The Man Who Died Laughing (21 page)

Lamp:
When did you speak to Mr. Knight?

Hoag:
That day—Sonny’s birthday. And again last night. He’s extremely interested in the outcome of the book, what with the Chasen’s thing and all.

Lamp:
I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but the department is very interested in seeing Knight not get dragged into the investigation.

Hoag:
Heavy political muscle?

Lamp:
Same with the agent, Wright.

Hoag:
If you’re real nice to me, I’ll tell you some very interesting stories about Wright someday over a beer. You do drink beer, don’t you?

Lamp:
I’ve been known to.

Hoag:
Hard to believe anyone would sell it to you. How much influence does all of that muscle have on you and your investigation?

Lamp: (laughs)
If you’re real nice to me, I’ll tell you some very interesting stories about that someday over a beer.

Hoag:
That’s not exactly a straight answer.

Lamp:
That’s not exactly a straight question.

Hoag: (silence)
Ah, here’s Wanda now.

Day:
Hi. Hello, Lieutenant.

Lamp:
Miss Day.

Day:
Don’t get up, please.

Hoag:
What’s in the box?

Day:
A present.

Hoag:
For me?

Day:
Open it.

Hoag:
Maybe later?

Day:
Right now.

Hoag:
Okay.
(silence)
Hey, a new pair of mukluks. Now I can really get back to work. Thank you. You’re very thoughtful. Wait, what’s this underneath? … It’s a shirt. My god, it’s a suede shirt.

Day:
I saw it in the window of the Banana Republic on Little Santa Monica. It’ll go so well with those khakis, don’t you think?

Hoag:
Wanda, you shouldn’t have.

Day:
That’s not what you said last night.

Hoag:
Well, thanks.

Day:
I want a proper thank-you.

Hoag:
Later.

Day:
Promise?

Hoag:
Yes.

Day:
I’ll hold you to it. And now I’ll leave you. Bye, Lieutenant.

Lamp:
Yes. Bye.

Hoag: (silence)
I take it you don’t approve.

Lamp:
None of my beeswax, Hoagy.

Hoag:
Then why the look?

Lamp:
I don’t know what you mean.

Hoag:
Go ahead. Say it.

Lamp:
Oh, heck, I’m just not sure I’ve figured you out yet.

Hoag:
Nothing much to figure. Sometimes circumstance brings two people together.

Lamp:
You told me …

Hoag:
What I told you was the truth. Then.

Lamp:
I see.

Hoag:
So what’s on your mind? Vic?

Lamp:
Yes. Still think he didn’t do it?

Hoag:
Sonny could have been murdered by anyone who was here last night. Anyone who has an interest in keeping Knight and Day’s secret from seeing print.

Lamp:
Could be. But I have to tell you—I’ve cooled off on that theory. My job is to go by what I see. I see a guy with violent tendencies. I see a guy who was here at the time of the murder, and who knew where the murder weapon was hidden.

Hoag:
That doesn’t mean anything. I knew where it was, too. Half a dozen people did.

Lamp:
Maybe so. But none of them escaped from police custody. None of them were fugitives when that fire was set. Early’s escape suggests guilt. It gives me a focus, something concrete. My job now is to build a case against him. You were around, Hoagy. Can you think of any possible reason why Early would have wanted his boss dead?

Hoag:
It’s inconceivable. The man’s total orientation was to protect Sonny, not to harm him. Besides, he’s a guy who loses control. You saw him when he went for me. If he had killed Sonny, he wouldn’t have gone into the study and gotten a gun. He’d have torn his head off. Like he did to me. Like he did to that sleaze in Vegas. You know, you ought to check that guy out. I mean, he really got creamed. You never know.

Lamp:
I did. He hasn’t been out of Las Vegas in the past two weeks. Strictly a local man. Good thought, though. I wanted to check out something with you, Hoagy. Seems in 1972 Early was linked with the beating of a guy at the Daisy Club. Guy almost died. The charges were later dropped. Know anything about that? Come up at all?

Hoag:
You
are
good.

Lamp:
Routine police work. Well?

