by John Lutz
Nudger went back to bed. It was cool and comfortable even with the windows down. The downpour lost its force after a few minutes, steadied to a pleasant rainfall. Nudger drifted toward sleep, but he couldn’t quite get there. He kept jerking himself back to consciousness, with the thought that there was some window he’d forgotten to close and the rain was still pouring in.
At last he fell asleep, the uneasy feeling still with him.
Shortly after dawn he sat bolt upright in bed, eyes open and heart pounding. He was sure that something bad—something monstrous—had happened while he slept. And it was something he should have been able to prevent.
Feeling foolish but unable to shake off the strange mood, he got up and walked around the apartment again. All the windows were shut; he had missed none of them.
The eastern sky was clear, and a hot red sun was coming up.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
six months later
Christmas vacation starts tomorrow,” Claudia said. “I can hardly wait.”
Nudger nodded. For the last week she’d been monitoring final exams, grading papers, and talking about how much she looked forward to the last day of the term. He didn’t think she’d stopped by his office just to tell him this again. It took something special to bring Claudia to his office, which she regarded as depressing and possibly indicative of Nudger’s future.
To Nudger it seemed less depressing than usual simply because she was here. She was wearing a deep-red sweater, a long gray skirt, and high black leather boots. He especially liked the boots. Her lips were curved in a half-smile, and her big dark eyes held tenderness and humor. Nudger reminded himself that Claudia never looked lovelier than when she was about to give him bad news.
She crossed her legs and folded her hands over the top knee. “Something’s come up,” she said. “Something very . . . well, I guess I might as well just tell you.”
His stomach roiled with foreboding.
“A group of the other teachers are flying to Colorado for some skiing. They asked me to come along. And I’m going.”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “So how long will you be gone?”
“Not long. A week. I’ll be home for Christmas.”
A week seemed very long to Nudger, but he said only, “I didn’t know you skied.”
“I don’t. They teach you. They’re happy to teach you so they can rent you equipment.” She smiled wryly. “With what I spent on sweaters today, this vacation is going to cost the earth.”
So she had doubts about this trip, Nudger could tell. Maybe, deep down, she even wanted to be talked out of it. If so, she’d come to the right place. He said, “I had plans for us. I was going to take tomorrow off.”
“Really? What were these plans?”
In fact Nudger’s plan was to get in bed with Claudia and stay there until noon. But he could see he was going to have to dress this up a bit.
“I was going to bring you breakfast in bed.”
“Nudger! You’d actually bring me my orange juice and cereal in bed?”
She was laughing. He was going to have to up the ante.
“And coffee. And bacon and pancakes.”
She stopped laughing. Her eyes widened. “Nudger! You’re offering to cook for me?”
Nudger nodded gravely. It was a momentous step, and perhaps a mistake, but he really didn’t want her to go to Colorado.
“Well, I’m flattered.” She arched her eyebrows, smiling. “Also curious. But would my kitchen ever be the same?”
“I’m not much of a cook, true. But I can do bacon and pancakes pretty well.”
“Really? This is a whole new facet of you, Nudger. How come you’ve kept it a secret?”
He shrugged noncommittally. The truth was, making pancakes depressed him. He’d learned how during the last desperate months of his marriage. He’d been trying to mollify Eileen by giving her a treat on Saturday mornings. It hadn’t worked. He hoped that with Claudia the pancakes and the results would be better.
“Your plan sounds good so far,” she said. “What comes next?”
“Sweet rolls from the St. Louis Bread Company.” The Bread Company was a bakery that made delicious and expensive pastries. Expensive for Nudger, anyway. Maybe Danny would bake something and Nudger could pretend it was from the Bread Company. But he knew immediately that wouldn’t work. What was he getting himself into?
“Sounds good, but I meant what comes after brunch? What do you plan for us to do for the rest of the day?”
“Oh.” Again he sought inspiration. “I thought we’d take in a movie. Have dinner out.”
