Donald Westlake: Two Much!

“You’re the sister,” I said.

Liz said, “They can’t get them past you, can they? Come on in, before we fill up with mosquitoes.”

And so I entered the Kerner household. Too late, they closed the door.

We were together in a small vestibule, the three of us. Through an arched doorway was a section of party scene painted by a member of the Royal Academy; the accompanying sound effects were polite conversational murmurs, unobtrusive ice cube clinking, and the modest piano segueing into “My Funny Valentine.” Our three heads were close together, the double Liz and me, and looking from one to the other I said, “That’s truly amazing.” Except for differences of expression and hairdo the faces were absolutely identical.

The non-Liz said, “But I thought you had a twin brother.”

How our thoughtless fibs return to plague us. “Oh, of course,” I said. “But I’ve never met any other twins before. Not as identical as you two.” To get us away from that subject, I thrust my hand out to the non-Liz and said, “I’m Art Dodge, by the way.”

She smiled, in the bland way that one does at parties, and said, “I’m Betty Kerner.” Her hand was cool and dry.

Then they brought me through into the next room, and what a collection of store-window mannequins they’d assembled for their party. There were men present in cummerbunds, I swear to God. Most of the men appeared to be named Frazier and most of the women Grahame. The piano was being played by a hireling, a lanky black youth with Belafonte good looks and a totally untrustworthy smile; he was probably saving his money to buy a machine gun. Two automaton black girls in black uniforms and small white aprons circulated with trays of hors d’oeuvres, while the bartender blockaded behind his white-cloaked table was a beefy Irishman of about fifty who laughed heartily at all the drink orders, as though phrases like “dry vermouth on the rocks” or “two rye and ginger ale, please” were both witty and profound.

What kind of party was this to be hosted by two girls in their mid-twenties? There were perhaps forty people present, but only about a quarter of them were under thirty, and they were as stiff as their elders. There was no dancing. In fact, there was scarcely any commingling of the sexes at all; women stood with women to discuss department stores, Arthur Hailey novels, absent friends and other parties, while men grouped with men to talk transportation, taxes, politics and horses — breeding, not racing. I actually did hear one man say, as I was strolling past, “After all, racing does improve the breed.”

“Quite the contrary,” I said. “In point of fact, all our effort is the other way, to make breeding improve the race.”

This being the most incisive remark any of them had ever heard in their lives, I was immediately absorbed into the group, where the man I’d contradicted thrust his hand out and said, “Frazier.”

I gave him my honest grip and said, “Dodge.”

Another man said, “Of the New Bedford Dodges?”

“Distantly,” I said.

We chatted about horses for a while, then transposed to a critique and comparison of several North Carolina golf courses, during which I excused myself and headed for the bar. “Rum and tonic,” I said.

“Ha ha ha,” he said. “Got no rum.”

“Make it vodka.”

“Ho ho ho,” he said, and made my drink.

Liz sidled up and said, “My usual, Mike.”

“Ha ha,” he said, gave me my drink, and made Liz’s usual: one ice cube in a glass, vodka to the brim.

Waiting for it she said to me, with a head-nod toward the rest of the party, “See why I wanted you here?”

“I think you should have called the coroner.”

“Here y’are, Miss Kerner.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

“Ha ha ha.”

We strolled away from Pagliacci and I said, “If I’m going to hang around here, you’d better lay in some rum.”

“Let’s wait and see if your option gets picked up.”

We stood in a quiet corner and observed the party. Betty, the twin, was in moribund conversation with a girl in yellow and a girl in pink. All three dresses, I noticed, ended just below the knee. I said, “You and your sister aren’t really very much alike at all.”

“She’s noisier,” Liz said. “What about you and your brother?”

“He’s quieter.” I was determined not to talk about my damn brother. “Is this your sister’s party? It seems more her style.”

“She isn’t that bad,” she said. “This is a political party. We want to sell the house.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“If you’re going to sell a house in Point O’ Woods,” she said, “you don’t exactly run an ad in the Daily News . We’re a restricted community.”

Looking around at the revelers, I said, “You can only sell to someone with a valid death certificate.”

“Something like that. None of us actually own our houses, you know. The Association owns everything, and we have long-term leases. So what we’re selling is the lease, and of course the Association has to approve the new leaseholder.”

“Of course.”

“You see the gent over there in the gray tie with the maroon polka dots?”

“I’m afraid I do, yes.”

“He’s our potential buyer.”

He was one of the Fraziers: stocky, Republican, graying at the temples. “He seems absolutely perfect,” I said.

“Doesn’t he? Unfortunately, there’s a problem.”

“The wife?”

“Good God, no. That’s her there, in the tweed.”

Tweed, in August. The woman in question was a perfect Grahame. “What, then?”

“Family. They’re a little outside the general circle.”

“How awful for you.”

“We’re introducing them now, that’s the idea of the party.”

“Ah. And if they pass muster, you can sell. But why do you want to?”

She shrugged. “This was our parents’ place. Neither of us wants it.”

“Are you recently orphaned?”

“Last New Year’s Eve. They were on their way to a performance of Handel’s Messiah when someone tipped a piano off a terrace. It went right through the roof of the Lincoln. The chauffeur had a black key embedded in his shoulder but was otherwise completely unscratched.”

“That must have been, um, terrible for you,” I said. Sympathy is such a difficult mode to get just right.

But once again she shrugged, saying, “Death didn’t change them that much. Fewer questions, that’s all. Listen, why don’t we go upstairs and screw?”

“What a wonderful party this is,” I said.

She gave her glass a critical look. “Let me just get a fresh drink.”

The houses of Point O’ Woods are not summer cottages at all. They are perfect imitations of small-town houses, circa 1920. Brown shingle siding, white trim, full front porches, varnished wood floors. We did not clamber up a ladder to a sleeping loft, Liz and I, we walked up a solid flight of stairs to a solid second floor. Two bedrooms and a bath.

Unfortunately, that bath was the only one in the house, which meant a steady traffic of guests up and down the stairs. The bedroom doors were both standing open, and Liz thought it unwise to try closing one. Therefore, we had at it in a closet full of dusty garments and chittering hangers. It was warm in there to begin with, and we’d soon created an atmosphere like that in a rain forest at midnight Nor were matters helped much when Liz, writhing along midway in our progress, kicked over her fresh glass of vodka. Don’t let anybody ever tell you vodka has no smell; in a closed closet it does.

Still, there was a good side to it all, which eventually climaxed with a lot of rucking and bumping amid the shifts and sneakers. Following which, we readjusted ourselves for public consumption and returned to the quieter side of the party, carefully closing the closet door behind ourselves. It really did look — and smell — as though some sort of debauch had taken place in there. “Poor old closet,” I said. “Things will be dull for it once you sell.”