Dead Letter (Digger)

by Warren Murphy

  When Digger walked by him, he said, "Hey, wait. Where you going?"

  "Stevens’s room. A friend of the family," Digger said.

  "She ain’t up there."

  "Where is she?"

  "I don’t know," the student said.

  "How do you know she’s not up there?"

  "I ain’t seen nobody around here today."

  "Don’t you know that Negative Double causes Trouble?" Digger said. "I’ll check for myself. I’ve come three thousand miles just to see her."

  He went upstairs and banged for a while on the doors of Allie’s and Gilligan’s rooms, but there was no answer.

  Where the hell had they gone? After he had told them to stay in the hotel.

  Music roared from behind a closed door at the far end of the hall and Digger walked over to it. The door was slightly ajar and Digger pushed it open and looked inside. It was like looking inside a diseased mouth.

  The room was dark, with drapes tightly drawn. The walls of the room were pink and the drapes were purple. The main item of furniture was an overstuffed sofa bed, covered with a pink spread and hot pink pillows. Almost everything in the room, even the old desk, was painted either pink or purple, except for a few random items of white, a small refrigerator, a filing cabinet, that looked like individual teeth. The wall was covered with posters of naked women and naked men.

  Presiding over all this was John Paul Rampler, who lay on the daybed, wearing leopard skin briefs, and holding a book over his head at arm’s length, although it was clearly too dark in the room to read. Incense burned in the saucer on a pink-tiled round table. The dissonant plinking of a sitar on the phonograph, at top volume, shook the room with sound.

  Rampler looked over and saw Digger standing in the door.

  "I’m not receiving guests today," he said thickly.

  Digger stepped inside anyway. "Nice room," he said. "I never saw anything done up in Early Oscar Wilde before."

  Rampler looked back up at the book he was holding. There was a dreamy look on his face, as if he were listening to some celestial harp ensemble instead of the metallic screeching that came from his cassette tape deck.

  Digger turned off the music and Rampler slowly came around to consciousness. "Hey, that was Ravi Shankar."

  "Yeah," Digger said. "It’s really wonderful. Where were you last night?"

  "Drifting and dreaming," Rampler said. "Here and there." The words came out slowly with long pauses between. Digger realized that Rampler was juiced with something.

  "Are you free-basing?" he asked.

  Rampler just smiled. "The eternal question," he said. "Why you ask?"

  "Because marijuana’s too pedestrian for a spoiled shit like you. And nobody gets that high just snorting coke."

  "Promise not to tell?" Rampler said.

  "Nobody but your parole officer," Digger said.

  "I’m high on life, man. Like some of us get high on life ’cause we know it’s all good ’cause it’s gotta end in death and that’s real good. And some of us, we get ourselves messed up ’cause we don’t know who we are or where we’re going. ’Cause we try to be what we’re not. ’Cause we try to stop life from flowing the way it spozed to. You get my drift, man?"

  "I suppose so, but I’d hate to have to try to diagram it on a blackboard. Where were you last night?" Digger asked.

  "Doing the work of the angels, man. Making sure your little girlfriend didn’t go killing off another one, man. Thought we’d catch her, man, and wipe that smile off her face. You know how I hate that smile? She smiles all the time. I bet she smiles when she lets that dwarf stick his thing in her. What a waste. I could take that smile off her. I’m gonna."

  The book he was holding over his head slipped from his hands and struck him on the face. Rampler rolled to his side, then struggled slowly to gain his feet.

  "Gotta put my music back on, man. Gotta wash away the bad and open up to the good." He staggered toward the tape player and Digger, seeing that he was going to fall, reached out a hand to catch him.

  From behind him, a voice barked: "Don’t hurt him." Digger grabbed Rampler by the elbow before he could slip to the floor. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Mark Rolan’s big hulking body almost filling the door-way. He was holding a small grocery bag in his arms but he tossed it onto a counter and ran forward across the room. He put his arms around Rampler and took him from Digger. Like a baby, he lifted him in his arms and carried him to the sofa, where he put him down gently.

