Digger caught the man’s hand and winked at him.
"Tell me," Digger said. "You like travel?"
"Oh, yeah."
"Do you like sex?" Digger asked.
"Of course."
Digger squeezed the waiter’s hand hard. "Good. Then take a fucking hike," he said.
Chapter Two
As he drove past the highway sign that read Belton Town Limits, Digger smiled. He had been smiling much of the way from New York, because Walter Brackler had been tricked.
Digger wanted to go to Belton. He could never have told Brackler that, because it would have spoiled the purity of the moment. But Digger’s girl friend, Koko, was in Pennsylvania visiting relatives, and Digger thought it would be nice to hook up with her for a couple of days someplace other than Las Vegas, where they shared a condominium apartment.
A glance at his speedometer gave Digger another smile. It wasn’t 397 miles to Belton. It was only 391. Digger decided he would be sure to report this to Brackler. If one of Brackler’s henchmen had driven out here and billed the company for a 397-mile trip, that was six extra miles. On a round trip, twelve. At twenty cents a mile, that would mean he had beaten the company out of two dollars and forty cents. Digger didn’t like people cheating on their expenses because it left that much less for him when it was time for him to cheat on his expenses.
He thought about that for a while, then decided it sounded too much like Corporate Man Goes to Fink School. Instead he would tell Brackler that it was 411 miles to Belton, PA, and that Brackler’s man had underbilled him for 14 miles, 28 round trip, and Brackler owed him $5.60 and it was no wonder nobody liked him because he was a cheap bastard and why didn’t he pay his man the $5.60 he owed him?
The thought of the coming conversation cheered him and he stayed cheered until he drove into Belton. The town was shaped like a bowl, and in one corner of the bottom of the bowl was the plant of Belton and Sons, belching smoke, air pollution and God knew what else into the air, from which they dropped down on the population. As he drove down the main street, Digger knew who the longtime residents of the town were because they all squinted and coughed a lot.
Route 8 took him through the center of town, then headed up again toward one of the edges of the bowl. A mile past the heart of Belton, he saw a sign that directed him toward Gus’s LaGrande Inn. He had chosen the place solely for the beauty of its name, and he expected linoleum floors, a bathroom in the hall and unlimited coffee privileges at a diner two miles down the road.
What he got instead as he turned off Route 8 was an elegant old estate with sweeping lawns and stately baronial buildings of old, faded red brick.
He followed the twisting road upward until it stopped at a circular drive in front of an old mansion.
Digger parked and carried his own bag inside the building. He was in a large central hallway, and no one else was in sight.
He heard a noise down a hallway toward the right, left his bag on the floor under a small table on which rested a vase of real cut flowers and walked down the hallway. He saw a young man with a thin dark moustache standing behind a counter. A telephone was propped between his shoulder and ear. As he talked he riffled through a stack of bills. When Digger drew closer, he saw that there was a round bar, with about a dozen stools, behind the young man. Farther down the hall, Digger heard the faint buzz of conversation and the tinkling of cutlery and glasses.
It was lunchtime at Gus’s LaGrande Inn.
The young man with the moustache put down the stack of bills and, still mumbling into the phone, turned to a low, small section of the bar next to him and began concocting a pitcher of whiskey-sour mix.
Digger waited in front of the counter. The man kept talking into the phone. Digger cleared his throat and the man turned toward him.
"Just a minute," he said into the phone. He said to Digger, "Can I help you?"
"I’m checking in."
"It’ll be a few minutes," the man said.
"I’ll wait at the bar," Digger said.
"That won’t do any good," the young man said. "I’m the bartender too."
Digger shook his head. "I don’t mind waiting to check into a motel, but I won’t be kept waiting at a bar."
"What are you drinking?"
"Finlandia."
"What’s that?"
Digger sighed. He should have known better. After all, this was Belton, PA. "Never mind," he said. "Vodka, rocks."
The young man scooped a glass full of ice, turned and slid it down the bar toward one of the seats. He handed Digger a bottle of house-brand vodka.
