The Man Who Died Laughing

by David Handler

“You seem to have a lot of them.”

  “This job leaves me plenty of time to think.”

  Sonny’s house was off Benedict on a little dead-end road about five miles above Sunset behind a big electric gate. Vic opened the gate by remote control. It closed behind us all by itself. The driveway curved past a couple of acres of fragrant orange and lemon orchards, then a reflecting pool with palms carefully arranged around it. The house was two stories high and vaguely Romanesque. It looked like a giant mausoleum. Actually the whole place, with its neatly manicured grounds, came off like a memorial park.

  Inside, there was an entry hall that was bigger than my entire apartment and a formal dining room with a table that could seat a couple of dozen without any knees knocking. The living room was two stories high and all glass. A brook ran through the middle of it, and there were enough trees and plants growing there to stock a Tarzan movie.

  Vic pushed a button. I heard a motor whir and the glass ceiling began to roll back, sending even more sunlight in.

  “If everyone lived in a glass house,” said Vic, “nobody would get stoned.”

  I stared at him blankly.

  “Sonny’s joke,” he explained.

  Sonny’s study was off the living room behind double hardwood doors. It was paneled and carpeted and had a big slab of black marble for a desk. There were plaques and awards and autographed photos hanging everywhere, photos of Sonny with three, four, five different U.S. presidents, with Frank Sinatra, with Bob Hope, with Jack Benny, with Groucho Marx. There were no photos of him with Gabe Knight. The lobby poster from Moider, Inc. hung over the black leather sofa. Over the fireplace there was a formal oil portrait of Sonny made up as his sad-sack clown in The Big Top. A single tear glimmered on his cheek.

  “Very impressive,” I said. “And the rest, I take it, is closet space?”

  “Six bedrooms, each with its own bath, sitting room, and fireplace,” replied Vic. “The guesthouse is separate. It overlooks the swimming pool and the log arbor.”

  “Log arbor?”

  “For shade.”

  “Of course.”

  A flagstone path led across a few acres of lawn to the guesthouse. The bedroom was done in bright yellow and came equipped with a color TV, IBM Selectric, kitchenette, and bath. Sonny’s health spa was right across the hall, complete with Universal weight machine, chrome dumbbells, slant boards, exercise mats, and mirrored walls.

  “Very handy in case I get an urge to work on my pecs in the middle of the night,” I said.

  “Sonny’ll be back around one,” said Vic. “Why don’t you unpack?”

  “Fine. Say, is this place secure?”

  “Very. Private patrol cars, electrified fence, computerized alarm bell system on all doors and windows. Three handguns, one in my room, one in Sonny’s room, and one in his study. All of them loaded.” He chuckled. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sound. “Not that there’s anything to be uptight about.”

  “Sonny’s joke?”

  He frowned. “No, mine.”

  “Actually, what I meant was, is there a fence all the way around, so Lulu can run loose?”

  “Oh. Yes, there is. She won’t tinkle in any specimen plants, will she?”

  “Never has.”

  I let her off her leash. She rolled around happily on the grass and began to bark at the birds.

  It was so quiet there in the guesthouse my ears buzzed. I unpacked my tape recorder, blank cassettes, notepads, and the quart of Jack Daniel’s. There was ice and mineral water in my little refrigerator. I made myself a drink and downed it while I hung up my clothes. Then I said good-bye to my winter tweed sportcoat, cashmere crewneck, and flannel slacks and padded into the bathroom.

  I looked kind of sallow there in the mirror. I was showing a little more collarbone than I remembered, and there were circles under my eyes. I certainly didn’t look like the man who, fifteen years before, had been the third-best javelin thrower in the entire Ivy League.

  I showered and toweled off and switched to California clothes—pastel polo shirt, khakis, and sneakers. I still had another ten minutes until lunch. I was going to celebrate that fact, but the Jack Daniel’s wasn’t on the desk where I’d left it. It wasn’t anywhere.

  It was gone.

  Someone had, however, left me a small gift on my bed. There I found an old, yellowing eight-by-ten glossy of Knight and Day from the movie Jerks, back when they were still in their twenties and baby-faced. They were posed behind the counter in their white soda-jerk smocks and caps. Gabe wore a slightly annoyed expression and two scoops of melting ice cream atop his head. Sonny had the grin and the scooper.

