by John Lutz
There were no customers inside, only Danny. The doughnuts sold here were too concretelike for lunch fare, and palpably dripping with grease and calories. Danny made his pittance in the mornings. Still, the place smelled good as usual, if a bit nauseatingly sweet.
Nudger smiled and nodded at Danny. “Anybody been around?”
Danny wiped his hands on his ragged gray towel. “Not in a business sense.”
“Some other sense?”
“An animal of a guy’s been watching your office from across the street.” Danny glanced out through the grease-marked window as if checking to make sure he wasn’t being overheard through the glass. “He stood over there most of the morning, but I ain’t seen him now for about an hour.”
“What do you mean by ‘animal’?” Nudger asked, settling onto a red vinyl stool at the counter. “Did he have fur, horns, hooves? An old cow hand?”
“Big,” Danny said simply.
Danny sometimes communicated like he manufactured doughnuts. Heavily, full of holes.
“What’s ‘big’?”
“Big is tall,” Danny said. “Big is wide. Big is ugly. I think the guy is maybe an ex-fighter, Nudge. Even from here I could tell he had that look about him. You know, outa-plumb nose, and lumps of scar tissue over the eyes.”
An ex-fighter. Nudger rummaged through his memory but came up with no former pugilist who might be looking for him. “Did you notice what he was wearing?”
“Yeah. A light tan jacket, it looked like, and a bright yellow cap, like a baseball cap, with lettering across the front.”
“Could you make out what the lettering said?”
“Nope, he was too far away. My eyes ain’t what they used to be, Nudge.”
“How long by the clock would you say he was out there?”
“About two hours, acting like he was waiting for you. Every now and then he’d glance up at your office window, like he wasn’t sure whether you were in or out.”
Nudger doubted that the man was an emissary of Ringo’s owner, here to pay him his nine hundred dollars. Tall, wide, ugly, and waiting for him. He didn’t need this. Neither did his stomach. It kicked and growled mightily, as if urging extreme caution.
“You say something, Nudge?”
Nudger shook his head and popped an antacid tablet.
“Stomach acting up again?”
“Never really quits.” Nudger swiveled and climbed down from the stool. “If Eileen calls or comes by here, trying to find me to talk about back alimony, tell her I’ve gone to meet Frank and Sandy.”
“Sure. She know who they are?”
“No. Tell her they’re bankers.”
Danny nodded. He held up a large foam cup. “You want a coffee to go?”
“No, thanks,” Nudger said, “I’m regular enough without it.”
Danny’s sad eyes lowered in dejection. Was he becoming as sensitive about his coffee as about his doughnuts? Damned wimp.
“On second thought,” Nudger said, “maybe about half full, with cream and sugar.”
Carrying his coffee, he pushed out the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. There was no point in not leaving before tall, wide, and ugly reappeared. Waiting around for trouble was a lot like looking for it.
Of course, there were times when someone plying Nudger’s uncertain trade earned his fee by waiting for trouble. Which was what Nudger was doing as he took up position near the fountain in Twin Oaks Mall.
He was sitting on a bench outside Woolworth’s in the vast indoor mall, with seeming casualness observing the shoppers milling around the large, gently splashing fountain that was illuminated by recessed colored spotlights. There was a circular raised concrete ledge around the fountain, serving as a bench, and several bullet-shaped trash receptacles and some plastic potted plants were scattered about. Nudger, who appeared to be simply another patient husband waiting for his wife to finish browsing, sat and watched two old women with sore feet and huge shopping bags lounge on the bench and discuss a purchase. The women finally left and several preteen boys ambled up, leaned precariously over the ledge and spat toward the fountain. An exhausted obese woman lugging an irritated infant sighed and plopped down on the bench near them. An elderly man wearing a hearing aid sat not far from her and placidly smoked a pipe. The usual shopping-mall gang.
Nudger checked his wristwatch, as if wondering how much longer he’d have to wait for his errant spouse who’d lost track of time among miles of Sears goodies. A stereotypic but effective ruse. It was five minutes past two. Where was Frank? Was this lack of punctuality a wise way to begin a romance? Or a murder?
