by John Lutz
Nudger didn't know quite how to feel about that. But then he didn't have a choice about how he felt. Nobody did. That was what caused so many knotty problems for so many people and kept him in business.
There was another message from Eileen on Nudger's answering machine. He listened to it only long enough to learn why she'd been trying to talk with him. He had indeed paid her only half of last month's alimony. Not only that, her lawyer had a file on the dates of all the late payments made by Nudger, and used some kind of sliding formula to calculate the interest Eileen claimed she was owed. The interest rate was several points higher than the prime rate, which Nudger always thought was really the rate banks charged their worst customers. But then there was little doubt that First National Eileen considered him to be her very worst customer.
Nudger knew he'd better pay Eileen the other half of the alimony soon. The demand for accumulated interest was probably a bluff, engineered to aggravate, and could be ignored. He wished she'd leave him alone. She had more money than he had. She could afford her pistol of a lawyer.
He folded Claudia's note and slid it into his shirt pocket. Life could be infinitely complicated. Mother hadn't told him there'd be years like this.
30
The apartment on Wilmington was neat and smelled of lemon-scented furniture wax, as if Claudia had just a moment ago finished cleaning and everything was still precisely in place. Maybe she wanted to talk to Nudger in surroundings as orderly as possible, so that their conversation would take on the same symmetry and manageability.
She was wearing her plain navy-blue dress and had her dark hair pulled back and pinned behind her ears, from where it was allowed to fall to below her shoulders. She looked startlingly beautiful to Nudger, her lean features made perfect by the late-afternoon light. It was four o'clock exactly. Nudger needed to see Claudia as early as possible in order to get to the Right Steer when Candy Ann got off work.
Candy Ann was on Claudia's mind, too. When Nudger had sat down on the sofa, she said, “Someone at the school was kind enough to show me your photograph in the paper. The one of you stepping down out of a trailer, wearing an expression that must have been a lot like Lancelot's when he left Guinevere's room.” A crisp, almost reprimanding tone had crept into her voice.
“I don't think Camelot reads quite like that.”
“I was striving for effect.”
“This someone who showed you the photograph, was his name Archway?”
She shrugged with feigned nonchalance. “It doesn't matter.” She was nervous. She took a few steps left, a few right, and wound up standing again in front of Nudger. “Since you spent the night with that girl, I thought maybe we could find some common ground, come to an understanding.”
“You don't object that I saw her?”
“I don't have the right to object. Not to anyone you see. And vice versa. That's what I keep trying to get across to you.”
“How do you know I spent the night with her?” Nudger asked.
Claudia seemed slightly surprised. “The newspaper said so.”
“Oh, I didn't know; I only looked at the photographs, then threw my copy away. I haven't believed anything in that paper since the crippled-UFO story. The one where aliens broke into a Shell station and stole an ordinary automobile battery—”
“Are you going to tell me you didn't sleep with her?” Claudia interrupted. Nudger thought he picked up a note of jealousy in the question. Yes, he was sure of it.
“I slept with her,” he said. He watched Claudia wince ever so slightly. “But without sex. Her fiance was ritualistically toasted to death that day; she needed somebody with her. That was what all our time together was about. She needed consoling.”
“And you happened to be the one to console her. All night.”
“That's how it went,” Nudger said.
Claudia sat down in the chair near the window. The filtered light streaming through the sheer curtains made her look ten years younger, softened her features yet lent them the intensity of youth. He recognized the bloodless, pale tightness at the corners of her lips, the subtle flare of her nostrils. She was feeling plenty ornery now, mad that she was put in the position of having made love to Archway while here was Nudger saying he'd been chaste since their argument, a saint of a guy. This was embarrassing and infuriating.
“I've always heard that men's consciences didn't apply below the belt line,” she said.
“That's true about us only up to around age forty.”
“It isn't important. The thing is, you spent the night with that woman. I confess I suffered some of the jealousy you must have felt when you found me with Biff. Some of the pain.”
