by John Lutz
“Give me six of these to go,” the tall woman said, shocking Nudger.
Danny got half a dozen Dunker Delites from the display case and put them in a white paper sack that immediately became spotted with grease. A seventh Dunker Delite was plunked onto the counter on a napkin in front of Nudger.
“On me, Nudge.”
Oh, God! Nudger thought.
The woman paid Danny and walked out with the sack in one hand, her purse in the other, as if to equalize the weight. She’d left her newspaper behind. Nudger stretched to the side, managed to get a hand on the folded paper, and dragged it over to him.
He sipped at his coffee and pretended to nibble at the Dunker Delite while searching through the paper.
There was no mention of a truck colliding with a canoe on Peterson Road. The result of the collision must not have been serious. Nudger didn’t know if he should be disappointed.
“I’m not gonna eat this damned thing,” Herb said suddenly and decisively, then climbed down off his stool and stalked out.
Danny, busy replacing Dunker Delites in the display case, didn’t seem to notice.
“Got a lid for this coffee?” Nudger asked. “I’m gonna have to eat breakfast while I drive this morning.”
“No problem, Nudge.”
While Danny fitted a plastic lid on the foam cup and slid the Dunker Delite into a paper sack, Nudger stared out at the sunny morning beyond the shop’s grease-smeared window. It seemed that not much harm could come to a person on a morning so bright.
Still, before leaving the doughnut shop, he used the pay phone to call Hammersmith and tell him where he was going.
“I know better than to try to dissuade you,” Hammersmith said. “You’re like a puppy tugging at a rag caught in a railroad track. That a train might be coming doesn’t seem to concern you.”
“The train concerns me.”
“Not enough,” Hammersmith said. “Phone me when you come back and let me know what happened. If you can.” He let the receiver clatter in its cradle as he hung up. So annoyed with Nudger.
Nudger called Lacy at the Hostelo Grandioso. Her phone rang ten times before she picked it up. She said nothing, but he could hear her breathing.
“It’s Nudger, Lacy.”
“Did we kill the goon?”
He assumed she meant the driver of the monster truck. “Nothing in the morning papers about it, so I guess we only caused enough of an accident to stop him.”
“Damn!”
“Hammersmith finally got an ID on the goon. He’s one Ratko Djukic, and he wasn’t in the local computer or VICAP files because he’s new to the country, from Serbia.”
“How’d he get to this country?”
“Somebody more or less sponsored him, is the best guess I’ve heard. He’s also rumored to be a war criminal.”
“Sounds like a sound rumor to me.”
“I’m driving out to see Hart,” Nudger said. “Can you meet me there in half an hour?”
She was silent again for several seconds. Then: “You still bothered by that kid we saw?”
“Among other things.”
“You are something, Nudger. That Claudia doesn’t know what she has hold of.”
“Can you be there?”
“Can you keep me away?”
He didn’t have to answer before hanging up.
Glancing again at the bright morning for reassurance, Nudger carried his coffee and Dunker Delite out to his car and drove toward Wayne Hart’s estate.
Whenever he came to railroad crossings, he stopped and carefully looked both directions before driving on.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When Nudger used the intercom next to the wrought-iron gate to announce himself and Lacy at the Hart estate, there was no reply. They stood next to their cars in the morning heat and listened to the drone of insects. Two cars and a van swished past on Peterson Road. Nudger felt a bead of perspiration make its way down the side of his neck.
Then an electric motor purred and the iron gate slid to the side to admit them. They got back in their cars and drove up the long driveway toward the house.
A wiry, grinning man about fifty, wearing a neat blue suit with a small white carnation in its lapel, greeted them at the door and ushered them through a hall lined with paintings, then through an expensively furnished den and into a spacious office overlooking the pool. The paintings were mostly landscapes, with a few modern works that Nudger didn’t comprehend. None of them featured prepubescent girls. They’d bypassed the room Nudger and Lacy had broken into last night.
Wayne Hart, taller than Nudger had imagined and not nude today, was standing behind a large mahogany desk. It and the rest of the furniture in the office had the patina of valuable antiques.
Twenty feet off to the side was another, smaller desk. A middle-aged woman in a beige business suit sat at it working at a computer. Despite the severe cut and shoulder pads of the suit, she appeared very round-shouldered, as if she’d sat hunched over detail work for decades.
Hart was wearing dark suit pants, a white shirt, blue suspenders, and a paisley tie. He was fat, but in the manner of a ruined athlete, with a barrel chest and wide shoulders suggesting great strength. His chubby face was puffed into a constant smile, and his eyes were made small by padded fat. Nudger wasn’t surprised to see that he wore a diamond pinky ring on each hand.
“You’re lucky you caught me at home and not at my downtown office,” he said in his raspy, high-pitched voice. “We were preparing the guest list for next week’s party.”
“I thought we should talk,” Nudger said.
Hart seemed to consider the suggestion, then nodded. “Willa, why don’t you go to the kitchen and tell Aaron to fix you a little brunch. I’ll buzz when I need you.”
