The Man Who Died Laughing (18 page)

“I’ll tell you.”

“The whole truth?”

“And nuttin’ but.”

“I’ve heard this before.”

“I swear it.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t believe you.”

“It’s the truth. Come out. You’ll see.”

“Why the change of heart?”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“Things … they’ve gotten too out of hand. I-I’ll tell you when you get here.”

“Tell me right now. Why did you and Gabe fight?”

“I … I can’t tell you over the phone. I need to be with ya, to see the look on your face. I need for you to see why it’s been so hard for me. Then you’ll understand.”

“This sounds like more bullshit. Good-bye, Sonny.”

“It’s
not.
Believe me. I need to tell it. It’s gotta be told. It’s the only way things will change. The demons won’t go away. I
gotta
tell you.”

“If you’re lying …”

“If I’m lying, I’ll give ya the entire advance. My share. All of it. It’s yours. Just come.”

“If I come, it won’t be for money. It’ll be because I want to finish what we started. Finish your book.”

“Our
book. Come back. We’ll do it together. Just like we been. Catch the morning flight. Vic’ll meet ya at the airport. Come back to me, Hoagy.”

Lulu and I were on that morning flight. I know just what you’re thinking—as soon as Sonny sobered up he’d clam up, and there I’d be, on my way back home to New York again, pissed off. I knew that. I knew there was only a slim chance that he was really going to tell me the whole story about Connie and Gabe. But I had to take that chance.

Besides, I hadn’t said good-bye to Wanda.

I should have known something was wrong when Vic wasn’t at the airport to meet me. I waited half an hour before I figured Sonny was still out cold and had never told him to pick me up. So I flagged down a cab and gave him Sonny’s address. We got on the freeway. Lulu stood on my lap and stuck her nose out the window and wagged her tail, happy to be back in L.A.

The television news vans and press cars were backed up a full block down the canyon from his house.

“What’s going on?” I asked the cabbie.

“Hey, this must be the Day place!” he exclaimed, excited.

“Yes, it is. What about it?”

He checked me out in his rearview mirror. “You a friend of his?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You don’t know then, huh? He’s dead. Been on the radio all morning. Somebody shot the poor fucker. Sorry to be the one to tell you. That’ll be twenty-five dollars, please. Plus gratuity.”

And that’s how I learned Sonny Day had been murdered—from a polite cab driver.

Reporters, photographers, and camera crews were milling around the front gate, chatting, smoking, waiting. I squeezed through, them with Lulu and my bags. The cop on the gate wouldn’t let me buzz the house. That happened to be his job. So I identified myself and let him do it. He spoke into the intercom and listened. Then he nodded to me. A minute later the gate clicked open and I slipped inside, the reporters shouting after me for my name, my business, my connection, my …

I headed up the driveway. As I rounded the curve where the orchard ended, I saw a cluster of people by the reflecting pool. One of them spotted me and ran toward me.

It was Wanda. She was still in her caftan and her eyes were red and her hair mussed.

“He’s dead, Hoagy,” she wailed. “He’s dead.”

She threw her arms around me and clung to me. I dropped my bags and held her.

I looked over her shoulder at the estate and began to realize how different it looked. Police cars were parked over by the garage. The log arbor was roped off. Uniformed cops, plainclothesmen, and technicians were talking and making notes.

Connie was there by the reflecting pool. So was Harmon Wright. And Vic. As Wanda and I made our way toward them, my arm still around her, Vic spotted me. His face turned red.

“You did it!” he screamed at me. “It’s your fault! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”

An animal roar came out of him. He charged. He came at me full speed, like I was an opposing linebacker. My first instinct was to freeze. Then, as he got closer to me, I tried to sidestep him. I failed. He rammed me straight on and down we went, my head cracking hard against the pavement. The inside of it lit up like a pinball machine. My memory is a bit fuzzy from there on. I remember him snarling. I remember him punching me, pummeling my mouth, my nose, my ears. I remember it hurt. And Wanda was screaming, and the cops were running toward us. And he was right on top of my chest with both hands around my throat, choking me, me gagging, not being able to get any air. And then nothing …

Until I heard the coyotes wailing again. Only this time it wasn’t coyotes. It was an ambulance. I was in it, and somebody was putting something over my face. And then I was out again.

I came to in the hospital. I felt numb all over and very thirsty, and Detective Lieutenant Emil Lamp of the Los Angeles Police Department was sitting at the foot of my bed sucking on an ice cube.

