Free Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) by Warren Murphy Page A

you’re outside, even the air."
    "What kind of man is he?" Digger asked.
    "I don’t know. We don’t exactly travel in the same social circles. I saw him once riding in the back of a limousine in a parade. He’s as old as death. But I guess he’s got something going for him ’cause he’s got a young wife and they have a new baby. Can you imagine that? He gave the company a day off when the baby was born. It was like the whole town was closed down. People wandered around the streets and didn’t know what to do."
    "As long as they didn’t try breathing," Digger said. "Did you ever hear anything else about Vernon Gillette?"
    "Who?"
    "The guy who died in the cabin. The accident," Digger said.
    "Hey, you’re an investigator. You’re not investigating this like it’s a murder or something, are you?"
    "No, I don’t do that kind of work," Digger said. "You never heard anything else about Gillette?"
    "No."
    They drank together for another hour when Dolly looked at her wristwatch and said, "That’s enough drinking. It’s getting late."
    "You have to go?" Digger asked.
    "No," she said.

    In his room, Dolly sat almost nervously on the sofa and when Digger sat next to her, she said, "I don’t want you to get the wrong idea why I’m here."
    "I won’t," he said.
    "I came here to make love to you," she said.
    "Nothing wrong with that idea."
    Dolly shook her head. "I wasn’t fooling. My husband is paralyzed. He’s not a man anymore, but I’m still a woman. Does that make me awful?"
    "No," Digger answered, as he was expected to. "That just makes you a woman. A beautiful woman." He touched his hand to her smooth cheek even as he glanced up at the red crystal droplet hanging incongruously from the chandelier. Watch this, Herbie Handlebar, he thought. I bet you weren’t this smooth when you climbed into Koko’s pants.
    "It’s just that…well, I know you’re just passing through and…well, I can’t go having my name…"
    He put his index finger across her lips.
    "Shhh," he said. "I know. No obligations. No recriminations. Just a need being filled."
    She nodded and Digger covered her lips with his as he put his hands under her sweater and around her bare cool waist.

    Later she slept, her smooth body plastered to his in sleep as if she feared slipping away from him for even a moment. Digger sipped from his glass of vodka on the end table, then, trying not to move and disturb her, fumbled for his watch. Instead he got hers and in the dim light from the small lamp across the room saw that it was 2:00 A.M. Then, he turned over the gold watch and read the inscription on the back:

    To Dolly. Love, Lem .

    He wondered if that was her husband’s name.

Chapter Six

    One of the nice things about being outside of New York was that the farther one got away from the city, the better sausage seemed to taste. Digger thought about this as he ate a breakfast of sausage and eggs in the LaGrande Inn, but could think of no reason for it to be true. So he put it on his list of life’s imponderable mysteries along with the purpose of the little red electrical switch on the wall inside everybody’s cellar door and why someone would open an eatery and decide, presumably with a straight face, to call it The Terminal Cafe.
    Fifteen minutes later, he was driving down into the bowl toward the main headquarters of the Great Belton Dirt Factory.
    His tires made a crackling sound as he drove over the grit that coated the driveway and parking lot and everything unfortunate enough to have been stationary in the area for more than twenty minutes.
    Lucius Belton and Sons was a compound of buildings, and when Digger got out of his car, he noticed that all the buildings looked alike. He chose the building outside which were parked the largest, newest cars and went in there. He was right. It was the executive office building and he found the personnel department just inside the front door.
    There was a young woman sitting at a desk just inside the door.