Candy, though still panting, had developed now the beginnings of a puzzled frown on her foxy face. She said to me, “Who?”
Whoops. “All I can say, Candy,” I said, “is that I did my best to ease your loneliness, and to be a true friend to you when you needed me.”
“Why, you filthy son of a bitch,” she said, “I’m going to cut your balls off!” And she went around the end of the counter into the kitchen.
“Come, Liz,” I said, with dignity. “I know when I’m not wanted.”
I crossed the room, opened the screen door, and a bottle of Firehouse Jubilee bloody Mary mix sailed past my head and into the poison ivy. Liz and I exited, and I closed the screen door behind me and spoke through it. “I’ll tell Bart your decision,” I said, “and I know he’ll be just as hurt as I am that all our acts of kindness, our attempts to bring solace into the drab life of a trapped housewife, have been misunderstood and unap—”
An egg strained itself through the screen; some of it reached my chest.
“Mp,” I said. I picked up my suitcase, and Liz and I departed.
We’d gone a block when the shouts started behind us: “Who? Who?” Fortunately, Liz was laughing too hard to hear it.
WALKING WITH LIZ TO Hommel’s, toting my suitcase, I had leisure to think things over. What next, I wondered. I’d done my con and made it work, I’d screwed both sisters, I’d precipitated the break with Candy that I suppose I must have been angling for, so now everything was obviously finished. To repeat the twin gag would be insanity; I couldn’t possibly get away with it twice. And while Liz was fun in her way she was hardly restful; I might as well have stayed with Candy.
So what I should do right now was take the next ferry/cab/train back to the city, move into my office (ah, the sleeping bag stored in the closet), and start hustling around for someone else to put me up for the rest of August. Also for another female, though that was at the moment secondary.
But I just couldn’t seem to let go. I’d made the Art-Bart phone call to Betty the minute I’d gotten off the ferry, I’d risked severe physical impairment to drop Bart’s name into my farewell scene with Candy, and now I was walking to Hommel’s with Liz, my mind searching for a way to get invited to spend the rest of the summer at the Kerner house. Why?
Well, partly for the Laurentian Lumber Mills, I suppose. And maybe a tenny little bit for that television station in Indiana. I was, after all, engaged to an heiress, or at least Bart was.
And also for the sheer silly intrigue of it. I’ve never been able to quit when I was ahead, never known how to stop before I got caught, and I wasn’t likely to learn now. So I went with Liz to Hommel’s, watched a ferry depart, and waited to be invited home.
For a while it looked as though it wouldn’t happen. Liz spent her first two drinks making remarks about Candy, some of which I thought were probably unfair, then devoted her third to class-conscious slurs of the citizens around us. It must be hard to be a promiscuous snob, but Liz managed.
Finally, partway into her fourth vodka-ice, she looked at me and said, “So what do you do now?”
“Swelter in the city, I suppose. I’ll hate to break the news to Bart.”
“Screw Bart.”
“He’s my brother.”
“He isn’t mine,” she said, callously, I thought.
“Then there’s my apartment,” I said. I sighed, but was manful about it. “Well, I’ve camped in my office before.”
“What’s wrong with your apartment?”
I was just about to tell her it was sublet when I realized I was supposed to have been spending half of every week in the damn place. “Bart,” I said. “It’s just a one-and-a-half in the Village, there isn’t room for both of us.”
“He’s in your place?”
That didn’t make sense, did it? “Well,” I said. Invention flowed through me, bred by necessity, and I said, “Bart doesn’t have his own place yet Not till after Labor Day.”
“Why not?”
“He spent several years out on the Coast,” I explained. (Of course! If a friend of mine expressed bewilderment about Bart in Liz’s presence, this would explain it; he was a long-lost brother.) “He just came back the beginning of the summer,” I said, “when he came into the business with me.”
“Oh. Well, you want to come stay at my house?”
“Do I have to sleep in the closet?”
