Read Online Smoked Out (Digger) by Warren Murphy - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t even want him to be. Why did he think it was a gift to her when he flaunted his fidelity? Particularly in view of the way she spent some of her spare time. She didn’t care what he did as long as he didn’t tell her about doing it with women with big bosoms. And she did what she wanted to, without even Digger’s usual excuse of drinking too much.
    Koko couldn’t drink and didn’t. She had a common Japanese reaction to alcohol. Cheeks flushed, pulse quickened, then passed out.
    "Too bad you couldn’t take after your American father instead of your Japanese mother," he had told her once. "Then I’d have a drinking buddy."
    "Your mother would love that, my giving you extra excuses to drink."
    "It doesn’t matter. My mother thinks you’re black, trying to pass. She doesn’t trust you."
    "I know, and your father thinks it goes sideways and he’s always trying to feel me up under the table."
    "You know," Digger said, "you’re not so yellow that it’s really noticeable. Why call yourself Japanese? You’re half-American. Why don’t you call yourself American?"
    "If one drop of blood makes you black, don’t tell me that a Japanese mother makes me George M. Cohan."
    "That’s a non sequitur. It does not—"
    "You don’t have to translate for me. I’m the goddamn Phi Beta Kappa around here. I know, it does not follow. But the real problem is that you do not follow. People ask what you are, you goddamn half-breed, and you say you’re Irish or you’re a Jew or anything you want and they accept that. They ask me that and I tell them I’m Italian and they get all over me because I look Japanese. So I’m either lying or I’m a grown-up mongoloid. Either way it’s a pain in the ass. So I tell them I’m Japanese and they let it go at that. You Americans are very exclusive when it comes to mixed breeds of different colors."
    "If you were really Italian, you’d have big tits," Digger had told her, and she threw a glass at him. It was when he first suspected that she was hypersensitive about the size of her chest, which he had always found more than adequate.
    Tired from only half a night’s sleep, Digger lay down on the bed and napped till noon.

    Ted Dole wasn’t even sweating when he came off the practice court and sat down at Digger’s table under the yellow sun umbrella. The patio lounge at the Hillfront Tennis Club was empty. Without being asked, the waitress put a glass of Perrier with a slice of lime in front of him. Digger was drinking vodka.
    "Haven’t I seen you somewhere?" Dole asked. He was bronze-skinned, but up close Digger could see the color did not come naturally to him. Dole had the kind of light, almost transparent skin that would be red and blotchy in the East. It had turned tan in California only because of its owner’s tenacity. He was husky and thick through the shoulders, too thick to be a really top-flight tennis player. His light brown hair, streaked with blond glints, fell in soft waves over his ears, and his smile was wide and natural. He could have been twenty-seven or thirty-seven. Digger made him a native Californian. They all looked good until forty-five, when they fell apart all at once.
    "Perhaps," Digger said.
    "At the funeral. You were there."
    "That’s right," Digger said. "Tim Kelp. Our public relations agency is doing a memorial to Mrs. Welles. We’re talking to all the friends of the family for material."
    "I’m not really a friend of the family."
    "You were at the funeral," Digger said.
    "Yeah, that’s true." Dole turned around and looked at the nearest of eight tennis courts. A woman so beautiful she could have reduced all of New York to gridlock was doggedly practicing her serve to a young man in tennis whites in the far court. Dole watched her toss the ball in the air, then swing around to hit it. Her form looked terrific to Digger.
    "Sweetheart," Dole called. "Throw it higher. You’re not reaching and you’re hitting with your arm all squoonched up. Stretch