Free Fool's Flight (Digger) by Warren Murphy

for now. If anything else comes up, I’ll be in touch. Thanks for your time."
    Batchelor nodded and turned to the car door.
    "One last thing," Digger said. "Any ideas on what caused the accident?"
    "Got me. Mind if I go? Some women aren’t meant to be kept waiting." He smiled conspiratorially at Digger who winked and nodded.
    Digger walked back to his own car. For all his hurry to depart, Digger noticed that Batchelor was taking his time. He had started his engine but he was just sitting behind the wheel, apparently deep in thought. Then he backed the car out of the space and sped away.
    Digger watched the FLYBOY license plate turn onto the street. A thirty-five-thousand-dollar car. The fifty-mission crush in a yachting cap, for Christ’s sakes.
    Batchelor was a little too flashy, for Digger’s taste.

Chapter Twelve

    Every old city was laid out the same way, Digger thought. There was a poor and busy central core, surrounded by a not-so-poor, not-so-busy ring. Then from the ring came four spokes. One led to the rich section and the opposite spoke led to the poor neighborhoods. The other two spokes led to middling sections. Melanie Fox lived in one of the middling sections.
    The stewardess had tired brown eyes, the color of a cooked steak that had been left in the refrigerator too long. They were in a pretty face but the face was tired, too. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and from the corners of her nose to her mouth, and they were mileage marks, not laughter lines. Her body was bounteous, ripe and full, but only one clock-tick away from being a good middle-aged body instead of a wonderful young body.
    It was late afternoon and her dark brown hair was messed. She was wearing a long dressing gown when she let Digger into the apartment and he surmised that she had not been out of bed for long.
    "Mister Lincoln," she said, looking Digger over as he stepped through the doorway.
    "I’m sorry if I woke you when I called. Please call me Elmo."
    "Elmo?"
    "Elmo."
    "Come on. Nobody’s named Elmo except some guy who eats nails and lifts weights in a circus."
    "It’s a long story," Digger said. He found himself talking to her back. She was walking across the soft pile carpeting to the sofa with the indifferent ease of a woman who was not terribly frightened by the idea of having a strange man in her home.
    "I’ll call you Abraham," she said as Digger closed the door. "I’m just having coffee. Want some?"
    "I’d rather have a drink but if you’re into coffee…"
    "Have coffee, then a drink," she said. "I don’t know if my stomach’s up to watching somebody drink this early."
    Digger sat in a chair facing the sofa, across the glass-topped coffee table. There were two cups on the table and she poured coffee from an electric pot, connected by a long white extension cord to a wall socket across the room.
    She took a long sip of her coffee. "So," she said. It was a question.
    "I’m doing a routine check into the accident. International Association for Plane Travel Safety. Eye-APTS. We’re an international consortium of private and governmental boards and agencies charged with the responsibility of…"
    "Spare me the brutal details," she said. "I’m too tired to remember it and too bored to be impressed. What do you want to talk about?"
    "I was talking to Mr. Batchelor about the accident."
    "I don’t know what I can tell you that he didn’t. Christ, coffee’s good. I don’t think I’d want to live in a world without coffee."
    "Or women."
    "Or men."
    "Or vodka."
    "You win," she said, laughing. "I’ll get you that drink."
    "I thought I was going to have to beat it out of you."
    "Not me. I’m a piece of cake," she said. She walked into the kitchen, her voice carrying to him from the other room.
    "So what do you want to ask me?"
    "Do you want me to roar my questions at the top of my voice?" Digger asked.
    "No. You can come out here."
    In the kitchen, Digger saw she had poured two large glasses of vodka, no mix.