Laugher Page 15

  “How do you know my name?” I asked. He ignored it.

  “All I can tell you is that you will never leave this place if you refuse to cooperate.”

  I inhaled a few grains of sand and flew into a coughing spell.

  “Cooperate...with what?” I choked.

  “Me, Mr. Santone.”

  “What’s it pay?”

  He smiled. “I could have killed you many times before now, Mr. Santone, but I didn’t. That’s your pay. But if you choose not to cooperate, I will demand a refund.”

  “That’s a clever way of saying that.” I meant it as a compliment, but I must have offended him because he caught me across the cheek with his fist.

  “I am not saying, Mr. Santone. I’m promising.”

  “Could have clarified without the punch.”

  “I want to make sure I am understood.”

  “Very. Now just what the hell is it you want me to do?”

  Grossman stood up. Then reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper and a pen. “Sign this and we will drive you home.”

  “And that is?”

  “A piece of paper.”

  “Hold it closer so I can read it.”

  “That’s not part of the deal. Sign it, or you’ll never get to give away that pretty ring you just bought.”

  Charlotte. If it wasn’t for the hope of seeing her again, maybe I would’ve taken my chances on being zipped up in the bag, trying my best to channel Harry Houdini.

  It then dawned on me that this must have been what they did with Silvio’s body. I wanted to call them out on it, say “Is Silvio around here somewhere too?”, but I caught myself. How stupid it would be to tell them I knew they killed him. What reason does that leave them to let me live?

  “What’ll it be, Santone?”

  I stared at the paper in his hand, the type turned away to keep me from seeing what it was.

  “You got ten seconds.” Grossman was becoming annoyed and anxious. Fred cracked his knuckles.

  “I can’t sign it with my hands tied.” I said.

  “Is that an agreement?” Grossman asked.

  “Yes,” I said, followed by a moment of white-hot regret, stifled only by the image of Charlotte’s eyes and porcelain skin. How warm her cheeks were in the morning.

  Fred was the one who cut my hands and feet loose. The other guy, I still had no idea who he was, just another goon, wrapped the blindfold around me. Fred put the pen in my hand and guided it to the paper, holding my left arm behind my back while I signed, ready to snap it if I tried any funny stuff.

  -------------------------------

  It was late afternoon by the time we got back to LA. They kept me in the back seat, blindfolded, but not gagged because I promised to be a good boy and shut up.

  Inside my pant leg I felt the ring box in my pocket. Remarkable that it hadn’t fallen out at some point. Even more remarkable that the men hadn’t pinched it.

  The car stopped somewhere the traffic was busy. I could hear horns honking and revving engines. And, good god, the smell. I had to be downtown.

  The nameless goon opened the door and Fred took the blindfold off.

  “You walk two blocks back that way before you talk to anyone; you look straight ahead, and don’t even think about turning around. You got it?”

  I was listening, but my eyes were on Grossman in the front seat. He was looking at something in his hands, then tore it up and threw it out the window.

  Fred’s hand slapped my eyes back at him. “Hey! You got it?”

  “Aye aye, captain.” I said.

  He shoved me toward the door causing me to lose my balance as I stepped out. I stumbled into a Chinese woman who shouted something, probably a curse, in Mandarin. The SUV drove away and I complied with Fred’s most polite request. I walked, silent, and gunless again.

  I had a rough idea where I was. The marquee of the Orpheum Theatre was shining a few blocks ahead. I took Charlotte to a show there a few months after we started dating. A musical. 42nd Street, I think. I wasn’t paying much attention. Singing and dancing doesn’t do it for me, but Charlotte sure was impressed. Before she entered law school, she tried her hand as an actress and singer, so I earned big points for taking her there.

  The SUV was long gone. I went back to where I was literally dropped off and poked around the gutter, looking for what Grossman threw away. I found it – half of it, that is. It was a small white card. The other half had blown into the sewer, but the half I held displayed my last name and the word “stigator” beneath it. There was also a dark smudge in the corner.

  I flagged down a taxi and had him take me back to the Beemer on Sunset.

  Since this whole goddamn city is broke, they practically doubled the fines for parking violations. The meter had run out. I had been expecting it to be towed, but there it was, and it had been there for hours. The sky was turning orange with streaks and traces of pink.

  Pulling the Beemer into traffic, that excited, hopeful feeling came back. On my way to the Demreau building, I thought that maybe there was a reason the ring didn’t fall out of my pocket, and why my car hadn’t been towed. Maybe I was meant to see her tonight, and things were meant to work out.

