Threesome - Lawrence Block [50]
I just couldn’t make it any longer, as the bishop said to the actress, and I just couldn’t take any more of it, as the actress said to the bishop. And so I had the feeling that it was incumbent upon me to remove myself from the fray before I myself became as frayed as a collar.
I called you a couple of times but managed to get the receiver back on the hook before anybody picked up the phone at your end. So in case you were worried that a telephone pervert had glommed onto our number, set your mind at ease. The only telephone pervert on the scene is your darling boy Harold.
I never did write my chapter, did I? I seem to remember that it was my turn, but somehow I wasn’t in the mood to hammer away at a typewriter. Nor, for that matter, did I have anything to say. I seemed to have run out of story, and the only thing that prevented me from typing something about all of us living happily ever after was my inability to believe that this was what would happen.
Ah, ye of little faith—
Use this as a chapter, if you wish. It’s being handwritten, because there’s no typewriter in this fairly sybaritic version of a monastic cell (catch all this goyische symbolism, do you believe it?) but I’m sure one of you clever ladies can type it up neatly enough. I’ve got a full supply of pens and the desk here is overflowing with this tacky but serviceable stationery, so let’s have at it, huh?
I got to the city around ten-thirty in the morning after I don’t know how many days of moping and drinking. I thought about getting out for a couple of days before I left, and decided finally that the only way to get everything together was to separate myself from you two for a while. So I came here, leaving the Chevy at the station. I had a suitcase filled with a few changes of socks and underwear, an extra suit, a couple of shirts, and the few things I need in order to get any work done.
I remember standing in Grand Central looking down at the suitcase and wondering where to go next. My mind was not at its absolute all-time sharpest, still aslosh with too much stale booze.
I went to a telephone and called Marcia Goldsmith.
“It’s Harry,” I said.
“Hello, Harry.”
“I’m in town. Can I come over?”
“It’s not Wednesday, is it?”
“No, but—”
“Because I set my calendar by you. You’re my one constant in a changing world. If I can’t count on you to appear on Wednesday and only on Wednesday, my Gawd, baby, what can I count on?”
“All you can count on are your fingers,” I sang, “unhappy Little Girl Blue.”
“They don’t write songs like that anymore.”
“They don’t.”
“I mean I dig the new music, but can you see them ten years from now cuddling on couches and getting misty-eyed listening to Blood, Sweat and Tears?”
“Never happen.”
“You know it. ‘All you can count on are the raindrops, falling on you, old girl you’re through—’”
“Okay to come up?”
“What day is it?”
“I think it’s Monday.”
“The first Monday of the month?”
“I don’t—no, as a matter of fact it’s the second Monday of this particular month. Why?”
“You may come up, baby.”
I carried my suitcase outside and got a cab up to her place. When she opened the door I said, “Why?”
“I give up. Why what?”
“Suppose it was the first Monday of the month.”
“Then you couldn’t come up.”
“Why not?”
“Because on the first Monday of every month I have to ball my landlord.”
“You’re putting me on.”
“Well, I don’t mean there’s a clause in the lease or anything, but we have this understanding.”
“You’re putting me on.”
“Not true.”
“A once-a-month arrangement. What do you get for it?”
“Fucked, usually. Sometimes eaten first. Also very respectful glances from the super. Presents at Christmas time and my birthday.”
“When’s your birthday?”
“April.”
“You’re really telling me the truth?”
“Sure.” She stepped back and looked at me. “Baby, it’s a great apartment at a bearable rental and to keep it I’d fuck King Kong in Macy’s window, and anyway just because he’s a landlord doesn’t make him a drag. You have to be careful with labels.