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  The second ran fingers through her long blonde hair. So did the first, laughing throatily—as did the second. When will this damned burlesque conclude? I wondered.

  It had a few more stages to go.

  The second Cassandra raised her right hand. The first one raised hers, the movement a duplicate.

  With a repressed smile, the second suddenly produced a scarlet handkerchief from the air—a minor “appearance”; sleeve concealment.

  The first Cassandra stared at her. The second chuckled, on the verge of triumph.

  At which the first, with a duplicate chuckle, produced the same scarlet handkerchief.

  The second threw her head back with a startled laugh. So did the first.

  Impasse, the twins regarding one another.

  Until the second Cassandra tossed her handkerchief into the air.

  As did the first.

  The second, though, grabbed at hers abruptly as it fell, causing it to vanish.

  Despite her efforts to do likewise, the first Cassandra was unable to prevent her handkerchief from fluttering to the floor.

  The second made a sound of victory and pointed at the first—who made a sound which might have been translated as, “Oh, well, you can’t win them all.”

  The second clearly examined the first. “Not bad,” she allowed.

  “Damn perfect,” said the first, still with Cassandra’s voice.

  The smile of the second Cassandra disappeared. “Are you sure he’s still out walking?” she demanded.

  “Would I be doing this if he weren’t?” asked the first, now in his own voice.

  “Well, we can’t take any risks,” Cassandra told him disapprovingly. “You’d better go upstairs and change.”

  By now, a chill had begun to settle in my stomach as I stared at them.

  What are they up to?

  “I have to set it up first,” Brian was saying, gesturing vaguely toward the room.

  Cassandra frowned. “You should have done that earlier,” she said.

  “With all I had to do?” he answered; again, the coldness in my vitals.

  Cassandra grimaced with impatience. “Well, get it over with, but fast,” she ordered him.

  She started to turn away when Brian grabbed her arm, restraining her. Cassandra looked around in irritation. “What?”

  “You’re determined to do this?” Brian asked.

  Now I really felt disturbed.

  “Brian, we have gone through this already—endlessly.” Her tone was coldly critical, making it obvious that whatever was going on, it was her idea, not his. “Now come on,” she said. “You have to get out of here.” She looked around uncomfortably. “Harry could get here any moment.”

  “All right.” He looked at her, a distressed Cassandra appraising her calmer twin.

  Seeing this, Cassandra put her hands on his arms and smiled with reassurance. “Brian. Darling,” she said. “It’s going to be all right. Fear not!”

  He did not respond, and she looked concerned now. “I can depend on you, can’t I?” she asked.

  His look and voice were gravity itself.

  “Haven’t you always?” he said.

  She squeezed his arms. “Get on with it then,” she told him.

  She turned and moved to the doorway, shoe heels clicking on the oak floor.

  There she turned. “And if you hear Harry’s car drive up, or the doorbell rings, for God’s sake, get upstairs right away.”

  “All right,” he said. He sounded almost angry now. It was the most he could manage with his sister. Anger, he could not permit himself.

  He loved her too much.

  Before she left, Cassandra did something which intensified the chill inside me.

  She looked at me directly—something she never did—and stuck out her tongue. A childish gesture which dismayed me far more than a scowl or a snarl might have done.

  “Why don’t you leave him alone?” Brian said.

  She didn’t reply, only gave him a look.

  Then she was gone, and Brian was picking up his fallen handkerchief and moving to the fireplace. As Max’s assistant, he was expected to complete the preparation of the room. No detail could be overlooked.

  The feeling of gratitude I had for Brian’s sympathy was undone by the coldly venomous look he gave to Max’s replica as he passed the upright casket.

  Cassandra and he had some dark plan with regard to my son. I knew it clearly.

  And I could not do anything about it. Do you want to know the sum and substance of true frustration? It was what I felt as I sat there, watching Brian at the mantelpiece while he lifted the silver box, raised its lid, and removed a single match from its interior. Striking the match on the bottom of the box, he began to light the first black candle.

