“Bang bang,” I said. “With a gun. Out at Point O’ Woods. Then the killer burned the house down, trying to cover his tracks.”
“Good God!” He’d forgotten Candy completely by now.
“But here’s the crazy part,” I said. “There was another body with her, and the general opinion is that it was my twin brother.”
“What? You don’t have a twin brother.”
“There are documents,” I said, “to prove that my bride’s twin sister was married last month to somebody who called himself Robert Dodge and who claimed to be my twin brother. And now that guy is dead.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
“It gets crazier,” I promised him. “Because the killer turned out to be that lawyer, Volpinex. Fingerprints on the gun, and he’s disappeared, and there just isn’t any question.”
He sat back, wiping snot from his cheek with his other sleeve. “None of it makes sense, Art,” he said.
“I’m afraid of it,” I told him. “I don’t know what’s going on, Ralph, but I figure I’m the patsy if I’m not damn careful. So I haven’t said anything to anybody. I haven’t even denied the twin brother.”
He frowned at me. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t know what it means. Listen, there’s a lot of money in that Kerner family, and somebody’s after it. You know me, Ralph, I’ve done some pretty cute conniving in my day, I’m not sure I could stand a really tough police investigation. I mean, things that were perfectly innocent at the time could be made to look pretty incriminating right now.”
“The truth is usually best, Art,” he said doubtfully.
“I know that, Ralph. But this is all so weird, I’m afraid to make any move at all. If I just sit tight, maybe I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“Don’t sign any false statements,” he told me.
“Ralph, I wouldn’t sign a birthday card right now.” (Or write one either, apparently.)
He nodded, thinking it over. “That’s probably best,” he said. “You aren’t a witness or anything, are you?”
“I was in Manhattan with my bride while it was going on. I’m just an in-law. Or a relative, if you want to believe the twin brother story.”
“Then you’re probably right,” he said. “Sit tight, and wait to see what happens next.”
“And if something does happen, Ralph, can I come to you?”
“You know that, Art. How can you even ask? Aren’t we friends?”
“I was just thinking.… under the circumstances …” And he began to dissolve again. “Ralph,” I said, leaning forward to pat his knee, to console him. “She’ll be back, Ralph.”
“She’s gone for good, Art.”
“Ralph, I’ll look for her.”
He gazed at me in bleary hope. “You will?”
“I’ll talk to her, if I can. I’ll do anything I can to help, Ralph.”
“Art, if you could—Art, I just—”
“We’ll help each other,” I suggested. “I’ll help you with Candy, and you’ll help me with this crazy twin brother thing.”
And we fell into one another’s arms.
THE NEXT FOUR DAYS WERE lived on tiptoe, but by God not a single egg got broken. The police seemed to have swallowed my Volpinex-as-murderer playlet, and lacking a denial from Volpinex himself there was nothing to jar their sweet certainty. Bart’s death certificate was as legitimate as the coroner’s office could make it; he had been such stuff as dreams are made on, and his little life was rounded with a sleep, as he rested, an unidentifiable mound of ashes, in a brass urn in the Kerner family vault, beside his bride.
The cat’s cradle of stories I’d told here and there held up very well, mostly because it was never really tested. No cop ever talked to Gloria or Ralph or Doris or Joe Gold, and why should they? My ex-wife Lydia was cooled out with the same coincidence gambit that had worked with Doris, and everybody else went on believing the various fantasies and half-truths I’d already delivered. With no arrests or other postmurder development, the news media lost interest in the BIZARRE SLAYING within two days, and that also helped.
Gloria continued to run Those Wonderful Folks, with no assistance from me other than erratic phone calls; I did not drop by my office, any more than I visited my former apartment. Ralph, based on the evidence of my few calls to him, continued to drink and mope and feel sorry for himself, with not the slightest thought for the outside world. As for Candy, the only loose end left to be tied, I had a story to tell her, of course, but she was unavailable to listen to it. She had dropped, as the saying goes, from the face of the earth, and could stay dropped forever for all of me.