She showed me her sour grin. “I like being around you,” she said. “You’re a little funnier than most people. Like back at your lady-friend’s house.”
“I give all credit to my supporting cast.”
“Uh huh.” She downed her drink and signaled to the proprietor for another. “Can you get hold of that brat with the boat?”
“I can try.” But should I plead Bart’s case? No. Screw Bart, as Liz so correctly pointed out. Let him plead his own case, with Betty. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and headed for the pay phone.
AND THEN I WROTE: “Christmas comes but once a year—I’m glad you can do better.”
That was on the ferry, Wednesday morning, three days after I’d moved in at Point O’ Woods. I was old family there by now, and I was sure Bart would do every bit as well.
Betty had accepted my presence with her inevitable artificial hostess smile, but of course the hypocritical little bitch had to pretend Liz and I weren’t screwing, so of course we had to pretend we weren’t screwing, so there’d been a lot of tiptoeing back and forth as a result At least we hadn’t had to enter any closets.
I was now in full uncontested occupation of Mom and Pop’s room. I had at first tossed my attaché case onto Daddy’s bed, to see if Betty would comment, and damn if she didn’t switch me over to the other bed: “It’s closer to the closet.” An unintentional private joke, at which Liz and I did not exchange looks. And also an indication that Betty actually was the sentimental creep she pretended to be; she was saving that bed for Bart.
And wasn’t she, though. She insisted on calling Bart right then on Sunday evening, inviting him out for his half-week vacations. In desperation I gave her Ralph and Candy’s city number, praying there was no subtenant there that I hadn’t been told about, and apparently there was not. After the third futile attempt, I said, “Why not call him in the morning? He’s bound to be in the office.”
“That’s just what I’ll do,” she said, and the three of us went out to dinner at Flynn’s. During which I excused myself to go to the john, found a pay phone, and called Gloria at home. “Be there, bitch,” I muttered, as I dialed, and damn if she wasn’t.
Her husband answered, and when I identified myself he said, “Oh, yeah?” Then he covered the phone inefficiently—on purpose, I assume—and I heard him shout, “It’s that bastard!”
Was no further identification necessary? And to think of the salaries I’d paid that ingrate, many of them on time.
“Hello?”
“Now you have to guess which bastard.”
“Come on, Art, I’m watching television.”
Ah, the married life. “Tomorrow,” I said, “a lady will call asking for my twin brother Bart.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Now, Gloria. All you have to do is take her number and tell her Bart is out at a meeting with his local distributor, and—”
“Local distributor!”
“And,” I said firmly, “you will have him call back as soon as he gets in.”
“How many felonies will I be committing?”
“None. A little white lie in the service of love, that’s all it is.”
“Bullshit.”
“Gloria, remember how you hated working at Met Life? The bells going off all the time, twenty-two minutes for lunch?”
She sighed. “Bart, huh? Very original.”
“It stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit,” I explained, and went back to dinner with the ladies.
And so it came to pass that on Monday morning Betty called Bart, and an hour later Bart returned the call from
the pay phone by the firehouse. Candy was discussed, and the unfortunate incident of the day before. Betty wanted to know if Bart thought Art had been adulterous with Candy, and Bart admitted he’d wondered the same thing himself. Betty proferred her invitation, and Bart was happy to accept. “We can be with each other three days a week,” he said.
“And three nights,” quoth Little Miss Hot Pants.
The intervening nights, however, belonged to Liz, who was no slouch herself. Bouncety bouncety; by Wednesday morning I was just as pleased to board that boat for a day’s vacation at the office.
Liz saw me off at the pier. “I like a man who goes away for half the week,” she said.
I bet you do, I thought. I said, “Have a nice rest,” and patted her cheek. And wrote my new Christmas card on the ferry. Thus do we artists adapt the facts of our own lives to the purposes of our art.
