by John Lutz
While he was toweling dry, he heard the phone ring. He hurried, nude and leaving a trail of wet spots, into the bedroom and picked up.
Danny, from the doughnut shop.
“That guy with the fancy earring was back by here this morning, Nudge. I thought you oughta know before you came in to the office.”
“He gone?” Nudger croaked.
“You catching cold, Nudge?”
“Kinda. Got a sore shoulder, too.”
“Bursitis? Like that?”
“Not exactly.”
“You still got some of that Mother’s Extra Care liniment I gave you?”
Nudger remembered the tube of off-brand liniment Danny had brought him last time he’d suffered muscle soreness. It smelled like gasoline but it was effective. “I think the tube’s still around, Danny. What about the guy with the earring?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s been gone about ten minutes, is all. I phoned you earlier but didn’t get an answer.”
“I was in the shower. What’d he say?”
“Never said a thing. Never even got outa his car, a big white Lincoln with one of them padded roofs that looks like a mattress. But he drove by real slow a couple of times, then he stopped and parked right in front of the shop. Sat there a few minutes just staring in through the window, like he wanted to make sure I’d see him and tell you about it. So, it worked, right? Here I am telling you.”
“Thanks, Danny.”
“S’okay, hero.”
“What?”
“Ain’t you seen the morning paper, Nudge? It tells how you saved that rich guy’s life out in Ladue. Got your picture and everything.”
Nudger understood then what Aaron might want this time. He and King Chambers would be curious as to what Nudger had told the police.
“Nudge?”
“I’m still here, Danny. Thinking.”
“Well, I guess you got a lot to think about.”
“And not much to do it with this morning. I had visitors late last night so I overslept. My head feels the size and shape of a watermelon.”
“C’mon over and have some breakfast, you’ll feel better.”
Nudger’s stomach grumbled. “I don’t have time this morning, Danny. That guy comes back, give me another call.”
“Sure. You think he knows where you live?”
Yike! There was a thought! “Maybe, Danny. I gotta hang up.”
“Okay, Nu—”
Nudger was already jogging into the living room, aware again of his midsection jiggling. He promised his new paunchy self he’d diet, if he survived. That was the condition.
Not only was the door to the hall unlocked, it was ajar several inches. He closed it quickly and threw the deadbolt, then fastened the chain lock.
Then he rubbed some of Danny’s liniment into his shoulder and the back of his neck and got dressed. For a few minutes he thought he smelled too much like fuel to go out, but soon the gasoline scent subsided.
He phoned Hammersmith and told him about last night. Then he called Captain Massinger. Massinger wanted to talk to him immediately. Big surprise.
Nudger’s head didn’t hurt so bad now, and he was hungry. He went into the kitchen and fried up an egg and three strips of bacon, and ate that along with toast, strawberry preserves, and coffee.
Then he drove out to Ladue.
Massinger wrinkled his nose and said, “You stop on the way here to buy gas?”
“No,” Nudger said, puzzled.
“Okay, never mind.” Massinger settled down behind his desk and sat with his hands folded over his ample but firm stomach. He’d been in good shape once and was probably still tough. He studied Nudger with his square little eyes and said, “Quite a piece about you in the paper this morning. Nice photograph, too. You seldom see leisure suits these days.”
“I haven’t read the paper yet.”
“How characteristically modest.”
Knowing sarcasm when he heard it, Nudger said, “You wanted to hear about what happened in my apartment last night.”
“Yes, do fill me in.”
Nudger did.
Massinger looked more and more stricken as he sat and listened. When Nudger was finished, the portly little lieutenant said, “Incest, child molestation, drug dealing. For Christsakes, Nudger, this is Ladue!”
Nudger said, “Think Palm Beach.”
Massinger glared at him with horror. “You’re an ex-cop, and you never so much as got a glance at the guy who choked you?”
“No, it all happened too fast. I was unconscious before I could follow the rulebook.”
“Well,” Massinger said with a sneer, “you sure put up one hell of a struggle.”
“I was a hero yesterday,” Nudger said. “Whaddya want?”
“A partial description. What about Norva Beane? She give any hint of where she might be hiding out or running to?”
“No. She’s not that stupid, Lieutenant.”
“Was she armed?”
“Not that I could see. She didn’t have her rifle with her, but she might have had a concealed handgun. She’s from a part of southwest Missouri where there are more guns than personal computers, so it’d seem natural to her to be carrying.”
“Thanks at least for that information.”
“Does Rand have any record at all on drugs?”
Massinger rubbed his chin, considering whether he should confide in Nudger. He must know Nudger could find out. “No,” he said after a while, “he’s clean as vanilla ice cream. What he is, Nudger, is a goddamn civic leader. Gives to charities, attends highfalutin’ social functions. Even goes to the Veiled Prophet Ball, where all the debutantes come out.”
“Speaking of which,” Nudger said, “what about Luanne Rand?”
“She was never a debutante.” Massinger’s features tightened. His eyes became even more square.
Nudger knew there was something here. “I mean, does she have any kind of record?”
