Dead Letter (Digger) (2 page)

"You don’t know my daughter," Stevens said. "She wouldn’t have any friends in the saloon business. This is the butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth, number one nice girl of the western world. I don’t know why she had that clipping. I don’t know why it would bother her if some barkeep died.
If
that was bothering her. I don’t know. You’ve got how many children?"

"Two," Digger said.

"What are they?"

"Sub-human," Digger said.

"No. I mean sex. How old are they?"

"There’s what’s-his-name and the girl. A boy and a girl. I don’t know how old they are. What’s-his-name is pretty big so he must be pretty old. The girl is younger—I think."

"See. You can’t talk to your kids, either," Stevens said.

"I don’t want to, though," Digger said. "If I wanted to, I’d talk to them. Just right up and talk to them, just as if they were human."

"No, you couldn’t," Stevens said. "No father can talk to his kids. You start wanting to tell them something, for their own good, just to let them in on something you learned so that they know it without investing the same kind of pain you did to learn it. But it starts sounding like a goddam lecture or a sermonette and you get mad because it sounds like you’re picking on the kid, so you stop halfway through and they think you’ve got a loose upper plate, their sweet old man who tells these stupid, fucking half-stories that don’t go anywhere. I can’t talk to Allison. I can’t tell her anything and I can’t ask her anything."

"Okay," Digger said. "I’ll talk to her."

"We’ll make it a deal. If you ever want somebody to talk to your kids, I’ll talk to them."

"They’re doing experiments now in communicating with apes. Maybe one of these days soon," Digger said. He turned and pushed away the microphone again. "No, I don’t want to sing."

"Why not?" the man next to Digger asked. He had a face so booze-blotched it looked like an uncooked, unhealthy pizza. "Around here everybody sings."

"Not us," Digger said. "We don’t sing."

"Actually, I sing pretty well," Frank Stevens told Digger. "I was in my college glee club. Allison’s in the college glee club, too. Straight A’s. Magna cum laude probably. Doesn’t even smoke. I don’t want anything to be upsetting her. You’ll go see her?"

"Sure. Where’s she live?" Digger asked.

"Girls’ dorm on campus. Two-fifteen LaPointe Walk. It’s right on the campus off Beacon Street."

The blotch tapped Digger on the shoulder again. "You ought to sing," he said.

"I don’t want to sing."

"The Irish always sing."

"The Irish also always make pains in the ass of themselves," Digger said.

"That’s not nice," the man said.

"Neither are you. Buzz off, will you pal?" Digger asked.

"Only if you sing."

"You want me to sing? A real Irish song?"

"Right. Irish," the man said.

"Sure," said Digger. "Give me that microphone. You want something to honor our heritage?"

"Exactly."

"Okay. Keep playing that song," Digger said as he took the microphone and nodded to the black piano player, who expertly slid back into an introduction to the song and then muted it to quiet holding chords until Digger started to sing.

In a clear, pure baritone, Digger sang:

"H-A-J Double E. B-I-A-N spells Hajeebian
.

When you see a rug you like, I sell it
.

When I see an Irishman, I smell it
.

H-A-J Double E. B-I-A-N you see
.

It’s a name that brings tears to the hearts of

all Armenians. Hajeebian. That’s me
."

"Digger, that’s awful," Stevens said.

"You ain’t funny," said the man with the blotchy face.

"Go take a flying fuck on a rolling doughnut," Digger said. "Do it to music." He handed him the microphone.

The man swung it as a club to hit Digger alongside the head. Digger ducked backward and the microphone missed and hit Frank Stevens on the shoulder.

And Stevens, six-hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year president of the Brokers Surety Life Insurance Company, punched the blotch-faced man in the mouth and knocked him ass over teakettle off his stool and onto the floor.

"Goddammit, Digger," Stevens whooped. "I knew there was something about this ginmill that I liked. Who’s next?"

Chapter Two

Digger had tried, over the years, every single way to sneak into Boston, but he had finally given up. There was just no good way to drive from the civilized world into Boston and then find a tavern or cocktail lounge without first getting hung up in Boston traffic, which always seemed to look like a rehearsal for a riot.

