Dead Letter (Digger)

by Warren Murphy

  But Digger knew that the traffic wasn’t the real reason for his annoyance. The real reason was his promise to Frank Stevens that he would look in on his daughter Allison. Pretty, rich, vivacious, a scholar, happy, sweet, and virginal. In other words, an insipid simp. He knew he was going to hate her. Why did Frank insist upon ruining his trip to Boston this way? But it was the price one paid, Digger thought smugly, for hanging around with alcoholics. They only cared about themselves.

  As his car crossed Boylston Street, he saw a tavern and he spun right madly from the center lane, cutting off another car, and jumped into the narrow opening of a parking lot.

  The driver of the car he’d cut off shook his fist at Digger.

  "Have a nice day," Digger yelled back.

  The nautical bar was decorated with brass things from ships and a big fish net hanging from the ceiling. The openings of the net were packed solid with hair balls, dust, and grease from years of not being cleaned. Digger found a seat at the bar, in a corner that wasn’t under the net, so nothing would drop into his drink, then ordered a Finlandia vodka on the rocks and went to a telephone to call Dr. Arlo Buehler. It rang three times without an answer. Digger hung up quickly because the answering service would pick up on the fourth ring, and he didn’t feel like talking to an answering service.

  He tried the call again after a couple of drinks and had the same result, so he decided if he had to see Allison Stevens anyway, sweet, loving, warm, intelligent Allison, he might as well do it now because he was on his way to becoming well-oiled and the best way not to let an unpleasant duty spoil a trip was to do it immediately and get it out of the way.

  He fished from his wallet the address Frank Stevens had given him and handed it to the bartender.

  "Waldo College?" Digger said. "You know where that is? I think it’s on Beacon Street somewhere."

  The bartender nodded. He was a long-haired thing with a diamond stud in his left earlobe, which ordinarily would have given Digger ample reason to hate him, but he was a good bartender who didn’t speak unless spoken to so Digger magnanimously forgave him.

  "It’s not on Beacon Street," he said. "It’s off Beacon Street. There’s an entrance to the campus on Beacon, near Dartmouth. Big gates, you can’t miss them. Then the campus is in there like a little city, all spread out along the Charles River. What they did was take a lot of old buildings on that little street behind Beacon and they bought them all and made it into a campus. Turn-of-the-century stuff. They got old gas lamps and cobblestone streets, like that, and it looks like Scotland Yard. When the fog is out, you expect Jack the Ripper to be behind you if you’re walking."

  "You sound like an alumnus," Digger said.

  "No, I didn’t go there. One of the few schools I guess I didn’t go to. I could never afford it."

  Digger tipped the bartender five dollars on top of the nine-dollar bar bill.

  "You’re from New York, right?" the bartender said.

  "I used to be. My accent?"

  "No. You talk pretty good. I can tell by the tip. Nobody around here tips. Boston’s the worst place in the world for a bartender. You’re either dealing with college kids who think a quarter a person is a pretty good tip to leave after a night’s drinking, or you’re dealing with these poor bastards"—he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the rest of the bar—"who work all week just to pay their taxes. Taxes kill you up here. Taxachusetts."

  The streets sparkled with sunshine and Digger decided to walk the few blocks to the campus. The sidewalks were packed with college students, wearing leather vests and western shirts, jeans or khaki trousers, young men and young women, walking arm in arm. Except, Digger noticed, that the young men were walking arm in arm with other young men and the young women arm in arm with other young women.

  "The gays are coming, the gays are coming," he mumbled to himself.

  A young woman he was passing on Dartmouth Street said "Hear, hear."

  She was pretty with long straight blond hair and clean fingernails. He decided she might be the only woman in Boston wearing a dress.

  "I was just wondering what Paul Revere would say if he was to ride through the streets today," Digger said.

  "One if by hand and two if by thee," the young woman said with a smile.

  "You’ve had this conversation before with visiting sex fiends," Digger said.

  "No, not really. It’s just that when I barricade myself in my room at night, I have a lot of time to think."

  "Mind if I walk with you? Where are you going?"

