"How else can you leave the body you're in?" she sobbed. "What did he expect you'd do? Occupy two bodies at the same time?"
Willy looked at me. I shrugged. "Have to confess I hadn't thought of it," I muttered, only half aware that they had me over a barrel. I was half tempted to ask Willy to fill my rye glass with pastels again, but it seemed an imposition at the moment.
"Oh, what the hell," I said committingly. "I'm not the kind of guy to let a friend down over a technicality!"
Red leapt to my lap and clambered up my shirtfront. "I knew you wouldn't let us down!" she said happily, and bussed my chin. Before I could be modest about it she had bounded to the desk-top and was stretching herself out beside Willy's drawing of himself. Willy and I stared from her to each other.
"Well," Willy said. "Let's get to it."
I won't elaborate on the details on my act of friendship. I killed Willy in as gentle a manner as possible, and when I turned back to the layout pad they were sitting there embracing. Willy-the-Figment stood up proudly and extended his hand, the one Red wasn't clinging to.
"Thanks, Jim," he said, when I had shaken it warmly with my finger-tip. "I knew when I phoned you tonight that you were just the one who would come up with an unselfish, practical solution to my dilemma. I'd like to say—"
"Oh, come on, come on, Willy," Red said impatiently, pulling him back to the pad. "Jim knows how much we appreciate his help. Come on!"
"Oh, very well," said Willy, winking at me. I winked back. "Lucky sti—" I began, but then remembered Willy's corpse. That brought a nagging thought to my mind, but Willy and Red were lying side-by-side, half submerged in their second dimension, and Red was beckoning impatiently, pointing to the dough rubber beside her.
"Hurry up," she said. "Rub us out."