The Man Who Died Laughing (3 page)

That didn’t sound right to me. Maybe something like that had happened, but I didn’t think it was why they fought. For one thing, that sort of dealing goes on all the time in entertainment business. Merilee told me stories about Broadway you wouldn’t believe. Partners wouldn’t roll around on the rug at Chasen’s over something like that.

The other reason I didn’t think it was true was that Sonny wouldn’t be coming forward now with what actually
was
true.

I had a job ahead of me. It wasn’t a particularly dignified one, but if I didn’t do it well, I’d have to start giving serious thought to dental school. I needed to do more than just string together Sonny’s funniest anecdotes. I needed to humanize him. That meant understanding him. And that meant getting him to really open up to me. There was the job. Still, the more I got used to the idea the more I believed I could make Sonny Day’s book into something special. I was, after all, no ordinary ghost.

Like I said, my ego wears earplugs.

Big Vic was waiting for me at the airport, wearing a windbreaker and a Dodger cap and holding a piece of cardboard that said “HOAG” on it, just in case I didn’t recognize him.

“Sonny’s at the therapist,” he told me, taking Lulu’s carrier. She growled softly. “Said he’ll be back by lunchtime. Give you a chance to get settled.”

We took the long moving sidewalk to the baggage claim area.

“So how long have you worked for Sonny?” I asked him.

“I’ve been with him eleven years now.” Vic spoke in a droning monotone, as if he were reciting. “He followed me when I played ball at UCLA and read about how I enlisted in the Marines instead of playing pro ball. There was an article in the
Times
about me when I got back. He called me up and offered me a job. See, I got hurt over in Nam. I have a plate in my head.”

“Bother you much?”

“Occasional headaches. On windy days I can pick up the Super Station.”

I looked at him blankly.

“Sonny’s joke,” he explained.

“Of course.”

“You make it over there, Hoag?”

“No, I was against it, actually.”

“Me, too.”

“Then why did you join the Marines?”

“To finish it,” he said simply.

I got my suitcases and, with some embarrassment, the two cases of the only food in the world Lulu will eat—9 Lives Mackerel Dinner for cats and very, very strange dogs. A gray Lincoln stretch limo with personalized plates that said “THE ONE” was parked at curbside. A ticket fluttered on the windshield. Vic pocketed it and put the stuff in the trunk. I got in front with him.

The L.A. airport had been redesigned for the Olympics, seemingly by an architect who had cut his teeth on ant farms. But it was a lot easier getting out than it used to be. Vic had no problems maneuvering his way to the San Diego Freeway, his big, football-scarred mitts planted firmly on the wheel, his massive shoulders squared. We headed north. It was the best kind of day they can have in L.A. There had been some rain, and then the wind had blown the clouds and smog out to sea. Now the sky was bright blue and it was so clear I could see the snow on Mount Baldy. The sun was warm and everything looked clean and shiny and new.

I rolled down my window. “Mind if I let Lulu out of her carrier?”

“Go right ahead.”

I opened the carrier door. She ambled out happily, planted her back paws firmly in my groin, and stood up so she could stick her big black nose out the window.

“So you’re what they call a bodyguard?” I asked, to say something.

“I do whatever he needs me to do. I drive. Run errands. Keep track of his appointments. And yeah, security. Course, Sonny doesn’t go out that much in public anymore. It isn’t worth it for him. He gets pestered too much. He needs a controlled environment. He stays in most nights now. He likes to read self-help books. He’s a big fan of that Leo Buscaglia. Or we rent movies from the video places. Paul Muni is his favorite. John Garfield, Jimmy Cagney …”

“How about his own movies, the Knight and Day movies? Does he ever watch those?”

“Never. He has no interest in them. Or the past. He doesn’t see his old friends, either. He used to entertain a lot. You know, dinner parties. The Dean Martins used to come by. Sammy and Altovese. The Jack Webbs. Jennings Lang. Sonny doesn’t see any of them anymore. Connie, his ex-wife, drops by once in a while. That’s it. He’s kind of a recluse now, I guess you could say. And I’ll tell you something, he’s a heckuva lot more fun to be around now than he was before, when he was drinking and popping pills.”

“What was he like then?”

