The Laughing Man

by Forrest, Richard;

He selected a Browning automatic .12 gauge and a box of heavy shot. The bill was a hundred and fifty dollars.

  “Deer season isn’t open yet,” the clerk said.

  “This is for bear.”

  “Man, you look like you fell down a flight of stairs—twice.” Joe Vital, the manager of Harry Rubinow’s real estate office, stood at the steps of the house on Ferry Road. He was a dapper, diminutive man wearing a plaid checkered sports coat. He looked at the shotgun leaning against the wall and stuck out a hand. “Joe Vital. You called about a listing?”

  “I’m interested. If I can get the right price fast.”

  A look of incipient greed flickered in Joe Vital’s eyes. “We can provide a more efficient service with a long-term exclusive—six months would be appropriate.”

  “I’m in a bigger hurry than that.” Brian sat on the porch rail. For an instant, a sense of vertigo moved the porch, and he grasped the balustrade for security until the world steadied. “Where’s Harry?”

  “He and the missus are on a cross-country motor trip.”

  “Didn’t think that sightseeing was Harry’s bag.”

  Vital shrugged and smiled. “Surprised me, him taking off that quickly. Not that they hadn’t been talking about the trip for years, but none of us ever thought he’d really go.”

  “Real sudden, then?”

  “An hour’s notice. But Harry’s like that. When he makes up his mind to do something, he does it. Now, I’ll tell you, Mr. Maston, we sell by the objectives. We’ll allocate a proposal to your property. Perhaps consider subdividing, and then interest some ‘top-flight’ builder.”

  Allocate a proposal. Brian turned the phrase over in his mind a moment, a little unsure of its meaning. “That’s interesting. What do you think we can get for the place?”

  “How many acres you got?”

  “About twenty.”

  “Say we start off with seventy thou.”

  Brian felt that was twenty under current market, but remained silent. “I don’t like your talk of six months.”

  “Better to reach our objectives.”

  I’ll bet, Brian thought. At that price they’d buy it themselves in the name of a nominee. They walked from the porch into the yard. Brian’s legs were weak, but the movement seemed to stabilize him. They went around the rear of the house toward the orchard and stopped to look over the fields. “I’ll tell you, Joe. You don’t mind if I call you Joe?”

  “Course not, Brian. You always carry that shotgun?”

  “Yes. Listen, I have to go back to Canada, fast. And if I could unload this property right away, I’d let it go for fifty.”

  “Fifty? How fast?”

  “Friday.”

  “That would be difficult, what with the probate of your mother’s estate and the title search.”

  “The property was transferred to my name before her death, and Clinton Robinson already has a search on it. Friday, or we go for ninety.”

  He could almost hear the perspiration ooze from Joe Vital’s palms, as they looked silently over the north field. “That’s a good deal, Brian, but with Harry out of town … and I’d need him in on it for financing …”

  “Get hold of Harry,” Brian snapped.

  “He’s on the road for maybe a couple of months. There’s no way to get in touch with him.”

  “Now, Joe. I can’t believe Harry would run off without leaving someone with a limited power of attorney.”

  Joe Vital laughed. “He’d sure in hell never give that to anyone.”

  “Or have some way you could get in touch with him when a good deal like mine comes along.”

  “It’s only for the strictest emergency, and I’m the only one with the information.”

  “Fifty, firm. If Harry goes along?”

  By the time they reached the real estate office over the shopping center, it was ten. The other salespeople were on coffee break as Joe asked Brian to wait in the outer office while he went inside to make the call. Brian sat on the edge of a desk directly by a call director. He gently lifted the receiver and when a line lit on the director, depressed the corresponding button.

  “Ethan Allen Inn,” a crisp operator answered.

  “Room 212,” Joe Vital said, with a twinge of excitement still in his voice. “Harry, it’s Joe.”

  “Goddamn it, Joe! I told you not to get in touch unless you’re in hot water up to your ass.”