Hoag:
Sonny wanted to mention it in the book. He got some bad press over it at the time. Vic was … I guess you’d say upset about it coming up again. Sonny and I discussed it. He said he’d talk to Vic about it, that Vic would understand.

Lamp:
I see.

Hoag:
Now wait, I know how that looks. …

Lamp:
Like a motive.

Hoag:
It can’t be Vic.

Lamp:
Why not?

Hoag:
For starters, he was with me the day Sonny found the dummy.

Lamp:
Are you sure about that?

Hoag:
We were together at UCLA. Then we were both here at the estate.

Lamp:
Where were you?

Hoag:
Working in the guesthouse.

Lamp:
Where was he?

Hoag:
In the main house.

Lamp:
Doing what?

Hoag:
How should I know?

Lamp:
What if he went out?

Hoag:
He’d have told me.

Lamp:
What if he didn’t want you to know?

Hoag: (silence)
Forget it. That’s not what happened.

Lamp:
He could have gone out for half an hour without you or the housekeeper knowing. It’s possible, isn’t it?

Hoag:
Vic Early didn’t do it.

Lamp:
How can you be so sure?

Hoag:
I have a reason to believe it.

Lamp:
What reason?

Hoag:
Call it a hunch.

Lamp:
I see. You going to share this particular hunch with me?

Hoag:
I’m not ready to.

Lamp:
I didn’t think so. That’s okay. That’s fine. But understand my position. I’m not going to sit around and wait for you. I can’t, simply on the strength of some
hunch
you’ve got. I have to go with the facts. You’re speculating. Speculating can take you anywhere.

Hoag:
Like where?

Lamp:
Like … to you.

Hoag: Me?

Lamp:
You. You’re awfully at home here all of the sudden. You and Miss Day. Mighty nice set-up. Hugs and kisses. Expensive shirts. I checked up on you, you know. You’ve been kind of down on your luck lately. Broke. A drinking problem. Famous wife divorced you. …

Hoag:
Wait, are you suggesting /killed Sonny?

Lamp:
No, no, no. I’m
speculating,
remember? Face it, you really stand to clean up on this book now. You’re already back in the limelight. Plus you’ve got Miss Day. I assume the house will go to her. Place must be worth, what, five million? More?

Hoag:
Ten or twelve, I’d say. I was on the plane at the time Sonny died, remember?

Lamp:
So maybe you didn’t act alone. Maybe you’ve been plotting this a long time. Maybe you set Early up. Hmm. Very interesting.

Hoag:
And total bullshit.

Lamp:
Precisely my point.

Hoag:
It is?

Lamp:
Yes. See, that’s what happens when you speculate. You reshape the picture, recolor it, make it look any darned way you want. That’s why I go with facts.

Hoag:
You’re a lot sneakier than you look, Lamp.

Lamp:
Just trying to prove a point.

Hoag:
Pick another way next time.

Lamp:
Didn’t mean to upset you.

Hoag:
Let me ask
you
something, Lieutenant. Is there any category under the law for what I am?

Lamp:
I’m not following you.

Hoag:
I’m being realistic, like you want. See, any way you color that picture, I’m somehow responsible. Even if you say it’s Vic. I could have put my foot down. Told Sonny flat out no, we leave the Daisy anecdote out.

Lamp:
Oh, heck, you can’t blame yourself for what somebody else does. Whatever happened, Hoagy, it happened around you, not because of you. It’s not your fault if Vic Early shot Sonny Day. Or if Joe Blow did. Go easier on yourself. Now, do you have any idea where Early might have gone?

Hoag:
No. No family or friends that he mentioned. You could try the UCLA athletic department. He seemed to know people there.

Lamp:
Okay. That’s a start. Thanks for your time, Hoagy. I suggest you relax, finish your book, take care of Miss Day. Let me do my job. Okay?

Hoag:
So much for your little Chasen’s theory then?

Lamp:
So much for my theory. That’s speculation. Early is concrete. It’s Early—until and unless the facts show otherwise.

(end tape)

T
HE FACTS DID SHOW
otherwise a few days later. Three days to be exact.