Willa smiled and stood up from her desk, then left the office. She was slim and held herself as erect as possible when she walked, as if trying to compensate for her rounded shoulders. Obviously not expecting to be gone long, she’d left her computer on, with its monitor displaying whatever she’d been working on when she was interrupted.
Hart didn’t invite Nudger or Lacy to sit, and remained standing behind his oversized desk. “I’m not familiar with the lady,” he said, nodding toward Lacy.
Lie number one, Nudger thought. He said, “She and I are partners.”
“Oh? In what sort of enterprise?” Continuing the dumb act.
“Private investigation.”
Hart’s puffy smile widened. “Ah, what a romantic occupation! It’s inspired so much great literature. Are you a Raymond Chandler fan?”
“I’ve read him. I’m a lot like Philip Marlowe.”
“And are you like Miss Marple?” Hart asked Lacy.
“More like Mike Hammer.”
“Hmm.” Hart rubbed his chins.
Lacy began to wander about the spacious office, staring at objects with blatant admiration. “You’re in a more lucrative business than ours, Mr. Hart. What I wouldn’t give for a computer like this! How much RAM does it have?”
Hart laughed. “You’d have to ask my assistant. She’s the computer genius.”
Nudger helped himself to a chair that was angled to face Hart’s desk. It was leather and its fat cushion hissed when he sat down. “Can I be direct?”
“It would help. Willa and I have to finish composing and printing out our guest list.”
“For the Mizenty House charity affair?”
Hart looked surprised. “No, this is for a private party. Personal guests.”
Nudger assumed Hart meant the Close Calls employees’ annual fete that Derek at West Gallery Mall had referred to.
“Then there will be no minor-age girls at this party?”
Hart put on a puffy, puzzled look. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean, or you wouldn’t be bothering to talk to us.”
“What I’d like to do is listen. What did you mean about minor-age girls?”
“You said th
e guest list had nothing to do with Mizenty House donors, so I figured there wouldn’t be any prepubescent girls present.”
“I see.” Hart pretended to be mollified. He had to know that Nudger and Lacy had been on his grounds and in his house last night. And he had to wonder what they might have seen. Maybe there’d been a lot to see, and that was why this conversation was allowed; Hart couldn’t know how much Nudger and Lacy knew. And Nudger and Lacy couldn’t know how much, if any, leverage they had on Hart.
“You mentioned being direct,” Hart said, and glanced at his gold wristwatch.
“Several months ago,” Nudger said, “a woman named Betty Almer died. A short while later, her father, Loren Almer, was killed in a house fire. Later still, Betty Almer’s fiancee died in an auto accident. Last week, a woman named Lois Brown left me a message saying she was in danger, and shortly thereafter she died.”
“Some sort of plague?” Hart asked.
“That’s what we were wondering.”
“Were any of these deaths suspicious?” Hart asked, frowning and feigning interest.
“Depends on who you ask. What brings us here is that in some of these deaths, including Lois Brown’s, your name came up during our investigation.”
“You already called me about ... I believe his name was Brad Millman. His company put in swimming pools, and he gave me a bid.”
“But you already have a pool,” Nudger said, pointing behind Hart out the window toward the swimming pool, whose still, blue water was glittering in the sun.
“I didn’t ask Millman’s company for a bid to install a pool,” Hart explained. “I needed to have the present pool repaired. Tiles and concrete were cracked beneath the waterline and it was suffering serious leakage.”
“What about Lois Brown?”
“The name doesn’t strike a chord. I know nothing about her, I’m sure.”
“Your name and number were in her possession, concealed as if she didn’t want anyone else to see them.”
“The woman sounds paranoid.”
“She said she was in danger. Next thing I knew she was dead.”
“One of the natural or the accidental deaths?”
“Maybe neither.” Nudger decided to take a chance. “Do you know someone named Ratko Djukic?”
“Will you repeat that last name?”
Nudger did, but it came out different from his last pronunciation.
“I’m sure I’ve never heard of the man.”
“How did you know we were talking about a man?” Nudger asked.
Hart looked at him. “Would you or anyone else name a daughter Ratko?”
“Maybe as a nickname.”
Hart gazed at him with those tiny, flesh-narrowed eyes. He looked bored. He was tired of this game. Then he stood up and smoothed his tie. “Look, Mr. Nudger. Miss ... ?”
“Tumulty,” Lacy said. Nudger had almost forgotten she was in the room.
“Anyway, the two of you,” Hart said. “I’d like to help, but I really am busy. I honestly know nothing about these unfortunate people or why they were aware of my name or the name of my company. But I’m a well-known person in this city. My company is well known. Couldn’t you simply be looking at pure coincidence here?”
“It isn’t likely,” Nudger said. “I was hoping you could explain.”
Hart lifted his beefy shoulders in a shrug. “Well, I can’t. You seem to think there’s some thread running through these accidental or natural deaths, somehow connecting me to them. It simply isn’t true. And frankly I don’t have time to keep telling you so.” The expression in his recessed, porcine eyes hardened. “We had a break-in here last night, so I got off to a late start this morning and have a lot of work to catch up on. I’m truly sorry, but you’re going to have to excuse me.”