  “This is hot, Harry. No kidding. Real hot, or I wouldn’t call. We can clear fifty, maybe seventy big ones on this deal.”

  “No wet dreams?”

  “Solid. You know Brian Maston, whose mother just died. He wants to sell that whole parcel on Ferry Road for fifty thousand, if we can close fast. How’s that for a sweet proposition?”

  There was a pause until Harry’s voice came back with a deep chill. “Where’s Brian now?”

  “Ready to go for Bond for Deed today, if you give me the okay.”

  “Where the fuck is he?”

  “Sitting right out in the other office, Harry, big as life.”

  “You fool!”

  Through the open door, Brian saw Joe Vital hold the phone away from his ear and look at it in utter astonishment. “Hello, Harry. It’s Brian.”

  “What kind of game are you playing, Maston? You can’t sell that property until the will is probated.”

  “Get Joe off the line.”

  “Get off the damn phone, Vital. Go take a coffee break.” The phone in the inner office was hung up, and Joe Vital, shoulders slumped, pushed past Brian.

  “I think I’ve been had,” he said as he left the office.

  “All right, Harry, we’re alone. Where are you?”

  “Not as far away as I’m going to be before this day is over. And if you’re smart, you’ll do the same. Go the other way this time. Go to Mexico. Dissolve into some small village where he’ll never find you.”

  Brian clenched the receiver until his knuckles turned white. “Who, Harry? Someone is trying to kill me and I’d like to know why.”

  “And he will, unless you get the hell away from there.” There was an indecipherable argument in the background, until Harry’s voice once again became clear. “It’s Brian, and he’s going to get us all killed.”

  “I’ve been worried sick about you.” Martha was on the phone, with a voice filled with concern.

  “I’d rather have information than compassion.”

  “I can understand. You know how much I care for you, son. You’ve been like one of the family, and Mary was my best …”

  “Cut the crap, Martha. Things have been happening to me.”

  “What sort of things?”

  “A man’s shooting at me.”

  There was a mumbled conversation until Harry came back on the phone. His voice sounded tired. “All right. Get up here fast. We’ll talk for a few minutes and then leave in opposite directions. But for God’s sake, hurry. I don’t trust them one minute.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The Ethan Allen Inn, Williamstown, Mass, room—”

  “I know. Room 212. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  Brian felt he could make better time on the trip to Massachusetts in Jan’s car, and switched Gordon’s for hers. The route took him through the northwesterly quadrant of Connecticut into the Berkshire Mountains. He drove a circuitous route, observing to himself that recently he had been seeing more back roads than he really cared to.

  The shotgun, fully loaded, lay within easy reach on the seat by his side. He wondered if he would be able to fire if the black man with the long-barreled revolver should pull abreast of him.

  Locating the two-story motel on the far side of Williamstown, Brian was relieved to see a large Cadillac bearing Connecticut marker plates parked by one of the middle units. A local taxi pulled in just in front of him, taking the only parking place near Harry Rubinow’s car.

  As Brian pulled past the parked cars, a large black man left the cab and went toward room 212.

 
Brian was sure he had been set up. Martha’s concern was a spider’s enticement to get him into the motel room to face the man with the gun.

  He parked around the corner of the building and pulled the shotgun over his lap. His fingers curled around the trigger guard, while he tried to clear his mind for a possible course of action.

  They expected him to knock on the door of room 212, and once inside, shotgun or not, he would be vulnerable. He wondered if the local police were a possible variable. His body still ached, and recent events had become a confused kaleidoscope of unanswered questions, against a backdrop of fear.

  The Rubinows and the black man together might provide the answers. He left the car in a quick motion of resolution.

  The taxi nosed around the corner of the building. Brian dropped to the pavement and rolled partially under the car. The taxi, with the black man in the rear seat, continued through the lot toward the street.

