Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Lucifer’s Weekend (Digger #4)
Warren Murphy
Copyright © 1982 by Warren Murphy
Published by E-Reads. All rights reserved.
www.ereads.com
For Ed and Christine,
Bob and Anna and Billy
and Karen. Friends.
LOCAL MAN DIES IN MISHAP
BELTON, PENNSYLVANIA—Vernon Gillette, an electronics and planning specialist with Belton and Sons Industries, was discovered dead yesterday morning in a small hunting cabin in the north hill section on the outskirts of the town of Belton.
Police said that Gillette was apparently electrocuted while working on the cabin’s electrical system. He had been at the cabin to hunt deer. In the cabin, which is owned by Belton and Sons for the use of their employees, police said they found an electrical fuse next to Gillette’s hand. The man’s body was lying on the floor in the bathroom.
Gillette, 41, was a native of California and was educated at U.C.L.A. Considered a specialist in the design and operation of electronic information systems, Gillette had several college degrees, including those in electrical engineering and computer systems science. He worked in New York until two years ago, when he moved to Belton to join Belton and Sons.
Gillette is survived by his wife, the former Louise Randisi, and their 8-year-old daughter, Ardath.
Chapter One
"Digger, you have done some disgusting things to me in your life, but this is low, even for you." Walter Brackler looked nervously over his shoulder toward the crowded dance floor.
"What’s the matter with dancing?" Digger asked. "I love to see people dancing. I think they’re kind of graceful."
"They’re men dancing," Brackler said. "With each other." He leaned forward. "It’s a fag bar, Digger. A fag bar," he whispered angrily, before sitting up straight and glancing over his shoulder again.
Julian Burroughs shook his head. "No, no," he said. "It’s a ‘gay’ bar, not a fag bar."
"What’s the difference?"
"Fourteen leather jackets and twenty pounds of chains," Digger said. "Seventy-eight key rings, ninety-seven switchblade knives and fourteen thousand arrests for loitering."
"I should have known," Brackler said glumly. "When I got here, I looked at the outside of this place and I said to myself, Julian Burroughs is getting mellower. Usually, I have to meet you in these terrible grungy places, but this place looked clean. I thought, maybe Digger will not be on the snot today. Maybe we will transact our business like real human beings and I will leave this place not hating him. Not a chance. You are a despicable human being."
"If you play your cards right, I can fix you up," Digger said. He drained his glass of vodka and waved toward the waiter for another round.
"None for me," Brackler said. "Who knows what they do with the glasses when the customers aren’t looking?"
"Wash them, I suspect," Digger said. "So what’s on your mind?"
"And the music is awful, too," Brackler said.
"You’re not into Marlene Dietrich impersonations?"
"So loud? Does it have to be so loud?"
"If it weren’t loud, you wouldn’t be able to hear it over the panting and slurping," Digger said.
"Disgusting. This is absolutely the last time I meet you anyplace except in the offices of Brokers Surety Life Insurance Company. That is my last fucking word on the subject," Brackler said.
"This place has Finlandia vodka," Digger said.
"Who gives a shit?" Brackler said.
"I’m sorry you’re so offended," Digger said. "I thought you knew it was a gay bar."
"How would I know that?" Brackler asked.
"By the name. Danny’s. Give me a bar named Danny’s and two times out of three, it’s a gay bar. That’s a proven fact. I thought you knew that. I thought everybody knew that."
"I don’t have your deep knowledge of the seamy underside of life," Brackler said. He saw the waiter returning, mincing across the floor with a drink tray in his hand, so he turned slightly in his chair, then pressed closer to the wall. The waiter set two drinks on the table and removed the empties. He smiled at Digger, then at Brackler, before turning away.
"He thinks you’re the cutest little thing," Digger told Brackler.
"Work, right? Here. Read this." Brackler took a newspaper clipping from his inside jacket pocket and handed it to Digger, who unfolded it and lay it flat in his left palm to read, while raising his glass of vodka to his lips with his right hand.
Digger glanced off to the right and saw their waiter staring at their table. He was struck by how much the waiter reminded him of a younger Walter Brackler. Both were barely five feet tall, small boned and delicate. Except the waiter was friendlier. Everybody was friendlier to Digger than Walter Brackler.
"The clipping, Digger," Brackler said.
Digger’s eyes flickered down to the paper for a few seconds, then back up to meet Brackler’s.
"All right, so Vernon Gillette died in an electrical accident. I take it he was insured by ’your company," Digger said.
"Our company as long as you live off our paychecks," Brackler said. "Yes, that’s correct."
"A large policy," Digger said.
"Correct again."
"And you want me to go up there and prove it was suicide so that you don’t have to pay, you cheap bastards," Digger said. "Or is it we cheap bastards?"
"Wrong," Brackler said. "We want to pay."
Digger clapped both hands to his chest. "I don’t know if my heart can stand the strain." He looked up to the ceiling. Small light bulbs embedded in the blue stucco ceiling twinkled, like stars in a nighttime sky. But there were six crescent moons on the ceiling. What kind of sky had six moons? Maybe homosexual heaven would have a moon for everybody.
