Two Much! (14 page)

“Did I drink that much last night? My head feels just terrible.”

“Maybe there was something wrong with the
coq au vin
,” I said. Then I remembered it was the
coq au vin
I'd spiked with the sleeping capsules, and wished I'd kept my mouth shut.

But maybe not Looking at me, squinting even worse than I was, Betty said, “You know, you could be right. I thought there was some sort of, I don't know, bitter taste or something in the sauce.”

“It was probably turning,” I said. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I solicitously fed my bride the aspirin and water. “You'll feel better soon now,” I promised her. “Why not nap for a while, an hour or so?” Long enough for Art to get the hell out of here.

“Lie down with me,” she said. “You've spoiled me, I can't sleep alone any more.”

“Yes, dear,” I said. Would she be soon asleep? Was the drain working properly in Liz's sink? Was Liz even now calling to Art through that locked door and wondering what on earth was wrong? My own headache thundering away, but a fixed smile of compassion on my face, I slid into bed next to Betty. “Put your head on the pillow now,” I said. “Close your eyes. Try to nap.”

“Yes, love.” She murmured and moved, rubbing her warm hip against my side. When I remained unresponsive, she took my hand and placed it on her near breast, then sighed and reached for me.

“Darling,” I said, “you should try to—”

“Silly boy,” she whispered. “Cure me, lover.”

So all right;
that
was marital conjugation.

My headache never went away. Later, I flopped onto my own side of the bed, very damp with exertion, and Betty sleepily stroked my belly, saying, “Oh, I feel much better already.”

“Bladder,” I said.

Her half-closed eyes opened. “What?”

“Go on to sleep,” I soothed her, and stroked her cheek, and kissed her forehead. “I'll be right back.”

Another romp through the facilities, pausing only to turn off the water in Liz's sink. (The drain was in excellent condition.) Then on into the bedroom, where Liz was pacing back and forth in a pale blue peignoir, her arms folded beneath her breasts. “You do take long enough,” she said.

“I thought I might as well wash up,” I said. “I'm sorry, did you—?”

“Tell me about it later,” she said, and zipped into the bathroom with every indication of urgency.

Well, that's the way it is in the morning, particularly if you've been putting away many gallons of champagne or other liquid the night before. In fact, come to think of it …

Down the hall from the bedrooms, toward the living room, was another lavatory for the convenience of guests. I found it very convenient, streaking down the hall in nothing but my skin, relieving myself, then washing up in the guests' sink and drying with the guests' tiny towels. Why do guests get such tiny towels?

I had made the initial run without meeting any of the servant population of this apartment, but on the return trip I emerged from the guests' john to find Nikki prancing by with a watering can in her hand. Surveying my nethers with pleased surprise, she said, “Ooo la la!” I hadn't known they really said things like that.

I looked at her, saw her roguish eyes and her twitching tail, and firmly ordered myself away. Not even counting the physical demands to which I'd already been put this morning, there was the increasingly desperate need to reduce my presences here to one before either of the sisters caught wise. “Later,” I said, and trotted off down the hall.

At the end, Betty's door was on the left and Liz's was on the right. Betty's was just slightly ajar; looking through the crack, I saw that she was not only awake, she was sitting on the edge of the bed. And from the concentrated way she was staring toward the closed bathroom door, I knew what she was waiting for.

God almighty, was there no end to this? I'd been awake less than half an hour, and already I'd been through an exhaustingly full day. I ran on into Liz's room, took two deep breaths, and Liz came out of the bathroom. “Not dressed?” she said.

“I thought I'd shower.” Quickly kissing her surprised face, I waved gaily, said “
Hasta la vista
,” and scampered off.

I couldn't lock the lavatory door behind me, but I could certainly lock the tub room door, and did so. The far side door I daren't lock from Betty's side, since she might notice, so I had to leave it closed but vulnerable. In the meantime, I'd switched on the shower, and to the merry splash of water I went back to Betty, who jumped up from the bed the instant I appeared, ignored my “Why, darling, you're still awake,” and zoomed into the john.

