Laughing Man

by Wright, T. M.

  "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 i
t 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.

  He looked hard at her, slowly lowered his arm, wrapped his hand tightly around his beer bottle. "This could have been a romantic evening for us, Patricia," he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The city bus moved leadenly through the deep, new snow. Beyond its windows, the Manhattan streets were white and gray streaked with flashes of yellow—the city's taxis moving about in the storm with the agility of rabbits.

  The woman who called herself Helen sat rigidly in a seat near the back of the bus, where the bus's heater blew hot air on her legs and feet and warmed her enough that she could breathe.

  The woman wasn't frightened, though she could not move. She was a creature caught up in a battle for survival, because she had chanced into the hands of her killer—the storm, the snow, the bitter cold.

  She did not give time to regret or self-recrimination. She felt the awful pain that the frigid night air gave her, but she did not cry out, or weep. In her short time on the earth, she had never cried out or wept because of pain.

  Patricia had gotten up to leave Erthmun's apartment. The act surprised her. She didn't believe, rationally, that she was afraid of the man. He puzzled her, she thought, but surely he didn't frighten her.

  She had gotten halfway to the door when he'd called, "Don't go out there, Patricia. Please stay." If she had listened to his words alone, she would have assumed it was a sexual invitation. But his tone seemed to be one of urgency, as if it were desperately important for her to remain in the apartment with him.

  She looked back at him and said, "Why?"

  "Because I want you to stay here. With me."

  "I can't."

  "This isn't a come-on. Do you think it's a come-on?"

  "No."

  "Yes, you do. Of course you do. What else would it be? But it isn't. I really do want you to stay. An hour or two. We'll have something to eat. I'll make us some food. I have lots of food here. I have steak, I have some steak. I could cook it. You must be hungry."

  She stared at him a few moments and it came to her what was wrapped up in all this babble—he was trying to protect her!

  The woman who called herself Helen did not try to understand why this cold night was so different for her than other cold nights. She did not say to herself, It's because this is the coldest night of the year, or The wind-chill factor is low, or It's a combination of the wind and the snow and the cold. These facts meant nothing to her. And her pain meant next to nothing to her—it was merely an obstacle to overcome.

  The bus was empty, except for herself and the bus driver, and he was taking the bus back to the bus barn because his shift was done. He hadn't yet noticed her, but he did now, and he called, "You gotta get off the bus, lady." He pulled over to the curb and opened the rear doors.

  She said nothing. She didn't look at him. The blast of cold air did not make her wince, but it drove her pain deeper, and made her muscles tense. And it started in her as well, an instinct, a capacity, and a power that she had used often since coming to this city, though not in a way that could draw much attention to her.

  The driver said again, "You gotta get off the bus, lady." He looked at her in the rearview mirror, saw that she wasn't looking back at him, muttered, "Shit," thought, She's drunk, dammit! stood, and started walking back to her. "Come on, lady," he said. "Don't make life difficult for the both of us." He stopped walking. She had looked up at him, had leveled her gaze on him. "Jesus Christ!" he whispered.

  "Jesus Christ!" she whispered, and her voice was his voice.

  He started backing away from her, tried to keep his eyes on her, but couldn't because she wasn't there. Then she was there. Then she wasn't. She was a part of the bus seat, a part of the advertising placard overhead—Bacardi rum—a part of the dark floor, a part of the rear window and the blowing snow, the headlights, the neon, the street lamps, the wind, the black sky. But she was teeth as well, and breasts, hips, sky-blue eyes, and dark pubic hair. She was a naked phantom, and she was a living woman, dressed garishly for an evening in cheap hotels. She was a part of the dark floor, the neon, the blowing snow, and the black sky.

  The bus driver fell backward in his desperation to get away from her. He muttered little pleading obscenities at her, saw her coalesce with the air itself, saw her reappear—teeth and hands and breasts and pubic hair.

  Then she was upon him.

  Patricia said, "Jack, does all of this have anything to do with the woman you called Helen?"

  "Helen? Yes," he answered, "it does. She exists. There is at least a Helen."

