by John Lutz
“Make me think about stuffed flounder,” Nudger said.
“Why?”
“Long story.”
“Don’t tell me, then.” Martini turned and looked directly at Nudger. He had a beefy face with gentle brown eyes. Black hair going gray. A semicircular scar on his left cheek that Nudger knew had been made by a broken beer bottle during a peace-disturbance call to a tavern brawl ten years ago. “Saw you walk in with Vanita Lane’s sister, Nudger.”
“Yeah. The deceased was my client.”
Martini chuckled. “Remind me never to hire you.”
Nudger knew Martini was here on the “Weep Detail.” It was standard procedure for a cop to attend a murder victim’s funeral. Killers are unpredictable in a lot of ways, and it wouldn’t be the first time one had attended the wake or funeral of the victim. Martini was carefully observing everyone who came into the funeral home and then veered left toward where Vanita Lane was laid out for viewing by mourners. Nudger said, “Anybody interesting been here?”
“Nope. Couple of small-timers. She had some yukky friends, seems to me.”
“Such as Rupert Winslow.”
“You got that right,” Martini said. “Ropes. What an asshole. He was small-time all the way. Fucked up everything he tried.”
“She loved him, though.”
“Ain’t only opposites attract. Or maybe she was the one made him like he was. Then he caused her to be mixed up in something got her killed. Karma, huh? Or poetic justice or some such thing.”
“You’re being awful hard on her. She’s not up for sainthood.”
“None of us are likely to be remembered as saints,” Martini said. “Mother Teresa excepted, but I don’t look for her to drop by tonight.”
“You never can tell.”
“She’s not in town.”
“Do me a favor,” Nudger said. “If anybody who strikes your interest turns up here, let me know.”
“I’ll let Hammersmith know. He can tell you. Gotta cover my ass, Nudger.”
“Sure. Everybody does except Mother Teresa.”
Martini cleared his throat softly. “Now if you don’t mind ...”
Nudger knew what he meant. Martini was trying to be as invisible as possible, and it didn’t help to have Nudger standing next to him watching the goldfish. Nudger drifted away toward where Vanita was laid out.
Delgado’s had done a good job. She was beautiful in a casket lined with white tufted satin. Only the upper half of her body was visible. Nudger tried not to think of the damage beneath the blue dress, the carnage in the motel cottage. Her ruined hands were encased in flesh-colored Latex gloves. Looked almost normal. Her eyes were closed lightly. Her lips were barely pressed together.
While Nudger stood there, a couple of guys in suits even cheaper than the ones in his closet came up and paused by the other side of the casket. One of them whispered, “jesus! She looks just like she did when she was alive.” The other said, “Yeah. On her back, and she might open her mouth and spout bullshit any second.” Neither man changed expression during this exchange. They walked toward a small knot of mourners near a grouping of baroque furniture.
Nudger walked over to where Marlou was standing alone near a colorful floral arrangement. Other than the arrangement, there were three wreaths. He glanced at a card and saw that the flowers were from Marlou. When she saw him she tried a smile. She was almost as pale as her sister.
He said, “You know any of these people?”
“Not really. Know who a couple of them are. That man over there told me he works for the lounge where Vanita used to be a waitress. Those two guys that were next to you up near the casket are from there, too. That woman, the one with, like, the wide-brimmed hat, ran this other place where Vanita worked some years ago.”
“Other place?”
“Not the lounge, I mean.”
“What kinda place?”
“Massage parlor, I think it was. That was when she was real young, though. Even before the lucky day she met Rupert.” For a second it looked as if Marlou might crack and begin to sob. But she sucked in a deep breath and composed herself. “Wish to God she was still working there and never met the bastard.”
“I wish it with you,” Nudger said. He glanced around. “You gonna be okay here?”
“Sure. I’ll do what needs doing. That’s the way I always been.”
Nudger didn’t doubt it. He rested his fingertips on the back of her hand. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She stared at him. “Thanks for your help, Mr. Nudger. Listen, though, one thing I wanna keep straight is ... well, I ain’t rich. I mean, I never hired you to discover who killed Vanita, though God knows I’d like to find out. I can’t afford a private investigator.”
