Mind Scrambler (9 page)

“Yeah.” Sea Haven has about six pancake places. I figured one of them had to be the one this guy was remembering.

“They still make that thing they make?”

“Yeah.”

“Good times.”

“Yeah.” I gave him a little two-finger salute and headed up the hall.

 

 

The corridor on the other side of the door was drab compared to the rest of the Xanadu. Back here, instead of Chinese red and gold wallpaper, the walls were cinder blocks painted a wet gray. The floor was scuffed linoleum illuminated by sporadic can lights up in the dropped-tile ceiling. I noticed one of Parker's TPZ cameras on a naked metal arm. In the bowels of the building, they don't hide the spy cam under a smoky gray dome to keep it discreet.

I passed a door that looked like it opened into a janitor closet or one of those rooms with nothing in it but a billion jumbled telephone wires, all different colors, screwed to metal posts on a
switching plate. I heard humming and thrumming—like a gigantic refrigerator gurgling through a cycle.

I saw another guard stationed near another dull door just like the dull door I had already passed. He looked Samoan. Some kind of Polynesian. As big as a refrigerator crate with a Fu Manchu mustache and curly hair pulled back tight into a ponytail.
EVENT STAFF
was printed on the breast of his windbreaker.

“Yo, bro—can I help you?” the guy asked.

“I'm here to see Katie Landry. Room AA-four.”

He nodded and tilted his head to the left to indicate that I should head up this corridor to where it dead-ended into another hallway. “Take the right, bro. AA-four's the second suite down.”

“Cool,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Mahalo.”

I think that's Hawaiian for “later, dude.”

I headed up the hallway and wondered if Jake, Mr. Chippendales Dancer, would lose his job since it was pretty clear he had bailed on tonight's performance. I figured he might be forced to find gainful employment some place where shirts were required. Then Katie would leave him like she left me.

Okay. Katie never really left me. She left Sea Haven. I just happened to be living there at the time and had no desire to move out to California with her. I'm allergic to avocados.

I hit the
T
where the two hallways intersected, took a right, and kept thinking about Katie and me. How we used to lie on our backs in the sand on Oak Beach late at night every August so we could stare up at the sky and watch the meteor showers. How we used to save each other seats on the school bus because we liked sitting next to each other and shooting the bull. How we used to race each other on our bikes to Skipper Dipper, our favorite ice cream place.

When we were kids, Katie and I lived that whole Jersey Shore life Springsteen sings about: screen doors slamming, breezes
blowing up the beach, rubber balls smacking off walls, baseball cards stuck in bicycle spokes, the girls in their summer clothes.

I reached room AA-4.

The door was ajar.

“Katie?” I called out.

No answer.

I pushed the door open. Stepped into the room. It was pitch dark.

I stepped on something hard and plastic. Probably a toy.

The kids. Were they going to be here, listening to everything Katie and I said?

“Katie?”

Nothing.

“Richie? Britney?”

Still nothing.

Only the distant sound of a woman moaning.

I made out the silhouette of a lamp on an end table next to a couch. I crunched across something that crumbled, maybe a cookie. I made it to the lamp. Flipped it on.

I wished I hadn't.

Katie was naked except for a black garter belt made out of studded leather. She'd been trussed up to a wooden chair, hands tied behind her back. Silky white rope coiled around her body, pinching into the flesh above and below her freckled breasts.

I felt cold. Felt like I might collapse.

The woman in the other room kept moaning.

I wanted to see Katie's face, her emerald eyes. I couldn't. She was wearing a blindfold and some sort of muzzle that forced a red ball gag into her mouth.

Around her neck, she wore a silver-tipped bolo tie.

The lanyard had been pulled up tight.

Too tight.

Tight enough to kill her.

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe I
don't know Katie Landry as well as I thought I did.

Our relationship a couple summers ago only went so far before it was rudely interrupted by a bullet. I guess I had crowned her with a halo, put her on a pedestal.

