Laughing Man

by Wright, T. M.

  Vetris did not ask himself why he didn't give the animal away. He knew that he loved Villain, loved his predatory nature, his stealthiness, even his strangeness. And Villain was, as well, possessed of the kind of nobility that only a large cat possesses—a nobility that is completely inborn, completely without affectation, completely real. He even seemed to possess this nobility as he slunk off—many times a day—to hide from the man who pretended to be his owner.

  Vetris had also realized for some time that he was just a little fearful of Villain. A large cat could be dangerous in the right circumstances, and a cat that spent much of its time slinking away from the human being who fed it was a cat with a problem. What if, while Villain camped out on his chest one night, he—Villain—decided he'd had enough of slinking away, perhaps in cowardice, and was going to go after Vetris's jugular, or his eyes, or—Good Lord!—his genitals.

  But Vetris knew that, deep down, he enjoyed such vague possibilities. It made up for an essentially boring life.

  Vetris's bedside phone rang. He groaned and snatched it up, said, "Hello."

  "Hi, Vetris, yeah," he heard, "this is Jerry, at the office."

  Vetris sighed. Villain slunk away. Vetris said, "I know your voice, Jerry. You don't have to tell me who you are."

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  "Jerry, did you hear what I said?"

  "I did, yeah. I'm sorry." Silence.

  Vetris sighed again, threw his comforter off, and swung his feet around so he was sitting up on the edge of the bed. "There's no need to be sorry, Jerry. Just tell me why you called."

  Silence. Vetris heard what sounded vaguely like air passing through the line. "Jerry, are you nodding your head?"

  "Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

  "Just tell me why you called."

  "Yeah, I called because you got to get down here, okay? I mean, like now."

  "Can you tell me why?"

  "I can, yeah, I can tell you why." Silence.

  "Before I get there, I mean."

  "Oh. Sure. I can. It's because there are people missing. In the park."

  Vetris said, "People go missing in that park every month. Why is it my business?"

  "Yeah, because they left lots of blood behind, Vetris. It's all over the park, practically. God, it's everywhere. I seen it. It's like someone ran through there with a couple dozen gallons of red paint. Know what I mean?"

  "Jesus!" breathed Vetris.

  "Sorry?" said Jerry.

  Vetris hung up and very reluctantly got dressed.

  Erthmun opened his front door and said to Patricia, who had been waiting for him to get dressed, "See, I'm fully clothed now."

  She nodded, said, with a little smile, "Yes, I see," moved past him, into his apartment, and stood with her back to him in the middle of the room, so she was outlined in sunlight streaming through the windows. "We have a problem, Jack," she said, and turned around to face him. "Actually, several problems. All of them the same, and all of them different."

  He smiled. "Puzzles? It is not something I expect from you, Patricia."

  She shook her head. "No puzzles, just enigmas."

  He looked confused. "And they would be?"

  "Enigmas?"

  "Yes."

  "I guess you could say they're conundrums."

  "Which are?"

  "Mysteries, of a sort. A conundrum is a kind of mystery."

  "So enigmas are conundrums that are mysteries?"

  Patricia grinned. "Yes, I suppose."

  "They are puzzles, then, you would say?"

  She shrugged. He enjoyed her shrug. It was as sensual a shrug as he had seen. "Yes," she said. "You're right."

  "And these puzzles are what?"

  She glanced around at the table at which Erthmun had been sitting. "Can you make me some coffee?"

  He nodded. "Yes, I can," he said, and moved past her, to the cupboards. "Which of the kinds do you want?" he asked.

  "Regular."

  He nodded, opened a cupboard, pulled out a can that was labeled decaf, said, "Then the conundrums are what?"

  "Missing people," she said, and nodded at the can of decaf. "I'd prefer regular, if you've got it, Jack."

  "Regular, then, it is," he said, and dragged the percolator out from under a cupboard.

  "That's a green can, Jack," she said. "It's decaf."

  "No," he said. "It's the regular coffee. I put it in this can. I like it. I like the color of it. I took the regular coffee out of the brown can it came in and I put it in this can. I like green. It's a nice green, don't you think?"