Nudger touched her cool hand again. It reminded him of Vanita’s gloved hands folded across her chest. Vanita’s hands at peace, beyond all feeling, all pain. A massage parlor. “I’m still working for your sister,” he said. “And for myself.”
She breathed out loudly and nodded, smiling in a way that made him feel like gulping. Ran her tongue around the space between her teeth and then clamped her lips together. For a moment she looked too much like her sister in the coffin.
Nudger muttered, “Sorry about Vanita,” and walked away, pretending she probably hadn’t noticed the tightness in his voice.
Martini was still standing idly near the indoor fountain, but Nudger only glanced at him while walking past. The plainclothes cop stared harder at the goldfish. If Martini was on watch in here, there was no doubt another cop was keeping an eye on whoever might simply hang around the outside of the funeral home. That made Nudger feel more secure. The police might not be the only ones who used Delgado’s as a place to make connections with those who’d been involved with Vanita Lane or Rupert Winslow.
Nudger thought it unlikely that anyone would follow him home from the funeral parlor.
And he was right; no one did follow.
They were waiting for him in his living room when he walked into his apartment.
14
One was standing near the window. The other was perched on the arm of Nudger’s sofa and had his arms crossed. Both men looked at Nudger when he entered. They smiled. The one by the window was in his thirties, handsome, but with a face almost too pretty beneath a head of full, wavy black hair. He was on the short side, but he had a lean waist and wide, powerful shoulders, a deep chest. All-American quarterback type, but way too small for the pros. He was dressed all-American, too; navy blue blazer, gray slacks, red-and-white striped tie. Might have been a Republican fund-raiser.
The other man was older, maybe in his fifties. He was dressed like a pool hustler who’d just worked a con. Had on black slacks and a gray-and-black-checked sport coat that had so much silk in it the gray took on a silvery glitter. White shirt open at the neck to allow a peek at a gold chain. He was so thin he was almost skeletal, causing the coat to drape crookedly from his shoulders as if it were on a bent hanger. His face was long, with equine features. Bulging brown eyes. Oversized yellow teeth. He had a yellowish complexion to go with the teeth. He looked sick. “Ah, Mr. Nudger!” he said, as if they’d been waiting a while and here Nudger was at last.
On the floor, directly between the two men, was a small square metal bird cage with a yellow canary in it. The sort of outfit you might buy in a dime store on a whim for somebody else’s kid. The canary wasn’t singing, just sitting on a wooden perch and fluffing its feathers. It was probably wondering what the hell was going on. Like Nudger.
The handsome man by the window was still smiling like a toothpaste ad sprung to life.
Nudger said, “And you two are ... ?”
“Here to see you,” the skeleton said. He uncrossed his arms and slid the long, yellow fingers of his right hand into a pocket of the silky sport coat, striking an exaggerated genteel casualness that rang about as true as a wooden bell. He wheezed slightly with each breath, as if he were functioning at high altitude and was
unused to it. His bulbous eyes fixed hard, almost fanatically, on Nudger, and he said, “Why don’t you c’mon in and sit down in that chair?” It was more than a suggestion; maybe there was a gun in that sport coat pocket. Maybe not.
Maybe was enough. Nudger crossed the living room slowly and sat down in the wing chair that faced the sofa at an angle. The skeleton watched him carefully, working his tongue around inside his cheek as if something might be stuck between his molars. All-American was gazing out the window again.
Nudger said, “So what’s this about,? Though he had a pretty good idea what.
“Diamonds,” said the man staring out the window. “About diamonds.”
Nudger said, “I’m a cubic zirconia man, myself.”
“I can see that.” The man didn’t turn from the window.
“Actually,” the skeleton said, “we came here to ask what the late Miss Vanita Lane might have told you about these diamonds.”
“These diamonds? What diamonds?”
Skeleton smiled with his horsey choppers. His narrow face creased like old parchment. He wheezed. “We think Miss Lane knew the whereabouts of some diamonds that belong to us.”
