Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) (12 page)

"He loved you too."

She turned back. "Did he ever say that, Walt?"

"He didn’t have to. It was all over his letters. Hell, the way he talked, well, tell the truth, I thought you two were going to hook up someday. Marriage, the whole thing."

She shrugged. "Would have been nice. You know, we got together right after he got up here, and it was funny, we really used to have to sneak around ’cause Vern said he was going to be president of the company or something and what’s-his-name, Lucius Belton, wouldn’t hold still for any hanky-pank. Then it all went sour."

"How sour?" Digger asked.

"After a while, it seemed like Belton didn’t have any use for him anymore. That’s what Vern said. It was like they were ignoring him, wishing he’d go away."

"Why was that?" Digger asked.

"He didn’t know. Didn’t he tell you about it?"

"You know Vern," Digger said. "He liked to put a good face on things. I just never got the sense from his letters that anything was wrong. It’s funny, though. With the pressure off him from the company, why not marriage?"

"I was afraid to ask," she said. "Afraid he’d think I was pushing too hard. So it was Wednesday and Saturday for a year and a half. They were good Wednesdays and Saturdays, Walt. We never missed one. I’m ready for another drink."

"I’ve been waiting for you," Digger said.

"A man after my own heart."

"It’s not just your heart I’m after," Digger said and Marla squeezed his hand.

By unspoken arrangement, Digger knew he was to wait for her to finish work that night. He watched her from the corner table and thought that she just might be wrong about herself. If she wasn’t great, she was awfully close to it.

During her second set, he found the telephone and called Gus’s LaGrande Inn.

"Julian Burroughs, Gus. Any calls for me?"

Gus’s voice was excited. "Hey, Lucius Belton called. Himself. He left a number for you to call. You know, he didn’t give his name, but I could recognize his voice. I didn’t know if I should tell him to try the Orleans. Is that where you are?"

"Yeah."

"I didn’t know whether to tell him to try there, but he didn’t give his name or anything so I didn’t."

"You done good, Gus," Digger said. "No call from a woman?"

"No."

Where the hell was Koko?

Digger called the number Lucius Belton had left and when a man’s voice said hello, Digger knew how people could recognize Belton’s voice over the telephone. The voice was crackly and high-pitched, with almost an electric intensity to it. It was the kind of voice you expected to break out into a cackle any moment.

"This is Julian Burroughs. I was told to call this number."

"I am Lucius Belton."

"Thank you for sending the welcome wagon after me today," Digger said.

"I’m sorry for that. Sometimes people mean well but don’t execute well."

"I think Deputy Dawg would have been glad to execute me if you had given the okay. So what do you want?"

"Would you be able to meet with me tomorrow?" Belton asked. Digger had a feeling the man was trying to hold his anger under control.

"What time?"

"Noon at the plant."

"I can’t make noon," Digger said perversely. "Eleven-thirty or twelve-thirty would be better. If it’s eleven-thirty, I can only give you a half-hour."

"Twelve-thirty then," Belton said. "The security guard will show you to my office."

"All right. Is that all?" Digger asked.

"Yes."

Digger hung up.

Marla Manning did four sets and by the time she finished the last, she was very drunk.

Vernon Gillette had been the second great love of her life. When she’d found out that he had died—she read it in the paper—she went on a solitary binge, drinking in her home for three days.

"When’d you see him last?" Digger had asked.

"I don’t remember. Before he died," she said. "If only…"

"If only what?" Digger asked.

She shrugged.

She had not gone to the funeral. She didn’t want to see Louise Gillette, couldn’t stand the thought of another woman weeping for her Vern.

As they left the Orleans, Marla held tightly to Digger’s arm, a grip more frantic than friendly and required by her obvious inability to walk very well.

"My car’s over here," Digger said.

"’s all right," she said. "I just live across the street. No car. Unless you going to park in my living room." She giggled.

"Okay. I’ll walk you over," Digger said.

"Everybody walks me over," she said. "That’s not what I mean. Mean men walk over me. All my life. They walk over me and then they die on me."

"I won’t," Digger said. He helped her up the steps of the small house and waited while she fumbled for her key.

