Smoked Out (Digger)

by Warren Murphy

  "Several times. He’s interested in that galvanic skin machine, too. He’s really remarkable in how he can control his responses to tension. You could set his shoes afire and all you’d hear is that nice, even beeping sound."

  So Welles worried about dealing with his tension. Good. Let him. Digger was more interested in something else.

  "He never told me he had studied hypnotism with you."

  "Yes. He’s really very good."

  "It was a shame about his wife," Digger said.

  "Yes. He was here that day. Of course, he went right back."

  "It must have been shattering to him."

  Bogley smiled. "I guess it was. But, of course, he’s an expert in dealing with stress. So one would never know."

  "He’d been here the whole week?"

  "Yes. We have long days here. Early morning to late night. There’s so much to learn. Perhaps you…maybe your assistant…would like to—"

  "Actually, Doctor, we’d like to go over the printed material first. Then we’ll get back to you."

  "Of course."

  Digger gathered up the reprints that Bogley had fished out of his desk for him, along with three illustrated brochures selling week-long packages at the Center, with side trips to wine-growing country.

  "Thank you, Dr. Bogley."

  "Must you run? I was hoping you and Lorelei could stay for dinner."

  "No. We have to be on the road. Thank you. Thank you very much."

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Digger was in the bathroom at the Sportsland Lodge when he heard the telephone ring.

  Before he could move, Lorelei answered. Digger called, "It’s for me."

  Lorelei apparently didn’t hear him. He heard her say, "There’s no one here by that name."

  He came out of the bathroom. Lorelei said, "Wrong number. Somebody calling for a digger or something."

  Digger nodded.

  The telephone rang again and Digger took it out of Lorelei’s hand before she could speak.

  "Hello," he said.

  "All right, you prick, who was that?"

  "Business, Koko, believe me."

  "Sure I believe you. I always believe you. You are the worst kind of lying fuck in the world, but of course I believe you and I believe that baby-doo is mustard and the moon is made of Roquefort. Who is that cunt and why doesn’t she know your name?"

  "Baby-doo?" Digger said.

  "Stop stalling."

  "You want Tim Kelp, you got Tim Kelp," he said.

  "You prick. You’re screwing somebody and she doesn’t even know your rat-bastard name?"

  "Listen, are you going to ask me to marry you and take me away from all this?"

  "I wouldn’t have you, you lying rat-bastard."

  "Koko…"

  "Don’t Koko me."

  "Tamiko."

  "Miss Fanucci to you."

  "Miss Fanucci," he said.

  "That’s right, crawl, you abject, reject, deject bastard."

  "Anything you want. Can I come over there and lick your little bound feet?"

  "That’s Chinese again, you asshole. Don’t you know anything?"

  "I don’t know. You all look alike to me. Anyway, I’m glad you’re not going to marry me."

  "Why?"

  "Because I couldn’t marry an Italian. Even half an Italian. I’d be shacked up in a motel room somewhere and I’d open the door and find you crawling down the hall with a knife in your teeth, bent on murder. Screw that."

  There was a pause. Koko giggled. "How the hell can anybody stay mad at you?"

  "I don’t know. Walter Brackler seems to."

  "Did you hit that twiff who answered the phone and doesn’t know who she’s staying with?"

  "Truth?"

  "Yes."

  "She thinks I did, but I didn’t."

  "When you come home, you can explain it all to me. I talked to Rochelle Lindsley."

  "Yeah?"

  "I told her I was just in from Paris and looking for my old Wellesley chum, Jessalyn Lindsley."

  "Did you use that awful French accent of yours?"

  "Screw you, champ. It cost me four years in Paris hovels to get that accent. I told her I was the Contesa Julienne DeBoroes."

  "Don’t ever complain again about Tom Median."

  "Anyway, I got the old gal talking. I don’t think she would have talked to a commoner."

  "I’m surprised she talked to a mortal."

  "She told me about Jessalyn’s death in the accident. ‘So much tragedy in her young life.’"

  "Bottom line, Contesa. You’re wandering."