E
MIL LAMP DIDN’T LOOK
more than sixteen. He was a fresh-scrubbed, eager little guy with neat blond hair and alert blue eyes. He had on a seersucker suit, button-down shirt, and striped tie. A bulky Rolex was on one wrist, an Indian turquoise-and-silver bracelet on the other.

“Lulu …” I gasped, my throat parched.

“She’s okay, Mister Hoag,” he assured me. He didn’t sound much more than sixteen either. “Miss Day … Wanda, she has her. Nice dog. Breath smells kind of—”

“C-could I have a drink?”

“Sure, sure.”

He jumped to his feet, all action. There was a carafe on the table next to the bed. Lamp poured some ice water into a styrofoam cup. I started to reach for the cup, only I got stabbed in the side by what felt like a carving knife. I yelped and clutched at the spot. My fingers found tape wrapped there.

“You’ve got a cracked rib,” Lamp informed me, handing me my water. “Had one once myself. Hurts like heck. Take it from me, whatever you do, don’t laugh.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard.” I drank some of the water. It angered my throat going down. Vic’s hands had left it sore and swollen.

“You’ve also got a mild concussion. Your face looks pretty raw, but it’s just cuts and bruises. You’re lucky you didn’t get a fractured skull. That guy’s an animal. You’re in Cedars Sinai hospital on Beverly Boulevard. Doc says you’ll be here for a couple of days.”

I looked around. I was in a private room with a bath, color television, and window. Outside, it was dark.

“I’m not insured,” I told him.

“Your publisher is taking care of everything.”

“They do have a heart after all.” I tried to sit up a little, but my head started to spin. I surrendered to the pillow.

“You’re supposed to call them, when you’re up to it.” Lamp checked his watch. “Which I guess will be tomorrow. You’ve been out almost eight hours.”

“What happened to Vic?”

“We’re holding Early over for questioning and psychiatric observation. It seems he’s had a history of violent episodes since he got back from Nam. Beat a reporter half to death in Las Vegas just a couple of weeks ago
.”

“I was there.”

“Know of a reason he’d have wanted Mr. Day dead?”

“Vic? He loved Sonny.”

“He doesn’t seem to love you much.”

Gingerly, I explored my face with my fingers. My lips were pulpy and tender. My nose felt like a soft potato.

“Could you tell me what happened to Sonny?” I asked.

“Sure, sure.” He sat back down and pulled out a notepad and opened it. “Sometime around three a.m., Pacific time—while you were still waiting for your flight at Kennedy Airport in New York—”

“You checked?”

“You bet I checked. When a dead man’s bodyguard screams ‘You did it! It’s your fault!’ and beats the crap out of some guy, I always check his whereabouts at the time of the murder. That’s how I got to be a lieutenant. Anyway, at approximately three a.m. Sonny Day took three shots in the stomach and chest from close range. It happened in the log arbor. He died before the ambulance got there. Massive internal hemorrhaging. He was in the yard, in his robe. Bed hadn’t been slept in. It was his own gun, a snub-nosed thirty-eight-caliber Smith and Wesson Chief Special. No prints. The bodyguard, Early, says he kept it in the study, loaded at all times. There were two others around the place. Also loaded. Not fired.”

“Somebody broke in?”

“We can’t find any trace of a break-in. Nothing missing. He had darned good security there. Electrified fence, the works. We examined the grounds and the outer wall pretty carefully this afternoon. I don’t think anybody broke in. No sign of a struggle. His hands, nails, the grass, nothing. I think he was shot by somebody whom he let in, or who was already there. You know, somebody he knew. That’s why we’re thinking about Early. He phoned it in. He, Miss Day, and the housekeeper said they were awakened by the shots.” He closed the pad. “You know, Mr. Hoag, this is a real honor for me.”

“First case?”

“Gracious no,” Lamp chuckled. “Oh, heck, no. I mean, my job has brought me in contact with Hollywood celebrities before, but I’ve never met someone like you. I mean, I was a big, big fan of
Our Family Enterprise,
Mr. Hoag.”

“Thanks. And make it Hoagy.”

“As in Carmichael?”

“As in the cheese steak.”

“I went to the library to see about checking out some of your other books, but they didn’t have any.”

“Go ahead, kick me when I’m down.”

“When’s the last time you spoke to Sonny Day?”

