The Digger's Game (8 page)

In the study the Digger looked at the muttonstripped,
glass-front bookcases and the seven-foot, carved cherry desk. The carpet was a rose-colored Oriental; it took the sun nicely where the French doors opened on the flagstone terrace. At the corner of the terrace there were four potted rose trees; a small grey bird perched on one of them, and sang.

“I hate that woman,” the Digger said, when Paul came into the study.

“Mrs. Herlihy?” Paul said. “I think the world of her. She runs the house perfectly. She has a very pleasant manner. I think sometimes we ought to ordain Mrs. Herlihy and let her take over the rest of the work. I haven’t said that to Mrs. Herlihy.”

“Every time I come here,” the Digger said, “I got to tell her who I am. She knows who I am. Every time, after I tell her, she says we look like twins. She’s jerking my chain. She don’t like me.”

“We look like twins because we both eat too much,” Paul said. “But there’re a lot of people who eat too much, and a lot of them come here. She can’t be expected to remember every fat man’s name, and you don’t come here that often.”

“I can see I should,” the Digger said. “I could get used to this in a hurry. You still got the pool table in the cellar?”

“Billiard table,” Paul said. “We’re much too refined for pool. Of course.” He wore a pale-yellow LaCoste sports shirt and white slacks. He wore white, slip-on shoes, no socks. “I don’t generally move it out onto the lawn,” he said.

“You had your hair cut,” the Digger said. “It’s different. It’s, it’s a different color. You’re touching it up.”

Paul sat in the tall, red leather chair behind the desk.
“I had it cut in New York,” he said. “I was there for a catechetical conference and I was staying at the Sherry Netherland. I needed a haircut so I had it cut. It’s cut different from the way I usually have it cut.”

“That could be,” the Digger said. “But it’s touched up, too. I got to hand it to you, Paul, you
look
like a Bishop. You live like a Bishop, too. Not bad at all.”

“Supposed to be half the battle,” Paul said. “When Father Celine brought the dog home, I told him he was giving himself and his ambitions away. Nobody short of a suffragan should have a dog like that. He said he likes to hunt.”

“What does he hunt?” the Digger said. “Rich old ladies, I bet.”

“No,” Paul said, “he doesn’t need to. Andy comes from the building Celines. He had a white Imperial convertible right out of the seminary, and his parents didn’t have to throw him a parish-hall party to pay for it, either. He’ll do all right.”

“Everybody does all right,” the Digger said. “I’m in the wrong line of work, is what I think.”

“Oh come on,” Paul said, “you do all right. A workingmen’s bar in Dorchester? That’s like a private gold mine. If Pa’d had something like that, he would’ve been in seventh heaven.”

“He would’ve been in some kind of heaven,” the Digger said, “and a lot sooner, too. Or else maybe down to the Washingtonian, drying out. He had enough trouble staying off the tea as it was. He hadda bar, I think he would’ve been pickled all the time. In addition to which, it’s no soft touch, you know, things the way they are. New law now, we gotta serve broads. Guys don’t like it, guys’ wives don’t like it, I agree with
them: booze and broads don’t mix. Also, I got to put in another toilet, which is going to run me a good three thousand before I’m through and I lose space too. Time I get it, it’ll be time for Father Finn’s regular sermon about the evils of drink, and that’ll fall the trade off for a week or two. It’s no picnic, Paul.”

“I could speak to Father Finn, if you want,” Paul said.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” the Digger said. “It gets Aggie upset and all, and it costs me money, but it also don’t encourage anybody else, thinking about going to the Licensing for another joint. Ask him instead, how he likes the ghinny Assistant.”

“Still your old tolerant self, I see, Jerry,” Paul said.

“I been around,” the Digger said, “I work hard, I seen a few things. I can think what I want. I don’t like ghinnies, is all. I got reasons.”

“Heaven’s going to be hard for you,” Paul said. “They’re nowhere near as selective as you are, from what I hear.”

“Yeah,” the Digger said, “I heard that too. I didn’t hear it from Father Finn, of course, but I see Alioto’s working around to that every so often. Coons and everything. Course that’s only true if there’s anything to the rest of it, shade just doesn’t go down and that’s the end of you.”

“You’re not sure?” Paul said.

“Put it this way,” the Digger said, “if they got that thing and all, it’s not crowded. I sure don’t know that many guys I’d expect to find there.”

