Laughing Man (26 page)

The sun had just begun to rise. It was behind him.

His car was a white Dodge Intrepid. People had told him that white contained a pigment that actually encouraged rust, and even though the car was only two years old, he had indeed seen the beginnings of rust under one of the wheel wells. He liked his car. He liked its shape and its power; he liked its interior—gray cloth—and its sound system, too. It was a good car, except for the beginnings of rust under one of the wheel wells.

He thought now, as he stood by the driver's door, that the rising sun was painting the car's hood and roof a soft rust-red. It ran in long irregular striations from the opposite side of the car toward him, and it took him only a moment to realize that the sun, which was behind him, could not cause such a pattern.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Jesus, God," he whispered. And realized that he was seeing the blood of the naked woman. It covered the car. It glistened in the early morning light. In spots it was rust-colored, nearly brown, in spots it was bright red, and in spots it was black. It flowed in rivulets over the curve of the hood toward him.

He moved around the front of the car, and his hand went to the .38 in his shoulder holster. He moved cautiously and when he was near the car's right-side headlight, he leaned over to look at the side of the car. He saw only the rough impression of a body in the Intrepid's fender. Only blood. He looked further down the road, saw only the road, came around to the side of the car, saw only the side of the car, the smooth shoulder of the road. "Where the hell is she?" he whispered. "Jesus, where in the hell is she?"

P
atricia said, "Jack, I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry."

Erthmun said, "Patricia, I think that there's a lot of death everywhere. All over. In every county and state and nation. People talk about the river of life. They talk in poetry about the river of life. Or they talk in philosophy about the river of life. When there is a river of
death
,
too, flowing alongside it. Or maybe not. Maybe the river of death and the river of life are the same river."

They were seated opposite one another at Erthmun's small dining table; Patricia had made coffee for both of them, which Erthmun had sipped and about which he had congratulated her—"Much better than any made here previously," he said, and gave her the ghost of a smile.

Patricia said now, "You were very close to her, weren't you, Jack?"

He shook his head. "I may have been. I'm not sure."

She cocked her head. "That's an odd answer. How can you be unsure of something like that?"

He sipped his coffee, smiled a little, as if in response to the taste of the coffee, set the cup down gently. "Well," he said with a strangely earnest matter-of-factness, "I believe that I'm unsure of my real feelings about practically all relationships, familial or otherwise."

"Familial?"

"Of the family," he answered.

"Yes," she said, "I know what it means. I simply didn't expect—"

The phone rang. Erthmun snapped his gaze to it, grimaced, got up and answered it. Patricia heard him say after a minute, "Okay. Yes." And he hung up.

"A problem?" Patricia asked, because she saw a troubled look on Erthmun's face.

"Who's to know?" he said. "Problems may simply be opportunities."

She smiled quickly.

He went on, "There's a place called South Oleander, New York, where we have been asked to go."

"Why?"

"Because a woman ran into a car there and left behind only her ring."

"How does that concern us?" Patricia asked. "And what do you mean by 'left behind only her ring'?"

Erthmun shrugged. "Well, yes, you have posed two questions, I think, and I can really answer only one. It appears that this woman was named Tabitha Reed and she was one of the people who went missing here not too long ago."

V
etris Gambol didn't like being grilled by state police investigators. He'd told them a dozen times or more exactly what had happened, and they still seemed to believe that he was hiding something.

One of the investigators was a very tall and athletically built man who wore an expensive blue suit and a paisley tie. His name was Tony Grigoli. The other investigator was a man named Tim Christmas; he was dressed in a threadbare hound's-tooth sports coat and blue jeans that should have been thrown out a year earlier. It was clear that he hadn't shaved that morning, and his breath smelled of eggs and garlic.

Vetris was seated in the interrogation room at the South Oleander Police Department. He knew that Myrna Guffy was standing just outside the door because she peered in through the small window every now and then. Christmas and Grigoli were seated across from Vetris.

Christmas said, "You know, Detective, it's not like we think you killed this girl. We don't think that." He glanced at his partner. "Right, Tony?"

Grigoli nodded a little.

Christmas went on. "But we do think you're not telling us everything we need to know."

Grigoli added, "Like where you put her body, for instance."

This was something that Vetris had heard too many times in the past several hours, and he was near the boiling point. He sighed heavily and said, "There was no
body.
There was only blood. Lots and lots of blood. That's it. And a ring."

Christmas nodded. "Yeah, her wedding ring. Had her name etched in it. Tabitha."

Vetris said, "Listen, if you don't mind, I've got to get home and feed my cat. If I don't feed him—"

"Fuck your cat!" Grigoli cut in.

Christmas looked sternly at Grigoli. "Tony, cut it out.

The man's a cat person. So am I. You know that."

"Yeah, well, fuck you, too. This guy's dishing out shit like it was devil's food cake, and he tells us he's got to feed his cat?"

"If I don't feed him," Vetris began to explain, "then he gets—"

"Goddammit," Grigoli cut in, "I don't give two shits in a handbag what your goddamn cat does if you don't feed him. I don't care if he eats you, for the love of Jesus."

"Yeah," Christmas agreed, "why don't you get off the cat business, okay, and simply tell us what we both know you're not telling us."

Vetris sighed again. "Listen, I'm sure you guys are very, very good at what you do. But keep in mind the situation we've got at the park. Keep in mind that it's identical to the situation you're looking into here, except on a much, much larger scale."

