"I won’t," he said.
"I came here to make love to you," she said.
"Nothing wrong with that idea."
Dolly shook her head. "I wasn’t fooling. My husband is paralyzed. He’s not a man anymore, but I’m still a woman. Does that make me awful?"
"No," Digger answered, as he was expected to. "That just makes you a woman. A beautiful woman." He touched his hand to her smooth cheek even as he glanced up at the red crystal droplet hanging incongruously from the chandelier. Watch this, Herbie Handlebar, he thought. I bet you weren’t this smooth when you climbed into Koko’s pants.
"It’s just that…well, I know you’re just passing through and…well, I can’t go having my name…"
He put his index finger across her lips.
"Shhh," he said. "I know. No obligations. No recriminations. Just a need being filled."
She nodded and Digger covered her lips with his as he put his hands under her sweater and around her bare cool waist.
Later she slept, her smooth body plastered to his in sleep as if she feared slipping away from him for even a moment. Digger sipped from his glass of vodka on the end table, then, trying not to move and disturb her, fumbled for his watch. Instead he got hers and in the dim light from the small lamp across the room saw that it was 2:00 A.M. Then, he turned over the gold watch and read the inscription on the back:
To Dolly. Love, Lem.
He wondered if that was her husband’s name.
Chapter Six
One of the nice things about being outside of New York was that the farther one got away from the city, the better sausage seemed to taste. Digger thought about this as he ate a breakfast of sausage and eggs in the LaGrande Inn, but could think of no reason for it to be true. So he put it on his list of life’s imponderable mysteries along with the purpose of the little red electrical switch on the wall inside everybody’s cellar door and why someone would open an eatery and decide, presumably with a straight face, to call it The Terminal Cafe.
Fifteen minutes later, he was driving down into the bowl toward the main headquarters of the Great Belton Dirt Factory.
His tires made a crackling sound as he drove over the grit that coated the driveway and parking lot and everything unfortunate enough to have been stationary in the area for more than twenty minutes.
Lucius Belton and Sons was a compound of buildings, and when Digger got out of his car, he noticed that all the buildings looked alike. He chose the building outside which were parked the largest, newest cars and went in there. He was right. It was the executive office building and he found the personnel department just inside the front door.
There was a young woman sitting at a desk just inside the door. She had enough teeth to make a piano jealous, and Digger wondered if exercise could make teeth bigger because she exercised hers with gum that she snapped as she spoke.
The nameplate on her desk said MISS BUFFET. She was eating with a plastic spoon from a container of yogurt.
"Yeah?" she said to Digger.
"All out of curds and whey?" he said.
"Huh?"
"Never mind. Do you have a guy working here named Vernon Gillette?"
"Sorry, you’re out of luck. He died."
"Ohhhh. And I came all this way from Katmandu just to see him. Do you mind if I sit down for a moment? This is an awful shock."
"That far, huh? Well, I’m sorry, but he’s dead."
"How’d he die? Did the liquor finally get him? Some husband, I bet. Some woman’s husband finally caught up with him and plugged him," Digger said.
"We talking about the same guy?" she said. Snap, snap went the gum. "Vernon Gillette? Nah, he had an accident. Got electrocuted."
"I told him and I told him not to try to change light bulbs by himself," Digger said. "No one ever listens to somebody who’s trying to give them good advice."
"You’re right, you know," Miss Teeth said.
Digger nodded. "I could tell right off," he said, "that you’re the kind of person who’d understand that. Who just wants to help."
She shrugged. Snap, snap. "You have to try, right?"
"Maybe you can help me," Digger said, and instantly the woman’s face grew suspicious.
"I’d like to talk to his boss," Digger said.
"Why?"
"I want to know if he said anything about me in his final days. Something I can treasure on my way back to Katmandu. Vernon was my brother, you know."
"Oh. Oh. I didn’t know that. I’m really sorry. His boss would be Mr. Spears. He’s the head of the planning department. He’s in the next building over." She jerked her thumb over her left shoulder. "Just walk over."
