Fool's Flight (Digger) (14 page)

He could deal with her self-pity or her hate. Or both. But the new tactic was getting under his craw.

He hoped she would just be vicious and nasty when he called her.

"Hello, Cora."

"Julie? Is this Julie?"

"Why do you sound like Al Jolson when you say that?" Digger asked.

"Ah, yes. It’s Julie. The Playboy of the Western World."

"What do you want? And please don’t call me Julie."

"Married a dozen years, I can’t call you Julie?"

"Divorced for six, you can’t. Julian. Mr. Bur- roughs. Ex. You can call me Ex for ex-husband. I’ll call you E for empty."

"I want to talk to you about your children."

"What’s-his-name and the girl?"

"How many other children do you have?"

"None that I know of. What about the children?"

"I don’t think it’s fair that you go off gallivanting, vacationing anywhere you want and those children have to sit up here, waiting for some goddam Fresh Air Fund to take them to summer camp."

"I’ll ship up a pound of hot dogs. Have a cookout. Tell them it’s summer camp at home."

"No, Julie, that won’t work. I think you’re down there in Fort Lauderdale, playing in the sun, the least…"

"I’m not playing, Cora. I’m working. You know the word?"

"Don’t be sarcastic. I think it’s about time your children spent some time with you."

"I’ll take them to the movies the next time I’m in town. If something good’s playing. I’m waiting for
Superman Eighteen
."

"You remember your divorce agreement. It says you are supposed to see them frequently."

"No. It says I’m supposed to see them as frequently as I wish with no interference from you."

"You mean you don’t want to see your own kids?"

Digger was silent for a moment. "What do you want, Cora?"

"I’ve been trying to reach you for God knows how long. I’m driving down to Miami tomorrow, me and the kids. I’m going to leave them with you for a few days."

"No, you’re not."

"Yes, I am. It’s about time you saw them again."

"I’m working. I don’t have time to baby-sit."

"No, I guess you’re too busy with your Japanese girlfriends and your stewardesses and your hatcheck girls and all those other things you seem to attract, God knows why."

"A hundred million women can’t be wrong."

"I’ll be down there day after tomorrow. I’m leaving the kids with you. Julie, it’s just for a few days. Don’t you think I deserve a vacation once in a while?"

"From what?"

"Goddamit, from these kids. Two days, Julie, we’ll be there. They’re looking forward to it. I don’t know why. Good-bye."

The telephone clicked in his ear and Digger came to the realization that if vodka didn’t exist, he would have had to invent it.

He had a drink. The half-gallon bottle was almost empty and he wondered for a moment if Koko were sneaking drinks on him. Some people did that, sneaking drinks the minute your back was turned. They never cared how low the bottle got and they never thought of replacing it with a fresh bottle. Some people were just impossibly heartless and cruel. He weighed that argument against the fact that Koko didn’t, couldn’t, drink. He was not ready to make any snap decisions of innocence in her behalf. If he did, it would mean he had drunk this whole half-gallon by himself and he doubted that. Oh, yeah, Koko, I doubt that very much. Maybe she was entertaining heavy-drinking boyfriends while he was out working. That could happen, too.

The telephone rang. It was Koko.

"Listen," Digger said. "I don’t have time to talk about your drinking right now."

"What are you talking about?" she said.

"We’ve got to finish this up fast. My kids are coming to town."

"What’s-his-name and the girl?" Koko asked.

"Yeah. The ex is driving them down. She wants me to baby-sit, for Christ’s sakes."

"It might be nice to meet them," Koko said.

"Come on. What’s-his-name picks his nose. The girl’s got braces or something. She always had corn kernels stuck in her braces. I think she sleeps in a corncrib."

"Digger, when the hell was the last time you saw them?"

"What has that got to do with anything?"

"How old are they?" she asked.

"I don’t know. He’s eleven or something. She’s younger. I think."

"Come on, Digger. He’s sixteen."

"He can’t be."

"He is."

"If he’s sixteen, well, then, she’s almost something like that," he said.

"I think you ought to see them. I’d like to meet them. You’re their father. You ought to try to get close to them. Before their youth vanishes."

