by John Lutz
“Of course not,” Nudger said.
“My clients don’t do jail time they don’t have to, and usually they don’t have to, ’cause I’m their lawyer. You listening?”
“Sure. But I still want to talk to Dupont.”
“Damn it! You’re listening but you’re not hearing! You understand the difference?”
Nudger thought it had been the other way around last time, but he only nodded.
“You’re working for me, not Dupont. He don’t even know I hired you.”
“He’ll have to know eventually, if I go around asking questions. ”
“Eventually, sure. Earth’s gonna get hit by a comet eventually. Didn’t we just agree about not knowing about tomorrow, Nudger?”
“We did,” Nudger admitted.
“Dupont finds out, then we let him assume you’re working trying to clear him.”
“I am,” Nudger said, “if he’s telling the truth and he’s actually innocent like he claims.”
“Truth?” Fleck said, raising his gray eyebrows almost into his black wig. “I don’t worry about truth! I worry about what can be proved or disproved. Then you know what?”
“What?”
“The truth will follow. Some kind of truth, anyway. You listening?”
“And hearing,” Nudger said.
Fleck glared at him as if he were hopelessly slow. “I hope so, Nudger.”
“Who posted bond for Dupont?”
“Sister out in Ladue. Put up her fancy-shmancy house. She loses the house if Dupont decides to run. But he won’t run. Know why?”
“He’s got you as his lawyer.”
“You guessed it, Nudger!”
“What’s the sister’s name?”
“Effie Prang.”
Nudger got out his little notepad and wrote that down. “Address?”
Fleck consulted a long yellow legal pad on his desk and gave Nudger an address in an area expensive even for Ladue.
Nudger replaced the notepad in his pocket. Fleck’s phone rang again. This time the temp picked up on the second ring. “Your wife on line one, Mr. Fleck,” she said over the intercom.
Fleck raised his eyebrows again, picked up the receiver, and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece. “My wife!” he whispered to Nudger. “Jesus!” He cleared his throat. “Honey,” he said. “Yes, sure, no. Tell him he has to wait! I don’t give a damn . . .”
Nudger stopped listening and leaned back in his chair, letting his gaze roam over Fleck’s framed certificates. He wondered where Audie Murphy University was located, before switching his gaze to the adjoining wall.
Fleck abruptly hung up the phone. “The little woman,” he explained.
“That one,” Nudger said, pointing.
“Huh?”
“That one.” He continued pointing at one of the framed diplomas. “It’s from a college of veterinary medicine.”
“Oh, Yeah.” Fleck waved a hand. “I was that for a while. Now listen, Nudger. It’s okay if you talk to anyone else involved in this case, but we better leave Dupont for last. You hearing me?”
“I’m listening,” Nudger said.
“Same thing.”
“A veter—”
“Now, how have you been earning your money so far?”
“I talked to a police contact about the Dupont case. He says your client’s guilty and is probably going to be found guilty and die.”
“He didn’t call him my client, did he?”
Hammersmith had, but Nudger decided to go along with Fleck. Save energy that way. “Not exactly.”
“There you are. And like I told you, it doesn’t matter! Guilty, innocent, so what? We’re talking about the law here, Nudger. Our justice system! Understand me?”
“I think so. But—”
“I don’t care if Dupont killed his wife. My job’s to get him the best deal possible in court. Poor dumb sheep won’t listen to me and plea bargain, though. Won’t listen to me, can you believe it?”
“He might be listening but not hearing,” Nudger said.
“And it might get him death by lethal injection. A lesson in that, don’t you think?”
“A hard one,” Nudger said. He stood up to leave.
“You want the names and addresses of some of the other people involved?” Fleck asked. He flipped a page on the yellow legal pad and shoved it across the desk so Nudger could read it.
It took Nudger a while; Fleck’s handwriting was frantic, the letters detached so that they stood alone or in groups of two or three and appeared vaguely Oriental. All of the names on Fleck’s list were on the list Hammersmith had given Nudger.
Nudger moved away from the desk.