“The late Miss Lane.”
“Ah, yeah. I suppose that bears repeating. We think she mighta told you where the diamonds are. That only leaves you to tell us.”
Nudger knew who these two were, even if they wouldn’t give their names: the diamond thieves who’d fallen out with Rupert Winslow and then murdered him. The men who’d tortured and killed Vanita. Fear was threatening to turn his joints rubbery, cause him to lose control. He fought against that. Knew his survival might depend on using the old gray matter. Figured, why not the truth? “She thought the diamonds were on the plane.”
Both men stared solemnly at Nudger and said nothing.
“The one that blew up at the airport.”
All-American said, “An explosion wouldn’t destroy diamonds. They’re the hardest things in the world. Except maybe for us.”
“Vanita didn’t realize that.”
The skeleton shook his head sadly. “That I don’t buy. Woman like Vanita, she knew diamonds.”
“But not where these diamonds are,” Nudger said.
“She hire you to find them?”
“That’s right.” Nudger didn’t think it wise to reveal she’d actually hired him to protect her from the two men standing and staring down at him.
“So how you been doing?” the skeleton asked. “Got any ideas?”
“I don’t think there ever were any diamonds. What I found out was that Vanita Lane had an overactive imagination and a reputation for stretching the truth.”
All-American smiled. “Overactive this, overactive that.”
“Ah, she had her problems,” said the skeleton.
“She was a devious, lying cunt,” All-American said softly.
“True,” the skeleton agreed, “but let’s not speak other than kindly of the dead.”
Nudger remembered Vanita’s broken fingers. The flesh-colored gloves on her hands in the funeral home. “If she’d known where the diamonds were, she’d have told you.”
“You’d think that, all right.” Wheeze. Wheeze. “I mean even when we ... Anyway, she really might not know where they are. What Rupert Winslow really did with them.”
“We can’t be absolutely sure, though,” said All-American.
The skeleton grinned wider. A death’s-head. “That’s true. Because Miss Lane had her aforementioned character flaws, and she was one tough little bitch.”
“Had steel balls,” All-American said. “In a manner of speaking.”
“She’d have told you,” Nudger said. He didn’t want to say too much about the torture-murder. Didn’t want to prompt a repeat performance right here in the apartment. But why else were these two here? Fear tried to claw its way up his throat. He swallowed. Absently touched his violently working stomach.
“Got some kinda problem?” asked the skeleton.
“Nervous stomach.”
“Tough shit, in your business. Must get in the way of the job.”
“From time to time.”
“Thing is,” the skeleton said, “Miss Lane was gutsy enough we just can’t be sure if she was telling the truth at that motel, even under the painful circumstances. She mighta went down lying her ass off.”
“Wouldn’t of been the first time,” said the one by the window. Speaking unkindly of the dead again. Nudger decided to let it pass.
The skeleton gave a brittle kind of chuckle and shook his head. “Last thing she did, Nudger, she spit on my friend here. Believe that? Spit right in his face just before he ... Well, point is, the lady had some intestinal fortitude. We were plenty impressed.”
“Balls of steel, all right,” said the other one. “What about you, Nudger? You got them kinda balls?”
“Mine are more balsa wood, but I don’t know any more than I’m telling you.”
The skeleton nodded, wise as Death. “Could be. We’re not here to pull your strings, ’cause you probably wouldn’t tell us shit anyway. Though I doubt you’d do any spitting there toward the last.”
He nodded again, this time in the direction of All-American, who reached down and opened the bird cage, stuck in his arm, and removed the canary. He cupped it gently in his right hand and stroked it softly on the head, as if trying to coax a tweet out of it.
The skeleton said, “Like birds, Nudger?”
“Sure.” Not pigeons.
All-American walked over to stand near Nudger’s chair. He held the canary out so Nudger had a good view of it.
Squeezed.
The canary’s beak gaped wide but no sound came out. Its head thrashed. A leg found its way twiglike between All-American’s fingers and flailed in desperation. All-American grinned and kept squeezing. Something began to emerge from the canary’s beak. Nudger’s stomach was spinning and he felt light-headed. Couldn’t look away. Heard himself say, “Ah, Jesus, stop!”