I spent those days taking Lamps advice. The tapes and transcripts arrived from New York, the IBM Selectric from a rental outfit down on Sepulveda. I set myself up in Sonny’s study at his massive desk, his pictures and awards looking down at me. I was up to Knight and Day’s postwar glory days now, and finding the going rough.

Sonny wasn’t around anymore to look over my shoulder and growl, “Yeah, that’s just how I felt, pally,” or “No, that ain’t me.” I had a pile of tapes, some notes, some impressions, and the power to create a man out of it. I was on my own.

It felt a lot more like a novel now.

I was also having trouble concentrating. Every time I started to look through the transcripts for a specific anecdote or phrase, I instead found myself searching in vain for that something Sonny had said, that
thing
that kept nibbling away at me. I couldn’t shake that. Nor the awareness of where the book was headed now, and the conversation I’d have to have with Connie about it.

I spent a lot of the time staring out the study window at the eucalyptus tree. And swimming laps. And ’pooning.

And with Wanda. I was in her movie a lot now. Background music was playing. The setting was lavishly appointed. A lot of action. Very little dialogue. No questions. No past. No other present. Just now.

Only once was there so much as a flicker of reality to us. She came into the study one morning, sat down on my lap, and ran her fingers under the shirt she’d given me.

“What will happen when you finish? Will you go back to New York and leave me?”

I pulled the snaps of her denim shirt open. “I can’t even imagine leaving this room.”

And we didn’t. Like I said, it was only a flicker.

Occasionally, we chatted idly about going down to Spago or to a movie, but we never left the estate. There were two more cases of Dom Perignon in the cellar, and when we got hungry for food, Maria was there to cook us something. It did occur to me that this was the best life I’d led in a long time.

The only trouble was that Sonny had paid for my rebirth with his life.

I was out on the lawn ’pooning and trying to hear his voice when Lamp called. I was hitting the towel nine times out of ten again. The old eye was coming back. The voice wasn’t.

Maria took the call. I picked up in the study.

“Start speculating again,” Lamp announced without even a hello.

“What happened to your facts?”

“Know where Vic Early is? Know where he’s been for the past four days? The Veterans Administration hospital on Sawtelle. He went straight there after he escaped. Checked himself in. They logged the time. He was there on the night of your bonfire. He’s been there all along. Just took us awhile to catch up with him.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“That’s the strange part. Maybe not so strange. He said he felt he was going to have to end up there, that there wasn’t going to be much choice, and that he wanted that choice to be his own. He escaped because he wanted to walk in there on his own two feet. He’s a proud guy. I kind of like him, to tell you the truth.”

“So do I.”

“Guess you’re feeling pretty smart about this.”

“Not really.”

“I’m not going to say you were right and I was wrong. The facts looked a certain way, so I went with them. Now they look different. Early’s not eliminated. He still could have pulled the trigger. But I have to look elsewhere.”

“Back to your theory?”

“And to speculating.”

“About anything in particular?”

“Yes. About who might have gotten mad at Sonny Day for telling secrets.
Real
mad.”

(Tape #2 with Harmon Wright. Recorded in his office at HWA, March 14.)

H
OAG
: THANK YOU FOR
seeing me again.

Wright:
Of course. I think all of us owe it to Artie to see his story come out. He was on his way back. That’s what makes his death such a tragedy.

Hoag:
You knew him a long time.

Wright:
Longer than anyone. Longer than Connie or Gabe. God, he’s been such a big part of my life for so many years. The phone calls. The tantrums. The crises. It’s hard to get used to him not being here.

Hoag:
There are a few loose ends I’d like to tie up.

Wright:
Fire away.

Hoag:
During our last interview, Sonny and I were discussing the events that led up to Knight and Day’s breakup. According to Sonny, their feuding came to a head over
The Boy in the Gray Flannel Suit.

Wright:
Artie, he provoked that last fight.

Hoag:
He did?

Wright:
Absolutely. He wrote a picture that had no part for the guy in it, and then he told them this is the picture I want to do. They said fine, but put in a part for the tall guy. He said no, you make me do that and I’m walking. I told him, Arthur, they got you for three pictures, exclusive. You don’t make movies for Warners, you don’t make pictures for anybody. He wouldn’t listen. He drew a line and he wouldn’t cross over it.