Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

THE LUCKY LOUNGE 1956

"I couldn't trust my wife, that's why we got a divorce." Sam E. took a drag of his Pall Mall. He blew a heavy smoke cloud into the dark room. "She didn't come home one night. And the next day, when I asked her where she was, she said with her sister Phyllis. I knew she was lying." He sipped from his scotch just long enough for the room to hush. "Because I spent the night with Phyllis."

The crowd burst into laughter. Syd Tate, the drummer of The Syd Tate Quartet hit double rim shots on his snare, ending it with a smash to his crash cymbal. Sam E. glanced to the side of the floor stage and winked at a busty blonde standing behind the curtain wings. She puckered her lips at him.

"Any of you folks encounter a spaceship yet?" he asked. "According to the newsreels they're all around us." He wiggled his fingers above his shoulders, and said in a spooky voice, "Waaaoooooh." The crowd chuckled. "A couple of spacemen went to a Mars nightclub, but they left because it had no atmosphere."

Syd Tate foot-thumped a ba-dawp on his bass drum.

"Seriously," Sam E. said. "If an athlete gets athlete's foot, what does an alien get? Missile toe?" He stepped from the floor stage center, to the front, where an elderly couple was seated. A cobalt spotlight trailed him like a coal car dogging a locomotive. "Where you folks from?"

"Texas," the man said.

"Texas," Sam E. repeated to the audience. "A Texas oil baron went to the dentist for a check-up. The dentist said, 'Everything's fine'. The baron said, 'Drill anyway, I feel lucky'." Laughter floated across the blue velvet walls.

"What brings you fine folks across the border to Las Vegas?" Sam E. puffed on his cigarette.

"We're newlyweds!" the old man said.

Sam E. bugged his eyes and acted as if he had choked on his cigarette smoke. A shriek of laughter echoed from the back of the crowded club. "I was in a bar the other day with a fellow of your vintage," he said to the man.

The elderly man smiled, as the spotlight lassoed the couple and settled back on Sam E.

"The old man was crying. I said, 'What's the matter, old timer?'" Sam E. glanced back at the busty blonde standing in the wings. She waved and licked her maraschino lips. His eyes widened briefly, and returned to the couple. "The man says, 'I married a beautiful woman'." Sam E. smiled at the elderly man's wife. She smiled and leaned into her husband. "'She's twenty-eight years my junior, built like Gina Lollabrigida, and wants to make whoopee every night'. 'Jeez', I says to the old guy, 'what are you crying for?'" Sam E. skimmed the crowded room, there was an electric hush, not even a rock glass was clinking. I got 'em, he thought. "And the old guy says to me, 'I'm crying because I can't remember where I live!'" The crowd crowed with laughter. The Syd Tate Quartet hit a soaring C chord. Sam E. thought, I hit it out of the park! He shook the elderly couple's hands, and said, "Thanks for being great sports." He grabbed a passing waiter. "Give these folks a drink, with my compliments."

A series of spotlights, like scattering UFOs, darted across the cheering crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen," a voice over a PA, said, "Mr. Sam E. Lakeside!"

The audience stood and the cheering renewed itself. Sam E. bowed and threw a kiss with his palm. He glanced one more time at the chesty blonde in the wings, but a diminutive, pointy-nosed man in a blue-satin suit and a small-brimmed fedora was standing where she had been. Sam E. saluted the exuberant crowd with his scotch. As he strutted off stage, the PA voice said, "On behalf of The Lucky Lounge and Casino, thank you and enjoy your stay."

He walked into the wings toward Syd Tate, who was packing his drumsticks. As he did, he passed the diminutive man, who doffed his hat and smiled at Sam E.

"Have you seen Mitzi? She was just here," Sam E. said to Syd.

"I wouldn't know," Syd replied. "Not since you took my dressing room."

"I had nothing to do with that."

"Sure you didn't." Syd brusquely walked away.

"Sore sport," Sam E. muttered to himself.

