Death Kit (15 page)

Still, he wasn't too sorry. Perhaps running into Jim was for the best, since Diddy didn't altogether trust himself to be alone. Judged that he didn't yet merit that noble condition. Once safe upstairs in Room 414, isn't he likely to give way to renewed brooding and to morbid indecision? His resolve to stay away from the police, at least not to go (now), was shaky; too new to be truly binding. This resolve was no mere whim—but it was as boneless, feathery, and contingent as a whim. It lacked the weight that a genuine decision ought to have, and does eventually put on. With time. Like a premature baby that must be stored in the incubator until it reaches a normal bulk. Diddy's newly fledged hankering for life needed coddling. A special diet. Only the fit survive, and the fit are fat.

He would eat dinner in the hotel with Jim. He would nourish his decision, he would feed himself. Proper self-feeding apparently requires the company of another person. Diddy has discovered something about his habits of the last four weeks. Particularly why and how he has virtually stopped eating.

Until this time he'd allowed two hypotheses about his not eating. An unconscious penance imposed by his body for the fiasco of a month ago; or a dismal sequel to his humiliating regimen in the hospital. Both true enough, perhaps. But he's neglected a crucial detail. It was after Diddy came out of the hospital that he'd begun to take all his meals alone. Refusing any dinner invitations. And, as an excuse to get out of business lunches, inventing a daily appointment at noon with a doctor who was giving Diddy shots to prevent a recurrence of his illness.

Call it queasiness, call it a fast. It was something of both. Whatever it was, Diddy resolved, it must stop. Diddy who has already put away two meals today. Will have another. Had Jim eaten dinner yet? No. Fine. Jim seemed relieved by the invitation. Diddy flushed with good intentions. Using words, he will go along with what interests Jim; and he will just breathe. Breathing in, breathing out. He mustn't be alone.

Diddy found that the appetite for food that he'd prayerfully ordered with the lobster dinner arrived. But what about fattening up the soul? Putting muscle into the weightless bald will? Growing a skin around the rickety frame of the feelings that won't bruise at the mildest touch? Ah, these are harder tasks. It wasn't so easy: breathing in, breathing out. Jim's banter, an asylum of inane, cranky wholesomeness at breakfast this morning, was driving a nail into Diddy's brain tonight. Could barely listen to Jim, and his own share of the conversation was humorless, forced. Even Jim notices, and several times inquired if he were ill. Diddy kept saying no, he felt fine. But then Jim would go at it again. “You know, you really have been looking pretty run down lately, Dalton.” And advise him to ski this winter, or take up tennis, or work out several times a week at a gym.

Diddy didn't understand what had misfired. Kept trying to make the meal work. Which is why he dawdled over his hearty portion; not because he had trouble finishing everything on his plate. And why he ordered extra cups of coffee, and then a brandy he didn't want. Diddy stalling, hoping to find out how it's done.

Later Diddy gave up. Ashamed to be exploiting this decent enough guy whom he didn't like but didn't not like either. He was bad company for Jim, who'd been perking up as the sulky units of clock-time slid by. Diddy aware that (now) Jim has gotten his second wind, is feeling full-blooded enough to go out and, as he'd say, paint the town red; is lingering out of considerateness, aware that sallow, listless Diddy isn't up to any night life, and reluctant to leave him in the almost deserted hotel restaurant. “The Pine Room.” Clearly Diddy's responsibility: to dissolve the bond of politeness, throw open the doors for Jim. Which he did, first yawning and then mock-confessing to a revived Jim that he was tired and heading for bed.

“I guess you haven't really kicked that virus you came down with last month,” Jim said, scarcely concealing his delight at being released from Diddy's company.

The two men stood in the lobby. Jim slapped Diddy awkwardly on the shoulder. “Good night, Dalt,” he said. “Get some shut-eye, you hear. I mean, don't do anything I wouldn't do, huh?” At the revolving door, he waved. Diddy at the elevator waved back; went upstairs.

Staring resentfully in the bathroom mirror at his morose face. Trying, by sheer will, to thaw himself out. What a burden Diddy the Disaffected is to himself, as well as to others.

