The Collection (124 page)

“No sweat, Ed. We write each other once a year, at
Christmas. And several times, including last Christmas, we traded snapshots
with our Christmas letters. Remember?”

“Of course,” I said. “But didn't your wife see the one I
sent you?”

“She may have glanced at it casually. But after seven months
she wouldn't remember it. Besides, you and the real Ed Cartwright are about the
same physical type, anyway---dark hair, good looking. You'll pass. But don't
miss meeting us before we reach the counter or somebody there might tell us the
plane's not in yet, if it's not. Well, I better not talk any longer.”

I swore a little to myself as I left the Morrison lobby and
went to the cab rank. I'd counted on the time Ollie and I would have had
together to have him finish my briefing. This way I'd have to let him do most
of the talking, at least tonight. Well, he seemed smart enough to handle it. I
didn't even know my parents' names, whether either of them was alive, whether I
had any other living relatives besides Ollie. I didn't even know whether I was
married or not---although I felt reasonably sure Ollie would have mentioned it
if I was.

Yes, he'd have to do most of the talking---although I'd
better figure out what kind of business I'd come to Chicago to do; I'd be
supposed to know that, and Ollie wouldn't know anything about it. Well, I'd
figure that out on the cab ride.

Barring accidents, I'd get there well ahead of Ollie, and I
didn't want accidents, so I didn't offer the cabby any bribe for speed when I
told him to take me to the airport. He'd keep the meter ticking all right,
since he made his money by the mile and not by the minute.

I had my cover story ready by the time we got there. It
wasn't detailed, but I didn't anticipate being pressed for details, and if I
was, I knew more about printing equipment than Eve Bookman would know. I was a
good ten minutes ahead of plane time. I found myself a seat near the Pacific
Airlines counter and facing in the direction from which the Bookmans would
come. Fifteen minutes later---on time, as planes go---the public-address system
announced the arrival of my flight from Seattle, and fifteen minutes after
that---time for me to have left the plane and even to have collected the
suitcase that was by my feet---I saw them coming. That is, I saw Ollie coming,
and with him was a beautiful,
soignée
blonde who could only be Eve
Bookman, nee Eve Eden. Quite a dish. She was, with high heels, just about two
inches short of Ollie's height, which made her just about as tall as I, unless
she took off her shoes for me. Which, from what Ollie had told me about her,
was about the last thing I expected her to do, especially here in the airport.

I got up and walked toward them and---remembering identification
was only from snapshot---didn't put too much confidence in my voice when I
asked, “Ollie?” and I put out my hand but only tentatively.

Ollie grabbed my hand in his big one and started pumping it.
“Ed! Gawdamn if I can believe it, after all these years. When I last saw you,
not counting pictures, you looked--- Hell, let's get to that later. Meet Eve.
Eve, meet Ed.”

Eve Bookman gave me a smile but not a hand. “Glad to meet
you at last, Edward. Oliver's talked quite a bit about you.” I hoped she was
just being polite in making the latter statement.

I gave her a smile back. “Hope he didn't say anything bad
about me. But maybe he did; I was probably a pretty obstreperous brat when he
saw me last. I would have been---let's see---”

“Five,” said Ollie. “Well, what are we waiting for? Ed, you
want we should go right home? Or should we drop in somewhere on the way and
hoist a few? You weren't much of a drinker when I knew you last but maybe by
now---”

Eve interrupted him. “Let's go home, Oliver. You'll want a
nightcap there in any case, and you know you're not supposed to have more than
one or two a day. Did he tell you, Edward, about his heart trouble in any of
his letters?”

Ollie saved me again. “No, but it's not important. All
right, though. We'll head home and I'll have my daily one or two, or maybe,
since this is an occasion, three. Ed, is that your suitcase back by where you
were sitting?”

I said it was and went back and got it, then went with them
to the parking area and to a beautiful cream-colored Buick convertible with the
top down. Ollie opened the door for Eve and then held it open after she got in.
“Go on, Ed. We can all sit in the front seat.” He grinned. “Eve's got an MG and
loves to drive it, but we couldn't bring it tonight. With those damn bucket
seats, you can't ride three in the whole car.” I got in and he went around and
got in the driver's side. I was wishing that I could drive it---I'd never
piloted a recent Buick---but I couldn't think of any reasonable excuse for
offering.