"Try to bear up while I explain it to you," Brackler said.
"All right, but no more sudden shocks," Digger said.
"Vernon Gillette had a large policy with us. A half a million dollars, paid for by Belton and Sons. Of course, it is double that for an accidental death."
"So you owe Mrs. Gillette a million dollars," Digger said.
"Your mathematics are, as ever, impeccable," Brackler said.
"So pay up," Digger said. He shook his head. "I don’t understand you insurance people. Insurance is a gamble. It’s like a game and you’re the casino. When people live, you win, and when they die, you lose. And you win some and you lose some, but the casino always wins in the long run and you guys always get your tenor twenty-or eighty-percent profit or whatever it is you’re gouging out of your victims right now. So why is it that you hate to pay off ever? That you want to win every hand? What’s wrong with you people? God, I hate insurance men."
"I love it when you jump to conclusions," Brackler said, "because it shows how narrow-minded and anti-establishment you truly are. The fact, Mr. Julian Burroughs, social critic extraordinary, is that we want to pay. We want to pay Mrs. Gillette one million dollars."
"Damn it, Kwash, that’s wonde
rful," Digger said. "Just for that, I’m going to buy you another drink."
"I told you I won’t drink out of their glasses," Brackler said. "I haven’t even touched this one."
"I’ll buy you your own bottle. You can drink right out of the bottle. There’s not much they can do with a bottle. At least a full one," Digger said.
"I’ll pass. Let’s just conclude our business so I can get out of here," Brackler said.
"All right," Digger said. He cleared his throat, sat up straight in his chair and folded his hands on the table in front of him like an attentive schoolboy. "Tell me how your willingness to pay somebody a million dollars is any business of mine. Tell me how this guy’s accident is any business of mine. Tell me what we’re doing here."
"We want to pay the million, but the dead guy’s wife…"He snatched the clipping off the table and looked at it again. "…This Mrs. Gillette won’t let us. She says that it’s insulting to her husband’s memory to suggest that he was so stupid that he’d electrocute himself changing a fuse or something. She says he was an electrical genius and he couldn’t possibly die that way. Her words, not mine."
"A noble woman," Digger said. He raised his glass in a toast. "If you went right now to my ex-wife’s house and told her that I died by driving carpet tacks into my own skull with a sledgehammer, she’d believe you. This Mrs. Gillette’s quite a lady."
"She’s a gone job," said Brackler, "but that’s not here or there. She says that her husband must have died of a heart attack. She won’t take a penny more than five hundred thousand dollars."
"So pay her the five hundred thou," Digger said. "You and I can split the rest. We’ll buy this place—every place named Danny’s is for sale—and we’ll turn it into a hairdressing salon. You can handle the gay trade, I’ll take care of the women. What do you say?"
Brackler expressed his opinion with a silent stare, cold enough to kill death. Digger said, "Okay, we’ll cut Frank Stevens in for some. Not that he needs it. I mean, he’s the president of BSLI and he can steal all he wants without stealing from what you and I steal, but if you want to cut him in ’cause he’s the boss, all right."
"This is serious," Brackler said.
"So pay the lady, Kwash. What do you want from me? Hand her the check myself? There’s a guy over there making eyes at you."
Brackler carefully did not turn around to look. "Which one?" he asked.
"The one that looks like a walking tattoo parlor. With the leather dog collar around his neck."
"Oh, my God," Brackler said. "I’ve got to get out of here."
"Business, first," Digger said. "How quick you people are to forget what’s important. What do you want from me?"
"We can’t pay her just the five hundred thou when she’s due a million. She might turn around later and sue us for our shirts," Brackler said.
"So you want me to go out there, to Belton… where the Jesus is Belton, what state?"
"Pennsylvania."
"So you want me to go to Belton, PA, and convince this dingdong to take an extra half a million dollars."
"Exactly," Brackler said.
Digger drained his glass of vodka. "Not a chance," he said.
"Why not?"
"First of all, where’s Belton, PA?"
"It’s about fifty miles north of Pittsburgh," Brackler said.
"That’s one reason," Digger said. "I’m not flying into Pittsburgh. Not now, not ever. Not even for you."
"Do you mind telling me what you have against Pittsburgh?"
"I don’t have anything against Pittsburgh. It’s that goddamn airport in Pittsburgh. You know how in airports things are nice and they have pretty little signs and they say rest room this way or rest room that way?"
"I suppose so," Brackler said cautiously.
"Well, in Pittsburgh Airport, they’ve got these big blue-and-white signs and they say toilet. That’s tacky. It’s like having some guy scream over the loudspeaker, ‘This way to the crapper.’"
"That’s ridiculous," Brackler said.
"Tell the people who run Pittsburgh Airport," Digger said, "not me. And another thing. Everybody in Pittsburgh Airport wears a cowboy hat. It looks like the freaking O.K. Corral. I always figure I’m gonna get involved in a goddamn gunfight. What’s that old song? ‘Red, white and blue.’ Red-neck, white socks and Blue Ribbon beer. No thank you, you go to Pittsburgh."
