Smoked Out (Digger) (2 page)

"Suit yourself. Going away?"

"Just a couple of days. Hollywood…I’m on my way to Hollywood."

Digger lived five blocks away from the cocktail lounge in a high-rise condominium on the Las Vegas strip. He drove up to the front door an hour later. The doorman called a boy to park Digger’s white Mazda sports car. Digger gave the doorman two dollars and rode the elevator up to the fifteenth floor.

When he let himself into the apartment, a young Oriental woman was standing naked in front of the wall mirror in the living room, examining her body with the callous eye of a cattle buyer. She pulled a towel around her when the door opened. When she saw who was there, she tossed the towel onto the couch and turned back to the mirror. She seemed to attach immense importance to some invisible spot on her left hip.

"What happened? They close the world?"

"Why?" Digger asked.

"You’re home the same day. I didn’t expect you ’til tomorrow."

"Just trying to keep you on your toes. Besides, it was business. I had to meet Kwash."

"A job?"

"Yes. Kind of early for your shower, isn’t it? Or late?" He took the towel from the sofa and sat down. He dropped the towel on the floor. He got up again, went to the stereo and put on a record of alto-saxophone solos by Freddy Gardner. He poured vodka from the kitchenette freezer into a glass, then sat back down on the couch.

"I’m going out. I promised Lenny I’d show some guy the town."

"Why do I always get this idea that every tour of the town ends between your legs?"

"Because maybe it does sometimes. Do I ask you where you go?"

"Koko, you can ask me anything," Digger said.

"Where were you last Monday?"

"Monday. Monday. We went to Lake Mead on Monday. You caught a fish and I threw up."

"No, that was Tuesday. You took me because you must’ve been feeling guilty about something you did on Monday. What’d you do on Monday to feel guilty?"

"Monday, then. I screwed the hatcheck girl down at Florio’s."

"Which one?"

"The blonde."

"The one who was at my table one night and doubled down on hard six?"

"Right."

"Why?"

"Why what? Why does she double down on six? Maybe she can’t play blackjack. How the hell would I know?"

"Why did you make it with her?"

"Because if I didn’t, she was going to gum me to death in the hat room. I never saw a woman with so much hots for my body. I was doing her a favor. You, too. I thought if I kept putting her off, she’d get jealous and come and shoot you. Besides, she’s got nice tits."

"Tell her we’re just roommates. We live together to cut costs. We screw when we’re both horny. No I’ve-got-a-headache shit. Yes. No. All very civilized. I hate it when you like other women’s tits. Why do we keep having this conversation about my going out? Are you going to propose? Where did you fuck her?"

"In the front. What kind of animal do you think I am? You’re not flat-chested."

"I don’t mean where
where
, I mean where. Was it here?"

"So you were out on Monday night, too," Digger said. "Where’d you go?"

"If I hadn’t gone out Monday night, I wouldn’t have had Tuesday off to go to Lake Mead with you."

"I think it’s sick how many guys come to Vegas to make it with Orientals. If they’ve got a yen for fortune nookie, why the fuck don’t they go to Chinatown wherever they live and get their heads tonged?"

"Because I’m Japanese, not Chinese. I know how. Sexy for Chinese is…don’t get me started. What did you get from the company?"

"I’ve got to go to Los Angeles. Wait a minute." Digger raised a hand in the air for silence as he listened to the last powerful notes of "Roses of Picardy." He closed his eyes to the music, amazed as he always was by the delicacy that accompanied the power. Someone had once told him that Freddy Gardner used a special reed on his saxophone. He didn’t know if it was true, but he had never heard a saxophone played with so much reach and clarity. The last note faded away. Digger said, "Some doctor’s wife died. Car accident. Got to go make sure it was real."

"Doctors don’t kill their wives in car accidents," Koko said. She hoisted a powder blue gown up over her head and began to insinuate herself into it.

"How do doctors kill their wives?" Digger asked.

"Bubbles of air. Exotic poisons. Do unnecessary surgery, leave in a handful of sponges, then feed them Perrier and let them explode. Not car accidents."

"No underwear tonight?"

"Put it on to take it off? Zip me up."

"What would you do if I weren’t here?" Digger asked.

"Call the carhop. He’d zip me up. He’d pole-vault up here to zip me up."