Grigoli leaned over the table so his face was uncomfortably close to Vetris. "Except, in this case, Detective, you were there, weren't you? You created the situation."

"Oh for the love of Pete," Vetris whispered.

I
t was a three-hour drive to South Oleander from New York City and, since Erthmun had agreed, reluctantly, to drive—because Patricia was having trouble with her new contact lenses—he drove while Patricia fiddled almost constantly with the radio, and complained almost constantly that there was nothing to listen to.

"Patricia," Erthmun said—they were twenty-five miles northwest of the city, in a bucolic area.

"It would be very nice if you stuck with one radio station. Or turned the radio off. We could talk."

She turned the radio off, looked expectantly at him.

"So?"

"You want me to talk?" he said.

"It was your idea. And it was a good idea, too. We
should
talk. About this case, about this woman named Tiffany . . ."

The slim file on Tiffany Reed was on the backseat. Erthmun inclined his head toward it and said, "Okay, get the file, read it to me, and we'll talk about it."

Patricia shook her head. "It makes me nauseous to read in a moving car. It always has. I'm prone to car sickness."

"Well, you can drive, and I'll read," Erthmun said.

"No, we've both read the file. There's not much of interest in it."

"You don't think so? What about her connection to—"

"The Chocolate Murders?" she cut in. "There is no connection, Jack. She was the victim of coincidence. She was in a place where a murder happened at about the time the murder happened, but that doesn't really mean anything, because my guess is that there were hundreds of people in the general area of that particular murder. When it happened."

He glanced quickly at her. "Is it because you don't believe a woman could have committed those murders, Patricia? Is it because you don't think a member of your own sex could do things so horrific?"

She pursed her lips. "Good Lord, Jack—how can you ask such a question? Women are as capable of just as much sick crap as men are. We've both witnessed it. And I don't believe, as you're suggesting, that my"—she held up her fingers to form quotes—" 'sisters' are inherently any less violent than you or any of the other three billion men in the world are simply because they don't have a penis and balls and aren't choking with testosterone."

He said nothing for a long moment, then said, "Okay, go ahead and listen to the radio. It's better than your speeches."

She pursed her lips again, but decided to ignore his comment. "No. I'd like to talk with you about your mother."

He glanced questioningly at her.

She said, "I'm sorry, Jack, but the dynamic that apparently existed between the two of you is fascinating."

He looked at the road again. "Dynamic," he said, as if to himself.

They were entering a small town. A large white sign shaped roughly like a shield read, in bold black letters, "Welcome to Mallsberg, Home of the Mallsberg Maulers."

Patricia read the sign aloud and grimaced. "So much aggression. It's almost epidemic."

"They were playing with the name of the town," Erthmun said. "'Mallsberg.' 'Maulers.' It means very little, I think. They were excited about the alliteration."

"I realize that, Jack."

"My mother," Erthmun said, "was a poet. She got excited about alliteration, too. It's a poetic style. Alliteration. Like, 'Many marvelous men make merry.'"

"I know about alliteration, Jack."

"As do I," Erthmun said. "And my mother, too. A poet."

Patricia nodded to indicate the speedometer. "You're speeding. This town probably has a speed trap. Any town with a sports team named the Maulers would have a speed trap, don't you think?"

"Let me quote you a poem of my mother's," Erthmun said; he didn't let off on the accelerator.

"Yes," Patricia said, "I'd like that."

Erthmun said, "Such as her poem 'Unable, Unlike Anyone.'

"Sorry?" Patricia said. And added, "Please slow down, Jack."

Erthmun said, "'Unable, Unlike Anyone.' It's the alliterative title of one of her poems. Three 'un' sounds. And the poem goes:

I, unable, unlike

anyone,

release, not recapture

a past that is

too present,

living the lie

of hegemony."

He smiled broadly. "Do you like it, Patricia?"

"It's a lovely poem," she said.

"And very meaningful," Erthmun said.

"Yes," Patricia said, "I'm sure that it is."

"It means that she saw herself as outside the natural order of things."

Patricia nodded. "Yes, that's clear to me."

A siren wailed behind them.

"E
nough about the cat!" Grigoli screamed.

And Vetris shot back, "Listen, you don't
know
this cat. He's not like any other cat. He's . . . unique! He's got a mind of his own, and if he doesn't get fed . . ."

"I don't give two snails in a peach pit
what
your cat does if he doesn't get fed. I simply want you to—"

"Shit," Christmas cut in, "go home, Detective Gambol, and feed him, for Christ's sake."

Vetris stood at once, said, "If you have any other questions, you know where I am."

"No, we don't, but we'll find out," Christmas said. "You can count on it," Grigoli said.

Vetris left the room, told Myrna Guffy he'd be back soon. "I'll see if I can get them to lay off, okay?" she said. Vetris shook his head. "They're just doing their damned job. I'd be the same way." Then he drove home. Villain was waiting for him, and he was pissed.

W
illiamson the Loon felt sated. It was such a happy feeling—sated and warm and at peace within himself, with the universe and with the earth. The sky was never so blue as when he was sated, and the grass never quite so vibrantly green, and the great ocean never greater. The wind itself caressed him as a lover might, as the outstretched branches of a magnificent oak might, or the living tendrils of a catfish.

And all that inner beauty, peace, and strength came to him merely through the necessary and passionate act of eating Lewis the pawnbroker, and in finding a watch that pleased him. Life was surely no grander than at such times
as
this.