Diamond Eyes (Alo Nudger Book 7)

by John Lutz

  “No, I’m a private investigator. Name’s Nudger.” He showed her his ID. She didn’t seem at all impressed by meeting a real-life private detective.

  Marlou sniffled, then wiped her nose by running her palm over it straight up, the way preschool kids wipe their noses; she was looking younger all the time. “Well, it turned out Vanita had good cause to be scared, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I’d say. The police tell you anything about why she mighta been killed?”

  Marlou’s eyes got wider. Warier, too. “No. I, like, figured she was murdered by some kinda sex maniac or something. Nobody I talked to told me otherwise. Nobody told me much of anything, actually. just asked questions. Asked and asked.” Her entire body gave a little twitching motion, as if she’d suddenly come fully awake. “What’m I thinking, letting you stand out there in the heat. Seems my mind’s gone on vacation. C’mon in, Mr. Nudger.”

  He followed her up a flight of rubber-matted wooden steps to her second-floor flat. It had been painted white recently; there were fresh speckles on the hardwood floor. The furniture was a worn-looking hodgepodge. A braided oval rug was centered on the living room floor, and an old-fashioned tarnished brass chandelier dangled crookedly from the ceiling. The living room had a small marble fireplace with a bent piece of cardboard crammed into its opening. It wasn’t much cooler inside the flat than it had been out on the porch.

  Despite the humbleness of the furnishings, the place was neatly arranged and clean and exuded a kind of hominess. There was a St. Louis Cardinals coffee cup, half full, on the table next to the sagging green sofa. On one wall homemade bookcases contained rows of paperbacks, many of them romances. Maybe Marlou dreamed about a Heathcliffe type on a white stallion scooping her up and galloping with her west on Shenandoah toward the wealthy suburbs and into a new life. Or some variation thereof, such as a guy with a steady job and a paid-for white Chevy. Marlou’s was a K mart kind of world.

  “Please siddown, Mr. Nudger.” She motioned toward a faded wing chair facing the sofa. “Cuppa coffee?”

  “No, thanks, I already had mine this morning.” He sat. Felt a spring probe his right buttock. He shifted his weight and got comfortable. Sort of. “What kinda questions the police ask you?”

  She sat down in a corner of the sofa, then picked up the Cardinals cup and sipped. “They wanted to know how well I knew Rupert. I told them hardly at all, which is the God’s truth. Only met the creep, like, three or four times, when he was with Vanita.” The mention of her sister’s name caused her eyes to cloud. She swiped at them with the back of her hand. Then she took another swallow of coffee and set the cup down on the table. She looked desolate and said, “God, it don’t seem real. None of it does.”

  Nudger brought her back to the subject of Rupert, away from her sorrow. “Why do you say he was a creep?”

  Her narrow shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Heck, five minutes with him and you could tell he was pure phony. He lied to Vanita more’n once, I can tell you. Had her starry-eyed and fooled, though, and she’d be ready to believe the next lie. She called him Ropes ‘stead of Rupert, for some reason. Most everybody could see through him like he was cheap bologna. ’Cept for Vanita. Love really is blind, I guess.”

  “Sometimes mute, too. A tragic combination.”

  “Why, that really is wise, Mr. Nudger. You oughta be a philosopher ’stead of a detective.”

  Now that she thought he was wise as Plato, Nudger decided to be direct. “You know about the diamonds?”

  She didn’t react much. “Nope. Whichever diamonds do you mean?”

  “Didn’t the police mention them?”

  She was wearing a puzzled expression. Very faint lines formed on her broad forehead. “Diamonds? No, sir. Why?”

  Nudger realized he was mucking around in an active homicide investigation, something Springer had explicitly warned him about. But it wasn’t Springer who might be suspected by killer thieves of possessing what they wanted. Nudger had to protect himself. He said, “It could be that whoever killed Vanita thought she had some diamonds.”

  The innocent, gap-toothed grin. Incredulous. “Vanita weren’t no more rich than I am. Mosta that stuff she had was gave to her or financed over the next thousand years. If she had diamonds, you can bet she had payments to go with ’em.”

  “Stolen diamonds,” Nudger said.