"You’re coming in for coffee," she said.

"Well, I…"

"Walt, you’re coming in for coffee. What are friends for if they don’t have coffee? Anyway, you can’t drive in that condition. You’re too blurry already." She giggled again.

Marla led him into her living room, a heavy leaden room decorated around a grand piano and a lot of plants that seemed to be on the verge of death.

"I gotta go tinkle," she said.

"I’ll make the coffee," Digger said. He was glad the bathroom was on the first floor because he wouldn’t have trusted her trying to find her way up a flight of steps.

He put a saucepan of water on the stove to boil, and found instant coffee in a cupboard over the built-in wall oven. He used the lid of the coffee jar as a spoon to put some coffee into two clean cups he found on the sink.

When Marla came back into the kitchen, Digger was standing by the stove, counting.

"Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen…"

"What are you doing?"

"I’m giving that water twenty more seconds to boil. If it doesn’t, I’m using it anyway."

"That’s stupid," she said.

"The hell it is," Digger said. "I always do that. You’ve just got to make up your mind who’s running things. You or water. Twelve, eleven, ten, nine…"

"This way you get cold coffee."

"Sometimes," Digger admitted. "But you don’t get high blood pressure from being frustrated by water."

"Get out of my kitchen. I’ll make the coffee."

They sat on her couch sipping their coffee. Marla had her head on Digger’s shoulder; his arm was draped loosely around her. But instead of sobering her up, the coffee seemed to make her more drunk.

She turned her head and said to Digger, "You’re spending the night, aren’t you?"

"If you want," he said.

"I want." She reached up and pulled his hand down around her shoulder and into the top of her dress, then pressed it with her own hand against her opulent breast.

Three minutes later she was asleep and Digger extricated himself from her, arranged her on the couch, put a pillow under her head and covered her with a handmade afghan he found draped across the back of a chair.

He sipped her coffee. She had laced it with brandy. In the kitchen, he washed out both cups, then turned out the lights and let himself out of the house.

He had taken advantage of her enough already tonight.

Chapter Ten

DIGGER’S LOG:

Tape Recording Number Three, 3:30, Saturday A and M, Julian Burroughs in the matter of Vernon Gillette and his wife, Casey Jones.

If anybody asks me what college I went to, from now on I’m going to tell them I went to Saturday A and M. I never get a good night’s sleep. I think that this is what is really wrong with me. I’m always tired. If that’s so, why can’t I fall asleep when I try to?

All right, Marla Manning was Vern Gillette’s little piece on the side. I like him better already because it’s nice, first of all, to know that Superman had a hole in his sock, and, second, that he had some taste. Marla is all right and Vern couldn’t be that bad because she fell in love with him and she didn’t fall in love with me, and women always fall in love with me. I don’t think she fell in love with me.

I’ve got to thank that simp, Cody Lord, for sending me to Orleans. Of course it was him. Who else knew that I might have some interest in a Vernon Gillette girl friend. How like him to do it anonymously. But if he thought it was going to nail down the murder theory, he’s wrong. I don’t pick Marla as a murderer. But there were those two unmade beds in the cabin. Was Marla in one of them? I couldn’t find out. Not yet, anyway.

I’ve got to remember now, she thinks my name is Walt Brackler. Why do I do that? It’s strange how in moments of psychological stress, I take refuge in my insanity.

Marla is, in fits and starts, on Tapes Three and Four, now added to my permanent library of nice people who have known me.

She said something interesting, that Gillette had started out cozy and warm with Lucius Belton and then their relationship cooled. I’ve got to ask The Old Man about that today in, God, nine more hours when I meet with him.

Expenses since the last time I lied. Sixty dollars for drinks with Marla Manning. Why do I always meet women who drink?

And why didn’t Koko call?

Chapter Eleven

As Digger got out of his car in the almost-empty parking lot of Lucius Belton and Sons, a uniformed guard approached him.

"Mr. Burroughs," he said.

"Yes."

"Would you follow me?"

"Sure. How’d you know it was me?"

"I had your license plate numbers. They checked."

