Dead Letter (Digger) (6 page)

"When?"

"Four days ago," Buehler said.

"Get her back. If the place gets like this in four days, in three weeks I won’t be able to find you under the rubble."

"The hell with her," Buehler said. "Screw her."

"I tried to. She preferred you. I always knew there was something wrong with that broad. Why’d she leave?"

"Who knows? Doctors’ wives are always leaving them. They don’t like the hours. Or the tension. Or something. What tension? I’m a g.p. I treat colds and stomachaches and sore throats. Then the wives come back because they’re too old to get anybody who makes as much money as a doctor," Buehler said. He sipped and held his glass in both hands, staring down at it morosely. "Am I a bad person, Julian?"

"You’re a pain in the ass," Digger said cheerily.

"That’s funny. That’s just what Evvie said. Are you still living with that Sicilian fortune cookie?"

"Koko?" Digger said.

"How many other Italian-Japanese broads do you live with? Of course, Koko. How is she?"

"She’s fine," Digger said. "Cruel, heartless, malevolent, and smart. She’s fine."

"Is she ready to dump you yet?" Buehler asked. "I’m available." He had finished his drink and was pouring more Scotch into his glass. It was the kind of Scotch that sold for five dollars a fifth and had the grocery store’s initials for a brand name.

"No. We’re coexisting, nicely," Digger said.

"Tell her to call me when she dumps you," Buehler said. "I always wanted to give her an internal with my face."

"I’ll have her keep your name on file," Digger said. "Why are you drinking that shit?"

"To get drunk, why else?"

"Can’t you get drunk on something that’s worth drinking? Do you have to drink Sears Roebuck’s Scotch?"

"Don’t knock it. I can remember when you used to drink Russian vodka and then they invaded Peoria or something, and you wouldn’t drink it anymore," Buehler said.

"This is good vodka," Digger said, holding up his glass.

"It’s from Finland," Buehler said. "You know what it’s made out of? It’s made out of frozen reindeer piss. How do you know what somebody in Finland is putting in your drink? Nobody ever died from Montgomery Ward Scotch anyway. Did you come here to argue or to have me pronounce you dead?"

"Neither, I hope," Digger said, looking carefully at his friend and feeling a little disturbed about his attitude. He had known Buehler for almost twenty years, since they had met in college, and he couldn’t remember a time when the young man from the Midwest wasn’t happy and filled with life. Hyper would have meant he was slowing down. Ordinarily, three minutes after Digger had entered his apartment, Buehler would have shown him three new books he had just read and read him a passage from one. Demonstrated a new TV game. Showed him a new tennis racket guaranteed to hit the ball back over the net without human intervention. Complained about the American Medical Association. Described the anatomical perfection of two nurses who had just come to work at the hospital where he sent his patients. Offered to get Digger laid. Those last two would have been out of earshot of his wife, Evangeline, a tall willowy ash blonde who had been the undisputed beauty queen of their college class and who had married Arlo right after college and worked to put him through medical school.

That was how Buehler normally would have greeted him. But, instead, here he was, sitting sullenly at a bottle.

"I figured we were going to get drunk tonight," Buehler said, "so I booked you into the hospital tomorrow afternoon. That’ll give you a chance to sober up."

"How long do I have to stay in the hospital?" Digger asked.

"Jesus, every year you come up here and every year you ask the same stupid question. One night. You go in tomorrow afternoon and you get released the afternoon after. I don’t know why we bother with this. If that reindeer piss hasn’t killed you by now, what’s the point of taking tests? Face it, Julian, you’re immortal." He looked around his apartment and said, "You’re right. It
is
filthy." He got to his feet and walked to the windowsill, then carried the three dirty cups into the small kitchen. He came back into the room and moved his tennis racket off the couch and picked up the clothes that were on the couch, then said, "Ah, screw it," and dropped them on the floor in a corner.

"I’ll get a cleaning woman. One with big tits. You know, Julian, Evvie and I used to make love on this couch. We could see the planes circling over the airport. One night, we were making it and we both fell off, on the floor, and without missing a beat she looked at me and she said, ‘Did the earth move for you, too?’ What am I going to do without her?"