"Here," he said, "help yourself. We’ll square away when I get all this shit taken care of."
"You’ve got a future in this business," Digger said.
"I hope so. My past is already buried in it," the young man said, and turned back to his telephone conversation, his mixing of drinks for waitresses who appeared with liquor orders for their lunch tables, and his checking the stack of bills.
It didn’t take as long as Digger had expected because he had had only three drinks before the young man finally came down the bar toward him. During that period a dozen people had walked down the hall, past the bar and toward the front door. They were sleek and fat, but the women were unjeweled, which might be what differentiated Belton’s upper classes from the upper classes of big cities, Digger thought. He also thought fleetingly of his bag in the hall, but decided that it was safe. That was another thing that distinguished places like Belton from the real world. People didn’t just steal things because they happened to be there.
"Okay," the young man said. "I’m sorry but you caught me right in the middle of lunch rush."
"I think you ought to send a petition to the owner and get some help," Digger said. "Bartender, reservations clerk, telephone operator, bookkeeper—that’s a couple of hats too many."
"It won’t work."
"Why not?" Digger asked.
"I’m the owner. Gus LaGrande," the young man said and extended a cold, bony hand for Digger to shake.
Digger shook it. "Julian Burroughs. I called yesterday for a room."
"Oh, yeah. Right. We’ve got you all fixed up. You’ve got the best room in the place."
"Does it have its own air supply?"
"What do you…oh, the smog," Gus LaGrande said.
Digger nodded. "How do you breathe with all this crap in the air? It’s like being on the beach and having to pick sand out of your teeth."
Gus had picked up a reservation form from the small counter at the end of the bar and he brought it back with a pen for Digger to fill it out.
"The crap in the air is courtesy of Lucius Belton," said Gus. "Pretty easy choice though."
"What’s that?" asked Digger.
"You want to breathe or eat? Nearly everybody in this damn town…hell, three towns around, works for Belton and Sons. There’s nobody left to bitch about the smoke in the air. They all work for him. I always wanted to write a letter to Ralph Nader and have him come down here with a lot of long-haired lawyers with sinus conditions, and maybe they’d file a federal suit against Belton."
Digger was filling out the reservation card. Under "company" he wrote "none, yet."
Without looking up, he said, "Doesn’t sound like you like Lucius Belton much."
"No, he’s all right," Gus said. "But I can say whatever I want. It’s a luxury, but I guess I’m the only person in town that he doesn’t own or who doesn’t owe him money. Screw him. I’m independently impoverished. I don’t need him."
"I don’t know why you got into the hotel business," Digger said. "You should have gotten the gas mask concession."
"I know, but my father just wasn’t smart. He ran a construction company around here and he got into a big housing development as a partner with some guy. Well, the development went bust and my father’s business went down the tubes. But as part of his payoff, he wound up with this place. He ran it until he died and then he left it to me. He couldn’t run a hotel
any better than he ran a construction company."
"Nice place, though," Digger said.
"It’s a nut house," Gus said. "I’ve got nine dining rooms and eight guest rooms. I can sleep sixteen people here and I can feed three hundred sixty. I’ve got a disco over in one of the other buildings. I own thirty acres. I’d put in a golf course, but who wants to play golf on the side of a hill? Maybe I’ll put in a pitch and putt course. I’ve got everything else here except a way to make a living."
"Jesus Christ, if you keep making me depressed, it’ll drive me to drink," Digger said.
Gus looked at the once-full bottle in front of Digger. "More like a walk than a drive," he said. He took Digger’s registration card and glanced at it. "What are you doing up here anyway, if you don’t mind my asking? Belton doesn’t get many people just stopping because they had this sudden urge to breathe smoke."
"An insurance problem," Digger said vaguely. "I’ve got to see a Mrs. Gillette."
Gus said, "Gillette? Gillette? Sorry, I don’t know any Gillettes."
"No problem," Digger said. "It’s all technical insurance bullshit anyway. How long’s your bar open at night?"