Massinger placed both hands over his stomach again and sighed. “Couple of arrests for possession. Marijuana once, cocaine the other time. No convictions. In fact, neither case even made it to court.”
“Why not?”
“Grease.”
“The musical?”
“No, the influence, the money. You know what I mean. The social lubricant. People here got grease, Nudger. Their sons and daughters get outa scrapes that’d put other kids behind bars.” Massinger chewed his lower lip, as if debating whether to say more. “The times Luanne Rand got herself in trouble were no big deal. She’s not alone among rich Ladue kids who get tangled up with narcotics.”
He paused. “She’s got another thing on her record here. But no charges were ever brought. She was arrested in the lounge of a hotel in Clayton on a soliciting-for-prostitution charge. She tried to pick up an undercover Narc. Turned out, though, she hadn’t actually requested money, at least not in so many words. So maybe it was just boy-girl stuff. A misunderstanding. And she was only fifteen, even though she looked older, so the whole matter dissolved the way that kinda thing does sometimes, and everybody went their own way not quite sure what it was all about except it was something they’d all laugh about in twenty years when they were sitting around the pool. Part of growing up, like in a Disney movie. One of the new Disney movies, anyway.”
“Anything else?” Nudger asked. “Any homicide charges?”
“She had no way to buy that poison,” Massinger said.
“Huh?”
Massinger smiled, looking like an improbable pixie. “Only kidding, Nudger. No homicide charges against you or Luanne Rand.” He stood up. Obviously, the interview was over.
Nudger stood also.
“One more thing,” Massinger said. “The business about incest, drug dealing, Norva Beane’s story and everything in it, none of it might be true, so let’s you and I not talk about it to the news media.”
“Fine by me,” Nudger said. “They’d get it all mixed up anyway.”
“Pick up a paper
on your way to wherever you’re going,” Massinger said, “if you want to read about how they get things wrong.”
Nudger thought his leg was being pulled again, so he didn’t reply. He started to leave the office.
“You sure you didn’t stop on the way here and buy gas?” Massinger asked again behind him.
“Sure,” Nudger said, and went out, wondering about Massinger’s persistence with the gas thing. The cop in him, he decided.
CHAPTER 22
Nudger stopped at a vending machine, fed it two quarters, wrestled with it to see who’d keep the quarters, and managed to come away with a scratched wrist and a morning Post-Dispatch.
He sat in the car and crinkled the paper open between his chest and the steering wheel, his gaze roving over the newsprint made dazzlingly translucent by the sun streaming through the windshield. He found himself on page three of the front section. A shooting in Ladue was always front-section news, even if no one had been hurt.
Yep, there he was in his leisure suit. The photo had been taken years ago, when he’d been working as Coppy the Clown at various schools and social functions. It was the role the department had assigned him after learning that his nervous stomach simply wouldn’t allow for regular police work. But a new chief had decided a clown didn’t suit the department’s desired public image, so Nudger had found himself all dressed up in polka dots and a red nose with no place to go other than into the private-investigation business. He remembered the reporter who’d asked him a few questions about his talk at a grade school, along with the photographer who’d taken the leisure-suit shot. Nudger had felt fairly important that long-ago day. It was probably the only photograph of him not wearing his clown suit that the paper had on file. He looked a little dated, he had to admit, with the Fu Manchu mustache and the long sideburns, but he was younger and actually not a bad-looking guy. It was all in the eye of the beholder, he knew, but he wasn’t embarrassed by the photograph.
He wasn’t so sure the news article treated him as a heroic figure. It merely mentioned that he’d scuffled with the gunwoman (in a nod to political correctness) and spoiled her aim. Then the gunwoman had overpowered him and escaped. He’d later revealed (said the article) that the gunwoman was his client.
Nudger folded the paper and laid it on the seat. He thought the news item made him seem like a boob and wouldn’t do his business a bit of good. Maybe that would change if the press gave him better treatment in any later news reports.
He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, hoping his headache wasn’t coming back to plague him along with his nervous stomach. He was beginning to understand why he stayed in the detective business rather than enter sales or manual labor. Gastronomically unsuited though he might be for the work, he had his pride as well as his curiosity. The result was a stomach-churning compulsion to locate Norva Beane and to find answers to questions. That was what he was about, really, not giving up, getting answers. If only he had enough answers, maybe he’d understand his life and be able to do something about it.
He sat there in the Granada for a while with the engine idling roughly, threatening to quit as it always did, bluffing. He figured it was possible the city police were watching Norva’s apartment, but the manpower shortage being what it was, that was doubtful. She was running from the Ladue police, wanted for a crime committed in the county. If the Major Case Squad wasn’t involved, usually there wasn’t much coordination among the crazy-quilt patchwork of police departments clustered around the city of St. Louis.
Also, Nudger figured, slipping the car into Drive and heading toward South St. Louis, if anybody was watching the building, they probably wouldn’t know who he was, so he could walk right in. He’d be just another tenant or visitor. He could make sure he wouldn’t be seen actually entering Norva’s apartment.