Then Nudger saw a short, slender man wearing brown slacks and a yellow sweater tentatively approach the fountain. The sweater either was stained or had one of the currently popular tiny animals embossed on the left breast. The man stood for a minute near the circular concrete bench as if debating whether to sit, decided to stand, and moved off about fifty feet to the side to slouch self-consciously before a window display of jogging shoes. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, and what hair he had left was in a wispy white fringe above his ears.
The man stood in the same position for about ten minutes, frequently glancing at his wristwatch. He lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, then crossed to a pedestal ashtray and ground it out as if it had all been a big mistake. Returning to his original position, he craned his neck to gaze about the sparsely occupied mall, then settled again into his slouched position, spine arched out like a cat’s and hands crammed in pockets. Frank, all right.
Frank was game. He waited until almost two-thirty, then the look of perplexity on his flushed face changed to anger, and he lit another cigarette. This one he didn’t put out immediately. Puffing furiously and trailing smoke like a locomotive, he strode with a dejected yet springy stride down the mall, keeping well to one side near the display windows as if afraid something might fall on him if he ventured too far from a wall. There was a kind of wary resilience in his bearing that Nudger found admirable.
Almost as soon as Frank had gone, Sandy showed up.
“Ah’ll b’damned,” Nudger muttered, as he saw that Sandy actually was wearing glistening black vinyl boots and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat with a chrome-studded band. He also had on black vinyl wristbands, remarkably tight-fitting jeans, and a bright plaid western-cut shirt with pearl snaps instead of buttons. His shirt sleeves were rolled up above his elbows, as if he’d just been out mending fence, and instead of a pistol on his hip a massive ring of keys dangled from his belt and faintly jingle-jangle-jingled when he walked. From beneath his hat, which was shoved back on his head, protruded long blond hair. Sandy brushed back a strand of it to reveal briefly a gold stud in his left ear. Some buckaroo.
Nudger’s momentary hope died as he surreptitiously studied Sandy more carefully. Though the wrangler’s hair was blond, it was fine and perfectly straight. And the hand Sandy was using to rotate a tattered toothpick between his front teeth was so dainty he probably needed help turning doorknobs. Nudger sighed and stood up from the hard bench. Sandy was no more a murderer than he was a cowboy.
As Nudger walked past him, their eyes met and Nudger nodded pleasantly. He had nothing against Sandy; life was tough on and off the prairie. He hoped Sandy could someday work his way up to real leather. This was the land of sexual opportunity for almost everyone other than cattle. He wondered what all the urban cowboys or preppies would studiously dress up as next. Maybe giant chickens. Whatever they could be sold. It was all okay with Nudger, who wore white J. C. Penney underwear.
Nudger left the mall and stood for a few seconds staring at the vast sloping parking lot and the rows of brightly colored car roofs glinting in the sun like newly dyed Easter eggs. It always took him a while in places like this to remember where he’d parked his car. At one time he’d had one of those plastic bananas on top of the Volkswagen’s antenna so he could spot the car easier in crowded lots. But the banana caused the antenna to whip around in the wind when he drove fast,
and it was not unobtrusive enough during stakeouts, so he had abandoned it. Maybe he’d get one of those plastic daisies for the antenna; you used to see as many of them as you did the bananas, but not anymore.
He remembered then: halfway up the aisle straight down from the “G” in DRUGSTORE. He found the Volkswagen hiding behind a fancy travel van, got in and rolled down the windows to allow some of the superheated air to escape, and then drove from the lot.
On Manchester Road, halfway back to the office, he became increasingly interested in the old Buick that had been lumbering along behind him for the past two miles. He made a few turns, a slight detour that brought him back to Manchester Road, traveling in the same direction.
The Buick remained behind him, its weary chrome face smiling a sad and implacable gape-grilled grin.
Nudger reached for his antacid tablets and thumbed back the aluminum foil. He made it a double, chewing the two tablets in time with the clattering tempo of the engine as he drove toward the Third District Police Station.