"You’d never know it by looking at it now but we do a pretty good bar business at night. I’m open till two o’clock. What was that stuff you asked for before?"
"Finlandia. It’s vodka."
"Never heard of it," Gus said. He looked at the registration card again. "Ahhh, you’re only staying one day. If you were going to be here awhile, I’d order you some."
"Try anyway," Digger suggested. "You never know, I might be back."
Digger had another drink, then took his room key from Gus and carried his own bag up the curving central staircase to the second floor. When he pushed open the door, he whistled involuntarily. The room was bigger than the main floor of many houses. It held two fireplaces, two full-sized beds, a sofa, an unstocked bar, a round wooden dining table with four chairs, a crystal chandelier and three dressers. The bathroom alone was bigger than most normal motel rooms.
From the living room, he looked through floor-to-ceiling windows out from the hill on which Gus’s stood, over a rolling gentle valley that would have been bucolically beautiful if it weren’t for the dirty gray mist that filled up the bottom of the bowl.
Lucius Belton, whoever he was, deserved shooting. Or hanging, Digger decided.
But up above the smoke line, Belton was beautiful, and, as Digger looked around, he could see homes clustered all around the upper sides of the valley.
It was just early afternoon, and Digger decided that he would shower first, call Koko, then go see Mrs. Gillette and maybe, before nightfall, he would be out of Belton, PA, on his way to see Koko.
Still damp after his shower, Digger lay on the bed and called the home of Koko’s family in Emporium, Pennsylvania.
The telephone was answered in the middle of the first ring. Digger recognized the accented voice of Koko’s mother.
"Hello, Mrs. Fanucci, this is Digger."
"Ah, Digger. So?"
As he usually did when he heard her limping English, Digger smiled. The name Mrs. Fanucci conjured up an image of some leviathan of a starch factory, wearing a red-and-green flowered apron, whipping up three million pounds of pasta in a basement kitchen. But this Mrs. Fanucci, Koko’s mother, was a trim and tiny Japanese woman who got her American citizenship and her name when she married an American sailor after World War II.
"Is Tamiko there?" Digger asked.
"Yes," the woman said. That was all, nothing more. Digger felt that she would let him hang on forever, because she was too polite to hang up.
After a few seconds, Digger said, "Can I talk to her?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"She’s doing the bathroom in the toilet."
"Can I hold on?"
"Can you hold on to what?"
"To the telephone," Digger said.
"Tamiko puts the phone up her shoulder. She makes cookies, the phone up her shoulder. She not hold on. You have to hold on?"
"No," Digger said.
"So do I," Mrs. Fanucci said. "I learn put phone up my shoulder. You want see?"
"Yes, honorable mother," Digger said.
He heard a rustling sound and then a clatter as the telephone hit the floor.
A moment later, Mrs. Fanucci said, "I not do it so good like Tamiko still. I am glad you not see me drop it on floor. I so embarrassed, I kill myself. Here is Tamiko. She is all done in toilet because I hear it flash. Here, Tamiko. Here is Digger. We’re having nice talk about the toilet."
"Hello, Digger," said a happy, lilting woman’s voice. "Mamma-san been spilling my toilet secrets?"
"Everything but number one or number two," Digger said.
"Number three," Koko said. "A shampoo."
"Why don’t you send that woman to Berlitz?" Digger asked.
"Digger, she already knows how to threaten suicide in a language and a half. I couldn’t take well-written suicide notes in English. Besides, if she spoke any better, she’d take a run at you herself. It’s only the language barrier that’s keeping the two of you apart."
"I’m signing up for Japanese lessons in the morning," Digger said. "I always liked her better than you anyway."
"Mutt. Anyway, how’s Las Vegas? You miss me yet?"
"It’s only been ten days, nine hours and sixteen minutes. Why should I miss you? Besides, I’m not in Las Vegas. That’s today’s surprise."
"Where are you?"
"I’m in Belton, PA."
"What are you doing there?"
"I’ve got to see some woman on insurance business, then I thought I might get to see you."
"When?" she asked.
