Death Kit (16 page)

Suddenly Diddy feels contrite. Reviles himself for having been mean-spirited, dishonest. Has slandered something beautiful. Thereby, ignorant that he had such powers, turning it into something ugly. At this point in the dream, Diddy is reminded of blackened Andy twitching on his funeral pyre while the neighborhood kids stand by, jeering. He wants to retrieve the shell, hoping that he can restore it, resurrect something of its former beauty and reawaken the esteem of its disgruntled, gullible ex-owners. “Wait,” he shouts to the two men, “I'll be right back.” What Diddy does is to jump from his high perch, eyes tightly closed, off the rapidly moving train. Do not throw oneself from the train window?

Falling is simple, if you don't think about it. Landing, Diddy has scraped some skin off his knees and palms; like a kid, Diddy himself when a kid, sliding into first base. Pain flickers, subsides. Getting to his feet, dusting himself off, he sees he's in a dark tunnel. Although the train, maintaining its high speed, has already flashed out of Diddy's sight, he isn't worried about being able to catch up with it eventually, far ahead (now) along the track, and climb aboard again. After he's found the shell.

If there were light, Diddy could use a microscope. Purpose: seeing the unseen. Method: enlarging small objects. But without proper external light, optical microscopes are useless. Diddy mustn't underestimate the difficulty of what he aims to do. It's no easy task to locate so small an object as a conical shell about five inches long, unassisted, in the dark. Diddy's task almost as hard as these fiendishly difficult assignments passed out to ingenuous young princes in fairy tales, as a test of their courage and innocence. But the young prince, long before he collapses in despair, is invariably accosted by a benevolent old crone with untidy gray hair and small sharp eyes, who donates a first-class item of magic gear to his cause, or by some helpful little animal gifted with human speech, who volunteers a secret password or gives some necessary directions. No one is helping Diddy.

Diddy wanders through the damp tunnel, and doubles back. Then makes the same round trip again. Always fearful, because he can't see well, that he may inadvertently tread on the shell and shatter it. Would the light, bony, inanimate structure bleed? Could a tiny, frightened mollusc still be hiding inside? What seems like hours limp by, without Diddy having any success. Diddy the Discouraged. But then something changes in the topography of his quest that wipes out failure; makes everything come out right. Another victory for Diddy's unshowy, methodical mind. Good mind. Abruptly though unclearly, Diddy understands the reason why, despite all his hard thorough scanning of the dark tunnel ground as he marches back and forth, he's been unable to find the pink and white Glory of the Sea. It's because he's already inside it (now). The discarded shell, no longer small, is as vast and capacious as the tunnel. Tunnel and shell can substitute for each other, so Diddy can wander in either as he sees fit.

That for this moment he half walks and half climbs along the slippery, whorled inner face of the shell relieves some of the alarm Diddy felt over a fact noted early in his fruitless walking, when in the tunnel. What was alarming was how much sharper the curve of the track seemed (now) than it did before. Diddy leaves that “before” unexamined, feeling himself excused by the well-known rule that there's no time in dreams, only space. But rules of thought are made to be thought through, surpassed. If that hasn't occured to Diddy, is it because he's lazy? or evasive? or merely not very bright? Doesn't he know there is not only time but times; many times; some continuous, others intermittent, running simultaneously or concurrently or disjunctively? Somewhere he does know, surely. And Diddy is anything but eager to think of the other time he was in the tunnel.

*   *   *

As instructed, the desk clerk phoned Room 414 Tuesday morning at six-fifty. Diddy, already awake, requested the
Courier-Gazette
to be brought to his room immediately. Today he will be able to take a better sounding of this deep business. First, by whether there's a follow-up on yesterday's story on page 16. Second, for he assumes there is, by the length and position of the new story. Is it longer or shorter than yesterday's four chunky paragraphs? Has it been moved further front or to the back of the paper? And what's the second article's theme? More about Incardona? Or developments in the inquiry the police are making into possible negligence on the part of the railroad?

