Write me a Letter

the Pecos . I don’t believe I need to mention the name of the other, the somewhat taller, romantic.
    ”Well, that’s handy,” I said, ”having an accountant in the family. I always wanted to have a masseuse in mine.”
    ”It is, it is,” he said. ”Except once in a blue moon.”
    ”Ah,” I said again, nodding wisely. I took off my spectacles and polished them on a shirttail during the long pause that followed, which I finally broke by saying, ”OK, pal, out with it, what else?”
    ”Money,” he said. ”What else. Don’t happen to know any way I can legally put my creditors off for a month or two, do you?”
    ”Which ones?” I said.
    ”The usual,” he said. ”The ones I pay every month—my major suppliers, the cleaning company, the landlord, the other half-dozen. I don’t want to blow my credit with them, though, no way.”
    ”I presume you won’t want to arouse your wife’s curiosity either,” I said, ”let alone ire.”
    ”Let alone World War Three,” he said, ruefully. ”Vic, what happened, happened. I’ll never forget it, I don’t regret it, and I’m willing to pay for it, it’s the least I can do. As for the creditors, I just need a month or two, then no problem, I’m straight again. As for you, you know soon as I got it, you got it.”
    I waved that one off.
    ”The money will be there,” he said. ”You likely know my lanes, or most of them, are booked up months in advance by the leagues, so I can figure out pretty well to the odd buck how much I got coming and when, and it is a tidy sum, believe me.”
    I believed him. Before I got to bowl gratis at John’s I used to have to pay for the dubious pleasure of missing two out of three spares. I well knew what a money-making machine those warped boards were for him. I also knew what beers cost at the Valley Bowl, and brandy and ginger ales, and hot dogs, mustard and relish only.
    ”John,” I said to him, ”if you put off your creditors for a couple of months because you need the cash now for what I assume is a one-time payout—”
    ”One-time for now, anyway,” he said.
    ”OK, one time for now, how is your wife not going to know you’ve been holding out?”
    ”Because I got a short-term deposit she doesn’t know about, as cover,” he said. ”Trouble is, it’s got a ninety-day lock on it.”
    ”I get you,” I said. ”OK, my friend, attend, as I recently said to a young Evel Knievel type in this very office: this one I got from Benny, who else? It’s completely legal, although you wouldn’t want to do it every couple of days. What you do is write checks in the normal way at the end of the month to all your regular creditors. You mail them. The next day you call up your bank and tell them your checkbook and various other bits and pieces got stolen out of your office. You might have to tell your wife the same. You ask the bank to please close your account immediately. You ask the bank for a letter confirming you have reported a stolen checkbook and thus your account has been closed. You tell them, to avoid any possibility of confusion in the future, you think it wiser to open a new account at a different branch. OK?”
    ”I’m with you,” he said. ”Press on, McDuff.”
    ”So you immediately open another account, but better you do so at another bank entirely, because banks have been known to make mistakes and some employee might just run a couple of your creditors’ checks through your new account in error. Anyway, so says Benny, and when Benny talks, I listen. I might yawn a lot, but I listen.”
    ”Me too,” my friend said.
    ”Then you make copies of the bank’s letter, which you send, along with a heartfelt letter of apology, to the billing departments of all your creditors, asking them to kindly return your now-worthless checks and informing them that of course new checks will be in the mail as soon as the bank prints them up. All of which will take some time, which is exactly what you need. That cheer you up any?”
    ”No,” he said. ”It is in no way cheering, but it is distinctly helpful, and I thank you.” He slapped the desktop lightly with both palms and got to his feet. He held out his hand; I took it.
    ”Thanks again, pard.”
    ”Anytime, amigo.” He left. I went to the window and watched him drive away, thinking, Ain’t love the bee’s knees until it gets expensive. I bet whoever she was, though, she wasn’t half as cute as my latest heartthrob. But then I thought, what was it that