"You can drive," Brackler said. "Skip the airport. The company will rent a car for you."
"You know how long a drive it is?" Digger asked.
"Yes. It’s three hundred ninety-seven miles, one way."
"Which means you had somebody else drive out there," Digger said.
"That’s right."
"And?" Digger asked.
"This Mrs. Gillette’s elevator does not go to the top floor," Brackler said. "Only you can talk to her."
"She’s a loony tune and I don’t deal with loony tunes," Digger said. "Present company excepted, of course. That’s reason two. Although the Pittsburgh Airport ought to be enough by itself for anybody."
"Digger, you work for me," Brackler said.
"Not really, Kwash. I work for Old Benevolent and Saintly. Occasionally. I was hired by Frank Stevens, our noble president. I guess if I work for anybody, it’s for him. Scratch me. Send out another one of your army of assistants, with perfect teeth and wonderful table manners. They sell insurance, they ought to be able to sell Mrs. Gillette on taking another half a million dollars. Hell, if you can sell insurance, you can get anybody to do anything."
Brackler smiled slightly, a narrow little smile that barely touched the corners of his lips and left his eyes inviolate. Digger didn’t know what obsidian was, but he knew he was looking into obsidian eyes.
"Frank Stevens himself said that this was a job for you," Brackler said smugly. "The president of Old Benevolent and Saintly, as you like to call it."
"Balls," Digger said in disgust. He waved to the waiter for another drink. "Maybe you misunderstood him. What did he say exactly?"
"He said that if anyone could convince that crazy broad to take an extra five hundred thousand dollars, it would be that crazy Irish bastard. That’s a direct quotation."
"Maybe he meant somebody else," Digger said. "I’m only half Irish. I’m half Jewish too, you know."
"He meant you. The word ‘crazy’ left no doubt about it. So I will tell him you’re going to get right on it?"
"Come on, Kwash, cut me a break. This isn’t the kind of work I do. Give me natural deaths that are really murders. Give me homicidal maniacs. People killing people for insurance money. Not this. I don’t do charm all that well."
This time Brackler’s smile reached his eyes and beyond that, his hairline. "But Mr. Stevens specified that you should go."
"Oh, this gives you great pleasure, doesn’t it?" Digger said. "Watching me squirm? Well, I’ll squirm. I’ll beg and plead. Kwash, don’t send me to Belton, PA. No one’s ever gone to Belton, PA, and been heard of again. I’m begging you."
"Go," said Brackler.
"You want me to crawl? I’ll crawl." Digger stood up from the table. He was six feet three and casually dressed in a sports jacket and slacks. Somehow, they looked rumpled on him. "I’ll crawl. I’ll get on my knees and beg." He looked around. "Well, if I get on my knees, I may never get out of this place. Imagine I’m begging."
"You’re going to Belton to see Mrs. Gillette," Brackler said.
"I’m going to do it, Kwash," said Digger. "But only as a favor to you. You owe me one and I want you to remember it when I come in the middle of the night for your firstborn."
"Do it for whatever reason you want. Just do it," Brackler said. He handed Digger a manila envelope. "Everything is in here. Keep in touch. And will you please sit down? People are staring at you."
Digger looked around slowly at the crowded cocktail lounge. "They’re looking at me," he told Brackler, "but only because they figure they can use me to get close to you." He sat down. "Kwash, you’d be a
star in this place. Everybody wants what passes for your body."
"I’m getting out of here," Brackler said. "Stay in touch with me."
"I will," Digger said. "I’m going to mail my reports here to Danny’s. They’ll hold them until you come to pick them up."
"A telephone call will suffice," Brackler said.
"How’d you ever get to be a vice-president anyway?" Digger asked.
"Working hard, staying honest, doing my best, not rocking the boat. You might try those things, Burroughs."
"On the whole, I’d rather be in Belton, PA," Digger said.
He watched Brackler walk quickly toward the front door, a precise little man in a precise little suit with a precise little haircut and a precise little mind.
The waiter returned with Digger’s fresh vodka.
"Your friend left?" he said. He sounded sad.
"Yes," Digger said.
"He seemed like a nice man."
"He is," Digger said. "But he’s not into the bar scene. I’ll tell you, though, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. He was wondering if you and he could… well, you know, maybe meet sometime outside of here."
"Sure, we could," the waiter said.
Digger pulled a business card from his pocket and wrote on the back of it.
"Here," he said. "Here’s his name and address. Walt Brackler. Give him a call. He’d really like to hear from you. He’d really like to be open, out in the life like us, but, well, you know, it comes hard for some people."
The waiter pocketed the card and nodded. "I’ll be sure to call him," he said. Then he graced Digger with a smile. "But that still leaves tonight," he said. "You know, your friend’s small and I like that, but I like big men too. Big, tall, blond men." He reached his hand tentatively toward Digger’s hair.
Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Page 1
