hit went bad, the shooter was out of his costume faster than that quick-change couple on America’s Got Talent . He also, more than likely, ditched his motorcycle somewhere on one of the side streets. We have people looking for it too.

“If he even rode his motorcycle today,” says Ceepak as we cruise south on Beach Lane.

“He was wearing the helmet and leather racing gear,” I say.

“But I doubt he had plans to transport Mr. Mandrake’s body away from the kill zone as he did with Paul Braciole. Also, he struck in broad daylight. He may have worn the racing gear simply to mask his identity.”

“You think it’s the same shooter who did Paulie Braciole, right?”

“Affirmative. It fits with Detective Wilson’s description of the execution technique.”

Right. The hit man walks up to your car while you’re waiting at a stoplight, or, in this case, a stop sign. They whip out their pistol, and bam.

“But if this guy’s a pro, how could he miss?” I ask.

“I suspect, Danny, that Mr. Mandrake is one of those drivers who does not come to a full and complete stop when they encounter a stop sign.”

Ah, yes. We see a lot of those. Usually people from New York or Philly, always in a rush, think stop signs are a government plot to ruin their vacation. Typically, a “rolling stop” will earn you a warning, maybe a ticket if you do it on Shore Drive, which is jammed with kids riding bikes with training wheels. Today, a rolling stop may have saved Martin Mandrake’s life.

I’m wondering if Ceepak will write him up for it anyhow, when his business cell starts chirruping.

“This is Ceepak. Go.”

Behind the wheel, I tilt my head sideways. Try to make out who’s calling. I get nothing.

“I see,” says Ceepak, sounding extremely disappointed. “And is your decision final?”

Uh-oh. I’m figuring it’s Ohio. Maybe they’re taking away that job offer. Maybe they don’t like seeing their future chief of detectives on TV so much anymore.

“But sir, as you know, we are in the middle of a very knotty investigation.”

I shake my head. As much as I don’t want Ceepak to leave, I want it to be his choice, not some Buckeye sheriff’s.

“Have you informed Mayor Sinclair of your decision?”

Oh. Okay. Time out. This has more to do with Sea Haven than Cincinnati, the only city besides Cleveland I know in Ohio.

Ceepak pinches the top of his nose. Closes his eyes. “What would you like me to do, Buzz?”