Write me a Letter

the toilet bowl before I pee.”
    ”Me too,” she said smugly.
    ”No way,” I said firmly.
    ”Wanna bet?” she said. ”You know so much about Montreal , bet I know something you don’t.”
    ”Bet you don’t,” I said. ”Bet you don’t know anything about anything I don’t, except maybe about things nobody knows about, like oracles.”
    ”What do they speak there?”
    ”Aside from Eskimo, what do you think they speak, Hindustani? English and a little Frangais is what they speak.”
    ”No more English,” said Miss Smarty with a namby-pamby air. ”They passed this law. Everything’s in French, all the street signs, all the directions, all store names, and you try speaking English in all but one or two areas and you get lynched.”
    ”Oh, come on,” I said. ”Where’d you get all this rubbish from? Anyway, even if it was true, what’s it got to do with you? You don’t speak any more French than I do and all I know is merci, merde, garçon, La Mayonnaise, and snails.”
    ”George does,” she said. ‘And he is completely in my thrall, he won’t go anywhere without me.” The latter part of that statement was so ludicrously unimaginable that I ignored it and concentrated on the first part.
    ”And how come Willing Boy parlez-vous all of a sudden?”
    ”His mother was born there,” she said. ”In Quebec City , actually. She went back after her divorce and still lives there. And guess where George goes to visit every time he’s got a few days off?”
    ”Give me a hint,” I said. ”Does he pack his hockey stick and puck? But I’ll be damned, I didn’t know Willing Boy spoke anything but Hell’s Angel.”
    ”There’s lots about George you don’t know,” she said. ”Guess what else.”
    ”I give up!” I said somewhat testily. ”I suppose he speaks Russian, Finnish, Erse, Basque, and Chinese sign language, too.”
    ”He’s an actor,” the twerp said, with love in her voice, as if that was something to be proud of. ”Or at least he’s studying to be one.”
    ”So’s half L.A. ,” I said. ”The other half’s writing screenplays. So what?”
    ”So if you consider it objectively instead of trying to be funny, don’t you think it might be helpful to have someone who speaks the language along and who can also act real good? You’re always making me pretend to be someone else and I’m like an amateur.”
    ”You’re telling me,” I said.
    ”Oh yeah? ”You would have been dead that time in Mexico if you didn’t have Benny translating for you and him and me playing your stooges.”
    ”I hate to admit it but you might actually have a valid point there for once,” I said. I had needed Benny’s impeccable Spanish. And as for Willing Boy, he was quick on the uptake and certainly didn’t mind breaking the law, or bending it, anyway. In a good cause, of course. OK. I thought I just might take Willing Boy along for the ride. That would mean separating Romeo and Juliet for a few days, though. I stole a glance at her. Could I really get in the way of true love? Need you ask.
    ”What are you gonna do with this guy when you find him?” she said then.
    ”Don’t know yet,” I said. ”I’m not supposed to do anything, just let the odious Fats, he’s the guy who hired me, know where he’s hiding.”
    ”Can’t you find out by calling someone, like you did before? Like, call the phone company in Montreal and con them into telling you the address that belongs to that telephone number you got?”
    ”Sure I could,” I said. ”No big deal, I might not even have to pretend to be Tony, what do they care? I’m not after secret information. Then I wouldn’t have to go shopping for fur-lined Jockey shorts, then fly to Montreal and then this and that, all I’d have to do is call Fats and tell him the address and earn myself a tidy piece of change for two phone calls and one house call by you. But.”
    ”But,” she repeated.
    ”But what if that phone number is just a cutout or simply a number he calls to get messages from? Then he won’t be at that address. But there’s another but,” I said. ”But I don’t like it, and I don’t like Fats, either. Maybe Willy really did run off with Fats’ dinero but there’s more to it that that, Curly, Fats handed me over five Cs like it was Monopoly money, without even haggling.”
    ”Oh yeah?” Sara said, glaring. ”You said it was a token sum.”
    ”Did I?” I said vaguely. ”I don’t recall. Anyway, shut up for a minute,