"Is he following you?" Digger asked.
"No."
"Good." Digger sat up and peeked out the rear window. There were no cars behind them.
"Okay," he said. "When you get over this hill, pull off and stop. I’ll drive."
"Why you? You always get lost," she said.
"Because you drive like a goddamn kamikaze and I’m not ready yet to drive into a battleship’s smokestack."
"You’re a pain in the ass, Digger."
"Yes, I am. Pull over."
"What is this place?" Koko asked.
"It’s a motel. What does it look like?"
"It looks like a goddamn chicken barn," Koko said. "What are we doing here?"
"Just wait here a minute," Digger said as he got out of Gus LaGrande’s car.
He was back in a few minutes.
"We’re in luck," he said. "It’s in the back."
"What’s in the back?"
"You’ll see."
"If I wanted to stay in rooms like this," Koko said, "I could start turning tricks in Times Square."
"Don’t exaggerate. It’s not that bad. Look. You’ve even got a free newspaper, courtesy of the management."
"Not bad, huh? And I bet you can’t beat the price either. You know what’s wrong with you, Digger?"
"I’m sure you’ll tell me," he said.
"You’re just like your mother."
"That’s a foul accusation," Digger said.
"She buys your father’s ties at Tie City and she buys paper plates at Paper City. Your father’s shoes come from Shoe City. If she had to have surgery done, she’d have it done at Knife City. Just as long as it’s cheap. You’re the same way. Look at this place. Motel City. I left my mother’s beautiful house to come see you and you want me to stay in this dump."
"It has its charms," Digger said.
"Name one."
"Nobody will shoot at you here," he said.
She looked at him for three long seconds, then draped her arms over his shoulders.
"Oh, Dig. That’s what this is all about?"
"Yes, ma’am."
"Oh, Dig."
"I ain’t letting you get killed until I get me some Oriental nookie," he said.
"You had to go and spoil a tender moment, didn’t you?" she said.
"You know me. Bad Joke City," he said.
He left Koko hunkered down with his tapes and tape recorder and the complimentary motel copy of the Belton Bulletin. At a phone booth in a gas station he called Gus LaGrande.
"Any calls?" he asked.
"Yes. Louise called. She wants you to call her. Do you know her? That’s the only name she’d give—just Louise."
"Yeah, I know her. No other calls?"
"No. Do you mind if I ask, how many women do you know in this town? Is there any broad you don’t know?"
"Women are the custodians of the world’s secrets," Digger said. "He who would be wise would cultivate women."
"That’s too deep for me."
"Try this," Digger said. "If Dolly with the big tits comes in, hold her there for me."
Digger dialed Louise Gillette’s number. When she answered, she wasted no time in pleasantry.
"Mr. Burroughs, I agree with you. I think my husband was murdered."
"Did something happen to change your mind?" he asked.
"I drove up to the campsite with Cody. I looked at the electricity and I saw the bullet holes near the door where somebody shot at you. Until I saw that, I think I believed you were lying."
"I wasn’t."
"And then Ardath told me about the window in your car, and how Lem Harker was driving by, looking it over."
"One of the bullets got that," Digger said.
"Mr. Burroughs, I want you to find the killer. I’ll retain your services for whatever it costs."
"You’re already paying enough," Digger said. "Double indemnity doesn’t apply in cases of murder. If we’re right, your insurance is only worth five hundred thousand."
"I don’t give a damn if it’s worth only six cents. I don’t need the money. I want my husband’s killer."
"All right," Digger said. "Who called you today and convinced you to take the million?"
"Lucius Belton," she said immediately.
"How’d he get you to change your mind?"
"Oh, well," she said with a sigh, "I’m sure you’d find out sooner or later."
"Yes, I would," Digger said.
"He told me any investigation into Vern’s death wouldn’t turn up anything except the fact that Vern was having affairs with a number of women." She paused a moment. "Belton used me, Mr. Burroughs. He knew how protective I was of Vern’s reputation."
"It sounds like it," Digger said.
"I hate being used," she said. "Do you think he had anything to do with Vern’s death?"
"I don’t know. I don’t have a motive for him," Digger said.
"Find out. Mr. Burroughs?"
"Yes."
"Was my husband having an affair?"
"Yes."
"With whom?" she asked.
"Nobody you know," Digger said.
"I’ll let that stand for now. If there’s anything you want me to do, let me know."
"I will," Digger said.
Marla Manning winked and nodded to Digger when he walked by the piano. When her set was over, she joined him at a small table in the back of the Orleans jazz club.
"Hiya, Walt," she said. "I guess I ought to thank you for getting me across the road last night. I was ripped out of my gourd."
"Right and wrong," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Right, you were ripped. Wrong. My name’s not Walt."
She pushed her chair back a little from the table.
"Oh?"
"No, my name is Julian Burroughs, and I’m in town investigating the murder of Vern Gillette."
"Murder? What…?"
"No, Marla, it won’t work," Digger said. "You know more than you’ve been telling me and that gig’s over now. You can tell me and I can clean this up and keep you out of it, or you can let me turn everything over to the state cops and you can tell them all about it."
"What am I supposed to know?" she asked.