  -----------------------------

  Lights were still on, but only a few people were moving through the windows, packing up for the day. None of them looked like Charlotte and I assumed she’d already left, but thought I’d go take a look around and save myself a drive to Simi Valley. But crossing the street between segments of traffic, something stopped me. Charlotte was exiting the front doors, preceded by a former colleague of mine, Peter Norman. He held the door open for her and as she passed, his right hand settled on her lower back.

  My breath stopped short and I turned away. Sure, it was innocent enough, but something in my gut shot fear though my heart. I turned back around to see them breaking from a hug. He said something to her and they went their separate ways. A new flow of traffic stopped me from crossing the other half of the street and I was trapped in the left turn lane anxiously waiting, when my Blackberry rang. Charlotte’s name in the caller ID.

  The traffic broke. She was rounding the corner, heading for the company parking lot behind the building, her phone to her ear. I darted across the street and caught up with her.

  “Charlotte.”

  She jumped.

  “Jesus Christ,” she said.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I was just calling you.”

  We stood. Silent. A bit awkward. The ring box was in my pocket. I wrestled with myself. Should I just drop to one knee and do it? No. Not yet. “I wanted to see you tonight,” she said.

  I smiled. “I wanted to see you too.”

  She looked down at her feet. Something was wrong. “Can I meet you at your place?”

  “Of course.”

  She nodded and turned away.

  I got there before she did. I stood outside leaning against the garage door waiting for her to arrive, smoking a cigarette to calm myself down. How long had it been since my last smoke? I didn’t know. Ten minutes later, she pulled up. I showed her into the den.

  “Drink?”

  “Please.”

  I poured her a Merlot. She took a big sip. Gulp, rather. I poured a scotch for myself.

  “Why did you want to see me?” I asked, trying my damndest to hide the tremble in my voice.

  She looked at me. Square in the eye, for the first time in days. They were greener than the day she was born.

  “Marshall...I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.” But those words were just a front. What she meant was ‘I’ve been working up the nerve.’

  “About?”

  “You know what about.”

  Yes I did. Unfortunately. But still had time to save it. I reached into my pocket, took the ring box in my hand.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I approached her. “Except that I’ve never...thought about what it would be like to l
ose you. But over the past few days, I have. And I’ve never hated anything more.”

  My hand came out of my pocket. I opened the box. When Charlotte saw the ring, she took a deep breath and put her hands to her eyes.

  “Charlotte. Will you marry me?”

  As I said this, I realized I had forgotten to drop to one knee. Oh well. The refracted light caught her pupils as she stared at the small band of white gold. It also caught her tears, but I couldn’t tell if they were happy or sad.

  “You’re proposing.”

  I smirked a bit. “Yes, I am. I want to give you everything you want.”

  She reached out to take the ring out of the box. Or so I thought.

  She closed the box and pushed it back to me.

  “Marshall, I can’t.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t marry you.”

  Earlier that day I was one word away from death, and she was the reason I refused to die. Now I was right back in that body bag, gagged and choking.

  “But this is what you want.”

  “You can’t marry me because it’s what I want, Marshall. We have to want it together. And you don’t. You’ve proven that to me. I just didn’t want to believe it.”

  Who was this woman standing in front of me? Last time I saw her she was begging for an engagement ring.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “Don’t. I love you.”

  She touched my face like it was our first date. “I love you too...” She took a short breath. Her lip was trembling. “But that’s just not enough anymore.”

  I placed the ring box on the coffee table.

  “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” she said.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes. Marshall, this is how it has to be. It’s over.” She went for the door.

  “Damnit, Charlotte,” I said. “Let’s talk about this!”

  She stopped and turned back to me. “This is my decision.” Her tone was stiff like cheap tequila. “Take care of yourself.” She left the room and before I could take another breath she had shown herself out. Out of my house. Out of my life.

  I went to the front room and watched through the window as she pulled out from the curb. I gave nothing but a simple wave, met by nothing but a simple silence.

  All that thought about reason, about meaning, feeling what was right or meant to be. Bullshit. How could I let myself believe it? I should have told Grossman to go fuck himself and leave me in the sand. I’d be dead by now. Goddamnit, I need a fucking drink.

  My scotch was nearly empty and all I had left was wine, which I never drank myself, but saved for guests. I sped to the liquor store, barely obeying the traffic laws and probably broke one or two. I got back home with a shiny new bottle of liquid memory loss.

