Laughing Man (8 page)

"It's my taste," Jack said; he was standing behind her, at the door.

"No TV?" she said, because she was an avid TV watcher. She glanced around at him.

"No TV," he said, and managed another smile. She thought he was doing more smiling now than he had ever done during their shifts together. "Why don't I put some clothes on, Patricia." He went to his bed, where he'd draped a pair of jeans and a gray sweatshirt over the footboard, scooped them up, went into his little bathroom, and reappeared moments later. He smiled again; it was a good and comforting smile, she thought, though she did not feel comforted by it, and wasn't sure why. "Okay," he said, "what can I do for you?"

She shrugged. "Nothing, really." She looked around for a chair, saw that there was only the threadbare couch and white wooden dining chairs. She gestured at them. "Can I sit down, Jack?"

"Can you sit down?" Another smile; he seemed amused. "Why wouldn't I let you sit down, Patricia?"

She shrugged again. She realized how nervous she looked, and it embarrassed her—they'd worked together for over a year, after all. She nodded, went to one of the dining chairs, pulled it out, sat on it.

"You could sit on the couch, Patricia," Jack said.

"No, no. This is good. I've always liked sitting in kitchens."

"I don't have a kitchen."

"Sure, well, this is a kitchen," she said, meaning the dining table and chairs, the refrigerator, the little gas stove.

He sat across the table from her, smiled again his good and comforting smile, and she thought she was beginning to feel at least a little comforted by it. "It's pleasant to see you, Patricia," he said. "I'm glad you came."

"I should have called first," she said.

He shook his head, then smiled again. "Do you want something? Some coffee, a beer, maybe some tea?"

"Thanks, no. I'm not staying long—"

"Why?"

"Why?" The question took her aback.

Erthmun said, "You can stay as long as you'd like." He reached across the table a bit, as if to touch her hand, though his reach didn't extend far enough. His fingers fluttered for a moment in the air between them; then he laid his hand flat on the white enamel tabletop.

Patricia lowered her gaze because his gaze was so . . . expectant. "Jack, I'm sorry . . . did you believe that I—"

"Did I hope that you were coming on to me?" Another smile. "Perhaps."

She shook her head, gaze still averted. "I was concerned about you, Jack. Only concerned. And I thought you might like an update." She heard a little tremor in her voice, as if she were lying; it surprised her.

"An update," Jack said.

"On these murders."

He nodded a little. "On these murders. Yes. I'd like an update."

She wasn't sure if she believed him. She said, "Actually, there's not a whole hell of a lot to report." Again, she heard a tremor in her voice. "You know about the copycat—"

"I read the papers."

"Then you know that he was murdered?"

"Yes."

She took a breath. "I probably shouldn't be telling you this, Jack, since you're not involved with the investigation anymore—" She hesitated as if uncertain how to continue.

"Go on," Jack coaxed.

She nodded stiffly. "He had the same things done to him that the killer did to the women."

Erthmun didn't miss a beat: "You mean the chocolate in the mouth, et cetera?"

Patricia tried to gauge his demeanor; his tone seemed oddly flat. "Yes," she said.

He nodded a little, his dark eyes closed as if he were in thought. He said nothing for a long moment:

"Jack?" she said.

He opened his eyes. She saw something indefinable in them—a strange combination of desperation, panic, memory. He said, "Then his killer was the same person who killed the two women."

"Yes. The killer was making a statement, I think. Putting the copycat in his place." She felt a little smile creep onto her lips.

"Putting the copycat in his place." He paused. "Yes, that's obvious, isn't it."

"The green contacts, too," Patricia said.

"Of course," Jack said. He sounded suddenly disconnected from the conversation.

Patricia pushed on. "And as for the overall investigation, we have just about zip, I'm afraid. No prints, no weapon—"

Jack cut in. "I would have been glad, Patricia, if you had been coming on to me. But since you weren't, and aren't—that's okay." He leaned far over the table and touched her hand.

She looked silently at his hand.

He said, "Am I making you uncomfortable?" She lifted her gaze to his and nodded a little.

"Why?" he said.

Why?
she wondered.
For God's sake, he had to ask Why?
"Perhaps this was a mistake, Jack." She stood.

"It wasn't," he said, and smiled up at her from his end of the table. "Please, sit down. I really do have no expectations at all in this situation."

She thought about this, decided he was sincere, realized that she really didn't know what her own expectations were tonight. At last, she sat down again, sighed, and said, "Tell me how Internal Affairs is treating you, Jack."

"I'd rather not."

"I understand."

"It's unpleasant," he said. "It's business. They're treating me poorly."

"Smalley seems like a real asshole," Patricia said.

"He's a limited man doing a tough job," Erthmun said. He sat back in his chair, smiled again—clearly to get on to another topic—and said, "I'm going to have a beer. Have one with me, okay?"

She nodded. "Sure."

He stood, went to his refrigerator, poked around in it, came back to the table with two bottles, asked if she needed a glass.

"No," she said.

He sat across from her again. "I want to tell you something significant," he said.

This made her smile. It was so formal.

"Significant?" she said.

He wrapped his hand tightly around his beer bottle, looked earnestly at her for a moment, then turned his head to look out the window. She noticed, for the first time, an odd smell in the place. It wasn't unpleasant. It was evocative of . . . the earth, she thought, and she realized that she had smelled it before, at other times, while she and Jack had worked together. But it was less distinct, then.

He said, "I am not the person I appear to be."

