Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Page 11

Plus Digger.

  There was one fussy man who looked to Digger like a librarian and eight women, all middle-aged. Three of them looked like employees called out, as at a political rally, to swell the crowd.

  They milled around in a central upstairs hallway. At the end of the hallway were a pair of closed double doors, with a pink ribbon strung across them. Apparently, Mrs. Belton was late.

  Digger perched on a windowsill near a tall metal ashtray and smoked while he looked out into the street.

  Yes, he decided, Lucius Belton was probably hooked by his young wife, but maybe he retained some sense of sanity. If his wife had been able to lead him around by the nose, old man Belton would have made sure the library was packed for the art gallery opening. Marching bands, lines stretching around the corner, people sleeping in front at night to be sure to get an early place in line. In Belton, PA, old Lucius could have done those things if he wanted, Digger knew. But he hadn’t. Just a twerpy librarian and eight ladies.

  Digger was stubbing out his cigarette when an enormous black limousine turned the corner and rolled up toward the front of the library. It was a black customized Mercedes Benz. Digger had seen one once before on display in a national automobile show. The vehicle was armored and bulletproof. All the electrical and hydraulic systems were dual, so that if gunfire knocked one out, the other would still work. The radiator was hidden behind steel plates and the fuel tank could withstand direct firearm hits. The car had a built-in fire extinguisher system. Digger remembered hearing the pretty model who was decorating the display say that it was designed to withstand a "NATO Level Five assault," which meant from firearms using armor-piercing ammunition. After the demonstration, Digger had gone up to tell the model that he wanted to buy two of them.

  "Two?" she had said.

  "Yes. But first, what kind of mileage does it get?"

  "Mileage?"

  "Yes. How many miles per gallon?"

  She looked at a fact sheet in her hand. "Seven," she said.

  "Too bad," Digger said. "Cancel the sale. My moped gets a hundred and sixty to the gallon."

  "Do you mind if I ask you something?" the model had said.

  "Go ahead."

  "Are you crazy?"

  "Only about you," Digger had said, and invited her to dinner. He still remembered the evening fondly.

  The big Mercedes pulled up in front of the library and a uniformed chauffeur hopped out of the driver’s seat and ran to the back to open a door. Lucius Belton had said that his wife was afraid of kidnappers; seeing the car now made Digger believe it.

  His first view of Amanda Belton was of a long tanned leg stretching out from the back door of the car. It was quite a leg, followed by quite a woman. Amanda was a wondrously slim ash-blonde with a model’s face. She wore a pale-tan silk suit, and the afternoon sun hit her hand at just the correct angles to flash diamond sparkles toward Digger. She smoothed her skirt over her hips, said a few words to her driver and walked briskly toward the front door of the library.

  Digger guessed her age at thirty-couple, but the thought of her with the withered, devilish wraith that was Belton made her seem even younger. He walked over to join the other nine persons who were clustered around the door to the art room. On the wall, Digger noticed a small plaque that read: "The Belton Gallery, Courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Lucius Belton. Paintings on loan from The Belton Collection."

  He heard the woman’s shoes coming up the stairs and saw the little man flit over to her, all butterfly-a-twitter.

  "Oooh, Mrs. Belton, how good of you to come. Folks, here’s Mrs. Belton."

  Amanda Belton nodded to him imperiously and then said some random, casual good-afternoons to the women standing near the door. Her eyes met Digger’s and she nodded her head and smiled, very precisely—too much to be called cool; too little to be called forward; just enough of each to be called pleasant.

  The little man was running about now, his hands filled with camera and scissors.

  Finally he stood by the wall next to the double doors and started waving at people. "Go stand on that side over there. So when Mrs. Belton cuts the ribbon, you’ll all be in the background." Digger moved over and stood in the middle of the eight women. He thought it would make Lucius Belton feel wonderful when he saw it in the local newspaper. And when Koko asked him how he had spent his time in Belton, PA, he could answer—with pictorial evidence—"Going to libraries and art galleries."