  The photo was autographed by each of them, and a very fine grade Wusthof Dreizackwerk carving knife was plunged through the middle of it and into my pillow.

  Sonny had my Jack Daniel’s in front of him on the glass dining table that was set for two next to the swimming pool. He wore a royal-blue terry cloth sweat suit and was reading Daily Variety. Lulu dozed at his feet.

  He grinned as I approached him. “Welcome to L.A., pally. All settled in?”

  I deposited my pillow on the table as I’d found it. “I’m not ordinarily one to complain about accommodations, but your better hotels leave their guests one individually wrapped chocolate on the pillow at bedtime. I prefer bittersweet.”

  “Jeez, where’d you find the old still?” Sonny asked, leaning over slightly, examining it. “Haven’t seen one of these in twenty years. Signed, even. Must be worth sixty, seventy cents. But what’s with the knife?”

  “Someone left it for me when I was in the shower.”

  Sonny leaned back and squinted up at me. “You mean like some kind of gag?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Hey, don’t look at me, pally. I didn’t do it.”

  “Well, someone did.” I eyed my bottle before him.

  “Ohhh … I see how it looks. Sure.” Sonny winked at me. “Forgot to tell ya—Bela Lugosi’s ghost lives here. I’ll have Maria get you another pillow, okay? Sit.”

  I stood. Sonny was behaving as if this sort of thing happened routinely. Water lawn. Take out garbage. Stick knife in bedding.

  He tapped my bottle with a lacquered fingernail. “I think we’re gonna have to reach an agreement about this.”

  “You’re damned right. I do what I want, when I want, provided it doesn’t interfere with our work. And you stay out of my room or I’m moving into a hotel—at your expense.”

  “Calm down, pally. Calm down. I know what it’s like. I been there.” He fingered the bottle thoughtfully. “It’s like somebody’s taking away your security blanket. I’ll let you in on a little secret though, pally—“

  “You really don’t have to.”

  “You don’t need this bottle. You’re fine the way you are. Know what I learned at Betty Ford? Your problems, your fears, your personal bogeymen—they’re not unique. Everybody’s got ’em. So don’t hate yourself. Pat yourself on the back. And siddown, will ya?”

  I sat down. He poured me some orange juice from a pitcher.

  “Fresh squeezed from my own trees, no chemicals.” He sat back with his hands behind his head. “Look, I went through a very bad time. I wouldn’t reach out for help. I suffered because of it. I don’t want you to make the same mistake I made, okay?”

  “Let’s get something straight, Sonny. I didn’t come out here for therapy. I’m here to work on your book. Do a job. Just leave me be, or—

  “Or what? You’ll quit? Let’s put our cards on the table, pally. I checked you out. You need this book. You need it as bad as I do. Know what’s on my calendar next week? I’m emceeing the ‘Miss Las Vegas Showgirl Beauty Pageant.’ For cable. That’s it. One day of work. This pad is paid for from the old days, when it was coming in like you wouldn’t believe. Otherwise, I’m out on the street. We’ve both seen better days, so let’s not pull each other’s puds, huh?” He softened, put a hairy paw on my arm. “Tell me if I’m butting in—”

  “Yo
u’re butting in.”

  “—but I want us to be close friends. It matters to me. And if it matters to me, it matters, understand? We’re gonna be spending a lot of time together. I expect to tell you pretty personal things. If I’m gonna spill my guts to you, I need to feel you’ll also confide in me. I need for us to have a relationship, okay? Drink your juice.”

  I hadn’t been wrong—here was the job. But what was that knife all about? Had Sonny left it? If so, why? If not, who had left it? I sipped my juice and went to work. “Okay. Just don’t push me.”

  He stuck out his lower lip. “I know. Sometimes I come on too strong. I apologize.”

  “No problem.”

  “I take it from your book you’re not too close to your people. Or am I pushing too hard again?”

  “No, that’s okay. I … Correct. I’m not close.”

  “Brothers? Sisters?”

  I shook my head.