"I don’t want to see them. I don’t care about their youth, I hope
they
vanish. We’ve got two days to straighten this all out and get out of here before Cora arrives. She’s got a special car. It’s got screens between the front and back seats so they can’t sink their fangs into her neck. And there’s no handles on the back doors so they can’t escape. I think when she drives she lets them go to the toilet in open fields. She calls them back with one of those special whistles that humans can’t hear."

"Digger, you’re awful. I bet they’re nice, sweet kids."

"Shows how little you know. Two days we’ve got. That’s all."

"Okay, if you’re in a hurry, you ought to get down here. I’ve got something, maybe," she said.

"Where are you?"

"I’m at the…excuse me, what is this place?" Digger heard someone mumble in the background. "Arthur’s Old Mill. I think that’s what the bartender said. It’s on Treacy Street."

"Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Order me a drink."

"I’ll wait for you. You’re buying me dinner."

"A quick dinner. We’ve got to hurry. Only two days," Digger said.

"You know what frightens me?"

"What frightens you, Digger?"

"If what you say is true, and What’s-his-name is sixteen, pretty soon he’ll be seventeen."

"Yes. That seems so," Koko said.

"And then eighteen and nineteen and so on. That means he’ll be driving and then carrying switch-blades and knives and guns and bombs and things and you know his mother has poisoned his vestigial mind against me and he’s going to try to kill me."

"Now’s the time to make him love you, then," Koko said.

"It’s too late. He might even try murder on this trip."

"Work on your daughter, then," Koko suggested.

"It’s too late. I’m doomed," Digger said.

"Try not to think of it," Koko said. "Think about this. I checked out the next four people on your list. The same thing, nobodies on their way from noplace to nowhere. No families, no possessions, nothing at all."

"You got me here to tell me that? I should be back in the room trying to find out who’s been stealing my vodka."

"The fifth guy, Henry Plesser. He lives around the corner. Lived, that is. He was a little better than the rest. He worked in some hardware store as a clerk. I went to the store, nobody really knew much about him. But he had a neat room in a private house. He paid his rent. He drank too much, but he did it quietly."

"So far sounds just like everybody else," Digger said.

"Yes, but. I talked to his landlady for a while. She’s a pain in the ass but she talked. This Plesser was really sick. She said that he told her he was going to die."

"What was he sick with?"

"She didn’t know. She guessed cancer or something."

"She know his doctor?"

"No. I asked. Anyway, that’s not important. What’s important is that she’s got a letter from him."

"Why would he write to his landlady?"

"It’s not
to
her. It’s a letter he gave her to mail just before he left to go on the plane."

"Did she mail it yet?"

"No."

"Who’s it to?"

"I don’t know. She wouldn’t show it to me and she wouldn’t give it to me."

"Who’d you tell her you were?" Digger asked.

"I told her I was doing a magazine article on the crash. She looked like a whacko so I told her I was doing a piece on this plane lost in the Bermuda Triangle. All nuts believe in the Bermuda Triangle and she looked like a nut."

"You gave her your real name?"

"No. I told her I was Hannah Honda."

"You’re as bad as I am. You sound like a Los Angeles TV newsperson," Digger said.

"Anyway, I thought the letter might be real important."

"It might be," Digger agreed. "As soon as I finish this drink."

"If I ever get on your case again about your lifestyle, I apologize now. This is awful work and I don’t know how you do it. I’ve spent so much time in flophouses in the last three days, I think I’ve got bug bites on my ankles."

"I’ll bite your ankles."

"No thank you. Try that offer on your aging stewardess friends," Koko said.

"Mrs. Birnbaumer?"

"Yes."

"Thank God you’re still alive. Let’s get inside quick. Off this porch."

Digger brushed by the woman with effort. She was big enough to block the passage through a doorway of a human, a breath of air or a sound.

She turned and closed the door behind him. He was in a living room, whose furniture style told him that flowered fabrics were in forty years ago.

"What is this about?" the woman asked. Digger waved a card under her nose, too close for her to see it.

"Interpol. I’m Edgar Allan Dupin. Believe me, fine lady, I am happy to see you are still well."

"What are you…?"

"Was there a woman here today to see you? A Japanese lady?"

