The bathing suit. That’s why Mr. Rock made certain his son brought one along when they went out for candy apples. It will be another costume intended to make us jump to another conclusion for yet another death by suffocation. Just like Katie Landry’s death scene, with her dressed up in an S and M leather outfit, was intended to make us see “kinky sex gone bad.” Little Richie, found floating facedown in his Speedo somewhere out in the Atlantic, would force us to conclude he was a bad boy who snuck out of his hotel room for a swim when and where he shouldn’t have.
“There!” says Ceepak. He points to some bent-over slats and twisted wire in a run of the beach fencing.
We vault over the guardrail, leave the boardwalk for the sand six feet below.
“Footprints,” Ceepak whispers.
I see them. Two pairs of feet leading from the boardwalk down to that gap in the fence.
One set of prints is deeper than the other, which, turns into two long trenches tearing through the sand.
Probably Richie, not wanting to go where his father was trying to take him, literally digging in his heels, plowing double furrows with his shoes. On the other side of the bowed fence, I see a big divot—like a stubborn kid’s butt might make if his father had to toss him over the fencing because he refused to climb it.
“Richie is offering resistance,” says Ceepak softly.
This is good. The kid’s buying us some time, maybe enough to make up for that head start they got while we ignored the Great Mandini and busted the massage parlor.
The footprints lead toward the darkness underneath the Steel Pier. The rides up top are all shut down for the night. No flashing lights. No screaming maniacs. The amusement park jutting out into the ocean is a skeletal silhouette of Ferris wheel ribs and the rickety scaffolding propping up roller-coaster tracks.
Ceepak taps my shoulder. Indicates that we should move forward, into the darkness and the very symmetrical array of support columns lined up like cement soldiers underneath the pier. There have to be about a hundred pilings, each one the size of a giant oak tree, straddling the width and breadth of the pier. I count five support pillars across each row, which start at the boardwalk, step out onto the beach, then march eleven hundred feet, almost a quarter mile, down the sand and out into the ocean.
We slip into the shadows, crouching low as we go.
Up ahead, I hear waves crashing against the shore, slapping in a relentless rhythm against the concrete pilings.
Now I hear a different kind of slap. And a scream.
Ceepak hears it, too.
We hunker down, move toward the source of the sound.
Ceepak does a series of hand gestures, up and down, sideways.
I’m supposed to head left. He’ll swing right. We’ll surround Rock. Take him down.
We move out, keeping low.
The enormous pillars provide excellent cover.
“Walk into the water!” I hear Richard Rock shout over the breaking surf.
“No, Daddy. It’s too cold.”
Another wet slap.
“Okay!” Richie is crying. “Don’t hit me anymore!”
“Where the hell is it?” Rock sounds furious. I still can’t see them. I glance to the right. Ceepak is three columns down, parallel to my position. He’s hearing this horror show, too. I move faster.
“Where is it? Tell me, Richie.”
“Nanny Katie hid it!”
“And what happened to Nanny Katie?”
“She got killed.”
“That’s right. She got killed because she snooped around in other people’s business. I knew she would. Goody-goody kindergarten teacher.”
I hear Richie’s warbled cries. His father is shaking him.
“Don’t make me hurt you, Richie. Where is it?”
“Stop, Daddy!”
“Are you a crybaby?”
“No, Daddy.”
“Then stop crying! You told me you had it. That was good. You’re a good boy. Where did you put it? Where is it now? Where the fucking hell did you fucking—”
“It’s in my bag! It’s in my bag!”
“The tiger?”
“Yes! My backpack! It’s in my backpack! Nanny Katie put it there, not me!”
I see them. Shadows. Twenty feet ahead. Near the middle piling.
I also see why Richie is all of a sudden spilling his guts.
His father has a knife. The blade is long, maybe a foot. Its sharp edge glints in the moonlight.
The boy shivers and cringes against one of the posts as Rock drops to his knees and roots through the backpack, tossing out books and toys and stuff he isn’t interested in.
He finds what he’s looking for.
