The phone rang. No one should’ve known I was in Boston. I picked up the receiver and listened.

    There was a pause. Then, "Hello, Hugh?"

    "Hello, Lewis," I answered. My throat began to feel dry. "How’d you find me?"

    There was a slight laugh that could’ve been confused for static. "You should know better than that, brother," he said.

    I did know better. There was a connection between us. I forced myself to concentrate. I pushed harder until I could hear the blood rushing through my head, and at last I knew that Lewis was in New York. It had been two years since I’d last seen him and the connection was still there. "What’d you call for?" I asked.

    "The same as usual. How does twenty grand sound?"

    My throat was so dry I could barely talk. I wanted to hang up. Instead, I told him it sounded fine.

    "Good. Check in tomorrow at the Tower Plaza. I’ll see you at six." There was a hesitation. "Have you heard from Dwight?" he asked at last.

    "Not in years. And yourself?"

    "The same. Good night, brother." And the phone went dead.

    Hugh, Lewis, and Dwight. Huey, Luey, and Dewey. We were our Mother’s identical triplets. Her three peas in a pod. Her three pieces to a puzzle. There were other things, but it all amounted to the same. We were an oddity to her. Things to be held up as trophies, to be bragged about, but never to be considered as individuals. In her eyes, we were only parts to a whole.

    Of course, later, after she caught us with the Hennesy girl, we became something else to her. Monsters. Sickos. Filth. That was what she called us, and kept calling us up until the moment she fell down the cellar steps and broke her neck.

    The next morning I packed a suitcase, carefully placing a thirty-two caliber revolver between shirts, and then took a bus to New York City. After checking in at the Tower Plaza, I called room service and had them deliver a bottle of Dewar’s scotch and a bucket of ice.

    A minute or so before six there was a soft knock on my door. I opened it and let Lewis in. I could’ve been looking in a mirror. We were forty years old, but we were still physically identical. Slim, baby-faced, with golden brown hair, and almond-shaped cat’s eyes. Lewis was dressed better than me though, wearing a cashmere coat that matched his hair, and a brown silk suit matching a pair of Italian shoes.

    "You’re looking good, brother," he said, more as a compliment to himself than to me.

    "Thanks." I walked over to the service tray and poured myself some scotch. "You want one?" I asked, showing him the glass.

    He shook his head. "Not quite my cup of tea."

    "You should learn to enjoy the finer things in life, brother."

    "Maybe someday I will," he said, chuckling. "My latest girlfriend." He handed me a picture of a small moon-faced girl with an almost deathly pale complexion.

    Lewis moved across the room to an easy chair, brushed off any possible dirt, and sat down crossing his legs. "Her name’s Gloria Carlson," he said. "Her address is on the back. You’ll be meeting her at nine o’clock at her place. I’ll be setting up an alibi at ten, so wait til after midnight before dealing with her. That will give us a two-hour window with whatever forensics comes up with."

    I nodded, still studying Gloria Carlson’s photograph. "And what about the twenty grand?"

    "She has about a hundred grand in jewelry, stuff she inherited. It’s hidden on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. I’ve already lined up a fence who’ll pay forty cents on the dollar."

    "Why don’t we swap?" I offered weakly. "I’ll set up the alibi."

    Amusement sparkled in Lewis’s eyes. "Now brother," he scolded me. "You know we take turns. You don’t want to be unfair, do you?"

    "No, of course not." I turned over the photograph and saw Gloria Carlson had a Greenwich Village address. "How long should it take to walk there?"

    "No more than twenty minutes." Lewis stood up, took off his coat, and folded it on the easy chair. "She gave it to me as a birthday present," he said, "might be a good idea if you wear it." He walked over to the door and stopped. "Remember, wait until after midnight. And try to do the job quietly."

    I laid down on the bed and thought about the moon-faced girl who was going to die.

***

    I met Gloria at her door. She was as moon-faced in person as she was in her photograph, but she had nice curves. She greeted me with a jerky smile.

    "Hello, sweetheart." I said.

