Fool's Flight (Digger) (7 page)

"Probably," Digger said. "That sounds right. If you’re going to be miserable anyway, you might as well be warm."

"I double checked at the Silver Spoon Restaurant. He had worked there about three years. The manager, a Dominick Attas, said that Ernlist was a drifter. He was a good waiter but he missed more than his share of days, out sick. He had a drinking problem, Attas said. He never talked about his family and he didn’t have any friends or girlfriend or anything. He had a cable television hookup in his room. He watched sports like twenty-four hours a day. They’ve got some kind of sports network…."

"I know," Digger said. "You can use it to watch last week’s car races. It’s as exciting as watching water evaporate. Did you cab it to the Silver Spoon?"

"No, I walked again. It was only a couple of blocks from Ernlist’s room."

"And where from there?"

"The fourth name on your list was Anthony Montivini. His address doesn’t exist. It’s an empty lot."

"Maybe the building was just torn down."

"No, I checked. It was always an empty lot."

"Well, you’ve already earned your salary," Digger said. "I don’t think the company has to pay if the guy put down a spook address."

"You mean I already saved your company a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"

"It looks that way."

"Shit, Digger, this work’s easy."

"Don’t let on. I’ve got Brackler conned."

"Well, I know what we’re going to do. We’re going to take some of that saved company money and you’re going to buy me dinner tonight at a place with real paper napkins and genuine stainless steel forks."

"Should we do that before or after making love?"

"Instead of," Koko said coldly. "I haven’t forgotten how you tricked me into coming down here."

Chapter Ten

DIGGER’S LOG:

Added to the master file is an interview conducted by me at approximately 8:30 P.M. tonight with Miss Tamiko Fanucci, resident of Las Vegas.

Miss Fanucci, on temporary duty for old Benevolent and Saintly, attempted to find the background data on four of the persons believed to have died in the Interworld crash. Those four are Walter Smith, Charles McGovern, James Ernlist, and Anthony Montivini.

The Montivini address given on the insurance application is nonexistent and Miss Fanucci could find nothing about him. The other three men lived at the addresses they gave. None of them had families. Each was known to have known Reverend Wardell.

I spoke on the telephone tonight with Detective David Coley who will run the passenger list through the police department records to see if there is someone with an interesting police record.

The investigation is continuing. I guess I am going to have to talk to the Reverend Wardell. I want to meet the man who is so universally loved that forty people made him their insurance beneficiary. Just before their plane conveniently vanishes.

Koko is sleeping. We had dinner tonight. She knows how to find expensive restaurants, that’s for sure. But she may have saved the company a hundred and fifty thousand dollars today so I’m sure Kwash will approve.

She’s keeping her own record of expenses. My expenses tonight: dinner for two, one hundred and seventeen dollars. I’ll pick up the dime for the telephone call to Detective Coley.

Koko is wearing all her underwear. Jane Block gets more and more interesting. Even if I don’t like blondes.

I wish I knew why that plane went down.

Chapter Eleven

Koko had already left the room when Digger dialed Interworld Airways.

"Hello, me-Jane, this is me-Elmo. I was wondering if you were free for lunch. Failing that, are you reasonable for lunch?"

"I would have been more reasonable for dinner last night, but okay."

They met at a small pseudo-French café just off the strip of million-dollar-a-millimeter ocean front-age that made up Fort Lauderdale’s famous Galt Ocean Mile. Jane was wearing a red-and-white-striped pullover shirt and short white shorts and white high heels.

"Kind of casual wear for the office, isn’t it?" Digger said.

"You know our office. It’s not exactly overrun by tourists, but I keep a wraparound skirt in the closet in case I have to look decent in a hurry."

"You’ll never have that problem with me. Indecent will do just fine." Digger ordered a vodka for himself and looked at her.

"I don’t drink," she said. "Just a Perrier."

"I knew there was something that kept you from being perfect," he said.

When the drinks came Jane asked for a menu. Digger passed.

"Aren’t you eating?"

"I’m drinking."

"You can’t do both?"

"Not if I want to concentrate on my drinking. Go ahead, don’t let me inhibit you."

