Laughing Man (11 page)

He nodded. He wanted desperately to leave, because he knew that he had made her very uncomfortable, and because he knew that she was lying.
You're lying
, he heard himself say, then was thankful when he realized he hadn't actually said it.

She asked, "Was that the answer you wanted, Jackie?" She attempted a smile that would put an end to the conversation.

He nodded. "Yes, it was. Thank you."

She touched his hand and told him that she needed to prepare him some food. He said yes, he'd like that, and added that it had been a long time, too long, since they had eaten together. But they ate in a near silence that was punctuated by quick, nervous smiles, and an occasional "This is good," from him, and from her, "Have you been to visit any of your sisters?" to which he shook his head, and made no explanations.

The cats slunk about the scene as if they were used to begging from the table but were wary of the stranger who had come to visit.

When Erthmun left, he said to his mother, at the door, "We should do this more often."

She said, smiling, "Yes, we should," and they briefly hugged one another.

T
hat evening, he could not sleep because his Uncle Jack's words came back to him again and again:

"It's like this," Uncle Jack said. "You can't see them if you're actually looking at them. You won't see them that way. That would be too easy, wouldn't it? You can see them only if you're
not
looking at them."

Lila said, "What do they look like, Uncle Jack?"

"They look like you"—he touched her nose gently—"and you"—he touched Sylvia's nose—"and especially you, Jack."

Lila, asked, "And where do they come from, Uncle Jack?"

"Well, Lila," Uncle Jack said, "where does
anything
come from? Where do the plants come from, and the cows, and the fish in the sea?"

"I don't know," Lila said, clearly perplexed.

"From heaven," Sylvia offered.

"From heaven," Erthmun said.

And Uncle Jack declared, "Why from
here,
of course. From the earth itself."

"From the earth itself," Erthmun said.

"The earth can make whatever it wants to make," said Uncle Jack.

T
he woman who called herself Helen had gotten invited to a party in a high-rise near Central Park. The man who had invited her was wealthy and he looked upon her as another acquisition. Helen did not understand this, and it would have meant nothing to her if she did. What interested her was being among the people who lived in this city and making herself one of them. This was important to her because she was a social creature and so she needed the companionship of creatures who, in many ways, were like her.

She was also an almost entirely reactive being. She did not have the capacity or patience for rumination; she did have the capacity, however, to read people and their intentions toward her as quickly as others read street signs. This was a defense mechanism, and it was as well-developed in her as in any of her brothers and sisters.

She had also conformed almost completely to the etiquette and demeanor required of her in this gathering. It was an ability that was not the result so much of intelligence as adaptive response. It was chameleon-like. She absorbed the manner in which other females at this gathering acted and reacted, then she
became
an amalgam of what she had absorbed. No one noticed that this was what she was doing, of course, though a few at the gathering thought she was odd. One woman said quietly to another, "It's a good thing she's so drop-dead gorgeous," and the woman to whom she was speaking nodded her agreement, though neither of them could have said, in so many words, what exactly they were talking about.

"Helen, yes," Helen said to a self-consciously dapper man in his mid-thirties who had come to the gathering alone but didn't want to go home alone.

"Like Helen of Troy," he said, thinking that she would know the reference instantly—"
The
face that launched a thousand ships!
"—and
so would realize that he had given her a high compliment.

Helen said, "Helen of Troy, yes," which sounded to the dapper man as if she were merely repeating what he had said.

He pressed on. "You're one of Martin's angels?" Martin was the man who had invited Helen; "angels" was a euphemism for the women he made available to his closest male friends.

Helen said, "Martin brought me here," and coquettishly sipped her drink. It was a Manhattan and the
taste
did not appeal to her, but she had seen others at the gathering drinking similar drinks and they had looked as if they were enjoying them, so she was able to conjure up the same look of enjoyment.

She continued, "I'm an angel of Martin," and gave the dapper man a coquettish smile. This was unfortunate because coquettish smiles did not mix well with her naturally predatory and overtly sensual appearance, and so her attempt at coquettishness came off as archly dishonest, which almost caused the dapper man to go and hunt elsewhere for his evening's conquest. But he decided to stick with Helen because he thought that she really was a knockout, and so what if she was a bit strange.

"Have you known him long?" the dapper man asked.

"Only insofar as one knows anyone," said Helen.

"I see," said the dapper man, because her comment had not really been an answer to his question.

Helen reached out with one long, exquisite finger and stroked the man's lapel. "I like this fabric," she said.

"Thanks," the dapper man said—he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

She stared him in the eye and smiled coquettishly again. She was wearing a black dress with bare shoulders. She wore no jewelry because it felt harsh to her skin, but she had seen many other women wearing jewelry and had decided, in her way, that it was a thing she should do as well. She said, "If you're turned on, I listen well."

"Huh?" said the dapper man.

Helen didn't realize that she was making no sense, although she did easily pick up on the dapper man's confusion. She was also picking up on the fact that his initial attraction to her was dimming. This was not a good thing. She needed this man. She wanted to take the evening with him. She cast about within the consciousness that passed, in her brain, for intelligence, and soon decided what her next move should be.

She said, "I'm not available," and turned away, so her back was to the dapper man.