"I’ll zip you up. I wouldn’t want you attacked by any strange poles. Not any more than usual. Why the hell do they make these zippers so they always get the material caught in them?"

"Don’t rip my gown."

"I won’t. Stop bitching. I’d like to rip it." He zipped it and the Oriental girl twirled around in front of the mirror.

"Gotta go," she said.

"I’ll be gone when you get back."

"Where’d you say you were going?"

"Los Angeles. Hollywood. You going to tell me to stay away from strange women?"

"All women are strange to you. Think of your ex-wife."

"Is that a direct order?"

"Maybe you should think about going back to her."

"It’s eighth on my list of preferences. Right after immolation and just above having my ears pierced. Let’s not ruin a perfectly good argument by talking about her. That was a long time ago."

"How long will you be away?" she asked.

"Four, five days, probably. What are you going to do while I’m gone?"

"You don’t want to know."

"Thanks for not telling me," Digger said. "I’m going to pack. Kiss goodbye?"

"Smudge my lipstick," the woman said, walking toward the door. She stopped, came back, kissed the palm of her right hand and pressed the palm against Digger’s cheek.

"I…" She stopped.

"What?"

"I hope you have a good time. Be careful."

"Why should I be careful?"

"Because you’re crazy. You crazy people have an obligation to all us sane ones to be careful."

After she left, Julian Burroughs finished his drink, turned the phonograph record over and went into the bedroom. He looked inside a red-leather garment bag hanging in his closet to make sure that it still held a suit, a jacket, three pair of slacks, a pair of jeans, five shirts, underwear, socks and sneakers. From a dresser drawer, he took a small tape recorder, only slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes, and a plastic bag filled with accessories.

He yelled at the door, "Koko, I only hang out with you because your people make good tape recorders. When the Germans get cooking, I’m trading you in for a blonde with an IQ of twenty-seven and a ninety-six inch chest."

From a box under the bed, he took out twenty small cassette tapes. He packed them into a small overnight bag, along with the recorder and his shaving kit. He called the concierge and asked for a wake-up call at 5:00 A.M.

Still fully dressed, he lay on the bed and fell asleep immediately.

Chapter Two

The drive from Las Vegas to Los Angeles was 284 miles. Digger drove it in four hours and forty-five minutes, counting one gas stop.

The attendant had seemed annoyed to see anyone at 6:45 A.M.

"Fill it," Digger said.

The attendant had let the gas trickle in automatically while he picked his teeth and looked out across the sand. When the pump cut off, he ran in four more cents to bring the gas pump total to $17.50.

"Fill it," Digger said.

"It’s full. Seventeen-fifty."

"It’s not full. You guys pump just enough gas to get to an even number. I don’t want an even number. I want a full tank. Fill it. You think I want to die in the desert?"

Grumbling, the attendant filled the tank to $19.11.

"Nineteen-eleven."

Digger paid with a credit card. The attendant gave him his receipt and tried not to give him his credit card back. Digger took it from the top of the gas pump.

"Always stay as nice as you are today," he said.

When he reached Los Angeles, Digger carefully skirted the city and Beverly Hills and drove directly to the Sportsland Lodge in West Hollywood, where he had stayed once before with his ex-wife. They had been on their honeymoon, married just one day. When he had first seen the small trout stream that ran through the hotel grounds, he realized it would be a wonderful place to drown a vicious, nasty, bitching woman. But it wouldn’t have been fair to the trout. He wondered if the trout knew that he had taken on twelve years of misery for them.

He unpacked his clothes, then showered. He put a fresh cassette tape into the small recorder and attached the machine to the right side of his back, just above his waist, with a thin plastic strap. He took a long wire from the accessory bag. He plugged the jack end of it into the recorder and taped the rest of the wire to his side with white surgical tape. The other end of the wire was a small golden tie clip in the shape of an open-mouthed frog.

Digger dressed in a blue suit, with a white shirt and dark tie, then fastened the clip to the tie. He reached behind him and, through his shirt, pressed the "record" button.

"Seven. Eight. Nine."

He depressed another button, held it, then pressed another.

"Seven. Eight. Nine," the recorder repeated, high-pitched and metallic but clear. He rewound the tape again and turned the machine off.

Two blocks away from the Sportsland Lodge, he found a stationery store and went in to look at the sympathy cards. He brought the two he liked best to the salesgirl, who looked as if she were having a special that week on teeth.