While she studied the menu, Digger studied her. The young woman was breathtakingly beautiful. The thought of her buried away from the world in a quonset hut at the end of the Fort Lauderdale airport was as big an obscenity as thinking of diamonds never mined, laying for all eternity under twenty feet of dirt and stone.

When the waiter came back, Digger said, "She’ll have the rabbit food."

"Beg pardon?"

"The chef’s salad. With roquefort dressing. Moldy cheese made into goo is just what rabbit food needs to make it a perfect meal."

"Very good. And you, sir?"

"Another vodka."

"Will that be all?"

"No. Make it a double."

"What kind of a name is Elmo?" Jane asked.

"My father wanted a girl. He wanted to name her after my rich aunt, Aunt Alma. I guess he figured that was the way to get her money when she died. Then, instead of getting a girl, he got me. Well, he couldn’t call me Alma. Well, maybe he could if he was Johnny Cash. I mean, you can name a boy Sue. But Alma? But he thought if he named me Elmo, he might be able to get over on my aunt, impress her with the depth of his devotion."

"Did it work?"

"Not a chance. She died and left all her money to my uncle, my father’s brother. He had two daughters. He named them Mary and Margaret."

"That’s a stupid story. It doesn’t make any sense."

"I’ve got a stupid family. Aunt Alma was the stupidest of all. But she was rich. She used to buy day-old bread. She had a closet full of it. I’d go to visit her and she’d feed me bread. A lot of times it had green mold on it and she’d tell me to eat it because it was penicillin and it’d stop me from getting gonorrhea. I didn’t even know what gonorrhea was. I was seven years old."

"Did you eat the bread?"

"I ate around the mold. I fed the mold to her pet parrot. The parrot died before Aunt Alma. I think he had gonorrhea."

"I think you’re crazy," Jane said.

"No. Aunt Alma was crazy. Well, maybe I am crazy, a little crazy. My boss thinks I’m crazy."

"Why?"

"He thinks everybody’s crazy. That’s Walter Brackler, but I call him Kwash ’cause he looks like he has kwashiorkor, a body-shriveling disease. He likes being in the insurance business. That tells you how sane
he
is."

"How’d you get into the insurance business?"

"I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours. How’d you get to work for Timothy Baker and Crash Airways?"

"Don’t make fun of the folks who pay the rent. I was in college in Boston. I’m from Lauderdale."

"Boston’s nice. If you get bored, you can go downtown and watch birds fly into buildings."

"And that’s about all you can do. Half the city is townies and the other half is gownies. All the college kids, the males anyway, are gay. The girls all have three names and no brains. So much for one’s college compatriots. And then, the townies. The Irish hate the Italians. Both of them hate the blacks. The blacks hate everybody. All of them hate anybody from out of town. Some cities, some sections, you can’t drive through at night. Most of Boston, you can’t drive through in the daytime. I left after a year and came back to Lauderdale and no big deal, I answered an ad in the paper for a Girl Friday. Christ, I hate that title. Mr. Baker hired me. He was just starting the airline."

"You didn’t invest in it, did you?"

"Why, you trying to unload some swamp land?"

"No, do I look like the type? No, it’s just that Baker looks a little underfinanced to me and I was wondering how he gets the money to start an air-line."

"He used to be in some kind of big management job in New York. He got some investors together. They bought up an old Florida airline and changed the name and bought some used planes. But business hasn’t been very good. I think his investors are breathing down his neck."

"They do that when they don’t get any return on their money. When’d that all happen?"

"Almost three years. I’ve been here since the start."

"And now, you’re going to be in on the finish?"

"What do you mean?"

"A missing plane, presumed crashed, isn’t going to flood your airline with business, is it?"

"No. And, of course, it’s a tragedy, but I…I don’t know…."

"You don’t know what?"

"If the insurance company pays off, I think Mr. Baker would buy some good equipment. Better planes. Somehow I think…you know, I don’t know anything, but somehow I think…I’ve heard him talking sometimes and I think some more money into the company could help us turn the corner."

"There’s a good side to everything?" Digger said.

"You make it sound heartless. I don’t mean it like that."

"I know, but has Mr. Baker ever talked about buying another plane?"