  "You're a very odd man," Patricia said.

  He poured water into the percolator. "Ah, I think that I am," he said. "And these missing people? How are they a puzzle?"

  She sat in the same chair that Erthmun had been sitting in when she came to his open door. "They're a puzzle, first, because there are so damned many of them, and, secondly, because they seem to have simply vanished out of their nicely furnished apartments and houses, and some even from their places of work. Hell, there's a desk sergeant in the 5th Precinct who went to the bathroom and simply never returned."

  "And he is?"

  She took a small notebook from the pocket of her sport coat. "His name is O'Reilly."

  "And the others?"

  "You want all the others, Jack? Here and now?"

  He shook his head, turned the percolator on, waited before speaking until it started perking, then said, "That's a very nice sound. I like it. Sometimes I put water on to percolate just to hear it." He put his hand on the side of the percolator, took it away quickly, muttered, "Hot," then said to Patricia, "No, I want you to tell me about these other people. How many are there? Where were they last seen? I need you to . . . capsulize and tell me about this mystery."

  So she did.

  Chapter Five

  Williamson had a longing. He'd had many longings in his life. Some of them were closer to obsessions than mere longings. But this was simply a longing, he thought. Simply a need. Simply a simple need. Simply the simple need of a simple man who wanted to live simply on the green earth, among the green trees, to be as one with the brown soil and the gray rocks and the other creatures that shared his need. The hedgehog. The cormorant. The Canada goose. The black snake, the burying beetle, the barking tree frog, oh, yes, and all the flora and fauna of the earth.

  But such a simple need could not be met here, where breakfast was composed of bologna on white and half a pint of milk, where the air was as stale as the breath of a dead man, and the closest approximation to gray rock was the iron cell that held him, trapped him, made him immobile, and discomforted, made him as one only with the sadness and panic and agony of the others trapped with him—like one of a thousand flies caught in a massive web.

  It was an insult to life, this place. And for what? Because he was a vegetarian! Because he ate the flesh of others only when his longing prescribed, only when his longing became greater than his ability to ignore it, only when his longing told him more about himself than he had ever wanted to know.

  Patricia read from a list of names and occupations:

  "Tabitha Reed, stockbroker; Jonathan H. Lewenthal, jewelry store owner; Manny Incitus, real estate agent; Vicky Morgan, model; Renee O'Byrne, playwright . . ."

  Erthmun held his hand up and she stopped reading. He said, "You're giving me a pain in the head."

  She grinned, sipped her coffee, longed to tell him that it was probably the worst coffee that had ever passed her lips, said instead, "Oh? Why?"

  He said, "These names mean very little. You say they're gone, poof, vanished. No one knows where. But who were these people? That's the important thing."

  Patricia said, "Well, they were who they were, Jack. They were playwrights, models, real estate agents. That's who they were."

  He shook his head, sipped his own coffee, said, "No one makes coffee like this, do they?"

  She grinned.

  He went on. "No, no. That's w
hat these people did. They modeled and they sold properties and they managed people's portfolios. But that is not who they were. Do you know who they were, Patricia?"

  "I think you're being argumentative, Jack."

  "No, I don't do that. You do that. I've heard you. It's a thing you do. It's a thing that many do. I don't. I say what I believe. This is what I believe. I believe that these people were not what they did, they were who they were. We all are, I believe. I know that I am."

  She sighed. "Jack, do you want to know the circumstances of these people's disappearances?"

  He shook his head. "You said that there were no circumstances, Patricia. You said that they simply weren't there after being there in the previous moment."

  "Well, no, I didn't say that, precisely."

  "But it was your meaning? It was what you intended?"

  "Not exactly. They didn't simply vanish into thin air. They're gone, true, and no one knows where the hell they are, so in that sense, I guess they did vanish. But it's not as if they were standing there and then they . . . vanished!"

  "Oh, of course, Patricia. I may sit around naked eating poppy seed muffins with my door open, but you must know by now that I'm not stupid. I intuit that you're telling me these people didn't leave any notes saying where they were going, and that they didn't tell anyone, either, where they were going. That's what I intuit."