    She took a step back as if she’d been slapped. "What’s wrong?" I asked. "N-Nothing," she answered, her voice tight and brittle. "It’s just that you never called me that before. I guess it surprised me."

    I laughed, I couldn’t help it with the way she was looking, and the laugh triggered something in her. A shadow seemed to fall over her eyes.

    We went into the living room, neither of us saying a word. There was a tension between us which indicated the state of her and Lewis’s relationship. Finally, she broke the silence by asking if I wanted a drink.

    "Not right now, sweetheart." I said, trying to smile warmly. "Maybe later."

    "It would be no problem. Let me go make you one." She started to get up, but I stopped her. "I’m not thirsty now." I told her.

    We sat some more, neither of us talking. Maybe because of the boredom, or maybe because she did have nice curves, I reached over and made a play for her. She let me go on a little and then stopped me dead. "I’m too uptight right now," she offered as an excuse, her face reddening. "Maybe after I have a drink and relax a bit. Let me get you one too?"

    She gave me an anxious look. I shrugged and she got up and hurried out of the room. She was gone for at least ten minutes, and when she came back she was carrying a highball glass.

    "I brought you your favorite," she said, handing me a glass, "Dewar’s scotch."

    I had the scotch warming my lips; all ready to start drinking it when a thought stopped me. Lewis couldn’t stand the stuff.

    A nervous smile was wrecking Gloria’s face. Her eyes jumped from me to the glass. I shifted the glass away from my mouth and sniffed it. Nothing, at least nothing I could smell. "Alright," I asked, "what did you put in this?"

    "W-what a-are you talking about?" Her smile was pulled apart by a facial twitch. "What’s w-wrong?"

    I tossed the drink in her face. Then, low and mean so she’d know I meant business, I demanded again what she put in it. She didn’t move. Her face was one big massive tic, jerking her mouth this way and that but not a damn sound came out of it. I slapped her hard on the side of her face, leaving a redness on her skin and a sharp crack resonating through the room. Still nothing. I took her pocketbook and emptied it on the floor and scattered the contents with my toe, but didn’t find anything.

    I walked into the kitchen. It didn’t take me long to find the bottle of sulfur tablets hidden in the sugar bowl. I have a violent allergic reaction to sulfur, the one thing that physically separates me from Dwight and Lewis. Two of the tablets crushed and mixed into a glass of scotch would kill me. There were enough tablets missing from the bottle to do the job several times over. I took the bottle back to the living room and tossed it at Gloria, catching her flush on her nose. She reacted to that, her head snapping up and her mouth twisting into violent rage. I showed her my gun and it calmed her down.

    "So what’s the story?" I asked, as nicely and politely as I could.

    She stared at me and then back at the gun. The blood had drained from her face. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. I had smelled the setup when Lewis had called me in Boston. I didn’t have any idea what it was about, but it didn’t really matter.

    I sat down across from Gloria, letting the gun rest on my knee. There were several ways to play the hand out and I studied each one before making up my mind. Finally, I looked up at Gloria and smiled. "Get out of here." I said.

    She didn’t move. Her soft pale face was queered in a look of befuddlement. "Look," I said, waving my gun lazily at her. "I’m going to count to ten and if I ever see you after that I’m going to kick your face in. Get the hell out of here! One .. Two .."

    All of a sudden she came to life. In a flurry of tears and bitterness words poured out of her, damning me to the worst kinds of hell. But by the time I got to ten, the door was closed and she was on the other side of it.

    I searched the bedroom where the jewelry was supposed to be. There was nothing. I turned off the lights in the apartment and waited in the dark by the front door.

    Eventually, a key sounded in the outside lock. I held my breath and pushed myself flat against the wall. As the door opened, I shifted my gun from my jacket pocket to my right hand. Light from the hallway filtered in, outlining Lewis as he stepped into the room. The door closed behind him, and in one motion I flicked the lights on and pushed the barrel of the thirty-two into the small of his back. At once I could sense his body tightening and then relaxing.

    "Hello, brother," he said, his voice controlled, his tone soft and lyrical. "The job successfully completed? Gloria cold and stiff and the loot all accounted for?"