  I took it in the den, stood in the spot where it all happened, her words still ringing in my head, “I can’t marry you, I can’t marry you...,” tore the seal off the cap and twisted the top off, ready to guzzle it straight from the bottle. My hand flew back, and flew back too fast. I smacked it on the corner of the shelf where I kept my framed degrees.

  “Ah!” I yelled. “Goddamnit!” I hit the shelf with my fist, and it broke. The shelf turned into a wooden slide and my degrees tumbled off. One of the glass panes split.

  Towering over the mess, the bottle in my hand, raging vibration flowing through my whole body, something I couldn’t believe came over me...

  Laughter.

  I was laughing. Hysterically. Was I crazy? Had I finally snapped? I had a vision of two orderlies bursting in with a straight jacket ready to lock me up in a padded room. What the hell was I laughing for? I couldn’t control it. But I liked it.

  The shelf breaking. The irony of it all. My naiveté in believing she would give me another chance. I’d spent two and a half grand on a now obsolete engagement ring. Whatever it was, I found it hilarious and couldn’t stop. The staccato bursts of wordless noise left my mouth until my face was red and my abs were sore.

  The bottle fell to the floor and gave the carpet a scotch stain. A good quarter of a bottle wasted. But I didn’t care. At that moment laughter had more power over pain than all the scotch in the world.

  The next morning I’d wake up to a wave of memory and regret. That night, however, if I hadn’t been laughing so damn much, I would have drank that bottle whole and it’s beyond me what else I might have done in that state. Who knows. Maybe the laughter saved me.

  Chapter 16

  It was almost serendipitous. Waking up at 4:30 AM on the couch of the den, I had barely blinked when my Blackberry started buzzing. I looked at the caller ID, and answered.

  “Nora?”

  “I’m sorry. I completely didn’t realize the time difference. I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

  “No, no. I was awake.”

  “Oh.” She stopped. I was expecting to hear sounds of New York traffic in the background. A siren, other voices, a subway train. But there was nothing.

  “Nora? You there?”

  “This was wrong. I’m sorry, Marshall.”

  And she hung up. I called back, but was sent directly to her voicemail, didn’t even ring.

  Before I put the phone down and conked out again, I saw another alert on the screen: 1 Unread E-Mail.

  My eyes too old for the tiny font on the phone screen, I headed upstairs to the office.

  From: sros@aa.com

  To: marshall.santone@mac.com

  Time: 11:36:12 PM

  Subject: (none)

  Detective Santone:

  You came to my father’s house last Sunday morning. Forgive my intrusion, but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. I’d like to speak to you about Denny Granger. Please call me at 312-255-3450.

  - Samantha Roscoe

  The lace curtain, I thought. Instinctively, I began dialing, but soon remembered it was almost 5 AM and instead saved the number to my phone contacts, wrote myself a Post-It note, and retired to bed.

  The sun was up long before I was. Slept through my alarm, or maybe turned it off in my sleep. The image of Charlotte driving away played on repeat in my mind until my eye lids shot open like cannon fire and for the first few moments I saw the world in black and white.

  I called Samantha Roscoe from my living room. She told me she couldn’t talk right now, but asked if I could meet her at the playground behind the library on Buena Vista Street in Burbank.

  Just after twelve o’clock I arrived at the park in my jeans and short sleeve button-up with sunglasses, looking very un-private detective like.

  Samantha was sitting on a bench nearby. Early twenties. Thin. Shapely. Wearing a V-neck blouse with a T-shirt underneath to cover the cleavage, and tight black jeans with sandals. She was picking at her fingernails looking distressed.

  “Miss Roscoe.”

  She looked up at me and stood.

  “Detective,” she said and offered her hand. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

  “Of course.” We sat.

  “I apologize again for eavesdropping on your conversation with my father. My bedroom is just above the den and the sound carries well through the floor.”

  “No need to apologize.”

  She smiled. Her teeth were as white as the playground sand.

  “So what was it you wanted to discuss further?” I had my trusty notepad with me, ready to record.

  “Well, you mentioned to my father that you were looking for Denny Granger?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Have you found him?”

  “As far as I know, he’s back in New York City.”

  “Did he really kill that man? The club owner?”

  “I highly doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was almost killed by somebody else in the same way. Twice.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled out a cigarette and lit up, offered one to her, and to my surprise, she accepted. I was just being pol
ite. She didn’t strike me as a smoker.

  “Thank you,” she said after I lit her tip. “So you’re aware of the history between Denny and I?”

  I nodded.

  “I was only seventeen when it happened,” she said. “God, it’s amazing how stupid you can be at that age, isn’t it?”

  I nodded again. “Do you have any information on him?”