“Uh huh.” She downed her drink and signaled to the proprietor for another. “Can you get hold of that brat with the boat?”
“I can try.” But should I plead Bart’s case? No. Screw Bart, as Liz so correctly pointed out. Let him plead his own case, with Betty. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and headed for the pay phone.
11
And then i wrote: “Christmas comes but once a year — I’m glad you can do better.”
That was on the ferry, Wednesday morning, three days after I’d moved in at Point O’ Woods. I was old family there by now, and I was sure Bart would do every bit as well.
Betty had accepted my presence with her inevitable artificial hostess smile, but of course the hypocritical little bitch had to pretend Liz and I weren’t screwing, so of course we had to pretend we weren’t screwing, so there’d been a lot of tiptoeing back and forth as a result At least we hadn’t had to enter any closets.
I was now in full uncontested occupation of Mom and Pop’s room. I had at first tossed my attaché case onto Daddy’s bed, to see if Betty would comment, and damn if she didn’t switch me over to the other bed: “It’s closer to the closet.” An unintentional private joke, at which Liz and I did not exchange looks. And also an indication that Betty actually was the sentimental creep she pretended to be; she was saving that bed for Bart.
And wasn’t she, though. She insisted on calling Bart right then on Sunday evening, inviting him out for his half-week vacations. In desperation I gave her Ralph and Candy’s city number, praying there was no subtenant there that I hadn’t been told about, and apparently there was not. After the third futile attempt, I said, “Why not call him in the morning? He’s bound to be in the office.”
“That’s just what I’ll do,” she said, and the three of us went out to dinner at Flynn’s. During which I excused myself to go to the john, found a pay phone, and called Gloria at home. “Be there, bitch,” I muttered, as I dialed, and damn if she wasn’t.
Her husband answered, and when I identified myself he said, “Oh, yeah?” Then he covered the phone inefficiently — on purpose, I assume — and I heard him shout, “It’s that bastard!”
Was no further identification necessary? And to think of the salaries I’d paid that ingrate, many of them on time.
“Hello?”
“Now you have to guess which bastard.”
“Come on, Art, I’m watching television.”
Ah, the married life. “Tomorrow,” I said, “a lady will call asking for my twin brother Bart.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“Now, Gloria. All you have to do is take her number and tell her Bart is out at a meeting with his local distributor, and—”
“Local distributor!”
“And,” I said firmly, “you will have him call back as soon as he gets in.”
“How many felonies will I be committing?”
“None. A little white lie in the service of love, that’s all it is.”
“Bullshit.”
“Gloria, remember how you hated working at Met Life? The bells going off all the time, twenty-two minutes for lunch?”
She sighed. “Bart, huh? Very original.”
“It stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit,” I explained, and went back to dinner with the ladies.
And so it came to pass that on Monday morning Betty called Bart, and an hour later Bart returned the call from the pay phone by the firehouse. Candy was discussed, and the unfortunate incident of the day before. Betty wanted to know if Bart thought Art had been adulterous with Candy, and Bart admitted he’d wondered the same thing himself. Betty proferred her invitation, and Bart was happy to accept. “We can be with each other three days a week,” he said.
“And three nights,” quoth Little Miss Hot Pants.
The intervening nights, however, belonged to Liz, who was no slouch herself. Bouncety bouncety; by Wednesday morning I was just as pleased to board that boat for a day’s vacation at the office.
Liz saw me off at the pier. “I like a man who goes away for half the week,” she said.
I bet you do, I thought. I said, “Have a nice rest,” and patted her cheek. And wrote my new Christmas card on the ferry. Thus do we artists adapt the facts of our own lives to the purposes of our art.
12
The Gentleman Waittng in my outer officer was up to no good; I could tell it the minute I laid eyes on him. Gloria, with a now-you’re-in-for-it look, waved grandly at the fellow and said, “There’s a Mr. Volpinex here to see you, Mr. Dodge. He wanted either you or your brother Bart.”
Whoops. Mr. Volpinex had apparently been my age when he’d died, several thousand years ago, and in the depths of the pyramid been given this simulacrum of life. The ancient chemists had dyed his flesh a dark unhealthy tan, and painted his teeth with that cheap gloss white enamel used in rent-controlled apartments. His black suit was surely some sort of oil by-product, and so was his smile.
“I take it,” this thing said, extending its hand, “I am addressing Mr. Arthur Dodge?”
“That’s right” His hand was as dry as driftwood.
“I am Ernest Volpinex,” he said, and gave himself away. No real thirty-year-old would have reached into his vest pocket at that juncture and given me his card. So my first guess was right; he was the undead.
I took the card, but kept my eyes on its owner. “How do you do?”
“I am,” he said, with the smile of a bone-grinder, “the attorney for the Kerner estate.”
I sensed Gloria’s ears cocking like a collie’s at the phrase Kerner estate. Kerner had been the name of the girl two days ago, Bart was the person that girl had been looking for, and the word estate was well within Gloria’s vocabulary. “Why don’t we go into my office?” I said.
“Thank you very much.”
And so we entered the office. I gestured to my guest chair, but Volpinex took a moment instead to read the cards mounted on my wall, so I sat at my desk and leafed through the call memos. Wastebasket wastebasket wastebasket...
I had transferred to the incoming mail and had discovered, to my pleased surprise, an actual amended statement and supplemental check from All-Boro, when Volpinex falsely chuckled, turning to face me, and said, “Very amusing.”
“I keep them around to lighten my darker moments,” I said. “Do have a chair.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t care for the way he made himself at home in that chair, settling in as though he’d just foreclosed on a mortgage I hadn’t known about. He said, “May I smoke?”
You can fry. “Certainly.”
He had a silver cigarette case and a black holder. The case was also a lighter at one end. If he hadn’t used those two magic names Bart and Kerner I would have considered him some sort of overdone buffoon; as it was I watched him with respect, if not admiration.
Satisfied at last with his cigarette, he said, “We’ve been neighbors, you know.”
What? “Have we?”
“You were staying for a while in Fair Harbor, and I’ve rented a place in Dunewood.”
“Ah.” Ah hah! With sudden conviction, I knew that this was my host at the party where I’d first met Liz. And wouldn’t he also be the fellow she was with last weekend, while I was Barting Betty? Which was why Liz had suddenly showed up on that part of the beach.
And to think she’d been putting me down for my connection with Candy.
“You were staying,” my saturnine friend continued, “with Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Minck, were you not?”