“Hey, you’re not going to copy them down?” Fleck asked.
“Already got them.”
Fleck stared at Nudger, then grinned. “Well, you’re sharper than you appear.”
“Because you were looking but not seeing,” Nudger said, and went out the door.
On the way out of the anteroom, he paused and asked the temp what her name was.
She looked at him suspiciously, as if he’d just driven up and offered her candy. “Why?”
“I’m in business, and you seem efficient. If you don’t object, I might ask for you next time I need a temp.”
She smiled beautifully; it was probably the only positive thing she’d heard all day.
“I’m with American Office Commandos,” she said. “Just ask for Wanda.”
Nudger saluted smartly and assured her he would.
And he might.
Business was slow now, but who could tell about tomorrow?
Chapter Four
When Nudger had trudged up the narrow stairwell to his office door, he found a note lying on the floor. He saw the tab of cellophane tape on the top of the note and knew what had happened. The heat in the stairwell had liquefied the adhesive on the tape and it wouldn’t stick to the door. The tape had given way and the note had fluttered to the floor. Nudger had found many such notes outside his office door.
He stooped and picked up the note, recognizing as he did so the large, scrawled writing, the grease stains in the margins. It was a message from Danny Evers, who owned and managed the doughnut shop beneath Nudger’s office, and who served as Nudger’s ersatz secretary.
The note said Danny wanted to see him about something important. Which meant Nudger had to trek back downstairs, outside into the afternoon heat, and make a sharp U-turn in through the door of Danny’s Donuts. That irritated Nudger. Danny must have seen him drive up and park on the other side of Manchester by the broken meter. Probably saw him cross the street, since Nudger had almost been struck by a bus and the squeal of brakes had attracted attention. Surely had heard him making his way up the creaking stairs to the office and could have yelled up for him to come back down before he’d climbed all twenty-two worn and sagging wooden steps. It wasn’t as if Danny had customers to distract him. His business was booming about like Nudger’s.
Still irritated, Nudger went back downstairs and pushed open the doughnut shop door.
Danny was alone in the place, absently wiping down the stainless steel counter with the gray towel he kept tucked in his belt. His long, lined face with its sagging features and basset-hound eyes looked more forlorn than usual, and some of Nudger’s anger left him. Some, but not all.
It was as warm in the doughnut shop as it was outside. The Dunker Delites, Danny’s specialty, were probably continuing to bake right there in the glass display case, where they lay inert on greasy waxed paper. The scent of grease and baked sugar was almost overwhelming, making Nudger’s stomach growl in protest.
Danny brightened noticeably when Nudger entered, and he gave the gray towel a flick so crumbs flew back onto the counter, then tucked it in his belt. “You get my note, Nudge?”
“Yes,” Nudger said. “Why didn’t you just—”
“Want some coffee?”
“No.” Nudger looked at the immense and complex steel urn with its mi
les of tubes, hoses, and what appeared to be catalytic converters.
Sensitive Danny had picked up on Nudger’s irritation. His somber brown eyes seemed to sadden and maybe even began to well with tears. Made Nudger feel smaller than a Dunker Delite.
“Your note said it was important,” he reminded Danny, sliding up onto one of the red vinyl stools at the counter.
Danny nodded, then turned to the urn, rotated a few valves, and shoved a porcelain spigot lever to one side. There was a great deal of hissing and gurgling, some brief whistling as, very slowly, sludgelike coffee filled the foam cup that had already been in place in anticipation of the next customer.
Danny turned off the spigot then placed the steaming cup in front of Nudger on the counter. “Just in case,” he said, smiling wearily. “You had lunch, Nudge?”
“About half an hour ago,” Nudger lied. He did not want to fend off a free Dunker Delite. “What’s important, Danny?”
“It’s Ray, Nudge. I’m afraid he’s got problems.”
Ray was Danny’s shiftless cousin who lived a few blocks west on Manchester in the St. James apartments. He feigned a bad back and collected every form of welfare possible, working only occasionally to build up his unemployment so he could again draw down his benefits. Ray was spineless and a liar and a blatant user of people and a Cubs fan. There was nothing about him that Nudger liked.