"Only all the time. Will you be able to help him get his insurance, Elmo?"

"I’m going to try. But I’ve got my own job to do, too."

"I never did figure out what your job is."

"Didn’t Mr. Baker tell you?"

"Only that you had something to do with life insurance on the passengers?"

Digger nodded. "The pilot too. Just checking out claims, all detail work. I’ve got to talk to the co-pilot and the stewardess and then I’ll about have a wrap on this."

"They weren’t even on the flight."

"I know, but you know how insurance companies are. Paper work. Talk, talk, talk. Write, write, write. When the pile of paper costs more than the claim, pay the claim. What was that co-pilot’s name?"

"Randy Batchelor."

"Is that a name or a title?"

She giggled. "Both, I guess. He just got back this morning. Melanie, too."

"That’s the stew," Digger said.

"Ah, yes. Melanie Fox. The Queen of the Skies. One of our stewardi. Or flight attendants, as she’ll be sure to tell you."

"How do I reach them?" Digger asked.

She paused, a forkful of salad hovering near her mouth. "I don’t know," she said. "I don’t think…"

"Listen, Jane, I’ll tell you something I didn’t even tell Baker. Steve Donnelly filled out some kind of insurance form with us, but there’s a mix-up on the beneficiary. His wife and his kids have a chance of not winding up with a dime. I’m trying to straighten that out. Maybe Randy and Melanie can help."

She chewed slowly as she thought.

"Well, call me at the office and I’ll give you their addresses."

"One other thing and it’s really important," Digger said. "Steve’s medical record."

"Oh, I couldn’t do that," she said.

"Just take a peek at it and let me know what’s in it. Maybe there’s some kind of insurance examination from some time back. It might help his wife. And those poor sweet little boys."

"All right, I’ll try. Call me when I get back to the office."

"Sure," he said. "You’re doing a good thing and I’m going to try to help. Mrs. Donnelly.
And
Interworld."

"Maybe we could talk about it over dinner to-night?"

"I don’t know. I’ll try but I don’t think I’ll be able to swing it."

"Why not?"

"I’ve got somebody from the home office with me."

"Bring him, we’ll ditch him later."

"It’s a her. Some old grouchy harridan dastard. That’s it, a dastard. She’s got the room next to me and she listens at the wall. She’s on the phone with my office twelve times a day."

"Poison her," Jane suggested.

"I can’t. I think she’s immune. I think she’s a secret drinker and she’s getting jaundice ’cause she’s this funny color, like yellow. All that alcohol and she can’t catch anything."

"Try to ditch her."

"I’ll try." He looked at her beautiful bosom, as had every other man in the restaurant, and said it again. "I’ll try."

Randy Batchelor’s apartment was in a long, low, three-story building in the shape of a backward C. There was parking for tenants on both sides of the building and, without looking, Digger knew there would be a pool in back, inside the arms of the C, with a large ice machine, chaise lounges, patio tables, and a lot of young women.

As he drove into the parking lot, a young man with dark hair and a Clark Gable mustache walked from the side exit of the building. He was wearing white trousers, a blue Navy blazer and a yachtsman’s cap. The cap was bent down on both sides, toward the ears, in the style that World War II pilots used to affect. It was called a fifty-mission crush, implying that its wearer had flown so many missions that the earphones he wore over his hat had permanently crushed it into that peculiar saddle-shape.

The young man strolled toward a brown Porsche and Digger glanced at the license plates. There were no numbers; just the word FLYBOY.

He walked to the car just as the young man was unlocking the door.

The man turned around, startled, to look up at Digger, who at six-feet-three was four or five inches taller than he was.

"Yes?"

There was a hint of nervousness in the voice and Digger jumped on it.

"Glad I caught you here, Batchelor. Might save you a trip downtown."

"Who are you? What’s this…"

"Name’s Lincoln. I’m looking into that plane crash."

"The F.A.A.? I already talked to…"

"I’m working with the local police, too. They put me on to you. I need a couple of questions answered." Digger leaned against the fender of the car and lit a cigarette.

"You want to go inside, Officer…."

"Lincoln. No. Here’s all right. And nobody calls us officer anymore. Here’s fine."