"Get her back," Digger said.

"How? I don’t even know why she left."

"Where is she?" Digger asked.

"She’s staying at the Copley Arms Hotel. I know ’cause she told me she was using my credit card. To hell with her. I don’t want to think about her. Let’s go eat dinner and drink a lot. Should I round up some women?"

"No thanks. I’ve seen your women. With the exception of Evvie, they couldn’t get arrested."

"The hell with her," Buehler said. "I’m not even going to think about her."

He said the same thing a dozen times at dinner, in a small seafood restaurant in nearby Faneuil Hall, and he succeeded while they were in a cocktail lounge later, of not thinking about her a lot of the time. The rest of the time he talked about her.

"Listen," Digger said, trying to cheer him up. "She’ll be back. Who wants her? She’s old."

"She’s thirty-seven," Buehler said.

"She’s fat."

"She weighs 114 pounds."

"She’s ugly," Digger said.

"She walks into a room and waiters drop trays, then go into the bathroom to play with themselves."

"She’s got bad skin," Digger said.

"She had a pimple once when she was twenty. It was on the sole of her foot. She brooded for a week."

"She’s dumb."

"She does the
New York Times
crossword puzzle in ink," Buehler said.

"Exactly," Digger said.

"What do you mean exactly?"

"That’s why she left you, you schmuck. She’s too good for you and she knows it and you know it. So stop brooding about her. She’s never coming back. Why should she? Let’s hit on those two at the end of the bar."

"I want her back," Buehler whined.

"You do?"

"Yes."

"You sure?" Digger asked.

"Yes."

"Then go call her. Tell her to come home."

Buehler thumped the bar. "Damn it, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll call her and tell her to come home. Give me a dime."

Buehler padded off shakily to find a telephone booth while Digger sat quietly at the bar, feeling good about getting them back together, and thinking about his physical exam. He hated physicals. He hated getting stuck and probed and X-rayed and wired up, but he had started doing it because Buehler had pleaded with him to do it. The doctor had been so insistent that Digger had thought his practice was failing and he needed another paying patient desperately. But then Buehler wouldn’t take a fee for the exams and Digger realized that his college chum was just worrying about him.

Buehler returned to the stool next to Digger, quietly picked up his glass, and drained it in a gulp.

"Well? Was she home?" Digger asked.

"No, she wasn’t fucking home. She was in that fucking hotel and she told me to call her in a year when I sober up."

"What’d you tell her? What’d you say?"

"I told her she was fat and dumb and ugly and nobody in the world would want her, except me, so she better get her ass home."

Digger nodded. "That’s good. One way to a woman’s heart lies through her rage. You’ll have her eating out of your hand when she gets a chance to think about what you said."

"You think so?" Buehler asked.

"I guarantee it," Digger said. He made a mental note to call Evvie and try to get things patched up.

They stayed until the cocktail lounge closed, resisting the bartender’s efforts to get them to be among the leaders in leaving. Buehler was staggering on their way back to his car, so Digger filched the keys from his pocket, opened the car door and shoved Buehler inside. He was asleep before his body settled into a fixed position.

Digger drove and got lost. He always got lost in Boston because the streets crossed each other at strange angles and two-way streets suddenly became one-way. He glanced at his gas tank. It was full, so he knew it would only be a matter of time before he stumbled onto a street that would take him over to the Harbor View Apartments.

He finally found a familiar narrow street that led through Boston’s combat zone, its pornography and sin center. He drove slowly, waving off the tight-skirted hookers who prowled the block, and looked willing, for a price, to lick his car clean. As he waited for a red light at the end of the narrow block, he turned on the radio to drown out Buehler’s snores.

He caught the doom-voiced announcer in the middle of a sentence.

"…Professor Redwing. The Waldo College instructor was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Police are searching for the hit-and-run car but are hampered because there were apparently no witnesses to the accident. Police requested anyone who might have seen the accident or who has any information to call the detective bureau. Repeating tonight’s headlines Professor Otis Redwing of Waldo College was killed tonight when run down by a hit-and-run driver near the Waldo campus."

