Fool's Flight (Digger) Read online

  "Can I convince you?" She moved her face forward to be kissed and Digger kissed her. Her tongue darted into his mouth and she pressed her body against his.

  "You know, my son was right. We is gonna fuck," she said softly.

  Digger thought of the tape recorder whirring smoothly against his back. Taking it off was such a pain in the ass.

  "Tonight," he said. "Let’s try for tonight. Maybe we can get dinner and then…"

  "And then what?"

  "We’ll see what happens," Digger said. "I’ll call."

  He held her closely so that she would not put her arms around his waist, kissed her again, then backed away from her.

  "I’ll call," he said. "Let’s see if we can connect."

  "I hope so," she said.

  She walked him to the door, her hand in his. She tilted her head up again to be kissed one more time. Digger leaned forward to her.

  "When you talked to Mrs. Wardell," Digger said, "did she say when the insurance might pay off?"

  "No. She…" Mrs. Donnelly caught herself but it was too late. The warm glow on her face turned to ice. She glared at Digger who shrugged: "Just doing my job, ma’am," he said.

  "Get out of here."

  "I guess this means dinner is off?"

  "Get out of here."

  Digger met Koko in a small oceanside restaurant on the ground floor of one of the giant condominium towers that fouled the Lauderdale skyline. When he arrived, she was attacking a sink-sized bowl of seafood salad.

  She gulped a hurried swallow and said, "What have you been doing while I’ve been working my little tits off?"

  "Taking advantage of some poor lady with a drinking problem," Digger said.

  "Don’t tell me about it."

  "All right, I will. After I talked to Mrs. Wardell and told her that the pilot’s wife might sue about the insurance, she called the wife. And the wife backed off. Now, she’s only doing that for money, but why should Wardell care if she sues or not? And Randy Batchelor, who doesn’t like her, he went to visit Mrs. Donnelly. He was pumping but I don’t know for what. I’ve let her know that old Benevolent and Saintly might sue about the policies anyway."

  "Why’d you say that? The company wouldn’t do that."

  "I know. I just did it to stir the pot."

  "And put yourself in it," she said.

  Digger nodded. "Sometimes it’s what you’ve got to do."

  He finished his drink and signaled for another.

  "Digger, why don’t you stop drinking?"

  "Because I’m an alcoholic."

  "Alcoholics stop drinking all the time. Did you ever think of quitting?"

  "I thought of it once. Just the thought gave me the shakes and I hid out in a saloon until it passed."

  "This isn’t funny. You’re going to kill yourself."

  "Christ, I hope so."

  He looked at her and saw a twinge of hurt in her eyes and he felt himself a shit for having put that there.

  "You need a hobby," she said. "Something to replace drinking."

  "I was working on it. I thought making love to you might fill the bill but that avenue is closed to me. Unlike you, saloons are always open. Do you know that somewhere, someplace, it is always happy hour?"

  "I’m sorry, Digger. I just wish there was something I could do."

  "You’re doing it," he said. "Help me clean this thing up before those kids and their mother arrive in town."

  "What’s she like?"

  "Your normal run of the mill ex-wife. Castrating iron for a tongue. Her voice shatters Memorex Tape. Suspicious and narrow-minded."

  "Is she pretty?"

  "I don’t know. I never looked."

  "Come on, Digger, you were married for more than ten years."

  "Eleven and one-twelfth," he said, "but who counts? She’s all right looking, I guess. Actually, she was kind of pretty, especially if you get off on fangs. What’d you find out about Wardell?"

  Koko’s face brightened visibly. She reached beneath the table for her purse, whose straps she had twisted around her ankle, proving that she was an original New Yorker and feared a purse-snatching even in this restaurant peopled solely by retired octogenarian dentists, doctors, rabbis and their wives.

  She opened the bag on the edge of the table.

  "The library was full of him," she said. She pulled out a sheaf of photocopied clippings which she placed neatly on the table, then closed her purse and put it back on the floor, her foot securely through the straps again. She handed the clippings to him and he glanced at them while she spoke.