  "To work," she said. "What are you doing in Boston? You don’t live here."

  "Did that bartender already tell you I was a good tipper?"

  "I beg your pardon," she said.

  "Never mind. How’d you know I was from out of town?"

  "There are only two straight guys in town and I know both of them. You’re not one of them."

  "No. I came up here for a medical exam and to visit somebody at Waldo."

  "You’re not staying?"

  "Not unless my doctor tells me I’m terminal. Otherwise, it’s back to Las Vegas."

  "You live in Las Vegas?"

  "Doesn’t everyone?" he said.

  "I’m sorry you’re not staying," the blonde said. "I could have added you to my list."

  "Good things come in threes," he said. "That’s what my mother always told me."

  "A regular treasure trove of information. You mind if I write that down?"

  "No, don’t write that. Wait until I remember something good that she said." He walked along silently for a moment, then said, "That’s about it. Good things come in threes. The only other things she ever said to me was don’t cause trouble in summer camp, it’s so expensive you shouldn’t get into mischief, don’t forget your galoshes. Hide your lunch money in your shoe. That was pretty good. I still keep my lunch money in my shoe. That’s why I limp. I’m thirty-eight years old and I don’t eat lunch and I’ve had this forty-two cents in my shoe since I was nine years old."

  "That’s it, though," she said.

  "’Fraid so."

  "I’ll stick to good things coming in threes," she said. "Who are you? Besides being tall, blond, handsome, crazy, and from Las Vegas?"

  "I work for an insurance company."

  "You sell insurance?"

  "No, but if you want some, I’ve got a friend who does. Frank Stevens. I’ll give you his home number. Call him. He’ll give you a break on the rates. He does favors for me ’cause I do them for him."

  Up ahead, he saw the big iron gates that led off Beacon Street to the Waldo campus. The name of the college was formed into the scrolled iron at the top of the large archway which was broad enough to allow two cars to pass underneath it.

  "I think I’m turning off here," he said.

  "So am I. Where are you going?"

  "A dorm. Two-fifteen LaPointe Walk."

  "That’s up here on the right," she said. The college archway opened onto a large central commons that looked like a village green. It was bordered on each side by narrow cobblestone streets, which were lined with old but handsome brownstone buildings, some used as dormitories and some as classroom buildings. At the far end of the central green, there was a complex of buildings which were newer and ugly, and probably housed administration offices. Through the spaces between some of the buildings, Digger saw more buildings. Digger was impressed. He had not expected that Frank Stevens’s daughter would go to some grubby urban school, situated neatly between the muggers and the shooting galleries, but he hadn’t expected that, even in Boston, a school could be this handsome. He thought of his own college, Jesuit St. Luke’s in Jersey City, where he had struggled through accounting and business administration, while becoming enraptured of Jesuit theology, which differed from most other theology because it insisted upon using logic to justify an illogical conclusion. His professors had insisted it was necessary to study theology in order to learn how to think.

  "I don’t want to think," Digger had said. "I w
ant to be an accountant."

  And he had, for almost a dozen grueling years, until he packed it in one day, leaving behind his wife and two children and moving to Las Vegas, where one night he did Frank Stevens a favor and wound up on the payroll of the Brokers Surety Life Insurance Company.

  The young blond woman strolled alongside him down the sidewalk on the right side of the college greensward. Cars were parked neatly by the curb. Students sat out on the porches of some of the buildings which bore only neat number plaques next to their front doors. Occasionally, one of the buildings carried a small sign above the numbers. Psychology Department. Music Arts Center.

  Maybe this was the future of American cities, Digger thought. Take up old housing and refurbish it as a playground for rich kids.

  On the green, two boys played frisbee and a girl flew a kite. Birds swooped in formation overhead and the lush green trees shaded the red stone sidewalk.

  "You work here?" Digger asked the blonde.

  "Yes. Beautiful, isn’t it?"

  "Yes," he said.

  They passed a building with a small sign over its number. It read Dean of Students.

  "This’ll be 215, coming up," the young woman said. "If you find yourself bored in Boston, stop by and see me. I’m in the president’s office. The name’s Connie."