Claudia was sighing and shaking her head. He must have lost her somewhere.
“See, Nudger, that’s the problem. That’s why I’m going skiing.”
“Huh?”
“I feel the need to do more than sit around and eat, sit around and eat.”
“But it’s winter.” He looked out the window at the gray sky. “Who wants to be outside in winter?”
“It’s hard, I admit. All the more reason—”
“It’s going against nature.”
“Against your nature, Nudger.”
“In winter all mammals become more sedentary, to conserve energy.” Nudger the naturalist. “They eat more because extra fat serves as insulation.”
“Next you’ll be telling me you intend to hibernate.”
It sounded pretty good, especially if he could share a den with Claudia.
“A friend of mine says the only way to stay happy and healthy through winter is to take up skiing and skating,” she continued. “That way you no longer dread winter coming. He says life’s too short to get depressed every fall. And he should know, he’s from Wisconsin.”
Nudger opened his mouth to debunk this absurd theory, then he remembered something.
Wasn’t Biff Archway from Wisconsin?
In a flash it all came to him. Why hadn’t he seen it before? This was just the sort of thing Archway would suggest. Nudger could just see him schussing down the slopes in form-fitting Lycra pants. Or sitting by the fire in the lodge, a cup of hot cocoa in his hand and Claudia by his side. Or maybe even vice versa. Nudger shivered.
“You catching cold, Nudger?” Claudia looked more smug than concerned. “You know, you don’t get colds from being out in the fresh air. You get them from sitting around indoors, being breathed on by sick people.”
“You said you’re going with a party of teachers from the school?”
“That’s right.”
“How many?”
“Oh, at the moment I believe it’s just four.”
Two couples, then. Or, Archway and three women? Or Claudia and three men? Nudger’s imagination was on a rampage. Suddenly he was angry. Enough of this tiptoeing around. He was going to ask her flat out if Archway was behind all this.
As he opened his mouth, the phone rang.
“Never mind, ignore it,” Nudger growled.
“No, go ahead,” Claudia said. “I know you’ve got business. I’ll wait.”
It was a lawyer he often worked for, asking him to look for a potential witness in a car accident case. A routine job, but it would pay. Nudger wrote down the information. The delay took the edge off his anger at Claudia. As he went on talking to the lawyer, he thought back over the years he had spent being jealous of Biff Archway. How many times had he suspiciously questioned Claudia about her feelings for that muscle-bound lunk, and where had it ever gotten him?
If he asked her if Archway was going on the ski trip, he knew what would happen. She’d get angry, accuse him of not trusting her, of refusing to respect her independence. She might even—the thought made his stomach loop and zoom—tell him she’d been back to see her shrink Dr. Oliver again, and he’d told her to validate her selfhood by seeing other men. That had happened before and it had driven Nudger to abject misery.
One thing she wouldn’t do was answer Nudger’s question. She would go off to Colorado, leaving him to stew in doubt and jealousy.
Wh
at would he do then? Follow her out to the resort to check on her? Nudger imagined himself skulking in hotel lobbies or shivering on snowy slopes, as he tried to keep an eye on his beloved and the treacherous bastard Archway. Wasn’t love wonderful?
He finished with the lawyer and hung up the phone. Claudia was waiting, still with legs crossed and hands clasped around her knee.
Nudger’s heart ached because she was going away from him. His stomach burned because she was going with another man. But this time for a change he was going to bring his brain into his relations with Claudia. Learn from his past mistakes and not press her and drive her further away with his jealousy.
“Well, I hope you have a good time,” he said, as he came around the desk. “Give me a call when you get back.”
Claudia looked surprised. Speechless, in fact.
He bent to kiss her on the forehead.
The look of surprise softened into something else. She caught his face in both her hands. Kissed him on the mouth.
“There’ll be time for breakfast in bed before the plane,” she said. “You want to come over tonight?”
Sly Nudger.
