Fool's Flight (Digger) (12 page)

It made Digger wonder what kind of world Wardell envisioned after the second coming. He could picture hordes of smiling drones, mopedding their way, in flatulent bliss, between their bean farms and their heated swimming pools with a solar-powered organ huffing "Amazing Grace" for background music.

His musings were pleasantly interrupted by a door opening. He looked up to see a tall blond woman with an angelic face and devilish body standing in the doorway, crooking her finger toward him. She had green eyes, the exact color of mid-season oak leaves, and a thin band of freckles across her nose. She was wearing tight white jeans that molded themselves snugly around her narrow waist and across her smooth full butt, and a loose-fitting light blue shirt that could not hide her opulent bosom.

"Heavenly," Digger said as he stood.

There was no answering smile on her face. "You are early," she said accusatorily. "The reverend’s hours don’t begin until noon."

"I couldn’t wait to be saved," Digger said. "You got to get up early to beat the devil."

She stared at him for a moment, then turned away. "This way, please," she said.

As Digger followed her through the door, he noticed a large blue handkerchief, matching the color of her shirt, tucked into her left rear pocket. She led him into a small office, nodded him toward a chair and sat down behind a small metal desk. On a stand next to her desk was an old Remington manual typewriter.

"Guess you’ll be getting a new typewriter soon," he said casually.

"I beg your pardon," she said.

"Typewriter. That one’s pretty old. You’ll probably replace it soon," he said.

"It works perfectly well," she said. She opened a manila file folder and picked up a magic marker. "You’ve come to see the reverend?"

"Yes."

"About what, if you can tell me?"

"I drink."

"Oh, one of those. Name please."

"Prester," Digger said. "One of what?"

"Drinkers," she said. "There are a lot of drinkers." There was no apology in her voice at all, and Digger decided the woman had all the natural warmth of a whorehouse madam. This was no Jane Block. Too bad. He wondered whether her coldness was natural or the result of the good reverend’s admonishments.

"Is that your last name or your first name?"

"Last name. First name’s John. Prester, comma, John," Digger said.

She wrote it neatly that way on the file folder. From inside the folder, she took a printed sheet of paper and wrote that information on it also. She asked Digger his address and when he gave her his Las Vegas address, she asked what he was doing in Florida.

"I’m on vacation. With my girl friend. We’re living in sin. Should I tell the reverend about it?"

"If you want."

"Can I try it out on you first?"

There was no reaction from her at all. "Next of kin?" she said.

"None. I’m an orphan."

"Occupation, Mr. Prester?"

"I’m a degenerate gambler. I don’t work," he said.

She seemed to find that no more interesting than his breast-baring about his immoral sex life.

"Maybe I’m too much for the reverend," Digger said. "Maybe I shouldn’t even be here. It’s probably too late anyway."

She looked at him sharply. "No, you’re not too late. You’re early." She glanced at the wall clock. "Fifteen minutes early."

"You don’t think I’m a lost cause?" he asked.

"Please go back outside and wait, Mr. Prester. The reverend will be with you shortly."

"Thank you. Listen, Miss…" He paused but she volunteered no name. "I don’t have a lot of money. Between gambling and women and liquor, you know…what will this cost me?"

"There is no charge," she said crisply. "The Reverend Wardell does not ask a fee for bringing sinners to God." The statement sounded like a scolding.

Digger mumbled "Thank You." He returned to the waiting room but was seated only several minutes before the door opened again and the blonde said, "The reverend will see you now."

She waited in the doorway for him but drew back sharply as he walked past her, clearing her bosom only by inches.

"First door on the left," she said. "Go right in, he’s expecting you."

Damien Wardell was sitting behind his desk when Digger entered. He wore reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and he pushed them back atop his blond hair when he rose to greet Digger.

The study was a large and comfortable room, its walls lined with bookshelves. The desk was piled high with a half-dozen books and Wardell had been writing with a fountain pen on a yellow, legal-sized pad. A Bible was open on the desk and alongside it, Digger could see the manila file folder with his name on it. Prester, John.