  Marlou said, “Oh!” And then, “Rupert. That bastard Rupert got her killed.”

  Nudger said, “Could be.”

  “This have something to do with Rupert blowing up that airplane?”

  “Everything to do with it,” Nudger said.

  “Well, best you tell me about it.”

  Nudger hesitated, then he figured Stockton would get to Marlou soon enough, and maybe the police wouldn’t ask who’d told her first about Rupert and the diamonds.

  Screw Springer and his warnings.

  Nudger drew a deep breath. He told Marlou about her dead sister, and how Rupert Winslow and twice-stolen diamonds and the people looking for those diamonds had made her that way.

  11

  After leaving the Granada parked by the broken meter, Nudger dodged traffic and jogged across sun-baked pavement toward his office. Heat radiating from the street swirled around his ankles and worked its way up his pants legs. As he hopped up onto the sidewalk to safety, he saw the man inside the doughnut shop swivel down off his stool.

  He’d been watching Nudger, waiting for him to get across Manchester. Beyond the man, who was now moving toward the door, the white-aproned figure of Danny gave a helpless little shrug. No time to warn you, Nudge.

  Eileen’s lawyer, Henry Mercato, pushed open the doughnut shop door and stepped outside into the sun. He was a short man whose stomach paunch seemed somehow to be masculine and pugnacious, like an outthrust chest. He was wearing a pinstriped blue suit and vest, red-and-blue striped tie, gleaming black wingtip shoes. His lawyer’s uniform. His black hair was, as always, speckled with dandruff, some of which was on the shoulders of the blue suit. He was grinning at Nudger, the flesh around the corners of his dark eyes—fierce as a cannibal’s— crinkled. His teeth were white and perfect, his skin was flawless, his hair was greased down and neatly combed, parted near the middle. He was groomed like a department store mannequin, except for that dandruff.

  Anticipating Nudger’s reaction, he didn’t bother extending his hand. “Mr. Nudger, we need to talk.”

  Nudger slid his own hands in his pockets. “About Eileen?”

  Still showing his underslung, sharklike grin, Mercato nodded.

  “I explained to her I’d pay what I owe,” Nudger said. “Just takes time.”

  Mercato stopped grinning. Something sparkled in his dark eyes. “Lotta time’s already passed.”

  Nudger was getting uncomfortable, and not just from the sun bearing down hotly on the back of his neck. He didn’t feel like a bout of vicious repartee with Henry Mercato. “You here to serve a summons or something?” Nudger asked.

  “You know I don’t do that kinda thing, Mr. Nudger. Experience shoulda taught you, court’s got other means to summon you.”

  “So what do you want?” Nudger asked.

  “I’ll tell you, but it’s gonna take more time than I’d like to spend standing e in the heat.”

  Nudger sighed. “Okay, c’mon up.”

  He opened the street door and trudged up the narrow wooden stairs to his office door. Removed the handwritten BACK SOON. SEE DOUGHNUT SHOP PROPRIETER DOWNSTAIRS sign from the office door and shoved the door open, then stood aside so Mercato could enter.

  “Phew!” Mercato said. “Hotter in here than outside. Smells funny, too.”

  “Doughnuts.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” As if he’d asked Nudger to guess.

  Nudger dropped the cardboard sign on the desk and switched on the air conditioner. Something was wrong with it; beneath the usual watery hum it was going pinka pinka pinka pinka. Maybe the fan hitting something.

  He
said, “It won’t take long to cool down.” He sat down behind the desk. Eeeek! Didn’t invite Mercato to sit. Swiveled slowly back and forth. Eeek! Pinka pinka pinka. Eeek! Pinka pinka pinka.

  Mercato stood perfectly at ease, though a trickle of perspiration was tracking down the left side of his neck toward his white collar. It disappeared inside the collar. He said, “I’m here at the request of Ms. Vogel in regard to the back alimony you owe her.”