He stared at her back for a moment—it looked tanned and smooth and exquisite—then tapped her lightly on the shoulder. This act surprised her. At this gathering, she was not prepared for surprises. Her eyes wide, she wheeled about as quickly as the swishing of a cat's tail and raked her fingers across his cheek. Blood flowed at once. His mouth fell open. He touched the scratches on his cheek, and saw the blood on his fingers. He looked confusedly into Helen's eyes, but saw nothing there that he had expected—anger, astonishment, apology, pending explanation. He saw that her eyes still were wide, and that her jaw was set, as if she were going to strike again. He backed away from her a step, and mumbled, "I'm sorry," though he had no idea what he was sorry for. He backed up another step, saw that Helen's eyes still were on him, that they still were wide, and that her stance was the stance of an animal waiting to strike—tense, anticipatory. Then, responding to some deep inner voice that told him that this preternaturally beautiful woman was a strange creature indeed, he turned and ran from the room.

But Helen had no idea that she had blundered. Even when two dozen pairs of eyes turned accusingly or questioningly or with surprise on her, and even when Martin himself came over and demanded to know what had happened—"Jesus Christ, do you know who that is?"—her thoughts still were on the dapper man himself, and upon the fact that he had aroused in her the same need that had been aroused the previous evening.

She salivated.

A muted growling sound started in her throat.

S
malley had come to Erthmun's apartment to tell him that Internal Affairs would probably call off their investigation, and that Erthmun would be reinstated to active duty in a couple of days.

Erthmun said, "You woke me up." He was standing in his blue robe at the open door to his apartment.

"Yes, I can tell," Smalley said, without a tone of apology; hell, it wasn't even 9:00 P.M.—what was this guy doing asleep?

Erthmun started to close the door; Smalley reached out and stiff-armed it. "Don't you want to know why we're calling off the investigation?"

"Not particularly," Erthmun answered.

"Shit, that's disappointing," Smalley said.

"I'm sure it is," Erthmun said. "Let go of the fucking door."

Smalley said, "We're calling off the investigation because of lack of evidence. Which doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist." He quickly added, "Why do you think this perp stuffs chocolate in the mouths of the victims?"

"Suddenly you're a homicide detective?" Erthmun asked.

"I'm just curious."

"I don't know why the killer stuffs chocolate into the mouths of his victims," Erthmun said, and pushed hard on the door, which Smalley was still stiff-arming. "Back off," Erthmun said.

Smalley let go of the door.

The Following Evening

Near the House on Four Mile Creek

T
he woman said to her male companion, "Do you know what my father used to say about winters up here?"

Her companion looked expectantly at her, but said nothing.

She continued. "He said they were cold enough to steal the breath from a dead man." She smiled. "I always liked that. I'm not sure what it means, but I like it."

Her companion said, "I think I know what it means. And it's true."

The woman took a long, deep breath. Her companion looked on, in awe; he knew that if he took such a breath in this frigid air, he'd end up doubled over with a fit of coughing.

The woman declared, "It's so bracing, don't you think, Hal?"

"Bracing, sure," Hal said.

The woman—her name was Denise—grinned at him. "This isn't your cup of tea, is it?"

"Of course it is," Hal claimed. "I'm the first to admit that we can't spend our lives wrapped up tight and warm within the cocoons that we call cities." He smiled, pleased with his metaphor.

"Agreed," said Denise. She glanced at her watch; it was closing in on 5:30 p.m. Soon, it would be dark, and the small lean-to where they had planned to spend the night was still a good distance off. She hadn't expected Hal to be so slow. Jesus, he jogged every day.

"Problem?" he said.

Denise glanced at the overcast gray sky. "Not really. I don't know. It doesn't . . . feel right here." They were in an open area fringed by evergreens, oaks, and tulip trees. The snow was knee deep and heavy, which made walking very difficult.

"'Doesn't feel right'?" Hal said. "Could you explain that?" His sudden apprehension was obvious.

She chuckled. "Only that I think we've got a little weather on the way and that we should pick up the pace if we expect—"

"Weather? You mean a storm?"

She shrugged. "Possibly. A small storm." She took her radio from Hal's backpack; it was tuned to a weather channel in Old Forge, half a hundred miles south. She turned up the volume. Nothing. She cursed, shook the radio, turned it off, then on again. Still nothing. "Hal, did you put new batteries in this thing?"

He looked sheepishly at her and started to speak, but she cut in, "You didn't, did you?" She could hear the anger in her voice, but decided it was all right—he deserved it.

He said, "Actually, yes, I did."

"
New
batteries?"

Another sheepish look. "Have you checked the price on new batteries, Denise? Jesus, they're a couple of bucks. So, I figured—"

"This isn't a new battery?"

"Sure it is. You know those batteries in the drawer in the dining room? I used one of them. I even checked it on the battery tester first—"

"Dammit!" Denise whispered.

"I fucked up?" Hal asked.

She put the radio to her ear, turned the volume all the way up, heard nothing, sighed. "No, Hal, you didn't fuck up. It's all right."

"But we're in deep shit?"

"Not waist-deep. Not yet." She gave him a quick grin, as if for reassurance. "Listen, I know this snow is difficult to slog through, and I know you really hate being out here, but do you think that if we put our snowshoes on we could do a couple of miles before it gets too dark?"

"How many is a couple?"

"Three. Maybe four."

"That's not a couple. That's
several
."

"Okay, okay. Several miles. Can you do it?"