THE GENTLEMAN WAITTNG in my outer officer was up to no good; I could tell it the minute I laid eyes on him. Gloria, with a now-you’re-in-for-it look, waved grandly at the fellow and said, “There’s a Mr. Volpinex here to see you, Mr. Dodge. He wanted either you or your brother Bart.”
Whoops. Mr. Volpinex had apparently been my age when he’d died, several thousand years ago, and in the depths of the pyramid been given this simulacrum of life. The ancient chemists had dyed his flesh a dark unhealthy tan, and painted his teeth with that cheap gloss white enamel used in rent-controlled apartments. His black suit was surely some sort of oil by-product, and so was his smile.
“I take it,” this thing said, extending its hand, “I am addressing Mr. Arthur Dodge?”
“That’s right” His hand was as dry as driftwood.
“I am Ernest Volpinex,” he said, and gave himself away. No real thirty-year-old would have reached into his vest pocket at that juncture and given me his card. So my first guess was right; he was the undead.
I took the card, but kept my eyes on its owner. “How do you do?”
“I am,” he said, with the smile of a bone-grinder, “the attorney for the Kerner estate.”
I sensed Gloria’s ears cocking like a collie’s at the phrase Kerner estate. Kerner had been the name of the girl two days ago, Bart was the person that girl had been looking for, and the word estate was well within Gloria’s vocabulary. “Why don’t we go into my office?” I said.
“Thank you very much.”
And so we entered the office. I gestured to my guest chair, but Volpinex took a moment instead to read the cards mounted on my wall, so I sat at my desk and leafed through the call memos. Wastebasket wastebasket wastebasket …
I had transferred to the incoming mail and had discovered, to my pleased surprise, an actual amended statement and supplemental check from All-Boro, when Volpinex falsely chuckled, turning to face me, and said, “Very amusing.”
“I keep them around to lighten my darker moments,” I said. “Do have a chair.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t care for the way he made himself at home in that chair, settling in as though he’d just foreclosed on a mortgage I hadn’t known about. He said, “May I smoke?”
You can fry. “Certainly.”
He had a silver cigarette case and a black holder. The case was also a lighter at one end. If he hadn’t used those two magic names Bart and Kerner I would have considered him some sort of overdone buffoon; as it was I watched him with respect, if not admiration.
Satisfied at last with his cigarette, he said, “We’ve been neighbors, you know.”
What? “Have we?”
“You were staying for a while in Fair Harbor, and I’ve rented a place in Dunewood.”
“Ah.” Ah hah! With sudden conviction, I knew that this was my host at the party where I’d first met Liz. And wouldn’t he also be the fellow she was with last weekend, while I was Barting Betty? Which was why Liz had suddenly showed up on that part of the beach.
And to think she’d been putting me down for my connection with Candy.
“You were staying,” my saturnine friend continued, “with Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Minck, were you not?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“And so was your brother, known as Bart Would that stand for Bartholomew, by the way?”
“No, actually his name is Robert. We were named after two famous World War One flying aces, Arthur Powerton and Robert Godunkey. But because we’re twins and so on, I suppose the name just evolved into Bart.”
“Ah,” he said. “That’s probably why I haven’t been able to pick up much about him.”
I permitted myself to look just slightly outraged. “Pick up?”
“I have a passion for being fair,” he said, unruffled, smiling at me. “And I just don’t believe it’s possible to be fair if one isn’t thorough. Don’t you agree?”
“You’ve been checking up on my brother?”
“And yourself,” he assured me. “And your—” his gesture around at my office was condescending “—company. And even your hosts in Fair Harbor.”
“My hosts?” What in hell was he after?
“Ralph Minck,” he said. “Attorney, employed by a large firm downtown. Specialist in stock issue flotation and presentations to the SEC.”
And recently promoted to a level where he could bring his paper work home. I said, “I don’t quite follow what you’re doing, Mr.…”
“Volpinex. I believe I gave you my card.”
“Yes, you did. Now what do you want me to give you?”