“You expect to get the chance to look, though,” Paul said.

“Well,” the Digger said, “there was Ma. Now Ma, she did what she was supposed to do, and she laid off the other stuff, and she put up with Pa and me. So, and that other thing, she had a son a priest, which is the free ticket, the way I get it. So, it’s all true, Ma is okay. Now me, I figure the one chance I got is to kick off when it’s raining, no golf, a weekday, say in April, no ball game, middle of the afternoon so you already had your nap. I see it coming, I’m gonna say, ‘Aggie, gimme the chaplain, baby. Call over to Saint Hilary’s, Father Finn ain’t in, try the Lutherans and then the Jews. Worst comes to worst, the black fella down in the store Columbus Ave, under the el.’ Because that’s the only chance I got, somebody comes by when I’m too weak to get in any more trouble and wipes it all off, says, ‘Let him in, God. He made it.’ Ma, Ma could’ve died in a closet when the Broons’re playing Canadiens, there isn’t a priest for miles. She still would’ve been all right. Maureen’s inna convent. She goes and they say, ‘Let her in, works for the Boss.’ Kathy? Kathy married the Corola wine company. Either she goes straight to hell for marrying the wop or she goes straight to heaven for living with the wop, I forget which Ma finally decided. Either way, nothing she can do about it. You got the retirement plan. Me, I gotta be realistic. I go at a time when I can’t get the house call, I’m sunk.”

“Does it bother you?” Paul said.

“Yeah,” the Digger said, “a little.”

“Enough to do something about it?” Paul said.

“No,” the Digger said, “not enough for that. I figure, I make it, great. They gotta, there’s gotta be some reason, they call it Paradise. I don’t make it, it’s there to be
had, well, too bad, at least I’ll see all my friends in the other place. And if there isn’t no place, either kind, well, at least I didn’t waste no time worrying about it.”

“I think that’s a healthy attitude,” Paul said.

“Yeah,” the Digger said.

“I do,” Paul said. “It’s not that far off from mine. The way I look at it, I’m telling people what I really believe to be true. But maybe it isn’t true. All right. If they do what I tell them, and it’s true, I’ve done a lot of good. That makes me feel good. If they do what I tell them, and it isn’t true, what’ve they lost? There’s nothing wrong with the model of Christian life, even if there isn’t any jackpot at the end. It’s an orderly, dignified way to live, and that’s not a bad thing.”

“I don’t think that’s what Ma thought you were up to when you got ordained, there,” the Digger said.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Paul said. “Ma was a good, simple woman. I don’t think it’s what
I
was up to, when I got ordained.”

“That’s nice talk,” the Digger said.

“I didn’t mean anything,” Paul said. “I mean it: she knew what she believed in, and she believed in it. I’d give a great deal today for a church full of people like her. I offer Mass at least twice a week, for the repose of her soul.”

“Now there’s something I could use,” the Digger said, “a little of that repose of the soul. That’d be just the item.”

“Well,” Paul said, “you had yourself a little excursion a week or so ago. Things can’t be that bad.”

“How’d you hear that?” the Digger said.

“I ran into Aggie,” Paul said. “I had some business at the Chancery and then I took the trolley intown and
went to see Father Francis at the Shrine, take him to lunch. Aggie was coming out when I went in. She had Patricia with her. Those are beautiful children, my nephews and niece, even if I am their uncle.”

“I wonder what the hell she was doing in there,” the Digger said. “She didn’t tell me she was intown.”

“You were away,” Paul said. “I suppose she figured, well, the cat’s away. Here’s my chance to get roaring drunk. So, naturally, she stopped in at the Shrine with your daughter to get things off to a proper start. She said you were out in Las Vegas and she was in shopping and stopped in at the Shrine to say a prayer for your safe return. Nothing sinister about that, is there?”

“No,” the Digger said, “I didn’t mean that. I just didn’t know she was in there, is all. She can do what she likes.”

“How’d you happen to be in Las Vegas?” Paul said.

“Oh, you know,” the Digger said, “one thing and another. I know this guy, he’s inna travel business, he had this deal, he had some room onna plane and did me and some of the guys want to go. So, you know, we hear a lot about Vegas, yeah, we’ll go. So, you pay five bucks, you join this club, then they can give you the plane fare, practically for nothing. They got this kind of a special deal with the hotel, so, really, it’s pretty cheap, you do it that way. It’s almost all the way across the country and all. You get your meals, couple of drinks, you can play golf. I played golf. It’s really a pretty good deal.”