Digger had read once that Paul Revere’s ride was a myth, a legend with no basis in fact, and he absolutely believed it. By the time he got through traffic to let anybody know the British were coming, they would have come and gone.

But Digger knew that the traffic wasn’t the real reason for his annoyance. The real reason was his promise to Frank Stevens that he would look in on his daughter Allison. Pretty, rich, vivacious, a scholar, happy, sweet, and virginal. In other words, an insipid simp. He knew he was going to hate her. Why did Frank insist upon ruining his trip to Boston this way? But it was the price one paid, Digger thought smugly, for hanging around with alcoholics. They only cared about themselves.

As his car crossed Boylston Street, he saw a tavern and he spun right madly from the center lane, cutting off another car, and jumped into the narrow opening of a parking lot.

The driver of the car he’d cut off shook his fist at Digger.

"Have a nice day," Digger yelled back.

The nautical bar was decorated with brass things from ships and a big fish net hanging from the ceiling. The openings of the net were packed solid with hair balls, dust, and grease from years of not being cleaned. Digger found a seat at the bar, in a corner that wasn’t under the net, so nothing would drop into his drink, then ordered a Finlandia vodka on the rocks and went to a telephone to call Dr. Arlo Buehler. It rang three times without an answer. Digger hung up quickly because the answering service would pick up on the fourth ring, and he didn’t feel like talking to an answering service.

He tried the call again after a couple of drinks and had the same result, so he decided if he had to see Allison Stevens anyway, sweet, loving, warm, intelligent Allison, he might as well do it now because he was on his way to becoming well-oiled and the best way not to let an unpleasant duty spoil a trip was to do it immediately and get it out of the way.

He fished from his wallet the address Frank Stevens had given him and handed it to the bartender.

"Waldo College?" Digger said. "You know where that is? I think it’s on Beacon Street somewhere."

The bartender nodded. He was a long-haired thing with a diamond stud in his left earlobe, which ordinarily would have given Digger ample reason to hate him, but he was a good bartender who didn’t speak unless spoken to so Digger magnanimously forgave him.

"It’s not on Beacon Street," he said. "It’s off Beacon Street. There’s an entrance to the campus on Beacon, near Dartmouth. Big gates, you can’t miss them. Then the campus is in there like a little city, all spread out along the Charles River. What they did was take a lot of old buildings on that little street behind Beacon and they bought them all and made it into a campus. Turn-of-the-century stuff. They got old gas lamps and cobblestone streets, like that, and it looks like Scotland Yard. When the fog is out, you expect Jack the Ripper to be behind you if you’re walking."

"You sound like an alumnus," Digger said.

"No, I didn’t go there. One of the few schools I guess I didn’t go to. I could never afford it."

Digger tipped the bartender five dollars on top of the nine-dollar bar bill.

"You’re from New York, right?" the bartender said.

"I used to be. My accent?"

"No. You talk pretty good. I can tell by the tip. Nobody around here tips. Boston’s the worst place in the world for a bartender. You’re either dealing with college kids who think a quarter a person is a pretty good tip to leave after a night’s drinking, or you’re dealing with these poor bastards"—he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the rest of the bar—"who work all week just to pay their taxes. Taxes kill you up here. Taxachusetts."

The streets sparkled with sunshine and Digger decided to walk the few blocks to the campus. The sidewalks were packed with college students, wearing leather vests and western shirts, jeans or khaki trousers, young men and young women, walking arm in arm. Except, Digger noticed, that the young men were walking arm in arm with other young men and the young women arm in arm with other young women.

"The gays are coming, the gays are coming," he mumbled to himself.

A young woman he was passing on Dartmouth Street said "Hear, hear."

She was pretty with long straight blond hair and clean fingernails. He decided she might be the only woman in Boston wearing a dress.

"I was just wondering what Paul Revere would say if he was to ride through the streets today," Digger said.

"One if by hand and two if by thee," the young woman said with a smile.

"You’ve had this conversation before with visiting sex fiends," Digger said.

"No, not really. It’s just that when I barricade myself in my room at night, I have a lot of time to think."

