Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Read Free Page B

bottle in front of Digger. "More like a walk than a drive," he said. He took Digger’s registration card and glanced at it. "What are you doing up here anyway, if you don’t mind my asking? Belton doesn’t get many people just stopping because they had this sudden urge to breathe smoke."
    "An insurance problem," Digger said vaguely. "I’ve got to see a Mrs. Gillette."
    Gus said, "Gillette? Gillette? Sorry, I don’t know any Gillettes."
    "No problem," Digger said. "It’s all technical insurance bullshit anyway. How long’s your bar open at night?"
    "You’d never know it by looking at it now but we do a pretty good bar business at night. I’m open till two o’clock. What was that stuff you asked for before?"
    "Finlandia. It’s vodka."
    "Never heard of it," Gus said. He looked at the registration card again. "Ahhh, you’re only staying one day. If you were going to be here awhile, I’d order you some."
    "Try anyway," Digger suggested. "You never know, I might be back."
    Digger had another drink, then took his room key from Gus and carried his own bag up the curving central staircase to the second floor. When he pushed open the door, he whistled involuntarily. The room was bigger than the main floor of many houses. It held two fireplaces, two full-sized beds, a sofa, an unstocked bar, a round wooden dining table with four chairs, a crystal chandelier and three dressers. The bathroom alone was bigger than most normal motel rooms.
    From the living room, he looked through floor-to-ceiling windows out from the hill on which Gus’s stood, over a rolling gentle valley that would have been bucolically beautiful if it weren’t for the dirty gray mist that filled up the bottom of the bowl.
    Lucius Belton, whoever he was, deserved shooting. Or hanging, Digger decided.
    But up above the smoke line, Belton was beautiful, and, as Digger looked around, he could see homes clustered all around the upper sides of the valley.
    It was just early afternoon, and Digger decided that he would shower first, call Koko, then go see Mrs. Gillette and maybe, before nightfall, he would be out of Belton, PA, on his way to see Koko.
    Still damp after his shower, Digger lay on the bed and called the home of Koko’s family in Emporium, Pennsylvania.
    The telephone was answered in the middle of the first ring. Digger recognized the accented voice of Koko’s mother.
    "Hello, Mrs. Fanucci, this is Digger."
    "Ah, Digger. So?"
    As he usually did when he heard her limping English, Digger smiled. The name Mrs. Fanucci conjured up an image of some leviathan of a starch factory, wearing a red-and-green flowered apron, whipping up three million pounds of pasta in a basement kitchen. But this Mrs. Fanucci, Koko’s mother, was a trim and tiny Japanese woman who got her American citizenship and her name when she married an American sailor after World War II.
    "Is Tamiko there?" Digger asked.
    "Yes," the woman said. That was all, nothing more. Digger felt that she would let him hang on forever, because she was too polite to hang up.
    After a few seconds, Digger said, "Can I talk to her?"
    "No."
    "Why not?"
    "She’s doing the bathroom in the toilet."
    "Can I hold on?"
    "Can you hold on to what?"
    "To the telephone," Digger said.
    "Tamiko puts the phone up her shoulder. She makes cookies, the phone up her shoulder. She not hold on. You have to hold on?"
    "No," Digger said.
    "So do I," Mrs. Fanucci said. "I learn put phone up my shoulder. You want see?"
    "Yes, honorable mother," Digger said.
    He heard a rustling sound and then a clatter as the telephone hit the floor.
    A moment later, Mrs. Fanucci said, "I not do it so good like Tamiko still. I am glad you not see me drop it on floor. I so embarrassed, I kill myself. Here is Tamiko. She is all done in toilet because I hear it flash. Here, Tamiko. Here is Digger. We’re having nice talk about the toilet."
    "Hello, Digger," said a happy, lilting woman’s voice. "Mamma-san been spilling my toilet