Danny, with the instincts and perceptions of a child, knew what Nudger was thinking.
“Now, I know you don’t much like Ray,” he said, “but he does need help, and he is family.”
“He is not of the family of man,” Nudger said.
Danny appeared hurt. “That would upset my Aunt Madge.”
“Ray’s mother?”
“Late mother, Nudge. My mother’s sister. And I promised her I’d kinda keep an eye on Ray and see he doesn’t get into really deep trouble.” He said this as if the family accepted minor trouble as Ray’s birthright.
“His trouble is deep this time?” Nudger asked.
“My Aunt Madge would think so, if she was alive.”
Without thinking, Nudger lifted the foam cup and sipped. It took all his willpower not to make a face and insult Danny, who was particularly sensitive about his coffee and his pastry.
“Ray’s got woman trouble,” Danny said, in a tone of voice that suggested Ray had been informed of some terminal disease.
“Let me guess,” Nudger said. “He’s interested in a woman who’s not interested in him. Is it rape? If it is, I don’t think I can help him.”
“No, no, Nudge. His problem’s that a woman’s interested in him, and he wants to be left alone.”
Nudger was astounded. A woman who would allow herself to become romantically involved with Ray had to have the instincts of a lemming.
“Ever heard of Shag’s?” Danny asked.
“The hamburger place?”
Danny nodded. Shag’s was a small drive-through with a few booths inside that fancied itself, and advertised itself, as a burgeoning McDonald’s. It was about half a mile outside the Maplewood city limits on Manchester, notable for its round architecture and brown roof that resembled the top of a bun.
“There’s this woman, Heidran Kreb, that works behind the counter at Shag,’s and she’s developed a crush on Ray.”
Nudger almost took another sip of coffee. “Heidran Kreb? A crush? On Ray?” He could not bend his mind around it.
“That’s the situation, Nudge. Ray went in there a few times for supper, got to know her a little. Well, he’s been on unemployment a while, and when you collect that you gotta show them you’ve applied for at least three jobs a week. Ray turned in an application at Shag’s, not dreaming they’d want to hire him. He didn’t figure on Heidran using her influence with the manager.”
“So what’s the problem?” Nudger asked. “Why doesn’t Ray take the job?”
“It pays less than his unemployment, he says. It’d be a losing proposition for him, what with gas money and all.”
“Gas money? He could walk to Shag’s from his apartment in ten minutes.”
“You know Ray. He’s got this bad back. Bad knee, too.”
“He never mentioned a bad knee before.”
“He don’t like to burden other people with his troubles, Nudge.”
Nudger was getting irritated again. Ray traded on his troubles as if they were coin of the realm.
“Sure you don’t want a Dunker Delite?” Danny asked.
Nudger’s stomach moved six inches this way and that. He used the back of his hand to wipe sweat from his forehead. “No, thanks. Please.”
Danny looked at him curiously.
“So what can I do to help Ray avoid work?” he asked.
“I don’t know, exactly. But he’s got some ideas. He wants to talk to you. Will you go see him? Will you do that for me, Nudge?”
“And for Aunt Madge,” Nudger said helplessly. “When can I find Ray at home and not at the track or some Maplewood bar?”
“He said to just call before you want to come over. He’s laid up right now with his back and he’ll be home most anytime.”
“Hmph.”
“Wearing some kinda brace,” Danny said, hoping to gain credibility.
Nudger didn’t dispute that. He knew Ray had all kinds of props.
While Nudger was here, he decided to get Danny’s input on the Dupont case. Danny’s uncomplicated way of looking at things sometimes provided otherwise overlooked insights. “You familiar with the Dupont murder?” he asked.
“Sure,” Danny said. When he baked, he laid his fresh, hot doughnuts on pages of the Post-Dispatch that acted as grease blotters, so he was always up on the news. “Guy who killed his wife and buried her someplace. Don’t he come to trial soon?”