"Sam, it's your agent," a slim, thin-haired janitor, standing by the back-stage door, said. He handed Sam E. the receiver from a wall phone hanging next to him.

"Doc," he said, "I just finished the show. Yeah, I killed 'em ... What do you mean I won't be here next week? ... But I like this place. Did they dump me? ... The Steve Allen Show? You're kidding me, right? ... Yeeeaaaah!" He hopped in a small circle, tangling the cord around his shoulders. "Doc, I love you!" Unraveling the cord, he added, "Oh, and Marge too!" Before hanging up the receiver Sam E. grabbed the janitor by the shoulders and said, "I'm going to New York, Herkie, The Steve Allen Show!" "I gathered that."

"Have you seen Mitzi? I want to give her the good news."

The janitor shrugged. "Maybe your dressing room."

Sam E. zipped down the hall and into his dressing room. The small, messy room was empty except for the diminutive man in the fedora. He was leaning against the wall filing his nails. He stopped briefly to again tip his hat.

"Who the hell are you?" Sam E. walked up to the man. "And where's Mitzi?"

"Sorry, friend, but I get to ask the questions." The man slipped a spit-polish black .45 from his shoulder holster and shoved it against Sam E.'s forehead. "And my first question is, 'Would you like to take a walk?'"

HOT DIGGITY

Swhiiik. The shovel's stainless steel round-point blade sliced through the earth. It reflected the DeSoto's headlights as Sam E. forced chunks of mountain soil from their resting place.

Swhiiik. His back ached something awful. His heart was playing leap frog — not because of the physical work — but because the dirt pit was nearly large enough to fit a prone body, which in this case, he knew was going to be his. He stopped, removed his tuxedo jacket, and said, "The Lone Ranger and Tonto are searching for bad guys. Tonto gets off his horse and puts his ear to the ground, 'Hmmm', he says, 'Buffalo come'." The Lone Ranger looks around and says, 'How can you tell?'"

"Clam it," the diminutive man said, aiming the .45 at Sam E.'s damp skull.

"Don't be a party-pooper, Francis," Cricket said to him. "Let him finish, just for yucks. He's funny."

Sam E. studied Francis' slim, curvaceous girlfriend. He thought, if I can get her to like me, maybe I can buy some time. He traced upward Cricket's open-toe black-leather pumps, burnt-orange cigarette slacks, tight black v-neck cardigan, and her fleshy, red lips smiling dangerously at him. Sam E. focused on her emerald-gray eyes and shoulder cut golden-red hair, both made more sensual by the black beret shadowing her forehead. He purposely smiled back at her.

"It's not that funny," Francis said to Cricket. "Tonto answers, 'I can tell Buffalo cum, because ear sticky'."

Sam E. frowned. He leaned into the shovel, resting his clammy armpit over the shank; the DeSoto's headlights flooding his deep, ebony eyes.

"Yech, that's nowheresville," Cricket said, walking to the DeSoto. "I'm gonna play the rad-dio, dad-dyo."

Sam E. pushed his black, wavy-wet hair from his forehead. A ghostly breeze cut across the chilly Nevada mountainside. The comedian shivered as he saw himself lying in the dirt with a bullet in his head.

"Keep digging," Francis said.

"Um, look, Francis. Can I call you Francis?"

"I suppose."

"You seem like a nice guy. How about giving me a break? I'm going on The Steve Allen Show. I'll leave town, no one will know. I'll grow a beard and change my name."

"Do you know how many times I've heard that? Not the Steve Allen part; that's new."

"So how about it?" Sam E. flattened his hands together in a pitiful prayer.

"Keep digging." Francis inched the gun closer to Sam E.'s brain.

Swhiiik.

"Hey," Cricket called, poking her head out of the DeSoto's window. "Your engine's reading in the red again."

"There's oil under the back seat," Francis said. "Bring it here and turn off the motor."

"I thought the mob paid you guys better than that," Sam E. said.

"The bigwigs, not me."