  "Gonna make her stop smiling," Rampler said. "Gonna, gonna, gonnaaaaa…" His voice stopped as he drifted off into a sleep.

  Oblivious to Digger’s presence, Rolan stood alongside the sofa, looking down at the older man. Then he remembered where he was and turned back to Digger.

  "What are you doing here?" he asked, but his voice was resigned and tired, rather than angry.

  "I heard music from the room. I wanted to talk to him. How long’s he been like that?"

  Rolan let anger creep into his voice. "Like what, man? It’s nothing. So he snorted a little."

  "Snort, my ass," said Digger. "I look around, I’m going to find a little glass pipe and some rolled-up little coke balls, so don’t give me any of that snort shit. It’s no skin off my nose, pal, but if he blows away that way a lot you’re going to have a corpse on your hands."

  "He’ll be all right, when I get him home for the summer."

  Digger shrugged. "Do what you want. So let me ask you. Where were you last night?"

  "I don’t remember," Rolan said sullenly.

  "Okay, then let me refresh your memory. You were out harassing Doctor Langston, you and the Marquis de Sade there. And I know it and you know it. But the difference is I’m going to tell the cops, and they’re going to haul both your asses into a cell. Your guru there is going to feel wonderful in about forty-eight hours when he doesn’t have any of his snow white. Is that what you want? You know what he’s going to look like?"

  Digger felt sorry for Rolan as he saw pain crease his features. He raised his hands, palm upward toward Digger, as if begging for alms.

  "You can’t do that," he said. "What do you want?"

  "What were you doing last night at Doctor Langston’s?"

  "Johnny said…"

  "Johnny?" asked Digger.

  "John Paul," Rolan explained. "John Paul said that maybe we could catch a killer if we kept an eye on Doctor Langston. So we went over to her place last night. We got there just as she’s going out with some guy, some big guy with a hatchet face." Digger smiled slightly at the characterization of Lieutenant Terlizzi. "We followed them to a restaurant and they had dinner. Then they came out and we followed them back to her place. We wrote down his license number, just in case. So we parked down the street from her place and John Paul, he, well, he fell asleep. I didn’t know what to do so I stayed in the car. Then, a couple of hours later, I see this hatchet-face guy come downstairs from her apartment. I tried to talk to Johnny but he couldn’t talk. So I thought he’d want me to find out if she was all right and I went over to her place and I snuck into the building through the cellar. I got her apartment number off the bell. Then I stood outside her apartment, trying to hear if she was moving around, so I could tell she was all right. But I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t know what to do, but I know Johnny would want to know. Anyway, I went up to the roof and came down the fire escape and looked in the window. I saw her sitting at a table in her bedroom, one of those little tables. I was leaving, but I guess she saw me ’cause she kind of like screamed and ran for the telephone. So I got the hell out of there, and Johnny and me drove back to the school and I put him in bed. And that’s all there was. We were just trying to make sure she was all right. Johnny got the idea that Redwing was murdered."

  He glanced back over his shoulder, but Rampler slept on, a blissful smile on his face. Digger envied him that sleep, for he had never slept that soundly or that happily. Sleep was a thing that overtook Digger and brought him to the ground by c
lamping its teeth into one of his ankles and holding on until he couldn’t resist anymore. He fell asleep feeling toothmarks.

  "You know Redwing was queer?" Digger asked.

  "Come on, man. Everybody did. He was the kind who’d smell little boys’ bicycle seats," Rolan said.

  "He come at you ever?" Digger asked. "Or him?"

  Rolan shook his head. Suddenly, he brushed by Digger, picked up the bag of groceries and began emptying them into the small apartment-size refrigerator. There were containers of yogurt and packages of smoked fish, a bottle of wheat germ, and a container of skim milk.

  "What about Redwing?" Digger repeated.

  "No," Rolan said. "He liked little boys. Johnny and me were too big for him. Funny, he was an Indian, but he was a big, fat slob. You think Indians, you know, are tall and thin and muscular, but this guy looked like a tub of lard, a big tub of lard, and he liked the little ones. When we heard they were sending his body home to Oklahoma, Johnny said they’d better hire a 747 to carry it all."