  Startled, then, I looked toward the doorway. There had been no car sound and no warning doorbell.

  Yet Harry Kendal—Max’s booking agent—was striding into the room.

  chapter 3

  I stared at him, a burst of formless hope inside me. Could this be an answer? I thought. A solution to a problem about which I have no knowledge whatsoever?

  Let me describe Harry Kendal; it may help you understand.

  He was in his upper fifties, tan, lean and treadmill-fit, his hair profuse and silvery. A distinguished-looking man, but less in the manner of a college don than a Mafia one.

  It being July, he wore the accredited New York showbiz uniform—a lightweight, white and blue pinstripe suit, a white shirt and a dark blue tie; nothing but the best in quality of course.

  Carried in his right hand was a tropical-weave summer hat, in his left a monogrammed leather attaché case, list price $450 at the very least. Harry Kendal was a man who always did well for himself.

  His first words were, “Here I am, babe.”

  The expression of alarm on Brian’s (Cassandra’s) face as he whirled gave me renewed hope. Not knowing, as I’ve said, what Brian had in mind to do with Cassandra, I hoped that this unexpected surprise might, at least, undo what seemed to be a part of it—his imitation of Cassandra.

  So I watched, smiling (inwardly, of course), as Harry, grinning (outwardly), cried, “Whoa! Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you!”

  “I—” Brian broke off instantly. Obviously, he knew this wasn’t going to work beyond a first brief space of time. He cleared his throat and reproduced his sister’s voice again, saying, “I didn’t hear your car drive up.”

  “Took a cab,” Harry told him (her). “Walked in from the highway. Just opened the door.” His sleazy smile was now in evidence. “Thought I had that privilege.”

  As he spoke, he placed his hat and attaché case on the chair nearest him and, glancing toward me briefly, raised a limp hand in salute to my irrelevant existence.

  I did not return the greeting.

  Now he moved toward Brian, who—very abruptly—turned back toward the mantelpiece, his heartbeat no doubt accelerated markedly. (The realization did my heart good.) Brian tried to ignite another match, his mind probably fishing for a quick way out of this dilemma.

  Harry reacted with a frown of surprise to “Cassandra” turning her back on him and stopped to look at her quizzically. “How you doin’?” he inquired.

  I saw Brian swallow nervously; Harry couldn’t see it from his vantage point. “I’m fine,” he said. Cassandra’s voice, of course.

  “Where’s the Marster?” Harry asked.

  “Walking,” Brian answered. Was he feeling breathless, giddy? Lord, I hoped so.

  “Glad to hear it,” Harry responded.

  I may have imagined it but I think that Brian tightened even more, hearing Harry’s tone of voice with its intimation of “moving in” on Cassandra now that he knew her husband was not about.

  Brian glanced across his shoulder, and I felt a rare glow of pleasure as I saw that he saw that, indeed, Harry was moving in on him.

  Heart in throat (I trust), he moved quickly to the picture window overlooking the lake and cor
ded shut the drapes. Instant gloom pervaded the room; to Brian’s advantage, of course, I realized with a twinge of frustration.

  Harry grunted. “That certainly makes the room a lot more cheerful,” he said. He watched Brian return to the mantelpiece for another try at lighting those candles. Then he added, “However, it does make the room a lot more intimate.”

  I wonder if he heard the faint groan which I heard in Brian’s throat. Had Brian made it even worse for himself?

  Noting Harry “on the move” once more, he hastily lit the three black candles and, as though he didn’t notice Harry’s stalking approach, moved swiftly behind the desk and turned on the lamp, the illumination of which was cast only downward.

  Harry stopped again, now looking piqued; I enjoyed the sight. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  A quick and trembling breath in Brian’s lungs. “Nothing,” he said.

