Mind Scrambler (24 page)

No wonder seeing Lilani Lee at the show Monday night freaked Rock out.

“Good afternoon, Officers!” a voice calls out as we hustle up the boardwalk.

It's the Great Mandini again. His silk robe flutters in the breeze as he stands behind his folding table shuffling a deck of cards with one hand, rubbing his bunny's ears with the other.

“Have you figured it out yet?”

Ceepak stops. So I do, too.

“Come again?” he asks.

“Have you figured it out?”

“Figured what out?” asks Ceepak.

“Lucky Numbers.”

“Mr. Rock's featured illusion?”

“Yes, sir.” Mandini manipulates his deck of cards. “What's your favorite card, Mr. Boyle?”

“What?”

“Pick a card.”

What the heck. I reach for the deck.

“Not that way. That's the old-fashioned way. Just name it.”

“Jack of diamonds,” says Ceepak.

Mandini moves the deck over toward Ceepak since he seems more eager to play than me. “Kindly pull out the jack of diamonds, sir.”

A crowd starts to gather around the table.

Ceepak extracts a card from the deck. Who knew we had time for this? I thought we were hotfooting it down to Lucky Lilani's.

“Two of clubs,” says Ceepak after examining his draw.

“Rub it on the rabbit,” says Mandini. “That two of clubs will magically turn into your jack of diamonds.”

Ceepak strokes the rabbit with the edge of his card. The bunny wiggles its nose. Sniffs the card. The crowd chuckles.

“Take a look,” says Mandini. “Did it work?”

Ceepak flips his card over, shows it to the magician.

It's still the two of clubs.

“No, sir.”

“Of course it didn't work!” Mandini snatches the card out of Ceepak's hand. “You're not the magician. I am!” More laughs from the crowd.

Mandini rubs Ceepak's two of clubs against the rabbit's fur.

“See, when I do it, it always works.”

He flips the card over.

Jack of diamonds.

“Tricks always work for the magician, my friend. Always.” He shuffles the jack of diamonds back into the deck, then holds the stack of fifty-two cards underneath the bunny's nose. It twitches and wiggles its snout. Sneezes a tiny bunny sneeze.

“Bless you,” Mandini says. Then he taps the deck and pulls out a card from somewhere near the middle.

It's Ceepak's two of clubs again.

“Remember: the magician not only holds all the cards, it was his deck to begin with.”

Ceepak nods thoughtfully. “Thank you, Mr. Mandini.”

“Happy to help, my friend. Semper Fi. Semper Fi.”

 

 

Okay. That was one of those extremely weird Ceepak moments where I just wait for him to tell me what we learned in class today because I have absolutely no idea what the heck the magic-bunny detour was all about.

We pick up our pace and march through the teeming crowds, hundreds of people in no particular hurry. It's after 5:00 and the boardwalk is packed. Rolling chairs keep rumbling by. Gaggles of guys and girls giggle past. Weird pinball machine noises surround us. We have to hike a couple more blocks to Lucky Lilani's Stress Therapy so I go ahead and jump-start the conversation.

“That was pretty neat.” It's the best I can do on such short notice.

“Indeed,” says Ceepak. “I sense that Mr. Mandini knows how frustrated we are in our quest to determine what really happened backstage at the Shalimar Theater during Mr. Rock's performance. Therefore, his simple yet elegant demonstration served to remind us of a basic truth regarding illusions. They are just that. Something that deceives the senses or mind.”

“Okay, but how'd he turn that two of clubs into your jack of diamonds?”

“Elementary sleight of hand, I would imagine. While I was distracted with the rabbit antics, he undoubtedly extracted the jack of diamonds from the deck.”

“But how did he know what card you'd pick?”

“He didn't. However, as a professional, he had ample time to locate said card while we wasted time rubbing our two of clubs against the rabbit's fur.”

“He did?”

“Yes, Danny. Remember: he's the magician. He holds all the cards and, as Mr. Mandini so astutely pointed out, it was his deck to begin with. He decides what will be.”

Ceepak is channeling a Springsteen song about the political magicians who manipulated America's reality for eight years. The folks who magically turned anyone who disagreed with them into cowards or traitors because they had the power to shape the truth into what they wanted it to be. Especially on FOX.