    He had started to turn around and I pushed the barrel harder into his back, freezing him. "Don’t move, brother," I ordered. "Why am I honored with your presence?"

    "I thought I’d drop by in case you needed any help," he answered with only a slight hesitation.

    "That wasn’t what we planned. And there’s nothing of value in her bedroom."

    "No?" he mused. "That’s odd. The jewelry should be there. It would be a shame to walk away from this with nothing. Let me see what I can find."

    He took a soft gliding step away from me and as he did I pulled the trigger. The bullet sliced his spinal cord, causing his legs to buckle under him and his body to collapse like a sack of bricks. As he fell, his body twisted and his eyes caught mine. It was disheartening watching him die since it was so much like watching myself die, but it was also exhilarating. No more Huey, Luey, and Dewey. With Lewis’s death part of me had been reclaimed.

    A giddiness took me over and I had to sit down to keep from blacking out. My heart felt like it was going to explode. What I had wanted most for so long, at least part of it, had finally happened. I was no longer sharing an identity with two brothers. I was no longer split into three pieces. Now it was just Dwight and myself.

    The giddiness faded. It was still Huey and Dewey. I still wasn’t whole.

    I got up and searched Lewis’s pockets and had my first real surprise when I found Dwight’s wallet. It had his license, some credit cards and a small amount of cash. I pocketed it, along with a hotel key I found for the Winston.

    Before leaving I checked to make sure Lewis was dead. It may have seemed foolhardy of me to have shot Lewis before trying to talk to him, but I knew my dear brother as well as I knew myself, and I knew I wouldn’t have gotten anything from him. I said a silent prayer and nodded farewell.

    It was two in the morning before I got to the hotel room that matched Lewis’s key. I stood outside trying to listen for anything useful. Finally, I sucked in my breath and opened the door. The lights were on and sitting facing the door was a round soft-looking man. He nodded at me, "Hello Lewis," and then squinted and shook his head. "My mistake," he acknowledged, amused, "how are you, Hugh?"

    I moved closer to him. I have a full head of hair and he was practically bald, but other than that he seemed to be almost a caricature of myself. His features were similar to mine, but were bloated and heavy. "Hello Dwight," I said, "looks like you put on a few pounds."

    "More than a few," he corrected me. "And what can you tell me about our brother Lewis."

    "I’m afraid he’s no longer with us."

    "I see," he said. "Could you please give me a minute?" A single tear appeared in his eye and started to roll down his cheek. He brushed it away with a finger.

    "Maybe, brother," I said, "you could tell me what’s going on?"

    Dwight had my eyes, but being buried within the extra flesh made them seem lifeless. A thin smile pulled his lips up. "I’ve run into some trouble," he began, his hands fluttering in front of him as he talked. Like the rest of him, his hands were bloated and exaggerated. I couldn’t help noticing they were the whitest hands I’d ever seen.

    "About a year ago," he continued. "I had the opportunity to take some money from an associate. Unfortunately, he’s been entirely unreasonable about it."

    "How much money?"

    "Six hundred thousand dollars," he said without any change in expression. "To tell you the truth, brother, I wish I had never taken it."

    "Go on."

    "I was working in Chicago," he explained. "Laundering money for Manny Vassey. A very nasty individual. I’ve come to believe he’s insane. What I took was only a small chunk of what he had, nothing he should’ve gotten upset about."

    Agitation had pushed his lips into a bitter frown. "He’s been after me ever since, Hugh. I’m really quite worried about it. His boys almost picked me up in Los Angeles and I’m afraid they’re still on my trail."

    "So you’ve been trying to get them off your trail, huh?"

    "I’ve been trying, brother, he sighed. "I’ve had my hair removed with lasers and I’ve been eating myself sick, but I haven’t been able to shake Manny." He lowered his voice into a tone of confidentiality. "I’m afraid to see a plastic surgeon; word’s out on the street he’s watching for that. The only way to stop him is to give him what he wants."

    I stared at him until he shifted his eyes from me. "Pretty convenient," I said, "to have identical twin brothers."