Reluctantly Nudger opened his eyes. The shades were down, but Claudia’s bedroom was bright with morning light. He was alone in her bed. He sat up. He could hear noises from the other room: the mutter of a radio, and Claudia’s footsteps. She was pacing. She said, quietly but vehemently, “Damn. Damn!”
Pulling on his robe, Nudger went to the doorway and peeked out.
Claudia’s fists were propped on her hips, her face flushed with annoyance. She was walking an agitated circle around her open suitcase. It lay on the floor, spilling over with skiwear: stretch pants, gaudy parkas, hats and gloves, ski sweaters. She was going to look beautiful in Colorado.
“What’s the matter?” Nudger asked. “Can’t fit it all in?”
She flung out an arm, toward the window. “Look out there!”
Nudger walked over to the window. Looked outside. Smiled.
It must have snowed all night. Big soft flakes were still drifting down from a white sky. Cars parked along the street—including Nudger’s and Claudia’s—had become a row of rounded hillocks. An impeccable sheet of snow, so far unmarred by car, man, or dog, covered streets and lawns alike. Thick, downy cushions lined the higher branches of the tree in front of the building. They were on a level with Nudger’s eyes, and he squinted, trying to measure the depth of snow. Eight or ten inches, he thought.
“We can’t let a little thing like this keep us indoors,” he said. “Let’s put on our snowshoes and head for the airport.”
Claudia gazed at him unamused.
“All right, I’ll hitch up the dogs to the sled.”
“It wouldn’t do us any good to get to the airport, even if we could.” Claudia indicated the radio. “They’ve shut down.”
“Too bad,” Nudger said.
“Too bad?” she returned. “It’s unjust, unfair—we didn’t get a single snow day last semester. No, it’s got to hold off till the first day of vacation. It’s got to ruin my trip.”
“Yours and all the teachers who were going with you. I’ll bet they’re all so disappointed. It is unfair.”
She looked at him for a moment. “You’re delighted, you hypocrite.”
“Delighted? Of course not. Just musing over the ironies of our modern age. That a snowfall should keep you from going skiing is—”
“Nudger, shut up and start making breakfast. I’m going back to bed.”
He’d let his emotions get the better of him again, to crow over her like that. He’d forgotten that he was the New Nudger now. He followed her.
“Maybe you’d like to go out later on,” he said. “If they get the streets plowed, we could go sledding on Art Hill.”
She stopped and turned around. “Sledding, Nudger? I’ll bet you can’t remember the last time you went sledding.”
“Sure I can. It was twenty-nine years ago.”
“Well . . . it does sound like fun. You’re sure you want to go?”
“Absolutely sure. I don’t hate winter nearly as much as you seem to think.”
Even saying the words, he was cold.
He remembered well enough how to make bacon and pancakes, but it took a very long time. The most frustrating part was that he had to search for every utensil and ingredient he needed. Over the years he must have sat in this kitchen and chatted with Claudia while she cooked hundreds of meals. Yet he’d never noticed where she kept things.
In the bedroom Claudia was talking on the phone. To Archway, no doubt. They were either putting the trip off until tomorrow, or cancelling it. He thought he had reason to hope for the latter. Her lovemaking had been unusually fervent last night. Yep, she was intrigued by the New Nudger.
She and the New Nudger both had breakfast in bed. Claudia proclaimed it delicious.
Nudger gloated. He’d finally found an arena in which he could beat Biff Archway. Archway might be a scholar-athlete, martial arts expert, sports car aficionado, and clotheshorse, but Nudger had never heard a word about his cooking.
Too bad this morning’s meal exhausted Nudger’s repertoire.
Later on they moved to the seat by the window with coffee. As they sipped, they looked out at the street scene. No snow plows had appeared yet, Nudger was pleased to see. The first heavy snowfall of the year usually took St. Louis by surprise. Schoolkids acted as if they’d never before seen snow, and drivers miraculously forgot they’d ever driven in it. Joy and fender-bender accidents abounded.
