The Last Laugh Read online

since you have such a way about you, how could I possibly resist?" she answered smartly.

  It was a good thing that Ms Parrish didn't have the same problem with the library that I did, it was an even better that she had after hours access. It was one of the benefits of working for the DA. If Mellinksy needed to find something out he wasn't going to stick around for opening hours, neither was he going to do the leg work himself.

  An hour later she called me at my favourite phone box.

  "I've got some names for you," she said teasingly.

  "Best news I've heard all night."

  "Bad part is I've only got three."

  I never expected miracles. "Three out of four ain't bad," I told her.

  "And one of them's dead..."

  "I reckon we'll leave him out of it then. What have you got on the other two?"

  I heard Parrish rustling some papers. "First one is Billy French. He was part of a four-man troupe, The Giggles Brigade - that's who the photo's of by the way. When they called off the circus all those years back French named clowns and got to walk. Now he's got a nightclub downtown - The Nez Rouge."

  "The Mayor's Room?" I thought it sounded like a dumb name for a club.

  "No - The Nez Rouge - it's French."

  Definitely sounded like a dumb name for a club. "Where is it?" I asked.

  "Down on Sinclair."

  "Ok - I'll meet you there in an hour. What've you got on giggles number three...?"

  His name was Arthur Frame. He'd decided a little too late to snitch on the rest of the circus and by the time he did everyone on his list had already been delivered by French. He'd been allowed to walk, but he hadn't got the golden handshake they'd given French. This was why he'd been living in a flea-bitten two-room dive downtown. And it was probably the same reason he never got to finish his last meal.

  Most likely no one else would have thought twice about it - for all anyone knew Frame was just another nobody who ran out of bad luck. That as exactly what clicked it all into place for me. The perp who had finished him off wanted to make sure it didn't look like murder. My money was on poison. When they got around to finding the stiff they'd as likely figure that his heart had given out and leave it at that, no one would ever bother figuring out what had really happened to him. Frame had only ever been interesting to anyone who had seen that photo tonight, and only a few of us had.

  I had a feeling the next person to run out of luck tonight was going to be Billy French.

  Then the door opened and I realised it was going to be me.

  "You want to try spelling it out for us again? What you were doing next to a dead man?" the cop asked me.

  Four of them had come through that door into Frame's kitchen. My first thought was to try jumping out of Frame's kitchen window. Luckily for me my second thought was to curse the dead man for living on the tenth floor. It was a good thing my brain was working quicker than my legs that night.

  I was thinking about taking the four of them on when one of them sapped me and it was all over before it even began. Next thing I knew I was sitting in the middle of a room making a show of myself.

  "I heard there was some pasta going spare," I tried telling them. "I hate to see good food going to waste, don't you?"

  "You think that's funny?" the cop said.

  "Hey, I'm here all week," I tried telling him helpfully. "Why don't you all come back tomorrow. You can get your money back if - "

  "Shut it!" the biggest one told me. I was feeling generous so I did what he told me. Then they started giving me the third.

  One of the leaner ones stood over me, he had a face like a street pole. "You wanna start telling us what we want to hear, else you're taking a swim."

  I shrugged. "That's easy - what do you wanna hear? How about you write it down for me?"

  The older one spoke up. "Don't be a wise guy, wiseguy. You were standing there next to Frame's corpse - are you going to try and tell us you had nothing to do with knocking him off? You're in a whole heap of trouble."

  "Yeah," I muttered. "And the rest..."

  "The rest?" quizzed the big one. "The rest of what?"

  I looked around at a room of blank faces. "You only after me for Frame?"

  "You wanna give us something else to stick it to you for? Step right up, give me a list!" the big one offered.

  It looked like the word hadn't come down to these part-timers about Mellinksy putting the heat on me. Maybe I was in with a chance after all.

  "I told you, when I got there he was already dead," I reminded them. "If I was a betting man I'd be putting my money on poison."

  That wasn't what the old guy wanted to hear. He signalled to the fourth cop, a mug who'd been standing back until now. He leapt to attention and lunged at me with a bucket in his arms. It looked like I was going to get a dunking.

