Read The Man Who Died Laughing for Free Online Page A

here is a talented boy. He and I have a lot in common, you know.”
    “We do?” I said.
    “Sure. You’re just like me. You hold back. You hide behind your own mask. I’m gonna pull it off you, though. Know why?”
    “Let me guess … because you love me?”
    “Right.”
    He started to crush me in a bear hug. I flinched.
    “Gotcha!” He laughed.
    Maria appeared to announce dinner was served.
    “Not served,” corrected Sonny. “How many times I gotta tell ya? The word is … soived.”
    She flashed him a smile and said it again in correct, south-of-the-border Brooklynese.
    “That’s more like it.” He grinned.
    He went to the foot of the stairs and called Wanda. She padded down barefoot in a caftan slit all the way to her thigh, and joined us at one corner of the giant dining table. Dinner was broiled snapper, rice, and steamed vegetables.
    Wanda ate hurriedly and avoided eye contact with the rest of us.
    Connie asked me what my novel was about.
    “I’ll handle that one,” said Sonny before I could answer. “It’s about the death of this small, family-run brass mill in Connecticut. See, it’s been in the family for five generations or so, and now the father runs it, and he wants the son to take it over. Only, it’s the last thing in the world the kid wants to do. See, he and the old man don’t get along. Never did. So the mill dies, because the family has died. It’s all like a … metaphor for the death of the American dream. Am I right?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Very well put.”
    “See?” He grinned like a proud child. “I ain’t so lowbrow.”
    It seemed important that I think he was smart. I guess because he thought I was smart.
    “Was it autobiographical?” Connie asked.
    “Partly.”
    “Your old man ran a brass mill?” Sonny asked.
    “My old man runs a brass mill.”
    “In Connecticut?”
    “In Connecticut.”
    “Damned good story. Make a terrific picture. This kid can write, he’s real serious. Hey, Wanda, you know a writer named Henry Miller?”
    “Know him? I blew him.”
    Connie’s eyes widened. Then she wiped her face clean of any expression and reached for her glass.
    “Hey,” snapped Sonny. “You know I don’t like that kind of talk.”
    “So don’t ask those kinds of questions.”
    “It’s slutty and cheap and offensive. Apologize to your mother.”
    “Daddy, I’m going to be forty years old this year. I’ll talk as I—“
    “You’re never too old to be polite. Apologize this minute or leave my table.”
    Wanda rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mother.”
    “And to our company,” Sonny added.
    “No problem,” I assured him.
    “She’s apologizing, Hoagy!” he snapped.
    Wanda leveled her eyes at me. “I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said quietly.
    The matter closed, Sonny turned back to me. “I disagree with you in one area. I think the dream still lives. This is a great country. I come from nothing. Look what I got. How can you argue with that?”
    “Kind of blew up in your face a little, didn’t it?” I suggested gently.
    He frowned. “I had a setback. But I’m on the road back.”
    “How did your interview go today?” Connie asked him.
    “Total dreck. A lousy, two-bit sitcom about a stupid Great Neck catering house. They wanted me to read for the old headwaiter. Three grunts per episode. Totally one-dimensional. I walked out. They don’t write people anymore. They don’t know how. All they can write is smut and car chases. And they wonder why nobody watches. Hey, Vic brought in a couple old Capra pictures for tonight. We’ll pop some corn. I got celray tonic. Stick around, Connie.”
    “I’m sorry, Arthur. I have an early call.”
    “Wanda?”
    “I’m going out.
    “With who?”
    Her body tensed. “Daddy, I’m not sixteen.”
    “So why don’t you start making more sensible choices in men?”
    “Mind your own—“
    “Who are you—”
    “It’s none of your business!” she screamed.
    “It’s my business as long as you