Donald Westlake - Two Much!

There was yelling behind me, some of it in actual English. Racing at top speed, skipping sideways between garment racks, hopping over fire hydrants and cardboard cartons, lunging through clusters of dolly-wheeling trolls, sliding along the plate glass windows of the button factory, I didn’t look back until I was parallel with the Alfa, and even then I didn’t stop. I took it for granted I’d have to leave the neighborhood for a while, and running would be faster than the stop-and-go single lane of taxi-truck-tourist traffic oozing along the middle of the street.

Yes, I would have to depart. Here they came, running along after me, bowling over the pedestrians I’d skirted, creating secondary fist fights and shouting matches in their wake, and even from here I could see the murder in their eyes.

Not my friends of the airline ticket; they were way back where I’d left them, barely discernible in a whirling frenzy of pummeling arms and legs. It was a flying squad of jigaboos, led by my friend in the form-fitting T-shirt, that was pounding after me now, and I really doubted St. Martin was the destination for me they had in mind. Facing forward again, knocking down a pair of fat female Puerto Rican sewing machine operators starting out for an early lunch (spic-ettes? spic-esses?), I bounded over their barrelly bodies and ran for daylight.

After the ceremony I kissed the bride and she got into the Lincoln with the best man and left for parts unknown. The other witness, or maid of honor, was the JP’s ugly daughter, and so remained in her original setting: picket fence, sagging sofa, black-and-white television set the size of the mouth of the Holland Tunnel.

My escape from the race riot I’d started had been accomplished with the help of a taxi ride up Sixth Avenue. When I’d come back twenty minutes later, police cars were clustered at the end of the block where the fight had begun, and much shouting was taking place back there. The green-shirted auto dealer man, unaltered, continued to lean on the Alfa’s fender, one fixed point in a disintegrating age, until I identified myself. With neither small talk nor surprise, he handed me the keys and the provisional registration and an envelope containing instructions on where to meet Liz for the taking-out-the-license ritual in Stamford, and then he faded away while I entered my Alfa.

Life. It can be sweet. This creature smelled not like an ordinary new car but like the world’s most expensive new glove. Starting the engine (a snarling purr), waiting while a police car full of bloodied blacks went by, I joined the ebb of vehicles, edged my way cautiously through the miserable traffic of midtown to the West Side Highway, then opened it up and just had a wonderful time on the Henry Hudson Parkway, the Cross Bronx Expressway, and the Connecticut Turnpike to Stamford. I got there first and hung around outside in the sunlight until the familiar black Lincoln rolled to a stop by a fortuitous fire hydrant. Liz got out of the back, with somebody she described as “the best man.”

I looked at him. “Are you sure?” This creature was alleged to be a rock musician from Toronto, but appeared to be almost entirely rock, with little left for musician. The only word he knew in English was, “Yuh.” I didn’t try him on any other languages, but I doubt he would have shown much proficiency no matter what the tongue.

“Let’s go get it over with,” Liz said, and I handed her my three new speeding tickets, saying, “I suppose you have people who can take care of these.”

She glanced at them, put them away in her shoulder bag, and said, “Don’t make me a widow before the lawsuit’s over, okay?”

“Your concern,” I told her, “inspires me to greater heights of self-protection.”

“Mm,” she said, and we went inside to get the legal papers. Thence to the JP for a scene out of a thirties comedy — except that the old farmer marrying us wasn’t wearing a ratty bathrobe and didn’t have his false teeth out — and by three o’clock the deed had been done. “So much for that,” Liz said.

“Just think,” I said “We’re Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Drew Dodge.”

“Sure,” she said, got into the Lincoln with Yuh, and off they went. The JP, Missis JP, and Daughter JP stood on the porch by the glider and waved and waved, till they noticed the groom was still right here. “Well, so long folks,” I said, hopped into the Alfa, and spurred away. Behind me, they formed a tableau, lined up along the porch rail, mouths open, hands up to wave but not quite waving. Not what you’d call waving.

Ernest Volpinex, please.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Art Dodge,” I said, “Tell him I’m not on the plane.”

“One moment, please.”

I was briefly again in my office before heading north to some tranquil hideaway. Lake Placid, maybe; the sound of it was exactly what I had in mind. A placid time out, a rest period between halves. Perhaps on Saturday or Sunday I’d call Betty and reluctantly permit Bart to be drawn into a reconciliation scene.

“Volpinex here.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “And this is Art Dodge, still here.”

“My secretary said you wanted to talk about an airplane,” he said.

“Oh, really? You’re going to be innocent?”

“I do dislike hearing your voice, Dodge,” he said. “If there’s a point to this call, would you mind stating it?”

“I married Liz at three o’clock this afternoon.”

There was a short electric silence. I waited through it, smiling at the phone, and finally Volpinex said, in a quiet thoughtful voice, “I see.”

“So you can call off your goons,” I told him, “and forget about airplane trips to St. Martin.”

He said nothing.

This time I didn’t wait him out. I paused long enough to give him a chance to speak if he had anything to say, and then I added, “You can forget everything in fact. It’s too late.”

“Perhaps,” he said. Still quiet, still thoughtful.

A little chill touched the back of my neck; I did my best to ignore it. “Perhaps? I told you, Volpinex, I’m married. Signed, sealed, and delivered.” And then, remembering Ralph’s having told me Volpinex was a widower whose wife had died on vacation in Maine, I added, “And I’m not going to Maine.”

The coldest voice I’ve ever heard said, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean it’s all over. You’ve had it.”

Click.

“Volpinex?” I knew he’d hung up, but I jiggled the phone cradle anyway. “Volpinex?” But he was actually gone, so reluctantly I too hung up, and sat there a minute frowning at the telephone.

The conversation had not been as satisfactory as I’d anticipated. The chill still hovered at the back of my neck, and the sound of Volpinex’s cold voice still whispered in my ear.

I found myself rethinking my plan to drive north and spend tonight alone. A friendly face, a warm body, might be a much better idea after all.

But whom? Not Betty. Linda Ann Margolies? I could phone her, take her out to dinner, see what happened next. We’d already had sex, right here on this floor, so if she wasn’t busy tonight there wasn’t any reason—

The phone rang.

“Hello?”

“So there you are.”

“Candy?”

“You have too many women, Art, is that it? You can’t recognize voices any more?”

“I only recognize your voice when you’re sweet to me.”

“When I’m sweet to you !” Her shock and outrage nearly melted the plastic of the phone.

“Sweetheart,” I said, “I’ve been so busy lately, it’s just—”

“I’ll just bet you have.”

“Some day I’ll tell you all a—”