Half an hour later, I wished that I'd not only offered but
had insisted. Ollie Bookman was a poor driver. Not a fast driver or a dangerous
one, just sloppy. The way he grated gears made my teeth grate with them and his
starts and stops were much too jerky. Besides, he was a lane-straddler and had
no sense of timing on making stop lights.

But he was a good talker. He talked almost incessantly, and
to good purpose, briefing me, mostly by apparently talking to Eve. “Don't
remember if I told you, Eve, how come Ed and I have different last names, but
the same father---not the same mother. See, I was Dad's son by his first
marriage and Ed by his second---Ed was born Ed Bookman. But Dad died right
after Ed was born and Ed's mother, my stepmother, married Wilkes Cartwright a
couple years later. Ed was young enough that they changed his name to match his
stepfather's, but I was already grown up, through high school anyway, so I
didn't change mine. I was on my own by then. Well, both Ed's mother and his
stepfather are dead now; he and I are the only survivors. Well . . .”
And I listened and filed away facts. Sometimes he'd cut me in by asking me questions,
but the questions always cued in their own answers or were ones that wouldn't
be giveaways whichever way I answered them, like, “Ed, the house you were born
in, out north of town---is it still standing, or haven't you been out that way
recently?”

I was fairly well keyed in on family history by the time we
got home.

Home wasn't as I'd pictured it, a house. It was an
apartment, but a big one---ten rooms, I learned later---on Coleman Boulevard
just north of Howard. It was fourth floor, but there were elevators. Now that I
thought of it, I realized that Ollie, because of his angina, wouldn't be able
to live in a house where he had to climb stairs. But later I learned they'd
been living there ever since they'd married, so he hadn't had to move there on
account of that angle.

It was a fine apartment, nicely furnished and with a living
room big enough to contain a swimming pool. “Come on, Ed,” Ollie said
cheerfully. “I'll show you your room and let you get rid of your suitcase,
freshen up if you want to---although I imagine we'll all be turning in soon.
You must be tired after that long trip. Eve, could we talk you into making a
round of Martinis meanwhile?”

“Yes, Oliver.” The perfect wife, she walked toward the small
but well-stocked bar in a corner of the room.

I followed Ollie to the guest room that was to be mine.
“Might as well unpack your suitcase while we talk,” he said, after he closed
the door behind us. “Hang your stuff up or put it in the dresser there. Well,
so far, so good. Not a suspicion, and you're doing fine.”

“Lots of questions I've still got to ask you, Ollie. We
shouldn't take time to talk much now, but when will we have a chance to?”

“Tomorrow. I'll say I have to go downtown, make up some
reasons. And you've got your excuse already---the business you came to do.
Maybe you can get it over with sooner than you thought---but then decide, since
you've come this far anyway, to stay out the week. That way you can stick
around here as much as you want, or go out only when I go out.”

“Fine. We'll talk that out tomorrow. But about tonight,
we'll be talking, the three of us, and what can I safely talk about? Does she
know anything about the size of my business, or can I improvise freely and
talk about it?”

“Improvise your head off. I've never talked about your business.
Don't know much about it myself.”

“Good. Another question. How come, at only twenty-five, I've
got a business of my own? Most people are still working for somebody else at
that age.”

“You inherited it from your stepfather, Cartwright. He died
three years ago. You were working in the shop and moved to the office and took
over. And as far as I know, or Eve, you're doing okay with it.”

“Good. And I'm not married?”

“No, but if you want to invent a girl you're thinking about
marrying, that's another safe thing you can improvise about.”

I put the last of the contents of my suitcase in the dresser
drawer and we went back to the living room. Eve had the cocktails made and was
waiting for us. We sat around sipping at them, and this time I was able to do
most of the talking instead of having to let Ollie filibuster so I wouldn't put
my foot into my mouth by saying something wrong.

