Dead Letter (Digger)

by Warren Murphy

The entire right side of the building’s first floor was turned over to THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE, according to a large sign on the wall. He looked through the large double glass doors and saw Connie, the long-haired blonde, sitting at a front desk. When he walked inside, she recognized him and smiled.

  "Help," he said. "I need an education fast."

  "Gee, I’m sorry, but I don’t teach formally."

  "Informally was more what I had in mind," Digger said.

  "What were you interested in studying?"

  "Boston nightlife on Tuesdays. Can you help? Or is it the USO for me?"

  "Don’t cry. I’ll save you," she said.

  "Good. Where and when?"

  "Where are you staying in town?" she asked.

  "Harbor View Apartments."

  "I’ll meet you at Muggsy’s. It’s a seafood restaurant down the street from where you are."

  "I’m not eating scrod," Digger said.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I’ve never seen a scrod. I’ve seen a halibut and a bass and a trout and a tuna, but I’ve never seen a scrod. I don’t think there is a scrod. You never hear anybody say he’s a scrod fisherman, do you, but you hear about tuna fishermen all the time."

  "We’ll eat lobster tails," she said.

  "Good. I hate lobster tails, too, but at least I know what they are."

  "Eight o’clock," she said.

  "I’ll be there," Digger said. "You’ve saved me from a lifetime of misery."

  "I’ll bill you." As he reached the door, she called out softly: "Hey."

  "What?"

  "What’s your name?" she asked.

  "If I tell you, you’ll use it to call and break our date."

  "No, I won’t. What’s your name?"

  "Digger," he said.

  Crossing the green, he saw Terlizzi coming down the steps of Langston’s office building.

  "Can I drop you anywhere?" Terlizzi asked.

  "Wherever you’re going. I’m staying over near Faneuil Hall. How’d it go?"

  "You didn’t tell me she was a looker," Terlizzi said.

  "I saw the wedding ring on your finger. I thought you wouldn’t be interested."

  "For her, I’ll make an exception," Terlizzi said.

  "Are you going to tell me about your love life or how things went?" Digger asked.

  "As far as my love life goes, mine went. My wife and I are getting divorced."

  "Good for you," Digger said.

  "If she’s got a clue on who wrote that letter, she wouldn’t tell me," Terlizzi said. "But I think I impressed her to be careful. I’m going to impress her more at dinner tonight."

  "You’re going to hate it," Digger said.

  "Why?"

  "The woman’s beautiful, but she’s a liberal. She’s going to be talking student rights and police infringement on civil liberties and Amerika with a K. And that’s going to be before the appetizer. When the onion soup comes, you’re going to drown her in it. Pack her nose with melted mozzarella."

  "You don’t understand anything about women," Terlizzi said.

  "No one does," Digger agreed.

  "I’ve got her convinced that under this rough exterior, there’s a bleeding heart just waiting to sneak out. Concerned about minorities, about improving the economic lot of all our citizens. I’ll go through her like a dose of salts."

  "When you’re with her, pump her on Rampler and Rolan. Those two are bad news, I think," Digger said.

  "Got it," Terlizzi said.

  "Got the names? Rampler and Rolan."

  "I got them. You mentioned them before and I wrote them down."

  "Julian, you’re really irresponsible."

  "This from a guy who was forty minutes late for his wedding?"

  "It was your fault," Arlo Buehler said. "You wanted to stop for a drink."

  "Yeah, but you’re the one who insisted we had time to get laid before the ceremony."

  "Why didn’t you make it to the hospital?" Buehler asked.

  "Remember the letter I showed you last night?"

  "That chain letter thing? Yeah."

  "It turned out true. Somebody on that list got killed."

  "What’s it got to do with you?" the doctor asked.

  "My boss’s daughter got the letter. I explained all this to you last night before you passed into unconsciousness."

  Buehler nodded and walked over to his large television set. He turned it on and pressed some buttons behind it. A few moments later, a large Space Invaders’ layout filled the screen. Buehler sat in an armchair with a joystick controller.

  "You know, Julian, there’s nothing left in the world for me. Evvie left. All I’ve got left is my bottle and my Space Invaders. And my wealth, my great personal beauty and my charm. And my sneakers. She’s not getting my sneakers."