After showering, he immediately got into bed. Although Diddy hardly expects to sleep before first enduring the usual lengthy ordeal, there's no place comfortable enough to settle in besides bed in this small, meagerly furnished room. But Diddy doesn't know himself as well as he thinks. Hadn't even time to start devoting attention to the flashing yellow sign outside his window. Diddy the Done-In was indeed terribly tired, and fell into sleep with all the lights on before realizing what he was doing.

Diddy dreamed that night. Not as unpleasant a drama as he might have invented. No stark images of the slain workman or of the ambiguous sexual catharsis with Hester. It was a verbose dream, the dream of an exhausted man. Two persons from the train on Sunday, the stamp dealer in the tweed suit and the priest, are discussing the hobby they have in common. But it isn't stamp collecting. In opposite seats of the compartment, leaning intently toward each other, they were passing a handsome shell back and forth between them. A fine, rosy specimen of a shell that Diddy recognizes:
Conus gloriamaris,
the Glory of the Sea. The two men are lavishing praise upon the shell, calling each other's attention to its intricate whorls and markings. Not clear to Diddy who owns the Glory of the Sea. If it belongs to only one of the men, the other shows no signs of envy or covetousness. And if the precious object is their joint possession, it doesn't seem to cause any dispute or friction between them.

Diddy, both a spectator within the dream, sitting in the compartment next to the man in the tweed suit, and outside, somewhere, nowhere. Electrified with envy. He wants the shell for himself, though aware that he's succumbed to an ugly feeling. For Diddy neither admires the shell nor finds it beautiful. Were he, while strolling alone along some empty beach, to come upon the Glory of the Sea resting on top of the damp brown bubble-studded sand, he wouldn't honor it with a glance. Unless he stubbed his toe on the shell, in which case he'd kick it or, better yet, grind it under his heel. Diddy the Bad covets the shell (now) solely because he observes the value set on it by the man in the tweed suit and the priest.

But he has no qualifications for ownership. Unlikely that these men would consider surrendering their prize to Diddy, who collects stamps.

Thus permanently excluded from the indefinitely renewable joy that passes back and forth between the two collectors, Diddy grows more and more frustrated. Must do something. He doesn't wrench the shell from their hands. For some unclarified reason knows he can't take physical possession of the shell; at least not (now). But he can diminish their pleasure in it. Taking moral possession of it, so to speak.

In an instant, act. Before the claims of conscience begin to whimper; materializing their rusty, familiar fetters. Diddy intervenes brutally. Merely by giving a lecture, one which distills all the rage and disappointment choking him. In order to deliver his discourse, he leaps gracefully from his seat up to the baggage rack. Sits leaning forward, for there's not enough room to straighten his back; with his feet dangling. Looks down at the two men and begins to harangue them.

First point: the great era of conchology is definitely over. There's no point in trying to return to the past, is there? He looks below to check the impact his words are having on the two men. Already, they seem less elated. This hobby, Diddy continues, flourished in the nineteenth century, when there were still genuine discoveries to be made. (Now) everything is known and has been catalogued, these objects are no longer worthy of attracting the fancy of a truly serious person. Shell collecting, as one might expect, has passed into the hands of sentimental amateurs, who are content with arbitrary samplings and arrangements. And amateurs are notoriously credulous, easily taken in by fakes, forgeries, and misattributions. With no one to uphold the old standards of conchology, the market has been glutted with sanded-down, glazed, and tinted objects claiming to be shells. Which are really the beautified corpses of shells. One result of their being too numerous was that shells ceased to be treated with the respect properly owing to a wholly natural object, and taste in shells was irrevocably corrupted. In fact, Diddy raises his voice, eager to drive his point home, good taste in
all
domains fell into decline. An esoteric bit of information: the ruinous desire to improve on nature began with the first man who set about to convert a shell into a work of art. That, said Diddy the Capricious, spitting at the priest, is the true account of original sin.

The priest is quietly wiping saliva off the front of his jacket, as Diddy goes on. If Mrs. Nayburn were here, she'd be thrusting her handkerchief at him before he'd time to reach for his own.