Digger stood. "I’ll never forget you, Miss Muffet."
"Buffet," she said.
"And then wax it," Digger said as he left.
"Mr. Spears, please. I was sent over by little Miss Buffet in personnel."
"Your name, please?" The secretary was middle-aged and businesslike. Maybe that was one of the good things, Digger thought, about a business having a seventy-year-old owner. Secretaries were hired because they could secrett, not because they could adorn chairs. And couches.
"Julian Burroughs," Digger said.
"Have a seat, please. You’ll have to wait."
The office was small and Digger saw there was no ashtray on the secretary’s desk, so he lit a cigarette and blew smoke in her direction, going by what he regarded as the admirable theory that everyone tried to get rid of an obnoxious pest quickly.
After thirty seconds she coughed and after sixty she said, "You can go right in."
Ben Spears was a burly man with a football player’s thick neck, displayed in a tieless open-collared shirt. His suit jacket hung on a clothes rack in the corner of the big office. The man’s shirt sleeves were rolled up and his thick forearms were matted with dark hair. His desk was cluttered with books, folders and rolled-up sets of blueprints.
He looked up as Digger entered, then, without much interest, said, "Name?"
"Julian Burroughs. I’m with Brokers Surety Life Insurance."
"I don’t want any insurance," Spears said, annoyance in his tone. "I thought personnel sent you over. I’m expecting someone from personnel. Are you a planner?"
"More of a conniver actually," Digger said.
"You’re not here to discuss a job?"
"No," Digger said. "But if you’re looking for work, I can put a word in with my boss. We’re a big company. Better yet, call him directly. Walter Brackler. You want his number?"
"I don’t want a job," Spears said. "I’ve got a job. I’m looking for help."
"So few people are willing to help nowadays," Digger said.
Spears’s face wrinkled up with puzzlement. "Are you crazy?" he finally said. "You sound like you’re crazy."
"No, I’m not crazy," Digger said. "My company had a life insurance policy on Vernon Gillette. I’m just doing some routine checking before we pay up." He noticed that when he mentioned Gillette’s name, Spears sat up straighter in his chair.
"All right," Spears said. "Check away. But I don’t know what I can tell you."
"Let’s find out," Digger said. "You were Gillette’s boss?"
"Technically. I’m the head of the planning department. We decide what the company’s going to manufacture, whether we’re going to build new plants, et cetera. Gillette was in charge of long-range electronic project planning. Technically he was under me, but he reported directly to The Old Man."
"The Old Man being Mr. Belton?"
"That’s right," Spears said.
"Was Gillette a good worker?"
"I guess so. Mr. Belton seemed pleased anyway, and that’s who you’ve got to please if you’re going to work here."
"I heard that Gillette might have been being groomed to head the company."
"You hear a lot of things," Spears said. "That doesn’t make them true." He hesitated a moment, then leaned forward. "Look. It doesn’t have anything to do with insurance, I supp
ose, but I didn’t like Gillette. He was The Old Man’s fair-haired boy. Maybe he was going to be president. No skin off my nose. I just don’t like people working for me that I’ve got no control over. When he died, well, too bad. It wasn’t a tragedy to me. What’s this got to do with paying off on his insurance?"
"We had a couple of reports—anonymous reports—at the office that said Gillette didn’t die in an accident. He was murdered. I’m checking them out."
"That’s his whacky wife," Spears said.
"Mrs. Gillette?"
"What else would his wife be called? Of course, Mrs. Gillette. She’s kind of an oddball. I went to the funeral—I had to go—and she was chewing my ear off that Gillette was too smart to die in an accident."
"Was he?"
"Anybody can have an accident," Spears said.
"I’ve met Mrs. Gillette," Digger said. "I don’t think she’s too stable."
