Gravedigger Read online

  “If you call that damage,” Dave said, “you should see the other car.”

  “What happened? What other car?”

  “Mine,” Dave said. “Up your canyon, a few nights ago, very late, in the rain, that Impala ran me off the road. I got out, but my TR is ashes.”

  “Jesus,” the boy said. “Was it her driving?”

  “I don’t think so. But don’t cross her, all right?”

  “Shit,” the boy said. “No way.”

  He had to be careful not to forget and roll onto his sore shoulder, and being careful of that kept him awake. He piled up pillows and read, and kept falling asleep reading. Finally he switched off the lamp. He woke startled in the dark. The diode-lighted red numerals of the clock said one-colon-two-oh. He turned cautiously to switch the lamp on again and felt something snap under his hip. The light showed him his glasses, one of the lenses popped out. Getting it back into the frame with one hand would be a neat trick. Cecil would do it. He was due. Dave frowned. Overdue. That was what had wakened him. He lit a cigarette and lay propped up in the heavy turtleneck sweater, waiting for the sound of the van jouncing into the bricked yard of the front building. Instead the sound was of the telephone. It was beginning to bore him, the telephone was. But he stubbed out the cigarette and picked up the receiver.

  “You are not going to believe this,” Cecil said. His voice shook. “I don’t hardly believe it myself. But I am under arrest. I am at the central police division. And they are subjecting me to indignities.”

  Dave sat up fast and swung his feet to the floor. The boards were cold. “What in God’s name for?”

  “Theft. It seems I crept in and removed from your house your stereo, your TV, typewriter, camera—I don’t know what-all. What I do know is that it was all of it right there in the back of my van in the parking lot outside channel three.”

  “I was wondering where it had gone,” Dave said.

  “I didn’t take it,” Cecil said. “I hope to Jesus you know I didn’t take it.”

  “I know that,” Dave said. He had made a bad miscalculation. He ought to have told Cecil about Miles Edwards—the photographs, the encounter in this bed, the unhappy confrontation with Amanda. “Was Miles Edwards around there tonight? The television studio?”

  “He was here. Talked to me for a while at my desk. We had a cup of coffee. Why?”

  “That would have been early, right?”

  “Six, six-thirty. Who cares? Man, I am in trouble.”

  “Take it easy,” Dave said. “It won’t last. They can’t hold you if I don’t press charges. I can’t come, but I’ll send my lawyer. He’ll have you out in no time.”

  “How did that shit get in my truck?” Cecil said. “Who told them it was there?”

  “Edwards,” Dave said. “Was he around there later?”

  “Later I was out in a channel-three car. That’s how they think I’m guilty. Nobody at the station saw me from seven till ten. Got a call to talk to a man about a story I’ve been working up. On street gangs.”

  “Only you couldn’t find the man,” Dave said.

  “You got it. But it sounded so good, I hung around. Then when he didn’t show, I went looking for him, places I knew he went. I wasted three hours. Never did find him.”

  “Had you told Edwards about this street-gang story?” Dave said. “Over your friendly cup of coffee?”

  “How did you know?” That was spoken to Dave. His next remark was to someone else. “Keep away from me, man.”

  “Down there at the glass house,” Dave said, “were your keys in your pockets when they told you to empty them?”

  “Told me to unlock the van first. Yeah, I had my keys.”

  “Then Edwards did come back and returned the keys to your jacket pocket, which he’d lifted them from earlier.”

  “You mean he drove my van up to Horseshoe Canyon and loaded it up with your stuff while I was out chasing around after nobody?”

  “He’s clever with the telephone,” Dave said. “He got me out of here in exactly the same way. Listen, we’re wasting time. Let me phone Abe. He’ll have you out of there in an hour. Meantime, try not to hit anybody, all right?”

  “An hour! I said get away from me, man. This call is my right. Leave me alone! Can’t he make it fifteen minutes? I will never get the stink of this place off me.”

  “I’ll tell him to hurry,” Dave said. “And I want you to know how sorry I am. I was the cause of this, and I’m not going to get over it.”

  “Why would Edwards—?” But something happened to the connection. Dave thumbed the break button on his own instrument and then punched Abe Greenglass’s home number.