Second point: the poor shells themselves, defenseless as the soft molluscs they once housed, could do nothing to halt this degrading metamorphosis. Most gave up right away; a few struggled, in vain. How could they resist, much less hope to prevail, having no eyes? So not only their quantity but their very substance altered. Shells became coarse, brutish. Look closely, Diddy says, at that shell you've been fondling. It's true that once the Glory of the Sea was the rarest, costliest, the most coveted of shells. In the early 1800's, there were only two known specimens in the entire world; both found in the waters east of New Guinea. But by the end of the century the shell was being found in indecently profuse numbers. The price plummeted. (Now) anyone can send away for one of the debased, modern specimens. Not to mention the carefully crafted imitations being turned out by several factories in Japan.

“Now, let's have a look at this particular specimen…” Diddy snaps his fingers brusquely. The man in the tweed suit clambers to his feet and reverently passes the shell up to Diddy on his perch. No need for Diddy to bother with the stethoscope or the reflex hammer. What's wrong with this shell, he declares, is plain enough to the unaided senses. With a negligent thrust of his right index finger, Diddy calls attention to the fact that the body whorl is tilted in the reverse direction of the true Glory of the Sea, and that the reticulations of the whorl run transversely to those of authentic specimens. Shows the abashed connoisseurs below him that the shell has a badly chipped lip, too, and a thickened margin in exactly the wrong place. They react to this denunciation of their prize with appropriate dismay. Diddy, unpitying, persisting. “You've been cheated. A worthless trinket!” Callously tosses it down for them to catch, if they can. “In short, gentlemen,” Diddy concludes triumphantly, “what you are holding in your hands is a murdered and broken shell.”

Diddy stares down at the two men contemptuously, as they frantically handle the shell and peer into it, in the hope of refuting his superbly ordered attack. Diddy has sized up what kind of people he's up against. The priest and the dealer are large, fat men; and therefore partial to small things. Stamps, shells, dolls, key rings, matchboxes, little magazines, recorders, small cars, miniature dogs, minor paintings, little virtues. Diddy likes big virtues; and large, strong things. Nothing exquisite or fragile suits his tastes. A slug of gin any day for him, in preference to a bowl of jasmine tea from Peking. Still, he can feel protective toward what is delicate or vulnerable. Right (now), for instance, Diddy worries that the fat priest is taking up far too much room, more than his third of the seat; squeezing Mrs. Nayburn and Hester. Diddy's concern is needed to rectify the priest's gross conduct. They're probably too polite to complain.

But the blond girl and her aunt aren't in the compartment any more. Probably disturbed by so much arguing. An affair of men only. In the ensuing debate, Diddy, having boldly taken an unpopular position, will have to stand his ground.

The silken-voiced priest asks Diddy, who has admitted to not being a conchologist, the source of his information. Diddy knowing that his whole lecture is a pack of lies. And delivered with such a clear conscience. Diddy the Dauntless or Diddy the Depraved? But wait, maybe what he's been saying is true. Without his knowing it. A lucky break, that perhaps he once saved a newspaper article on the Glory of the Sea which set forth everything one might want to know about it.

Triumphant Diddy replies to the priest, citing that definitive unchallengeable article. Adding that, needless to say, he always carries the clipping in his wallet. For just such emergencies of credibility as this. The two men ask to be allowed to examine the clipping. Isn't that suspicious? Clever Diddy smells danger in their reasonable request. Suppose they intend to confiscate his clipping—either tear it up or pocket it themselves. Should he lose the clipping, which is irreplaceable, Diddy has lost the only hard evidence he possesses for his fraudulent case against the shell. So Diddy tells them he'll bring out the clipping some other time; they'll have to take his word for it right (now). Then begins his whole speech over again.

As he is hectoring the two men from above their heads, Diddy fears he's overdoing it. A thesis utterly remote from the truth doesn't, in the end, convince or deceive anyone. So his destructive intention won't appear too blatant, clever Diddy decides that it's time to call attention to some of the shell's virtues. The fine granulations on the outer valve, the delicate tones with which the shell is ringed or banded. But just as he's getting his eulogy underway, Diddy observes that these good features no longer exist. The shell is (now) as unequivocally ugly as he had maliciously pronounced it to be. The two collectors see that just as clearly as Diddy does. In disgust, they hurl the shell from them. Out the window. “Do not throw anything from the train window.”