Lucifer's Weekend (Digger) Read Online Free PDF Page A

probably a Catholic name. But Burroughs is usually Anglo-Saxon and not Catholic. What are you? So you have two names that suggest two different things? What are you?"
    "I’ll give you a clue. I’m half Jewish."
    "Oh, my, you are a very complicated man." Digger noticed that she still had her right hand on the doorknob and her left hand behind her back.
    "Actually, I’m very simple," Digger said. "To know me is to see right through me. The incredible transparent man, that’s me. What kind of a name is Ardath?"
    "That’s interesting too. When my parents gave me that name, they thought it was Welsh because they once had a Welsh friend named Ardath. But I looked it up and my name is from the Hebrew. It means flowering fields. Isn’t that interesting?"
    "Inordinately," Digger said.
    "We’re both very complex individuals," Ardath said.
    "Too bad," Digger said. "I like simple women."
    "I don’t believe that for a moment. Your eyes laugh, and men whose eyes laugh like life to be complicated. My father had eyes that laugh."
    "Ardath," said Digger, "I think I’m falling in love with you. We’d better get on with our business before I stick you in my pocket and run off with you."’
    The girl seemed, for a moment, to consider Digger’s offer.
    "It would never work," she said solemnly.
    "The age difference?" Digger said.
    "I don’t really think age matters much," she said. "No. You have the look of a possessive man and I don’t think I could let you stand in the way of my career."
    "What career is that?" Digger asked.
    "How would I know? I’m only eight. You just said, get on with our business. What is ’our business’?"
    "I’m with the Brokers Surety Life Insurance Company," Digger said.
    "Oh. The insurance company. She won’t take it, you know."
    "Take what?"
    "The extra five hundred thousand dollars," Ardath said. "That’s a lot of zeros, isn’t it? There’s five before the decimal point and two after. Seven zeros. That is a terribly large amount of money."
    "After the decimal point, you can have as many zeros as you want," Digger said. "You can make it an infinite number if you want."
    Ardath Gillette thought about that for a moment. She said, "If the decimal is just a decimal, you can. But if it stands for the line of separation between dollars and cents, you can only have two zeros after it. Unless you want to get fractional."
    "And who wants to get fractional?" Digger said. "I never thought of it in just that way."
    "Most people don’t. Then again most people don’t think about anything. I suppose you insist on talking to my mother."
    Digger nodded. "I guess so. I’ve come all this way; I might as well go through with it."
    "Well, come on in," Ardath said. "I’ll take you to her. She’s playing with her trains."
    Digger was sure he hadn’t heard her right. Ardath stepped behind the big door and pulled it open wide for Digger to step through, then closed it behind him. He noticed that the left hand which she had kept behind her body while running him through her screening process was holding a paperback book.
    Ardath walked off crisply, obviously expecting Digger to follow. They walked down a long hallway to the left. Digger heard what sounded like a train whistle and he guessed that he had heard Ardath correctly after all.
    Ardath slid open large double doors at the end of the hallway and Digger heard the slightly constipated whoop-whoop of an electric train. He reached under his jacket and pushed the button turning on his tape recorder. Without evidence, no one would believe this—least of all, Walter Brackler. Somehow, Digger doubted that Brackler’s last emissary had reported that Louise Gillette played with toy trains. Brackler was the kind of person who, had he been king, would kill the bearer of bad news.
    Digger followed Ardath into the room. Obviously designed as a library, it was as large as his room at Gus LaGrande’s Inn, and the walls were lined, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves packed