foster
parents (the bandits who had originally turned his head toward crime)
were about the last to get wind of his achievements. When they did,
they were insanely jealous. They all single-filed past the Laughing
Man's bed one night, thinking they had successfully doped him into a
deep sleep, and stabbed at the figure under the covers with their
machetes. The victim turned out to be the bandit chief's mother--an
unpleasant, haggling sort of person. The event only whetted the
bandits' taste for the Laughing Man's blood, and finally he was
obliged to lock up the whole bunch of them in a deep but pleasantly
decorated mausoleum. They escaped from time to time and gave him a
certain amount of annoyance, but he refused to kill them. (There was
a compassionate side to the Laughing Man's character that just about
drove me crazy.)
Soon
the Laughing Man was regularly crossing the Chinese border into
Paris, France, where he enjoyed flaunting his high but modest genius
in the face of Marcel Dufarge, the internationally famous detective
and witty consumptive. Dufarge and his daughter (an exquisite girl,
though something of a transvestite) became the Laughing Man's
bitterest enemies. Time and again, they tried leading the Laughing
Man up the garden path. For sheer sport, the Laughing Man usually
went halfway with them, then vanished, often leaving no even faintly
credible indication of his escape method. Just now and then he posted
an incisive little farewell note in the Paris sewerage system, and it
was delivered promptly to Dufarge's boot. The Dufarges spent an
enormous amount of time sloshing around in the Paris sewers.
Soon
the Laughing Man had amassed the largest personal fortune in the
world. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local
monastery--humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising
German police dogs. What was left of his fortune, the Laughing Man
converted into diamonds, which he lowered casually, in emerald
vaults, into the Black Sea. His personal wants were few. He subsisted
exclusively on rice and eagles' blood, in a tiny cottage with an
underground gymnasium and shooting range, on the stormy coast of
Tibet. Four blindly loyal confederates lived with him: a glib timber
wolf named Black Wing, a lovable dwarf named Omba, a giant Mongolian
named Hong, whose tongue had been burned out by white men, and a
gorgeous Eurasian girl, who, out of unrequited love for the Laughing
Man and deep concern for his personal safety, sometimes had a pretty
sticky attitude toward crime. The Laughing Man issued his orders to
the crew through a black silk screen. Not even Omba, the lovable
dwarf, was permitted to see his face.
I'm
not saying I will, but I could go on for hours escorting the
reader--forcibly, if necessary--back and forth across the
Paris-Chinese border. I happen to regard the Laughing Man as some
kind of super-distinguished ancestor of mine--a sort of Robert E.
Lee, say, with the ascribed virtues held under water or blood. And
this illusion is only a moderate one compared to the one I had in
1928, when I regarded myself not only as the Laughing Man's direct
descendant but as his only legitimate living one. I was not even my
parents' son in 1928 but a devilishly smooth impostor, awaiting their
slightest blunder as an excuse to move in--preferably without
violence, but not necessarily--to assert my true identity. As a
precaution against breaking my bogus mother's heart, I planned to
take her into my underworld employ in some undefined but
appropriately regal capacity. But the main thing I had to do in 1928
was watch my step. Play along with the farce. Brush my teeth. Comb my
hair. At all costs, stifle my natural hideous laughter.
Actually,
I was not the only legitimate living descendant of the Laughing Man.
There were twenty-five Comanches in the Club, or twenty-five
legitimate living descendants of the Laughing Man--all of us
circulating ominously, and incognito, throughout the city, sizing
parents (the bandits who had originally turned his head toward crime)
were about the last to get wind of his achievements. When they did,
they were insanely jealous. They all single-filed past the Laughing
Man's bed one night, thinking they had successfully doped him into a
deep sleep, and stabbed at the figure under the covers with their
machetes. The victim turned out to be the bandit chief's mother--an
unpleasant, haggling sort of person. The event only whetted the
bandits' taste for the Laughing Man's blood, and finally he was
obliged to lock up the whole bunch of them in a deep but pleasantly
decorated mausoleum. They escaped from time to time and gave him a
certain amount of annoyance, but he refused to kill them. (There was
a compassionate side to the Laughing Man's character that just about
drove me crazy.)
Soon
the Laughing Man was regularly crossing the Chinese border into
Paris, France, where he enjoyed flaunting his high but modest genius
in the face of Marcel Dufarge, the internationally famous detective
and witty consumptive. Dufarge and his daughter (an exquisite girl,
though something of a transvestite) became the Laughing Man's
bitterest enemies. Time and again, they tried leading the Laughing
Man up the garden path. For sheer sport, the Laughing Man usually
went halfway with them, then vanished, often leaving no even faintly
credible indication of his escape method. Just now and then he posted
an incisive little farewell note in the Paris sewerage system, and it
was delivered promptly to Dufarge's boot. The Dufarges spent an
enormous amount of time sloshing around in the Paris sewers.
Soon
the Laughing Man had amassed the largest personal fortune in the
world. Most of it he contributed anonymously to the monks of a local
monastery--humble ascetics who had dedicated their lives to raising
German police dogs. What was left of his fortune, the Laughing Man
converted into diamonds, which he lowered casually, in emerald
vaults, into the Black Sea. His personal wants were few. He subsisted
exclusively on rice and eagles' blood, in a tiny cottage with an
underground gymnasium and shooting range, on the stormy coast of
Tibet. Four blindly loyal confederates lived with him: a glib timber
wolf named Black Wing, a lovable dwarf named Omba, a giant Mongolian
named Hong, whose tongue had been burned out by white men, and a
gorgeous Eurasian girl, who, out of unrequited love for the Laughing
Man and deep concern for his personal safety, sometimes had a pretty
sticky attitude toward crime. The Laughing Man issued his orders to
the crew through a black silk screen. Not even Omba, the lovable
dwarf, was permitted to see his face.
I'm
not saying I will, but I could go on for hours escorting the
reader--forcibly, if necessary--back and forth across the
Paris-Chinese border. I happen to regard the Laughing Man as some
kind of super-distinguished ancestor of mine--a sort of Robert E.
Lee, say, with the ascribed virtues held under water or blood. And
this illusion is only a moderate one compared to the one I had in
1928, when I regarded myself not only as the Laughing Man's direct
descendant but as his only legitimate living one. I was not even my
parents' son in 1928 but a devilishly smooth impostor, awaiting their
slightest blunder as an excuse to move in--preferably without
violence, but not necessarily--to assert my true identity. As a
precaution against breaking my bogus mother's heart, I planned to
take her into my underworld employ in some undefined but
appropriately regal capacity. But the main thing I had to do in 1928
was watch my step. Play along with the farce. Brush my teeth. Comb my
hair. At all costs, stifle my natural hideous laughter.
Actually,
I was not the only legitimate living descendant of the Laughing Man.
There were twenty-five Comanches in the Club, or twenty-five
legitimate living descendants of the Laughing Man--all of us
circulating ominously, and incognito, throughout the city, sizing
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