  "He and two brothers inherited the Wardell Paint Company from their father, who started it. It’s not Three-M but it’s not a neighborhood candy store, either. Wardell sold out his share to his brothers about five years ago, the Times said, for four million dollars. He kept the property in Puerto Rico because that was a gift from his father when he was a kid. Anyway, he took the money from the sale of the business and put it into a trust fund to finance the church down here. The newspapers had a field day with it, how he always wanted to be an evangelist and so forth. People magazine did a piece, ‘From Profits to Prophecy.’ They’ve done some follow-ups on him. The church runs at a loss because he won’t shill bibles or pass the plate or what have you, but it’s got to be pretty solid because all the money that trust fund makes should help support it."

  "Personal money troubles?" Digger asked.

  "Maybe," Koko said. "But none of the stories got too much into that, just talked about how unusual he was in running a free church in this age of religious hucksterism. But he went the whole route. He and his wife took vows of poverty."

  "His wife’s in the clippings?"

  "Yeah. They’ve been married, I don’t know, six or seven years. The former Candace von Schlegel. She was in college, some kind of homecoming beauty queen, majoring in musical theater. Her family didn’t have any money, so she probably figured she had plucked the golden goose. When he packed in the paint business, she was interviewed and she said something like her husband would follow the Lord and she would follow her husband. One thing was interesting. She said she had signed a waiver never to make a claim against the church in the event of divorce or anything like that."

  "I wonder how she likes being poor?" Digger said.

  His face shielded by wide wraparound sunglasses, Digger sat on the thinly padded seat and wished for a cigarette. He resented offices that didn’t provide ashtrays for visitors. America had started to go to hell when they took spittoons out of taverns, allowed women in the Clam Broth House in Hoboken, and took ashtrays out of doctors’ offices.

  Digger glanced at the three other people in the waiting room. All were women. One had a bright red, runny nose and Digger commended his own foresight in having had a liquid lunch so he was fortified with antifreeze to stave off the common cold virus. Another woman’s illness was obviously fatness. The third kept scratching her scalp.

  The nurse was almost as tall as Digger and her shoulders were wider. Digger thought he might once have seen her in a six-man tag team wrestling match—her against five men. She was sitting behind a counter high enough so that only the top of her head and her eyes were visible to the people in the waiting room. The eyes were cold steel as she glared around the room, probably ensuring that no one was lighting up a forbidden cigarette.

  Digger waited until her laser beam eyes were off him, then he fell forward off the bench onto the floor and groaned.

  "What’s the matter?" asked the woman who kept scratching her head.

  "Oooooh," Digger moaned. He held both hands on his stomach and curled up into a fetal position.

  "Nurse, you better help," said itchy scalp.

  The Fabulous Moolah came out from behind her wall and lumbered over to Digger. She stood over him, staring down, a concentration camp version of Florence Nightingale in her starched whites.

  "What’s the matter with you?" she demanded.

  "Ooooooh," Digger said.

  "Hmphh
h," the nurse grunted in disgust. "I’ll get the doctor."

  She knocked on the doctor’s office door. A few seconds later, Doctor Josephson opened it.

  "Sick man over here," she said.

  The doctor squatted alongside Digger.

  "What’s the matter?"

  "Stomach hurts," Digger said.

  "Where?"

  "In the middle. Here." Digger pointed with his index finger to a spot just below his solar plexus.

  "Does it hurt here?" Josephson said. He dug his fingers into Digger’s lower right side, near the appendix.

  "No. It’s passing now," Digger said.

  "This ever happen to you before?"

  "Yes," Digger said. "All the time. It’s psychosomatic. It’s okay now." He got to his feet. "I feel a lot better now. Really. I feel good."

  The doctor looked at him for a few seconds, then said, "Well, sit there and I’ll see you next."

  "Thank you. I’ll be fine."

  When Josephson retreated into his office, Digger stood up and brushed himself off, then strolled over to Nurse Guano’s desk.

  "I’m going out for a cigarette."