What I saw in room AA-4 did not jibe with the Katie I thought I knew.

They say everybody has a secret life. A dark side they keep hidden. Guess that includes Katie Landry.

Was she really a dominatrix or submissive or whatever they call it when you get your kicks being tied up while wearing leather harnesses, black masks, and ball gags?

And where were the two kids?

Did Katie send them away so she could play rough with Jake?

Was Jake the one who taught her about erotic asphyxiation?

They explained “breath control play” to us at the police
academy, told us to look for it when analyzing a strangulation crime scene. Seems some folks intentionally reduce the amount of oxygen to the brain during sexual stimulation in order to heighten the pleasure received from orgasm.

For real.

But Katie Landry? It doesn't make sense.

I'm sitting on the cold floor in the cinder block hallway backstage, trying to make sense out of all that has happened today, thinking about this ride back home in Sea Haven called the mind scrambler.

It's a spin-and-puke sort of amusement on the boardwalk with three steel arms radiating out from a central pylon. Each arm has four cars rotating under it while the whole three-legged rig twirls around that central pillar. It spins and whirls like a three-beater Mixmaster.

Crank the mind scrambler up to full speed and you go soaring in then out and round and round until you feel like the slimy blob of oil being whipped into Aunt Jemima's pancake mix. You spin, you slide, you sail toward the other cars, then slip away. You feel sick, quick.

To mess with your head even more, the whole contraption reels around inside a dark dome painted black and decorated with Day-Glo paint. They strobe lasers against the walls, then pump in mist, ultraviolet light, and extremely loud music.

When the ride comes to a stop, you raise the safety bar and wobble out of your seat, but the world keeps spinning round and round.

The late Katie Landry?

It appears her mind-scrambling abilities are even better.

“How are you doing, Danny?” Ceepak comes out of AA-4.

“Okay.”

“You need anything?”

Yeah. For Katie Landry not to be dead.

“No,” I say.

“Parker and I have secured the crime scene.”

“What was that moaning?”

“Come again?”

“I heard a woman. In the other room.”

Ceepak nods. “Pay-per-view pornography. We'll want to dust the television remote for fingerprints. Check hotel records to determine when the movie was activated. The Atlantic City police are on the way.”

“They need to find Jake.”

“The dancer?”

“Katie's new boyfriend. Maybe this is why he missed tonight's performance.”

“It's a possibility, Danny.”

“He's probably the one she was with.”

How do I know there was someone else in the room with Katie? Easy—you can't tie yourself to a chair like that. It takes two to do that particular tango.

“I guess he pulled too tight on the bolo tie because he was, you know, busy. Doing other stuff.”

Ceepak grimaces. “Perhaps you should return home to Sea Haven, Danny.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Do you have your cell phone handy?”

“Hunh?”

“You might want to call Becca. Olivia. Some of Katie's closest friends. Karen Decosimo. Madeline and Julie Delianides.”

Ceepak. He pays attention. Remembers more of Katie's pals than I do right now.

“I know Miss Landry has no surviving family members,” he says. “However, the friends we choose in life often become our true family, more so than blood relations.”

I slump down another inch because he's right. We were the only family Katie really had.

“Hang here, partner,” says Ceepak. “We will continue to safeguard the integrity of the evidence until the ACPD arrives.” Ceepak has swung into full Ceepak mode. Gone is the goofus who gets his kicks marveling at Las Vegas illusions. Back is the gung-ho MP.

“Where are my children?” At the far end of the corridor, I can see Richard Rock. He's sort of lurching and careening down the hall. Mrs. Rock and their business manager, David Zuckerman, lurch and reel behind him.

Guess the Rocks had been in the lobby signing autographs when I came out of room AA-4 with enough functioning mental faculties to call Ceepak, who called Parker. After the two ex-military men made their preliminary assessment of the situation, Parker radioed one of his security guys, told him to alert the ACPD, then find the Rocks and bring them back to the family's living quarters.