  “So who do you confide in then? Your friends?”

  “My writing is my outlet.”

  “I don’t get you book guys. Gag writers I’m used to. They’re all nuts, but I can relate to ’em, because deep down they’re performers, like me. But book guys—why would somebody want to spend their whole life all alone in a room, just them and a piece of paper?”

  “Ever read Henry Miller?”

  “Smut artist, wasn’t he?”

  “He once wrote, ‘No man would set a word down on paper if he had the courage to live out what he believed in.’”

  “What do you believe in, Hoagy?”

  “Nothing much, anymore.”

  “Know what I believe in? Human beings. We’re all in this together. We’re all afraid. I believe in human beings. I love ’em. I even love you.”

  “You’re not going to hug me, are you?”

  “I’d like to, but I sense it would make you uncomfortable.”

  “That’s very perceptive.”

  “Boy, you’re gonna be a project” He grinned. “You are gonna be a project!”

  The housekeeper brought us out our lunch. Marie was short, chubby, and in her fifties. Lunch was cold chicken, green salad, whole wheat bread, and fruit. Sonny ate with his face over his plate, shoveling with both hands.

  “Do me a favor, Hoagy?” he asked, food spraying out of his mouth. “It’s a personal request. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but … how’s about you join the exercise regimen me and Vic do every day? You’ll feel like a million bucks. And it’ll be good for the book, too, don’t you think? The two of us, breaking a sweat together? I don’t know. You’re the writer …”

  I sighed inwardly. What the hell, I hadn’t been too crazy about how I looked in the mirror anyway. “Okay. If you’d like.”

  He beamed. “Great. You won’t be sorry. And hey, while you’re at it, it might be a good idea to cut back on the poison just a little bit. You’ll need the energy. Good thing you don’t smoke. I quit totally. Tough, believe me. I used a cigar in my part of my routine—it was part of my rhythm.”

  “Poison?”

  “A couple of beers after work feels good, I know. Wine with supper. Even a nightcap. But a bottle in your room, that’s very low class, ain’t it?”

  “Think I need a haircut, too?”

  He whinnied in exasperation, his famous whinny. “I’m very serious, Hoagy. Do you have to keep it there?”

  “No, I don’t have to keep it in—”

  “Great! It’ll be in the bar. Anytime you want it. You’ve made me very happy, Hoagy. I have a wonderful, wonderful feeling about us now. Really. We’re gonna make a beautiful book.” He sat back and belched, his plate clean. Even the bones were eaten.

  A shadow crossed the table. Vic. He tapped his watch.

  “Thanks, Vic,” said Sonny. “Gotta go, Hoagy. Some folks at Paramount TV wanna talk to me about a part in a sitcom pilot.”

  I cleared my throat, nudged the pillow toward Sonny.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, as if he’d completely forgotten it. “Hoagy found this in his room, Vic. Whattaya think?”

  Vic checked it out, his face blank.

  “Any idea who might have done it?” I asked him.

  I thought he and Sonny exchanged a quick look. Maybe I imagined it. I’m not used to drinking that much OJ in one sitting.

  Vic shook his head. “No idea, Hoag.”

  “Maybe I know,” mused Sonny, scratching his chin.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The tooth fairy,” he shot back.

  Vic laughed. I didn’t.

  “Hey, relax, Hoagy boy,” Sonny urged me. “Enjoy the sun. Connie’s coming by for dinner. She’s anxious to meet you. We’ll get to bed early. First workout is from seven to nine. Then we’ll start on our book, okay?”

  “Look forward to it,” I replied. “Wait, what do you mean, first workout?”

  “Are you Stewart?”

  It was a woman’s voice, a husky, familiar woman’s voice. I was in a lounge chair by the pool with my shirt off, working my way through a collection of E. B. White essays, which is something I do every couple of years to remind myself what good writing is. I looked up. She stood before me, silhouetted by the sun, jangling her car keys nervously.

  “Are you Stewart?” she repeated.

  I nodded, squinting up at her.

  “I’m Wanda.”