  Except I didn't. All that came out of the bucket was a a few tufts of foam, it probably did no worse than make me look like Santa Claus after a few rough nights. Sure, I was glad I hadn't been taken for a swimming lesson in my seat, but something was starting to smell of fish around here.

  The mug was looking guilty. "I'm sorry, Captain!"

  The Captain shrugged theatrically and clipped the mug around the ear. "What did you do? What did you do?" he cried. The other two cops were looking giddy, as if they were about to start high-tailing it around the room.

  "I guess I picked up the stunt bucket by accident."

  I shook my head. "You're a bunch of clowns!"

  "We're not clowns," the thin one told me, "We're real cops."

  "No such thing as a real cop," I grunted. "You're either cop or you're not. Now get me out of this chair or I'm personally dropping you all on Mellinksy's doorstep."

  "What are you gonna do if we let you go?" the Captain asked.

  "Maybe I'll go and figure out who murdered your friend, Mr Giggles, back in the apartment."

  The big one stepped forward. "How about you tell us who killed him and we'll think about letting you go."

  I looked around the room. They were as dumb as they were incompetent. "Because I don't know who dropped him yet. I was in the middle of figuring that out when you and Captain Giggles here dragged me down here."

   "You don't you call him that!" The mug screeched, pointing an angry finger at me. "His name is Captain Sniggles!"

  "Who the hell are you people?" I demanded.

  Captain Sniggles stepped over and started untying me. "You got it in one. We used to be clowns, our trick was playing dumb cops. When clowning went bad we just carried on doing the only other thing we knew what to do: pretending to be cops."

  I stood up again, shaking some life back into my hands. "You do a better job than some of the cops I know. How about you cut me a line - I'm paying your friend Billy French a visit next, what can you tell me about him?"

  "French is a no good stitch," the thin one cut in angrily. "He's no better than a straight man, except we were all the fall guys."

  Captain Sniggles nodded. "Yeah, French screwed us all over pretty good. He's no friend to us. If he wasn't holed up in his club so tight we'd have put him away ourselves."

  "I saw a photo tonight," I told them. "It had French, your old friend Frame and another dead guy in it. You know anything about it? I figure whoever got to Frame is going after French next. That makes him the clown with all the answers."

  "Frame was a good guy who got himself in a bad place. He didn't deserve to go out like that," Captain Sniggles said. "French we could care less about."

  I shrugged. "Yeah, well, maybe I'll get to French in time and maybe I won't, but you can bet your oversized rubber soles that whoever stiffed Frame will be after French next, and I reckon French knows who running the payroll that sorted out Frame. Thing is French probably doesn't figure he's next on the same list as Frame and his number's up too."

  I stopped.

  Captain Sniggles was looking at me. "So what does all that mean?"


  An hour later I was sitting in The Nez Rouge with Miss Parrish. Captain Sniggles and his cronies had figured out they were better off letting me hunt down their clown killer. Of course I didn't bother telling them about the real police being after me as well; I had to keep a few secrets to take to the grave, and right now a grave was feeling like good place to be. French's club was a haven for the scum of the city; lawyers, realtors, taxmen - you name it they were there.

  French didn't like me hanging around his place either but at least he had style enough to try and buy my silence with a few free drinks. I wasn't on the job (something else to be grateful to MacLane for) so I took them with a smile, but it was my first dead cert clue that he wasn't up to any good.

  "I really have no idea what makes you think I know anything about clowns," he tried.

  "You used to be one," Parrish told him squarely.

  "Oh, yeah. That."

  That was enough small talk. It was time to put on some pressure. "Tell me, French - what's the only thing worse than being a clown?"

  "I don't know," he said, sulking harder than a suit with a broken nose.

  "Being a dead clown," I told him, and took a moment to let it sink it: it was one of my better punchlines.

  "Is that a threat?" French said, trying to sound tough now.

  "You want it to be?" I asked him.

  "Are you going to make it?" he replied.

  "Are you going to make me make it a threat?" I countered.

  "Boys!" Miss Parrish interrupted. "Either take it to the bathroom or get talking."

  I had to admit it - Miss Parrish had a way about her. I nodded. "You better start talking, French. You see I've got a photo of you right