Sure, they had his license plate, Digger thought. And probably his age, weight, school records, dental charts and personal habits. Lucius Belton didn’t go places in half steps.

"In the name of Lucius, the Sons and the Belton Works, amen," Digger muttered.

Inside a low building set back from the parking lot, Digger was handed over to a well-dressed young man with "executive assistant" stamped all over him.

"Burroughs?" the man said. His smile was all teeth and his clothes all neat creases.

"Good guess," Digger said.

"You’re expected. I’m Johnson, Mr. Belton’s assistant."

"Of course you are."

"Please follow me." He led the way down a long hall lined with expensive ugly oil paintings of rich, ugly men. Were these the Beltons?

"These paintings," Digger said.

"Yes, sir?" said Johnson, stopping short.

"It looks like a set for a Vincent Price movie."

Johnson cleared his throat. "You seem to have an active sense of humor," he said.

"I’m actually a stand-up comic," Digger said. "I’m only working for the insurance company on the side until my career takes off."

"I see," said Johnson seriously. "Actually Mr. Belton is not keen on active senses of humor. You might think about keeping yours in check while you are in the presence."

"The presence"? Did he really say that, Digger wondered.

"Of course," Digger said. "Somber will be the order of the day. I can really do somber. Once you learn to fake sincerity, everything else is easy. But you would know that, wouldn’t you?"

Johnson led him past a secretary with no redeeming qualities and tapped lightly on a heavy oak door. He opened the door and said, "Mr. Burroughs, sir," then stood aside so Digger could enter. When Digger was inside the room, the door closed silently behind him.

Lucius Belton was sitting behind a desk between two banks of long windows in the far corner of the room. He was absolutely bald, but it was not the bald head of someone who shaved his scalp under the mistaken impression that it made him look better. Belton’s baldness had the look of being caused by terminal eczema. His face was fleshless, almost as if skin had been stretched drum-head tight over his skull. His nose was a large, sharp protrusion from between sunken cheeks, and his thin lips were exactly the same pasty color as the rest of his face. His eyes were pale and watery inside deep sockets, and when his lips drew back to speak, Digger could see that he had long, narrow, yellowed teeth with spaces between them. Digger could not remember ever seeing anything or anyone uglier, outside of something kept in a jar on a laboratory shelf.

Belton stood up when Digger approached the desk. He moved stiffly, as if his spinal column were made of glass and he had to be extra careful not to chip it.

Through his shirt, Digger turned on his tape recorder.

"Good to see you, Burroughs," Belton said in that thin, high-pitched snarl of a voice.

"I’m glad you’re happy," Digger said. "Does this mean you won’t try to have me arrested again?"

"Sit down," Belton said and pointed to a chair. He made no effort to shake hands, and as Digger sat down, he looked around the room. The walls were devoid of all decoration. They were dark, dead oak, much like their inhabitant, Digger thought.

"I already apologized for the zealousness of Deputy Harker," Belton said sharply. "I only apologize once."

"That must make it tough on the world if you fuck up twice," Digger said.

Belton cleared his throat. Just like his executive assistant, Digger thought. Maybe everybody in Belton, PA, cleared their throats a lot. Living on soot might make it an essential survival skill. Not that there was any soot inside this office. Digger felt the chill of built-in air conditioning pumping clean, cold air into the office.

"You have been asking questions about the death of my friend and employee, Vernon Gillette," Belton said.

"That is correct."

"Do you mind if I ask why?"

"Do you mind if I don’t answer?" Digger said.

"Why is that?"

"My business is between Mrs. Gillette and my insurance company. I don’t see that you have any involvement in it at all," Digger said.

"I paid the premiums on that insurance," Belton said. He seemed suddenly to realize he was still standing behind his desk, holding on to it tightly with blue-tinged fingers, and he sat down slowly. "I think I have a right to make sure that your insurance company is acting properly."

Digger thought about that for a moment and thought also that he wanted Lucius Belton to talk, so he nodded and said, "Perhaps you’re right about that."

Belton nodded back, as if to say, yes, of course, he was right; he was always right, and it was the shame of lesser human beings that they didn’t always seem to understand that point.