  12

  AMANDA SAID, “WHAT IN the world is this?” She stood at the door to the rear building blinking in the light that came out. She wore corduroy jeans and two layers of sweaters and a stocking cap. She wore fleece-lined boots. “I thought you’d had a stroke or something.”

  “Come in.” Dave backed into the room and shut the door when she was inside. “I only said it was an emergency. It’s an emergency. What do you want, coffee or a drink?”

  “I want an explanation,” she said. “Dave, it is three o’clock in the morning.”

  “I know what time it is.” Dave went down the room under the high rafter shadows to the bar. He poured whiskey for them both. “Sit down,” he called. “I don’t know how soon this will be over. You might as well sit.” She unwound her muffler and sat on the couch facing the fire. Building the fire, he had hurt the shoulder. The pain had been sharp and he had fainted for a minute. He felt all right now—angry but all right. He handed her a glass and went back for his own. “We are going to keep a vigil, you and I. For Cecil. I want you to be here when he is delivered out of the hands of his enemies.”

  “What are you talking about?” She was angry too.

  Dave told her. Again without permitting her to interrupt, though she tried. He finished like this: “You told Miles what I’d said to you, about the pictures, about his trying to get into bed with me, didn’t you?”

  “That’s how it is between us,” she said sharply. “We don’t keep secrets from each other. Of course, I told him. It was so ridiculous. So is this. Even more so. What do you know about Cecil?”

  “More than you know about Miles,” Dave said.

  “What?” She laughed. There was no humor in the laugh.

  “Did he show you the photographs?”

  “How could he? They don’t exist.”

  “Ask Avram, the waiter at Max’s,” Dave said. “He’ll tell you they exist. Miles wasn’t with you tonight, was he? So how do you know where he was, what he was up to?”

  “I don’t, but I’ll believe him when he tells me.”

  “He warned me not to tell you about our little encounter up there”—Dave jerked his head to indicate the loft—“but he didn’t say what he’d do if I told you. I might have guessed he’d do something meanspirited. He’s reckless, Amanda. Doesn’t give a damn for anybody.”

  “He got Cecil a wonderful job,” she cried. “And look how Cecil has repaid that kindness.”

  “He got Cecil that job to get Cecil out of the way here, so he could take Cecil’s place in my bed. Not my affections. He doesn’t know anything about affections, he thinks affections are contemptible. Don’t marry him, Amanda.”

  She hurled her glass into the fire. She stood up. “I will marry. Whom. I. Please.” Her voice was tight with rage. She turned and marched toward the door. It opened before she reached it. Cecil stood there in his corduroy car coat, looking stunned. “You—!” Amanda shrilled at him, “you—!” And she pushed him. Hard. In the chest. He was a head taller, but she caught him by surprise. He sat down on the bricks. Abe Greenglass was a few paces behind him. Amanda in the dark bumped hard against him, spinning him around, sending his attaché case flying. He was a small, thin man. Amanda stalked away across the courtyard. The black shadow of the old oak swallowed her up.

  “Shee-it.” Cecil
got to his feet, brushing his narrow little butt with his hands. He looked at Dave, big-eyed, aggrieved. “‘Welcome home, baby, I love you.’ What’s the matter with her?”

  “Edwards,” Dave said. “Edwards is what is the matter with us all.” He went to Cecil, hugged him with his good arm, put a kiss on his mouth. “Welcome home, baby, I love you.”

  Abe Greenglass picked up his case, and gently cleared his throat. “You want to go after this Edwards character?” His voice was like a whisper of dry leaves.

  “Come in, Abe. And thank you. Very much.” The lawyer came in. Dave took his homburg and hung it on one of the big brass hooks. He helped him out of his black overcoat with the astrakhan collar, and hung that up too. “We all need a drink.” He limped down the room to the bar. His shoulder yelled with pain. His hip felt as if it were grinding in its socket. “Take a seat in front of the fire, there. Get warm.”

  “I have to be in court early,” Greenglass said, but he sat, leaned toward the blaze, rubbed his fine-boned hands. “What do you want me to do about Edwards?”