“Quite simply,” he said, “your assurance that neither your brother nor yourself is a fortune hunter.”
I leaned forward over the desk, my forearms on my scattered mail. “Mr. Volpinex,” I said, “you should go to bed earlier. Watching all those thirties movies on the ‘Late Late Show,’ letting them seep into your brain at three and four in the morning, it just isn’t good for you.”
“Thank you for your concern,” he said, “but my own concern is exclusively with—”
“Another point,” I said, raising one forearm to point a finger upward. A phone bill, sticking to my damp skin, came up with me, midway between wrist and elbow. I made a sound, shook it loose, and said, “Another point. What if I’d been watching the same movies, night after night? Then I would be brainwashed into believing that, guilty or innocent, my only possible reaction to such a charge was to punch you in the mouth. Luckily, my sleeping habits have been healthier than that.”
“Very lucky,” he commented dryly. “I’m a karate expert.”
I gazed at him, utterly depressed. “Are you really?”
“Also kung fu. However, to return to the point, my own concern is exclusively with the Misses Eliz/sabeth Kerner. They are—”
“Excuse me, would you say that again?”
“Beg pardon?”
“The name part.”
“You mean, the Misses Eliz/sabeth Kerner?”
“That’s it. Thank you.” I gave him a courtly gesture. “Proceed.”
“Yes. Thank you. The young ladies in question are, as you well know, only recently orphaned. Their emotional condition is still unsettled. Were they alone and unprotected, who knows what advantage might be taken of them. Fortunately, however, they are not alone and unprotected.”
“They have me,” I said. “And my brother, of course.”
“Please don’t misunderstand, Mr. Dodge,” he said, “but you and your brother are hardly on a social or, may I say, economic level with the Kerners.”
“I thought this was a classless society.”
“Did you really?” He frowned at me, trying to understand that, then shrugged and shook his head. “Setting that to one side,” he said, with another gesture at my little office, “there is still the economic consideration.”
“Of course there is. And I am, as you can see, a legitimate businessman, with a thriving company.”
“Thriving? Your company might support one brother reasonably well, but two brothers would starve on it.”
I couldn’t have s
aid it better myself. Nor would I have. I said, “My brother only recently entered the firm. In the fall we plan a major expansion.”
“Bravo, Mr. Dodge. With two of you hawking your wares door to door I’m sure you’ll do very well.”
There was just something about his style. Here he was, a cockroach in a three-piece suit, telling me I was lower class. Not only that, he was a skinny swarthy thirty-year-old, and he talked as pompously as a fat fifty gray-haired WASP banker. Did he really think he was a Grahame or a Frazier?
Then I got it. A sudden conviction entered my brain, and I pointed at the slimy bastard. “You’re after them yourself!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“One of them, I mean.” I used my pointing hand to snap my fingers, as an aid to thought. “Which one? Liz?”
His pinched-lemon face closed up even more. “I had suspected even before we met,” he said, “that you were the sort to misunderstand professional ethics and automatically think the worst of your fellow man. Your insinuation is beneath—”
“We know each other, Jack,” I told him. “We’re sisters under the skin and you know it. I’m not—”
The door opened and Gloria came in, with two Excedrin and a cup of water. An invaluable woman. As I took my medicine she said, “Charlie Hillerman’s outside.”
“Tell him I went to Alaska to take some Christmas card photographs. Reindeer fucking, that kind of thing.” Then my eye passed over my other unwelcome visitor, I suddenly remembered an odd incident from Charlie Hillerman’s past, and I said, “No, wait. Tell him I’ll be with him in just a minute.”
“And give him a heart attack? Commit your own murders.”
She left, and I went back to Volpinex. Now that I understood him, he didn’t worry me any more. “You didn’t come here,” I said, “to find out if I’m a fortune hunter. Or my brother, him, too, if he was. You came here to find out if we’re competition. And let me tell you something right now: we are. Both of us.”
Two Much! Page 5