  "Right. Screw Evvie," Digger said.

  "So why’d you miss the hospital?"

  "I was checking out that letter. I was with the cops. I was interviewing people. I had this tape recorder of mine cooking so much today that my kidney is vibrating. When you get around to testing me, you’re going to find a loose kidney. Did you hear from Evvie?"

  "No. Who cares. I’ve fixed it up so you can check into the hospital tomorrow morning. They can still run all the tests, but I’ll just have to mail you some of the results. No, I’ll call in case the news is bad," Buehler said.

  "Why don’t you call Evvie and ask her to dinner tonight?"

  "Why?" Buehler said. His shoulders swung from side to side as he tried to guide his last tank to a safe spot on the television screen.

  "Because it’ll make you feel better. Because I hate to see you slumping around like grim death. Because I’ve got a date," Digger said.

  "You sneak. I thought you were working today. All this murder stuff is bullshit, isn’t it?"

  "No, it’s true. I’m taking this woman out because I need to get some information out of her," Digger said.

  "If she’s got a friend, I’ll get information out of the friend. That way you’ll have twice as much information."

  "It won’t work," Digger said. "I do a solo."

  After peeling off the tapes that held his microphone wires to his side and unstrapping the tape recorder, Digger called the Araby Casino in Las Vegas and asked for the manager’s office.

  "Hello, Gina, this is Digger. Can I get a message to Tamiko?"

  "Hello, Digger, how are you? You must have ESP. Koko’s inside with the boss. If you hang on, I’ll have her pick you up."

  "You’re a sweetheart, Gina. If I weren’t hooked up with that Nipponese Sicilian, I’d be all over you like nuclear fallout."

  "Promises, promises. Hang on. I’ll get her."

  Digger heard the telephone go on hold and then he heard clicking as he was being switched from one line to another. But this was Las Vegas and a casino, not some government office, so he knew he wouldn’t be cut off. People who worked in casinos knew what they were doing.

  "Hello, Dig," came the small, happy voice. He could picture the beautiful Eurasian woman on the other end of the phone. She was tiny and trim with ice-smooth skin and dark eyes, only a shade lighter than her long, shiny black hair.

  "Hi, Koko, how’s my favorite roommate?"

  "I’m okay. What’s going on with the medical exams?"

  "There’s been a little delay."

  "What happened?" she asked.

  "Arlo screwed up the reservations for the hospital. I’m going in tomorrow. He sends you his love."

  "Mine back. How is he?"

  "He’s all twisted. He and Evvie split."

  "Oh, damn. Two nice people, Dig."

  "Now aren’t you glad you never got serious with me? So we don’t have a painful breakup to look forward to?"

  "You know who’s in town?" she said.

  "Who?"

  "Lieutenant Breslin. Remember, the guy we met in Hollywood with that doctor thing."

  "Why the hell didn’t he tell me he was coming?" Digger said. "I promised t
hat my company would comp him. They owe it to him."

  "That’s what I was just seeing the boss about. Mr. Needham said he’d take care of it and you can square with him when you get back."

  "Tamiko Fanucci, I love you," Digger said. "How is Breslin? He make a run at you yet?"

  "Fifteen minutes after he got here," the woman said blandly.

  "And?"

  "You know he’s too short for me, Digger. I’m fixing him up with one of our dancers."

  "From your chorus line?" Digger said.

  "Sure. What’s the matter?"

  "Come on, that chorus line of yours is the only one in the world where the costumes are made in half-sizes," Digger said.

  "I’m putting him together with Juanita," Koko said.

  "Come on. Give him a break. She’s got a face like a moray eel."

  "And a chest like a sperm whale. Trust me, Digger, I know about men. Breslin will flip over her. All little guys like big women. And what’s eating you, anyway?"

  "I just hate it when women are as smart as you are," Digger said. "Actually, Frank Stevens asked me to look in on his daughter when I came up here. She’s in school here."

  "Oh, do I know that. He chewed off my ear one night telling me about his wonderful daughter," Koko said.