We reach 1508 boardwalk. Lucky Lilani's Stress Therapy. The glass door flies open. Out comes David Zuckerman.

“Good afternoon, Officers,” he says, his voice clipped and efficient—not to mention snide and snarky. “Great minds think alike, eh?”

“How do you mean?” says Ceepak.

“I followed up on Lady Jasmine's repeated accusations regarding Mr. Rock. I am pleased to report that no one inside this establishment or in any way connected to it remembers him ever coining here. Have a good day, gentlemen.”

 

 

 

 

 

Ceepak stands
outside Lucky Lilani's door, right underneath the flickering
CHINESE FULL BODY MASSAGE
neon.

He's smiling.

Me? I'm mad.

I want to run up the boardwalk, tackle Zuckerman, and rifle through his wallet because that's where I usually file my receipts, just wad 'em up and stuff 'em in, empty it all out once a year, usually around April 14.

But, then again, maybe when you buy somebody's silence, pay them to act dumb, to back up your big lie, maybe you don't ask for a receipt, even if hush money is somehow tax deductible.

Ceepak and I haven't discussed this yet, but we both know what just happened inside the sleazy rubdown joint ten seconds before we got there. David Zuckerman, Richard Rock's extremely resourceful go-to guy, headed us off at the pass where he simultaneously beat
us to the punch. After a visit from the magician's money man, nobody inside Lucky Lilani's is going to remember anything about Richard Rock's seedy rendezvous with assorted Asian temptresses.

“You want to go in?” I ask Ceepak anyhow.

His smile broadens. “I see no need to do so at this juncture, Danny.”

Up the boardwalk, I can see Zuckerman pressing his iPhone to his ear, no doubt calling in a status report to Mr. and Mrs. Rock, something like “mission accomplished.” They should hang a banner off the side of the Xanadu Hotel.

“Come on! Let's go have a word with that bastard! Nail his ass!”

“No need, Danny.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“There is also no need for that sort of language.”

I fume for a second and try to think of something else we could do because I'm tired of standing around being out-tricked by the magician and his crew.

“We should go inside and lean on Lilani Lee!” I suggest. “If we scare her enough, maybe threaten to shut her down, she might give up the truth and tell us why Richard Rock just sent Mr. Z over here to buy her off!”

Ceepak still has his placid Buddha face going.

“I understand your frustration,” he says, way too serenely. “But such an interrogation would also be a waste of our time.”

I give up. “You're right. It's Atlantic City.” I say it like I'm in a Jack Nicholson movie and it's all anybody needs to say to sum up the whole sorry situation. There's no way we're going to uncover the truth in this man-made Glitzburgh erected to hide the ugly underbelly of a town where the mayor sometimes goes missing for three weeks at a time.

“Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“There is no need to question Ms. Lilani Lee or any of her massage technicians because Mr. Zuckerman's presence already tells us everything we need to know. It is an implicit confirmation that what Lady Jasmine claimed and what we suspected is true: Richard Rock was, indeed, a client here and, most likely, involved in unsavory not to mention illegal sexual activities on its premises.”

Oh. Right. That's why we don't need to talk to anybody. I thought it was because they'd all lie to us anyway.

“Thirsty?” Ceepak asks, gesturing toward an open-air pizza stall squeezed in next door to the stress relief center.

Okay, a beverage break is a somewhat screwy choice right now but I follow Ceepak up to the food booth with signage boasting of stromboli and stuffed slices, not to mention funnel cakes and chicken cheesesteaks.

At the marble counter behind the glass display cases, there's a beefy Italian guy, what we sometimes call a Guido down the Jersey shore. His nappy hair is cut close, his muscles bulge, and even though there's an October chill in the air, all he wears up top is a sleeveless T about the size of one my six-year-old cousin would wear. The tighty-whitey shows off Guido's tan, his gold chain, his hairy back, and his swirling arm tattoos—all at the same time. Right now, this guy is extremely focused on his work: hand-slapping and punching a dough ball—forcing it to lie down flat on a dinged-up pizza pan.

I'm wondering if the dough ball is somebody he knows.

