The Twins
by Arthur Davis
part 1
December 1st
New neighbors moved in. They have no furniture, never buy food, and have blackened out their windows.
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I understand that Maurice, with the penetrating blue eyes, missing nose, and lisp, is a partner in a prestigious white-shoe law firm specializing in international tax shelters.
Lawrence, the more introspective of the pair, is a legend in the sport of blindfolded cliff-diving and a passionate volunteer at the New York City Blood Bank.
Am certain both will become great friends.
December 5th
In the last two days I’ve received thousands of emails from people all over the world who are certain they are related to the brothers in my fb post.
I can’t give more details to anybody about them or their personal lives because Henry, our bespeckled centenarian building superintendent told me both are in an experimental twelve-step program for acute, debilitating, life-threatening shyness.
But maybe someday...
December 11th
Shocking, impossibly disappointing news.
I have been contacted by agents from Interpol, the CIA, MI6, Mossad, the French Directorate General for External Security, and the Girl Scouts.
Apparently, Maurice and Lawrence are not what they claim to be, like founders of the renowned European Medical Institute for the Terminally Problematic where I donated the entirety of my $143.25 IRA savings.
They are notorious international con artists from Nauru, the world’s smallest independent republic.
With forged passports and phony documents, they have a long rap sheet conning innocent souls into handing over vast fortunes for decades. I was also horrified to learn that neither spoke English!
Two terrible people who, coincidentally, moved out last night without tipping Henry.
Now, most importantly I need to move on and try and restore my faith in mankind. No small task but with the help of my fb friends I know I will prevail. Does anyone out there make brownies?
December 18th
Thank you! I have been deluged with friends who want to help.
I would love to give you my address so you can send me your brownie delights, but truth be told, I live in the only grandfathered-in high-rise condominium in Area 51.
I should have realized that Area 51, the common name of a highly classified United States Air Force (USAF) facility located within the Nevada Test and Training Range, may not be easily accessible to unclassified deliveries.
It’s difficult enough getting food from the local Chinese restaurant out here, much less a lifetime of brownies.
The desert military base, which is entirely off-limits to civilians except for those who live in my condo, which outdates the base itself, has long been at the center of a conspiracy among alien fans and ufologists, people who hunt for UFOs.
Somewhere amid Area 51’s vast desert acreage, they believe, is a heavily guarded underground lab where the government keeps and studies captured alien aircraft and possibly even aliens themselves.
But thanks for your prayers and support and let me wish you all a happy and healthy holiday and New Year!!!!
January 4th
Will this ever end?
Was just contacted by the CIA again. They want to know details of conversations I had with the brothers. They’re coming over in an hour. They warned me the debriefing could take days, during which I will be blindfolded, bound, and gagged and not allowed food or water.
Despite my protests, I have to believe I can’t be the only resident the brothers met during the time they were here. Seems the brothers were here for a reason and quickly left for a reason.
Trying to think back. Could I have mentioned something to them about Area 51? What difference, they don’t speak English, or was I wrong about my source on that too? Should I call my lawyer? My accountant? My tap-dancing instructor? My priest? No, I’m Jewish.
Trying to recall the few interactions I had with them. Everything’s a blur. Not feeling well. A little dizzy. Slightly faint. Could it be a heart attack? Am I going to die? I made it to the kitchen and plowed through half a bag of Chips-Ahoy. That settled me down.
“Relax. You did nothing wrong. At least, in your eyes you did nothing wrong,” I said to no one in particular.
If the CIA was coming, Interpol, MI6, Mossad, the French Directorate General for External Security, and the Girl Scouts couldn’t be far behind. There had to be more to the twins than I imagined. And what other secret agencies from around the globe are going to follow?
I paced around my apartment like a man on death row. Is there a sniper’s bullet waiting out there to prevent me from spilling the beans? But I have no beans to spill! I don’t even like beans and, if I did, I certainly wouldn’t spill them. I’m a very neat person. Everyone knows that.