Diddy in suspense, let down. Today's paper, just as scrupulously read as the two yesterday, contained nothing about the workman's death. Not even a paragraph on the obituary page. Nor so much as a line about investigating the railroad. Could people's interest be that short-lived, so that the furor is really over? Reducing an arbitrary and violent death to something just as slight and unrecurring as a half-column of newsprint?

Of course, Diddy hadn't forgotten Incardona's funeral, which, according to yesterday's “Final,” takes place this afternoon at two o'clock. If he goes, it won't be in order to view Incardona's mangled corpse. Diddy the Ghoul has not yet been dreamed of. A corpse which it's unlikely Diddy could see even if he wanted to; usually, when the body is mutilated, the coffin is sealed immediately. Nor, if he attends, will it be to mourn Incardona. Doesn't honestly feel grief over the workman's death. Horror still, though more remotely. Little apart from that.

What mainly prompted Diddy to consider attending the services at the funeral home—at the cemetery he'd be too conspicuous—is the wish to set eyes on Incardona's widow and son. Their reality had to become welded to his experience. Perhaps seeing them in the flesh would lay to rest forever his cramping residual doubt, despite the incontrovertible evidence of the
Courier-Gazette
story, whether he'd ever had the encounter with the swarthy workman. Especially wanted to see Thomas Francis, age 11. In whom, if this is the son of the man Diddy killed, he'd surely see at least a trace of resemblance to his father. Then Diddy would be certain that he'd gotten off the Privateer when it stalled in the tunnel. Had assaulted someone. And that the someone was Angelo Incardona, who was dead.

The other decision awaiting Diddy's attention: whether or not to visit Hester today. He'd awakened feeling he doesn't want to go. Yesterday Hester virtually sent him away. Faulty in knowledge; awkward in conduct. He shouldn't return until he understands more about the barriers that separate them. Further, Diddy doesn't want to suggest to either of the women, by paying two consecutive visits, that Hester could count on a visit every night during the week he's here.

At least that's settled. Not a hard decision to make. Just a postponement, since he could see Hester any time this week; tomorrow night, if he likes. But Incardona's funeral would take place only once.

All Diddy has to come up with is a plain Yes or No. Should he go this afternoon? No answer. Diddy repeats the question. Should he? Still no answer. How complicated everything seems. And is. Something morbid in this plan. Diddy the Peeping Tom. Spying on people's grief for his own splintered motives. Not to mention the bad taste: a murderer piously, rather than gloatingly, in attendance at his victim's funeral. Something merely self-destructive in it, too. Perhaps Diddy just wants to put himself in a situation where he could suddenly find himself at the feet of the widow and orphan, sobbing out his confession. Maybe the desire for a quick confession is drawing Diddy, balked by the thought of the complex mediations of police and judiciary, to the Floral Gardens Funeral Home at two o'clock. And yet.…

The phone rings. A telegram from Duva saying he won't be up for the conference at all. Special delivery letter follows.

What was Diddy thinking before the phone rang? Well, he couldn't decide (now). And meanwhile he was neglecting the noncontroversial order of the day. Let's get in step with that for a time. Make his appearance downstairs, breakfast with Jim and the others, go out to the plant, take part in the morning meetings. One foot in front of the other. The decision could be made just before lunch. Diddy put on his jacket, checked his briefcase to see he had everything he needed. Went downstairs.

*   *   *

In the elevator, Jim saying in a low voice to Katz, “Hey, this town is wide open. Things have sure changed around here in the last couple a months. You could have knocked me over with a feather. Plenty of after-hour clubs. And all those places on Parker Street.”

“Where?” said Katz.

“About fifteen blocks from the Rush-Me.” Jim always grinned at his own jokes.

Reager reaching the door of the conference room at the same time as Diddy. A chilly “Good morning, Harron,” as he passes into the room first. I'm going to be spared an evening with the family this trip, Diddy thought; perhaps dinner at the club as well. Reager's disfavor acted like a tonic on Diddy, crystallizing the muddle inside his head.

Unlike yesterday, when sitting at the oval table was a continual eerie struggle. Today Diddy able to keep his mind on his work. So much so that after a heated argument on discount policies in which Diddy eloquently championed the unpopular position and finally brought a majority around to his view, he passed on to lunch in the cafeteria on the second floor without looking at his watch. Not until he was spooning out a second helping of creamed chicken did Diddy notice the time. Already ten minutes to two.