All-American said, “Okay,” and dropped what was left of the canary on the floor at Nudger’s feet. Laughed and said, “Teach it to sing, why don’t you?”
Only raw fear kept Nudger from leaping up and hitting the man. But then, that was the idea.
The skeleton said, “Keep doing what you been doing, Nudger. Looking for the diamonds. Only now we’re your clients. That clear?”
“Clear.” Nudger couldn’t look at the bird.
The skeleton slouched toward the door. All-American followed, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. As if he’d been doing minor work on his car, got some grease on his fingers.
All-American held the door open for the skeleton, and both men stepped out into the hall. The skeleton stuck his head back inside, though. “We’ll be in touch for your progress reports. Now go ahead and clean up that thing that used to be a bird. And remember while you’re doing it, you got any ideas about not telling us what you learn, and we’ll make you sing even if that canary didn’t.”
Nudger sat and listened to them tromp down the hall. They were joking to each other about something even before they reached the steps, laughing loudly in the echoing stairwell. About what? Vanita! The crushed canary? About Nudger?
Probably it didn’t make much difference to them.
Nudger could no longer hear the two men.
Reluctantly, he stared down at the dead bird. Saw Vanita. Oh, God!
He got a wad of paper towels from the kitchen and cleaned up the mess, even though doing so wrung out his insides.
Story of his life.
15
Nudger climbed out of bed at nine the next morning, and after a stop at the office and doughnut shop, he drove toward the Third District station to see Hammersmith. For Nudger, nine o’clock was oversleeping. His body felt stiff and his head throbbed as if someone were drilling on the front of his skull from the inside. The sun beating through the windshield made him sneeze. Which made his eyes water. Which made his nose run. Sniff! Sniff! God, this was agony
!
He took a sip of Danny’s coffee from the Styrofoam cup in his right hand, steering with his left. The cup had a plastic lid with a tiny triangular drink-hole, but still some of the hot liquid dribbled down his chin. He didn’t care. If the sneeze had been a warning of a summer cold, Danny’s coffee would smite any lesser germ in his system.
Nudger felt a little better by the time he reached the station house. Headache almost gone.
He parked in a visitor’s slot and walked across the lot toward the side entrance. Saw Hammersmith’s unmarked Pontiac parked in the shade. Someone had traced LEGALIZE MARIJUANA in the dust on the driver-side door. Maybe Hammersmith himself had done it to tweak the cops in Narcotics; sometimes he displayed a devilish sense of humor.
Hammersmith had been at work for more than two hours. Nudger had called last night and was expected, but still the obese lieutenant looked surprised when Nudger gave a perfunctory knock and walked into his office. He’d thought Nudger would arrive at eight. “What’s this, Nudge? You wander into Springer’s office by mistake before you found your way here?”
“Overslept.”
“Oh? Home Shopping Network keep you up?”
“No,” Nudger said, “it was fear, not herringbone gold chains.”
Hammersmith rubbed a smooth, fleshy jowl. One of his pink and pudgy hands floated up from the desk and motioned for Nudger to sit down. Nudger sat in the uncomfortable straight-backed chair in front of the desk. There was a stack of report forms on the desk, transcribed by a clerk from the handwritten accounts of patrolmen.
“These guys,” Hammersmith said, tapping the reports with a cellophane-wrapped cigar, “they still write about subjects having blond hair and eyes. And arms and legs getting decapitated.”
“Some things never change,” Nudger said. “You don’t have to be a literary giant to be a good cop.”
“Thank God. Norman Mailers we ain’t got.” He propped the still-wrapped cigar against the ashtray on the desk corner, positioning it carefully so it was aimed at Nudger like a missile moments away from launching. Nudger knew his time in the office was limited. Crime was an ongoing condition and Hammersmith was busy. Hammersmith made a graceful fat man’s gesture with his right hand, as if to signify that Nudger had center stage and his full attention. “So let’s hear your story, Nudge.”