news was, there was no one fitting Digger's description in the morgue or any of the city hospitals. The rest was bad.
Digger hadn't booked a flight on any airline Jay could find. He hadn't taken Amtrak or Greyhound either. He carried a MasterCard, two Visas, and a Discover, but the last charge on any of them was a Friday-night dinner at an Italian restaurant two blocks away from his digs on Horatio. The bill came to $63.19, and he'd stiffed the waiter. If Digger had hit the road, he'd been smart enough not to pay his tolls with plastic.
Of course, he might have bought a plane ticket under an assumed name, and paid cash. Or boarded the Metroliner to D.C. and bought a ticket from the conductor. Or escaped to the wilds of Jersey on a commuter bus out of Port Authority, exact change only. Or walked across the goddamn Brooklyn Bridge. There were eight million ways to leave the naked city, and some you just couldn't check.
There were eight million places to stay in the naked city, too. Jay called a half-random, half-cunning selection of motels and hotels that struck him as Digger's kind of place. He even tried a few that definitely weren't Digger's kind of place, just in case Downs had tried to be clever. Digger wasn't registered anywhere.
He did find Digger's aged mother in Oakland, who told him that she hadn't heard from Tommy since he sent the flowers on Mother's Day, but she was still real proud of her boy the journalist. She kept scrapbooks with every word Tommy had ever written, even the little articles he used to do for his high-school newspaper, and said Jay was welcome to look at them the next time he was in the Bay area. Jay thanked her very much and left his number in case she heard from Tommy. Mrs. Downs read it back to him very carefully and suggested he might phone Peregrine, seeing as how she was Tommy's girlfriend and all. Jay mentioned that this was news to him. Mrs. Downs said it was a secret, on account of Peregrine's image.
His sister in Salt Lake City didn't know where he was. Neither did either of his ex-wives. Wife number one asked if he was in trouble, and said, "Oh, good," when Jay admitted that he was. Wife number two offered to engage Jay's services on a little matter of alimony. He took it under advisement.
His college roommate didn't remember him.
The journalism professor he'd listed as a reference on his job application was entirely fictitious.
The phone company had no record of any calls from his home number yesterday.
Jay tried Crash at Aces just in case, but no, there hadn't been word one from Digger. Mr. Lowboy still wasn't worried. He was telling them to save space in the August issue for a real Digger Downs blockbuster. "Real good," Jay said glumly, wondering if the news of Digger's grisly death would fit Lowboy's definition of blockbuster. This time maybe Digger was really going underground for a story. Crash asked him if he was having any luck.
"Lots of it," Jay told her. "All bad. I don't suppose he had any friends on the staff there? One of the other reporters, maybe? A poker buddy, a drinking companion, the best man at his weddings, that kind of thing? Somebody who'd let him crash on his couch until all this blew over?"
"No," Crash said. "He was too good. The other reporters resented the way he always got the big assignments and the cover stories. You should have heard them gripe when Low boy sent him on that tour around the world. Digger can be charming when he wants, but he'd very competitive when he's going after a story"
"Damn," Jay said. "Did the guy have any friends at all?"
"Well," Crash said, thinking, `he must have.' "Famous last words," Jay said.
"I know a lot of people thought Digger was a pain in the neck. He could be very abrasive, but he had a sweet side, too. You'd be surprised. A lot of the people he wrote up just loved him " She paused thoughtfully. "Well, at least until the stories came out," she amended., "Terrific," Jay said with a minimum of enthusiasm. "Listen," he started, "maybe you can-" His mind went off on a tangent, and the words stopped coming.
"Jay?" Crash asked after a moment of silence. "You okay?", "Fine," he said. "But I just had this real weird idea."
Chapter 8
Noon
The