"I don’t know. Tonight? Maybe tomorrow?"
"Oh, Digger, not tomorrow," she said.
"Why not?"
"My sister’s going into the hospital tomorrow. She might need an operation."
"Again? That girl is always almost, maybe, needing an operation. She’s got more goddamn plumbing problems than the public works department in Venice."
"I’m sure she doesn’t like it any better than you do," Koko said.
"I think she gets off on sympathy," Digger said. "Anyway I could come and maybe help. Hold everybody’s hand. Make small talk and jokes. Keep your mother’s spirits up."
"Not tomorrow, Digger. Let’s talk tomorrow and see."
"You sure you just don’t have a heavy date tomorrow? A school reunion or something and you’re embarrassed to have your friends see me?"
"You know better than that. What kind of town is Belton?"
"I’ve been in a thousand towns like this one," Digger said, suddenly depressed and feeling sorry for himself. "It’s always drunk out."
"Don’t be maudlin," she said. "You’re not unloved. Where are you staying?"
"That’s why I thought you might even want to come and visit me. I’m at this beautiful estate. Rolling hills. Horseback riding stables. Swimming pools. A golf course. Everything including smog. Two fireplaces in the bedroom."
"Horses?"
"Absolutely," Digger said. "I saw a dozen lalapaloo-zas in the yard."
"That’s appaloosas, idiot," she said. "I love horseback riding."
"If you come and visit me, I’ll pay for your first hour. You pay for your second hour yourself," he said.
"After I straighten this out with my sister," Koko said. "What’s the name of the place you’re at?"
"Gus’s LaGrande Inn."
"What?"
"Gus’s LaGrande Inn."
"Hey, Dig, I’ve been there."
"I thought you were never in Belton, PA," he said.
"I didn’t know it was in Belton," Koko said. "I went there after my high school senior prom. We were starting away on a class weekend trip."
"Trust you to find a motel," Digger said.
"I really don’t need this bullshit," Koko said.
"I’m sorry. Tell me about your prom and Gus’s LaGrande
Inn."
"My date and I went there after our prom party. It’s the first time I ever gave it up. I was almost eighteen."
"Don’t tell me about it," Digger said.
"I won’t. What room are you staying in?"
"Two-oh-seven. Upstairs."
"Big chandelier in the middle of the room?" she asked.
"Yes, if you want to call it big," Digger said glumly. Big? It was the biggest chandelier he’d ever seen outside of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and nine Puerto Rican hotels.
"Look carefully," Koko said. "Is there a red crystal droplet in part of the chandelier near the door? It’s red, like one of the other pendants broke and all they had to replace it with was a red one."
Digger glanced up. "Yeah," he said.
"Dig, that’s the room. That’s where I first got laid."
"I hope the room’s as lucky for me," Digger said.
"You poor miserable benighted soul," Koko said. "You’re jealous."
"I’m not jealous."
"Of course you are. But how can you be jealous of Hugo Stockelbrinner? He had acne and buck teeth."
"And you," Digger said.
"An act of mercy," Koko said.
"An act of lechery," Digger said. "You people are disgusting."
"Call me tomorrow, Digger," she said. "I’ll tell you all about it."
"I’m sure you will," Digger groused, as Koko hung up.
Digger decided to forgo his afternoon visit to Louise Gillette and he decided to forgo dinner too. Instead he dressed and went to the bar.
There was still nobody else at the bar except Gus LaGrande, bartender, waiter, room clerk, bellhop, accountant and owner.
His face brightened when he saw Digger, and he reached under the bar and held up a bottle of Finlandia vodka.
"Look what I got. I was talking to a friend of mine and I mentioned it and he had some so he sent over a bottle. Hey, you don’t look happy."
"I’m only moderately happy."
"Why?"
"One bottle won’t be enough. I’m drinking for two."
One bottle wasn’t enough. When he closed the bar at 2:15 A.M., having drunk in solitary splendor all night, the bottle of Finlandia was empty and so was much of another bottle of cheap bar vodka.
Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Page 2