I stand up.

“Where are Richie and Britney?” asks Mr. Rock. He looks worse than I feel.

“Where are my babies?” Mrs. Rock looks ready to faint.

“You're a cop, right?” snaps Zuckerman.

Ceepak nods. “John Ceepak. Sea Haven police department.”

“Do something!”

“We have contacted the local authorities.”

“Where are my children?” Rock asks again, his voice shaky.

“They are not in their room,” replies Ceepak. “Hotel security has initiated a search and is currently screening surveillance footage in an effort to ascertain their present location.”

“What about Jake Pratt?” Rock asks. “He cut the show tonight! Did that boy have anything to do with this?”

“What did Jake and that slutty little whore do?” asks Zuckerman.

I am so ready to belt the prissy bastard. Then Ceepak gives me the slightest shake of his head to let me know Zuckerman isn't worth it.

“My babies,” Mrs. Rock stammers. “How could they—Jake and Katie—in front of Richie and Britney?” she asks the world swimming around her as she churns along on her own mind scrambler.

Zuckerman braces her under an arm. “I'll take care of it, Jessica.”

Now Cyrus Parker comes out of room AA-4, pulls the door tight behind him.

“Where are my children?” Rock asks again.

“We've initiated a search.”

“I can't believe this.” I sense Rock's climbed on the mental spin-and-puke ride with his wife. “You hire a girl. Check out her references. Entrust her with your children, your most precious possessions.”

“Was Nanny Katie a sexual deviant?” Mrs. Rock asks the ozone.

Zuckerman tightens his grip on her arm. She covers her eyes with a trembling hand. For whatever reason, I notice Mrs. Rock is wearing a wig. Maybe because it just slipped forward half an inch.

“The children could be inside!” blurts Rock. “Hiding under their beds.” He steps toward the door.

Parker holds up a hand to block him. “You can't go in there, sir. It's a crime scene.”

“My children need me!”

“We checked all the beds and closets, sir,” says Ceepak.

“Mr. Parker?” A new voice is heard from: a guy hustling up the long hall in a white helmet and bicycle shorts. He's also wearing a blue shirt, police badge, and, if I'm not mistaken, a Sig Sauer P226 automatic in his holster. So is his partner, hustling right behind him.

“Yeah. I'm Parker.”

“Vic Tinsley. ACPD. Detective Flynn, our homicide guy, is on his way. We were on patrol, caught the call. We need to keep this room locked down until Flynn arrives.”

“Roger that,” says Parker. “You might want to call the major crimes unit.”

Tinsley takes off his bicycle helmet. “That bad, hunh?”

“Yeah.”

Rock turns to the cops. “What about our children? They're missing!”

“We know, sir,” says Officer Tinsley. “Mr. Parker gave us full descriptions.”

“Why don't you folks head back to your rooms?” Parker suggests. “Wait there. That way, we'll know where to find you as soon as we locate Richie and Britney.”

Rock sighs. Nods. “All right. I don't like it none, but all right. Come on, Jessie. David.”

The three of them enter AA-6. The Rocks' room is right next door to Katie's. No wonder she and Jake could only have their rough sex while their employers were busy onstage.

The two A.C. cops take up guard positions on either side of the entrance to Katie's room. I hear their radios cackle with all sorts of chatter. A shooting. A stabbing. A drunk-and-disorderly.

“Busy night,” says Tinsley as he dials the volume knob down.

Ceepak turns to Parker. “Can we help you search for the children, Cyrus?”

“Definitely. I'll take all the help I can get.”

“Did your people see anything of interest on the casino's surveillance cameras?”

“Yeah. They sure did.”

“Do you know where they went? Richie and Britney?”

“We don't have that,” says Parker. “Not yet.”

Then he looks at me.

“Boyle?”

“Yeah?”

“Stick close to Ceepak, okay?”

“Is there some problem?” asks Ceepak, because he heard the same tone in Parker's voice that I just did.