Two Much! (20 page)

W
HEN
R
ALPH CALLED
at ten o'clock Monday morning, I was still groaning and creaking and waiting for Gloria's latest dose of Excedrin to start to work. A night in the sleeping bag on the office floor had done very little good for my body, and nothing at all for my disposition. Ralph identified himself, and I said, “Now what?”

“You wanted me to find out about your fiancée.” He sounded surprised and hurt at my manner.

“Oh, that's right. Sorry, Ralph, I had a bad night.”

“I'm sorry to hear that, Art. The wedding's still on, I hope.”

“Not that kind of bad night. What have you got?”

“Well, in the first place,” he said, “there are two Elizabeth Kerners.”

“They're twins,” I said.

“They're twins,” he said. “They—Oh. You already knew about that?”

“Right. They spell the name differently. I'm interested in the one with the Z.”

“All right,” he said, and proceeded to tell me things I already knew about the late parents of my girls. The family was as rich as I'd been led to believe, and their business holdings were even more extensive than I'd guessed, in both this country and Canada. There were several collateral branches of the family, uncles and aunts and cousins, but while they tended to have some ownership of Kerner subsidiaries, the controlling interest in the entire empire had been retained by old Albert himself, and had now passed on to his two daughters. “They're suing one another, you know,” Ralph said.

“Who is?”

“The girls. Elisabeth and Elizabeth.”

“Suing each other? For what?”

“You didn't know about that?”

“Ralph,” I said, “just answer the question.”

“They're suing one another for control,” he said. “Their marital status has something to do with that, something in their father's will. I couldn't get exact details without seeming too nosy. I'm an attorney, after all, not connected with the case.”

“You're doing fine, Ralph,” I told him, and he was. “Anything else?”

“The one with the Z—that's your girl friend?”

“Fiancée.”

“She's been in some scrapes,” he said doubtfully.

“I'm sure she has.”

“I hope you know what you're doing, Art.”

I glanced across at the mirror, next to the closed outeroffice door. “I hope so, too,” I said.

“Do you want details? About the scrapes?”

From the way he said it, I knew I didn't. “No, I don't mink so,” I said. “What about Volpinex?”

“The attorney?” he asked uselessly. “He only represents one of the sisters, of course.”

“I know.”

“The one with the Z, your girl friend.”

“I know, Ralph. Give.”

“Well,” he said, “he's a bona fide member of the New York Bar.”

“I thought he might be,” I said, “but I need something even worse. Is he a crook? A pervert? A member of the Progressive Labor party? A government spokesman?”

“Afraid not,” he said. “He's a junior partner in the firm of Leek, Conchell & McPoo, and they think very highly of him.”

“They're wrong.”

“Nevertheless. He was married once, but—”

“She divorced him? Extreme cruelty?”

“She died,” he said. “Automobile accident, while they were on vacation in Maine.”

“He killed her.”

“Ha ha ha,” Ralph said.                    

“He did, Ralph.”

Ralph said, “Art, be careful with silly things like that. You can say them to me, but some people have no sense of humor.”

“That's hard for me to believe, Ralph.”

“A remark like that, meant all in fun, could nevertheless be construed as libel.”

I hadn't meant it all in fun, but what was the point dragging on the conversation? I said, “Ralph, do you have anything negative about the son of a bitch at all, that I could use?”

“Sorry, Art,” he said. “He may be as big a crook as you think, but if so he's covered his tracks.”

“He would,” I said. “He's a smart crook.”

“They're the toughest to get something on,” Ralph said seriously.

“You may have something there,” I said. “Well, I do appreciate everything you've done for me, Ralph.”

“What are friends for?” he asked, reasonably enough. “Oh, by the way, Candy told me to be sure to pass along her very best wishes on your impending marriage.”

“She did, did she? That's sweet of her.”

“She's a good old girl,” he said complacently, and then we said our good-byes and we both hung up, and I sat back to contemplate for a while the look that must have been in Candy's eyes, the little crooked smile on her feline lips, when she'd sent to me through Ralph those best wishes.

Some time in the future, when I had all this twin business sorted out, I really had to take a pass through Candy's life just once more. For old time's sake.

A
T QUARTER PAST THREE
, I began my rehearsals.

I'd sent Gloria home early, I had the mirror positioned just inside the inner office door, and I stood in the doorway in front of it practicing my moves. Half-blind with my lenses out and my glasses held at waist-level in my right hand, I told my reflection, “I'll think it over and we'll talk tomorrow.” Then I stepped back, pulling the door shut toward me with my left hand while my right hand came up in a single robotlike gesture that slipped my glasses onto my face and continued up to tousle my hair backward from Art's hair-forward style to Bart's hair-back appearance.

Last night, before inserting myself in my sleeping bag here, I'd made another Bart-from-Los-Angeles phone call to Betty, telling her I was coming back to town today. She wanted to meet me at the airport, of course, but I explained I was still troubled about the rift with Art, and mat I wanted to take care of that before I saw her or did anything else. “I'll take a cab in from Kennedy,” I'd told her, “and go see Art at the office. Why don't you meet me there?” We set the time at four o'clock.

And by three forty-five I was ready. At first my little Balinesian dance had been stiff and uncoordinated, but practice had made it perfect, and now my movements were smooth and assured. The mirror was angled right, the door was open just so, everything was ready. All I needed was my audience.

Nerves. Opening night jitters. I left the office, walked down past the freight elevator and back up the hall, down to the elevator and back to my office, fidgeting, scratching, constantly checking the time. Was Betty the kind who would show up early, or late? Would I still be able to do my glasses-and-hair gesture with this new aching stiffness across my shoulders? Would I be able to coordinate the movements of two hands, two feet, and one mouth while twitching like a sandpiper?

Every once in a while, the freight elevator would grind into motion. I would dash back to my office, stand just inside the door, try to calm my heart and my breathing, and listen to the groans and complaints as the elevator puffed its way upward.

To a different floor.

Ten minutes to four, five minutes to four, three minutes to four.

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.

L
IZ 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.