“You like Vegas, huh?” Paul said.

“It’s pretty hot,” the Digger said. “During the day it was awful hot. See, that’s one of the reasons you can get the rate, going out this time of year. It’s so hot, a lot
of people don’t want to go. So the hotels, you know, they pay part of it. But it was still hot. One of the days it got up to a hundred and fifteen. I wouldn’t want to live there. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

“Of course the main attraction’s the gambling,” Paul said.

“Well, but they have a lot of big-name entertainment there too,” the Digger said.

“Who’d you see?” Paul said.

“It was kind of funny, actually,” the Digger said. “I was going to, they had this opera fellow that was supposed to sing there, Mario Lanza?”

“Mario Lanza’s been dead about ten years,” Paul said.

“Must’ve been somebody else, then,” the Digger said. “Like I say, I forget his name. Anyway, he was sick. Nero. Franco Nero?”

“The only one I ever heard of,” Paul said, “was Corelli. I doubt he sings out there.”

“I dunno,” the Digger said. “Whoever it was, he was sick. So they just had, it was some guys I never heard of. They had a comedian and they had this floor show and a guy sang popular.”

“What was the floor show, Jerry?” Paul said.

“Gee,” the Digger said, “well, you know, it was a
floor
show.”

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “Tell me about it. What am I missing?”

“Well,” the Digger said, “they had these dance numbers. They had these girls come out in the headdresses and all, and then they got this number, they wheel out a big glass staircase, you know? And the girls come out and they stand on it.”

“They just stand on it?” Paul said. “People pay money to see that?”

“Paul,” the Digger said, “they don’t have any clothes on.”

“
Okay
,” Paul said. “Now, that I can understand. I’ve got a couple friends in the parish that go to Las Vegas from time to time, and they’re the kind of men that I would imagine probably get around a little. And they’ve invited me to go, and of course I’ve always said, ‘No.’ I don’t think the Bishop’d like it. Well, they think that means I disapprove of
them
going, and actually, I guess I do. Although they can well afford it, whatever it costs. But that means I never get to hear what it is that I missed. I just wanted to know what it is that I don’t think the Bishop’d want me to see, whatever it is.”

“You can’t actually see that much,” the Digger said. “I was sitting away back in the place, you know? They were naked, I could see that. But otherwise, nothing much.”

“That’s from being a regular churchgoer,” Paul said. “You’re so used to sitting at the back so you can leave early, you just automatically sit at the back, now. Your old habits’re too much for you. Did you by any chance do some gambling, Jerry?”

“Well, yeah,” the Digger said, “I did some gambling.”

“How much gambling did you do?” Paul said.

“Now look,” the Digger said, “gambling, you know, I done it before. I know where Suffolk is, the Rock, Gansett. I even bet onna baseball game now and then. I didn’t, I know about gambling, Paul. I didn’t have to go all the way out to Vegas to gamble.”

“Well, that’s true, of course,” Paul said. “Did you win or lose?”

“I lost,” the Digger said.

“You lost,” Paul said.

“Look,” the Digger said, “I’m not one of them guys comes around and he’s always telling you, he won. People lose, gambling. I lost.”

“That’s why they run gambling, I think,” Paul said. “People lose their money at it.”

“Mostly,” the Digger said, “mostly, they do.”

“How much did you lose, Jerry?” Paul said.

“Well,” the Digger said, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon not go into it.”

“Jerry,” Paul said, “I’d love not to go into it. You got a deal.”

There was an extended silence. There was a ship’s clock on the mantel of the fireplace in the study of the rectory of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It had a soft tick, inaudible except in near-absolute silence. It ticked several times.

“How’s your car running?” the Digger said.

“I’ve been thinking of turning it in,” Paul said.

“Something the matter with it?” the Digger said. His face showed concern. “Car’s not that old, you don’t drive it all the time. It’s, what, a six-thousand-dollar item? Oughta be all right for five years or so.”

“It’s two years old,” Paul said. “Nineteen thousand miles on it. There’s nothing wrong with it. I was just thinking, I might trade it. I always wanted a Cadillac.”

“Those’re
nice
,” the Digger said. “I wouldn’t mind one of them myself. I see one a while back, had a real close look at it. Really a nice car.”