  "When you got Johnny home last night," Digger asked, "how’d you get him up here?"

  Rolan was still arranging his groceries neatly. "He was starting to come out of it then so he was able to walk upstairs a little bit. Only problem was keeping him quiet. He wanted to pound on Allie’s door."

  "Why?"

  "Ahhh, you don’t want to know. You’re her friend."

  "Try me," Digger said.

  "He was still a little out of it. He said we should pound on her door. Maybe she was blowing the dwarf and if we scared her, she might bite it off. But I kept him quiet and just got him to the room here."

  "Why does he hate Allie so much?" Digger asked.

  "She wouldn’t give him a tumble. He always had the hots for her, but she took up with Gilligan, instead. Johnny just can’t understand it. He’s used to getting what he wants." He closed the refrigerator door, folded the grocery bag neatly, and put it into a rack on the wall alongside the refrigerator. "You’re not going to get us in trouble with the cops, are you?"

  "Not if I don’t have to. When you came in last night, what time would that be?"

  "About three o’clock."

  "You see anybody around when you came in?" Digger asked.

  Rolan shook his head no.

  "You passed Allie’s room?" Digger asked.

  "Only way to get here."

  "Did you see something under her door?" Digger asked.

  "I didn’t go looking in her keyhole or anything like that," Rolan said quickly.

  "No, I don’t mean that. Did you see an envelope stuck under her door?"

  "No," Rolan said. "And I would’ve, ’cause I had all I could do to stop Johnny from thumping on the door. Did she get another letter?"

  "No," Digger said. "Nothing to worry about." He started for the door and Rolan called out, "Hey, Mister, are we going to get in trouble?"

  "Not if you didn’t kill anybody," Digger said. "But hang out with him long enough"—he pointed to the sleeping form on the sofa bed—"and you’re going to spend your life in trouble. If you don’t get blown up someday when he’s cooking coke."

  "He’s my friend," Rolan said stubbornly.

  "And it’s your funeral," Digger said as he opened the door. "Oh, one last thing. Did you steal Danny Gilligan’s car?"

  "Not us," Rolan said. "We don’t do stuff like that. And if we hit Redwing, we woulda stopped to help." He hesitated. "Is this really a murder case?" he asked.

  "I don’t think so," Digger lied.

  Walking by, Digger banged on the door of Allie’s room again before going downstairs. He telephoned the Copley Arms again from the booth near the Waldo main gates and Allie answered. Her voice was curiously subdued.

  "Are you all right?" Digger asked.

  "Oh, hello, Digger. Yes, I’m fine."

  "Where were you?"

  "Danny and I went out for a while," she said softly.

  "Is he there now?"

  "Yes."

  "You stay there. I’m coming over," he said.

  "All right."

  "You sure you’re okay?" he asked.

  "I’m fine. Really I am."

  But she wasn’t.

  When Digger arrived at the room, he let himself in with the spare key. Once inside the door, he realized that with his wonderful timing, he might just have interrupted them making love, so he called out: "It’s me."

  Gilligan’s voice called from the bedroom.

  "We’re in here," he said. And Allie said, "Come on in." Her voice was faint.

  She was lying in bed, under the covers, when Digger entered the room. Danny was sitting in a chair pulled up to the bed. A television on the dresser droned on softly, but neither was watching it. Allie smiled and said, "I’m glad to see you’ve learned something about how to enter a lady’s room."

  "Once bitten, twice shy," Digger said. "So if you’re so well, why are you in bed?"

  "She’s just tired," Danny said quickly. "All the strain and all."

  Digger saw Allie bite her lips, then shake her head.

  "I’m going to tell him, Danny."

  "Tell me what?" Digger said quickly.

  "I just had an abortion," she said. "I’m tired. I guess I’ve had better days."

  Digger sat on the edge of the bed and instinctively, her hands reached out to his.

  "I’m sorry," Digger said.

  "I didn’t want her to have it," Danny said. "I wanted her to have our baby."

  "How do you think that’d go down with my father, Digger?" asked Allie.

  "I think he’d lay in a new supply of shotguns and shells," Digger said.