Which left Liz. For a day or two she remained indignant and enraged in re the altered contract, but by the weekend she had calmed down considerably and seemed prepared to accept the inevitable, saying to me, “What the hell, I kind of like you anyway. I could have done worse.”
“You have,” I told her. “Frequently. But that’s all over now.” And we went for another romp on her big bed.
ON SUNDAY NIGHT, SIX days after the double murder, Liz said, “Let’s get away for a while.”
“Sure,” I said. The danger period was over, the official investigation having moved on to other concerns and unofficial curiosity having been generally appeased, so a vacation away from the scene of my broken-field-running exploit might be very restful indeed. Also, Liz had become increasingly docile and pleasant the last day or two, with none of that nastiness I had come to expect from her; removing her to a new setting might help turn this happier personality into a permanent improvement. “Where to?” I asked.
“Saint Croix,” she said. “We have a house there.”
Good God. “We do?” And what more wonders lay ahead, yet to be unwrapped?
“We’ll phone them in the morning to open it,” Liz said, “and we’ll fly down tomorrow afternoon.”
So I’d be going to the Caribbean after all; wherever he was, I hoped Volpinex was pleased. “Fine,” I said.
WE HAD IDENTICAL Air France bags, many-pocketed and pale blue. Mine had been Betty’s, but as Liz pointed out, “Why let it go to waste?”
Monday morning, while she phoned the servants in Saint Croix and the airline at Kennedy, I went back, possibly for the last time, to my little black office in the garment district, carrying my new blue bag. Gloria was typing away, and had the usual pile of outrageous mail and phone messages stacked up. “Forget all that,” I told her. “Remember that rabble of ungrateful illustrators that wanted to steal the company from me, couple of years ago?”
Gloria nodded. “In lieu of payment,” she said. “I always thought they were crazy, myself.”
“They had a lawyer,” I said. “Look him up in the file, prepare a letter for my signature, no date, saying, ‘I don’t ask to be insulted. Mine was a serious question.’ I’ll sign it.”
She frowned at me. “You do carry a grudge, don’t you?”
“Not exactly. This afternoon, call that lawyer and ask him if his company of turncoats is still interested in making a deal. If he says yes, ask him to forward the details of their proposition. When you get it, put a date on that response of mine and send it to him with all copies of his proposition. Any time he calls, I’m out of town but expected back shortly, and you don’t know where I can be reached.”
Gloria said, “You wouldn’t really quit, would you?”
“Life goes on.”
“And I go back to Met Life? That isn’t fair! I’ve given you the worst years of my life!”
“Don’t dramatize, Gloria,” I said, and went on to the inner office, where I collected my emergency cache of ten-dollar bills from behind the “Kiss me again” plaque, then turned my attention to the desk. Was there anything I wanted with me for an indefinite stay in the Caribbean?
A bottom drawer revealed an extra glasses case; startled, I stuffed it out of sight into the wastebasket. Bart’s glasses had been consumed with his body, and Art would never wear
glasses again.
There were, however, some useful items: my passport, my birth certificate, my immunization record. And what was this on the desk top, this large manila envelope with its combination of pleasant and unpleasant associations?
Ah, yes: the thesis of Linda Ann Margolies. In all the activity of the last week or so, I hadn’t given the thing a thought. Now at last I opened it, and withdrew a sheaf of Xeroxed manuscript pages, plus a brief letter. The letter said:
Chief,
At last. I have the plans for the new naval torpedo, and Admiral Von Heffelwitz has the clap. For the glory of France!
Cherie
Enc: Stolen plans for naval torpedo.
Right. I slipped the stolen plans into the Air France bag, for later reading ’neath a tropical sun.
Gloria wouldn’t talk to me when I left.
SOOZZLED WITH CHAMPAGNE, Liz snoozed as we sailed above the Atlantic. Washington, D.C., was on the horizon to our right, if anybody cared; nobody cared, at least not up front here in first class. This half-empty 747 was taking us all to Puerto Rico, where Liz and I would switch to some smaller mud jumper for the hop over to St. Croix. For now, the majority of my fellow passengers, somnolent with lunchtime wine, were sagging in their seats and waiting for the movie.
