Mind Scrambler (31 page)

I let Ceepak play through.

“Jim Bob . . .”

“Please. Call me James. Mr. Rock came up with that corny Jim Bob crap. Thought is sounded more Texasy.”

“We think it sounds lame,” adds Blaine.

“Very well, James. Do you always act as Mr. Rock's escort out of the auditorium after he puts on the hood?”

“Yes. And it's not really a blindfold. He can see right through that sack.”

As Lady Jasmine suspected.

“The fabric looks thick, but it isn't. I'm just there playing seeing eye dog to help sell the illusion.”

“You were with him on Monday night?”

“Yep. I've never missed a show since we opened.”

“Was Mr. Rock's behavior different on Monday?”

“Sure.”

“How so?”

“He was furious. Jake cut the show without any notice or telling anybody where he was and that ticked Mr. Rock off, royally. ‘I'm docking his pay! I'm firing him! I don't care if he is effing family!' See, usually we make a big deal out of walking up that corridor in front of the theater even though, as you probably figured out, they cut away from the live feed the second Fred does the swish pan.”

“Go on,” says Ceepak.

“Well, like I said, typically we walk up that hallway so everybody can see us because, you never know, some of those people may have already paid a fortune to see the show and our stumbling blindly up the hall gives them permission to believe that what they thought they saw on the video screen really happened. It's also a great publicity stunt. Gets the buzz going.”

“You won't
believe
how many people buy tickets just because they saw Richard Rock walking up the hall like a zombie,” Blaine chimes in.

“Usually,” says James, “we walk about a hundred feet with Richard pretending he can't see where he's going. When we get to the fountain, the one with the ducks, we head left, and go through a door that leads into a secondary backstage access passage.”

Ceepak nods. We're familiar with the route. We took it with them tonight.

“Now, on Monday night, things were different! As soon as
Freddy pivoted into his swish pan, Mr. Rock froze. We weren't walking anywhere because he was furious, started reaming me out. ‘Where the
F
is Jake? Do you effing know?' Of course, I didn't. We weren't really friends.”

“Jake was an asshole,” says Blaine. “I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't speak ill of the dead but forgive me, it's true. He was a first-class a-hole.”

“What happened next?” Ceepak asks James.

“Fred, the cameraman, heads back to the lobby, per usual. Richard yells, ‘We're taking the shortcut!' and heads for the door right next to the lobby entrance. There's a security guard standing there when we do the show, but he may not tell you much because he works for Richard Rock, Inc.”

“Go on.”

“We push through the door, head up the hall. Of course, that means we have to hug the right-hand wall so we're in the safety zone, the blind spot that'll take us under the security camera without it even knowing we're there. The Rocks are fanatics about backstage secrecy. I guess most magicians are. We have cast meetings about security leaks all the time. Anyway, while we're shuffling up against the wall single-file Indian-style, Mr. Rock tells me to hurry backstage and make sure that any setups in the wings or prop stuff Jake was responsible for are taken care of. I told him there wasn't anything, that Jake should just be out there onstage with the other dancers, doing the cowboy routine, killing time. Mr. Rock tells me to go wait in the effing wings anyhow.”

Ceepak nods. Why am I getting the feeling he already suspected something fishy was going on with Mr. Rock during Monday night's performance of Lucky Numbers?

“Also,” says James, “he's so busy yelling at me, I notice he isn't chatting with the volunteer from the audience as much as he usually does.”

“He's not addressing her by name, correct?” says Ceepak.

“That's right.”

So that's how Ceepak knew something was weird about Monday's show compared with tonight's.

“He didn't even do his standard patter,” says Jim Bob. “In fact, he stopped doing it right after the swish pan.”

“How do you think that was accomplished?” asks Ceepak. “How could Mr. Rock seem to be talking through his microphone when, in fact, he had switched it off?”

“I'm not sure. But, well, if they can prerecord the images, they can easily do the same thing with the words. They probably have an emergency audio track standing by in the control room they cut to the instant he switched off his head mike.”

“He can do that?”

“Sure. There's a transmitter pack on his belt with an on-off switch.”