  "I hope I get bored," Digger said with a smile, then watched her walk away, all long, luscious legs and round hips and tiny waist.

  He looked at Allison Stevens’s sorority house. A neatly-trimmed hedge bordered the front stone walkway. Flowers grew in a precise circular pattern in the twin front yards on either side of the walkway. Looking up, Digger saw that all the windows of the three-story building glinted clean in the high noon sun.

  He hoped this wasn’t going to take long. He hated Allison Stevens.

  The front door was open and when he stepted inside, Digger thought for a moment that perhaps he had misunderstood Stevens. He was sure that his boss had said a sorority house; yet, just inside the door, was a large living room off to the left, where two young men lounged in armchairs, watching television cartoons. They were drinking beer. One of them had sleep-hooded eyes while the other was so muscular he looked like part of the cast of "The Incredible Hulk."

  A third young man sat behind a desk at the foot of the steps. If this was a sorority house, Digger thought, it was a pioneer in male access.

  The young man behind the desk looked up from his copy of Playgirl magazine with a bored expression on his face.

  "Allison Stevens," Digger said.

  The young man jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the steps.

  "Room 321, top floor," he said.

  "Thanks," Digger said. As he started up the steps, he noticed that the sleepy-looking man in the lounge was staring at him.

  Ah, it was nice to be rich and young, Digger thought. To go to a fancy school and not worry about security or daytime burglars or muggers or rapists. You come in looking for somebody and, just like that, they tell you her room number. And then you go upstairs and slash her throat and leave her in nine bloody pieces on the floor and nobody notices until the maid comes to do the linen.

  As he passed the second floor, he heard a lovely pure soprano singing inside one of the rooms. It was the first sign that there were any females in the building, assuming that the soprano was female. The song was an Irish lament, but Digger had noticed that almost all Irish songs were laments. Half Irish himself, Digger had long ago decided that the Irish were screwed up. Their whole musical repertoire had only about six love songs and they were devoted to Mother. Everything else was how I went to town and got in a card game and then I got drunk and I went to jail, and, oh, it’s the fault of the Bloody English. With a dingdong derry and a do-do-do.

  The only exception was war songs. Oh, did the Irish ever have war songs. But their last warrior was Brian Boru. They hadn’t won anything since then. What was it Chesterton had said? "God bless the gaels of Ireland, the men that God made mad; For all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad."

  Why not? If you were going to lose the war anyway, why not enjoy it? Eat, drink and be merry, because tomorrow we lose again.

  He found Room 321 on the top floor and tapped on the door. So Allison Stevens was pretty and bright and beautiful and pure and he hated her.

  He could have sworn he heard someone say "Come in," so he opened the door and stepped inside.

  There was a young redheaded woman there. She was in bed. Somebody else was there, too. And he was in bed, too.

  The same bed.

  "Ooops," Digger said.

  The two people were covered by a sheet. The young man on top stopped in mid-stroke.

  "Who are you?" the young woman said to Digger.

  "Allison?" Digger said.

  "Yes. Who are you?"

  "Obviously an unwanted interruption," Digger said. "Don’t bother getting up. I’ll show myself out."

  The one on top extricated himself from under the sheet and turned his face toward Digger. It was the face of a gnome with bright blue eyes and a pug nose and a mass of sandy hair that sat on his head like a divot from a nine iron.

  "Yeah," he said. "Do that." His face was round and his cheeks looked as if he held walnuts in them. He turned back to the girl. "Maybe we ought to find out who he is?" His voice sounded like an entreaty.

  "Will you wait outside?" Allison said with great disgust.

  "Sure," said Digger. "My pleasure. Take your time."

  "Fat chance now," she said, but as he backed through the door, she smiled at him.

  Digger sat on the top of the stairs and smoked a cigarette, taking grim delight in flicking his ashes on the thick, unworn carpet that lined the hallways and the stairs. So he had met Allison Stevens. Pure, sweet, virginal, straight-A’s, magna cum laude, apple of her father’s eye Allison. Terrific. In the rack at high noon with a dwarf.