  "Yeah. The kid had epilepsy. She had it since she was little. She had it in college. That’s how I knew about it. It had been better for years. Medicine and all. She had no symptoms. But lately it had been coming back. That’s what Mrs. Welles told her mother."

  "Koko, you’re a genius."

  "You think that’s good, try this. Jessalyn’s father died about eight, nine months ago."

  "I know."

  "He left his whole estate to his wife. Nothing to Jessalyn. He didn’t like Welles. He didn’t trust him, either."

  "How’d you find that out?" Digger asked.

  "The old broad was whacked. She wanted somebody to talk to. She’s one of those chewy gals on the telephone. Go umm-hmmm enough and she’ll tell you anything. Is any of this going to help?"

  "Not only clear things up but keep my butt out of jail."

  "I’m glad. You look awful in stripes. You look like an unkempt barber pole."

  "Did I ever tell you I lo—"

  Koko interrupted him. "No. Don’t say it now out of gratitude. Say it sometime when you’re sure you mean it."

  "Okay," Digger said. "Mama Fanucci knows best."

  "Come home, Digger."

  "Soon. I will. Soon. A couple of days outside. I’ve got a lock on this now."

  "Did someone really beat up on you?"

  "It was only a little beating."

  "Be careful."

  "I will. Hey, I almost forgot. You’re invited to a party."

  "Whose?"

  "My folks. Fortieth wedding anniversary."

  "I know that invitation came from your father."

  "You got it. My mother still thinks you’re a black masquerading."

  "Maybe I’ll steal your father from her. That’ll serve her right."

  "No, don’t do that. It’ll just make her sure that she was right all along about your lack of character. She’s Jewish. That woman would rather have vindication than happiness."

  "’Bye."

  When he put down the telephone, he remembered Lorelei was still in the room. She was standing near the window, looking out at the floodlit pool.

  "Is she really black?" she asked.

  "What?"

  "You said your mother thinks she’s black. Is she?"

  "You’ve heard of high yellow?"

  "Yes."

  "She’s kind of low yellow. Taupe, maybe."

  "Oh."

  "Lorelei, I’m going to put you in a cab and send you home."

  "Can’t I stay with you?"

  "Do you want to?"

  "I don’t want to go home. I don’t have a job and I don’t feel like going home and being alone and…"

  Her voice trailed off. She sounded lost. Digger picked up the phone.

  "This is Mr. Burroughs in room 300. Will you make reservations for two for dinner in a half-hour? Thank you."

  He hung up.

  "Your name’s not Tim Kelp, is it?"

  "No. My name’s Julian Burroughs."

  "And they call you Digger."

  "Some do."

  "Why?"

  "I’ll tell you about it at dinner."

  Digger telephoned Lt. Breslin’s home. When the cop answered, Digger said, "Don’t you ever go out?"

  "Why, when women are happy to come here? You want to come over? I can get an extra."

  "No. You’ll just have to handle things yourself."

  "T
hen I take it this is business."

  "Right. Can you contact that Jim McArdle?"

  "Yes."

  "Can you get him to meet us at his lab in the morning?"

  "On Sunday?"

  "The search for truth doesn’t stop on Sunday."

  "I’ll talk to him. You know, Digger, you’re fucking awful with these proverbs and all."

  "I know."

  "You’re in your room?"

  "For the next twenty minutes. Then I’ll be in the restaurant."

  "I’ll call you right back."

  The phone rang as Digger and Lorelei were leaving the room.

  Breslin said, "He’ll meet us there at eleven o’clock. That’s the earliest I could do. He’s an elder at church and can’t miss it."

  "The show must go on."

  "You want me there?" Breslin said.

  "Yeah. And I want you to bring that bottle of aspirins that you found in Jessalyn Welles’s purse after the accident. The whole bottle."

  "This is important?"

  "We’re wrapping everything up, champ."

  "See you at eleven."