It was a notebook. One of those marble-covered Mead composition jobs.
Rock stands, marches over to where his son quakes in fear. He taps the hardboard cover against his thigh.
“Did you read any of this, Richie?”
“No, sir.”
“Richie?”
“I didn’t read it.”
“Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
“A little.”
Waves crash. Richie sniffles. I inch closer.
“A little?” says Rock.
“Yes, sir. About Jake. When he was a boy. How you liked him. How you liked him a whole lot. The other boys, too.”
Rock sniggers. “Of course I liked Jake Pratt and the other boys. They didn’t snoop around in my private things, did they?”
“No, sir.”
“Those boys weren’t like you and Nanny Katie. We were on to her, see? Me and Jake. We knew she was nosin’ around where she shouldn’t ought to be because we knew she’d been talking to Jake’s momma, listening to her lies. We had to get rid of Nanny Katie before she tried to get rid of me. There’s no show without me, Richie. No show.”
Richie just sniffles.
“Richie, you disappoint me. You really do. Stealing my special notebook? Shame on you, son.”
“Britney made me. Honest! Your footlocker was open. We were playing pirates and she said it was our treasure chest.”
Rock leans closer. Jabs his son in the ribs with the hard edge of the composition book.
“You went into my room?”
“Just that once.”
“Did your sister read what was written in my special notebooks?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re lying.”
“No. I swear. Nanny Katie came into your living room and yelled at me and Britney had already run back to our side of the suite so she wouldn’t get in trouble. Britney didn’t see nothing, just me and Nanny Katie.”
“You gave your nanny my notebook?”
“No, sir. Not right away. I hid it. Hid it under my shirt.”
“I see. But later?”
“Yes, sir. I gave it to her.”
That would be Monday afternoon. Right before Katie called me. Mrs. Rock came into the room and it was Katie’s turn to hide the notebook. She stashed it in the boy’s backpack.
Later, when Jake Pratt sent the kids out for ice cream, Katie told Richie to take his book bag.
This is why Katie didn’t talk when they tortured her.
She knew what Mr. Rock would do if he found out who had read his precious notebook.
Katie died protecting Richie. A child.
“I’ll deal with Britney later,” says Rock. “All right. Stop crying, Richie. Don’t be a sissy. Tie up your swim trunks. Pull the string snug, there. You need me to do the loop for you, son?”
This is whacked. Now Rock almost sounds like a real dad.
“No, sir. I can tie it.”
“Show me, son. Show me what a big boy you are. Tie your trunks, Richie.”
The boy props his chin on his chest and goes to work tying up the waistband string. I duckwalk closer.
“You were a good boy tonight, Richie. Tellin’ me what you done. But, you should’a told me sooner.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Hell’s be
lls, boy. We thought your nanny had the notebook. It’s why she had to die.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. . . .”
Richard Rock playfully rumples his son’s hair. “That’s okay. Next time. Next time. All righty, now. Quit your blubberin’. This is fun. Moonlit swim in the ocean!”
“I don’t want to.”
“Sure you do.”
“No, Daddy!”
Rock forces his son to walk down to where the sand is wet and the foam of the ocean floats across their feet.
Man, I so need my Glock. I could take him down, easy.
Rock places his hand on Richie’s back, urges him forward, walks him into the roiling surf. The waterline is up to Richie’s knees now; higher when the waves crest.
What the hell is Ceepak waiting for? Why doesn’t he do something?
Why don’t I?
“The water’s cold, Daddy.”
“No, it’s not! Don’t be a big baby, Richie.”
“Daddy? I’m scared. Daddy?”
“Hush.”
“Daddy?”
Rock moves his hand up to the top of his son’s head, palms it like it’s a basketball. “Sissy boy, sissy boy,” he chants. “Richie Rock’s a sissy boy.”
A breaker surges in. The water washes up over little Richie’s head. Recedes.
“It’s cold, Daddy!” He’s choking, coughing.
“Hush!”
They keep moving. Further under the pier, deeper into the ocean.