“Jesus, Claudia, a guy named Biff.”
Her dark eyes narrowed. “Are you making a joke of this?”
“No.”
“I want us to start seeing each other again, under different circumstances. I want to see other men occasionally, and you can see other women.”
“By ‘other men,’ do you mean Archway?”
She shook her head. “No. He doesn't really matter. Never did. Besides, he's dating the girls' field-hockey coach, and has been for the past several months.”
“She might be more his type. Does she crush the can after she drinks her beer?”
“Ease up, Nudger.” A warning, not issued lightly.
“If Biff is out of the picture, and you want me back in, why do you have to go out with other men? Are you suddenly becoming nymphomaniacal?”
Her voice rose; she was strung even tighter than Nudger had thought. “Sex has nothing, or at least not everything, to do with it. Dr. Oliver told me you'd been to see him, that he'd explained things to you. Can't you understand and accept this independence and freedom in our relationship?”
“It will take some getting used to,” Nudger said. He got up, walked into the kitchen, and got a can of beer from the refrigerator, making himself at home. Miller Lite was in there, not his brand. Whose, then? Biff's and the hockey coach's? He returned to the living room, wiping foam from his chin. “I'm not sure I can get used to it.”
“I don't want to hurt you,” Claudia said. “That's the thing I've never wanted in all of this. But the marriage with Ralph, what happened to end it … I need to break out of the box that put me in. Completely out. I need to discover who I really am.”
That kind of talk made Nudger mad. “That's college-sophomore rhetoric, Claudia. What next? Are you going to tie a bandana around your head and hitchhike cross-country? It's the wrong decade for that. The people who did that kind of thing are living in condos and driving Volvos now, or playing Vegas. If you want to find out who you really are, check your driver's license.”
She stood up, her fists clenched. Uh-oh! He knew he'd gone too far. Maybe way too far.
“Damn it, Nudger! If you don't care about me, the hell with you! That's how trapped I am in myself; the only way I can try to express it is in clichés and stilted sixties dialogue. If I could understand and articulate it, do you think I'd be suffering from it?”
“Probably not, according to Oliver,” Nudger said.
“Don't criticize Dr. Oliver. He saved my life.”
Which was more or less true.
She was calmer now. She didn't want to admit that Nudger had also saved her life, but she realized it and it sobered her. Right now, he didn't want her gratitude.
He took a swig of beer, walked over, and kissed her on the mouth. That felt good. Throw a little unexpected machismo on her, like in the movies. Gets 'em every time.
“What the hell's wrong with you?” she asked, and shoved him away so hard he almost tumbled backward. “I'm trying to talk.”
“Maybe all this talk is what's wrong between us.” Well, that and timing.
“Fuck you, Nudger. If that's the way you're thinking, go back to your scrawny blonde.”
“Ah, you're more jealous than you thought! Dr. Oliver would say that was good for you.”
“You son of a bitch!” She p
icked up a magazine from a table and threw it at him so hard it separated in midair, pages fluttering all over the room. She was left clutching the ripped and crumpled cover in her fist.
He wondered what was going on. Never had he seen her lose her temper this way. He liked it. Archway might flip him around like pizza crust, but he could handle this one. Could he ever!
He dived in on her low, grabbed her around the waist, and wrestled her to the carpet. She was strong, but he'd surprised her. That felt good.
She pounded his back with her fists. “Rape!” she said. “This is goddamned rape!”
“Robbery,” Nudger told her, rolling on top of her. “I only want your purse.”
“You know I don't have a purse!” she shouted, as he bit her earlobe. “Ouch, you idiot! Why did you do that?”
“I don't know,” Nudger said, “maybe it is rape. I suppose I have options.”
“The neighbors!” she said. “The neighbors around here will hear this and get up a petition to have me move. You don't know these people!”
“You're probably their entertainment,” he said. “They have genitalia; they understand.”
“Nudger, I'm serious!”