Vic shrugged. “Take your pick—depressed, sentimental, suicidal, nasty, violent. He threw tantrums. A couple of times I had to belt him or he’d have hurt somebody. Most nights he’d drink his way through all of his different moods, then he’d pass out. I’d carry him to bed. Some nights he’d get hyped up and try to slip out the back door on me, take a car out god knows where. It got so I had to take off the distributor caps every night. It broke me up inside to see what he was doing to himself. See, I’m an orphan. I owe that man a lot. No, it’s more than that. I love him like a father. You know where I’m coming from?”

“Fully.”

“Sonny’s a gifted man, real proud, real insecure. Things are a lot better with him now. He takes care of himself. We work out together. Run. Swim. Eat right. I give him a rub. We have a lot more fun now.” He glanced over at me, then back at the road. “Listen, I think this book is a good thing for him. But you better not mess him up.”

“Me? How?”

“You drink, don’t you?”

“No more than any other failed writer.”

“Well, don’t try to get him started again. It’s been a tough, hard road for him. He gets knocked off of it, I’ll be very upset. Understand?”

“Yes, I do, Vic. And I appreciate your candor.”

Vic got off the freeway at Sunset and followed its winding path into Beverly Hills, where it wasn’t winter. Lawns were green. Flowers bloomed. The tops of the Mercedes 450SLs were down. Lulu kept her nose out the window. She seemed to like the smell of Beverly Hills. She’s always had pretty high-class taste for somebody who likes to eat canned mackerel.

“So you live with Sonny?” I asked.

“I have a room downstairs, TV, bath, everything. There’s also Maria, the housekeeper. A secretary comes in part-time. So does the gardener. Of course, Wanda’s living with us right now, too.”

That was news. The way I remembered it, father and daughter couldn’t stand one another.

“She is?”

“Yeah, they’re getting along much better. Boy, they used to have some fights. She was a real wild kid in the old days, I guess. That’s before I came along. When she was an actress. Remember the scene in that French movie
Paradise
when she sneaks into the count’s bed in the middle of the night, stark naked, and starts humping him, and he wakes up and doesn’t know what—”

“I remember it, yeah.”

“In my opinion, that’s just about the most erotic scene in motion picture history.” He said it respectfully.

“What is she doing now?”

“Studying for her real estate license.”

Vic turned off Sunset at Canon, took that to Benedict Canyon, and started climbing. The road got narrower the farther up we went—and bumpier when we passed out of the Beverly Hills city limits.

“I think you’ll like Wanda,” Vic droned on. “We’ve had some good talks. She’s been through a lot herself. She was institutionalized a couple of times, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“But she’s got a pretty solid sense of where she’s at now. She’s pushing forty, after all. She’s a survivor. She and Sonny are a lot alike. At least, that’s my opinion.”

“You seem to have a lot of them.”

“This job leaves me plenty of time to think.”

Sonny’s house was off Benedict on a little dead-end road about five miles above Sunset behind a big electric gate. Vic opened the gate by remote control. It closed behind us all by itself. The driveway curved past a couple of acres of fragrant orange and lemon orchards, then a reflecting pool with palms carefully arranged around it. The house was two stories high and vaguely Romanesque. It looked like a giant mausoleum. Actually the whole place, with its neatly manicured grounds, came off like a memorial park.

Inside, there was an entry hall that was bigger than my entire apartment and a formal dining room with a table that could seat a couple of dozen without any knees knocking. The living room was two stories high and all glass. A brook ran through the middle of it, and there were enough trees and plants growing there to stock a Tarzan movie.

Vic pushed a button. I heard a motor whir and the glass ceiling began to roll back, sending even more sunlight in.

“If everyone lived in a glass house,” said Vic, “nobody would get stoned.”

I stared at him blankly.

“Sonny’s joke,” he explained.

Sonny’s study was off the living room behind double hardwood doors. It was paneled and carpeted and had a big slab of black marble for a desk. There were plaques and awards and autographed photos hanging everywhere, photos of Sonny with three, four, five different U.S. presidents, with Frank Sinatra, with Bob Hope, with Jack Benny, with Groucho Marx. There were no photos of him with Gabe Knight. The lobby poster from
Moider, Inc.
hung over the black leather sofa. Over the fireplace there was a formal oil portrait of Sonny made up as his sad-sack clown in
The Big Top.
A single tear glimmered on his cheek.

“Very impressive,” I said. “And the rest, I take it, is closet space?”