"Stable? That woman’s a walking twitch," Spears said. "Are we almost done? I’ve got to go get some coffee and I won’t be able to keep it down if I have Gillette on my mind. Who the hell would murder him anyway?"
"Maybe somebody who was jealous of him," Digger said blandly. "Maybe some woman’s husband. There are always a lot of possibilities."
"By jealous, you mean me?"
Digger shook his head. "I don’t mean anybody, Mr. Spears. I’m just kind of looking around to see what I can see. What kind of cabin was that he died in? I understand it’s something the company owns?"
"That’s right. It’s in the hills a few miles outside town. Gillette used it a lot. Company fringe benefit."
"You ever use it?"
"No, I’m not married. I don’t have to go out into the woods to cat around."
"Gillette catted around," Digger said as a statement. "I thought so. People I was talking to…"
"I don’t know that for a fact," Spears said. "But women were always googah over him. He was good-looking, I’ll say that for him. Listen, you sell insurance?"
"My company does."
"I was thinking of buying some. Give me a sales pitch."
"Everybody should be insured," Digger said. It is the best way for those of us of average means to make sure that our loved ones will be protected if, for any reason, we depart this world before our time. Wouldn’t you like to know that your children will be able to go to college and—"
"I don’t have kids," Spears said.
"And that your wife won’t lose the house you worked so hard to make into a home."
"I told you I’m not married. I live in an apartment."
"Your aging relatives," Digger said. "How will they survive without you?"
"All my family’s dead."
"You don’t need insurance," Digger said. "Forget it. It’s throwing money down a hole. Your company insurance ought to be enough to plant you."
"What company insurance?"
"I thought the company had insurance on its top people," Digger said.
"Not on me. Did they pay for Gillette’s insurance?"
"Yes," Digger said.
"See? He was up The Old Man’s ass. I don’t know, I don’t bother with personnel, maybe they buy insurance for executives with families."
"Maybe," said Digger.
He stood up and said, "I want to thank you for your time. Do you think I could get to see Lucius Belton?"
"He’s not in today."
"Tomorrow?"
"I doubt it," Spears said.
"Why?"
"He doesn’t like to see anybody," Spears said.
"Why’s that?"
"He says everybody’s a waste of time. He only likes to see his employees. He says they’re too afraid of him to waste his time."
"Are they?"
"You’d better believe it."
Digger had to wait twenty minutes to see Dr. Vincent Leonardo. He read a pamphlet on a table announcing the first annual Well-Baby Examination Program, sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. Lucius Belton, to be held on Sunday, two days away. Digger was finally ushered in after a man wearing a suit and sneakers limped out of the doctor’s office.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Burroughs. I had a particularly virulent case of athlete’s foot to deal with."
"If he lives long enough, it’ll stop itching," Digger said.
"Oh?"
"Mine did."
Dr. Leonardo, who was listed on the Gillette insurance application as the family physician, was a short, round man in his sixties with a full head of snow-white hair. Incongruously, he wore amber-tinted aviator-style eyeglasses, which gave him the look of the leader of a religious cult that believed marijuana was God in plant form.
"Your nurse told you. I’m here about Vernon Gillette."
"Ah, yes. I imagine you’re trying to find some medical cause for Vernon’s death so that you won’t have to pay Louise for double indemnity."
"Quite an assumption, Doctor."
"I’ve dealt with insurance companies many times. They are, what we call, slow pay."
"Truth is, Doctor, we want to pay. Mrs. Gillette won’t take the money."
"What?"
"It’s true. We want to pay the million because it was an accident. She only wants a half a million because it wasn’t an accident."
"If it wasn’t an accident, what the hell was it?" Dr. Leonardo asked.
"She says maybe a heart attack."
"That’s ridiculous. Really, that woman—"
"Let’s face it, Doctor. There have been cases of men who looked healthy just suddenly dropping dead of a heart attack, haven’t there?"