Ceepak turns to me. “And that, Danny, is why, on Monday night, Mr. Rock did not mention the volunteer's name again until nearly the end of the routine.”

Uh-oh.

I think I know what Mr. Rock was doing during those ten or fifteen minutes of dead air.

He was backstage in room AA-4.

Taking over for Jake Pratt. Killing Katie Landry.

 

 

 

 

 

We hitch
a ride in an ACPD cruiser and head back to the Xanadu.

On the ride, Ceepak cell-phones Cyrus Parker.

“We need to apprehend Mr. Richard Rock. Roger that. We're almost there. ETA one minute. Ten-four.”

I'm in the backseat, staring out the window. On our return trip to the glitzy Xanadu, we need to roll through the seedier side of Atlantic City first. Past the run-down apartment complexes where everything looks stained and rusty. Ditto for the dumpy motels.

We take a turn and I can see that billboard I first read from the window up in my high-roller suite.

CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS.

“Richard Rock killed Katie?” I mumble while wondering if Christ knew that particular sin was coming down the pike.

“Yes, Danny,” says Ceepak—in answer to the question he actually heard.

“What about Jake Pratt's pubic hair?”

“Mr. Rock could have harvested it just as easily as Mrs. Rock. In fact, I believe it was Mr. Rock who molested Jake Pratt when he was a child. Furthermore, I suspect that, muddled in the emotional confusion such a relationship would undoubtedly engender in a preadolescent male, Pratt coped by giving the abuse incidents romantic overtones.”

“
J Luvs U
,” I say. “He smudged that on the mirror for Richard Rock.”

“I believe so.”

We pull into the Xanadu's covered driveway. It's after 11:00 but there are two bellhops on duty. Neither one comes over to help us with our luggage. Guess cop cars usually don't carry any.

The ACPD patrol car's tires screech on the concrete as it heads back to the Super 8 Motel and Julia Pratt's murder scene. I've almost lost count of how many people had to die for Richard Rock to fulfill his fantasies.

So many dead. Julia Pratt. Katie Landry. Detective Brady Flynn. His partner, Mike Weddle. Even Jake Pratt, Mr. Rock's onetime lover.

Then I think about how many people had to go along with whatever Rock told them to do so he could keep piling those bodies outside the door, to paraphrase Springsteen. His wife. His manager. The guys in the video control booth. Toohey Tuiasopo and the rest of the “Rock 'n Wow!” security team. Kenny Krabitz.

“Wait a second.”

“Yes?” says Ceepak.

“Why did Rock have Krabitz kill Jake Pratt if they were falling back in love?”

“Perhaps the feeling wasn't mutual. Perhaps Pratt had grown too old for Mr. Rock's tastes.”

Yeah. Nineteen ain't the new eleven.

We head through the automatic glass doors, pick up the geometric carpet, head toward the Crystal Palace elevators where the Rocks have taken up temporary residence.

Ceepak's cell phone chirps.

“This is Ceepak. Go. Roger that.”

He halts.

So I do, too.

Now he heaves a sigh.

“Very well.”

I can see the cogwheels spinning inside his head. I suspect the situation has gone “dynamic” once again.

“New plan,” he says into the phone. “We are proceeding to the boardwalk.”

We start walking again; Ceepak keeps the cell pressed to his cheek.

“Hmm? I'm playing a hunch, Cyrus. Right. Will do. I'll keep you posted.”

He clips the phone back to his belt.

“Parker reports that Mr. Rock is no longer located here at the Xanadu.”

“What?” We're hurrying up the never-ending carpet, trying to cut across the casino and make our way to the far side and the escalators down to the boardwalk exits as quickly as we can. It's like a half-mile hike. “They let Mr. Rock leave the building?”

“Roger that. But, as you recall, Danny, until minutes ago, Richard Rock was not considered a suspect or accomplice for any of the crimes that have been committed over the past two days.”

“We were supposed to arrest Mrs. Rock, right?”

I know that's what I wanted to do until Ceepak stood in the middle of the road a little longer—metaphorically speaking, of course—to see if another solution might reveal itself.