"I have some cash saved," Sam E. said, "and my manager's a really good guy. He'll fork over more. How about it?"

"Can I level with you?"

"Sure, we're practically pals," Sam E. hoped.

"I don't pull the strings. If I do a good job, they leave me alone. If I do a bad job, my strings will be cut. I don't like it, but that's the way it is." Francis touched the 45's barrel to Sam E.'s skull. "Now, keep digging."

Swhiiik.

Between shovel strokes, Sam E. heard Cricket shuffling under the seat, the car's radio click on, and a distorted, loud Perry Como lazily crooning "Hot Diggity" through the automobile's tinny speaker.

Cricket stepped from the sedan. She handed Francis the oilcan. Sam E. said, "Oil veh."

Francis said, "Oil veh, isn't that Jewis —"

A low-pitched noise from above, like a bassoon, drowned him out.

The trio looked up. A turquoise streak flamed across the star-sprinkled night. It descended behind the tree-jagged horizon, causing a hoot owl to flutter in the firs.

"A shooting star!" Cricket said. "I wish for a brand-new '56 Thunderbird Roadster. Emerald green!"

Sam E. studied Cricket's bullet-bra bust line. She smiled seductively at him. She does like me, he thought. He mentally pleaded for her to save him.

"Keep shoveling," Francis said, watching him watching Cricket. "And do you have to look at my girl like that?" He pressed the gun's barrel tip into Sam E.'s chest.

Swiiik.

Francis said to Cricket, "You want to hear a funny joke? I've got one about a comedian."

Swiiik.

"There was this low-rent Sid Caesar. He was a horn-dog who couldn't keep his prick in his trousers. This Casanova pounds his pecker in the wrong place. Turns out he's humpin' Mr. Green-baum's new girl, Mitzi. When the boss finds out he's doing her, he has his number one hit man — me — pay the lousy comedian a visit. Now that's funny, right?"

Cricket nodded. She eyed Sam E.

He forced the sexiest smile his lips could muster, though his temples throbbed from fear. He knew women loved his dark eyes by the way they admired them and his firm nose and smooth, slightly chubby cheeks, which also served him well with onstage comic expressions. He lobbed a quick wink at her.

Francis raised the gun and crammed it into Sam E.'s ear. "Don't stop your shoveling, funny man. You're almost there."

EXCAVATION

Sam E. thought of the one time his mother tried to be funny. "Sammy, this is a good friend of mine. Leave us alone for a half-hour. Here's a nickel, buy a thirty-minute soda pop."

Sammy didn't come to terms with his mother being a whore until he was eleven, and Al Levin, the grocer's son, said, "Your mom sells pussy."

Sammy quipped, "So does Ted's Pet Store." He didn't hang out with Al much after that.

Swiiik.

Sammy watched his mother grow tiny, haggard, and lusterless. He never exploded, raged, screamed, battered, or spewed venom at her. He settled for a brick barricade mortared with one-liners.

Swiiik.

Sammy discovered his comedic flair as a teenager. As his mother dimmed, he brightened. He discovered his quick wit was a trolley car to parties, booze, and girls — especially girls. The more they laughed the more they adored him. Their adoration made him feel bright, like a stage light. People laughed, and he was someone who mattered. Females, especially, thought he was special. One girl, as she unzipped her skirt, said it had to do with, "Your funny jokes and sad eyes." He cracked a one-liner. She chuckled, nibbled his neck, and unbuttoned his fly. Though he never fell in love with them, Sam E. loved women. By the time he left home at sixteen, he had bedded several.

Swiiik.

Sammy Langstein evolved into comedian Sam E. Lakeside six years later, somewhere between scrounging as an aluminum siding salesman and his pathetic stab as a singing waiter. Jokes came easy to Sammy and even more easily to Sam E. As Sam E. Lakeside, he cracked one-liners through the toilet clubs of Chicago, across the wealthy Catskills, and eventually to the jangle of Las Vegas. This puffed his ego up so much he stuck his prick in the wrong place.