  "Intuit?" she said. "I've never heard you use that word before, Jack. But you're right. You intuit correctly. No notes, no final words to friends. Nothing. They're simply gone."

  He shrugged. "Well, then, we'll have to find out where they went, I think."

  Vetris Gambol did not like the sight or smell of blood, but he liked being a detective, which is why he had hooked up with the South Oleander Police Department. It consisted of six deputies, two detectives, and a police chief named Myrna Guffy, who was pale, redheaded, and as smart as an Armani suit. But she wasn't smart today. She was panic-stricken, because this was the first multiple homicide she'd encountered during her ten years at the South Oleander police force. It was Vetris's first multiple homicide, too, and the bloodiest homicide he'd encountered—judging from the photographs that Myrna was showing him.

  He was standing in front of her desk. She was standing, too, and putting the photographs on the desk in front of him. The photographs had been taken several hours earlier, just before sunrise.

  "How do we know we're talking about a multiple homicide," he asked, "if we haven't yet found bodies?"

  Myrna snorted a little, as if in derision. "Oh, c'mon, no one person carries this much blood around inside him, and no two or even three people can lose this much blood and still be walking around singing hallelujah."

  Vetris mumbled, "They were singing hallelujah?"

  "Yes," Myrna said, "and playing bagpipes. Are you coming out there with me?"

  "Why wouldn't I?"

  She raised an eyebrow. "Do I need to answer that?" He shook his head.

  "Then let's get going." She picked up the photographs, straightened them, put them back in their folder, and came around the desk. "How's that evil cat of yours?" she asked as she and Vetris started for the door.

  "Still evil," Vetris said.

  "God," said Myrna, "I'd shoot the damned thing."

  When Erthmun and Patricia walked into squad room at the 20th Precinct, Peabody looked up from his work and said, "Your mother called."

  Patricia asked, "My mother called?"

  "No," Peabody said, then nodded at Erthmun, "His mother called. She said it was urgent."

  Erthmun asked, "Did she say what it was about?"

  Peabody shook his head. "Not so's anyone but a jackrabbit would notice."

  "Huh?" Patricia said.

  "Never mind," Erthmun said. "It's how he talks."

  Peabody said, clearly annoyed, "How do I talk?"

  "Like a man who has no Gatorade," Erthmun said, and went to his desk, behind Peabody's.

  "Huh?" said Peabody, and turned around to look at Erthmun, who was dialing his mother's number.

  "Huh?" Patricia said, to no one in particular.

  "Hello," Erthmun said into the phone, "is my mother there, please?" After a moment, he said, "This is her son." After another moment, he said, "Why?"

  Patricia said, "Jack, is there a problem?"

  Erthmun said into the phone, "Damnit, just tell me what the problem is." There was a silence, then Erthmun said, "When?"

  Patricia said, "Jack, what's going on?"

  He said into the phone, "Yes. As soon as I can," hung up, looked blankly at Patricia, then at Peabody, then at Patricia again. He sighed—it was a big sigh that made his whole body shudder—looked down at his desk, looked at Patricia again, back at his desk, then out one of the tall, narrow precinct windows—it faced the solid brick wall of an office supply warehouse. "She put her head into her oven and turned the gas on and killed herself," he said, and looked at Patricia. She saw that his eyes were moist. He added, "She did it this morning. After having her tea. And scones."

  Peabody said, "Scones?"

  Patricia said, "My God. Jack, I'm so sorry."

  He stood. "I'm going there," he said.

  Chapter Six

  Myrna Guffy, Chief of Police at the tiny South Oleander, New York, Police Department, thought for a moment that some of what she was seeing had, indeed, to be red paint, because there couldn't possibly be so much blood in even a dozen people. Then it came to her that barns were red because it had once been the practice to paint barns with the blood of cows and bulls that had been slaughtered, which was cheaper than paint. A quaint, if horrific custom, a simple, financial consideration that was, on balance, completely reasonable. Make use of the entire animal, not simply its flesh. Waste not, want not. A penny saved is a penny earned. And who knows, maybe blood paint was more durable than paint paint. Maybe it bonded with the wood in a way that Sherwin Williams simply couldn't.