Wardell was smaller than he had appeared on the stage, but his handshake was firm and his eyes, electric blue, seemed to rivet themselves to Digger’s.

"Sit down, Mr. Prester. Coffee?" he asked.

"Please."

Wardell walked to an electric pot on a shelf in the corner and began to pour two cups. "I love coffee," he said. "Thank heavens, there’s no biblical proscription against it."

Here, in the room, the voice was softer and muted but it still seemed to hint of the power it displayed on stage.

"Accident of time," Digger said. "Coffee came after the Bible. If it had been around then, there would have been a prohibition, count on it."

Wardell turned away from the coffeepot and smiled.

"Judging from your accent, that sounds like a cynical New York view of the Bible," he said.

"Not really. But I read Leviticus when I was a kid. You can’t eat a hawk but you can eat a grasshopper. If it’s got four legs, but two of them are above the other two, then you can eat it. Unless it creeps, then you can’t eat it. And if you get a white spot on your skin, well, you’re all right, unless the spot is lower than your skin and your hair turns white, then you’ve got leprosy, and you can’t wear wool, unless your skin is green, except if you bought a house and the owner wants to reclaim it inside a year, then there’s a different rule. Black, please."

He looked at Wardell for a reaction but there was none. He was beginning to get the feeling that he was dealing with zombies and if he had ripped off his clothes and danced naked in their parking lot, they would have said, "That’s nice, but be sure to stop before winter, because it gets chilly then."

Wardell brought back the two cups of coffee. He set one on a paper napkin in front of Digger and put the other on his desk blotter. Still standing, he glanced at Digger’s file, then walked to the wall bookshelves.

"You don’t look like an alcoholic," he said over his shoulder. "And you don’t talk like one."

"I drink like one," Digger said. He watched Wardell pull a book from a shelf and begin thumbing through it.

"How much do you drink?" Wardell asked.

The question had never occurred to Digger before. He thought quickly. "I don’t know. A quart a day?"

"That’s terrible. Do you know what you’re doing to your body?"

"Preserving it against the cold?"

"Destroying it for now and eternity," Wardell said. No humor, Digger decided. The place was as full of laughs as a high mass.

"What is it you want me to do?" Wardell asked.

"I had heard you had some experience and success in dealing with alcoholics," Digger said.

Wardell came back to his desk holding a book, sat down and sipped noisily at his coffee. "But they have to want to change, they have to want to put themselves totally in my hands. I don’t think that applies to you."

"Perhaps not," Digger said. He heard another voice. It was a woman’s voice, singing, and the voice was pure and clear. It had to be Wardell’s wife’s, but she was singing "A Foggy Day in London Town" and her voice was teasing the song, playing with the melody, in a way that belonged in a recording studio, not a rectory.

"My wife," Wardell said. "She sings. No, I don’t think you want to change, if there is indeed anything at all to change. I don’t even think that’s why you came here. So why don’t you tell me who you are and what you want?"

"What do you mean?" Digger asked.

Wardell looked down at the book on his desk, lowered his glasses to his eyes and began to read aloud.

"Prester John. A fabled medieval Christian king of the Orient, supposedly descended from the Magi. His legend arose about the twelfth century. His realm originally was supposed to be located in India but later became centered around Abyssinia. While the story may have had some factual nucleus, it quickly became overlaid by magic and marvels. The legend of Prester John was brought to the West by the contact with the East brought about by the Crusades."

"Didn’t fool you for a minute, did I?" Digger asked.

"No, sir. I know my church history."

"Sorry," Digger said. "Just a little joke. Your secretary looked like she could use some humor in her life."

"Secretary…oh, Erma. She’s a very sedate and reserved young woman. Who are you?"

"The name’s Burroughs, Julian Burroughs. I’m with Brokers’ Surety Life Insurance Company. I’m looking into the plane accident a couple of weeks ago."

"Oh. You had the plane insured?"

"No. The passengers."

"I see. Terrible accident. Just when I thought that maybe we could change those tragic lives, and then… well, God works strangely sometimes."

"You knew the victims?" Digger asked.

"Of course. They were part of our flock. All of them had come here for counseling."