    "Very convenient," he agreed. "You have to look at it from my point of view. I can’t sleep at night. I’ve been getting the most godawful migraines. Have you ever had one?" I shook my head. "Well, you should thank Jesus you haven’t," he continued, his face shiny with perspiration. "Nothing’s worse in the world, Hugh."

    "So why was I the one chosen to be sacrificed? I’m deeply hurt. You obviously like Lewis more than me."

    "That’s not fair." A softness flushed over his face. "Lewis had a close call with Manny in Philadelphia, and immediately saw the urgency of the matter. He also had an issue with Ms. Carlson that needed to be resolved. And of course, he wanted a part of the six hundred thousand dollars, so we worked out an arrangement. But I didn’t play favorites. It was my idea for her to put the sulfur in the Dewar’s scotch. If you caught the tip off, which you did, Lewis would die instead of you. I gave you a fifty percent chance."

    I could feel my lips stretching into a tight grin. "Much obliged," I forced out. "Tell me about Gloria."

    "Now don’t act hurt," he admonished.

    "I’m not hurt. Tell me about Gloria."

    "There’s not much to tell," he shrugged. "Probably pretty much what you’ve already guessed. She had been making life miserable for Lewis for about a year now. A very obsessive, high-strung individual, and in my opinion, borderline schizophrenic. For the past three weeks, I have been convincing her to murder Lewis."

    There was a bathroom off to the side from where Dwight was sitting. I walked into it and started to wash my hands. Dwight’s voice droned over the water, explaining how he had approached Gloria and filled her with dreadful stories about Lewis, most of which were true. He had her so worked up she didn’t know her ass from her elbow. She was convinced if she didn’t get Lewis first, he’d kill her. Dwight had planned every detail of the murder for Gloria.

    I took a towel and walked back to my brother, carefully drying my hands. He asked me how I handled Gloria.

    "I had her beat it. I figured she’d be as good as anyone else to take the murder rap."

    "I suppose she would. How did Lewis die?"

    "I shot him."

    "Not in the face, I hope?"

    "No, not in the face."

    "Everything should be fine then." His face melted into a broad smile, but it failed to reach his eyes. They stayed as lifeless as a mannequin’s. "I had given Lewis my wallet to plant on your body. Instead, the police will end up finding it on him. Of course, I’ll send Manny copies of the newspaper accounts, anonymously."

    "I took your wallet from him." I said.

    He stared at me, his mouth opening slightly, his eyes widening but staying lifeless. "I wish you hadn’t done that," he said at last. "Do you think anyone heard anything?"

    I didn’t answer him. He continued, a desperation pushing his voice. "This isn’t good, Hugh. I need the wallet on him. Most likely no one knows about the shooting yet. You could go back and plant the wallet. Of course, I’m planning on splitting the money with you."

    "You got the six hundred thousand here?"

    "No," he answered hurriedly. "I’ve got about ten thousand cash with me. Why don’t we talk about it later when you come back, okay?"

    I was still holding the towel. I took a step towards him. "Sorry, brother," I said, "but there’s something I want more than money."

    A mix of annoyance and confusion flooded his face.

    "A-are you crazy?" he sputtered. "What’s wrong with you?" But at the last second he had an idea of what was coming. He tried to get out of the chair, but I shoved him hard back into it and jammed the towel into his mouth. His arms flailed weakly at me as I choked the life out of him. During it all, I explained myself to him, and at the end, I’m sure he understood.

    When it was all done, I fell to the floor exhausted. I couldn’t move. Slowly the realization hit me that I was all alone. It made me dizzy, understanding that I was no longer split apart. I looked over at Dwight; he was nothing but a mockery of me. But he no longer existed. I was really all alone.

    The adrenaline pumping through my body was too much to bear. I had to get moving. I had to celebrate. It was three in the morning, but hell, I was in the city that never sleeps, right? I gave the hotel room a quick search and found forty thousand dollars in a briefcase. So Dwight had lied to me – I couldn’t hold it against him; I was feeling too good for that. I took the briefcase and headed to Times Square.