  Then an idea obviously occurred to him; a rare occurrence, I believed at that time. “Listen, I have to go upstairs for a minute—”

  His voice broke off in utter shock as Cassandra (who had, fortuitously, put on a pair of noiseless slippers since the shoes she’d been wearing—always too small by dint of vanity—had been pinching her feet) started into the room, a bottle of champagne in her hands.

  Never have I seen a faster reaction. Catching sight of Harry, she whirled with the skill of a dervish and vanished in an instant, Harry never noticing; he was moving toward the desk now, saying, still piqued, “Wait a minute, babe.”

  He stopped in his tracks as Brian, growing desperate, moved around the other end of the desk and headed for the entry hall.

  “Wait a minute,” Harry told him (her). He was more than piqued now, he was positively pettish.

  Brian stopped, not turning; I enjoyed an imagined vision of his heart expanding and contracting like an overdriven bellows.

  “What is wrong?” demanded Harry.

  “Nothing,” insisted Brian.

  “Well then, turn around for Christ’s sake,” Harry ordered her (him).

  Brian hesitated, doubtless fearing that the game was ended before it could start; whatever the game was. Then, slowly, he turned to confront the stern-faced Harry.

  “Look, I don’t like this, babe,” said Harry. “I took a cab here all the way from Boston just because you asked me. I’m not here to sell encyclopedias.” Daresay he thought that was a telling sting.

  Brian’s spirits must have been flagging by then. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”

  Again he broke off as a panel in the wall behind Harry opened soundlessly (a frippery I’d had installed when the house was built) and he saw—as I did—his sister signaling to him frantically.

  Brian, by now, was too rattled to hide his reaction, and seeing Brian’s eyes shift, Harry turned to see what he was looking at. Eureka, I thought.

  Then I scowled (although my face remained the same) as Cassandra closed the panel instantaneously; Harry saw nothing. Scowling (visibly), he turned back to Brian, really angry now. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  Brian clearly had no glimmer as to what he should say or do. Harry starting toward him seemed to petrify his limbs.

  Until, as Harry nearly reached him, a fit of frenzy seized his bones and he moved—lunged might be more the word—to the display poster of THE GREAT DELACORTE and picked it up. “Have to move this,” he muttered, barely in Cassandra’s voice.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Harry said, observing Brian carry the poster to the area in front of the moving panel. Abruptly then, he turned away, disgusted. “Screw it, babe,” he said. “I’m going back to Boston.”

  “No,” said Brian.

  Hastily, he stepped behind the poster. Harry couldn’t see, but I could; as the panel was reopened quickly, Brian and Cassandra made the switch and Brian shut the panel. Damn! I thought.

  Cassandra (now the real) picked up the poster and returned it to its original place. “No,” she said, “Max wouldn’t want it over there.”

  That Harry’s feeling, at that moment, was no greater than disgruntlement tells you how essentially identical Cassandra and the made-up Brian looked. No doubt a close appraisal would have revealed discrepancies but, from the distance Harry had been—the distance Brian had made sure to keep him at—the similarities far outweighed whatever minor differences in appearance there might have been.

  Further, Harry had no notion that Brian could imitate his sister. Accordingly, it would have taken a glaring inconsistency on Brian’s part for Harry to even have conceived of it, much less noticed that inconsistency.

  Even further, Harry had been so thoroughly ego-aggrieved by Cassandra’s snub of him that he’d been in no state of mind to consider physical replication.

  For God’s sake, the man was so fundamentally obtuse that he never even noticed how Cassandra’s footwear went, in one fell swoop, from high heels to slippers!

  Cassandra obviously knew those things, because her tone of voice was totally unruffled as she moved to the drapes and opened them. “He really doesn’t like the drapes shut either,” she remarked, turning back to Harry with a confident smile. Oh, density, thy name is Kendal!

  “Finished with your little game now?” he inquired sarcastically.

  “Sweetheart,” said my faithful daughter-in-law.

  Turning off the desk lamp, she moved to Harry, slid her arms across his shoulders and planted an intense and lingering kiss on his lips. (Do you require any further evidence that my existence was, to her, no more substantial than the presence of an artichoke?)