I couldn’t quite sag, not all the way. We had no baggage other than our two Air France bags, now tucked companionably together beneath the seats in front of us, exactly where I would have preferred to tuck my feet. “I can’t stand waiting for luggage,” Liz had announced. “What do we need there anyway? A toothbrush and a bathing suit.” So I had to keep my legs bent.
The stewardess came by with a fresh rum and tonic, gave it to me, and glanced over at Liz, pillowing her head against the plastic window. “Is your friend comfortable?”
“Very seldom,” I said. “What’s the movie today?”
“Guolpo, The Reluctant Chihuahua, with Fred Murray.”
“Ah.”
The stew went on her way, dispensing bloody Marys and bullshots to the off-season spenders, and I prepared myself for departure to the upstairs lounge. I would take Linda Ann Margolies’s thesis with me. Where better to read a master’s thesis on humor than the upstairs lounge of a 747?
The envelope jutted up near the top of the anonymous mélange in the bag. I unzipped, reached in, pulled the thing out, zipped again, restowed the bag, and left my seat. And not a moment too soon: the movie screen was being drawn out of the ceiling at the forward end of the compartment. Turning my back, I climbed the steep spiral staircase and found the lounge unoccupied except for another stew, who was setting out drinkables on a counter and who shouted above the plane noise, “Hello!”
“Hello!”
“Want a drink?”
“Got one!” I shouted, and displayed the glass in my right hand and the manila envelope in my left.
She smiled broadly, then shouted, “Did the movie start?”
“Just about to!”
“I’ll be back! I just love the part with Bill Dana and Cher on the roller coaster!” And off she went.
I chose a seat with a window and a handy table and lots of legroom, sat down, put my drink to one side, and placed the envelope on my lap.
It was Volpinex’s envelope.
The hairs on my forearms recoiled from my shivering skin. I didn’t move, I didn’t breathe, I didn’t blink. The droning rush of airplane filled my ears.
It was Volpinex’s envelope. There on the upper left corner was the printed name and address of his law firm: Leek, Conchell & McPoo, 7 Broad Street, New York, N.Y. 10001. I’d noticed that name and address when I was burning this—
Burning it.
Betty’s name and address were centered, as before. Elisabeth Kerner and so on; it blurred before my eyes.
This is a nightmare. I, too, have fallen asleep, overfull of drink, relaxing at last from the tensions of August, and my worst fears have come to me in a nightmare. I am not awake, this is not Volpinex’s envelope—which I burned burned burned—and it does not contain the proofs of Bart’s nonexistence. I am asleep, I am having a nightmare.
It contained the proofs. I opened the envelope, undoing the metal clip at the end, and found inside a second manila envelope, not quite so large, with a note attached. On Leek, Conchell & McPoo letterhead stationery, some Uriah Heep named Gordon Alworthy was writing to Liz—Liz, not Betty—to say the enclosed envelope had been in the confidential Kerner file in Ernest Volpinex’s desk. The said Alworthy, having been for some time the said Volpinex’s assistant on the Kerner and similar matters (and the said Alworthy undoubtedly now snuffing around to take the said Volpinex’s place), the said Alworthy was pleased to forward the said envelope (unread, need it be said) to the said Miss Kerner, for disposal as she best saw fit.
And inside the said envelope? The familiar photostats, Xeroxes of the familiar documents, the whole grim familiar package.
Eyes. I looked up, and Liz was standing beside my chair, looking down at me. The blurry red mark on her forehead from sleeping against the window did not detract from the coldness of her eyes or the grimness of her expression. “Give it back,” she said.
I simply stared at her. The plunge from euphoria to doom had been too rapid: I had the bends.
She held her hand out for the envelope. “Give it back,” she said, “or I’ll call the stewardess.” She didn’t raise her voice, and yet I could hear every word clearly through the plane noise.
I opened my mouth. At first nothing at all would come, and then I surprised myself by asking, “How long—how long have you had this?”