  Nudger sat still. Ms. Vogel? He didn’t realize who Mercato was talking about at first. It took a few seconds for it to hit him: Eileen’s maiden name. He knew Mercato and felt like throwing this little chaser of skirts and ambulances out of the office, but Mercato had behind him the power of due process. Of The Law. Politely, Nudger said, “I explained to her that when I could afford it—”

  “Sure, sure.” Mercato waved a hand, causing a gold ring to glint in the light streaming through the dirty window. “The thing is, Eil—Ms. Vogel, has reason to believe you can afford to pay, and that you’re misusing funds that should otherwise be directed to her account.”

  Nudger felt his stomach kick. “Oh, she’s so right, Henry! That’s why I’m living in a chic apartment over on Sutton and working out of this plush office.” Pinka pinka pinka. “Where’s Eileen living now? Out in Frontenac, right? House with a pool?”

  “She needs the pool for therapeutic reasons. Back trouble.”

  “From moving around her money?”

  “No sense getting irrational, Nudger.”

  “Irrational? You know what they say about blood and the turnip? Well, I’m the turnip, and she knows it. What the hell’s Eileen want outa me?”

  “Only what you legally owe her.”

  “Same way with the electric company and my landlord. I give her what’s left, Henry. What’s still in my pocket after I’ve done what I can to keep a roof over me and some generic food in the refrigerator.”

  “Law’s not interested in what brand soup you eat, Nudger, even if it’s no brand. The law’s interested in the fact you got money to spend lavishly on women and dining out while you poor-mouth your former spouse. The fact that you work outa this crummy hole isn’t fooling anybody. You ain’t so stupid as to lease a fancy office in Clayton. And the business you’re in, you don’t need to put up any kind of front. Mosta your clients probably come from the lower classes anyway.”

  “What women? What lavish dining out?”

  “A certain Claudia Bettencourt is a woman, right?”

  “Better believe.”

  “Ms. Vogel saw you and her at Al Baker’s having prime rib and wine no more’n a month ago. One of the best restaurants in town, and far from the cheapest. Least it’s not so reasonably priced that you had money left over to write Ms. Vogel’s monthly check, which was due the very next day.”

  So that was it. “That was an exception,” Nudger said. “Clau—Ms. Bettencourt had undergone medical tests that indicated she might have cancer. Later, when we found out she was perfectly healthy, we celebrated. Didn’t go on a cruise, just had dinner out. If Eileen doesn’t like it, the hell with her.”

  The air conditioner hadn’t caught up with the heat yet. Pinka Pinka. Mercato’s face was red. He was warming up inside and out. “What she doesn’t like translates into money you better pay her, Nudger. Tell you something, it was my suggestion she just haul you into court, get a judgment against you for back alimony and petition to have your monthly payments increased. She can do it with no trouble at all; like snatching money from a blind paperboy. She’s the one said why don’t I come talk reasonably to you, give you a fucking chance.”

  “Save herself some legal fees, you mean. Or do you charge her, what with the occasional sleep-in arrangement you have with my former wife?”

  Mercato’s fierce dark eyes bulged. “Ms. Vogel’s social life’s got nothing to do with business.”

  “Mine, either.”

  Mercato shook his head. “This is exactly why I advised her to have a shit-for-brains like you summoned right to court. Not screw around with this kinda Michael Mouse conversation.”

  “So consider the conversation over, Henry. Go away.”

  “Another thing,” Mercato said, ignoring the fact that Nudger had pointedly opened a desk drawer and was pretending to search for very important papers; something to do with his hands, anyway. “I don’t believe you when you say you can’t afford to pay what you owe.”

  For an instant Nudger wondered if Mercato could somehow know about the missing diamonds and think Nudger had them.

  No, impossible. Nothing about diamonds had hit the news. Everyone from the police to the insurance company wanted the lid kept on as long as possible.

  “You got clients, Nudger. I read in the papers one of them just got killed.”

  “Which means she doesn’t sign checks anymore,” Nudger said in a level voice. “Bye, Henry.”

  “You’ll be hearing from—”

  “Your lawyer?”

  “From the law, fuckface!” Mercato drew himself to full height and tugged down on the lapels of his suitcoat simultaneously with both hands, like a ham actor playing an old-time politician who’d just made a dynamite speech. He strode toward the door.

  “Henry.” Nudger stopped him before he stepped out onto the landing. “Get yourself a better tailor; your dorsal fin’s showing.”