  She nodded, not even trying to disguise her annoyance at anyone who would disrupt the normal placid routine of her office. Outside, Digger lit a cigarette, then walked around the corner and waited in his rented car.

  Koko arrived fifteen minutes later.

  "How’d you make out?" Digger asked.

  "Got it right here," she said and patted her purse. "And I’ve got great lungs, according to the doctor."

  "You’ve got great lungs according to me, too."

  "Come on, let’s get out of here. I feel like I’m in the damned Watergate, waiting for the burglar alarm to sound."

  "All right," Digger said as he drove away. "One more stop first."

  Timothy Baker was in the outer office, talking to Jane, his eyes blinking, when Digger came in.

  "Oh, it’s you," Baker said. Jane smiled at Digger.

  "Any word yet on your insurance claim?" Digger asked him.

  "Not yet. You should know better than me how these bastards make you wait. What is it you want, anyway?"

  Jane winked at Digger who nodded slightly to her.

  "Just a quick question," Digger told Baker.

  "Oh, for Christ’s sakes, go ahead. It’s amazing how big you guys are with the questions and how small you are when it comes to paying up. Come on inside."

  Inside Baker’s office, standing between the card-board boxes and the pile of Wall Street Journals that had now grown to five feet high, Digger asked, "Did Steve Donnelly ever talk to you about quitting?"

  "No. Why should he?"

  "I don’t know," Digger said. "Maybe he might just not want to fly anymore?"

  "No," Baker said. "He never said anything like that." His fingers had started to drum on the desktop. "Listen, I’m helping you, right, and one hand washed the other. Can’t you do anything to try to get me my money?"

  "I’m trying. I promise," Digger said.

  "Okay."

  Back outside, a man was leaning over Jane Block’s desk, trying without much subtlety to look down into her scoop-necked dress. Digger could only see his back.

  "Did you see that egg roll outside?" the man was saying.

  "What?" Jane asked.

  "There is the most beautiful Chinese broad in the world in that car out there. She is grorious."

  Jane saw Digger come out of Baker’s office, then looked through the office window at Digger’s car where Koko sat in the front seat. Jane shook her head and looked at Digger.

  "Your supervisor, no doubt," she said.

  Digger shrugged. "Some days she looks better than others."

  Randy Batchelor turned from Jane’s desk to see who she was talking to. "Oh, it’s you," he said.

  "Haven’t seen you since the party," Digger said. "Didn’t get a chance to tell you what a good time I had."

  "You’re awful," Jane told Digger.

  Digger walked toward the door. "I’ll call," he told Jane.

  "Don’t bother," she said.

  He had gotten only a few steps from the hangar building when Batchelor caught up to him.

  "Hold on, I want to talk to you," he said.

  Digger turned around. "Sorry I missed you at Mrs. Donnelly’s," he said. "And the doctor’s. You’ve been busy."

  "We all have," Batchelor said. "I thought you said you were a cop."

  "No. You said I was a cop. I just told you I was looking into the crash."

  "You’re an insurance snoop?"

  "That’s about it," Digger agreed.

  "And just what the hell is your name? Lincoln? Or Burroughs?"

  "Depends on who you talk to," Digger said. "Why’d you go see Dr. Josephson?"

  "Who’s he?" Batchelor said.

  "Steve Donnelly’s doctor."

  "Sorry. Don’t know the man," Batchelor said. "Well, what have you found out?"

  There was something smug about his manner, Digger thought. He knew something but it was clear that he wasn’t going to say what.

  "Damned little," Digger said. "I don’t know why that plane went down but I still think that somebody gave it a push. Maybe somebody with something to hide caused the accident. Maybe somebody who found some way to be off the plane when it took off."

  "Hold on," Batchelor said. "You can’t…"

  "I’m not. I’m just thinking out loud."

  "Well, don’t think like that. It wasn’t that way at all."

  "What way was it?" Digger asked.

  Batchelor smiled, a sly, unwarm smile. "Maybe someday you’ll tell me."

  "I hope so," Digger said, "I hope you can live with the answer."