  Harry’s instant physical response was thoroughly predictable and Cassandra knew it, pressing loins and stomach to his calculable groin, his Achilles crotch. I had never known before that moment that Cassandra had been intimate with Harry, but, I must say, the discovery came as no bombshell explosion in my mind.

  Cassandra allowed the breathless grinding to go on for a while, then pulled free with a labored exhalation, feigned, I have no doubt. She drew back, grasping his hands in hers. “How are you, darling?” she asked.

  His response was to glance uncomfortably at me. “Are you sure—” he began.

  “He’s brain-dead, love,” she assured him.

  “But his eyes—”

  “—perceive nothing; he’s no more cognizant than a head of lettuce.”

  If you had only known, Cassandra.

  “How are you, darling?” she repeated.

  “Provoked,” he answered.

  “Did I behave badly?” she asked.

  “I’d say dementedly,” he answered.

  “I’m sorry, I just—” She broke off and I thought: You aren’t really going to say it, are you? But she did! “—haven’t been myself today,” she finished.

  She kissed Harry on the lips again, lightly this time to prevent further excess groin provoking. “I’m sorry, love,” she said. “It’s everything that’s going on here. You understand, I know you do.”

  A grumbling “I suppose” from Harry, anxious to preserve his macho image even though he’d obviously succumbed to her already.

  Another peck to his pouting lips, an imploring look. “I’ve been so upset,” she said.

  He patted her back, his ego restored. “All right, all right,” he said. He looked around, shaking his head. “This whole room,” he went on. “It’s too damn much. That casket, for God’s sake. When did he put the figure in it?”

  “He wants to know what he’ll look like at his funeral,” she answered.

  “That’s sick,” he muttered.

  Her smile was cold. “That’s Max,” she amended.

  He looked at her again. “You said he was walking?” he asked.

  Cassandra hesitated, then realized that Brian must have said it. “Yes, he is.” She nodded.

  She reacted as, with an anticipating (ever sleazy) smile, he moved at her again. “He could be back any moment though,” she told him quickly.

  He frowned, then sighed, accepting. “All right,�
�� he said reluctantly.

  She took his hands again. “Thank you for coming,” she said.

  “How could I resist?” he replied. “Your request as well as Max’s?”

  Cassandra stiffened noticeably. “He asked you to come as well?” she asked, clearly taken by surprise.

  Displeased, uncomfortable surprise.

  chapter 4

  You didn’t know?” asked Harry.

  “No, I—” She could not complete her remark. All she could do was repeat the word “No,” her face a mask of disconcertment.

  “Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?” he asked. “It means he’s probably changed his mind.”

  “You really think so?” asked Cassandra. For a moment there, she sounded almost optimistic; about what I had no idea—but then you already know the sum total of my knowledge of events transpiring: zero.

  Harry gestured as if to comment, Why not?

  “Babe, he could have said ‘no’ on the phone,” he told her.

  When she failed to respond, he added, “Why ask me all the way up here just to turn me down?”

  She remained unconvinced; that was easy to see, even for a head of lettuce.

  “I’m sure that’s what it is,” persisted Harry. He assumed his “serious” mien. “What about Vegas, babe?” he asked. “Can he handle it? Even with you?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. I could tell she was conversing with him and dealing with her thoughts at the same time, a skill she’d carefully developed.

  “Was Baltimore as bad as I heard?” he asked.

  She was back now, in control; it hadn’t been a serious unhinging. She looked at Harry with an expression of deep distress; it almost seemed real—was it? “You can’t imagine,” she told him quietly.

  Harry put his arms around her and she leaned her forehead on his shoulder. He stroked her back and told her he was sorry. “It must have been a nightmare,” he said.

  What is this? I wondered.

  “God,” Cassandra sobbed, and damned if it didn’t sound perplexingly genuine. “To stand there on the stage with him, watching him drop things.”