Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man by Lawrence Block Read Free Book Online

employees of Whitestone habitually disregard this corporate policy, Mr. Finch feels it is ridiculous in the extreme to extend such latitude to those who are no longer with us.
    Your attention to this matter will be appreciated.
    Sincerely,
    Rozanne Gumbino
    Secretary to Mr. Finch
    RG/s

7
    Ronald Rabbit’s Magazine for Boys and Girls
    67 West 44 th Street
    New York 10036
    LAURENCE CLARKE, EDITOR
    June 19
    Miss Rozanne Gumbino
    Whitestone Publications, Inc.
    67 West 44 th St.
    New York 10036
    Dear Rozanne:
    Thanks very much for your letter. I’ve been getting quite a few letters lately, and I’ve been writing more letters myself than is my usual custom, but I wanted to take the time to let you know that your letter was one of my favorites. On the off chance that you failed to keep a carbon of it, I’m enclosing herewith a Xerox copy for your files.
    As far as your overpayment to me of $75.63 is concerned, I can only suggest that you contact my attorney. I am sure he will assist in sorting this matter out and seeing it through to a mutually satisfactory solution. He is Roland Davis Caulder of Muggsworth, Caulder, Travis & Beale, with offices at 437 Piper Boulevard in Richmond, Virginia.
    It certainly is good hearing from you, Rozanne. At the risk of offending you, I must admit that I barely remember you, having only had contact with you on the day I severed my connection with Whitestone. I remember your voice on the telephone, rather low-pitched and throbby, and I seem to recall that you have big tits.
    Why don’t you come down to Bleecker Street and I’ll eat your box.
    Sincerely yourself,
    Laurence Clarke
    Editor (Ret.)

8
    American Express
    Cuernavaca, Mexico
    Dear Larry—
    I promised Fran I wouldn’t write to you. But she went down to the market to shop for dinner and there are a couple of things I wanted to say.
    I’m glad you’re taking this well. I don’t suppose I have to tell you that we certainly didn’t plan for everything to happen at once this way. I mean your losing your job the same day you lost Fran. Although if you think about it, Larry, you lost Fran a long time before the 12 th of June. And I’m not talking about when she and I first fell in love, either. Your marriage went sour, Larry, and after that it was just a question of time before someone stepped in. You know that yourself.
    Believe me, I didn’t want to be the one. I resisted it for a long time, as a matter of fact. But there was always this very strong current of attraction existing between Frances and myself, not merely a physical thing but emotional as well. If you’ll forgive me for pointing it out, Fran and I were always closer in this respect than were she and you. Even long before there was anything between us in any sense. It was just the way we responded to one another, a matter of human rapport.
    Then one day we just sort of looked at each other and something happened. It’s that kind of situation where the words in the stupid pop tunes all seem to not only make sense but to have a private and personal message just for the two of us. As your friend—and I still consider myself your friend, and hope you consider me that way too, well—as your friend I can wish you nothing more than that you yourself find this kind of love someday with somebody, perhaps somebody you’ve always known, perhaps someone you have not even met yet.
    Larry, as far as the fifteen hundred is concerned, Frances feels that it’s her fair share of what the two of you owned in common. In other words, not to cloud this up with any legal bullshit, she says you can keep all the furniture and kitchen utensils and odds and ends, and in return she’ll keep the money she took out of the checking account. If you want to be technical, it came to a little less than fifteen hundred. Frances has the exact figure, which I think ran somewhere in the neighborhood of $1475 or $1480.
    The point is that on the one hand you don’t have to worry about me sending Frances