Claudia’s South St. Louis neighbors, usually the most industrious of householders, seemed to have decided to sleep in this morning. Only a few appeared, and they merely searched in vain for newspapers and mail, or poked at the igloos in front of their houses to make sure their cars were still underneath. Then they went back inside.
So the street was given over to the children. They staggered through drifts up to their knees or even their waists, dragging sleds behind them, headed for the nearest hill. Right below Claudia’s window armies were mustered, forts were built, and intensive snowball warfare broke out. The yells and laughter and crunching footfalls were the only noises in the snow-cushioned silence. It was as if nothing was going on in the city of St. Louis but this snowball fight.
But it was only a minute later when he heard an engine. A car was approaching. He stood to get a better view.
A Jeep was moving slowly toward the building. It wasn’t one of those nifty and expensive Wagoneers, but a boxy old olive-drab Jeep with a canvas top. It looked like Army surplus. In fact, it looked as if it had been through the Battle of the Bulge.
The Jeep’s horn honked. The children stopped and stared, and got out of the way reluctantly. A few threw snowballs at the Jeep. It didn’t seem fair to them that their playground should turn back into a street so soon.
Right in front of Claudia’s building the Jeep stopped. The driver didn’t bother to park; no one else would be coming along. He opened the door and got out: a tall man, bareheaded and wearing a raincoat inadequate for the cold. He brushed his lank hair back from his forehead.
It was then that Nudger recognized Walter Blaumveldt, whom he hadn’t thought of in months.
Claudia remembered him from the trial. “Blaumveldt,” she said. “He’s coming into this building. What do you think he wants?”
“I’m afraid he wants to see me.”
She was still in her robe and pajamas. She shot Nudger an annoyed look and went into her bedroom, closing the door. Nudger went to the front door of the apartment.
He opened it as Blaumveldt came up the stairs. He was breathing hard, as Nudger usually was by the time he reached Claudia’s floor.
Blaumveldt didn’t say anything. He reached in his pocket and took out his wallet. Then he handed Nudger a ten-dollar bill.
Nudger swallowed hard. “They’ve found Karen Dupont’s body?”
Blaumveldt nodded. “She was murdered.”
Chapter Thirty
Nudger knocked on the bedroom door and looked in. Claudia was back in bed, reading The Little Sister. For the last few months, she’d been rereading the works of Raymond Chandler, looking for the line he’d misquoted to her last summer. She was an English teacher; she did things like that.
“Find it yet?”
She shook her head. “ ‘She had a figure that could make a man kick a hole in the wall.’ You’re sure that’s as near as you can remember?”
Nudger thought. “I think part of the joke was, the man was somebody important. A senator, maybe.
“ ‘She had a figure that could make a senator kick a hole in the wall?’ I don’t think you’re getting any warmer. Is your friend still out there?”
Nudger nodded.
“How did he find you?”
“He went to the office. Danny told him if I wasn’t at my apartment I’d be here.”
Claudia put the book down in her lap. “Does Danny usually give my address to people who come looking for you?”
“No. Never. But this Blaumveldt guy doesn’t take no for an answer. I’m going with him to talk to Roger Dupont.”
Her brows drew together as she looked at him. “Why?”
Nudger could sense that all the points he’d made with Claudia last night and this morning were slipping away. “It won’t take long. We’ll still have time for a movie and dinner this evening.”
“I’m not mad, Nudger. I’m just asking, why are you going out on a day like this to talk to Roger Dupont? His lawyer’s not your client anymore.”
Nudger nodded. It was a good question. “I guess I feel as if I never finished with that case. It’s never stopped haunting me.”
She went on looking at him for a moment. Then she went back to the book. “Okay.”
“You understand?”
“Not exactly. But I’m used to you.”
In other words, farewell to the New Nudger. Claudia must be thinking that he hadn’t lasted very long. Must be planning to head out to Colorado as soon as the airport reopened. Nudger stepped back, quietly closing the door. Perhaps it was better this way. At least she’d never find out he couldn’t make eggs Benedict.