I stared out of my window for over an hour. No bullets. Although they could be hiding behind any number of suspicious-looking cloud formations. To be certain, I dug out my Radio Shack Sniper’s Bullet Detector I had bought decades ago from my storage closet. It didn’t work. I should have changed the batteries sooner.
I polished off the rest of the cookies with a strawberry-and-banana milkshake and went out on my terrace.
Top secret missiles, rockets, stealth fighters, an array of heavy ordnance, and the most sophisticated weapons on the planet, everywhere. I sat down with my military-grade binoculars and watched in fascination as each was tested and refined.
In the distance, troopers from the Field Artillery Support Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment were field testing advanced shaped artillery shells fired from their M777A2 Howitzers.
A lovely way to spend a relaxing afternoon.
January 12th
The CIA rescheduled for the third time. I had watched enough TV to grasp what they were up to. Even the agencies who hadn’t contacted me yet were biding their time.
Make me sweat a little. Make a mistake, until I cracked and begged for mercy, and tried to cut a deal that would keep me out of prison for generations.
That’s what they do, especially to innocent people. They do that, right or wrong, because every agency has an Apprehension & Conviction quota that determines their budget. And if they found out anything from their investigation into the two brothers that might, even ever so slightly, incriminate me, I’ll get thrown under the bus too.
I wanted to call Roy Robinson at the State Department. He used to be Assistant Chief at Homeland Security. A tough, smart investigator I understand is connected to most of the world’s security agencies and the vast criminal network that lives in the shadows of society.
Roy was the quiet type who knew what call to make to destroy a defense, or redirect an investigation. He was the kind of guy you wanted to know. He was the kind of guy I needed to know. A brilliant idea except for the fact that I didn’t know him. I was completely alone in my life-or-death struggle, and out of cookies.
I went into my bedroom, put on my faded lucky flannel shirt. There was immediate relief. “God, that feels better,” I said, comforted that my lucky blue shirt was purchased in college when I was thirty-three pounds heavier.
Now, just as I realized it was only a matter of time before I got a call from the press, the phone rang.
“Hello?” I asked.
“Hello, Joe, what do you know?”
I slammed the phone down, locked myself in the bathroom, and threw up. My nickname in college was Joe. In high school it was Sydney. In grade school it was Victor. And, before that, The Shadow.
They’re on to me, and I hadn’t done a thing but be sociable.
“Asshole,” I said self-deprecatingly as a squadron of AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters slowly drifted by my 54th-floor condo windows. The US Army’s Apache gunship is the most numerous and widespread attack helicopter in the Western world.
Everybody knows that.
Apparently, the Army was going to strike first. And not by breaking in the door to my apartment like any pussy SWAT team would do.
Finally, I realized I was suspected by everybody. But how can everybody be involved? The only way that made sense was if everybody was born predisposed at birth to suspect me.
I looked under my couch, in my closets, in my refrigerator and under the kitchen sink.
Proof of my innocence was nowhere to be found.
January 28th
Danny Hollman, our doorman, switched on the light to the storeroom, pulled a secret lever behind a pile of rotted timbers, revealing a smaller room. A damp stink filled the space with an acrid warning. How many residents had ever been down here?
I followed him in. On a small desk was a thick dust-covered journal entitled “Suspicious Visitors.”
“This what you’re looking for?”
“What the hell is this place?” I asked.
“We get visitors, mostly unwelcome, who are drawn in because we’re in Area 51. When we’re seriously suspicious of them, we bring them down here for deep interrogation. A few survive, most don’t. It can’t be helped.”
Danny was half a foot taller than my six feet, and his weight was distributed like a fullback. He had cold, brown eyes. A lock of silver hair framed his ears. He was on shift for twenty-four hours every day of the week. One look and you knew he wasn’t the one to stumble on in a dark alley.
And I didn’t want to know what he meant by “deep interrogation.”
Copyright © 2023 by Arthur Davis