  “He’s vicious, but he’s not stupid.” In the shadows beneath the loft overhang, Dave fumbled one-handed with whiskey, ice, glasses. “His fingerprints won’t be on the evidence, they won’t be in the van. He’ll have witnesses to account for his whereabouts. He disguised his voice on the phone and I didn’t record it, so there’s no hope of a voice print. Going after him would be a waste of your time.”

  “What about the waste of my time,” Cecil said, “in that stinking jail?” His voice shook. He headed for the bathroom, yanking out of his coat, slamming it down on the bottom steps. The bathroom light glared. Water splashed. He gargled angrily, spat angrily, angrily blew his nose. “Never get rid of the stink.” He stood in the bright doorway, scrubbing his mouth on a towel. “Redneck fools. If I stole stuff, would I steal it from where I live? Would I go to work with it in my car?” He flung the towel away, snapped off the bathroom light, went to Dave. “Here, let me do that.” But the drinks were ready. He picked up two of the glasses and went with them to the couch, the fire, Greenglass. “That man wrecked me. Held me up to public ridicule.” He handed the lawyer a glass. “Those people I been working with. You think they were going to let this thing go past? They were out there with cameras and microphones so fast. Right on their doorstep, right in their parking lot? No way do I escape getting on the news in the morning.”

  “I’ll stop it,” Greenglass said. “What’s the channel?”

  “Three,” Cecil said. “I’ll never get a job in television again.”

  Dave came into the firelight and dropped onto the couch. “You didn’t want a job in television,” he said. “Edwards wanted it for you.”

  “All right, but I didn’t want it to end this way.”

  “Don’t worry,” Greenglass said gently. “I’ll put a lid on it.”

  “Put a lid on Edwards too,” Cecil said. “Put him in the garbage can and put a lid on him. He’s a lawyer. He can’t do things like this and still be a lawyer, can he? Stealing, framing somebody? Don’t lawyers get disbarred for that?”

  “Not if it can’t be proved,” Dave said.

  Cecil stood between him and the fire. He stared. “Aren’t you even going to try to prove it? You mean he’s too smart for you? You never lose. How come you’re willing to lose when it comes to this? After what he did to me?”

  “I haven’t lost.” Dave looked up at him. “I’ve won. We’ve won. He wanted to separate us. He used the television job to set that in motion. And it worked, didn’t it?” He waited. Grudgingly, Cecil mumbled that he guessed it had worked. Dave said, “And then he moved in to try to take your place.” He explained how Edwards had done that.

  Cecil squinted. “What! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t want you upset.”

  “Better upset than arrested,” Cecil wailed.

  “Right. I know that now. Doesn’t help, does it? I’m sorry, and if you can’t forgive me, I won’t blame you. And Edwards will have won, after all.”

  “Ah, shit.” Cecil sat down on the raised hearth. He glowered into his drink. “You couldn’t know what he’d do. Wasn’t me he wanted to hurt, anyway—it was you.”

  “I should have been gentler, rejecting him. Maybe it never happened to him before. Unhappily, what he assumed I was willing to do to you and Amanda for the pleasure of his naked company made me lose my temper.”

  “It wasn’t that,” Cecil said. “You told Amanda, didn’t you? After he warned you not to.”

  “She was going to marry him,” Dave said.

  “And she still is, isn’t she?” Cecil’s smile was grim. “You had her here tonight to show her what an alligator he is, and it didn’t work, did it?”

  “Nothing seems to be working,” Dave said bleakly.

  “Speaking of working,” Abe Greenglass said, “I want to get the name of channel three’s attorney. We should talk right away.” He set his glass on the couch arm and went for his coat and hat. “They won’t want to show that film when they understand it was all a mistake.”

  Dave raised his eyebrows at Cecil. “All right?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Greenglass.” Cecil sighed and got up from the hearth. “But you sure there isn’t some way for Edwards to be down in that jail like I was? Just for a few hours? Just to have to breathe that smell? Just to have them treat him like he was nothing, something to step on and smear into the cement?”

  “I’ll give it serious thought,” Greenglass said. He was a ceremonious man. He shook their hands. He waited until he was outside in the cold night and the dark to put on his hat.