“A few days,” Nudger said.
“You professionally involved in the case?”
“Yeah. What do you think of it?”
“The guy’s guilty, Nudge. He killed his wife.”
“Why do you say that with no hesitation and such certainty?”
“Well, the evidence against him is no secret.”
“But it’s all circumstantial.”
“So’s the evidence that cigarettes cause cancer, but I quit smoking years ago.”
Nudger didn’t know how to counter that argument.
“Anyway,” Danny said, “I seen Dupont on the TV news, telling the guy from Channel Five—you know, the one that wears the snappy sport jacket and has the expensive haircut—how innocent he is and pretending to worry about his wife. He was lying. I could tell that easy by looking at his mouth.”
“His mouth?”
“Sure. Good liars can control the expression in their eyes, but when people lie, their lips always stiffen up. If you watch for it, you can see it.”
Nudger thought about that. It might be true.
“You working for Dupont, Nudge?”
“His lawyer,” Nudger said.
“You better be careful. He’s a bad type.”
“You know the lawyer?”
Danny looked confused. “No. I meant Dupont. He’s dangerous. You can tell by his eyes. The way they’re set in his head.”
Nudger decided not to pursue that one. There might be something to the stiff-lip theory, but there were limits.
He got down off his stool.
“So can I tell Ray you’ll be by to talk to him?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“Thanks, Nudge. You on the way there now?”
“No,” Nudger said, heading for the door, “I want to think about his problem. Right now I’m on my way to lunch.”
“I thought you said you already ate lunch,” Danny said in a voice that betrayed his bruised psyche.
“Hunch,” Nudger said. “I’m on my way to follow a hunch. On the Dupont case.”
“Remember what I said about that one.” Danny plucked the towel from his belt, lifted Nudger’s foam cup, and wiped under it. “You be real careful.”
/> “You just don’t want anything to happen to me before I help Ray,” Nudger said.
Danny’s face fell to belt level. “Hey, Nudge!”
Nudger grinned. “Kidding, Danny. Kidding.”
Danny’s sagging features folded into a smile.
Nudger went out into the summer heat and jogged quickly across the street to the Granada while there was a break in traffic.
He decided to drive down Manchester and have lunch at Shag’s. A hamburger and a vanilla milk shake sounded just right, and he could eat inside where it was air-conditioned.
Danny was watching him out the doughnut shop’s grease-spotted window, next to the sign advertising microwaved doughnuts at half price. PERFECT FOR DUNKING, the sign said in parenthesis.
Danny waved as the Granada pulled away from the curb, and Nudger waved back and then drove west on Manchester.
Admitting to himself that why he really wanted to eat at Shag’s was so he could get a look at this Heidran Kreb.
Chapter Five
He remembered Heidran Kreb from the other times he’d been in Shag’s. She was a large woman, about forty, broad through the shoulders and hips. Her features had begun to give way to fleshiness but were still strong. Her graying blonde hair was pulled back severely from her broad forehead and arranged in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She wore no makeup, had thin lips, a narrow nose, and the cold blue eyes of a U-boat commander. An aging Valkyrie.
“Help you?” she asked.
Nudger ordered a Shagburger, fries, and a vanilla milk shake. He was one of four customers, and the only one at the serving counter. A teenage girl with acne and a drab brown Shag’s uniform exactly like Heidran’s, only several sizes smaller, was at the window servicing drive-through customers. She had on some sort of belt pack wired to bulky earphones with an antenna sprouting from them. She looked as if she might be ready to coordinate takeoffs and landings on an aircraft carrier flight deck instead of serving up burgers and fries. After receiving an order from the outside speaker, she would gyrate all over the place, calling out instructions to the cook, stuffing already wrapped burgers into brown Shag’s bags, scooping fries into cardboard containers, asking if the customer out there wanted ketchup or mustard. Striving to please while her little antenna sproinged all around with her wild effort. She was like a mad little moon in irregular orbit around the stolid and efficient Heidran.