"Yes. A cute little thing. Just a couple of hours ago."

"Madam, lions playing are cute. But woe betide the person who stumbles among them. Just a couple of hours ago, you say?"

"Yes. She left only a couple of hours ago. She was a writer."

"Hmphhh. She
said
she was a writer. The truth, Mrs. Birnbaumer, is that…what was the name she used?"

"I don’t know. Honda. That’s it. I remember thinking it was like the car. Hannah Honda."

"Naturally. She would. There is still time for me to intercept her. Fortunately for you."

"What is this all about?"

"The secret message we intercepted said there was a letter. What letter is that? Did you speak to her of a letter?"

"Yes. One of my roomers. He left a letter. It’s over here." She went to the bookshelf where she kept a spiral wire dachshund, its body filled with bills and notes and letters. She pulled out a small white envelope. "He asked me to mail it. He died."

"Thank God you have it. There is still time to head her off. So that your roomer does not have company in death."

"She was nice. What are you talking about?"

"Mrs. Birnbaumer. That woman who called her-self Hannah Honda is one of the most insidiously evil criminal minds in the history of the world. The tortures she has inflicted on men are beyond belief. I myself wear the scars of her cruelty. I have spent the last ten years at Interpol tracking her down. Have you ever heard of the Bermuda Triangle?"

"Yes…everybody…
she
talked about the Bermuda Triangle."

"Of course she did. Many people believe that the Bermuda Triangle is some mystic place filled with strange psychic powers where planes and ships vanish and are never found again."

"That’s right."

"But I, Edgar Allan Dupin, am here to tell you that this is not so. No. Every vessel which has vanished in that triangle has vanished because of the evil of the woman you call Hannah Honda. There is a simple explanation for every one of these disappearances. Those planes and boats have been captured by Hannah Honda’s agents, their passengers spirited away to, God knows, what kind of living hell. Quick, the letter," he commanded.

Mrs. Birnbaumer lumbered toward the wire dachshund, took the letter and handed it to Digger.

"I will take this, Mrs. Birnbaumer, and send it immediately to Paris for analysis. With it gone from this house, you will be safe. Her anger will be directed at me, Edgar Allan Dupin. Of Interpol." Digger shoved the letter into his pocket and walked toward the door.

He stopped there. "I will see that there will be a man watching this house for the next forty-eight hours, until I am sure I can contact her and let her know that I have the letter, not you. You won’t be able to see him but he will, I vow, be able to see you. You understand?"

"Yes. I think so," Mrs. Birnbaumer said.

"I would keep your blinds drawn if I were you. Just for a few days. Hopefully, by then, I will have rid the earth of this evil woman’s monstrous shadow."

"My god, Inspector. Thank you."

"It is I who thank you, Madam. With your help, we may yet succeed where hundreds of others have tried and failed." He smiled. "You were one of the lucky ones," he said.

Digger opened the envelope.

"How’d you get it?" Koko asked, fork stopped halfway to her mouth.

"I told her you were responsible for the Bermuda Triangle. That you were also in charge of the Japanese-Italian Triangle but that hasn’t been getting much action lately."

"That’s what you think," Koko said. "You just think I’ve been working. What’s the letter say?"

"Dear Martha," Digger said. "I’m sorry that I said our mixed marriage wouldn’t work. Since that time, I’ve found out that some men even sleep with Japanese women, although how they can do that is beyond me."

"Prick. Read the letter," Koko said.

"
Dear Martha. I’m sorry the way things turned out. It’s been a long time, how long, twelve years, but I still think of you a lot, all the time, and never a day goes by that I don’t regret what I’ve done. Anyway, it’s too late to cry about spilled milk because there isn’t a chance of us ever getting back together the way we were. It’s too late for both of us. And specially too late for me. But I’m going to try to do something with myself, something that’ll make you think of me a little more kind than you might otherwise without me doing it. You’ll be hearing about me and I hope you forgive me for what it was I done. Henry
."

He looked up at Koko who was polishing off her steak. While the woman could not drink, she was one of the world’s marvelous eaters. She would finish everything she ordered and most of Digger’s food, too. She weighed 110 pounds. She would always weigh 110 pounds.