Fool's Flight (Digger) by Warren Murphy Read Free Book Online Page B

I’ve got or do you want to ask irrelevant questions?"
    "Yes, I want to know, but we have to do this right. Let me set up the tape recorder. And when I ask you how much you spent on cabs, double the amount."
    Digger put a fresh tape in the recorder. Mean-while, Koko took off her flowered blouse and pink skirt. From a dresser drawer she took a pair of shorts and T-shirt and went into the bathroom. Digger watched her walk away. She had wonderful legs, strong and straight. He wondered how a woman could be both long-waisted and long-legged at the same time, but Koko seemed to pull it off.
    "When you come out, bring the vodka," he called. "It’s in the toilet."
    "What’s it doing in the toilet?"
    "Actually it’s in the back of the toilet in the water tank. This place doesn’t have ice cubes, either, so I keep it cold that way."
    She came out a few minutes later, holding the vodka. She was wearing white shorts and a white T-shirt with a long printed legend. It had a picture of Uncle Sam, looking ferocious, recruiting poster style, pointing an index finger at the looker. Underneath it was printed:

    JOIN THE ARMY.
TRAVEL TO FARAWAY, EXOTIC LANDS. MEET
INTERESTING, EXCITING PEOPLE,
AND KILL THEM.

    She was twenty-six. Digger remembered now because he had forgotten her birthday and a week later bought her the T-shirt for a birthday present. It was one of the few gifts he gave her that she had really liked. Mostly he remembered special occasions with bottles of liquor, always vodka, which she accepted gracefully and then reminded him that she didn’t drink.
    She splashed vodka into Digger’s authentic plastic motel glass, recapped the bottle, and returned it to the bathroom. The bottle was only half full, Digger noticed. He probably hadn’t put the cap on tight enough and some of it had leaked out. Or evaporated.
    Koko returned and sat in the chair. A gold-colored frog that he used as a tie clip was attached to his portable tape recorder by a wire.
    "Talk right into the frog," he said, "I don’t have any extra mikes."
    "Master tape, number three," he announced. "Julian Burroughs in the matter of Interworld Airways, interviewing Miss Tamiko Fanucci, resident of Las Vegas, regarding background checks of air crash victims. Now Miss Fanucci…"
    "You can call me Koko. Back at the home office, they know we sleep together."
    Digger clicked off the tape recorder and rewound it to the beginning. "Koko, we’ve got to be all business here. You never know what these tapes might be used for."
    "C’mon, Digger. You always erase the tapes when you’re done with a case. I’ve seen you. Nobody ever hears these things but you."
    "You never know," he said darkly. He pressed the record button. "Master tape, number three. Julian Burroughs in the matter of Interworld Airways, interviewing Miss Tamiko Fanucci regarding back-ground of air crash victims."
    "Las Vegas," she said.
    "What?"
    "You forgot to say I was a resident of Las Vegas. You did that on the other recording."
    Digger sighed. "Skip it," he said. "Now, Miss Fanucci, would you tell me where you went when you left your room today?"
    " Our room. I never would have rented a dirt-bomb like this place. I left here and took a cab to 415 Jesper Street, address of…let me look at my notes."
    The tape continued to run as she went to her purse and fished out a small spiral-bound notebook and a pen.
    "Where’d you get the pen?" Digger asked.
    "I bought it."
    "Be sure to keep track of it," Digger said.
    "The notebook, too," she said. "I went to check on the last known address of Walter Smith. Four-fifteen Jesper Street is a dump. It must have been designed by the same architect who designed this motel. There’s a candy store downstairs and four little apartments upstairs. The candy-store owner, Joseph DeRosa, owns the building and rents the apartments. I had a long talk with him. Walter Smith had lived upstairs in the smallest apartment for about nine months. He was a drunk…and was in his