  The librarian-type took a long time to focus his camera, then handed Mrs. Belton the pair of scissors. She snapped them together in the air a few times, as if threatening an invisible butterfly, then said in a soft, cool voice:

  "It is a great pleasure, on behalf of my husband, my son and myself, to dedicate this new art gallery for the people of our wonderful town." As the flash bulb went off, she snipped the ribbon with one fast cut.

  Digger led the applause. "Hear, hear," he called out.

  Mrs. Belton glanced at him and Digger redoubled his efforts. "Brava, brava," he called.

  The librarian pushed open the double doors and Mrs. Belton led the group inside a large, simple room with plenty of light from windows on two sides. The walls were filled with expensive-looking oil paintings.

  The eight women oohed and aahed a lot as they followed Mrs. Belton, who walked casually around, looking at the paintings wistfully, as if saying good-bye to old family retainers who were retiring to the county poorhouse. The librarian interrupted: "There is punch and finger sandwiches for everyone over here on this table." The eight women headed for the table as if it contained male pheromones and they were in heat.

  This left Mrs. Belton standing in front of a painting, along with Digger. The painting was a large oil landscape, and while Digger did not know the painter, he recognized the school of art as predating the French Impressionists. Mrs. Belton looked at the painting for long seconds, then glanced behind her and noticed Digger.

  He nodded toward the painting and affected a French accent.

  "An amusing little painting and yet somehow significant, capturing as it does the tortured ambitions of a tumultuous age."

  She looked at him, then at the painting again and then back at him.

  "You really think so?"

  "Mais oui, Madame Belton." He pronounced it Belle-TONE.

  "Are you an art critic?"

  "No, madame. Just a poor itinerant lover of beauty. Le Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec Monfa at your service." He leaned closer and dropped the accent as he whispered, "I wash and simonize cars for a living. You interested?"

  She smiled a real smile, not ceremonial or forced. "Oh, too bad. You’re not really Toulouse-Lautrec?"

  "No, ma’am. I tried but I failed the physical. Would you like some punch?"

  "No, thank you. I’ve tasted it."

  "I’m glad you warned me off," Digger said.

  "What is your name, by the way?" she asked.

  "Sudden," he said. "Oliver. But my friends call me O. L. O. L. Sudden."

  "Are you from Belton?" She asked her questions simply and up front, a trait Digger always associated with the rich and the powerful, who gave no thought to the possibility that some persons might find their bluntness offensive.

  "No. I’m from Las Vegas," Digger said.

  "You’re far from home," she said.

  "Yes. I’m in town visiting friends. You know, I couldn’t help admiring your car. Armor-plated, isn’t it?"

  She nodded. "My husband’s idea. We just had a son and…" She shrugged as if that answered the question thoroughly.

  "You look wonderful for a new mamma," Digger said honestly.

  "Thank you, Mr. Sudden," she said. "Six months new."

  "O. L.," Digger said.

  "Yes. Thank you, O. L. I’ve been to Las Vegas."

  "Did you like it?" he said.

  "It’s wonderful," she said. "The idea of a city that’s open all night, every night; it…well, it’s quite a contrast to Belton." She seemed to remember then that she was the to
wn’s matriarch because she said, "Of course, I don’t know if I could really live in Las Vegas. The sweetness of this town is probably more my style." She glanced at her watch. "My husband was supposed to be here. I guess he’s been detained."

  "Your husband is Lucius Belton?" Digger asked.

  "Yes."

  "My friend used to work for him," Digger said.

  "Oh, really," she said without real interest.

  "Yes. Perhaps you knew him. Vernon Gillette."

  He had watched her face carefully and he could see it freeze over as he mentioned Gillette’s name.

  "Gillette?" she said. "I can’t really place the name. I’ve got to be going, I’m afraid, Mr. Sudden." She smiled sadly.

  "O. L.," Digger corrected.

  "Yes, of course. O. L.," she said. "I’ve got to leave."

  "I’m sorry," Digger said. "I was going to offer to buy you coffee."

  "I’m afraid I couldn’t do that. Perhaps sometime if we meet in Las Vegas," she said.

  "I’d like that. You can find me most nights at the Araby Casino," he said.

