Two Much! by Donald E. Westlake Page A

Indiana. I was, after all, engaged to an heiress, or at least Bart was.
    And also for the sheer silly intrigue of it. I’ve never been able to quit when I was ahead, never known how to stop before I got caught, and I wasn’t likely to learn now. So I went with Liz to Hommel’s, watched a ferry depart, and waited to be invited home.
    For a while it looked as though it wouldn’t happen. Liz spent her first two drinks making remarks about Candy, some of which I thought were probably unfair, then devoted her third to class-conscious slurs of the citizens around us. It must be hard to be a promiscuous snob, but Liz managed.
    Finally, partway into her fourth vodka-ice, she looked at me and said, “So what do you do now?”
    â€œSwelter in the city, I suppose. I’ll hate to break the news to Bart.”
    â€œScrew Bart.”
    â€œHe’s my brother.”
    â€œHe isn’t mine,” she said, callously, I thought.
    â€œThen there’s my apartment,” I said. I sighed, but was manful about it. “Well, I’ve camped in my office before.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with your apartment?”
    I was just about to tell her it was sublet when I realized I was supposed to have been spending half of every week in the damn place. “Bart,” I said. “It’s just a one-and-a-half in the Village, there isn’t room for both of us.”
    â€œHe’s in your place?”
    That didn’t make sense, did it? “Well,” I said. Invention flowed through me, bred by necessity, and I said, “Bart doesn’t have his own place yet Not till after Labor Day.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œHe spent several years out on the Coast,” I explained. (Of course! If a friend of mine expressed bewilderment about Bart in Liz’s presence, this would explain it; he was a long-lost brother.) “He just came back the beginning of the summer,” I said, “when he came into the business with me.”
    â€œOh. Well, you want to come stay at my house?”
    â€œDo I have to sleep in the closet?”
    She showed me her sour grin. “I like being around you,” she said. “You’re a little funnier than most people. Like back at your lady-friend’s house.”
    â€œI give all credit to my supporting cast.”
    â€œUh huh.” She downed her drink and signaled to the proprietor for another. “Can you get hold of that brat with the boat?”
    â€œI 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.

A ND 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