  We shook hands. Hers was thin and brown. Wanda Day was taller and leaner than she photographed, and her blonde hair, which she used to wear long and straight, was now cut short like a boy’s, with a part on one side and a little comma falling over her forehead. She wore a loose-fitting red T-shirt dress with a big belt at the waist and high-heeled sandals. She still had those great legs and ankles—nobody had looked like she did in a microskirt. And she still owned that wonderfully fat, pouty lower lip that became so famous when, she was the Yardley Lip Gloss girl. She’d painted it white then. Now it was unpainted. She wore very little makeup and no jewelry and looked just the tiniest bit knocked around. I guess twenty years in the fast lane and two nervous breakdowns will do that to a person. There were lines in her neck and crow’s-feet around her eyes, which were dark brown, slanted, and at this particular moment, wary.

  She sat down in the canvas director’s chair next to me. It had Sonny’s name printed across the back. “We have to talk, Stewart.”

  “Nobody calls me Stewart except my mother.”

  “What do they call you?”

  “Hoagy.”

  “As in Carmichael?”

  “As in the cheese steak.”

  Her nostrils flared. “I should warn you—children of famous comics have very little sense of humor. We cry too much to laugh.”

  “Why does everybody out here talk like a Barry Manilow song?”

  “You’re not very nice, are you?”

  “Lulu likes me.”

  “Is she your wife?”

  “I’m divorced.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “One and only.”

  Lulu was lying on her back on the pavement next to me, paws up, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth. I scratched her belly, and she thumped her tail.

  Wanda thawed a couple of degrees. “Oh, I see.” She reached down and patted Lulu and spoke to her intimately in some kind of baby talk. Then she made a face. “Say, her breath smells kind of icky …”

  “Lulu has strange eating habits.” I noticed the thick textbook in Wanda’s lap. “I understand you’re studying for your real estate license.”

  “Yes. I may even go through with it, too. Ever find yourself envying terminal cancer patients, Hoagy?”

  “No, not lately.”

  “I have. What a release, what a rush, not having to worry about how to spend the rest of your life. There is no rest your life. Your days are limited. You can just relax and enjoy them. And then die. That’s so beautiful.”

  “It might not be so beautiful.”

  “Why not?”

  “There might be tubes sticking out of you. It
might hurt.”

  “It can’t be any worse than this,” she said quietly, looking around at Sonny’s memorial park for famous comics of the fifties.

  “I thought the two of you had sort of patched things up.”

  “Oh, we have.”

  “I’d like to interview you sometime.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You should know I’m against this book. It’s his thing, not mine. I don’t want to be involved at all. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me out entirely.”

  “That won’t be possible. You’re a big part of his life.”

  “I’d make it worth your while financially.”

  “No, thank you. I have a contract. But how come?”

  “How come?” She took a cigarette and matches from her bag and lit one. “Because some things are better off left alone.” She took a deep drag, let the smoke out slowly. “Look, Hoagy. I’ve done a lot of pretty spacey things with a lot of pretty spacey people. I’m not ashamed or anything, but I don’t necessarily want the whole world reading about who I fucked, either. It isn’t their business. Can you understand that?”

  “Of course. I’m not interested in exploiting you, nor is Sonny. This won’t be a sleazy showbiz book at all. You have my word.”

  “There are other people to think about. People who would be hurt.”

  “Who?”

  She didn’t answer me. She looked down at the cigarette in her fingers, which were shaking.

  “I was hoping for your help, Wanda. Your insights.”

  “It’s out of the question. Just forget it.”

  “Does Sonny know how you feel?”

  “Yes, but one thing you have to learn about Daddy is how self-centered he is. If something matters to him …”

  “It matters!’

  “Correct.”

  “I’m sorry you feel this way about it. I hope you’ll change your mind. This book is pretty important to him.”

  “Fuck him!” she snarled with sudden ferocity. “He’s a dominating, manipulative shit!”

  She jumped to her feet and stormed off to the house, high heels clacking on the pavement. Watching her go, I thought about how glad I was I hadn’t been around when the two of them weren’t getting along.

  “I think it’s wonderful that you and Arthur are doing this,” Connie Morgan told me on the living room sofa before dinner, while we sipped white wine, nibbled on raw cauliflower, and listened to the brook babble. “He has come so, so far.”