Donald Westlake - Two Much!

I stood by the elevator as it went downward after yet another false alarm. The stairs were next to it, with the door propped open in violation of the fire laws. I’d told Betty to take the freight elevator, but would she come up the stairs instead? I cocked an ear, trying to hear approaching footsteps.

Whinninninninninrdnne . The elevator was coming up again. This time pretending disdain, I strolled casually back to my office and was barely out of sight when the damn thing greeked to a stop at this floor.

I’m on! I shut the outer door, crossed the office to the inner door, stood facing the doorway and the mirror. My lips and mouth were dry, and I worked at producing a little saliva, so I’d be able to speak. With my left hand on the doorknob and my right hand clutching the glasses, I looked into the mirror, past my own reflection at the corridor door. Silently I rehearsed my line: “I’ll think it over and we’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll think it over and we’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll think it—”

The corridor door opened. Betty walked in.

Now, let me tell you what Betty saw. She entered the room, and she saw Bart with his back to her in the doorway opposite, in conversation with Art. She could clearly see Art’s face, spectacleless and with hair brushed forward, beyond Bart’s right shoulder. She saw Art’s lips move, and she heard Art say, “I’ll think it over and we’ll talk tomorrow.” Then, as it seemed to her, Art pushed the door closed in Bart’s face, forcing Bart back a step. Bart moved back, turning, lifting his hand to his head in a distraught manner, and finished turning to blink through his spectacles, lower his hand again from his brushed-back hair, and say, “Betty!”

“Darling!” Betty responded, combining the joy of reunion very delicately with a sudden concern. She hurried across the room to me, saying, “Was there trouble?”

I’d previously decided my best manner at this juncture would be a slight vagueness, a distraction caused by a combination of jet lag and the argument with Art. It was a happy decision, as it turned out, because a numb befuddlement was about all I was capable of at that moment. The mirror, Artless, was just the other side of that door. An entire Artless room, in fact, was just the other side of that door. How on earth could I have hoped to get away with such a juvenile stunt? “Trouble?” I echoed. “Trouble?”

“I saw Art just now,” she said, gesturing toward that rather special door, “and he—”

“You did? You saw him, eh?”

“Of course. And it didn’t look to me as though you two were getting along.”

A great flamingo-wing smile spread across my face. I couldn’t help it, I just couldn’t help it. “Quite the contrary,” I said. By God, it had worked! “I think,” I said, “I think everything’s going to be all right.”

“But he was — I saw him—”

“I know you did, my love,” I said, and gave her a great big kiss. I didn’t even care that she wasn’t faithful to me. “Don’t worry about Art,” I told her, “that’s just his manner. He can’t come down off a mad all at once. Believe me, I know him, things are fine now. I’ll call him tomorrow and we’ll be buddies again.”

“If you say so,” she said.

“Listen, let’s get out of here,” I said. “Give him a chance to sulk and get it over with.”

She frowned in the general direction of the closed door. Was she thinking of going in there, arguing with Art on my behalf? No. She shook her head and said, “Well, you know him better than I do.”

I might have disputed that, but I didn’t Instead, I held the door for her, we left the office, and we rode the interminable freight elevator down down down.

As we were leaving the building, Candy was going in. She looked grim, and she brushed by us with hardly a glance. I admit I was startled, but I don’t think anything showed.

Oh, but what if she’d arrived first? What if she’d been the one to get out of the elevator and open the office door to see the twin charade? What if Betty had walked in Second, to find one brother, one mirror, and one strange woman, instead of the well-rehearsed playlet about Art and Bart? A close call, that.

Carlos and the Lincoln were out front. Betty and I got in, and as we started away it seemed to me that from the corner of my eye I saw Candy appear again in the building entrance, staring, perhaps frowning, toward our car. But I didn’t look back.

Liz came to the office Wednesday morning. Gloria tried to announce her, but Liz barged on in and said, “Okay, I’m here. Let’s go get married.” Gloria did a discreet double take, and withdrew.

Slowly I looked up. “No,” I said.

This was two days after Betty had seen Art and Bart both at the same time, and I’d spent the intervening hours assessing my situation and coming to some firm conclusions. Such as that I definitely was not going to marry Liz.

Bart had been born on August fifth, twenty-three days ago, during my initial conversation with this bitch, and from then on I’d had practically no time to myself. August was damn near over by now, and I hadn’t even seen it. I’d started a con for the hell of it, and then I’d spent the next three weeks scrambling around like a cat in a full bathtub, going going going every second.

All of which had now come to a screeching halt. After Monday’s mirror routine, Betty and I had spent a pleasant evening together on the town (on her), and a pleasant night together in her apartment (ditto), with the lights firmly off so she wouldn’t recognize any of Art’s bruises on Bart’s body. Then on Tuesday morning I’d kissed her good-bye and gone off to be reunited with my loving brother. And for the first time in weeks, I was faced with an entire day to myself, a day in which I was neither Art with Liz nor Bart with Betty, a day without schemes, phone calls, split-second timing, near misses, or jerry-built explanations.

Tuesday, August twenty-seventh; a date to resound in history. Maybe I could get some Central American republic to name an avenida after it. El Bulevar de la Paz del Agosto 27 .

What a day. I basked in my solitude in the inner office, I took Gloria to lunch and paid her share, I returned a call from my sister Doris and was both sympathetic and understanding, I sent off partial payment checks to three of my illustrators, and I wrote another card: “The front of the card, with no illustration, says, ‘Things ain’t been the same since you went away.’ The entire inside, left and right panels, is covered with a drawing of an old house bursting with a huge party: Roman candles over the roof, half-naked girls hanging out windows, a beer truck on the lawn with a hose extending in through a window, etc. etc.”

Etc.

And through it all, that whole long peaceful riverboat of a day, I considered my alternatives. Now was the time to decide once and for all what it was I wanted, and what I didn’t want.

What I didn’t want. I didn’t want anyone to catch on to the twin gimmick. I didn’t want to lose my entree to the Kerner money. I didn’t want to go to jail, or to be hounded by a rich family with a grudge. I also didn’t want friend Volpinex to do any more cute stunts with squash balls, nor with karate moves, nor anything else.

What I did want. Money. Every creature comfort I could think of, and others as they occurred to me. An Alfa Romeo. Unlimited air travel. Stables out back. Another Alfa Romeo. A separate room just for my clothing, and more clothing than would fit in it. Soft women on hard beds. Winters in Palm Springs or Palm Beach or Palma; I’m not picky. Summers in air conditioning. Nights under the stars, under the sheets, under the influence, and under the protection of money. Money. A Jaguar, a Rolls-Royce, and another Alfa Romeo. And money.