  They slept the day away. For Cecil it wasn’t easy. He kept moaning, waking, shifting position in the wide bed beside Dave. He twitched, kicked, talked. The talk sounded angry though the words were never clear. For a while, he lay sprawled on his back, and when he did that he snored. When the snores got loud enough, they woke him, and he mumbled and shifted position again. About dawn, he shouted and struck out. His flung fist caught Dave in the ribs and reminded him that they were still tender. Dave shook Cecil, woke him, and Cecil clung to him and wept. But when daylight came, exhaustion finally took the boy and, lying on his face, limp as the dead, he slept. Which allowed Dave to sleep.

  Dave crept from the bed at two-thirty, showered awkwardly, clutching the hurt arm against himself, trying not to move it, which was tricky without the sling. He got into fresh clothes, which was even trickier. He went to the cookshack and set slowly and carefully about fixing a casserole. When it was in the oven, he poured a mug of coffee and started with it for the back building, meaning to waken Cecil gently, give him a space of time before eating. He was stopped, crossing the bricks under the arbor where the tips of new green leaves were showing on the dry, brown vine, stopped by a loud, painful scrape of metal out on the road. He set the mug on the bench under the live-oak and went to see what had made the sound.

  It was the Jaguar from the Beverly Hills showroom. In all the excitement—if that was the right word for it—he had forgotten that delivery had been promised for today. From the hospital he’d had his accountant draw a certified check that Cecil had taken to the dealer. A white-haired black in a crisp brown jumpsuit with the dealer’s name stitched across its back bent to unfasten from the rear bumper of the car a three-wheeled motorcycle. He dropped the chain into the carrier of the motorcycle, dropped the lid, and saw Dave. His face lit up as if they’d discovered each other in some hostile alien land after a long, forced separation. Dave had never seen him before. He came forward, pulling a fold of papers from a breast pocket

  “Mr. Brandstetter? Good to see you, sir. Brought your car. Beautiful.” He held the papers out for Dave to take, who took them. The man in the jumpsuit said, suddenly very serious, “But you going to have to do something about that driveway, otherwise you going to rip her guts out and that would be a shame.”

  Clumsily Dave flattened the papers against the doors of Cecil’s v
an. “Do I sign these?” The man in the jumpsuit found a pen and marked an X on the top sheet. “Right there, please. Here, let me hold them for you. Shame about your accident. Pretty little car. Sound like you was lucky. Burned up, Mr. Lowe say.” He held the papers while Dave signed them. He put the pen away, handed Dave the white copy of the papers, folded the colored copies into his pocket, and the big loving smile was back as he laid the keys to the Jaguar in Dave’s hand. “I hope you have better luck with this one.” He stroked the Jaguar’s sleek brown-gold finish as he passed it. He straddled the motorcycle, kicked the motor softly to life. It was very quiet, as befitted a motorcycle delivering thirty-thousand-dollar automobiles from Beverly Hills. “Anything you want to know about the car is in the manual. It’s in the glove com-part-ment.” He separated the syllables carefully. “Have any trouble, just call us.”

  “Thank you,” Dave said. “And don’t have bad dreams about the driveway. I’ll get it fixed right away.”

  “This is good.” Cecil mopped his plate with french bread. “Wonderful. But you could hurt yourself here. You know where the most accidents happen at home? In the kitchen. And you only have one arm.”

  “You needed your sleep,” Dave said, and drank wine.

  “Sleep like I had,” Cecil said grimly, “nobody needs. I’m sorry about that. Kept you awake, didn’t I? Acted like a little child can’t wipe his own nose.”

  “My fault,” Dave said. “Don’t you apologize. I just hope the nightmares go away soon. None of it would have happened if I’d told you what Edwards was doing. I weighed telling you. I didn’t because I thought it would spoil the job for you, and you were liking the job, you were proud of it. I didn’t want you thinking you didn’t deserve the job.”

  “I wouldn’t think that. Doesn’t matter why he did it. I was fine on the job.” He looked gloomy. “But I’m not going back there. The way those people acted—black, white, brown, all of them. Nobody is anything to them except a newsbeat. Don’t bleed in the barnyard, you know? Other chickens will peck you to death.”