  "I’ll keep that in mind," she said.

  "Please do," Digger said.

  "Well, good-bye," she said. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Sudden."

  "O. L.," Digger said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  There were no messages for Digger at Gus LaGrande’s Inn.

  There was no answer when he called Louise Gillette’s home.

  He found Cody Lord’s number in a phone book and called. But an old woman told him that Lord had gone out, and, no, she did not know how Digger might find the Belton hunting cabin in the woods.

  Eddie’s Roadhouse bar was a madhouse. A Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game was on the tube, and the guys at the bar, all wearing their goddamn cowboy hats, were whooping it up as if they had just been granted weekend leave from prison and were grimly determined to enjoy everything before they had to go back. They shouted at every pitch. They would have cheered a tornado.

  Digger sat at a small table by the window. After a few minutes, Dolly saw him and strutted over to the table. Watching her walk across the room seemed to give the bar patrons something else to shout about.

  "Hi, stranger," she said to Digger with a smile. The platinum wig and the beauty mark and the push-up bra were back. The makeup was troweled on. She looked nothing like the woman he had made love to two nights before.

  "Hiya."

  "I was hoping I’d see you again." She leaned forward, showing him her cleavage as if it were an old friend.

  "After these coyotes, even I’ve got to be an improvement," Digger said.

  "Yeah, but I need them too. Don’t forget the rent. What can I get you?"

  "The usual—vodka, rocks, a lot of one, a little of the other."

  "Okay. Listen, I’m due a break in ten minutes."

  "I’ll be here," Digger said.

  She came back a few minutes later with his drink, and ten minutes later, returned with another one. "Let’s go back in the kitchen," she said. "It’s not good for me to sit out here with the customers. It gives these birdbrains ideas."

  He followed her into a surprisingly large kitchen, run by one greasy-haired young man wearing a sweat-matted T-shirt. Digger glanced at him and was glad he had never eaten at Eddie’s.

  Dolly led him to a small table in a far corner, near the freezer door, then poured herself coffee from a big stainless steel urn.

  "Just in the neighborhood, thought I’d stop by," Digger said.

  "I kind of figured you were leaving town right away, after the other night."

  "Everybody seems to want me to," Digger said.

  "Oh, how’s that?"

  "Not important. I guess my charm just doesn’t work on people in Belton. Hey, you know, we were talking about that death up in the Belton hunting cabin?" Digger touched the inside of her wrist and toyed with the strap on her watch.

  "Yeah," she said. "The accident or not-accident?"

  "That’s right. You have any idea where that cabin is?"

  "Sure," she said brightly. "A lot of the guys from Belton and Sons come in here. I hear them talking. I’ve had a few invitations."

  Digger said, "Tell me how to get there."

  "You going up there? Now?"

  "Yeah. I thought I ought to see the scene of the crime. Or noncrime."

  Dolly gave him clear, simple instructions. The cabin was about fifteen minutes away. Digger finished his drink and waited for Dolly to finish her coffee. As he looked at her, he noticed that under her makeup there was a slight discoloration around her left eye. She glanced at her watch and said, "Back to the lions’ den. See you before you leave town?"

  "I hope so," Digger said.

  "Maybe tonight at Gus’s," she said.

  He nodded and said, "Call me first. In case I get jammed up with work." He pressed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. "For the drinks. And the directions."

  "Thanks," she said. "Let me go out first. You wait a few minutes. It’s not good for us to be seen together. It makes the animals drool."

  Dolly’s directions were right on the money, and a dozen minutes later Digger was turning off the main road onto one of a string of parallel roads that headed up into the woods, then dipped down toward a random smattering of cabins that fronted a large lake.

  Digger was a little disappointed when he first saw the cabin at the end of the road. With Lucius Belton’s money, a hunting lodge was the least he had expected, but this cabin was just a cabin. It was built of roughhewn pine. There was no decorative shrubbery around it and no pavement leading to the front door. A television antenna perched on the cabin’s flat roof like a giant mosquito with several legs ripped off.