Periodic checks in the rearview mirror indicated that the Buick was steady on the pace, perhaps even closer, still grinning knowingly at him like a wily, patient predator. This must be what Satchel Paige had warned about. Nudger’s stomach turned in on itself like one of the legendary black pitcher’s hard curveballs.
He speeded up. The Buick gained speed as if attached by a string to the Volkswagen’s rear bumper. The old car’s windshield was tinted and Nudger couldn’t get so much as a glimpse of the driver, but he had a firm idea of who might be behind the wheel.
Nudger took the sweeping cloverleaf onto the highway to downtown, gripping the steering wheel with both hands and holding his speed at a steady, legal fifty-five. The Buick stayed with him, hovering near like the angel of death. Those old cars sure had personalities.
The people in the cars passing Nudger didn’t glance at him; they were totally unaware of their near-proximity to such acute fear. It gave Nudger a helpless, lonely feeling. The worst thing about any kind of real suffering was that it was a solitary exercise.
He didn’t feel the grip of that fear begin to loosen until he exited on Twelfth Street, drove several blocks, and turned into the blacktop parking lot behind the Third District Station. He pulled the Volkswagen into a slot near the brick building, turned off the engine, and leaned back in his sticky vinyl seat in relief.
Then he glanced into the side mirror and fear lanced through his bowels like a shaft of ice, stunning him.
Incredible! Nudger had been followed before and successfully used this ploy to find sanctuary. But not this time. The hulking Buick had followed him right into the police department’s parking lot.
It lurched to a stop close behind him and sat blocking the Volkswagen in its parking slot, its prehistoric giant engine rumbling with throaty, ominous power.
The rusty door on the driver’s side swung open. A man got out and stood up straight. He was wearing a bright yellow, billed cap with CATERPILLAR lettered in black across the front. “Caterpillar” was a brand of bulldozers and other earth-moving and heavy equipment. The man looked like heavy equipment, himself. He was tall, wide, and ugly.
VIII
Nudger reluctantly got out of his car and stood waiting for the big man who had emerged like Prometheus from the Buick. There was no doubt that this was the man Danny had described, the man who had waited for Nudger across the street from the doughnut shop. He was several inches over six feet tall, with a bull neck that strained his shirt collar and merged with wide sloping shoulders. He had an often-broken nose, and a brow built up by scar tissue from inept cornermen who didn’t know how to treat cuts. His lantern jaw suggested he’d been a boxer who could take a punch and absorb much punishment, and who had paid in blood for his dubious ability to continue standing. He bunched his shoulders and slowly advanced on Nudger with ponderous and obvious malevolence.
When he was about ten feet away, he smiled with bad teeth. Even with good teeth, it wouldn’t have been a smile to thaw cold hearts.
“Nudger,” he said, “you an’ me are gonna have an unfriendly little chat.”
Nudger glanced around desperately at the dozens of empty cars baking in the sun. This was the lot where most of the on-duty cops left their private cars. Near the far exit were a couple of parked cruisers, representing the only city vehicles. There wasn’t a uniform in sight. Nudger’s stomach felt as if it were searching for a way out as frantically as he was. It emitted a growl that sounded something like “Please!” He gulped back the bitter bile of fear as he saw the huge man’s powerful gnarled fingers flexing and unflexing around a defenseless red rubber ball.
“They say that’s great for strengthening the forearms,” Nudger said, pointing to the tortured, misshapen ball. He thought that if a ball could scream, this one would be howling.
“What they say is true,” the man said. His stained, crooked smile turned absolutely nasty.
Nudger’s gaze fixed for a hopeful few seconds on the double doors of the building’s rear exit. He prayed that a dozen blue uniforms would pour out on their way to lunch or anywhere else. Wasn’t this about the time for a shift change? Maybe the entire day shift would suddenly emerge, streaming toward their cars. Maybe the cavalry would charge right onto the parking lot. Custer, Lieutenant Reno, the Johns Payne and Wayne. All of them, riding hell-for-leather, maybe singing.
It hadn’t happened yet, except on screen. And Nudger knew he hadn’t paid admission or tuned in the television Late Show. He was on his own.
