Chapter 20 - The Game Begins
The next day I called Gale and said, "Renegotiate the deal for the Mustang. Longer-term."
She said, "You're keeping the car? What's longer-term mean?"
"I don't know. Say seven weeks. Get a price for seven weeks. Beat him down."
"If I remember correctly, it was a week ago that you told me and Jinny that Roger was going to be in France for two more months. That makes for an interesting coincidence. You have a Jag in the driveway; why do you want a muscle car? Once in a while that's fun, but....Oh, Gwen, what have you done? You haven't?....Wait, I'm calling Jinny on another line....Shit, I'm me, but you're you....You don't....I do.....But you don't....Oh shit....Wait...."
"GALE, knock it off. Just call the guy and see what he wants for a few more weeks of rental. I like it and want to drive it a little more, that's all. Stop exaggerating. Stop projecting onto me."
"Ok, but I'm calling Jinny before I call the guy. We gotta talk this over. This is wild."
I hung up, and from Gale’s lead I echoed a rhetorical question to myself, 'Gwen, what have you done?' Being disinclined to question decisions I’ve made, I left it in rhetorical form and moved on to practical matters like, ‘What’s my next move?’ I sat on my bed in the living room and stared at Gwendolyn Manigault, hanging on the wall and looking unconcerned about her plight. I said, “Hey girl, what would you do if you got yourself in this position?” Just then the dog walked into the room, looked at me and then at the painting. He stared at the painting for a minute, sat down, looked at me and said, “Ok, let’s have it. This sounds serious.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Ole Gwendy up on the wall knows what you’re up to but she said I had to get it from you; she’s not squealing. So, let’s have it.”
“If that’s not the pot calling the kettle black. Talk about a squealer. Everything Roger and I do, you tell that writer next door, and he blabs it all over the New York Times best-seller list. Why should I tell you?”
“Two reasons: one, I’ll find out anyhow, you can’t hide from me, and two, you owe me, big time, and always will. So, give.”
I didn’t like being ganged up on by the girl on the wall and him, but I had to admit he was right. I did owe him. Roger and I owe him from the time the woman got past our home security system in the middle of the night, and I guess we always will. The dog heard her downstairs and woke us up, 3am, and we managed to get the drop on her as she came up the stairs, armed with a Walther PPK. What was really bad about that situation was we had a special friend staying with us, the French actress and cultural icon, Catherine Deneuve. And here was a home invasion. That whole thing had worked out pretty well, what with the woman, Anna, coming over to our side in a battle with her grandfather, guy named Stirg, and becoming friends with us. That part was good, but the writer snoop next door found out, through the dog of course, and wrote a book about the whole deal which he titled after me, Gwenny June, and having your name all over the place for a few weeks wasn’t such a good part, but what can you do? So anyway the dog holds this ace over us, and plays it regularly, and we can’t stay mad at Richard the snoop next door because he got his foot in the door with Anna, who not only is our good friend but also a bombshell of a woman, so we have to put up with the dog owning us at home and the neighbor writing books about us. He writes and markets them as if they are fiction, and he disguises us, sometimes, and nothing really bad has happened yet, but we do have a reputation in some circles.
That’s the story about why we owe the dog, and now I suppose you want to know about how the dog talks to us. Well, YOU don’t have anything over us, so I’m not telling, other than to say, yes, we communicate with him, though it’s not talking. It’s telepathy, and that’s all I’m saying. What is new, very new and interesting, and which I’m going to have to tell Roger about, put in a call to him in France, is that now the woman in the painting, apparently, is communicating with the dog.
“Is that right?" I asked the dog. Are you and Gwendolyn Manigault talking?”
“Did you hear anything?” he said (telepathically).
“You know what I mean. Are you communicating with her?”
“You tell me what’s going on with the guy not named Roger, and maybe I’ll tell you about Gwendolyn. Deal?”
“What do you mean, maybe?”
“That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
I was tempted to go into the kitchen and pour myself a glass of wine but it was only ten o’clock in the morning, so I rearranged the blankets on the sofa instead and said, “Deal.” The dog lay down and crossed one front leg over the other. I went on, “You remember the movie Bullitt? There’s a guy in town that looks just like Steve McQueen, and I'm curious about him and want to see if he acts like Steve McQueen does in his movies. That’s all.”
The dog said, “You like an actor in an old movie, and that’s reason to cheat on your husband? You bring that guy around here and I’ll tear him limb from limb. Protect the sanctity of this home.” The dog barely could keep his eyes open as he said this.
“I’m not cheating on Roger, and I told the guy that straight out. Told him I could have a little fun without backing into infidelity if he could do the same without backing into carnality. And he said, Yes.”
“And you believed him? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? No guy not a eunuch is going to maintain a posture devoid of carnality if he’s around you much. Like five minutes. Get real.”
I sensed a compliment in this somewhere but didn’t dwell on it because I also sensed a grain of truth. Maybe I did need to get real, but decided to avoid that for right now, and continued, “There’s more to it than a little vicarious attraction. The guy’s also the investigator for the insurance company associated with the painting. The pinching of the painting. He’s working in the museum right now.”
This got the dog’s eyes fully open and his paws uncrossed. “You telling me you’re fooling around with a guy that’s trying to catch you and put you in jail? Is that what you’re telling me?” I nodded. He looked at the painting for a minute, then back at me. “You’ve done some wild shit in your day, like stealing stuff from the Hermitage Museum and invading Stirg’s house in your bikini with your gun hidden in a towel, but this is, is....stupid. There were good reasons for all the other stuff, but this....? Have you lost your mind? Do I need to get on the phone and call Roger and tell him to come and get you out of the nuthouse, which is where you're heading?”
“You can’t dial the phone and your telepathic powers can’t reach across the Atlantic to France.”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way. I’ll get Gale to do it, or Jinny.”
“Since when do you communicate with either of them?”
“Until now I haven’t had to, because until now I haven’t shared a home with a nutcase.”
“I don’t think you can communicate with them.”
“If I can communicate with a women who lived two hundred years ago and now resides in an oil painting on the freaking wall, I can communicate with them.”
“You’ve alluded to the ability to do that but you haven’t demonstrated it yet. I’m waiting.”
The dog said, “I wanna hear more about this McQueen guy first. What’s his name and what’s his claim to fame?”
“His name is Tommy Crown, and he has the same sandy hair and blue eyes as Steve McQueen. Same look. Mr. Stud.”
“And that’s enough to compel you to cheat on Roger?”
“Stop with that, ok. I haven’t done anything. We took a ride over to Sullivan’s, and that’s all.”
“So far.”
“I just have a feeling about him and want to play a little. And I think he can hold up his end of the bargain.”
“And if he can’t? If he cracks under the pressure and makes a move, what then? You gonna crack too?”
“No.”
“Uh huh.”
“Ok, I’ve told you about him. Now you tell me about Gwendolyn. Wha’d she say to you? Can you really talk with her?”
He got up, turned away from me and walked towards the living room door. He stopped and looked at the painting, nodded, then shook his head, and walked out.
“You rat,” I yelled after him.