He ran a fingertip lightly along the side of her neck until she twitched involuntarily. She grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked hard, twisting.
“That feel sexy?” she asked.
“Makes me wish I wore a toupee. The joke'd be on you.”
“Some rapist.”
She released her grip and let her hand drop. There was a strand of hair snagged beneath one of her fingernails.
Nudger was out of breath. Middle-aged guy rolling around on the carpet. Whew! Out of shape. Not Biff.
She shoved him off her and he fell to the side, laughing. They were both laughing, but Claudia was holding her ear, not laughing as hard as he was.
She sat cross-legged next to him. After a while, she bent down and kissed him gently on the forehead.
“Stay with me tonight,” she said.
“Under our new agreement?”
She nodded, smiling down at him.
He rolled over onto his hands and knees, caught his breath, and managed to get to his feet. His side was aching but he didn't care.
“Can't stay,” he said. “Not tonight.”
She stood up gracefully and brushed the wrinkles out of her dress. She wanted to ask him where he was going, but she wouldn't.
“I'll try to come back later. That is, if you aren't going to be with Archway. I've still got my key; it's just been stabbing me in the hip.”
“I told you, I don't plan to see Biff again. What about you? Do you plan on seeing Candy Ann Adams anymore?”
Nudger nodded, tucking in his shirt. “I'm going to see her tonight,” he said. “Business.”
Claudia didn't comment on that, but it was obvious that she disapproved. She pulled a bobby pin from the side of her hair and clamped it in her teeth, rearranged a few errant strands, then replaced it. All very quickly and smoothly. Elegantly. The deftness of women with bobby pins always amazed him.
He said, “Mostly business, anyway.”
He went out in a hurry and closed the door behind him, leaving Claudia alone to get used to their new arrangement.
As he was walking toward the stairs, he thought he heard something break inside the apartment, but he wasn't sure.
The neighbors remembered him from last time. The ones who'd been mowing then were polishing now, the ones who'd been polishing were mowing. They stopped working for a moment to stare. The last time they'd seen him he was walking doubled over like a guy who'd just been shot everywhere that wasn't fatal. He wondered how much they knew about him and Claudia. And about Claudia and Biff Archway. He stared back and they resumed their tidy tasks with fresh diligence.
Nudger started the Volkswagen and pulled away from the curb to the racketing of a dozen power mowers, on his way to the Right Steer Steakhouse.
Halfway down the block, an ancient, gray-haired guy buffing a vintage station wagon grinned wolfishly and gave him a jaunty salute.
31
Nudger waited in the hot Volkswagen outside the Right Steer for almost an hour past Candy Ann's quitting time. She hadn't emerged from work, and the cab that usually materialized to drive her home never appeared. The sun was low now, burning in through the car's rear window and gaining intensity in a fishbowl effect, like a magnifying glass used to start a fire. Nudger was the tinder.
Rather than burst into flame, he wiped his sleeve over his forehead, got out of the car, and trudged across the parking lot to the restaurant's entrance. The lot's blacktop, still holding the maximum heat of the day, adhered to his shoes and made slight sucking noises with each step.
He pushed through the Wild West, louvered swinging doors, then shoved open the pneumatic double-pane glass door, and stood just inside the blissfully air-conditioned Right Steer. Two elderly women, one of them with a cane, edged around him, studied the large wooden menu pegged to the wall, then moved toward the serving counter, where a yellow-uniformed cowgirl waited to take their orders and shoo them along toward the cash register like doggies toward the corral.
Nudger gazed over a wood partition at the crowded restaurant and the waitresses bustling about delivering steaks, refilling glasses, or wiping down tables. He didn't see Candy Ann.
When a young blond waitress drifted near to refill coffee mugs, Nudger leaned over the partition.
“Jodi,” he said, noticing her name branded onto her uniform blouse, “is Candy Ann Adams still here?”