“They knew we'd be able to eventually learn about the second diamond ring from somebody in the show, right?”

“Yes,” says Ceepak as we bustle past the “Cops and Donuts” slot machine lane. “I imagine that in the final act of the illusion as originally conceived by Mr. Rock, we were meant to arrest his wife. At her murder trial, irrefutable evidence as to her actual whereabouts at the time of Katie's death would have been presented, some proof stronger than that which she initially proffered.”

“Maybe they know there's a PTZ surveillance-camera shot of Mrs. Rock out in the casino hitting the ‘Cops and Donuts' machines on Monday night, too.”

“Of course. Well done, Danny! Excellent analysis.”

Hey, I took a shot.

“The prosecutor would, most likely, not think to search for such evidence,” says Ceepak. “The defense attorney's investigators would. They could also demonstrate with testimony from a handwriting expert that it was Sherry Amour who had signed autographs in the lobby on Monday.”

“They could call you as a witness,” I say. “Make you bring the stuffed tiger you got autographed for Rita.”

“Indeed. The charges would have been dropped during the exchange of evidence phase—before the case even went to trial.”

“Too bad Kenny Krabitz is in jail. He could've drummed up all kinds of PI work once he became famous for uncovering the dramatic evidence that proved Mrs. Rock's innocence.”

We reach the escalators and head down to the boardwalk exits.

“Mr. Krabitz is not a licensed private investigator, Danny.”

“No?”

“No. It is why his business cards did not specify his occupation.”

Oh. I just thought he was stupid. “So who is he?”

Ceepak grimaces. “I suspect Mr. Krabitz is the individual
charged with the unseemly task of procuring underage sex partners for Mr. Rock's amusement.”

“What?”

“That boy. At the swimming pool. I do not think he is Mr. Krabitz's son. It's why the boy called his supposed father ‘Kenny' instead of ‘Dad.' ”

“So Katie found out about all this?” I say as we swirl out the revolving doors and hit the boardwalk.

“I'm afraid so.”

“Why didn't she just tell me?”

“I believe she intended to.”

But they got to her before I did. Jake Pratt. Richard Rock. She couldn't talk about it in her phone message to me because Mrs. Rock came into the room.

“So where the hell are we going now?” I usually don't talk like that with Ceepak, but I'm not usually this pissed off, either.

These bastards killed Katie.

“Lucky Lilani's Stress Therapy.”

“The massage parlor?”

“Roger that.”

We head south.

The boardwalk isn't crowded. Just a few stray drunks whoohooing it all the way home to their hotels.

“Can I ask why? They don't want to talk to us.”

“Because Zuckerman solicited their silence for a fee,” says Ceepak.

“Wait a second. Rock just jumped ugly all over Zuckerman for running down to Lucky Lilani's to spy on him for his wife.”

“No, Danny. The altercation in the hallway between Mr. Rock and Mr. Zuckerman was another bit of business staged solely for our benefit. All part of the illusion.”

“So why was Zuckerman down at Lucky Lilani's?”

“Our initial supposition was correct. Mr. Zuckerman was there to make a payoff. It is a public space—the one element of the illusion not under the illusionist's total control.”

“Rock went there to hire prostitutes?”

“I suspect so. Danny,” says Ceepak somberly, “do you recall the young boy we saw at the massage parlor this morning? He was sitting on the floor, huddled with several women and children.”

“Sure. They were all eating breakfast.”

“This particular boy had powdered sugar all over the front of his shirt.”

“Yeah. He looked like he'd been eating funnel cakes.”

Ceepak doesn't say a word.

Because he doesn't have to.

I'm remembering what the guy at the pizza stand next door to Lucky Lilani's told us: Richard Rock preferred the funnel cakes to the
zeppole. “He's next door a lot. Comes here after going there. Sometimes before
—
takes the ladies a little treat.”

The ladies or the boys?

 

 

 

 

 

It's nearly
midnight.

The pizza man is rolling down his iron security gates, closing up shop.

“Officers?” a voice cries out from the shadows near another candy-apple stand to our right—the ocean side of the boardwalk. “Officers?”