Two Much!

22

What 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.

When I was a kid, the Saturday afternoon movie would occasionally show a treasure-hunting underwater diver caught in the clutches of an octopus. Fighting and struggling, bubbles rising up, seabed roiling, octopus arms waving all over the place. For the first time, I understood exactly what that diver was going through.

Over the next hour I dealt with the mail, the telephone messages, crap from illustrators, threats from the printer, filthy language from the landlord. “I’m getting out of this, prick,” I told the landlord, while my mental image-screen showed dollar bills with little wings flying in the window. And through it all I was thinking, Bart away.

I tried to be smarter than that. I tried to reason with myself, convince myself of the insanity of even planning to marry Liz. Stay with the old plan, take the lumber mills and run, don’t be so greedy, don’t be so stupid, don’t be so crazy. I told me, I really did, I can’t claim I didn’t warn me, but none of it did any good. In my brain, or whatever that is behind my eyes, I was already committed, I was thinking only, Get rid of Bart.

The only distraction was a pair of phone messages from Linda Ann Margolies. Regretfully I dropped them into the wastebasket; I had liked that girl, but one more complication would finish me forever. Or should I just return her call, talk for a minute, see if she knew any new jokes?

No. I phoned Ralph again instead, and this time I got him. “Listen, Ralph,” I said, “could you do a little job of research for me? On the QT.”

“Sure. Trouble at the firm?”

“No trouble. In fact, and this’ll probably surprise you as much as it does me, I’m thinking of getting married.”

“No kidding! Well, you old son of a gun. Anybody I know?”

“You never met her,” I said. “She’s got a place at Point O’ Woods.”

“Rich, huh? Trust you.”

That was something nobody was likely to do. I said, “She’s the one I’d like you to look up. Also her lawyer.”

“Her lawyer? You aren’t pulling something funny, are you?”

“Of course not I’ll tell you the situation, Ralph. I’m in love with this girl, and she’s in love with me, but her lawyer’s out to get her for himself, because she’s rich. Anyway, that’s what I think.”

“That’s unethical,” Ralph said. He sounded shocked.

“Exactly what I told him to his face,” I said. Then, speaking to Ralph in what I took to be his own language, I said, “He brazened it out But I just don’t trust him.”

“What’s his name?”

“Ernest Volpinex.”

“What firm is he with?”

“I have no idea. No, wait I think I have his card. Unless I threw it away.” I made a fast search on my desk, but it wasn’t there. “Sony, I don’t have it any more.”

“That’s all right. I can look him up.”

“Fine.”

“What do you want to know, exactly?”

“Well,” I said, “he told my fiancée she had to get married this year or she’d have a great big tax bite next April. She’s an orphan, see, her parents both died last New Year’s Eve.”

“Before or after midnight?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, what’s her name?”

“Elizabeth Kerner. What I want to know is her financial position. How much did she inherit, does she really have that tax problem, what her general situation is. And about Volpinex, I want to know what kind of bird he is. I think he’s a crook, and I’d like to know his reputation in his field, and any scandal or anything like that in his past.”

“You want to turn your girl friend away from him, is that it? Move her to a different lawyer.”

“I’d like to move her to you, Ralph, if you’d like a client.”

“How much is this alleged tax bite?”

I knew why he’d asked that question. He wanted to know how rich she was, so he’d know how much he wanted her as a client. So I told him the simple truth: “Three million dollars.”

“Ah,” he said, calmly but promptly. “I’ll look into it right away for you, Art. I’ll find out everything I can.”

“Thanks, Ralph, I appreciate it”

“Anything for a friend”

“You’re true blue, Ralph.”

“It’s nothing. And congratulations on the coming nuptials.”

“Thanks, Ralph. This time it’s the real thing.”

We chatted a bit more, and then we both hung up. I sat there a moment, quiet, my hand resting on the phone. I have to get rid of Bart.