Jodi stopped and smiled at him, as if she were about to tell him that she was his waitress and if he needed anything just let her know and she'd be glad to serve him. But she said, “Candy Ann? She left a couple of hours ago. Had to pick up her car before someplace closed. Leastways, that's what she said.” He caught a tone of resentment in her voice, as if Candy Ann's absence might be the reason all the other waitresses had to hustle around at double speed.
Nudger thanked her and walked back outside to cross the sticky parking lot to the Volkswagen.
He drove to Placid Grove Trailer Park, watching the miles tick away on the odometer. Four and a half miles exactly.
He saw no sign of anyone's presence in Candy Ann's trailer, no car parked nearby; only a gray squirrel that scurried across the trailer roof, then did a precarious tightrope act on the telephone-service wire and made for a nearby tree.
Vehicles were parked so that there was no place Nudger could wait in his car inside the trailer park without possibly arousing suspicion, so he drove back to Watson Road. He found a spot in the shade of some tall sycamores, then pulled the Volkswagen onto the shoulder where he could see the park entrance. After switching off the engine, he reached over and opened the passenger-side door to reap a little more breeze. The car's interior was hot to the touch.
Then he did what he spent too much time doing in this odd occupation that had chosen him. What he did in hotel lobbies, parking lots, bars, empty apartments, phone booths, and places too varied to classify.
He waited.
It was dark when she finally arrived. Nudger caught a glimpse of her gaunt profile as she turned her car in beneath the arched “Placid Grove” sign.
He started the Volkswagen and followed, keeping her car's bright red taillights in sight until they seemed to draw close together and disappeared as she made a right turn onto Tranquillity Lane in her final leg toward home.
He pulled to the side of the street and waited, giving her plenty of time to get inside, before he put the Volkswagen in gear and parked a short distance beyond her trailer.
As he walked up Tranquillity Lane in the dark, it seemed that the crickets were screaming with insane volume and intensity, the way they'd screamed the night he'd talked to Tom. Or maybe that was because the rest of the trailer park was so quiet; it was still too hot for anyone to be outside without good reason. Fireflies winked among the trailers, sending mysterious luminous signals, the only visib
le signs of life or motion.
Candy Ann's car, an old but glossy yellow Ford, was nosed in close to her trailer. On his way to the door, Nudger paused and scratched the hood with a key. Even in the dim light he could see that beneath the new yellow paint the car's color was dark green or black. He bent down and looked at the license plate. The number began with an L.
The crickets stopped screaming then, suddenly.
It took a few seconds for the silence to register with Nudger.
He was straightening up when one of the shadows in the corner of his vision suddenly gained substance and rushed at him.
Nudger started to yell in alarm, but he was hit hard in the side, momentarily knocking the breath from him and causing his injured rib to flare with pain.
He was on the ground. A large man loomed over him, leg drawn back to kick. Nudger rolled to his left, felt a shoe graze his hip. He scrambled to his feet, and a glancing blow scraped his neck and almost knocked him down.
The man rushed him again. This time Nudger sidestepped and drove a fist into the big man's stomach, heard a grunt more of irritation than of pain or breathlessness. Wow! The guy's midsection was hard enough to have hurt Nudger's fist. He was fit as a commando, wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt, with what looked like a knit ski mask pulled down to conceal his features.
Hot night for that, Nudger thought inanely, as the man grabbed the front of his shirt. Buttons shot like popped corn into the shadows.
Nudger tried to shove his assailant away, but the man barked a short half-grunt, half-scream and hacked down with the edge of his hand at Nudger's neck. The blow missed and glanced off his shoulder, struck the yellow hood of the car. Had to leave dents in both places.
Then the big man was up tight against him, using his weight, bending Nudger backward over the hood. He grabbed Nudger's hair and began beating his head on the smooth metal. More dents. It was making a hell of a racket, but probably not enough to arouse the neighbors and bring help. Or maybe it only seemed loud to Nudger. Pain exploded between his ears with each impact.