Two Much!

40

Ernest Volpinex, please.”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“Art Dodge,” I said, “Tell him I’m not on the plane.”

“One moment, please.”

I was briefly again in my office before heading north to some tranquil hideaway. Lake Placid, maybe; the sound of it was exactly what I had in mind. A placid time out, a rest period between halves. Perhaps on Saturday or Sunday I’d call Betty and reluctantly permit Bart to be drawn into a reconciliation scene.

“Volpinex here.”

“Ah, yes,” I said. “And this is Art Dodge, still here.”

“My secretary said you wanted to talk about an airplane,” he said.

“Oh, really? You’re going to be innocent?”

“I do dislike hearing your voice, Dodge,” he said. “If there’s a point to this call, would you mind stating it?”

“I married Liz at three o’clock this afternoon.”

There was a short electric silence. I waited through it, smiling at the phone, and finally Volpinex said, in a quiet thoughtful voice, “I see.”

“So you can call off your goons,” I told him, “and forget about airplane trips to St. Martin.”

He said nothing.

This time I didn’t wait him out. I paused long enough to give him a chance to speak if he had anything to say, and then I added, “You can forget everything in fact. It’s too late.”

“Perhaps,” he said. Still quiet, still thoughtful.

A little chill touched the back of my neck; I did my best to ignore it. “Perhaps? I told you, Volpinex, I’m married. Signed, sealed, and delivered.” And then, remembering Ralph’s having told me Volpinex was a widower whose wife had died on vacation in Maine, I added, “And I’m not going to Maine.”

The coldest voice I’ve ever heard said, “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean it’s all over. You’ve had it.”

Click.

“Volpinex?” I knew he’d hung up, but I jiggled the phone cradle anyway. “Volpinex?” But he was actually gone, so reluctantly I too hung up, and sat there a minute frowning at the telephone.

The conversation had not been as satisfactory as I’d anticipated. The chill still hovered at the back of my neck, and the sound of Volpinex’s cold voice still whispered in my ear.

I found myself rethinking my plan to drive north and spend tonight alone. A friendly face, a warm body, might be a much better idea after all.

But whom? Not Betty. Linda Ann Margolies? I could phone her, take her out to dinner, see what happened next. We’d already had sex, right here on this floor, so if she wasn’t busy tonight there wasn’t any reason—

The phone rang.

“Hello?”

“So there you are.”

“Candy?”

“You have too many women, Art, is that it? You can’t recognize voices any more?”

“I only recognize your voice when you’re sweet to me.”

“When I’m sweet to you!” Her shock and outrage nearly melted the plastic of the phone.

“Sweetheart,” I said, “I’ve been so busy lately, it’s just—”

“I’ll just bet you have.”

“Some day I’ll tell you all a—”

“Make it today.”

It was now shortly after six, approaching dinnertime. I said, “Candy, even if I had time to come out to Fair Harbor, I’d never make the last—”

“I’m in New York.”

Flashback: vision of Candy entering this selfsame building as I was exiting it with Betty after the mirror trick. “Ah,” I said. “You’re in New York.”

“I left Ralph.”

“Oh, Candy, think what you’re saying.”

“I wrote him a letter, Art, I told him everything.”

“A letter? To Ralph?”

“Everything, Art.”

“Candy, are you sure you—”

“I’ll show you the carbon. Take me to dinner and I’ll show you the carbon, and we can talk.”

Good God. An hysterical or overemotional woman at this juncture would have been bad enough, but a woman who tells all to her husband in a letter and makes a carbon is neither hysterical nor overemotional. No. Such a woman is a woman with something in mind. I said, carefully, “Candy, if you want to talk over your problems with me for old time’s sake, I’ll be hap—”

“Old time’s sake? We had a lot more than old times before you started running around with that rich bitch.”

“Candy,” I said, “I hate to bring this up, but the reason we haven’t seen so much of one another lately is because you threw me out. Remember that?”

“We’ll talk about that, too, Art.”

“Um. What does Ralph say, Candy?”

“About what?”

“About the letter, what else?”

“He hasn’t seen it yet. I’m going to mail it to him tonight.”

“Oh,” I said.

“After you and I have our talk,” she said.

“I see.”

“You always were pretty quick, Art.”

Candy hardly counted as a friendly face, but God knew she was a warm body. So much for Linda Ann Margolies — too bad. I said, “Where are you now, dear?”

“At home.” Meaning the apartment on West End Avenue in the eighties.

“I’ll come by for you at seven?”

“Have the doorman buzz me,” she said. “I’ll come down.”

“You don’t want me to come in, Candy?”

“First,” she said firmly, “we’ll talk.”