Ollie suggested a second round but Eve stood up and said
that she was tired and that if we'd excuse her, she'd retire. And she gave
Ollie a wifely caution about not having more than one more drink. He promised
he wouldn't and made a second round for himself and me.

He yawned when he put his down after the first sip. “Guess
this will be the last one, Ed. I'm tired, too. And we'll have plenty of time to
talk tomorrow.”

I wasn't tired, but if he was, that was all right by me. We
finished our nightcaps fairly quickly.

“My room's the one next to yours,” he told me as he took our
glasses back to the bar. “No connecting door, but if you want anything, rap on
the wall and I'll hear you. I'm a light sleeper.”

“So am I,” I told him. “So make it vice versa on the
rapping. I'm the one that's supposed to be protecting you, not the other way
around.”

“And Eve's room is the one on the other side of mine. No
connecting door there, either. Not that I'd use it, at this stage, even if it
stood wide open with a red carpet running through it.”

“She's still a beautiful woman,” I said, just to see how
he'd answer it.

“Yes. But I guess I'm by nature monogamous. And this may
sound corny and be corny, but I consider Dorothy and me married in the sight
of God. She's all I'll ever want, she and the boy. Well, come on, and we'll
turn in.”

I turned in, but I didn't go right to sleep. I lay awake
thinking, sorting out my preliminary impressions. Eve Bookman---yes, I believed
Ollie's story about their marriage and didn't even think it was exaggerated.
Most people would think her sexy as hell to look at her, but I've got a sort of
radar when it comes to sexiness. It hadn't registered with a single blip on the
screen. And Koslovsky is a much better than average judge of people and what
had he said about her? Oh, yes, he'd called her a cold potato.

Some women just naturally hate sex and men---and some of
those very women become things like strip teasers because it gives them
pleasure to arouse and frustrate men. If one of them breaks down and has an
affair with a man, it's because the man has money, as Ollie had, and she thinks
she can hook him for a husband, as Eve did Ollie. And once she's got him
safely hog-tied, he's on his own and she can be her sweet, frigid self again.
True, she's given up the privilege of frustrating men in audience-size groups,
but she can torture the hell out of one man, as long as he keeps wanting her,
and achieve respectability and even social position while she's doing it.

Oh, she'd been very pleasant to me, very hospitable, and no
doubt was pleasant to all of Ollie's friends. And most of them, the ones
without radar, probably thought she was a ball of fire in bed and that Ollie
was a very lucky guy.

But murder---I was going to take some more convincing on
that. It could be Ollie's imagination entirely. The only physical fact he'd
come up with to indicate even the possibility of it was the business of the
missing will. And she could have taken and destroyed that but still have no
intention of killing him before he could make another like it; she could simply
be hoping he'd never discover that it was missing.

But I could be wrong, very wrong. I'd met Eve less than
three hours ago and Ollie had lived with her eight years. Maybe there was more
than met the eye. Well, I'd keep my eyes open and give Ollie a run for his five
hundred bucks by not assuming that he was making a murder out of a molehill. I
went to sleep and Ollie didn't tap on my wall.

I woke at seven but decided that would be too early and that
I didn't want to make a nuisance of myself by being up and around before
anybody else, so I went back to sleep and it was half past nine when I woke the
second time. I got up, showered and shaved---my bedroom had a private bath so
all of them must have---dressed and went exploring. I went back to the living
room and through it, and found a dining room. The table was set for breakfast
for three but no one was there yet.

A matronly-looking woman who'd be a cook or housekeeper---I
later learned that she was both and her name was Mrs. Ledbetter---appeared in
the doorway that led through a pantry to the kitchen and smiled at me. “You
must be Mr. Bookman's brother,” she said. “What would you like for breakfast?”

“What time do the Bookmans come down for breakfast?” I
asked.

“Usually earlier than this. But I guess you talked late last
night. They should be up soon, though.”

“Then I won't eat alone, thanks. I'll wait till at least one
of them shows up. And as for what I want---anything; whatever they will be
having. I'm not fussy about breakfasts.”