  Batchelor walked away and Digger strolled back to his car. Didn’t anybody ever get a day off at Interworld Airways? Saturday morning and Baker was working and Jane was working and Batchelor was hanging around. Maybe they were all just waiting for the mail, hoping an insurance check for the lost airplane would arrive.

  "Who was that man?" Koko asked as Digger got into the car.

  "Batchelor. The co-pilot who stayed home."

  "He doesn’t like you," Koko said.

  "So few people do nowadays," Digger said. "But he likes you just fine. I heard him. He said you were glorious."

  "Good taste," Koko said. Digger started the engine and looked over at her. She was busy reading the Donnelly medical file she had just stolen from Dr. Josephson’s office.

  "Anything interesting in there?" he asked.

  "Not yet. Not unless you find something intrinsically interesting in a surgically corrected hernia."

  He had gotten only a few blocks from the airport when Koko said, "Oh my, oh my, oh my, oh my."

  "What is it?"

  "I think Donnelly had cancer."

  "Mister Burroughs?"

  "Yes."

  "This is Doctor Riesner." The voice crackled sharply over the telephone, in sharp contrast with the appearance of the short, tweedy, pipe-smoking man at whose home Digger had left the medical reports a few hours earlier.

  "Yes, Doctor. You find out anything?"

  "Your man, Mr. Donnelly, has liver cancer. Very advanced, very terminal."

  "Had, Doctor. He’s already dead."

  "Yes. Well, that was to be expected. Those tests and reports were very clear that he would die any day."

  "No chance of remission, no last-minute miracle cure?" Digger asked.

  "Afraid not, Mr. Burroughs."

  "Thanks, Doctor Riesner. I’ll be back for the reports tomorrow."

  "Where did you get these, anyway?"

  "I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you ask that. Good night, Doctor."

  Chapter Twenty-One

  DIGGER’S LOG:

  Tape recording number five, 10 P.M., Saturday, Julian Burroughs in the matter of Interworld Airways Crash.

  Busy, busy, busy, busy. I should have known that a day that started off with a phone call from Kwash was going to be ruined. />
  Koko’s gone. She decided that she ought to go see the Reverend Wardell for herself. The rich Reverend Wardell.

  That’s all very interesting, a millionaire who walks away from a fortune to go preach the gospel. And he’s got a sense of humor. The Church of the Unvarnished Truth. Paid for with his paint millions. He’s got style, you’ve got to admit that.

  We have on tape Trini Donnelly, being hung over and seductive and admitting that Mrs. Wardell called her about not suing.

  Anyway, I let Mrs. Donnelly know that maybe I was going to tell the company to sue. We’ll see what that brings.

  There is no tape of my visit to Dr. Josephson’s office, where by sheer tenacity and willpower I persuaded him to give me a copy of Steve Donnelly’s medical records. Terminal cancer, going to die any day.

  Of course, that doesn’t have anything to do with the insurance policy. It was accident insurance. But he could have had an attack or something while flying. I can understand Donnelly wanting to fly to the bitter end, particularly with all those bills he owed, but he doesn’t sound like the kind of guy to endanger passengers that way.

  The ultimate pilot error is dying at the controls.

  I wouldn’t put it past Trini to put a bomb on a plane to get rich on insurance. But who kills forty to get one? And she might be a horny drunk, but she’s got enough sense to make sure the insurance is made out in her name, even if it were payable, which it’s not. She didn’t know about that insurance policy at all. I’m sure of that.

  Kwash says all the policies were made out in a couple of different handwritings. So who did them? I don’t know.

  I guess I’m not going to play Tarzan for Interworld Airways’ Jane. Too bad. She saw Koko. It’s a lot of bullshit about women respecting other women’s rights to a man. They don’t. But they say they do and it takes awhile for you to get them past that nonsense and I don’t have a lot of time to do anything. The Mongol hordes are on the way. Cora, What’s-his-name and the girl are probably sleeping now. But then, tomorrow, inexorably, like some goddam glacier crushing everything in its path, they’ll be on their way here. I’ve got to get out before it’s too late.