"I know you were up in the cabin with Gillette the night he got killed."
"How do you know that?" she asked.
The trouble was Digger didn’t know. He suspected but he didn’t know. He decided to run a bluff. He pushed his chair back and started to his feet.
"Sorry, Marla. We don’t have anything more to talk about. You can tell it to the cops."
She leaned forward and grabbed his sleeve.
"Sit down, dammit," she said.
"To listen to more of your bullshit?" he said. "No thanks."
"Sit down. Please."
Digger sat down, but perched on the edge of the chair as if ready to leave as soon as he could.
"Okay, I was up there," she said.
"I know," he said. "Now tell me about it. And don’t leave anything out."
"All right. That night. When I got done work here, I drove up. Vern invited me that day. He said he was going to be alone, so I went up."
"And the two of you made it. Then what happened?"
"We went to sleep. There were just those two shaky little cots, so we slept separate. I guess we just fell asleep and we heard a noise like somebody outside. Vern was afraid. He thought it was his wife snooping on him."
"Then what happened?" Digger asked.
"I got my clothes on real fast in the dark and I got out of there," Marla said.
"Did you see anybody?"
"No. We didn’t put any lights on so I could get out of there without being seen. Vern walked with me to the car. I cut out and he was going back to the cabin. I don’t know." Marla buried her head in her hands. "I don’t know. I’ve thought about it a hundred times since then. I think I heard a voice and then I heard a thud. I’m not sure."
"You didn’t stop to see?" Digger said
.
"No. Vern wanted me out of there, so I got out of there." She looked up at Digger and said, "That’s it. That’s all of it."
And he knew she was lying.
"That’s not quite all of it," he said.
"What are you talking about?"
He started to rise again. "Tell it to the cops. I’ve got no time for this crap."
"Sit down," she said. "What’d you say your name was?"
"Julian Burroughs. My friends call me Digger."
"Then you don’t hear that name much," she said. "You’re a heartless bastard."
"Don’t forget it," Digger said.
"All right. There was one other thing."
"I’m waiting," he said.
"I raced like hell down to the bottom of that road to get out of there. When I turned the corner, I saw a cop’s car parked alongside the main road. I was scared now and worried about Vern. I didn’t know what to do, but I stopped my car and I walked over to the cop’s car."
"And there wasn’t anybody in it," Digger said.
"How did you know?" she asked.
"Never mind. Then what’d you do?"
"I went home. I didn’t hear anything until I read in Monday’s paper that Vern died."
"And you didn’t tell the cops?" Digger asked.
"What was to tell? I didn’t see anything. I didn’t really know anything."
"You saw the cop’s car," Digger reminded her.
"What does that mean? It didn’t mean anything. Maybe he had a flat. I didn’t stay around long enough to find out. Maybe he was taking a leak in the woods."
"And you just let it go at that?" Digger said.
"Yes. Would you have done differently?"
"I don’t know," Digger said.
She paused and said, "Was Vern really murdered?"
"Yes," he said.
"By a cop?"
"I don’t know. Think back. When you were in the cabin, was there a rug on the floor between the beds?"
"A rug. I don’t know."
"Think," he said. "When you got out of bed in a hurry, were your feet cold from the floor? Were you standing on a rug?"
She thought. "No," she said finally, "there wasn’t any rug. Is that important?"
"It is to me. I do home decorating on the side. Maybe I can sell them some rugs for the cabin."
"You’re not funny."
"Try this," Digger said. "Did the lamp in the cabin work? The little one between the beds?"
"Yes. What’s that about?"
"You don’t need to know," Digger said.
"You know," she said, "I really loved Vern."
"It didn’t help him much. He’s still dead and his killer’s still loose."
"You’re a bastard," she said.
"Only to my friends."
The police car was gone from the entrance to Gus’s LaGrande when Digger turned up the long curving driveway to the inn. Dolly smiled at him when she saw him walk into the bar. She was still wearing a little heavier makeup to cover the bruise near her left eye, but with her medium-brown hair she looked half a world away from the platinum sexpot who waited tables at Eddie’s.
He sat next to her and she was happy to see him; she had thought she might not see him again and that would have been awful, and how was his day?
"I’ve had better," Digger said. Without being asked, Gus put vodka on the bar in front of him and nodded a conspirator’s greeting.
"Listen, Dolly," Digger said, "let’s take our drinks with us. I’ve got something to show you upstairs."
She whispered in his ear, "I hope so."
In his room they sat at the small dining table.
"Let’s talk," he said.
"I was hoping you had something else in mind," she said.
"Really talk," Digger said coldly. Something in his voice must have startled her because she said, "I don’t know if I like you like this."
"I get worse. Something about being shot at sours my disposition."
"Shot at?" The surprise in her eyes was genuine, Digger thought.
"Today. Up at the cabin. Somebody tried to make me into wallpaper," Digger said.
"Oh."
"And nobody but you knew I was going up there," he said.
"I didn’t—"
"I know you didn’t," he said. "But the person you told about me did. It was Harker, wasn’t it?"