"Of course there have, Burroughs. And when the autopsy is done, you find out that they had some kind of congenital valve problem that required a plumber or that their arteries were clogged with Elmer’s. Glue or something else. Something has to be wrong for somebody to have a heart attack. There was nothing wrong with Vernon’s heart."
"Did you do the autopsy, Doctor?"
"Yes. There wasn’t a damn thing wrong with him except he wasn’t shockproof."
"How well did you know the Gillettes?" Digger asked.
"Well enough. I got them when they first moved up here about two years ago. Lucius asked me to examine Gillette."
"Lucius Belton?"
"Son, in this town there’s only one Lucius. Lucius Belton."
"Why did he want you to examine Gillette?"
"I don’t think I can tell you that," Leonardo said.
"Let me try to tell you," Digger said. "Just nod if I’m warm. Lucius Belton was grooming Gillette to be the new head of the company. He didn’t want him dying on him right after they’d gone to a lot of time and trouble to train him."
"That’s accurate," Leonardo said. "You didn’t hear it here."
"And when you examined him, he was okay?" Digger asked.
"Better than okay. I sent him down to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for three days of tests. They probed and pushed at him." He started ticking off on his fingers. "Heart, lungs, blood, genes, sperm, allergies, mucous secretions, muscle tone, IQ tests, neurology, you name it, they checked it and double-checked it."
"That’s pretty much for a physical for a new employee, isn’t it?" Digger asked.
"Lucius ordered it. Probably he didn’t want to buy any damaged goods."
"Did you examine Gillette after that?"
"Annual physical. I do the whole family. Him and his wife and the daughter."
"And he was okay?" Digger asked.
"Okay. He was perfect. A perfect specimen. No, wait, he wasn’t perfect. He had a scar on the back of his right hand. That was it. I tell you, Burroughs, he was Superman."
"Do you think Mrs. Gillette is disturbed?" Digger asked.
"Are we off the record?" Leonardo asked.
"Of course," Digger said. On his right side, he could feel the comfortable vibration of his secret tape recorder whirring.
"No, I don’t think so," Leonardo said. "She’s one of the most-brilliant people I’ve ever met. She’s just
stubborn. The daughter is something else too."
"I know. I’ve met her. You don’t think Vernon Gillette died of—"
"I know—not think, damn it—that he died in an accident. Pay the woman her money, Mr. Burroughs."
Digger stood up. "We’re trying, Doctor. Really, we’re trying."
Chapter Seven
Someone was watching Digger, and as he got into his car, he saw who it was. A cop in a green-and-yellow prowl car was parked across the street from Dr. Leonardo’s.
As Digger pulled his rented Ford away from the curb, he realized he wanted to be home. He didn’t want to be in New York talking to Walter Brackler, and he didn’t want to be in Pennsylvania driving rented Fords and being watched by policemen and wondering what the hell Koko was doing. He wanted to be back in Las Vegas, driving his own white Mazda, living in his own condominium, drinking in his own favorite saloons, gambling in his own favorite casinos and listening to his favorite records on his own stereo.
Shit on Belton, PA.
In his rearview mirror, Digger saw the patrol car pull away from the curb, make a U-turn and take up a position behind him without pretense. The cop obviously didn’t care whether or not Digger knew he was being followed.
The prowl car stayed behind Digger as he drove out of the bowl of Belton. After about five blocks, Digger saw a tavern on the right-hand side of the road. He pulled up to a parking meter, hopped out and walked inside the bar. The police car passed him slowly. Digger stopped to look at it, but the policeman did not meet his eyes.
"Vodka, friend, on the rocks."
"Coming right up."
The surgical tape on Digger’s side began to itch, and he went into the men’s room to remove the tape recorder.
Digger was alone in the tavern with the bartender—a tall, thin man with unhealthy-looking liver spots on his withered face. His thinning brown hair was kept greased, slicked down and parted absolutely in the middle. Digger thought he looked like a geriatric version of Alfalfa in The Little Rascals.
Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Page 7