Gravedigger Read Online Free PDF Page A

after the sunglare of the street, and inside the door he blundered against backs and elbows. The bar at the front was small, couldn’t hold a lot of patrons, and latecomers waiting for tables had to stand out here by the reservation desk with their drinks, if they’d been so lucky as to get drinks. Narrowing his eyes, trying to adjust them to the lack of light, Dave looked for Mel Fleischer. Mel was late too. Dave excused himself and edged between the drinkers, hoping Amanda had got here on time. Max Romano would have held the corner table for Dave forever, but Dave had finally talked him out of that. Dave’s showing up was too often chancy. It wasn’t fair to the hungry, it wasn’t fair to Max. Today, everything was all right because Amanda was there, in a nubby natural-wool thing, bright blue scarf knotted at her throat, a puffed-up mockery of a 1920s boy’s cap, oatmeal-color, tilted on her neat little skull. She had a tall margarita for herself and a smile for him. A young man sat with her—a stranger to Dave. Amanda seemed pleased with him.
    She said, “Dave Brandstetter, Miles Edwards.
    Edwards rose and was tall. He shook Dave’s hand firmly, smiled with handsome teeth, claimed it was nice to meet Dave, and sat down again. He wore a suit that looked expensive without making an issue of it. His dark hair and trim black beard and mustache, his long, dense, dark childlike lashes, contrasted with the pale gray of his eyes. He was tanned, except where dark glasses had kept the sun from his skin.
    Amanda studied Dave. “You look tired and not happy.”
    The chairs were barrel-type in crushed black velvet. Dave sank into his with a sigh. “This case is not a case like any case I ever had before, and nobody is helping me—almost nobody.”
    “Take heart.” Amanda offered him a cigarette, one of the long, slim, brown kind. “Remember the Little Red Hen.” She lit the cigarette for him, then sat straight and waved into the candle shadows. “Glenlivet please, a double, on the rocks?”
    “And that car,” Dave said. “You and I should never shop together. My tendency to impulse buying is bad enough without you backing me up. That car is a bone-cracker.”
    “What kind of car?” Edwards said.
    “TR,” Dave said. “It had to be small to get into my driveway.” To Amanda: “Does he know about my driveway?”
    “There’s no way to describe it,” she said. “Where have you been—a long way?”
    “Up the coast beyond Zuma,” Dave said, “back to a nursery school in West L.A., downtown to the sheriff’s. Then out the freeway to Hollywood, and you. It’s like riding in a dice cup.”
    “What car should we have gotten?” she said.
    “That big brown Jaguar.”
    “But the driveway,” she said.
    “I’ll hire a bulldozer. I’ll change the driveway.”
    “Also you wanted to save gas,” she said.
    “Now I want to save me,” he said. Max Romano himself, plump, his few remaining black curls plastered across his bald dome, brought the Glenlivet, squat glass, much whiskey, little ice, the way Dave liked it. “Thanks, Max.”
    “You look pale.” Max handed menus to Amanda and Edwards. Dave waved his away. Max frowned. “Are you sick?”
    “Not hungry,” Dave said. Usually he liked the thick garlic-and-cheese smells of Romano’s, but this noon, they made him feel a little queasy. “I’m all right, Max. Just bad-tempered. I got up too early. Ruins the whole day.”
    “Something light on the stomach,” Max suggested. “A fluffy little omelet”—he wiggled fat fingers to indicate delicacy—“with mozzarella?”
    Dave winced. “Maybe. Later. We’ll see.” Max went off shaking his head, face puckered with worry. Dave told Edwards, “One person you never miss around Max is your mother.”
    “You never had one,” Amanda said.
    “I had nine,” Dave said, “in rapid succession. But you’re the nicest.”
    “Known Max a long time?” Edwards said.
    “Since before you were born,” Dave