“About four in the morning New York time. Yesterday. No, I guess it’s still today, isn’t it? Sorry, I’m kind of fuzzy.”

“That’s the concussion.”

“No, I’m always kind of fuzzy.”

He grinned. “What did you two talk about?”

“The book we were working on together.”

“Did you often talk in the middle of the night like that?”

“Seemingly.”

“Hoagy, you can be a big help to my investigation. I need your cooperation.”

I swallowed. My throat didn’t like that. “You’ve got it.”

“Good. We have a report on file of a death threat Mr. Day received a few weeks ago. Early phoned it in. Evidence was disposed of. Mr. Day requested no intervention on our part. Know anything about it? What it said?”

“Supposedly it had to do with the book. I never saw it.”

“Uh-huh. I read the newspapers. I know Mr. Day was supposed to come out with some pretty choice dirt in this book of yours. Can you talk about that?”

“No reason not to. He was going to reveal the true story behind his famous Chasen’s fight with Gabe Knight. Only he backed out at the last minute. He wouldn’t tell me. Maybe he never intended to. I don’t know for sure. That’s why I went back to New York. And why he called me in the middle of the night. And why I came back. He relented. Said he would tell me.
Promised
me he would. Of course with Sonny, you could never be sure.”

“Either way, it’s something,” Lamp declared enthusiastically. “It sure is. Yes, indeed.” Lamp jumped to his feet again and began to pace around my bed. He sure had a lot of energy. “Could be that somebody didn’t want him to tell you what really happened. Stopped him before he got a chance. Somebody who heard him talking to you on the phone. Or somebody he informed about it. Maybe somebody dropped by for a nightcap. Somebody who figured in this thing, this fight. Yes, I’m starting to like this theory. This walks around the block nicely. Very nicely indeed.”

Not for me it didn’t. If Lamp was right, then so was Vic—Sonny got killed because of me. My head started to spin again, and a wave of nausea washed over me.

“You okay, Hoagy? You look a little green.”

“I’m just dandy.”

“I won’t keep you much longer. Do you have any idea what this fight of theirs was about?”

I shook my head.

“Theory? Speculation?”

I hesitated, then shook my head again, which hurt. I wasn’t ready to go that far with him yet.

Lamp eyed me. “So what’s your next move?”

“I thought I’d try standing up.”

“And then what?”

“Talk to the publisher. See what they want me to do.”

“They’ve stopped a bunch of calls at the desk for you. Newspapers. Television. This one’s a real circus. I guess Mr. Day was still a big, big star to a lot of people.”

Clearly, Lamp was too young to be one of them. I felt particularly ancient all of a sudden.

“Anybody else call to see how I was?”

“Like who?”

I shrugged. That hurt, too.

Lamp opened his notepad again. “There
was
a call from a woman who said she was Merilee Nash.”

There. My heart was beating again. “Any message?”

“Uh …” He checked his pad. “Let’s see … ‘Don’t die, you ninny.’”

All right. I wouldn’t. “When’s Sonny’s funeral?”

“Friday. Miss Day mentioned that you’re welcome to move back into the guesthouse when the doctors release you. She assumed you’d want to stick around for it.”

“She assumed right.”

With great difficulty I raised myself up. My bare feet found the cold floor. I sat there on the edge of the bed for a second, my ears ringing. I was wearing a shortie gown and nothing else.

“You supposed to be up?” Lamp asked.

“Only one way to find out. Give me a hand, would you?”

He stuck a hand under my armpit and helped hoist me up to my feet. I wavered there for a second like a newborn colt. Then I pointed to the John and he helped me stagger toward it. He was a little guy, but strong.

“She seemed real concerned about you, Miss Day did,” he commented, most delicately. “Are you and her …?”

“No.”

“Don’t mean to be nosy. Nice lady. Pretty. Heck, I’ll never forget her in that French movie
Paradise
when she crawled into that guy’s bed and started to—”

“Yeah. You and Vic will get along well. It’s on his top-ten list, too.”

I looked for my reflection in the bathroom mirror but found Frankenstein’s monster instead. My face was mottled several glorious shades of blue and red. All I needed was the bolts sticking out of my neck.

“Listen, Hoagy,” Lamp said from the doorway. “What I said about your being a big help, I meant it. You may know something. Something he told you that nobody else knows. When your head clears, could be it’ll come back to you. Don’t give it out to the press first, okay? Work with me. I’d appreciate it.”