Her immediate inclination was to say,
Who is?
But this would be trite, she decided, even insulting. Clearly, Jack thought that his pronouncement was indeed significant, so she said nothing.

He went on. "I would say, in other words, that I don't know who I am."

"Sort of like a mid-life crisis?" Patricia offered.

"Sort of like a mid-life crisis?" He grinned and shook his head. "No. It's too soon for that."

She grinned back, embarrassed.

"Shit, Patricia, I'm only thirty-seven years old. Do I look older?"

"No, no. You look thirty-seven."

Another grin. "Not thirty-six or thirty-eight?" She chuckled.

He said, "Do you remember much of your childhood, Patricia?"

"Yes. I had a good childhood. I'm a little surprised when other people complain about their unhappy childhoods. Mine wasn't unhappy. Mine was okay. I remember most of it, I think. I remember milking a cow when I was . . . two years old."

"You grew up on a farm?"

"No. I was a city brat. But my grandparents lived on a farm and we visited them a lot. They were great. They used to sing us French folk songs and my grandfather played caroms with us till our fingers hurt—"

"Caroms?"

"Sure. You never played caroms?"

"I don't remember playing any games when I was a kid, Patricia."

This announcement surprised her. "All kids play games, Jack. It doesn't matter who they are or who their parents are. All kids play games. The kids in Harlem have the fire hydrants turned on in the summer and they run around in the water. That's a game."

"I remember running, yes," Erthmun said. "I remember running everywhere." He leaned over the table and lowered his head, so his gaze was on the lip of his beer bottle. "Jesus, I could run like a fucking jackrabbit. Jesus!" He grinned. "I don't look like I could run like a jackrabbit, do I? But I could. I remember it."

Patricia reached far across the table and touched his hand. She wanted to say something comforting.

He went on, looking at her. "I had four sisters, did you know that?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't."

He nodded, lowered his gaze again. "One died shortly after I was born."

"I'm sorry."

"She disappeared, actually. She was six years old. She went out to play . . . she went to a place that my mother had told her to stay away from, and no one ever saw her again." He closed his eyes and shook his head, as if the memory gave him pain, although, Patricia guessed, he couldn't have remembered the incident. "They found her clothes. Her shorts and her shirt and sneakers. I remember that my mother told me to stay away from the same place when I was three or four. I don't think I obeyed her. I can't remember. I think I went there once or twice. I think I actually went there looking for my sister. The sister I'd never met." He glanced out the window, then into Patricia's eyes again. "I've seen pictures of her. She was a cute little thing."

"She looked like you, Jack?"

He shook his head. "No. None of my sisters looks like me. They're all tall and blonde and gray-eyed."

"Very pretty, then."

"Very." He grinned at her.

She saw her faux pas. "Jeez, I didn't mean that the way it sounded, Jack. You're a very attractive man."

"A very attractive man," Jack echoed her. "I'm built like a fire hydrant."

"Yes, but you're an attractive fire hydrant. I mean that."

He nodded, said they were getting off the subject, to which Patricia said, "I didn't know we were on a particular subject."

"Yes," he said. "We are. Me. Fascinating subject." Then he smiled again, and she realized, at last, what all his smiling and grinning should have already told her.

"My God, Jack, this is some kind of crisis you're going through, isn't it?"

"Crisis?" he said, and seemed to think about the word for a moment. "Yes," he said, still smiling.

"This is a personal crisis for you, isn't it?" she said.

"It's that and a lot more," he said. "And I'm sorry I've trapped you in it."

"Trapped me in it? I don't feel trapped."

"But you are, Patricia."

It sounded like a threat, though Patricia was certain he hadn't meant it that way. She said, "I don't know what you mean, Jack," and felt a nervous grin play on her mouth. She took a sip of beer, heard it pass noisily down her throat, chuckled a little, embarrassed, and set the bottle down hard on the tabletop.

Erthmun said, "Do I scare you?"

"Scare me?" she chirped.

"I do, don't I?"

"No. Why should you?" She gave him a big, broad smile.

"I shouldn't," he said. "But I think I do. I'm . . . unpredictable."

She said nothing. He was right, but she didn't want to tell him so.

He said, "I scare myself these days." He stopped talking; he looked perplexed.

"And?" Patricia coaxed after a few moments.

"It's like . . . Do you know about the tumors some people get . . . they get tumors, say, in their groin or in their armpit, and when the doctors take them out, these tumors are the remnants of the person's twin? Have you heard of that? Jesus, it's ghastly, isn't it!"

Patricia didn't know what to say. She took another noisy sip of her beer. She wanted to leave the apartment, but had no idea how to do it without hurting his feelings. He was right, she realized. She really
was
trapped.

He went on. "It's like I have one of those twins inside me, Patricia. But it isn't a twin
per se.
It's not a clot of fetal matter that might once have been my brother." He grinned oddly. "It's part of
me."
He paused, as if for thought, and continued. "It's what
completes
me." He seemed to think about this, too, then sighed. He looked hopelessly at sea. "Do you have any idea what I'm talking about, Patricia?"

She didn't. She said, "I think so, Jack. I'm not sure." She took another noisy sip of her beer.

"Listen, I'm sorry," he said. "This all sounds very, very strange, doesn't it? I'm really sorry. But there's something else, too. This thing inside me, this . . .
me
inside me . . . Jesus, it's"—he pointed stiffly at the window—"out
there,
too! And it's not just one, or two or three, it's . . . dozens. Hundreds!"

She nodded quickly. "Yes, out there," she said. "I understand," she finished; it was a lie.