And now at last I had a minute by myself to collect my wits and try to work out an answer to this mess. I couldn't very well keep playing bathroom games all day long. Somehow or other I had to get Art out of this apartment Putting it simply, Art had to make an exit while Bart stayed here. Putting it even more simply, I had to be in two places at the same time.

My current situation was that Bart was naked here in Betty's bedroom while Art was naked over there in the shower. Therefore, my first order of business was to get Art out of the shower. Then I had to put Bart somewhere out of sight for a while until I could get some clothing on Art Then Art could start to depart but would dart back to where Bart was hidden apart so
he
could hop a cart back to his sweetheart Smart?

I was still chewing on that one when Betty returned from the bathroom and looked at me in surprise. “Aren't you going to get dressed?”

“Fart,” I said.

“What?”

Then I leaped to my feet. “A shower,” I said loudly. Everything was happening twice. “I'm going to take a shower.”

I started to run by her toward the john when she said, “Liz is in there now.”

My heart bounced off the floor. “In where?”

“Taking a shower.”

Liz was in there? If Liz was in there, she had to know the truth, or anyway be damn close to it. Two thousand a month: a mental image of bills with little wings flying out a window. Husband to Betty, unbound by extra contracts; a mental image of a huge lumber mill with wings flying away over a mountain. I said, “Are you sure?”

“I heard the water running.”

“Oh,” I said. Oh, the water running, mat was all right, In fact, I almost said something about that being Art in there, not Liz, when I realized there was no way for me to know such a thing.

But now what? If we were all going to wait here for Art to finish his shower, we were all going to get very very dirty.

“Here,” Betty said. She was extending something toward me.

“What? What?”

“Don't you want your glasses?”

“Oh!” Another goddamn detail. I took the glasses and put them on and then I really did squint. Lenses and glasses make the best combination since ice cream and pickles. “Maybe,” I said, trying to look at her like a man who could see and who didn't have any other problems either, “maybe he's out of, I mean, maybe she's out of there by now. I'll go, uh, I'll go check.” And I scampered away to the bathroom, cracking my naked hip against the doorjamb on the way by. Oh, my poor eyes.

Close the lavatory door. Open the tub room door, enter a room which was by now full of steam. My glasses immediately fogged. Wrenching them off, I turned off the water, hurried back to Betty, put the damn foggy glasses back on, peered over them at her, gave her the falsest cheerful smile I've ever worn, and said, “All clear now. See you in a few minutes.”

As I started to shut the door again, she called, “Do you have enough towels?”

“Plenty. Plenty.”

“If you don't there's some in the cabinet under the—”

“Plenty plenty plenty.”

Shut lavatory door, but leave unlocked. Into still-steamy tub room, close door, lock it. Remove glasses, place on counter opposite tub, turn shower on again, cross room, slam nose into other door.

Ouch. Damn, I forgot it was locked. Unlocking it, I slid it open, saw that Liz's lavatory was unoccupied, stepped in, slid the door shut, opened the bedroom door, and stepped out to see Liz, dressed, patting her hair at a mirror on the wall. “You must have been very dirty,” she commented.

I closed the lavatory door. “Now that I'm your property,” I said, “I'll have to take very good care of myself.”

She gave my reflection in her mirror a sour look, then turned to offer a repeat performance to the original. “I wonder what I would have done,” she said, “if you'd refused to sign.”

“You would have loved me more,” I suggested, “but you wouldn't be marrying me.” I knew it was true when I said it, and I felt a small twinge, but nobody gets everything in this life. You decide your priorities and you make your choices. I'd decided long ago that any cake I had would be eaten.

Liz was frowning at me, thinking it over. “That's right,” she said. Then, turning away, she said, “You want some breakfast?”

