Dead Letter (Digger) (12 page)

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."

"If it’s a he," Connie said. "God may be a she. Even dogs’ god."

"A she named Ralph?" Digger said. "That’s ridiculous. I’m glad you didn’t have the scrod. Have another drink. I love to see women drink."

"Thank you, I will. I looked up scrod in the dictionary. It isn’t really a fish. It’s a cut of fish, sort of like a fillet from near the tail, but it can come from almost anything."

"See. Boston scrod, famous Boston scrod, is Boston anything. It means it’s the cheapest fish the restaurant could get a lot of today. How long have you worked for Waldo?"

"Three years, since I graduated," Connie said. Digger motioned for the waiter to bring them another round of drinks. Even though he had only picked at the meal, the food had been good. But the service was abysmal. The waiters were all tan, too tan for Boston, and they huddled in the corners of the large eating room, like out-of-work actors, gossiping. If they happened to look at one of their tables, it was only by accident. Especially if the table seated a woman as pretty as Connie. Those they seemed to snub totally.

"What did you major in?" Digger asked.

"Communication arts," she said. "And when I graduated they offered me a job in the public relations department. I took it until I found out it was crap, sending out news releases to the four hundred weekly papers in Teaneck, New Jersey, announcing that Selma Globular had learned to feed herself this week at Waldo and had gotten a gold star for neatness. When there was an opening on the president’s staff, I took it. I think administration is more my line anyway."

The young woman drank bourbon neat and while Digger hated bourbon because he was never sure exactly what sour mash was, he respected women who drank neat. Watching most women drinkers, he understood why bartenders hated ladies’ nights. Because women who never drank, suddenly, at a dollar a drink, became drinkers and wanted piña coladas, and kamikazes and iced teas and singapore slings. He knew one bartender who used the same mix formula for every drink, pouring it out of large pitchers he kept in the chillers under the bar. He once said, "Digger, they don’t know what the hell it is they’re drinking anyway. All they know is the name."

"Nobody ever complains?" Digger had asked.

"Once a year. I tell them that this is how we make them in Las Vegas, they nod and drink the fucking thing. They’d drink liquid soap if you called it A Foaming Dove."

Connie was smiling at him. "Penny for your thoughts," she said.

"Did you ever try to throw away a garbage pail?" Digger said.

"No. What’s that mean?"

"You can’t throw one away. You keep putting it out for the garbage man to take and he keeps thinking that you want it and he just empties it and leaves it. To get rid of a garbage pail, you have to cut it up and melt it in a pot on your kitchen stove and then bury the ingot in your backyard."

"What brought that up?" she asked.

"Bourbon. You can’t get rid of bourbon, either."

"I thought I was doing a pretty good job," Connie said.

"Quiet," Digger said, "I’m on a roll. If you give a party at your house and make the mistake of inviting one bourbon drinker, he knows you’re not going to have any bourbon, so he brings a bottle. Then he only drinks half of the bottle and you’re stuck with half a bottle of bourbon. Multiply this by a dozen parties and you can see where bourbon gets to be a real problem. That’s probably why nobody ever invited you out until now. Do you live alone?"

"Yes. My family’s in town here, but I have my own place near the school," she said.

"That was terrible about Otis Redwing, wasn’t it?"

"It was awful," she agreed. "Just when he was going to move up, too."

"Was he?"

She shrugged. "I guess I can tell you now because it’s all immaterial but he had a good shot of being promoted to a vice-presidency at the school."

"Ahh, affirmative action strikes again," Digger said. "A gay Indian. What could be better for a school?"

"No, it wasn’t like that. He would have been really good," she said.

"How would everybody like that?" Digger said. "He was just a young guy."

"The dean of students might not have liked it, but everybody else would live with it," she said.

"The dean of students doesn’t like much of anything," Digger said casually. "Not if you listen to Jayne. Doctor Langston."

"You know Doctor Langston?" Connie asked.

"One of my closest friends," Digger said. "She’s been telling me about our esteemed dean for years."

"It’s his own fault," Connie said as she sipped at her newly arrived drink.

"I don’t know that it’s
that
bad," Digger said.

"No? Well, I do. Staff’s got a responsibility to be…well, responsible. When you’re in a position of power, you’re abusing it when you spend
all
your time balling female students."

"The temptations have to be great," Digger said. "Maybe he is more to be envied than censured."

"Sure," she said with surprising bitterness. "And you see what it got him. His wife packed him in. He blew any chance he ever had of moving up in this school. All because of some kind of unrestrained male libido."

"Nobody ever got hurt from a little nookie once in a while," Digger said. "If you don’t mind my being crude."

"Nobody got hurt, huh?" Digger was pleased to see her warming to her subject. It was the nice thing about ideologues. Hit them in their prejudices and they couldn’t stop talking. He wanted her to keep talking even if it meant putting up with her feminist bullshit.

"You’ve got young, impressionable women," Connie was saying. "Not even really women yet, more like girls. And a guy taking advantage of them as fast as he can. Almost moving a girl in with him? On campus? How tacky can you get? How the hell long did he think he could get away with that? And what kind of scars do you think that leaves on the girl?"

"How’d she handle it?" Digger asked.

"Pretty well, actually. She dumped him. And his wife dumped him. I’d say he got what he deserved."

"That’ll teach him. Have another drink," Digger said.

"Are you trying to get me drunk?"

"Of course," Digger said.

"You don’t have to," she said with a smile. "I told you, I have my own apartment."

Digger left the table to make a telephone call. Allie answered. "Oh, hi, Digger. Everything’s fine. Danny’s right here. We’re going to study tonight."

"More exams tomorrow?" Digger asked.

"No. The next day, though," she said.

"Okay. If you need me, call that number I gave you and leave a message with the answering service. I’ll call in for messages."

"All right," she said. He could almost hear her smile across the telephone. "Have a nice night."

"I’m working on it," Digger said.

When he walked back into the main room of the restaurant, he smiled across the room at Connie, but as he walked to his table, he heard his name called.

"Julian."

He turned and saw Evvie, Arlo Buehler’s wife, seated at a table by herself. He slid into a chair next to her and kissed her on the cheek.

"Long time, not much see," she said.

"Always too long with you, Evvie."

"Julian, I will always know where to find you. Pick the most beautiful woman in the place and she’ll be on your arm."

"In this case, try the second most beautiful," Digger said. "You’re really looking fine." And she was. Evvie was fashion-model tall and slim, with a regular-featured face, but it was made dazzlingly beautiful by its wonderful bones, its broad, smooth brow, the high cheek-bones that cast natural shadows into the hollows of her cheeks. Her lips were full and lightly glossed and he realized she did not look substantially different from how she looked when she was in college.

"Where’s Arlo and his date?" she asked with a smile, showing her beautiful teeth. "Hiding in the kitchen, waiting for me to go?"