So there hadn't been a real decision. Instead Diddy had let the funeral fall out of his head. Before Diddy can get from here to the funeral home, Mrs. Incardona and son will be on their way to the cemetery; or already there, flinging earth on the coffin. Diddy horrified reviles himself for his absence of mind. (Now) he can't eat another mouthful. The chicken looks like boiled mucus. The morning's performance of bright, hard-headed, friendly, energetic, slightly priggish Dalton Harron before his colleagues seems grotesque (now); inexcusable even as a performance, even as the skillful play-acting of a man with better concerns to occupy his mind. Who is he to be detached at this moment? Immediately he thinks of Hester. Diddy won't alter his decision not to visit her tonight. That, added to his failure even to remember the funeral, would complete the exhibit of his enfeebled will. But before the coffee comes, he will phone the hospital to inquire how she is.

That evening, he sets himself a small penance. An evening alone. No distracting dinner with Jim or any of his other colleagues. He will take some sandwiches to his room, and use his mind for a change. Make unadulterated contact with the inner man. A task he's been neglecting; for which he's (now) paying the price. Nothing seems to have the right weight any more. He's being lighthearted about the serious, solemn about the casual. Diddy the Dunce. He must try to think. Not worry, fret, or castigate himself. But think.

Even though it's not easy to be alone. He worries that Hester may be expecting him although he'd spoken with her at two o'clock—they've installed the phone in her room—and told her he wasn't coming this evening. Without making any excuses. But it pains him to imagine her there, swathed in her homely nightgown, sightless and unable to move, pinned down under the barrage of her aunt's endless chatter. He'd call her (now) if he hadn't found it hard to talk on the phone this afternoon. Better wait until they are face to face.

Then, another phone call occurs to him. Why hadn't he thought of it earlier? Though he failed to attend the funeral, he can still find out about it. If he calls the Floral Gardens claiming to be on the magazine of the incredibly named Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way, he can inquire about Incardona's funeral without arousing any suspicions. And if he still wants to, it shouldn't be difficult to see the widow and the boy on some similar pretext.

Hello. Floral Gardens.

Diddy gives a fictitious name, identifies himself as a reporter for the union's magazine. “Got almost the whole Incardona story written,” Diddy says cautiously, “but I need a little more information.” The man on the other end said he'd help if he could. “Let's see. Oh, yes, I've got to know”—Diddy trying to ask something innocuous—“what cemetery the guy was buried in.”

“You got it all wrong. He wasn't buried at all. He was cremated.”

“Cremated! And where are … where have the ashes been deposited?”

“They were sent to his mother, who lives, let me see, in Texas. Yeah, that's it. Request of the deceased. It's all in the will.”

Diddy so shocked at this news that he couldn't utter another word, let alone ask another question. Remaining silent, trying to force his sluggish mind to absorb what he's heard.

“Anything else you want to know, Mr. Douglas?”

“Oh, yes … yes,” said Diddy. “I mean, no, I don't think so. No.… Yes, I just wondered if the … ashes had already been sent off.”

“Shipped late this afternoon, first-class airmail, special delivery, registered and insured. I don't mind telling you Uncle Sam's post office collects a pretty penny on freight like this. Floral Gardens don't make nothing on it, except what we make on the actual cremation. That's not too expensive, though.”

Diddy finds he simply cannot go on talking or listening, thanks the man. Hangs up.

Why does the fact that Incardona was cremated rather than buried so appall and alarm Diddy? Because it seems to throw the workman back again into the realm of phantoms. A corpse lowered into the earth and left to rot is a real thing. Still resembling what it once was: a dense, bulky animal body. That remains intact for a considerable time. Even a body as mutilated as Incardona's presumably was would be worth digging up for many months, even years to come; could still be submitted to an autopsy that would establish the fact of the murder. But cremation! Ashes are nothing at all. No body, no weight. Nothing to exhume. Nothing that can be linked to the living person, nothing to examine.