    Out on the street thoughts started rushing at me. A buzz ran through my body, almost like I was electric. There was no one in sight. As I got nearer to Times Square, I could make out people scurrying to the different establishments. I went into one place and ordered champagne all around. I had to keep moving. I couldn’t sit still. The streets seemed to be alive now. I had to step aside to let two people pass. But they stepped right into my path.

    "Excuse me," I said, trying again to step out of their way.

    "That’s all right," one of them remarked. But they again moved in front of me. All at once I felt my breath pushed out of my body. I couldn’t move. They were holding me up.

    "We’ve been looking for you, Dewey," one of them whispered into my ear.

    "You got the wrong guy," I tried to explain between gasps. "Sure we do," the other one chuckled. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the glimmer of brass and then felt the second blow to my kidney.

    Nausea welled within me, forcing a flood of hot tears. "We’ve been looking for you for a long time, Dewey," one of them was saying. "We had given up for the night and was having ourselves some relaxation when who do we see?"

    I tried explaining to them what had happened but I was breathing too heavily. The words weren’t coming out. Through the tears I could make out their hard marble features. The one who had hit me had taken out a hypodermic needle. The other one was still talking.

    "I’m mad at you, Dewey," he was saying. "You had us running around the whole damn country." I felt a needle jab into my neck. Then I couldn’t feel anything. Sounds started to fade away.

    Then darkness

***

    I woke up hog-tied and gagged. It didn’t take me long to figure out I was in the trunk of a moving car. I didn’t know how long I’d been under, but the muscle cramping within my body was unbearable. Whatever stuff they had shot me with left my head pulsating like a raw nerve.

    I knew I had to figure out where the rest of the six hundred thousand was. That was the only chance I had. I tried to concentrate and get into Dwight’s mind and was shocked to find I couldn’t. With Dwight’s death the connection was gone.

    They stopped once during the next two days. I was left hog-tied as they poured water down my throat. "We don’t want you dehydrating on us," I was told.

    The next time they stopped, they untied me and pulled me out of the trunk. We were in a small private garage. "Welcome back to Chicago," one of them laughed. My muscles were cramping too much to walk. They dragged me through a steel door and then down cement steps into a small windowless room. Most of the room was taken up by a furnace and a butcher’s table. The butcher’s table had steel rings attached to its side.

    They tied me to the table, securing the wire through the steel rings. They then left me alone. About ten minutes later, a wide heavyset man entered the room. He was wearing a purple running suit and about five pounds of gold chains, and had a broad smile stretched across his face. His complexion reminded me of chipped glass. The other two men joined him. One of them was carrying a large metal case. I heard the heavyset man addressed as Manny Vassey.

    "Hello, Dewey," Manny Vassey crooned in a high tenor’s pitch. "Whatsa matta? You don’t look so hot."

    "I’m not Dwight. I’m his twin brother and –"

    "Yeah, you’re his twin brother." His top lip curled up. "That’s why you’re carrying around a license saying you’re Dwight Jones." He reached into his running suit and pulled out Dwight’s wallet and flung it at my face. "And the forty grand in the briefcase you were carrying is mine!" he exploded. "It’s got my mark on it! You don’t remember that I mark all my money?"

    "If you check in New York, you’ll see that –"

    "Shuddup!" he barked, his face livid. "You always trying to take me for an idiot, huh?" He gave a nod, and one of his men turned the furnace on, the other opened the metal case. I couldn’t tell what was in it, but it glimmered.

    "Look," I tried to explain, "I’ll tell you where the rest of the money is –"

    "I’m sure you will," he interrupted. "I’m sure by the time I’m done you’ll tell me everything you know. But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t want the money. You know what I want?"

    I tried to talk but I couldn’t. My tongue felt like it had swelled up to the size of a salami. One of the men forced my fingers apart. The other handed Manny Vassey a meat cleaver from the case. In one easy stroke, Vassey brought the cleaver down against the table, sending my little finger dancing away.

    He moved his face inches from mine, leering at me. I could see the furnace fire reflected wildly in his eyes.

    "What I want," he said softly. "Is to cut you into pieces. Hundreds of tiny pieces."

    And I screamed through it all.