"I…"
"Harker," Digger repeated. "He was the one who gave you that black eye, wasn’t he? When he found out you and I were up here playing house the other night. You think he wouldn’t shoot at me?"
"I guess he would. He’s jealous as a house dog," she said.
"You didn’t know he was going to try to kill me, did you?"
She shook her head from side to side. "After I met you the other day, I told Lem about it. He wanted me to keep an eye on you. That’s why I came up here, but when I told him about it later, he knew that…well, we had slept together. That’s when he hit me. Today…" She shrugged. "I called him when you left the restaurant. What’s going on?"
Digger ignored the question. "What’s Harker’s relationship with Lucius Belton?"
"He’s close to Belton. Sometimes he fills in for his chauffeur, and sometimes he’s like his bodyguard when Belton’s going out of town. What’s this all about?"
"I was wondering how Harker knew so much about me so soon," Digger said. "I didn’t figure it out until today when I found out his name was Lem. I remembered seeing it on your wristwatch. Where’s Harker now?"
"He’s waiting for me at my house," she said. "What should I do? I don’t want to get involved in any shooting."
"You go home now. Tell him as much as you want. It’s up to you," Digger said. "And give him a message for me."
"What’s that?"
"Tell him he shouldn’t have missed today. Because now I’m going to get him."
Koko was asleep. Digger’s tape recorder and the gold-frog microphone were on the table, and propped against them was a note. "Play the recorder," it said.
Digger turned down the volume control and pressed the recorder’s "on" button. Koko’s soft voice spilled from the machine:
"I don’t know if it annoys me more knowing you are out tupping some woman or having to listen to their insipid voices on this stupid machine. You should be lucky that you’ve got me because everybody else you deal with is a loser.
"Anyway, I listened to all these jerk-off tapes. You should talk to Dolly. Remember her? She’s the one with the pneumatic jugs that you picked up in some disgusting saloon.
"If it wasn’t Cody Lord or somebody connected with him that went up the cabin to peg shots at you, it was Dolly or somebody she told. Who else knew? Check her out, but not too carefully. I know you’ve already sampled the goods and once ought to be enough. Why are you so nuts about knockers, anyway?
"Oh, yes, don’t bother me when you get in bed. I’ve got my period. I think I will have it for the next year. Go to hell, you half-breed bastard."
The voice stopped and Digger turned the tape off.
Chapter Seventeen
DIGGER’S LOG:
Tape Recording Number Five, 2:00 A.M. Sunday, recorded in the lap of luxury at the mammoth recording studios of Motel City, Julian Burroughs in the matter of Vernon Gillette.
No new tapes for the master file. Against my better judgment, I left my tape recorder here with Koko, and she listened to all my tapes and now she’s mad at me. She’s sleeping, but she made it plain that she is jealous of the women I meet at work. She’s just lucky I don’t work in BSLI’s main office. If you want to talk about women, there are women. There are so many women that sometimes one of them will even look longingly at Walter Brackler. Jealous? Hah! What about Hungo Stockyarder? How quickly the woman forgets.
Anyway, what interesting things have happened since last time? That goddamn gorilla cop was staking out Gus’s, and I wonder what would have happened if he had found me. That’s why we’re here, and I’m going to double-bill the
company for two rooms. It’s bad enough he shoots at me ’cause nobody cares, but if he shoots at Koko, he’s going to have ten thousand samurai relatives of hers wrapping bandannas around their heads and taking their swords out of the closet and coming up here to chop him into stir-fried cop. Led by me.
All right. He shot at me. And a cop’s car was near the cabin the night Gillette got killed. And Lem Harker is Lucifer Belton’s stooge. I would make book right now on Harker killing Gillette at Belton’s orders, but, please God, would somebody tell me why? Koko was right. Dolly sicced him on me.
Can you imagine Louise Gillette still wondering, after her husband’s dead six months, whether he was having an affair or not? What does it matter if he was banging everybody in western Pennsylvania who managed to escape Hugo whatever-his-name-is? But women like to know things like that just so they can make their lives miserable. It’s very strange.
At least, Gillette went out with a bang. But Marla said there wasn’t any rug on the floor in front of the beds. That means it was probably put there to hide those burn marks. Why? And the lamp worked.
I’ll think about all this tomorrow.
Expenses. Sending a cab to pick up Koko, fifteen dollars round trip. A hundred to Gus LaGrande to rent his car. Fifty dollars for miscellaneous drinks with various witnesses. Forty dollars for this room. Total, two hundred and five.
I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow. I’m dead-ended, I think, and maybe I’ll just pack it all in and leave here and let the home office give everything to the state police and let them figure it out. I don’t want to be shot at again.
Me or Koko.
Chapter Eighteen
Digger undressed and went to bed. As he smoked a cigarette in the dark room, he decided that Dolly had probably told Harker what Digger had said. And there was a chance that Harker was now prowling the dark streets of Belton, like a vampire bat, looking for Digger. He might spot and recognize Gus LaGrande’s car. So Digger decided he would stay awake all night in case the lunatic found them and came bursting into Digger’s room. He would protect Koko at all costs.
He was very proud of this decision and thought of it a lot until he fell asleep five minutes after putting out his cigarette.
Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Page 14