Almost as if it had suddenly gained weight, Digger could sense the letter in his inside pocket. Redwing had been at the top of the list, his name right under that of the dead Wally Strickland. And now Redwing too was dead.

He parked at the curb outside the Harbor View twin-tower complex, and shook Buehler and helped him from the car. Buehler started to rebound while they were riding the elevator to the fourteenth floor. He was singing softly to himself when Digger opened the apartment door and let them in.

He led Buehler to the master bedroom in the back and pushed him onto the bed. The doctor was snoring again before Digger left the room.

In the living room, Digger picked up the phone and looked up Allison Stevens’s phone number. He dialed and the phone rang twice before she answered.

"Hello?" she said softly. Her voice was filled with sleep.

"Allie, this is Digger."

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Digger." There was a pause and he could almost hear her over the telephone, gathering her wits and putting a smile on her face. When she spoke again, her voice seemed bright and sparkling.

"Yeah, Digger, what is it?"

"You’ve been asleep?"

"I should hope so, at this hour. I’ve got exams tomorrow."

"Do me a favor," Digger said. "You still have my phone number?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Go back to sleep. But call me as soon as you wake up in the morning. Before you talk to anybody else. You got that?"

"I’m not sure."

"Before you talk to anybody for any reason, call me," he said.

"All right, I guess. Digger, what’s this all about?"

"We’ll talk in the morning," Digger said. "Now go back to sleep."

"Okay. First thing in the morning," she said.

Digger depressed the receiver button, then dialed the number of Dr. Buehler’s answering service.

"Hello."

"This is Julian Burroughs. Is Melinda there?"

"No. Melinda works days. Who did you say this is?"

"Julian Burroughs. I’m staying with Dr. Buehler at his number. I want you to let all calls pass through tonight. Don’t pick them up until the fourth ring. You got that? I’m expecting a long-distance call."

"Okay. What’s your name again? For our records?"

"Julian Burroughs. House guest of Dr. Buehler."

"Okay."

"Thank you. Good night," Digger said.

After he hung up the phone, Digger made a cup of instant coffee and sat in the dark, looking over the harbor, smoking a cigarette. He hoped he had done the right thing, but Allie obviously knew nothing about Redwing’s death and there was no reason to ruin her night’s sleep. Especially when she had exams tomorrow. He would tell her about the accident in the morning.

When he finished his coffee, Digger went into Buehler’s bedroom, found the phone and disconnected it from its wall socket. Then he checked the telephone in his guest bedroom to make sure it was working.

Finally, he went to the closet and rummaged through his still-unpacked suitcase.

From the bottom of it, he took a small pocket-size tape recorder with a long microphone cord that ended in an open-mouthed golden frog tie clip.

He sighed and carried the recorder and the frog microphone back into the living room.

Chapter Four

DIGGER’S LOG:

Tuesday, 3:10 A.M., Julian Burroughs.

You can take this job and shove it.

The fact is that the world tramples all over us nice guys. Here I am, thirty-eight years old without much future, probably suffering from an incurable illness, and I come up to Boston to find out the bad news—maybe spend my last couple of days getting drunk and enjoying myself for a change and what happens. I agree to do my boss a favor. I agree to look in on his daughter, just to make sure she’s all right.

Sweet me.

My ass.

And now I’m involved with some goddam chain letter that may or may not have been written by some homicidal maniac and what the hell am I doing here?

What am I going to tell Frank Stevens when he asks me about his daughter, pure, sweet, virginal Allison Stevens?

That I found her in the rack with some gnome of Zurich when I first arrived in Boston? That instead of living in a sorority house, she lives in a coed hoople factory with some goon with muscles and another one who’s as goddam old as I am and wears an Egyptian cross upside down around his neck and is considered the house intellectual because he’s got a thousand ideas, all wrong?

Life is not simple. Here I am talking into this goddam gold frog tie-clip microphone and I promised myself I wasn’t going to use it at all while I was up here.

I told Koko just that, when I was leaving Las Vegas. I said, medical exam, a pleasant visit, and then I’ll be home. And she said, leave the goddam tape recorder home.