  "Well, she’s involved in something and I don’t quite know what to make of it."

  "What’s it about?" Koko asked.

  Briefly, Digger told her about the chain letter and the two deaths.

  "But the first one was really an accident?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "What you got then is after that, some guy taking advantage of the accident and writing her that letter," Koko said.

  "Right."

  "Then you’ve got three possibilities," she said.

  "Which are?"

  "One. That this professor was killed in another accident. Two. That he was murdered by somebody else. Three. That he was murdered by whatever dippo wrote the chain letter," she said. "Next thing. How does this affect the girl, what’s her name, Allison? She hasn’t been threatened, has she?"

  "No."

  "That’s what you’ve got to figure out, Dig. Why did somebody send that letter to her? Why not to somebody else? That’s what’s key."

  "Chew it around in your mind," Digger said. "If you come up with any suggestions, let me know."

  "I will. This isn’t going to mess up your exam, is it?" Koko asked.

  "Nothing is going to mess up my exam. I promise."

  "Good. I can’t wait for you to get home."

  "I want to be there," Digger said.

  "Stay away from coeds," Koko said. "They all have Herpes Two."

  "If God didn’t want coeds to be made, He wouldn’t have made so many of them," Digger said.

  After they hung up, Digger sat looking out the window, toward the harbor, but his mind was on Koko. She had a genius for figuring things out that Digger often relied on. And he knew she was right. He had to figure out who had written the chain letter to Allison Stevens.

  And why.

  Buehler appeared in the bedroom doorway with a drink in his hand.

  He handed it to Digger and said, "Talk to Koko?"

  Digger sipped the thick vodka and nodded.

  "Did you tell her I want to give her an internal?"

  "Yes," Digger said. "But she said she doesn’t fool around with married men."

  Chapter Eight

  DIGGER’S LOG:

  Tuesday, 6:20 P.M., Julian Burroughs in the matter of Allison Stevens, for which he is not getting paid, is doing it free, and is generally being imposed upon by everybody.

  I am not at the top of my form. All I want to do is have my blood pressure checked, my cholesterol levels exclaimed over, my heart batted three or four times to get it going, and my liver lanced so I can go home. Instead, what I got is this chain letter bullshit, corpses littering the streets of Boston, it’s starting to look like Bunker Hill all over again, Allison Stevens and all the other headaches that flesh is heir to.

  I went through tapes today like they were going out of style. And you just know I’m not getting paid for them.

  What the world needs now isn’t love, sweet love, it’s a good working relationship. If Allison would marry Danny and set up house in Pittsburgh; if Henry Hatcher and Jayne Langston could get back together; if Lieutenant Terlizzi and his wife could somehow recapture the magic; if Arlo and Evvie went back to rutting like moose in heat; if Rampler and Rolan decided to walk off into the sunset together, then maybe, just maybe, I could get some rest.

  But nothing is ever simple for me. So, here we are. Otis Redwing is dead. His spirit right now is soaring like an eagle, joining the Great Father in the sky. And because of him, I missed my hospital appointment.

  Tape One is my breakfast meeting with Allie and Gilligan. Why am I taping them? Because I tape everybody. So, what’s important is that Rampler is busting Allie’s chops that she’s leading men to their doom and young Gilligan would like to punch him out but he’s too small. I’m not and I hold that option in abeyance. Somebody’s going to pay for ruining my trip to Boston.

  I don’t give the Allie-Danny romance any hope. College romances never last, except for Buehler and Evvie, and that broke up, too. Gilligan is very possessive of Allie. I thought he was going to bop that guy in the diner this morning when he asked her for the time.

  The girl won’t go home. I should make her go home. If anything happens to her, how am I going to explain it to Frank Stevens? She’s right, though, in one way. If it weren’t for that stupid letter, none of this would have anything to do with her. Danny seems to want her to go, to be safe, but on the other hand, he doesn’t want her out of his sight for more than thirty seconds at a time. That is one large heart he is wearing on his very small sleeve.

  Now we come to Jayne Langston, who Allie said she used to go to when she was first up at college and then again with some personal problems last year. How can a girl who smiles all the time have personal problems?