Swiiik.

He stopped digging. Against his better judgment, he wiped his brow as an excuse for time to think. He took in Cricket's daddy long legs and firm, round hips, swizzling to "Hot Diggity." She's my lifeline, without her I'm dead meat. He puffed his chest in the hopes his sweaty, fairly in-shape body would attract her attention.

Click.

He turned. The barrel of the .45 was locked between his eyes.

Francis glanced at the hole Sam E. was standing in. "Deep enough."

"Don't I get a last request?"

"This isn't Alcatraz."

"One last joke. It'll be funny, I promise."

"Come on, Francis," Cricket said. "Let's hear what he has to say. For giggles." She brushed the tip of her tongue ever-so-slightly outside and against Francis' ear, and at the same time winked at Sam E.

"Sure, doll baby." Francis dug the gun in Sam E.'s forehead and said to him, "Make it quick. Mr. Greenbaum gets upset if I take too long."

Sam E. smiled at Cricket. Her ripened lips turned slightly upward and steeled. Her green-gray eyes inured to a magnum-gray. Up until that moment he believed she wanted to help him; hoped she would smash Francis over the head and shove his diminutive body in the death hole. Watching her eyebrows arc in anticipation, he thought all she wanted was the thrill, the exhilaration, the sexual charge of seeing his life end in a soiled, point-blank heap. She wanted a giggle.

Sam E.'s pulse played duck-duck-goose. He groped for anything to prolong his breathing. "An escaped convict — a hit man — breaks into a house. He binds and gags a young married couple in their bedroom."

"Pick it up," Francis said.

"Relax, I haven't got to the funny part yet."

"He hasn't got to the funny part," Cricket repeated, widening her eyes.

"While the escaped hit man is ransacking the place downstairs the husband gets his gag loose. 'Honey', he says to his wife, 'this guy hasn't seen a woman in years. Just do what he says. If he wants sex, go along with it. Our lives depend on it'."

"Come on, come on." Francis checked his watch. "Mr. Greenbaum's waiting to hear from me."

"Shush," Cricket said, swaying her hips.

"After the guy tells his wife to go along with whatever the hit man wants, the wife spits out her gag." Sam E. watched Francis kneading his lip, knowing his patience had nearly succumbed to his trigger finger. "The wife says, 'Sweetie, I'm so glad you feel that way'." I don't want to die, Sam E. thought, I don't deserve to die. I want my shot on Steve Allen. I earned the goddamn right. He commanded his legs to run, but fear froze his kneecaps and ankles. He ordered his hands to choke Francis' bird neck but his fingers went AWOL. His humor was the thing that never deserted him. He said to Francis, "Here it comes, get ready." He thought again of The Steve Allen Show; his big break, the millions who would laugh at his jokes. His mark in the world. He blurted out, "The wife says, 'I'm so glad you feel that way because the hit man just told me what a nice tight ass he thought you had!" Sam E. leaped from his grave.

"Hey, that's funny," Cricket said.

"Son of a bitch!" Francis stuck his leg out and tripped Sam E. as he tried to run past him.

He tumbled to the ground.

Francis lowered the barrel to Sam E.'s face. He remained stone still; his close-set mahogany eyes contemplating the cowering comedian.

Sam E. stared into the black hole of the barrel, so close it looked like a hollowed log. He screamed, "No! No! No!" Sweat trickled from his eye corner, down his trembling cheek. He was about to squeeze his eyes shut when he saw a green-tinged platinum mist — like the devil-dancing mist bottoming Niagara Falls — surround him. His limbs chilled. He felt the haze thicken and girdle his body. The shiny green fog blinded his vision. He screamed but the sound was smothered. The fog stiffened like hardened cement. He struggled to breathe. Sam E. felt his body rise with the mist and float away.

---

Excerpted from "Die Laughing"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Louis K. Lowy.
Excerpted by permission of IFWG Publishing International.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---