"Which one of these do you like best?" Digger read them. " ‘Never say she is dead. Never say she is gone. She is only sleeping.’ And then there’s ‘The One We Loved Lived Life to the Fullest To Enrich the Lives of Others. And God Remembers.’ That one’s got a lot of capital letters in it. I kind of lean toward that one. You don’t think it’s too gaudy, do you?"

"Oh, no. It’s kind of…you know, elegant. Not many people buy this kind of card."

"Not many people care enough to send the very best," Digger said. "How much is it?"

She looked at the card. "Two dollars and fifty cents."

"If we take off that tufted satin cross in the middle?"

"Oh, we couldn’t do that," she said.

Digger shrugged. "Well, what the hell, let’s go for the two and a half. Mothers only die once."

He checked his pocket to make sure he had a ball-point pen. Then he drove to the Sylvan Glade Cemetery, tucked away in a corner of Hollywood Hills, equidistant from the Hollywood Bowl and The Beauty on Duty Massage Parlor, open twenty-four hours a day. If You Don’t See It, Ask.

The Sylvan Glade Cemetery made Digger think of the summer estate of a Roman emperor, newly converted to the cause of lunacy and bad taste. The rolling hills were beautiful. The grass was so green it looked as if it had been freshly painted that morning, but statuary jutted up from the greenery without apparent reason, like cow skulls in the desert. He drove by a statue of David that was twenty feet high. Michelangelo’s original was only fourteen feet tall. There was a marble reproduction of Michelangelo’s "Pietà" and, in front of it, an arrow-shaped sign stuck in the ground pointing the way to the office.

The man on duty was reading the Sunday summary of the week’s stock market activity. When Digger opened the door, electronic chimes played the first two bars of "Pomp and Circumstance." As if he had been trained by Pavlov, the man behind the desk dropped the outside corners of his eyes to look sad. Digger thought he looked pitiful.

"Yes, sir?" the man said.

"I’m interested in a mausoleum," Digger said. "Something in pink."

"We have access to the finest stone workers in the world," the man said. "Anything you want we could manage. Is the deceased—"

"And maybe with a hot tub and a wine cellar. You got something with a hot tub and a wine cellar?"

"It’s rather unusual."

"See, this is going to be for me. When I die. And I entertain a lot, and I want people to remember me the way I was. I don’t want them just forgetting about me. I want them to come out here and have a great time, getting whacked, splashing around in the Jacuzzi, just like in the old days. Would there be a problem with something like that? Zoning or something?"

"No, sir. I’m sure we could work it out."

"Well, I wish you’d look into it and then have one of your representatives call me to discuss price and so forth."

"Certainly. Your name?"

"Walter Brackler. I’m a vice president of Brokers Surety Life Insurance Company. That’s room 66006, 1270 Sixth Avenue, New York. I’m just in town for a couple of days for a funeral. Where is the Welles gravesite, please?"

"Welles? Oh, Mrs. Welles. You’re very early."

"I wanted to get a head start. Start mourning with everybody else and one or two of them suckers is liable to beat you. But get off fast and nobody catches you, not ever. It’s not easy being a mourner. You know what a mourner is in New York City? It’s a nooner, only sooner. Don’t forget now. I’ll be back in my office by Wednesday and I really want somebody to call."

Digger followed instructions and turned left at the "Pietà" and right at the "David." Past the Cherubim and Seraphim. Stop just before Rodin’s "The Kiss."

The hole had already been dug. The piles of dirt lining it were covered with Astro-Turf. A metal frame had been erected over the open grave and covered with a white cloth.

Digger sat in the car, enjoying the air conditioning. He reread the clipping about Mrs. Welles’s death. Every few minutes a car passed him, most of them with family groups, husband and wife in the front seat, children in the back. He absolutely loved California. Families would go out for a Sunday drive to tour a cemetery. They are not dead, he thought. They are only sleeping.

He turned on his tape recorder to test it and broadcast a message. He played it back.

"All of California is certifiable," Digger heard his voice say. "It’s like a stewardess who asks you with a smile if you want lemon for your tea and, all the while, she knows some crazed Lebanese is running around in the pilot’s cabin with a pipe bomb, a machine gun and a set of 912 non-negotiable demands. I mean, here you’ve got this state that’s ready to go belly up the first time the earth coughs, and what do Californians do? They work on their tan."