"They were a pretty seedy lot," Digger said.

Wardell shook his head. "The shepherd worries about his lost sheep more than those that are safe in the fold. I thought we could help."

"Why Puerto Rico?" Digger asked.

"It was something new we were trying. We thought if we could get them out of this environment into one that was totally new to them, one that we controlled, we might have a better chance of turning them around."

"You say ‘we.’ Who’s we?"

"All of us. Me. Candace. That’s Sister Wardell. Erma. The rest of our staff. But I don’t understand, Mr. Burroughs, exactly what your concern is and why you came here under a false name and false pretenses. Why didn’t you just come over as what you are?"

"I wanted to get a look at you first."

"Why?"

"Because it isn’t every day that I meet someone who’s been left six million dollars in insurance."

The coffee cup stopped halfway to Wardell’s mouth.

"What?" he said. Digger knew immediately that his shock was genuine.

There was silence for a moment, filled faintly with the sound of Candace Wardell singing. She was doing Rodgers and Hart now, "There’s a Small Hotel." With six million, she could buy her own hotel. A big one.

"Six million dollars. That’s what you’ve been left."

Wardell looked amused at having a madman in his study, then astonished when he saw Digger was not joking.

He picked up his telephone and dialed two digits. Abruptly, the singing stopped.

"Candace, come in here," Wardell said brusquely.

A moment later, Mrs. Wardell walked in through a side door. She was dressed like a twin with Erma, the secretary, in white jeans and a light blue blouse. Was this the church uniform? She looked at Digger questioningly for a moment, then at her husband.

"Yes, Damien?"

"This gentleman is Mr. Burroughs. He’s with an insurance company. He said the church has been left six million dollars because of the plane crash."

"Not the church," Digger said. "You. All the passengers made out insurance policies with you personally as beneficiary. Forty people. Thirty-nine passengers and the pilot, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars each. That’s six million."

Digger was watching Candace Wardell. She was staring at him, but he could not read the look on her face. Was it astonishment? Or just some kind of greedy anticipation?

"My goodness," she said.

"Did you know the passengers were going to do that, make insurance out to me?"

"No," she said. She shook her head for emphasis and said it again. "No." She was overly deferential with her husband, Digger thought. It would not have been hard to imagine her standing there, trembling.

"All right," he said. "You can go now."

"Yes, Damien," she said submissively. Without even looking at Digger, she went back out the door. He noticed that she had broken the symmetry of her costuming. Erma, the secretary, had a blue handkerchief stuck into her left rear jeans pocket. Mrs. Wardell carried a red handkerchief in her right pocket. Digger smiled ruefully to himself and thought that while these women were sure more fun to watch than nuns they weren’t a hell of a lot more entertaining. The door closed softly behind Mrs. Wardell.

"Well, Mr. Burroughs," Wardell said. "What’s next?"

"Do you have any idea why that plane crashed?"

"Why would I have…" He paused. "You don’t believe, you can’t believe that I…for insurance money, that I had anything to…"

"I don’t believe or disbelieve anything," Digger said. "I’m just checking into things, and you can guess how my job is, I have to look into everything. For instance, the pilot of the plane."

"Steve? Steve was one of us."

"How do you mean that?" Digger asked.

"When he first came to us, he had just quit drinking and he didn’t think he’d have the strength to stay sober. We worked with him and God gave him strength to overcome his problem."

"He named you as beneficiary, too," Digger said.

"Maybe, Mr. Burroughs, you find this all suspicious. But let me tell you, that I’m touched. The thought that all these poor people, that they thought enough of me…. Well, I’m touched."

"Not as touched as we are. We’re being touched for six million," Digger said.

"I think you should leave, Mr. Burroughs. I resent your implications and I think, if you have anything further to say to me, you might talk to my attorney."

It was a cold, flat dismissal and Digger left. But before he reached the door to the waiting room, he heard a sound and turned. Candace Wardell was standing in a partially opened doorway down the hall, gesturing for him to join her.

He followed her into the room, a small study, with a piano against one wall, a small desk against another.