  Brian got in his car and followed. He kept as far back as he could without losing sight of the cab. It picked up speed, turned on a highway and headed north toward the Vermont border. Five miles from town, the cab made a right turn on a dirt road leading to a small airport. Brian pulled off the road and parked in a small cove of trees.

  A twin-engine Beechcraft, its propellers turning, waited at the far end of the runway. Though it began to take off the moment the black man climbed in the cabin, Brian was able to make out its registration numbers as it flew overhead.

  Standing before unit 212, Brian knocked softly. The shotgun, wrapped in a blanket he found in the car trunk, was cradled in his arms. He knocked again. They couldn’t have left. Harry’s Cadillac was still parked a few feet away.

  The door was unlocked. He let the blanket fall from the rifle as he stepped into the room.

  They were sprawled across the beds with bullet holes in the centers of their foreheads. Martha held a piece of lingerie loosely between dead fingers, while Harry’s drink had spilled to form a dark stain on the spread. Brian stood over Martha and looked down at her heavy face, obscenely insensitive in its death mask.

  “Who am I, Martha? Who the hell am I?”

  Chapter Ten

  Brian looked out through the dusty tack room window to see a darkening sky shroud the fields. The day matched his mood and the vehement strokes of the hacksaw blade. The barrel of the shotgun, clamped in the workbench vise, was almost severed. Next, he would cut the stock near the pistol grip. A length of barrel clattered to the floor as he tapped it with a ball-peen hammer. Reversing the weapon, he began to cut through the stock.

  At the advent of darkness, intermittent drops of rain splattered against the window and began a tattoo on the roof. The thunderstorm was full-blown by the time he had completed his renovations on the shotgun. Hefting it, he estimated its new length at fourteen inches. The ballistics of the shot pattern would be grossly affected and it would have a terrific recoil, but would be a devastatingly lethal weapon at close range.

  The stormy weather was a stroke of luck. He donned a long raincoat and slipped the sawed-off shotgun inside a deepened pocket. It bulged but would pass a cursory glance. He turned from the workbench to face the far wall that separated the tack room from the remainder of the barn. Reaching inside the pocket, he withdrew the weapon and fired simultaneously with a thunderclap. The blast blew a twelve-inch hole through the heavy wooden partition.

  A flash of headlights through the front window illuminated the room as he pumped another shell into the chamber. Instinctively, Brian crouched in the shadows by the far corner, leaned forward with the shotgun steadied across his forearm and aimed toward the door.

  His finger tightened on the trigger as the door opened.

  “Put that blunderbuss away.”

  “I almost blew you in half.” Tremors worked upward from his legs toward his arms and shoulders. “What are you doing here, Clinton?”

  “Looking for my client. For a man who deserted the infantry, you have a strange propensity for guns.”

  “The Rubinows are dead.”

  “Your doing?”

  “It was the same guy who’s been after me.”

  “In that case, I suggest we get the hell away from here.”

  A strong easterly wind had pushed the thunderhead further inland, and its passing left a heavy feeling in the air. Jan increased the oppressiveness in her small house by her insistence that all windows and blinds be drawn.

  Clinton twirled his thumbs on the couch and, oblivious to Jan’s sidelong glance, plunked his feet up on the coffee table. He examined the ceiling for a few moments before searching through a mass of papers from his pocket to find the back of an envelope with a tiny available space for writing. “I’ll trace the airplane if you’ll give me those registration numbers again.”

  Brian repeated the wing numbers he had memorized when the private plane took off in Massachusetts. They both looked at him apprehensively as he worked the bolt of the shotgun on his lap. The recounting of the day’s events, and the possibility that the last possible link had now been destroyed, exhausted him, and Brian wanted to sleep.

  “And so, you left.” It was a statement.

  “Hell, I’m already under arrest in Connecticut. All I need is to have them pick me up in Massachusetts at a murder scene. They’d throw the key away.”