  She nodded and turned to Gilligan. "That’s exactly what he’d do."

  The little man shook his head. His shock of hair splashed about his face. "I wasn’t talking about your having the baby and staying single. I was talking about us getting married," he said.

  "And it’d be a mistake," Digger said and was surprised that Danny’s eyes flashed at him so angrily.

  "Why would it be a mistake, Mister Burroughs?" he asked, with a cold edge in his voice.

  "If you want to get married because you love each other and you want to live together forever, then do it, it’s none of my business. But if you’re getting married because of a pregnancy, forget it. It’s a responsibility trip and it won’t work. First you resent the baby. Then each other. It just won’t work. Was this at a hospital today?"

  "A doctor’s office," Allie said. She saw the look of concern on his face and squeezed his hands. "No, no, nothing like that," she said. "I’m not stupid. This was a real doctor with a real office and a real nurse. It was all very professional and neat and uncomplicated, but I never did this before. I guess it was a little more shock than I thought it would be. But I’m okay. I really am. So tell me, how’s the great detective doing?"

  "Just scratching around. I don’t have anything yet," he said.

  "Daddy always says that you’re unstoppable when you get going."

  "Your father’s got an inflated idea of my talent," Digger said. "Usually Koko does most of my thinking for me, but she’s back in Las Vegas. If you ever meet her and you tell her I said that, I’ll cut off your eyelashes."

  She smiled and squeezed Digger’s hands again. "I’m ready to go home if you want me to," she said.

  "No," Danny barked suddenly. The sharp tone in his voice caused Allie’s head to spin toward him. Gilligan was shaking his head. "No. I mean, well, you’ve only got one more test tomorrow, Allie, and we’re safe here. You don’t have to go home."

  "This is the last exam coming up?" Digger said.

  She nodded.

  "You going to be well enough to take it?" he asked.

  "Yes. The doctor told me I’d be feeling a little weak for the rest of the day. System shock. But everything seems like it’s going to be all right. I should be fine tomorrow."

  "Well, if you are, you can take that final," Digger said. "Then we’ll see about your going home. But if you guys leav
e this damned room for any reason, that’s it. All deals are off."

  "We won’t budge," Allie said.

  "And you won’t tell anybody where you are," Digger said.

  "Okay."

  "Then I’ll be back later," he said. He leaned over and kissed Allie on the forehead.

  "Take care of her," he ordered Danny and then walked toward the door. Before he could let himself out into the hallway from the small sitting room, he could hear Danny saying softly to her, "I don’t want you to leave."

  Digger let himself into Arlo Buehler’s apartment, started to pour a drink from the bottle in the freezer, thought better of it, and brought the whole bottle to the small kitchenette table. He poured a drink, swallowed a lot of it, then dialed Buehler’s answering service.

  "Hello, Madelyn, this is Julian Burroughs."

  "It’s not Madelyn, it’s Melinda."

  "Yeah, that’s what I meant. I always forget the names of women who reject me. You have any messages for me?"

  "Yes, but I can’t give it to you."

  "Let’s try this all over again, Melanie," he said.

  "Melinda."

  "Right," he said. "I say, you have any messages, and you’re supposed to say, yes, here it is. Not I can’t give it to you."

  "But I can’t," she said.

  "Why not?"

  "It’s from Doctor Buehler. He made me write it down."

  "So read it to me," Digger said.

  "I don’t say those words," she said.

  "Give me a hint," Digger said. "Does it have something to do with my parents?"

  "No. He said you’re an R-B, C-S, M-F."

  "Wait a minute, let me be sure I get this right. I want to write it down. You say R-B, C-S, M-F."

  "That’s right and don’t ask me what it stands for," she said.

  "If I guessed them right, though, you’d tell me. You wouldn’t deceive me, would you?"

  "I don’t know," she said.

  "Let’s try. Now M-F. That would be mother-fucker, I guess. I mean, it might be mange-face, but I never heard Arlo call me mange-face. No. I think I’ll go with mother-fucker."

  There was silence.

  "Come on, Melody, tell me if I’m warm," he said.