Ceepak examines the sample bottles of Snapple and Pepsi products lined up on top of the tallest showcase, the one displaying yesterday's funnel cakes. Their white powdered sugar has gone semigloss gray.

“I sometimes find that a cold beverage helps me focus,” Ceepak says as he sizes up the drink selections.

I sometimes find the same thing. But my cold beverage of choice is typically a beer.

“What'll you have?” the Italian guy asks without looking up. He's knuckling the dough like mad, stretching it out thin, forcing it to the edge of his pie pan.

“Something without caffeine, please,” says Ceepak.

“We got Sierra Mist.”

“What's that?”

“Lemon-lime. Like Sprite or Seven-Up only it isn't.”

“Sounds good. One Sierra Mist, please.”

“What about you, chief?”

Guess that's me. “Red Bull.”

“All we got is Amp.”

“Great.” Amp is from Pepsi. It's like Mountain Dew but even more caffeiney.

The pizza guy goes to the cold case, gets our drinks. Ceepak hands him a $10 bill. The guy slams down some keys on a register. Bells ding, a drawer pops open, he finger-scoops up our change, slams the drawer shut.

Ceepak slips a dollar bill into the blue paper tip cup.

“I was wondering,” he says to Guido, oh-so casually after a sip of soda. “My friend and I are from out of town and would like to catch a magic show at one of the casinos.”

“So?” says pizza man.

“Can you make a recommendation?”

“What? Do I look like the fucking chamber of commerce here or something?”

“No, sir. I simply thought—”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. You could check out that ‘Rock 'n Pow!' they got over at the Xanadu.”

“Is it good?”

Pizza man shrugs as best he can while twisting his pan and
stretching his dough. “How should I know? I work nights. But I met the star. This Richard Rock character. He's the big-shot magician. That's why they call it ‘Rock 'n Pow!'.”

“I see.”

“He's kind of a prick. Thinks he's hot shit. The ‘most amazing illusionist in the Western world,' whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.”

“Does he eat here often?”

“Three or four times this week, he stops in for something sweet. Likes the funnel cakes.”

Ceepak subtly tilts his head, directing my attention to an autographed black-and-white publicity photo taped to the wall behind the pizza man: Richard Rock in his tux and cowboy hat.

“That's him, I take it?” says Ceepak.

Pizza man glances over his shoulder. “Yeah. Guess he's a magic cowboy or whatever.”

“I think I've already met him.”

“Next door?”

Ceepak can't lie, so he doesn't. “No. Elsewhere.”

We get another shrug as pizza man reaches for a ladle to scoop tomato sauce out of a five-gallon tin drum. “This
strunz
Rock? He's next door a lot. Comes here after going there. Sometimes before—takes the ladies a little treat. He tells me Lucky Lilani's has the best Chinese massage chairs, as if I got time to have some Oriental chick knead my neck. Rock says it's therapeutic, like visiting a chiropractor. All that sawing his wife in half gives him muscle cramps. Wish he'd saw my wife in half, you know what I mean? That would definitely take care of the pain in my neck, not to mention the one in my ass.”

Ceepak gives our Italian fountain of information a two-finger salute. “Thank you again for the cold beverages. Very refreshing.”

We walk up the boardwalk, away from the pizza stand.

“You saw Rock's photo, right? Behind the counter? That's why all of a sudden you were thirsty?”

“Indeed, Danny. It is circumstantial evidence, but the pizza parlor employee more or less corroborated our prior suppositions.”

“Yeah.”

“We also learned something else quite valuable on this seeming detour.”

We did?

I wish I knew what it was other than the fact that Richard Rock is a jerk, can't stop talking about himself, and likes funnel cake more than zeppole.

“We now know,” says Ceepak, “that whatever the killer is so desperate to locate has little or nothing to do with Mr. Rock's activities at the massage parlor.”

Really? We know that?

Ceepak reads my face. “If, Danny, Ms. Lilani's silence can be purchased so easily, the incriminating evidence must not be related to her or her establishment.”

Got it. Why go through all the trouble of torturing and killing people when all you have to do is write a check or drop off a bag of cash?

“So what do we do next?” I ask.