I was hurriedly gathering up my clothing, still scattered here and there on the floor, and throwing it onto my body. “No, I'd better got out of here,” I said. “I wouldn't want to run into Bart.”

“You want me to drop you any place?”

I hopped around on one foot, pulling on a sock. “Don't bother. I'll take a cab downtown.”

“Where will you be today?”

“That's hard to say.” I could only find one shoe; then the other turned out to be under the bed. “I'll call you tonight,” I said.

“Be sure to get that blood test”

“I'll call my doctor as soon as I get to the office.” Shirt on and tucked in, I went toward her to kiss her good-bye. But she turned away, studying her hair in that damn mirror again. Standing behind her, looking at her reflected face, I said, “Does this mood go away?”

“Well find out, won't we?” she said.

“Right. Well, don't bother to see me out, I can find my own way.”

She didn't say anything. She was brooding at herself in the mirror when I left the bedroom.

Betty's door was now entirely closed. Down the hall I went, feeling very nervous, and ducked into the guest bathroom again without seeing anybody. Closing the door, I sat on the toilet and leaned my ear close to the keyhole, so I'd hear when Liz walked by.

It took a while, and once again I had leisure to think. I visualized Liz entering the lavatory, hearing the shower running, going in there and finding the room empty, turning off the water, and then meeting Betty in the middle. “Where's Bart?” “Who?”

I'm too greedy. I shouldn't have signed, I should have kept to my original plan and made Art disappear. Look what was happening this morning, and this was only the beginning.

And we were rapidly reaching the point where exposure would mean a lot more than a simple loss of income. We were moving into Felony land now: bigamy, fraud, God knows what else. I could even wind up in jail at the end of this; both of us, Art and Bart, serving concurrent sentences.

Sounds in the hall, somebody going by. Once they were past me, I opened the door a crack and peeked out, and if was Liz moving away down the corridor. Looking at her, I found myself wishing it was Betty I could give up, and not entirely because of the two grand a month.

Oh, well, stick with the possible. Once she was out of sight, I nipped out of the guest's John and sprinted back down the hall toward the bedrooms again. And all I needed now was for Betty's door to open, for Betty to come out and find me running along here, for Betty to begin asking.…

It didn't happen. Into Liz's room, across it, into the lavatory, through it into the steamier-than-ever tub room. There were large storage drawers under the counter, some of them empty. Yanking my clothing off, I jammed it all into an empty drawer, added my contact lenses wrapped in toilet paper from Liz's John, and stepped into the shower spray just long enough to get wet Then I turned the water off, got a big soft golden bath towel from a shelf, put my glasses on, and returned to Betty, who was standing in front of a mirror on the wall, dressed, patting her hair. Turning a sweet smile toward me, she said, jokingly, “You must have been very dirty.”

“Now that I'm yours,” I said, “I'll have to take very good care of myself.” Twice, everything twice.

“Do you want breakfast?”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “For some reason, I'm starved.”

W
HAT A DAY. I TOLD
Betty I wanted to go to the apartment I allegedly shared with Art, because I wanted to get the rest of my things from there. She offered, naturally, to go with me, but I managed to talk her out of it. Once out of the apartment, I headed for Dr. Osbertson, the quack who fails to cure my flu every winter, and received my second blood test in less than a week. From there I went to my apartment; the freak who was subletting was away, but had left traces of himself behind. Apparently his hobby was blowing up pizzas. Picking my way through the swamp, I packed a lot of junk that could be Bart's, and toted it all away to the office, where the usual turmoil and trouble from my other life awaited me. I let it keep on waiting while I called Ralph out at Fair Harbor, but unfortunately got Candy instead. “Ralph Minck, please,” I said, but she recognized my voice, made a few formerly unprintable suggestions, and hung up on me. And through it all I kept thinking,
I have to get rid of Bart, just for a little while; I have to get him out of town, I have to make him go away, go away, go away
.