I move forward, too.
No way am I letting this sick pervert drown his son.
They reach the next row of concrete pillars. Surf smacks into the boy’s ribs. A sudsy wave swamps up over his head again. He comes out of it hacking and spitting. He’s chest deep and getting deeper.
I’m closer now. Squatting in the shallow water. Slogging forward. I can see Rock tense the muscles in his back. He stops, stands right next to a pillar and stares out at the horizon like he’s on the beach with his Boogie board waiting to catch the next big wave to roll in.
I see it.
A swell, maybe fifty feet out. Billowing up like a ruffling sheet on a clothesline. When the crest of that incoming wave reaches the pillar, I know exactly what Rock plans to do: he’ll dunk his son under the breaker and never let him back up!
“Freeze!” I scream.
Rock whirls around.
I bolt up out of my crouch. Slog through the water.
“What the—”
That’s all Rock gets to say before Ceepak springs out from behind the concrete pillar to his left. Guess my partner snuck down that far without me knowing it.
“Grab the boy,” Ceepak yells as he tackles Rock. The two of them topple under the incoming wave.
I slosh forward, snatch Richie, hoist him up as high as I can so he doesn’t have to suck down any more salt water.
I can see Ceepak and Rock wrestling under the waves. Rock’s twelve-inch blade shoots up through the surface.
I have Richie in my arms but leap up as best I can into an awkward sideways kick.
My shoe slams into the hilt and the knife flies out of Rock’s fist, skims across the water, sinks.
My momentum trips me up. I slip and flop backward under the surge as it reverses engines and hauls ass back to sea.
I extend my arms and try to keep little Richie’s head above the water that’s already stinging my eyes, making those fingernail gouges on my cheek burn like I cleaned the wounds with Clorox.
I’m flat on my back, seawater shooting up my nostrils. I scrape along a canyon of seashell shards. The water’s only two, maybe three feet deep but the undertow hauls me forward with a rush of seaweed and liquefied sand.
I’m still carrying Richie, keeping his head above the waterline as I slide along underneath it. We’re dragged about ten feet down to the next piling. My left foot slams into the concrete. I brace against the pillar, dig my other shoe into the mucky bottom, lever myself up and out of the water.
I gasp for air.
The boy is shivering and sputtering.
“Are you okay?”
Richie nods.
“Hang on.”
He hugs me, wraps his shivering arms around my neck, his legs around my chest. He’s trembling. His heart racing. Mine, too. We make our way through the swirling lather toward the beach.
Ten feet ahead of us, in water up to his waist, I see Ceepak using both hands to hold Mr. Rock under the water.
“Ceepak!” I scream. “I’ve got Richie! We’re clear.”
Mr. Rock’s legs thrash hard, stirring up murky sand clouds. A shoe breaks through the surface. Not his head. Ceepak won’t let go of his grip.
“Ceepak? I’ve got Richie!”
My partner acts like he can’t hear me.
He forces Mr. Rock’s head down even deeper.
He’s drowning him.
“Ceepak!”
Mr. Rock stops kicking.
“Goddamnit! Ceepak!”
Ceepak slowly turns. There’s a dull look in his eyes, a terrifying emptiness I have never seen there before.
“Let him up!” I’m begging. I know how John Ceepak feels about selfish fathers who would sacrifice a son because the kid cramped their lifestyle.
That’s what brought us down to Atlantic City in the first place.
If Ceepak can’t kill his own dad for what he did, Mr. Rock makes a handy stand-in.
I play my last card. “It’s what he would do!”
Finally, Ceepak hears me. Blinks.
“Let the bastard live!”
A flicker of light returns to Ceepak’s eyes.
He yanks Rock’s head up out of the ocean by his hair.
He lets the bastard gasp and choke and breathe again.
46
The Great Mandini called 911.
One of the ACPD cops who had responded to the scene of the child prostitution situation at Lucky Lilani’s massage parlor was the first one down to our location underneath the Steel Pier.
