Midnight Pass: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels) by Stuart M. Kaminsky

for their clients and prospective clients every Friday night,” he said. “They need extra men because they have more women than men. What’re you looking at me like that for? I’m a terrific dancer. Anything, you name it, waltz, tango, fox-trot, rumba, swing. You name it. I get fifteen bucks and all the appetizers I can eat every Friday night providing I don’t make a hog of myself.”
    Digger used to be a pharmacist. He sometimes slept in a closet of one of the twenty-four-hour Walgreen’s. There was a seemingly infinite number of Walgreen’s and Eckerd drugstores in Sarasota, an even greater number of banks, and a supply of cardiologists, oncologists, and orthopedic surgeons that probably rivaled Manhattan’s.
    I knew little about Digger’s past, didn’t want to know more.
    “Sounds great,” I said, returning to my shaving. “Good luck.”
    He looked at himself in the mirror again.
    “Haven’t got a chance, have I?”
    “Not a chance in the world,” I said, finishing my shave and checking my face for places I might have missed.
    “What the hell. I said I was coming in, answered an ad in the paper. Said I was coming in. What the hell? It’s just across the street. What have I got to lose? You know?”
    He started to loosen his tie.
    “Got this tie at the Goodwill for a quarter,” he said. “Real silk, just this little stain where you can’t even really notice, but what the hell.”
    “What time’s your appointment?” I asked, washing my face.
    “Just said I should drop by some time after ten, but what the hell.”
    “You’ve got time to shave, use a comb, get a pair of pants that fit, a white shirt, and a pair of socks and shoes at the Women’s Exchange.”
    The Women’s Exchange consignment and resale shop was a few blocks down Oak Street.
    “That’d cost,” he said, looking at me with eyes showing a lot of red and little white.
    “How much?”
    I dried my face.
    “Ten, fifteen bucks,” he said.
    I fished out a twenty and held it out. Digger took it.
    “I gotta pay this back?” he asked.
    “Get yourself something at the DQ if there’s anything left,” I said.
    “Don’t worry,” Digger said, some of his confidence returning. “This isn’t a precedent.”
    “I know,” I said. “Good luck.”
    “Thanks. I tell you something? Now that the twenty is in my pocket?”
    I nodded.
    “You never smile.”
    I nodded again.
    “Some things are funny,” he said.
    “Some things.”
    “I mean, I’m not talking about a big smile like one of those yellow stickers. Just something besides doom and gloom.”
    I imagined Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms , pushing up the corners of her mouth into a pathetic smile when her brute father ordered her to smile.
    “I’m working on it,” I said, towel folded around my soap and shaving gear. “Know any jokes?”
    “Couple maybe, if I can remember them,” he said. “Never could remember jokes. Wait, I’ve got one.”
    He told it. I took out my notebook and wrote it down. The list for Ann Horowitz was growing. I already had the start of a second-rate stand-up act.
    Digger looked as if he had something more to say but couldn’t come up with it.
    “Wish me luck,” he said, going out the rest-room door ahead of me.
    “Luck,” I said, and headed back to my office.
    There were three new messages on my answering machine. I didn’t play them back. I knew I had a dying politician to find and not much time to do it and some papers to serve for the law firm of Tycinker, Oliver, and Schwartz, but there were other things more important at the moment, like spending the day on my cot sleeping when I could, watching a video of Panic in the Streets or A Stolen Life . I was trying to cut back on my dosage of Mildred Pierce.
    I took off my pants and shirt, draped them on the wooden chair, and lay down after removing my shoes.
    I didn’t have to sleep. Dreams came while I was awake. The dying Stark would be added to my sleeping nightmares. My waking dreams