  From the time they had left Doc Bogley’s, Lorelei had not asked one question about what Bogley taught there, why Welles had been there and what Digger cared about it for. The girl simply had no intellectual curiosity. She sat across from him at dinner, beautifying the table like a piece of marvelously pure Steuben glass, as clear and as uncomplicated. She was interested in Digger and he felt sorry for her, as he did for all the simple folk. She was surrounded by a world of wonders, and all she would ever wonder about was what girlfriend broke up with what boyfriend and why couldn’t they make it work and what will they ever do now. He remembered a line of Mencken’s comment on the election of Harding as President when there were millions of eligible Americans to choose from. Mencken said it was as if a starving man, surrounded by tables, acres in size, festooned with all the good foods of the entire world, should sustain himself by catching and eating flies.

  "You promised to tell me why they call you Digger," she said. "I love shrimp cocktail."

  "The man I work for, Mr. Stevens, was in Las Vegas once and he lost some papers."

  Frank was whacked out of his gourd and in the kip with some hooker at Caesar’s Palace. He fell asleep as soon as she brought him off and she split out the door with his briefcase with four hundred thousand in negotiable instruments.

  "I lived in Las Vegas and we were old friends, so he asked me to see if I could find those papers."

  We had never met before, but we had spent two nights getting blotto together at the casino lounge bar. I had pointed the hooker out to him and he had gone up and grabbed her ass in public and offered her a hundred dollars to go down on him right there, but she insisted on going up to his room.

  "So I looked around as best as I could."

  I took a cab to the hooker’s apartment on Desert Inn Road, which I knew well ’cause I lived in the apartment next to hers, and I told her she had picked the wrong John to roll because he’d have the mob on her ass. But, like most hookers, she was stupid and didn’t even know what she had stolen except that it was worth a lot of money but she didn’t want to screw around with the Mafia.

  "I finally found it where it had been misplaced by Mr. Stevens."

  The whore was pissed because I interfered and she refused to do any more work in the matter. She said she had worked hard enough already burying the money under a bush in the apartment courtyard. I dug it out using her pancake turner.

  "He was very grateful."

  He had finally sobered up enough to realize he had just blown almost a half-million of his company’s money and he was scared shitless. When I brought back this dirt-covered briefcase, he offered me a reward, anything I wanted. What I really wanted was to stop gambling for a living, so I said I’d take a job. "What can you do?" he said. "Nothing," I said. "Have you tried federal service?" he said. "There are some things I won’t do, even for money," I said. "You’re a natural for our claims investigation department," he said. "Because of my high moral standards?" I asked. "No. Because of your lack of talent," he said. "My claims men don’t know how to do anything, either."

  "He asked me where I had found it and I told him I had dug it up and he said, ‘You can be my digger.’ And the name stuck."

  Which was true.

  "Oh," Lorelei said. "I thought it might be something interesting. This shrimp is really good."

  In your hat and over your ears.

  "Why does your mother hate the Contesa?"

  "The Contesa?"

  "The yellow woman on the phone?"

  "Oh. My mother’s never gotten over my divorce. She had this picture of herself in her mind. Right out of Norman Rockwell. The grand matriarch of Americana, presiding over Thanksgiving dinners for Sarge and me and my wife and the two little idiots, wearing a flowered apron and a twinkle in her eye. I blew it all when I got divorced. She still tried. She invited my ex-wife and me to Thanksgiving dinner. Cora, that’s the ex-wife, said she didn’t even want to be in the same state with that cocksucker—that’s me—much less in the same room. I told my mother to shove her turkey, drumsticks first. She’s never forgiven me. It’s all right, I don’t like her anyway. How did you get arrested for stealing?"

  "I hope they use Roquefort and not blue cheese. I don’t like eating mold. I…what?"

  "Arrested," Digger said.

  Lorelei looked pained. "I guess I know now why they call you Digger."

  He shrugged.

  "I was living with a guy and he was on drugs. My salary couldn’t buy enough, so I stole a little bit and got caught. He stole my car and drove it into a pole and killed himself. Ruined the car, too. I was really upset. That was the only time I ever did anything like that. Do you hate me now?"

