I slept very poorly that night and came to breakfast in a bitter and hopeless mood. But my mood changed as I sat down and stared at the remains of the morning paper which Elsa, as always, had spread across my breakfast plate in a manner to prevent eating. She had the habit of eviscerating those sections that interested me, but this day I was pleased. I poured myself some coffee and studied the glaring scandal headline, the idea forming in my mind. Like the first scheme, it appeared in all its glory, practically complete. I looked across at Elsa.
“Chérie,” I said, “how would you like a divorce?”
She looked up a bit crossly; morning is not Elsa’s best hour. “Please do not say such things, even in joking,” she said.
“I am not joking,” I said.
Her eyes clouded; she looked at me in amazement. “But why? What have I done? Why would you want a divorce? Are you not happy living with me?”
“Extremely,” I said. “And I expect to continue to be happy living with you. But not as man and wife.”
She stared at me as if I had lost my mind. “But why?” she wailed.
I pulled up a chair and sat beside her, the details of the scheme falling into place with almost audible clicks. “You can even retain your married name,” I said. “We will continue exactly as we are, except that we will no longer be married.”
“But why?” she asked again, this time with a touch of exasperation. So I told her. It took awhile, but in the end, as always, Elsa went along. And that very morning she went to visit a lawyer.
His call came to me a little before noon, and naturally did not surprise me. He informed me that my wife had retained him to represent her in a divorce action and asked the name of my attorney. I told him I had none and did not feel the need for one. He hemmed and hawed and finally asked if I could drop down to see him. I said I could.
He was a rather nice man, not overly bright, and obviously embarassed.
“This is extremely unusual,” he told me. “I’m not even sure it isn’t unethical. It is customary to discuss the matter with the other’s attorney.”
“But why?” I asked. “My wife wishes a divorce; I have no intention of contesting it. So why would I possibly require the services of a lawyer?”
“You do not understand,” he said, and went into a struggle with himself while I waited patiently. When he finally realized that the bad news could not be kept from me indefinitely, he said apologetically. “Your wife intends to ask for a settlement of a million dollars.” He raised a hand hurriedly. “I attempted to point out to her that such a demand was madness, especially for a childless woman, and that no jury—”
I looked at him quite calmly. “Is that all she wants?” I asked. “Then what seems to be the problem?” I thought he was going to faint. “I assume you have a corresponding firm in Reno who can handle the details at that end. I don’t mind the money,” I said, “but I refuse to allow my good name to be damaged by undertaking a divorce in this state.”
He nodded in a dazed fashion.
“Fine,” I said. “I assume, if there is no disagreement between my wife and myself in this matter, you can handle the affair for both of us?”
It took him awhile to understand what I was saying, but eventually it came through to him and he reached shakily for the folder he had begun on my wife’s case. When I left a bit later, everything was in hand.
Elsa left the next morning for Reno. I put her on the train — she hates airplanes — tucked her in her compartment with a dozen novels and sufficient bonbons, and fondly kissed her good-bye. She was quite tearful, certain that I would either starve or get run over by a taxi without her to protect me, but I finally managed to tear myself loose before the train left. She was gone a total of eight weeks, wrote regularly three times a week asking if I were eating properly, called twice a week to confirm my answer, and returned looking wonderful. We completed our transaction with the lawyer in the safety-deposit vault of a New York bank and walked out arm in arm.
And the next day, while I thought she was out shopping, Elsa went down to City Hall and married Waldeck Klees.
I sat and stared at him. He stared back, an odd look in his eyes.
“It’s the merry-go-round, don’t you see?” He spoke almost plaintively. “Beautifully endless, and completely mad.”
The Wager
I suppose if I were watching television coverage of the return of a lunar mission and Kek Huuygens climbed out of the command module after splashdown, I shouldn’t be greatly surprised. I’d be even less surprised to see Kek hustled aboard the aircraft carrier and given a thorough search by a suspicious customs official. Kek, you see, is one of those men who turn up at very odd times in unexpected places. Also, he is rated by the customs services of nearly every nation in the world as the most talented smuggler alive. Polish by birth, Dutch by adopted name, the holder of a valid U.S. passport, multilingual, a born sleight-of-hand artist, Kek is an elusive target for the stolid bureaucrat who thinks in terms of hollow shoe heels and suitcases with false bottoms. Now and then over the years, Kek has allowed me to publish a little of his lore in my column. When I came across him last, however, he was doing something very ordinary in a commonplace setting. Under the critical eye of a waiter, he was nursing a beer at a table in that little sunken-garden affair in Rockefeller Center.
Before I got to his table, I tried to read the clues. Kek had a good tan and he looked healthy. But his suit had a shine that came from wear rather than from silk thread. A neat scissors trim didn’t quite conceal the fact that his cuffs were frayed. He was not wearing his usual boutonniere.
“I owe you three cognacs from last time — Vaduz, wasn’t it? — and I’m buying,” I said as I sat down.
“You are a man of honor,” he said and called to the waiter, naming a most expensive cognac. Then he gave me his wide friendly smile. “Yes, you have read the signs and they are true — but not for any reasons you might imagine. Sitting before you, you can observe the impoverishment that comes from total success. Failure can be managed, but success can be a most difficult thing to control...”
Hidden inside every Kek Huuygens aphorism there is a story somewhere. But if you want it produced, you must pretend complete indifference. “Ah, yes,” I said, “failure is something you know in your heart. Success is something that lies in the eye of the beholder. I think—”
“Do you want to hear the story or don’t you?” Kek said. “You can’t use it in your column, though, I warn you.”
“Perhaps in time?”
“Perhaps in time, all barbarous customs regulations will be repealed,” he said. “Perhaps the angels will come down to rule the earth. Until then, you and I alone will share this story.” That was Kek’s way of saying “Wait until things have cooled off.”
It all began in Las Vegas (Huuygens said) and was primarily caused by two unfortunate factors: one, that I spoke the word ‘banco’ aloud and, two, that it was heard. I am still not convinced that the player against me wasn’t the world’s best card manipulator, but at any rate, I found myself looking at a jack and a nine, while the best I could manage for myself was a six. So I watched my money disappear, got up politely to allow the next standee to take my place and started for the exit. I had enough money in the hotel safe to pay my bill and buy me a ticket back to New York — a simple precaution I recommend to all who never learn to keep quiet in a baccarat game — and a few dollars in my pocket, but my financial position was not one any sensible banker would have lent money against. I was sure something would turn up, as it usually did, and in this case it turned up even faster than usual, because I hadn’t even reached the door before I was stopped.