  I thought that look on Hatcher’s face when he gave Allie the letter was because he saw Langston’s name on the list. But then he didn’t tell her about it. He should have. I would have told Brunhilde, my ex-wife, so she could call in reinforcements from her family of Visigoths to protect herself.

  Langston looked that letter over a little too carefully for me and there was a glimmer of something in her eyes that I couldn’t decipher. What’d she say after reading it? "There are a lot of disturbed students." But then she backtracked and didn’t know if a student wrote it.

  She wouldn’t say anything concerning my suspicion of Rampler. Redwing was gay, but no wife or lover that she knew about or wanted to talk about. But there was somebody who didn’t like him and she wouldn’t tell me who. Her ex-husband, maybe?

  That’s one tape. Now Tape Two. Hatcher. I don’t like him. He says he doesn’t know he was nervous when he gave Allie that letter. Well, if he wasn’t nervous, he’s got the shakes. And he didn’t tell Redwing or Langston about the letter because he didn’t think it was important. I can’t fault him on that; neither did I. But I don’t like him.

  The highlight of the day. I clocked that creepy Rolan. I didn’t get it on tape but I wish I had. On videotape. When I’m old and decrepit and What’s-his-name and the girl come to the nursing home to gloat at me and ask me what I did before I was senile, I could play the tape and show them how once I was so smart that I cold-cocked a college kid. I’m a little ashamed of myself for that. But Rolan and Rampler won’t leave Allie alone. What did Rampler say? "She suffers so wonderfully."

  If he’s involved with this, dammit, he’s going to get a chance to see how wonderfully he suffers.

  And then we’ve got the death car, poor Danny’s nice black Camaro, and Lieutenant Terlizzi. So they find it and they know it killed Redwing. But who steals a car in the morning and still has it at night to kill somebody? Good question, Terlizzi. So I say, maybe it was stolen twice and Terlizzi says, yes, maybe
, but that’s bullshit. Redwing’s death was a freaking murder. That’s all there is to it. Whoever stole the car did it intentionally to use it to run Redwing down.

  No prints on the car. Not a damned print. How come?

  Terlizzi would like to put a guard on Langston but can’t spare the manpower. Okay. It’s just as good that he’s got the hots for her. I like Terlizzi and he looks competent—he may even be competent enough to get her in bed.

  Danny is upset about his car being held by the cops. Neat mind, messy room. I’m glad I was never a scholar. That’s how the Jebbies get you. You go to a Jesuit school like I did and they give you so much work, if you try to do it, your defenses are down and you can’t resist their brainwashing. Before you know it, you believe in transsubstantiation and you’re serving mass on Sundays. My mother can’t stand Koko ’cause she thinks a half-Oriental is an insult to her family’s bloodline. What if her half-Jewish son became a priest? Whooops, just like that, head in the oven. No notes, no goodbyes, no tearful farewells. Just head in the oven, on with the gas, and good-bye cruel world.

  I am very unhappy. Arlo’s unhappy with me because I missed my hospital appointment. I hope I can talk to Evvie before I leave Boston. Koko says find out who wrote that letter. She’s probably right. She always is.

  But that’s a problem. There are six hundred students at Waldo Wacketeria, and from what little I’ve seen of them, I’d bet the overwhelming majority of them are nuts. Anybody could have written that letter. Anybody could have seen that little death list on which Allie jokingly put Redwing’s name.

  I don’t even know the rest of the people in Allie’s dorm yet.

  This case is unsolvable.

  Why did I get involved?

  God, you’ve got to stop me before I help again.

  Chapter Nine

  "Why do you work for a Waldo College?" Digger asked.

  "There was already an Emerson College in Boston. And we couldn’t call our school Ralph, could we?" Connie asked.

  "I guess not. Ralph is the name of a dog-training school," Digger said.

  "Dog training? What are you talking about?"

  "Ralph," Digger said. "That’s what dogs say when they agree with you. People only think they say woof or arf, but they don’t. If you listen, really listen, you’ll hear that they’re saying Ralph, Ralph. That’s what they learn in school. Not too many people really listen to a dog. If dogs have a god, I bet his name is Ralph."