Two Much!

56

Snoozed 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.