  She gave him a puzzled look. At least a Helen? She said, "You know this woman?"

  "Know this woman? I don't think so. I've never met her. I've never met any of them."

  Patricia sighed. I've never met any of them? What was that supposed to mean? Jesus, the man was falling apart before her eyes. She came back and stood behind her chair at the white enamel table. "What in heaven's name are you talking about, Jack? Is this all in the nature of . . . intuition, premonition, precognition? You're not making a hell of a lot of sense."

  He looked at her a moment, looked out the window, looked at her again, said, "I don't know what any of that is, really." He noticed for the first time that a storm had begun.

  Patricia said, "You mean you don't know the definitions of—"

  He gave her a weary smile. "Sit down, Patricia."

  She hesitated, then sat down. He said, "You can't go anywhere anyway. Look at it out there."

  She looked, scowled. "Shit," she muttered.

  "So you see, you've got to stay."

  "Yes," she said.

  "Yes," he said. "I'm glad."

  Helen did not eat all of the bus driver. But she ate some of him. The tender parts. His palms, his cheeks, his stomach, his thighs. He was a very overweight man, and the fat did her good. It gave her warmth and strength.

  And when she was done with him, she left the bus through the rear doors that he had opened for her, and she moved quickly through the snow-covered streets. No one saw her, and no one looked. There were few out and about on the streets of Manhattan this winter night, except the taxis, and if their drivers looked in Helen's direction, they would have seen only a change in the pattern of the blowing snow, little else, and they would have thought nothing of it.

  "Can I have another beer?" Patricia asked. "If I'm staying, there's no real reason to remain sober."

  Jack said, "I don't really know what that means," and smiled, got up, got another beer from the refrigerator, brought it back to her. She looked at the label, told him he had good taste in beer.

  "I like beer," he said. "I like to eat, in fact."

  Patricia said, "You mentioned something about a steak." She was beginning to feel more comfortable with him. Maybe it was the alcohol, though she didn't make much of an effort to analyze it. She trusted her instincts, though they seemed to be running in opposite directions tonight.

  He nodded, went back to the refrigerator, withdrew two T-bones, took them to his little counter, and turned his gas broiler on to preheat. He said, as he took the steaks from their Styrofoam containers, "I'm hungry, too. I don't usually eat at this time of the night. I'm usually asleep."

  Thi
s had not seemed like a rebuke to Patricia, but she said anyway, "If I'm keeping you—"

  "I'll sleep another night," he cut in, smiling.

  She thought that his smile had changed. There was nothing of crisis in it now. It seemed to signal that he was genuinely pleased to have her there with him, and this made her feel good.

  She stood, joined him at the counter, said, "Is there something I can do?"

  "Do?" he said. "Yes, you can eat what I make for you."

  "I will," she said. Then, "Tell me what you meant about Helen."

  "I don't know what I meant. It was a hunch, I think." He got a bottle of seasoning from a drawer. "Do you want some of this on yours?"

  "No. I like it plain. And rare."

  "A woman after my own heart."

  "About Helen?" Patricia said.

  "Not much," he said. "I don't know." He grinned oddly at her. "What's in a name, after all?"

  The woman loved being a part of this city. She loved the buildings and the lights and the odor of diesel fuel. During the summer just passed—her first summer—she had loved going into the parks at night and stripping naked, and running, and running, and running. She loved running at night through the streets, weaving like a quirky breeze through the little knots of people, and then tossing her strange and coarse laughter back at them.

  Memories meant little to her now. She remembered the name she had taken—Helen—because she loved the sound of it, and she remembered the building where she spent her days, because it was a place where no one else spent time, and so it was a place of protection.

  And she remembered her birth especially, because it was a time of enormous pain and incredible pleasure.

  And she remembered coming here, to this city. Remembered being drawn to it by the heady mixture of smells, by the noise, by the feel of the air and the ever-present promise of pleasure.

  She slept now. She was a night hunter, her hunting was done, and so it was time to sleep. The sounds and smells of the city were distant in this place, distant enough, at least, that they did not draw her. And this early morning, the sounds of the storm covered them, too.