“Since Friday. Give it back.”
I closed the envelope with clumsy fingers and handed it up to her. “What are you going to do with it?”
“That’s up to you,” she said, and sat down in the nearest chair, facing me slightly from the left.
I gestured at the envelope. “You’re not going to give it, uh, to the police, in other words.”
“Not as long as you do what you’re told.”
Here came the crunch. Watching her carefully, I said, “Liz, what am I going to be told?”
“You’ll live in the house on Saint Croix,” she told me. “By yourself, except for the staff. No women.”
“No women? For God’s sake, what diff—”
“Shut up, Art.” She was all ice. “I’ve inherited from Betty,” she said, “so I’m strong enough now to bounce those freeloading cousins and uncles right out on their asses, and I’m going to do it. Every once in a while you’ll get something in the mail to sign, as my husband. You’ll sign it.”
“Look, Liz—”
“If you don’t sign, or if you leave, the houseboy will call me in New York, and this evidence goes to the Suffolk County District Attorney.”
Was it something I could live with? I said, “For how long, Liz?”
“Till the lawsuits are over.”
“Six months? A year?”
Grinning, she said, “More like ten years. Maybe fifteen.”
“Good Christ!”
Holding the envelope, she got to her feet and said, “You ought to come down and watch the movie. It’s a comedy, take your mind off your troubles.” And she started away.
“No!” I couldn’t let it happen like this, I just couldn’t let it happen. Jumping up from the chair, I lunged after her, to hold her, stop her, force her to listen until I found the right things to say. Angry, she pulled away from me and cried, “I’ll call the stewardess if you try anything with me!” And turned toward the stairs.
Among the beverages on the counter to my left was an unopened quart bottle of Popov vodka. I picked it up and let her have it across the side of the head. And, as she tottered into the stairwell, I plucked the envelope out of her opening hand.
THE AIRLINE WAS VERY RELIEVED when I decided not to be difficult after all. At first I made distraught references to overly steep and narrow spiral staircases, obvious safety hazard, I’d have my attorney look into previ
ous damage suits, etc., etc., and generally I made as much noise and trouble as I could without making any real noise or any real trouble.
But the airline executives who flocked to San Juan and to my side like sparrows to a suet ball didn’t know any of the background. All they knew was that the 747 spiral staircase had been criticized by safety experts in the past, and that now they had a dead woman and distraught husband on their hands. A rich dead woman and a rich distraught husband. So they stroked my shoulders and they offered me sympathy and Jack Daniels and they spoke as emotionally as I did about this unfortunate and unforeseeable accident. (However, they did also mention from time to time that the autopsy would determine the alcohol level in Liz at the moment of her final flight; they did drop that fact in from time to time.)
In addition to compassion for my trouble and a mortician for my bride, the airline did at last also lay on a suite at the El San Juan, in which I was to rest and recover from my emotional ordeal. Once alone in a room dominated by sun plaques, I placed an immediate call to Leek, Conchell & McPoo, got through to Gordon Alworthy, the legal assistant who had sent out that package of trouble to begin with, and told him the situation in twenty-five words or less. “Elizabeth Kerner is dead,” I said. “I am Arthur Dodge, her heir and now controller of the Kerner interests. I want you on your way to San Juan by the next available plane, at Kerner expense, to handle the legal problems at this end.”
He grasped the situation at once, as I’d known he would, and made a penetrating and brilliant remark. “Yes, sir,” he said.
GORDON ALWORTHY WAS five feet two inches tall and as thin as the ice I was skating on. He had blond hair and blond eyebrows and an open boyish smile and a soft amiable manner of speech and a mind like an Arab oil minister. The airline’s attorneys tended to chuckle when they first met him, and to be frowning later when they left his presence. I trusted him as far as I could pay him.
We spent four days in San Juan together, with frequent conference calls to other legal minds back in the New York office of Leek, Conchell & McPoo, and at the end of it I knew I never would have been able to do it on my own. And yet how easy it had been, with Alworthy.
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