  Mercato started to spit back an answer, then seemed to change his mind. A looseness came over his Napoleonic little form. Hard to imagine him in bed with Eileen. He said, “My dorsal fin’s showing like that noose around your neck’s showing. And the best thing is, you’ll pull it tight yourself. Guys like you always do.” He let his grin spread and walked out. Closed the door behind him very gently, so it made the softest click that could be heard between the pinka pinka pinka.

  Nudger continued rooting through the drawer until he remembered he’d only begun doing it to make Mercato think he was preoccupied. He wasn’t searching for anything.

  He slid the drawer shut, then reached back and slapped the air conditioner. The strange pinking noise stopped. Maybe Mercato had somehow caused it. Mechanical things reacted negatively to certain people; Nudger knew this because he was one of them.

  He opened another drawer, got out a fresh roll of antacid tablets, and peeled back the silver foil. Chomped a couple of the chalky disks, listening to the muted sound of them breaking up between his molars, and thought about what Henry Mercato had said about the noose.

  He knew there was a touch of truth to it.

  12

  Nudger said, “Stuffed flounder.”

  Claudia stood in the doorway to the kitchen holding two frozen dinners, still in their boxes.

  “Unless you’d rather have it tomorrow instead of the ravioli,” he added.

  “I told you,” Claudia said, “it doesn’t make any difference to me. But my hands are getting cold, Nudger. Make up your mind so I can get one of these into the microwave.” She had to go to a parent-faculty spaghetti dinner out at Stowe School tonight, so he was eating alone. She glanced at the clock in the dining room. “I’ve gotta get out of here in twenty minutes or I’ll be late.”

  “Make it the flounder, then,” Nudger said. “The flounder definitely.” She turned and disappeared into the kitchen. The moment he’d said flounder, he’d developed a yearning for Italian food. Ravioli. She wouldn’t understand if he changed his mind again. He’d better stay with the flounder. Take it out of its cardboard tray when it was done and put it on a dish. Have some white wine with it. just like a real meal.

  He got up from his chair and walked into the kitchen. The light was on in the microwave and air was whooshing out its vents. He could see the flounder inside. It didn’t look bad. He sat down at the kitchen table and said, “Henry Mercato was by to see me today.”

  “That little cutthroat lawyer?”

  “Yeah.” He watched her turn on the sink faucet and rinse her hands. “Seems Eileen saw us eating at Al Baker’s Restaurant last month. That’s what starte
d this latest campaign for higher alimony.”

  “You tell him we eat there at least once a decade?”

  “No reason to tell him. He knows it.”

  “If Eileen needs the money so badly, what was she doing at Al Baker’s?”

  There was something Nudger wished he’d thought to ask Mercato.

  “I teach school,” Claudia said, drying her hands on a plaid dish towel. “You do ... what you do. How on earth can Eileen make a case that you should pay her more? She recently bought a bigger house, didn’t she?”

  “With a pool. Mercato said she needs that for therapeutic reasons. Her back.”

  “Her back, huh. She probably—” Claudia bit off her words and stared in at the flounder.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said. She opened the microwave’s door, spun the flounder a quarter turn, and reset the timer. Liquid diode numerals said Nudger was going to eat in six minutes. “I’ve gotta get ready to leave,” Claudia said. “Can you keep an eye on this fish?”

  “Sure.”

  Claudia went into the bedroom to change, and Nudger sat staring at the seconds being marked off on the microwave. He could smell the flounder now. It didn’t smell as good as it looked, but then fish never did.

  He decided there was time to use the beeperless remote to check his answering machine for messages. Turned in his chair so he could reach the wall phone. He punched out his office number, then the code that activated the machine on the other end of the line. Man calling microchip.

  Beep! “Hi! Mr. Nudger, this is your friend Chris. If you’re interested in winning a brand-new Toyota just for visiting ...”

  Nudger stopped listening to Chris, whom he’d never met. There was no way to fast-forward the machine over the phone, so he sat patiently through the rest of the Toyota-lakeside resort pitch. Then a spirited threat from Eileen. Then someone who wanted to sell him a cemetery plot. Or was that Eileen calling back and disguising her voice?