  About ten yards before the cabin, a clearing had been cut into the trees off to the left, large enough to hold two cars, so Digger backed in and parked there. The cabin’s front door was locked, but Digger twisted the handle and pushed hard and the lock slipped and the door slid open. It might only be a cabin, but it was a good cabin. There was a fireplace, auxiliary electric heaters built in as baseboards, two cots arranged in an L along a far wall, picture windows that overlooked the lake, a couch, a small kitchen area with a table and chairs for two and a television set.

  The cabin was clean. Both beds were made. There were no dirty dishes and in the refrigerator were only a few cans of evaporated milk, soup and chili. Digger described the cabin into his tape recorder as he walked around the large single-room interior:

  "The bathroom in the corner. Toilet, sink, metal stall shower. Blue-and-white goose shower curtain. Who designs that shit? There it is, the fuse box on the wall. Oooops, what ho, what ho, what ho! The box has got circuit breakers in it. Two neat little on-off switches for two electrical circuits. Maybe Vernon Gillette wasn’t the electrical genius his wife makes him out to be, but you don’t have to be an electrical genius to know you don’t put fuses into a circuit-breaker box. A chart on the back of the box’s cover. ’Installed, Boffa Electric Supplies, 6/76.’ A list of inspection dates. June every year: 6/77, 6/78, 6/79, 6/80, 6/81."

  Digger closed the circuit-breaker box and walked out of the bathroom. His foot caught on a small throw rug on the floor in the L made by the two cots. On the wooden floor under the rug were two small burn marks. He bent down to look at them, then tried to turn on the lamp on the table between the beds. It didn’t work.

  "Swell. A lamp without an electric cord. Each burn mark about two inches long, roughly parallel, about a foot apart. They look as if two cigarettes had been placed on the floor and allowed to burn out. I used to get these same kinds of marks all over my desk. When I had a desk. In my previous life."

  He stood up and pushed the rug back over the burn marks. As he walked toward the front door, he glanced out the picture window toward the gray lake, looking slatelike and rock-hard in the afternoon sun.

  He was preoccupied with his thoughts as he went out the front door. Something slammed into the wall next to him, a fraction of
a second before he heard the crack of a shot.

  Then there was another. Thud-crack and Digger hit the ground and began scrambling for the cover of his car.

  "Kwash, you’re going to pay for this," he mumbled. He crawled toward the car door. He felt the knee of his pants tear and then the right elbow on his jacket went. Cursing in a steady stream, he reached up from the ground and opened the car door. He heard another shot and dirt kicked up alongside him. Whoever it was was getting the range.

  He reached in and pressed the gas pedal with his hand, then released it and turned the ignition key. The motor gunned to life and Digger slipped into the car, keeping his head low. He slammed the car into drive, pressed the gas pedal, spun the wheel to the right and sped off down the dirt road. The rapid acceleration slammed the open driver’s door shut.

  He started to look up, over the dashboard, when a bullet pierced his rear window.

  "Goddammit," he shouted. But it was either a bullet or get wrapped around a tree. He peered warily over the dashboard at the rutted dirt road. Then he made a small turn that he hoped would have him out of the sniper’s line of fire and he sat up in the seat.

  A moment later, he was back on the main road and he crushed down the gas pedal and sped down the highway, back toward Belton.

  He sucked in, then exhaled, a deep sighing breath, and checked the rearview mirror. No one was following him and the road was empty ahead, but it was three more minutes before Digger lightened his foot on the gas pedal and began to drive at safe speeds.

  "Goddamn all these Pittsburgh-area half-wit, cowboy, shit-kicker types, goddamn them to hell," he growled.

  "A couple of messages for you," Gus said when Digger came into the LaGrande. "What the hell happened to you?"

  "Don’t ask. What are the messages?"

  Gus handed him two slips of paper and Digger read them walking up the steps to his room.

  One was from Cody Lord and left his telephone number. The other was from Koko—a typical Koko message. It read: "Where the hell have you been? Call Koko."

  From his closet he fished a pair of pants and a clean, unripped jacket. While he sat back on the bed, wriggling out of one pair of pants and into another, he called Koko’s number.