“This is an odd place for our conversation,” he croaked, stringing out time. “Right here in the police department parking lot.”
The big man’s wide jaw dropped a few notches. Doubt changed to slow comprehension in his eyes as he glanced around seeking repudiation of what Nudger had said.
Nudger managed to draw a breath. Was this possible? It had never occurred to him that the man might have followed him automatically, might not know where they were standing.
The shelflike brow knotted in a frown. Nudger saw the man’s lips move as he read the black-and-white sign near the corner of the building, dread words mouthed silently: THIRD DISTRICT, SAINT LOUIS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT.
Just then a uniformed cop appeared on the sidewalk bordering the lot, munching an apple as he walked toward one of the parked cruisers.
The big man saw him and reeled backward, stunned by total realization, and the rubber ball dropped from his uncurled fingers, bounced against the side of Nudger’s car, and then rolled back toward the man’s size “huge” wingtip shoes. Then under one of the shoes, as the man began hurrying back toward the Buick. He slipped, grunted in surprise as he flailed backward, and hit the blacktop as if a crane had dropped him from twenty feet up. Nudger winced at the melon-hollow sound of the massive head bouncing off the hard surface.
He started to yell to attract the cop’s attention, then realized that the fallen giant was blocked from view by the parked cars and decided it would be wiser to remain silent. Besides, it seemed sinful to disturb a man enjoying an apple in the Eden of the inner city.
Nudger knelt and worked the prone man’s wallet out from his hip pocket, flipped it open and found identification. The man groaned and started to sit up.
Nudger dropped the wallet, stood tall and shouted, “Hey!”
The uniform had been about to climb into the nearest parked cruiser. He stared at Nudger, then slammed the car door behind him as he started to walk across the lot. When he caught sight of the large wingtip shoes protruding from behind the Volkswagen, he tossed his apple core aside and his stride became more purposeful.
“What’s happening here?” he asked, when he’d seen what was attached to the shoes. He was a middle-aged cop with narrow wise eyes and an expanded waistline. There was a tiny piece of apple stuck to his clean-shaven chin, and when he noticed Nudger staring at it he wiped it away.
“I slipped an’ fell,” the big man said, lowering the Volkswagen several inches as he
rested a giant hand on it to lever himself to his feet. “Hit my head.” He was holding his yellow cap that had fallen off. He replaced it on his head at a cockeyed angle.
Nudger realized that the man hadn’t actually done anything to him. Hadn’t actually said anything that constituted a physical threat. Then he remembered the wallet at his feet. He stooped and retrieved it. “You dropped this.” He held out the wallet for the big man to take.
The cop looked at the wallet, then looked hard at Nudger, reappraising the situation.
The big man finally grasped the meaning and treated them with his nasty smile. But the smile disappeared as slowly as it had formed, when he realized that if he accused Nudger of trying to steal the wallet, he would have to go into the station and answer some potentially revealing questions.
“Musta slipped outa my pocket when I fell,” he said. He took the wallet and counted the folding money laboriously. “All there.” He closed the wallet so that the two halves snapped together loudly, like voracious jaws, then jammed it back into his hip pocket so hard he almost ripped his pants seams.
“Which one of you yelled for me to come over here?” the cop asked. He was a thinker, even though unsuspecting of the truth. Probably he’d make detective.
“I called you,” Nudger said.
The man who had accosted him sullenly nodded. “That’s right,” he confirmed. “He seen me fall, I guess, and wanted to help.”
“Do you need medical attention?” the cop asked.
The big man removed his cap and probed a lump that was forming on the back of his head, as if he’d just remembered he’d been hurt. “Nope, I’m okay.” He smoothed back his thinning oily black hair, straightened his clothes and brushed them off. Then he replaced his cap, nodded to Nudger and the cop, and climbed back into the old Buick. The ancient behemoth left a low cloud of dark exhaust smoke as it rumbled from the parking lot. A peeling sticker on the rustpocked rear bumper read: GOD SAID IT, I BELIEVE IT, THAT SETTLES IT.