  "No. I think you’re a good person."

  After dinner, as they walked back to Digger’s room, Lorelei said, "I don’t think I can sleep with you anymore."

  "Why not?"

  "Because you’ve been nice to me. I only sleep with men who use me."

  "Why is that?"

  "Because I write poems about it afterward. I think you have to suffer to be a great poet, don’t you?"

  Suddenly, Digger was consumed with a passion for this simple child who would arrive at every garden three days after the flowers died.

  "Let’s just make love and skip the poetry afterward," he said.

  Lorelei paused. Her forehead wrinkled as she gave his proposal deep thought.

  Then she said, "Okay."

  Digger skipped doing his log that night. He put the tapes containing the interviews with Dr. Kertzner, Mrs. Walker and Lemuel Bogley in his dresser drawer. He would think about them tomorrow, he told himself.

  Maybe.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Digger was a time compulsive. If he made a general date to meet someone, say in Chicago, toward the middle of the year, to him that meant twelve noon, July 1, and he would water-ski up the Mississippi to be there on time. He regularly arrived early for appointments, up to several hours early, which explained why he tried to schedule his meetings in places that served liquor so that he would have something to occupy his time.

  He had driven Lorelei home before getting to the office of McArdle Laboratories at 10:46 A.M. There was only one other car in the lot, a Chevy Caprice. He sat in his car next to the two-story pink cinder-block building. Lt. Breslin arrived at one minute to eleven and the two went upstairs together.

  Jim McArdle was at the receptionist’s desk inside his office, looking through correspondence with all the enthusiasm of a man who had been warned earlier that one of the envelopes contained a poison that killed on contact. He looked up as they entered and smiled at Breslin. McArdle was a big, broad-shouldered bear of a man with a full gray beard that seemed heavy enough to pull down the corners of his eyes. It gave him the look of a basset hound struggling through mid-life crisis. The southern Daniel Boone voice reinforced the impression.

&nb
sp; Digger asked Breslin if he had brought the aspirins.

  "Yes, right here."

  Breslin handed the vial to Digger. It carried the marking "LAPD" and a case identification number. The vial Digger took from his pocket was identical except for the ID numbers.

  He handed both vials to McArdle. "You tested several tablets yesterday from this vial for me. They were aspirin, if you remember. Lt. Breslin’s vial contains tablets. He tasted them after…recently and decided they were aspirin."

  McArdle nodded his understanding.

  "I’d like you to double-check the lieutenant’s analysis. Are these pills aspirin?"

  "All right." He pronounced it "Aw raht." He looked suspiciously at Digger, probably wondering what had happened to his Rebel accent.

  "And one other thing. There’s loose powder in both vials. From the tablets, presumably. Can you test that powder?"

  "To see if it’s aspirin, too?"

  "Yes, and to see if it isn’t."

  "It’d help if I knew what else I could be looking for."

  "Trimethadione," Digger said.

  "Okay," McArdle said. "I’m going back in the lab. It shouldn’t take more than twenty, twenty-five minutes iffen you want to wait."

  When the door closed behind the chemist, Breslin sprawled out in an armchair and picked up a copy of People magazine. The policeman was wearing a well-tailored linen sports jacket and full-flared slacks with an open-throated quiana shirt.

  "You have the look on your face of the well-laid," Digger said.

  "When you’re irresistible, flaunt it. You, on the other hand, look like shit. But every time I’ve seen you, you look like shit."

  "It’s part of my protective coloration. I buy these goddamn Pierre Cardin suits and these fancy French shirts that those faggot designers make with the cuffs too narrow to fit anybody with a real wrist; and I buy good ties and twenty-dollar belts. When I put it all together, it all looks like something I found in an alley. Where did I go wrong?"

  "Get a new tailor. Have him put you in blue jeans. Your body cries out for blue jeans. You’re never going to be a suit person." He shrugged. "Maybe it’s got survival value. No one’s ever going to kill you because they’re jealous of the way you look."

  "But why?"