"Mind if I walk with you? Where are you going?"

"To work," she said. "What are you doing in Boston? You don’t live here."

"Did that bartender already tell you I was a good tipper?"

"I beg your pardon," she said.

"Never mind. How’d you know I was from out of town?"

"There are only two straight guys in town and I know both of them. You’re not one of them."

"No. I came up here for a medical exam and to visit somebody at Waldo."

"You’re not staying?"

"Not unless my doctor tells me I’m terminal. Otherwise, it’s back to Las Vegas."

"You live in Las Vegas?"

"Doesn’t everyone?" he said.

"I’m sorry you’re not staying," the blonde said. "I could have added you to my list."

"Good things come in threes," he said. "That’s what my mother always told me."

"A regular treasure trove of information. You mind if I write that down?"

"No, don’t write that. Wait until I remember something good that she said." He walked along silently for a moment, then said, "That’s about it. Good things come in threes. The only other things she ever said to me was don’t cause trouble in summer camp, it’s so expensive you shouldn’t get into mischief, don’t forget your galoshes. Hide your lunch money in your shoe. That was pretty good. I still keep my lunch money in my shoe. That’s why I limp. I’m thirty-eight years old and I don’t eat lunch and I’ve had this forty-two cents in my shoe since I was nine years old."

"That’s it, though," she said.

"’Fraid so."

"I’ll stick to good things coming in threes," she said. "Who are you? Besides being tall, blond, handsome, crazy, and from Las Vegas?"

"I work for an insurance company."

"You sell insurance?"

"No, but if you want some, I’ve got a friend who does. Frank Stevens. I’ll give you his home number. Call him. He’ll give you a break on the rates. He does favors for me ’cause I do them for him."

Up ahead, he saw the big iron gates that led off Beacon Street to the Waldo campus. The name of the college was formed into the scrolled iron at the top of the large archway which was broad enough to allow two cars to pass underneath it.

"I think I’m turning off here," he said.

"So am I. Where are you going?"

"A dorm. Two-fifteen LaPointe Walk."

"That’s up here on the right," she said. The college archway opened onto a large central commons that looked like a village green. It was bordered on each side by narrow cobblestone streets, which were lined with old but handsome brownstone buildings, some used as dormitories and some as classroom buildings. At the far end of the central green, there was a complex of buildings which were newer and ugly, and probably housed administration offices. Through the spaces between some of the buildings, Digger saw more buildings. Digger was impressed. He had not expected that Frank Stevens’s daughter would go to some grubby urban school, situated neatly between the muggers and the shooting galleries, but he hadn’t expected that, even in Boston, a school could be this handsome. He thought of his own college, Jesuit St. Luke’s in Jersey City, where he had struggled through accounting and business administration, while becoming enraptured of Jesuit theology, which differed from most other theology because it insisted upon using logic to justify an illogical conclusion. His professors had insisted it was necessary to study theology in order to learn how to think.

"I don’t want to think," Digger had said. "I want to be an accountant."

And he had, for almost a dozen grueling years, until he packed it in one day, leaving behind his wife and two children and moving to Las Vegas, where one night he did Frank Stevens a favor and wound up on the payroll of the Brokers Surety Life Insurance Company.

The young blond woman strolled alongside him down the sidewalk on the right side of the college greensward. Cars were parked neatly by the curb. Students sat out on the porches of some of the buildings which bore only neat number plaques next to their front doors. Occasionally, one of the buildings carried a small sign above the numbers. Psychology Department. Music Arts Center.

Maybe this was the future of American cities, Digger thought. Take up old housing and refurbish it as a playground for rich kids.

On the green, two boys played frisbee and a girl flew a kite. Birds swooped in formation overhead and the lush green trees shaded the red stone sidewalk.

"You work here?" Digger asked the blonde.

"Yes. Beautiful, isn’t it?"

"Yes," he said.

They passed a building with a small sign over its number. It read Dean of Students.

"This’ll be 215, coming up," the young woman said. "If you find yourself bored in Boston, stop by and see me. I’m in the president’s office. The name’s Connie."