But as he turned the corner near her building, he saw a white Lincoln with a padded roof half a block in front of him. He slowed the Granada to a gradual halt, like a prey animal not wanting to do anything sudden and attract predators.
The Lincoln was parked, but he could make out someone, a man, sitting behind the steering wheel. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood that was crawling with new luxury cars. And Danny had said Aaron was driving a white Lincoln with a padded roof this morning.
Nudger’s stomach twitched out a caution signal. He didn’t think he’d been seen, so he put the Granada in reverse and backed up to where he could turn around in a driveway. He accomplished the maneuver slowly and with precision. Then he drove back up the street and around the corner.
He hit the accelerator then, winding down narrow side streets, watching his rearview mirror.
When he was sure he wasn’t being followed, he drove back to Grand Avenue, then headed west on Highway 40 toward Ladue. Rand would no doubt have police protection, but Nudger figured it still wouldn’t be too much of a risk to retrieve the last tape from the parked Chevy in the block behind the Rand house. Besides, he was paying the bug man for as long as real time was being registered on the recorder.
He didn’t go past Rand’s house. The law was sure to be keeping an eye on things there. At the very least, no matter where Rand was, they’d be running frequent patrols past the house.
After parking the Granada behind the Chevy, he briskly but casually got out and collected the last tape. Then he closed the trunk, climbed back in the Granada and drove away.
Simple.
No reason for his knees to feel weak and his heart to be beating so fast.
When he got back to his office, he phoned the bug man and left a message on his answering machine that the job was ended. He mentioned the time, too, the real time, so the bug man wouldn’t succumb to the impulse to overcharge him.
Then he settled in behind his desk to listen to the last tape.
8:07 P.M. Last night, just after the police had gone, Nudger figured.
Rand and Sydney were talking, not arguing for a change.
RAND: “I never heard of Norva Beane, and I never met Fred McMahon. I got no idea what the fuck’s going on.”
SYDNEY: “I never heard of her either.” A beat. “You telling me the truth, Dale?”
RAND: “Of course I am! I never did any business with any such woman, never saw her before, and she goddamn tried to kill me. Can you imagine?”
SYDNEY: “You think she’ll be back? I mean, you think the police can really protect us?”
RAND: “They’ll catch her. They’ve got her description. Her address. Everything. Oh, Jesus!”
SYDNEY: “That’s your third Scotch, Dale. You’re drinking too much.”
RAND: “You should know.”
Oh-oh, Nudger thought.
SYDNEY: “Neither of us is perfect, sweetheart. It’s not that kinda world. Not for anybody. But at least I’m not regularly sneaking into—”
RAND: “Into where?”
SYNDEY: “Never mind.”
RAND: “I know just as well as you do what kind of world it is. So do me a favor and don’t become a philosophical drunk. You’re difficult enough as it is.”
SYDNEY: “I’m difficult? Why are you wound so tight lately? What kinda shitty deal are you into? Your mysterious phone conversations, your mention of—”
RAND: “I use the phone for business. There’s nothing mysterious at all about it. What’s mysterious is why this Beane woman thinks I cheated her and why she’s trying to blow my head off.”
That jolted Nudger until he remembered that Massinger hadn’t yet learned Luanne was Norva’s daughter when the recording was made. Massinger still might not have relayed that information to the Rands. Norva’s story was, after all, nothing more than allegations made by a woman on the run from the law.
SYDNEY: “You think Luanne might know who she is? I mean, about some connection between you two?”
RAND: “No! I asked her. She said no and I believe her. I can tell when she’s lying.”
SYDNEY: “Where is she?”
RAND: �
�Nan’s probably. That’s where she spends too much of her time.
SYDNEY: “Well, I don’t blame her for not wanting to spend time here, with you. Any more time than you force her to spend, that is.”
RAND: “Piss on you! And on that idiot private detective.”
SYDNEY: “Yeah, piss on the people who save your life.”
RAND: “That’s right, take a drink. A tall one.”
SYDNEY: “Gotta catch up with you, lover.”
Silence.
9:66 P.M.
Sydney, apparently alone in the house, phones Eberhardt’s Liquor for a delivery.
9:30 A.M.
This morning. Sydney phones Kearn-Wisdom and asks to speak to Rand. A woman informs her that he won’t be in today. Sydney says something that sounds like “Uh-humph!” As if she’s not surprised.
End of sound on the tape.
Nudger punched Rewind. His chair eeped as he swiveled this way and that, listening to the smooth whir of the recorder until it clicked off. Apparently Rand hadn’t come home last night. Neither had Luanne. No chance for family values here. The Rands seemed to be coming unglued under pressure from within and without.
He got the rest of the cassettes from a drawer and inserted one in the recorder. Listened patiently, rewinding and fast-forwarding a few times, then inserted another. He played with the cassettes until he found what he wanted.
Nan’s last name. He thought he remembered Rand mentioning it when he was grilling Luanne. Nan Grant. Nudger wrote it down on a piece of scratch paper, then stared at it.
A thread, he thought. That’s what it was called sometimes in his profession.
Who knew what it might unravel?
CHAPTER 23