Nudger stood up from the leather chair. It hissed at him again as its cushion expanded.
“It’s been a pleasure talking to you,” Hart said. “If there’s some way I really can help you in the future, don’t hesitate to call on me.” He extended his hand.
Nudger shook it. It was warm and moist. He watched while Lacy shook hands with Hart.
“There is something else,” Nudger said, hesitating at the office door that had been magically opened by the same wiry man who’d ushered them through the house. “Do you know anything about a young girl ... skinny, blonde hair, likes to swim?”
“That doesn’t narrow it down very much,” Hart said, his smile stuck firmly to his plump face.
“Likes to swim in your pool,” Nudger amended.
Hart didn’t change expression. “Could be Tanya, a distant niece. She was visiting here until this morning, but she’s returned to her family in the east.”
“Someone would probably notice if she came back,” Nudger said.
“I would hope so,” Hart said behind him, as Nudger and Lacy left the office. He sounded amused, taunting them.
When they were back outside, Lacy said, “The bastard’s guilty as Adam with that girl.”
“Let’s drive to the Steamboat Inn and talk about it over coffee,” Nudger suggested. “Even the flowers might be bugged around here.”
“All of the daffodils are pointed toward us,” Lacy observed.
“They might simply be aghast at the sight of your car.”
Lacy was smiling as she climbed into her ostentatious and dated pink Caddy.
As he started the Granada and prepared to follow her back out onto Peterson Road, Nudger was glad to see that her car had left a large oil spot where it was parked in Hart’s driveway.
During the drive along Peterson Road, Nudger couldn’t help glancing into his rearview mirror from time to time, almost expecting to see the monster pickup truck perched high on its huge tires and charging toward him again.
But danger was far away. This was broad daylight, and there was considerable traffic moving in both directions. Witnesses to call the police. And the Steamboat Inn would no doubt have other customers.
Feeling relatively safe, he relaxed and kept and eye on the towering pink tail fins of Lacy’s Caddy, wondering how she’d gotten the car past its state air pollution inspection, the way it belched oily black smoke.
“My friend wants two hundred dollars for the loss of his canoe,” Lacy said, when they were seated in a Steamboat Inn booth over steaming cups of coffee.
“Sounds like a bargain,” Nudger said.
“I told him a hundred. That thing wasn’t much more than a hammered-out tin can. It wasn’t safe to take out on the river.”
“That’s not how you talked about it last night.”
“You on my side or his?”
“Negotiate some more. Offer him a hundred and fifty.”
“That’s the plan.” She added more cream to her coffee and stirred it. “He’ll accept it. What I need from you is a check for seventy-five dollars.”
“I’ll write you one soon as we leave here.”
She gazed out from beneath her bangs and smiled at him, a hardened and material waif made happy by the prospect of money.
“You didn’t say much in Hart’s office,” Nudger remarked.
She withdrew the spoon and placed it on the table next to her cup. “I didn’t think you invited me along to contribute to the conversation.”
“I’m not complaining,” Nudger said. “It just isn’t like you to be so reserved. I almost forgot you were there.”
“So did Wayne Hart,” Lacy said. “That’s how I managed to steal the disk from his assistant’s computer.”
Nudger watched her take a sip of coffee.
“I want a receipt from the canoe guy,” he said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
At Hostelo Grandioso, Nudger stood behind Lacy and looked over her shoulder. She’d inserted the stolen disk into her laptop computer and was trying to figure out how to view its files.
The little cabin’s air conditioner was clattering and gurgling away, but Nudger was still sweating. As he watched the computer’s flickering s
creen and listened to Lacy curse in frustration, he wondered where the pointy-headed giant with the bowie knife was keeping himself. Nudger’s hope was that the man had been driving the monster truck, and the collision with the canoe had at least injured him enough to keep him out of commission for a while.
“She scores!” Lacy yelled, as she broke the code, causing Hart’s guest list to appear on the computer screen.
Nudger leaned forward and with Lacy studied the names and addresses. Lacy paged down without asking Nudger if he was ready, and another five names appeared on the screen. The next to last one was Warren Tully.
“Seventeen names in all,” she said. “Not so large a party you’d need an assistant to organize it.”
“Hart probably uses an assistant to do anything he doesn’t absolutely have to do himself,” Nudger said. “And remember, some of the seventeen might bring guests.”
“Still not a big party,” Lacy said. She sounded disappointed at not being invited.
“Can you print out that list?” Nudger asked. “We need to check out the names.”
“No printer here. I can print it out at home.”
“Not worth the chance,” Nudger said. “Let’s copy the list in pencil, then destroy the disk. Hart probably knows it’s missing by now, and knows who took it.”
Lacy found a pencil and some Hostelo Grandioso stationery with a caballero-lariat logo on it. Nudger used his pen, and he and Lacy sat for about ten minutes copying the names and addresses from the computer screen onto paper.
“I’m going to get on-line and work on these names from here with my computer.”
Nudger thought that was a good idea. He and Lacy each took half the names on the guest list.
“I’ll go to my office and work the phone, see what I can find on these guests,” Nudger said, “then I’ll call you.”