Richard Rock was led away in handcuffs. Not the kind he’s used to, either. There was no hidden escape latch.
The ambulance guys showed up next. Wrapped little Richie up in a wool blanket. Took him to the hospital. I had to tell the kid he did the right thing, holding out as long as he did. I told him Katie would’ve been proud.
Britney joined her brother at the hospital. DYFS, the state’s Division of Youth and Family Services, will be the kids’ new nanny for a while. Mrs. Rock and David Zuckerman were arrested, too. Accessories to murder. Conspiracy.
There will be no more performances of “Rock ’n Wow!” at the Xanadu Casino or anywhere else any time soon.
That’s a very good thing.
When Dr. McDaniels took a crime-scene unit armed with a search warrant into the Rocks’ hotel suite, they uncovered a treasure trove of notebooks similar to the one tucked in little Richie’s backpack. Apparently, Rock was obsessive-compulsive when it came to keeping notes on his conquests. Inside the padlocked trunk, the CSI crew found 154 marble-covered Mead composition books. The pages were filled with crisp block handwriting.
Richard Rock’s handwriting.
He kept meticulous records. Times. Dates. Who, what, when, where, how. The journals listed the names of 3,994 boys. Detailed descriptions and scores for 18,453 different sex acts. All the graphic details were written down. The entries noted nicknames he gave each of the boys: Slim, Whitey, Curly, Jake the Snake.
Jake Pratt.
The notebook detailing Rock’s Beverly Hills romps with his nephew was the one his son had snatched out of the footlocker when he and his sister went into the parents’ side of the hotel suite to play pirates.
It’s the one Katie Landry eventually saw.
She had her suspicions about her employers when we first met near the candy store because Sherry Amour had already been drunkenly pleading with her about looking after her son, Jake Pratt. “Family,” she said to me. “You never know who’s telling the truth.”
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Late Monday afternoon, when Richie showed his nanny the notebook he had snatched out of his father’s treasure chest, Katie took a quick look inside its pages. Read what it said about Jake the Snake. That’s when she called Julia Pratt, then left me that message.
That’s why she said she wanted to talk to me about Jake Pratt.
Why she got killed.
She hid the notebook in Richie’s backpack and wouldn’t give the kid up, no matter how much they humiliated her with the S and M costume or tortured her with that bolo tie. When she wouldn’t crack for Pratt, he left and Richard Rock came into the room, tried once more to force her to tell him where the notebook was hidden.
She didn’t.
He killed her. Dropped a clump of Pratt’s pubic hairs on the floor. Came back onstage to take his bows.
We know every step of what Mr. Rock did because he wrote it all down in his most recent notebook. It smelled like coconut oil. It was the one he had been using as a suntan-lotion coaster when we talked to him near the indoor pool.
Rock didn’t trust Katie. “We never should’ve hired her,” he wrote. He thought she was a “goody-goody Catholic girl” who “could quickly pose a serious problem to our way of life.”
Sunday morning, he jotted down: “My suspicions continue to grow. Miss Landry’s been looking at me funny today.”
Maybe because the night before Julia Pratt, aka Sherry Amour, had told Katie hard-to-believe horror stories of what had happened to her troubled son out in California.
Later that same morning, Rock visited the massage-parlor boys.
Sunday afternoon, Jake Pratt demanded to see Rock and told him what his mother had said on the elevator ride after the photo shoot, that Katie would be his new nanny, protecting him from Mr. and Mrs. Rock.
Rock became obsessed with “our Katie problem.”
“She is a threat that must be dealt with swiftly, before she finds out too much,” he wrote in his journal. “We must stop her before she stops us.”
Rock spent the rest of Sunday seducing and pretending to fall back in love with Jake Pratt so the young dancer would help him “take care of our mutual nanny problem.” He also harvested a “handful of his hair” as an “insurance policy” because “someone will have to take the rap should we decide to kill Katie. Jake is not integral to our lifestyle. In fact, he is something of a liability.” Rock stored the pubic hair in a Baggie.
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