  “Anyone at the motel see you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Let’s hope some bright room clerk didn’t notice you skulking around and make a note of your marker number.” He leaned back and looked pensive. “They’ll make identification of the Rubinows as soon as they find the bodies. That will mean contact with Connecticut authorities to check out the situation in Tallman. I’ll call some friends in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office and indicate you’ll make a voluntary statement.”

  “From a cell?”

  “My boy, it’s my job to keep you from incarceration. If I can.”

  “You guarantee that?”

  “I don’t guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow. I found something in my encyclopedia today. Does it mean anything to you?” He handed Brian a Xeroxed page.

  Brian read the article twice.

  “Bellchamp, David Wright (1830–1864), Confederate Cavalry officer in the American Civil War, was born near Chapel Hill, Tenn., on July 13, 1830. Educated at Virginia Military Institute, he was commissioned in the United States Army in 1851. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he resigned his commission and enlisted in a Confederate cavalry regiment. Serving with distinction at the battle of Shiloh, he was present at the capture of Fort Pillow and was subject to much controversy over the so-called Pillow massacre. Tried by military court-martial, he was executed by the Confederate army on June 20, 1864.”

  Brian handed the article back to Clinton. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Clinton shrugged. “Never can tell. Well, we at least know several things.”

  “You might. I don’t even know who I am.”

  “That’s number one. Your identity is tied to the killings. Two: for the first time, they have come out in the open and committed what is obvious murder. Three: whoever is behind all this is getting worried. Their actions aren’t nearly as considered as they initially were.”

  “That doesn’t tell us much.”

  “The fourth is the most important. You saw the man who killed the Rubinows.”

  “I might be able to identify him.”

  “And if you continue, they will try again to eliminate you.”

  “Continue in what?”

  “Trying to find out who you are.”

  “That’s great. If I find out who I am, then I am not anyone, because some giant of a guy knocks me off with a silenced gun.”

  Clinton pushed away from the sofa. “I would advise you to be careful. In the meanwhile, we must track down other possibilities.”

  “Am I paying for these great words?”

  “Of course. Now, we know there isn’t any record of your birth or adoption under the n
ame of Maston. That, of course, does not rule out the possibility that you were born overseas. Which is highly unlikely, due to wartime conditions. However, you could be someone else’s illegitimate child, whom Mary decided to take in for some reason. In which case, Mary just arbitrarily assumed the Maston name.”

  “That narrows it down considerably,” Brian said with bitterness.

  “You still have the picture of the man who was supposed to be your father?”

  “Slightly scorched from Lockwood’s attempt to burn it.”

  “Trace it.”

  As he slept in the chair with the gun on his lap, it came again. The dank smell and reaching hands that put him in the enclosed space. He awoke with a start to find he was on his feet waving the gun.

  “Are you all right?” Jan stood in the doorway with her robe clutched at her neck. “Wouldn’t you rather come in the bedroom?”

  “No. It’s close to dawn. Do you suppose I could have a cup of coffee?”

  He followed her to the kitchen, where she moved around the stove like a sleepwalker. “How are you going to trace the picture?”

  Brian pulled it from his pocket and turned the crinkled photograph over. “There’s the name of the studio on the back. May as well start with that.”

  “It must have been taken over thirty years ago.”

  “It’s all I’ve got to go on.”

  The Egan photography studio was located on a deteriorating street, far from the skyscraper shadows of Hartford’s urban renewal. The street was crowded with shops that purveyed used goods, cheap liquor and the false sexuality of “adult books” and massage parlors.

  The dust-streaked window of the narrow store was filled with yellowing pictures of long-ago brides and babies smiling wistfully. A small bell attached to the upper portion of the frame tinkled as the door opened, and reminded Brian of the shop bell at the house on Ferry Road. The store was empty, although he could see a back room through a partially open door, with a tripod mounted camera in front of a torn black backdrop.

  “Anybody home?”

  A chair scraped, someone grunted, and a hunched man with a Daliesque mustache hobbled out to the counter. “Yeah.”

  “I’m interested in a picture.”