Two Much! Read Online Free

Two Much!
Book: Two Much! Read Online Free
Author: Donald E. Westlake
Pages:
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Then she said, “Do you know your eyes sparkle in this light?”
    I wear contact lenses. “It’s because I’m a romantic,” I said. “And so do yours.”
    â€œOh, I wear contact lenses. Liz doesn’t, though; her eyes aren’t as bad as mine.” She gave me a coy look. “So we aren’t exactly the same, after all.”
    â€œTwo separate mysteries,” I said, with low-voiced melodrama.
    â€œThat’s exactly tight Isn’t it that way with you and your brother?”
    The brother again. “Oh, I suppose we’re different in some ways,” I said.
    â€œWould I like to meet him?”
    A comical thought entered my brain—casual, fanciful, not yet serious. “You’d probably get along fine with old Bart,” I said.
    â€œBart, is that his name?”
    â€œMmm hmm.”
    â€œWhy don’t you bring him around some time?”
    I smiled. “Maybe I will,” I said. “Maybe I will.” Then another ray from Liz’s eyes struck my left temple a glancing blow, and I bowed my head to look at my drink and say, “I believe I need a refill.”
    We parted with mutual expressions of esteem, and Liz intercepted me at the bar. “My usual, Mike,” she said.
    â€œHa ha ha,” said Mike.
    Liz tossed me a sidelong green-eyed glare. “Having fun with my sister?”
    â€œShe’d rather be in a ski lodge,” I said. “Before a roaring fire.”
    â€œOr in one,” she muttered, and Mike gave us our drinks.
    I said, “Let’s go back to the closet.”
    She gave me a flat look. “Screw you,” she said, and went away.
    I hung around a while longer, but she remained angry, and God knows there was no other reason to be there, so eventually I made my departure. I gave my hostesses separate farewells. “Drop in any time you’re in the neighborhood,” Liz said, with eyes much colder than her sister’s winter wonderland. Betty, in her turn, said she was glad to meet me and asked once more after my dear brother Bart. Then I left.
    This protected enclave of the well-bred well-to-do; they even leave their bicycles out at night, unlocked, safe from the teen-age chimpanzees who harass the proletarian communities. I stole the first bike I came to, rode it to the end of Point O’ Woods, walked it with difficulty through the thick sand around the end of the fence, and then rode cheerfully down the central walk through Ocean Bay Park and Seaview and Ocean Beach. I had to abandon it men and walk along the beach to Lonelyville, but in Dunewood I found another untended bike—most unusual—and sailed along to Fair Harbor and the fair Candy, who had just had a raging fight with Ralph and wasn’t speaking to anybody. Ralph and I went to Hommel’s and drank, until Ralph asked me to go back to the house and try to soothe Candy. “She won’t talk to me,” he said. “Maybe she’ll talk to you.” So I went back to the house and soothed her.

    T HE NEXT DAY WAS WED nesday and I was going to the city. Ralph decided to go in with me, so we took a morning ferry together, wearing shoes and carrying attaché cases. Ralph bought a Times at the Pioneer Market to read on the boat, and I spent the time trying to work up some fresh greetings. I didn’t have a really good Get Well Soon, and it was also time to start thinking about Christmas. While the ferry wallowed across the Great South Bay, I doodled on a sheet of paper resting on my attaché case. “Get well soon—get well soon—get well soon—”
    The voyage from Fire Island to Manhattan employs most of the transportation methods known to man. First the ferry to Bay Shore, on the southern coast of Long Island; then a cab from the dock to the railroad station; then a train on in to the city. “Get well soon,” I wrote. “Get well soon.” I was getting nowhere.
    Then all
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