“Six bedrooms, each with its own bath, sitting room, and fireplace,” replied Vic. “The guesthouse is separate. It overlooks the swimming pool and the log arbor.”

“Log arbor?”

“For shade.”

“Of course.”

A flagstone path led across a few acres of lawn to the guesthouse. The bedroom was done in bright yellow and came equipped with a color TV, IBM Selectric, kitchenette, and bath. Sonny’s health spa was right across the hall, complete with Universal weight machine, chrome dumbbells, slant boards, exercise mats, and mirrored walls.

“Very handy in case I get an urge to work on my pecs in the middle of the night,” I said.

“Sonny’ll be back around one,” said Vic. “Why don’t you unpack?”

“Fine. Say, is this place secure?”

“Very. Private patrol cars, electrified fence, computerized alarm bell system on all doors and windows. Three handguns, one in my room, one in Sonny’s room, and one in his study. All of them loaded.” He chuckled. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant sound. “Not that there’s anything to be uptight about.”

“Sonny’s joke?”

He frowned. “No, mine.”

“Actually, what I meant was, is there a fence all the way around, so Lulu can run loose?”

“Oh. Yes, there is. She won’t tinkle in any specimen plants, will she?”

“Never has.”

I let her off her leash. She rolled around happily on the grass and began to bark at the birds.

It was so quiet there in the guesthouse my ears buzzed. I unpacked my tape recorder, blank cassettes, notepads, and the quart of Jack Daniel’s. There was ice and mineral water in my little refrigerator. I made myself a drink and downed it while I hung up my clothes. Then I said good-bye to my winter tweed sportcoat, cashmere crewneck, and flannel slacks and padded into the bathroom.

I looked kind of sallow there in the mirror. I was showing a little more collarbone than I remembered, and there were circles under my eyes. I certainly didn’t look like the man who, fifteen years before, had been the third-best javelin thrower in the entire Ivy League.

I showered and toweled off and switched to California clothes—pastel polo shirt, khakis, and sneakers. I still had another ten minutes until lunch. I was going to celebrate that fact, but the Jack Daniel’s wasn’t on the desk where I’d left it. It wasn’t anywhere.

It was gone.

Someone had, however, left me a small gift on my bed. There I found an old, yellowing eight-by-ten glossy of Knight and Day from the movie
Jerks,
back when they were still in their twenties and baby-faced. They were posed behind the counter in their white soda-jerk smocks and caps. Gabe wore a slightly annoyed expression and two scoops of melting ice cream atop his head. Sonny had the grin and the scooper.

The photo was autographed by each of them, and a very fine grade Wusthof Dreizackwerk carving knife was plunged through the middle of it and into my pillow.

Sonny had my Jack Daniel’s in front of him on the glass dining table that was set for two next to the swimming pool. He wore a royal-blue terry cloth sweat suit and was reading
Daily Variety.
Lulu dozed at his feet.

He grinned as I approached him. “Welcome to L.A., pally. All settled in?”

I deposited my pillow on the table as I’d found it. “I’m not ordinarily one to complain about accommodations, but your better hotels leave their guests one individually wrapped chocolate on the pillow at bedtime. I prefer bittersweet.”

“Jeez, where’d you find the old still?” Sonny asked, leaning over slightly, examining it. “Haven’t seen one of these in twenty years. Signed, even. Must be worth sixty, seventy cents. But what’s with the knife?”

“Someone left it for me when I was in the shower.”

Sonny leaned back and squinted up at me. “You mean like some kind of gag?”

“You tell me.”

“Hey, don’t look at me, pally. I didn’t do it.”

“Well, someone did.” I eyed my bottle before him.

“Ohhh … I see how it looks. Sure.” Sonny winked at me. “Forgot to tell ya—Bela Lugosi’s ghost lives here. I’ll have Maria get you another pillow, okay? Sit.”

I stood. Sonny was behaving as if this sort of thing happened routinely. Water lawn. Take out garbage. Stick knife in bedding.

He tapped my bottle with a lacquered fingernail. “I think we’re gonna have to reach an agreement about this.”

“You’re damned right. I do what I want, when I want, provided it doesn’t interfere with our work. And you stay out of my room or I’m moving into a hotel—at your expense.”

“Calm down, pally. Calm down. I know what it’s like. I been there.” He fingered the bottle thoughtfully. “It’s like somebody’s taking away your security blanket. I’ll let you in on a little secret though, pally—“