The Man Who Died Laughing (26 page)
Hoag:
No! Ouch! Let go!
Stop that!
Day: Give it to me! Give it to me or—
Hoag:
Or
what?!
You’ll kill
me,
too? Then who? Gabe? Harmon? It’s over, Wanda. It’s all over. Fade-out. The end.
(end tape)
O
NLY IT WASN’T OVER
yet. Not for her it wasn’t.
She still had an escape scene in mind. As soon as I turned off the tape recorder, she dashed out of the study and up the stairs. A minute later she reappeared wearing a halter top, gym shorts, and sneakers, and carrying a nylon overnight bag and her car keys.
I met her at the bottom of the steps.
“Where are you going, Wanda?” I placed my hands on her shoulders.
“Baja,” she replied coolly. “You can still come. The offer stands.”
“Wanda, I can’t let you leave.”
“If you try to stop me, it means you don’t love me. I don’t believe that, Hoagy. I believe in our love. Coming?”
I shook my head.
“Then good-bye, Hoagy.”
She kissed me lightly on the mouth, then slipped past me and out the front door.
“Wanda, I
mean
it!” I called after her.
She was running now, running for her Alfa, which sat in the big circular driveway with its top down. She jumped in and started the engine.
I had no car. There was no way I could stop her. No way at all. Until I glanced over to the lawn and spotted the javelin I’d been ’pooning with the other day.
She started for the gate. I started for the spear. As the gate began to open, I took my running start and I fired. My form and extension were excellent, the arch and distance magnificent. So was my aim. The javelin speared her windshield dead center, shattering the glass on impact. The tires screeched and then the little Alfa careened off the driveway and into an orange tree.
She flung open her door and started to scramble out, but there was nowhere for her to run to. The cops from the gate were already dashing toward her to see if she was okay.
She slumped back down into her seat, defeated.
Lulu was sitting on the front porch, clearly impressed. I’d told her many times before about my ’pooning prowess, but she’d never actually seen it for herself.
“Everybody,” I explained, “ought to be good at something.” Then I went inside to call Lamp.
It was a small, dark bar on Santa Monica Boulevard over near the freeway. Not far from where we’d just seen Connie Morgan buried. Lulu sat next to me in a booth toward the back, munching on a pretzel. Her flight carrier was in the trunk of Lamp’s car, along with my bags. Lamp sat across from us, helping me drink a pitcher of draft. Lamp didn’t look sixteen anymore. The Day family had aged him.
There would be a trial. Being a witness, I’d have to come back for it. But I was free to go for now. Lamp had the tape I’d made of our final conversation. He had the truth. The press didn’t. He’d been ordered not to tell them. Wanda’s secret was going to remain Wanda’s secret. At least it was for now. Harmon had seen to that—with a few phone calls.
“Don’t mess with the Heshman.”
Yes, Wanda killed Sonny. Yes, Connie knew about it. That was why she confessed, why she took her own life. That much was public. But no one knew the real reason why. All they knew was that Wanda had been mentally disturbed, and that Connie had done what she did to protect her daughter from further pain. No one could condemn a mother for that. Especially America’s favorite mother.
“It’s a strange thing sometimes, Hoagy,” Lamp said quietly.
“What is?”
“Justice. I mean, it will be served. A person committed a crime, and she’ll pay for it. Justice will be served. But, then again, it won’t be served at all.”
“Nothing you can do to him, huh?”
He shook his head. “Orders.”
I filled his glass. “Give me a couple of months. I’ll take care of him. I’ll ruin him. You can count on it.”
Lamp brightened. “You’re putting it in your book?”
“Absolutely. People have always wondered why Knight and Day broke up. Now I can tell them. True story.”
“What about your publisher? Aren’t they afraid of a lawsuit?”
“Harmon’s trying to lean on them. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you can’t lean on people who smell money.”
We touched glasses. Lamp was grinning now.
A couple of Mexican gardeners in T-shirts, jeans, and straw cowboy hats came in out of the bright sunlight, sat down at the bar, and ordered Coors.
“By the way, Hoagy …” He reached into his suit pocket and yanked out a dog-eared paperback of
Our Family Enterprise
and inched it across the table at me. “Would you mind autographing it for me?”
“It’d be a pleasure, Lamp.”
I took out a pen and thought for a second. Then I wrote on the inside flap:
“To Lieutenant Emil Lamp. Don’t ever change.”
Then I signed it and pushed it back to him.
He read it and blushed. “Aw, heck. Thanks, Hoagy. Thanks a lot. About … about Miss Day. I’m sorry. Seemed like a nice lady.”
“She was. Also a crazy lady. But thanks.” I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “We got time for another pitcher?”
“Why not?”
“You sure you’re over the legal drinking age?”
He winked at me. “They’re willing to serve me here as long as I don’t have more than two.”
So I got us another one and we drained it while it was still cold.
They’d just mowed the lawn in front of the Veterans Administration hospital. It smelled fresh and green outside. Inside, the building was modern and clean. I can’t say it was cheerful.
It took me awhile to find him. I had to go through the nurse on the desk downstairs, and another one on the third floor. He shared a sunny ward with a dozen or so other Vietnam vets. Several of them were asleep. Three were playing cards. A couple more were listening to Sony Walkmans. Vic was sitting up in bed. There was a
Sports Illustrated
in his hands, only he wasn’t reading it. His eyes were glazed over. A dribble of saliva was coming out of the corner of his mouth. He was in la-la land. Tranked out. I waved a hand in front of his face. He didn’t blink.
I wrote my name, address, and phone number on the back of a card and left it on his nightstand, in case he wanted to get hold of me. In case he ever could. Then I patted him on the shoulder and went back downstairs to Lamp’s car.
It was finally spring in New York. The yushies were out in Riverside Park, jogging, bicycling, pushing their babies in their strollers. A few old beatniks were digging up the soil of the community flower garden. Two teenaged boys with pale faces and punk haircuts were tossing a baseball back and forth.
Lulu and I took the path down to the Hudson Boat Basin. I sat down on a scarred bench that faced the river and looked out at the haze over New Jersey. Lulu curled up and went to sleep with her head on my foot.
I thought about Sonny, and what he’d meant to me and how much I missed him. I thought about Wanda. The smell of her. Being inside of her. Alive again. I thought about Merilee. Maybe I’d send her a copy of the book when it came out. I’d like to think she’d want one.
The sun fell behind the Jersey Palisades and the lights came on in the park. Time to go back to the typewriter. I stood up. Lulu roused and shook herself and steered me back to our apartment.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2006 by David Handler
cover design by Kathleen Lynch
978-1-4532-5976-4
This 2012 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
FROM FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM
AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