  "Are you all right?" she heard. It was Vetris.

  She glanced quickly at him. "Yeah. I'm fine. This"— she nodded—"is just very . . . difficult."

  "I think Villain would love it."

  She gave him a curious look. She hadn't expected such a flip remark from him, under these circumstances. Blood made him queasy. But maybe this much blood was simply overwhelming. At some point, blood stopped being blood, stopped being something trickling and suggestive and became something much more than blood, or much less. She remembered a scene from The Shining—a thousand gallons of blood flowing from the closed doors of an elevator. Instead of being gory or upsetting, it had been, for her at least, simply like watching a river that was an odd color.

  Vetris added, with a wave of his hand, "It's like it's not blood at all because there's so goddamned much of it. It's like it's . . . I don't know, paint."

  There were several state police investigators nearby, collecting samples of the blood, taping off the area, and they looked very grim. Vetris thought they should look grim; this was damned grim work. Somewhere in this park, there were . . . remains, and the awful process of collecting those remains would be doubly grim. He didn't know if he wanted to be a part of it, though he knew that he would have to be a part of it, that being a part of it would be wonderful for his career. But still, it was work that a creature like Villain, human or otherwise, would adore; he—Vetris—was simply not up for it.

  Myrna Guffy said, "Yeah, but it isn't paint. Jesus, it doesn't smell like paint."

  "I don't smell anything," Vetris said.

  She shrugged. "You never do."

  Peabody declared, "You know, it's as baffling as a shoe store in Milwaukee: a cop gets up from his desk and goes to take a piss, and never comes back. I mean, people actually see him go into the goddamned bathroom, but no one sees him come out."

  Detective Tony Julia said, "It's as strange as a three-headed snake."

  "No such things as three-headed snakes," said Peabody.

  Detective Julia frowned.

  Peabody said, "And these
other people. This stockbroker, and this model and the others. I know that people go missing every day in this goddamned city. It's like clockwork. But not people like this. People who know people—people who are people!"

  "That would be everyone, I think," Patricia said. She was standing next to Detective Julia, who was standing in front of Peabody's desk, because, for reasons Peabody couldn't understand, he'd been delivered the file on the recent disappearances. It was a thick file, and Peabody had been poring over it for fifteen minutes, trying to get all the high points.

  Peabody shook his head. "Nah, some people aren't anybody, and they don't know anybody either. But I take your point, Patricia."

  "Uh-huh," Patricia said.

  "Has anyone heard from Erthmun?" Detective Julia asked.

  Patricia shook her head grimly.

  "Why would anyone kill themself like that?" Peabody asked. "I mean, putting your head in an oven. It's as weird as crazy glue at a flea circus."

  Patricia sighed.

  Detective Julia said, "Sylvia Plath did it."

  "Who?" asked Peabody.

  "She was a poet," Patricia explained, and Julia—new to the precinct—gave her a surprised look. "She wrote a lot of . . . I don't know . . . confessional poetry. People ate it up. She killed herself by putting her head in an oven."

  "You'd think the heat would make her . . . jump back," Peabody said.

  Patricia sighed again. "No. No. She didn't light the oven. She died of asphyxiation."

  "No shit?" Peabody said.

  Detective Julia said, "She was married to Ted Hughes."

  "Big deal," said Peabody. "One billionaire's the same as another."

  "Huh?" Patricia said.

  Peabody said, "So no one's heard from Erthmun. Poor slob, to have his mother off herself like that. I can imagine how it must make him feel."

  "No," said Patricia, "I don't think you can."

  In another part of the city, a creature was waking that never really slept. Only its needs, its hungers, and its appetites slept, though just briefly. But this was sufficient, because the creature's needs and appetites comprised nearly its whole being, like an infant whose whole self is dedicated to growing. But this creature was no infant, though it was new to the earth. This creature was tall and strong, and as graceful as a cat; its long, dark hair was a thing of consuming beauty, and it spoke with eloquence in a voice that was music.