Double Take. Roy Huggins

I WAS sitting in his panelled office on the top floor of the Security Building looking at him across a desk that was bare as a mannequin’s mind and large enough for a pair of midgets to play badminton on. His name was Ralph Johnston and he was president of Johnston and Forbes, Advertising. We had been talking for about twenty minutes, pleasant, aimless talk that didn’t tell me anything about why he had brought me up there. He was thirty-eight or so, and he filled his high-back swivel chair to capacity. He sat with one knee drawn up almost under his chin in a small-boy gesture that said, Don’t take these executive trappings too seriously, I don’t.

He ran a hand roughly through coarse blond hair and said, “I don’t know. Maybe this thing will turn out to be a bad joke, some sofa slug’s idea of a very funny gag.” He went on rubbing his head lightly and looking at me out of the round eyes that were the clear transparent blue of copper sulphate.

I didn’t have any comment.

“It happened about a week ago, and I’ve just got around to doing something about it. It probably isn’t too late.”

I nodded and crossed my legs. There still didn’t seem to be anything to say.

“I’m afraid some of my friends resent my wife,” he went on. “Think she’s too chilly. Any one of them might be capable of getting stuccoed and pulling a stunt like that.” He had a lean, tanned face, and there was a hint of sweat at his temples; and I was beginning to wonder if he’d brought me up there to listen while he talked himself out of a case of nerves.

“This thing that might be gag,” I said. “Is it a secret?”

Johnston had been raising his hand to his head again. It stopped midway and his mouth came open. Then he grinned. It was a broad, warm grin, a little lop-sided, backed up by a nice set of teeth.

He said: “Maybe it would help if I told you what I’m talking about.”

“That would be fine.”

“Six days ago I got a phone call. I don’t recall the exact words, but the fellow asked me how much it would be worth for him to keep quiet about my wife. I asked him what he was talking about and he said, ‘Let’s not be coy.’ I asked who was calling and he came back with ‘I’ll give you a couple of weeks to think it over and maybe find out what I’m talking about. After that we’ll get together for business.’ Then he hung up.”

Johnston leaned forward and folded his hands. “Do you think it’s a gag?”

I said: “If it isn’t, it ought to be.”

His blond brows pulled together into a divot over his nose and he said: “Then you don’t think I ought to take the thing seriously?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Wouldn’t it depend on what he might have on your wife?”

Johnston hadn’t expected that. He was surprised first, then amused. He said, “I guess that’s the point of this meeting. She’s a quiet, refined girl I met at a concert at U.C.L.A. We’ve been married over a year, and I knew her for several months before that. She’s probably the most conservative, discreet woman I’ve ever

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