  Her father had thought she was depressed about something. At least she wasn’t letting it ruin her sex life. Good for her, Digger thought.

  And just what was Digger going to tell her father when he said, "And how did you find Allison?" "Oh, the usual. All slick with juice and sweat." No. He was not going to think about that right now.

  He was close to having to make a decision on what to do with his cigarette butt when the door to Room 321 opened.

  Allison Stevens had dressed. Inside her dimly lighted room, he had not had a chance to appreciate her since a sheet had covered all of her but for the flaming red hair.

  She was beautiful. The girl was tall and her hair was a log-fire flame color and her eyes were brilliant chips of jade. She wore jeans and a tight striped blouse, which she was still buttoning. Her feet were bare and her toenails were polished, not with color, but with a clear gloss that looked somehow healthy. Her skin was smooth and her cheeks were slightly flushed and Digger couldn’t tell if it was with passion or with anger.

  "All right," she said with a sigh that nevertheless gave way to a small smile. "Who are you? And what do you want?"

  "My name’s Julian Burroughs," Digger said. "I’m doing a survey to see how many college students lock their doors."

  "So…." And then she recognized the name. "Oh, poo. You’re Daddy’s snoop. You’re the one he calls Digger."

  "You might say that."

  "Am I in trouble?" she asked.

  "Not if you remembered to take your pill today."

  She smiled at him again. "Well, come on in. I guess nothing worse can happen now," she said.

  Digger followed her into the room. Even in jeans, she undulated the way women were supposed to. She had opened the drapes and sun streamed into the room which was well-decorated and neat, with a tidy desk in front of the twin ceiling-height windows. She dropped lightly onto the edge of the bed she had quickly made and pointed Digger to a chair.

  The young man who had been in bed with Allison was nowhere to be seen. Digger glanced toward the windows. Was he lurking on a fire escape? Or jumped to his death?<
br />
  "What are you looking for?"

  "Your friend. Is he hiding under the bed?"

  "That’s Danny Gilligan. He lives in the room next door. He’s my boyfriend."

  "I hoped so."

  As if by way of explanation, she said, "He had his car stolen last night."

  "I lost my wallet once," Digger said. He glanced around and saw a door to an adjoining room slightly open and he walked to it and closed it.

  "I thought we could talk privately," he said.

  She looked forlornly at the door, then shrugged. And then, as if by an effort of will, the worried, lost look came off her face and she smiled at Digger.

  "What are you going to tell my father?" she asked.

  "I don’t know. You don’t look worried."

  "I did worry a little bit. But worrying won’t do any good, so I stopped worrying. If I worry, does that change what you’re going to do?"

  "Probably not."

  "So why worry? Can I get you something? Coffee? A can of beer?"

  "No, thanks. I never mix anything with vodka."

  "What’d you come here for?" she asked.

  "Your father asked me to look in on you, just to see how you were. You know, I didn’t really barge into your room. I knocked."

  "I didn’t hear you," she said.

  "I thought I heard somebody say come in," he said.

  She smiled again. "It might have sounded like that, but that isn’t what I was saying." She winked.

  "Oh," Digger said. "Sorry."

  She sat back and drew up her knees.

  "I thought you lived in a sorority house," Digger said. "You know, little girls in pinafores and mary janes, sitting around, roasting marshmallows?"

  "It used to be a sorority house but they changed it last year. All women and all men dorms went out with folk music. I didn’t have the heart to tell Daddy. He wouldn’t understand."

  "No," Digger said. "He’d probably think it would expose you to undue sexual influences."

  "Exactly," she said. Then she understood and said, "Oh, you’re being funny. I like people with a sense of humor. I’ve got one but it seems to unnerve people. Anyway, I couldn’t tell my father and it was just for the year anyway. Let me tell you, you talk about undue influences, but an all-woman dorm is worse. My father wouldn’t like me if I came home with hairy legs. I lived in an all-girl sorority house last year. Everyone hated it. It was like being in an army barracks, no privacy and everybody picking at you. If I didn’t spend a lot of time out of here last year, I would have gone bonkers. Anyway, this way, it’s normal."