Nightlines

who somehow get the numbers. They get to know each other without seeing the other party. Then maybe they make an appointment to meet somewhere, usually in a crowded public place, like a shopping mall. When they get there they look each other over as strangers, without being absolutely sure who they're looking at. If they like what they see, they make or accept overtures; if they don't see someone they want to get to know personally, they simply turn and walk away without making contact. It's nothing new; it's been going on in most big cities for years. There are people who've met through the lines and later married.'

'Is using the lines legal?' Nudger asked.

'Technically, no. But the phone company puts up with what's going on. They don't use the lines during those hours anyway. And if they prosecuted these people, there would be nothing in it for them other than some bad publicity. People in trouble who need someone they can pour out their problems to, someone who can't even find out who they are, use the lines. Gays use them to meet partners. So do people like my sister.'

For the first time Nudger glimpsed the agony within Jeanette, and it was a nailed-down and writhing thing that frightened him. How would a twin feel about the other twin's being murdered? Maybe a bit of Jeanette had died along with her sister. Maybe the half of the twins that survived became obsessed with retribution. Nudger decided that he was getting carried away and shook these metaphysical musings from his mind.

'There is in almost every large city a secret subculture of people who regularly talk on the lines,' Jeanette told him, 'people who usually are in no way connected in the daytime world. It's a desperate, troubled subculture, a lonely side of life that few people know exists. Jenine was part of it and it killed her.'

'And you don't want the police to know Jenine used the lines.'

'If the police were to know, then the family, and maybe everybody else, would find out. I don't want that to happen.'

Nudger knew the police, knew the news media, here in St. Louis. He knew Jeanette was right. And she might be right about something else.

'What makes you think a mass killer of women is using the lines to meet his victims?' he asked.

'Another woman was murdered in her apartment last year, by someone the victim obviously knew and had entertained. Jenine was upset about it because she recognized the woman's name in the newspaper, and though they had never met, she knew her well through the lines. Using the lines, Jenine checked around and found out that there were at least three other female murder victims during the last three years who had regularly used the lines to meet partners. Two were slashed to death in bathtubs.'

Nudger snapped an antacid tablet in half, then changed his mind and slipped both halves into his mouth and chewed. 'For now,' he said, 'let's concentrate on Jenine. Which of the numbers did she use?'

'I don't know for sure. They all start with the prefix six- six-six, then the other four digits vary. And I don't know where Jenine got the number. I don't even know how many such lines are in service.'

'She probably had the number written down,' Nudger said. 'People tend to write down important phone numbers, whether they can remember them or not.'

'Even a number like that?' Jeanette asked. 'One she wouldn't have wanted anyone to find?' She sounded dubious to the point of incredulity.

'Especially a number like that.' Nudger scratched his chin, noticing absently that he hadn't shaved today. Poverty made a man lax. 'Might Jenine have used more than one of these lines?'

'It's possible, but the numbers aren't easy to obtain. Usually a phone company employee, or a bartender, or maybe even someone on the line who uses more than one number, gives them out, but not to just anyone. I think the odds are good that Jenine only used one line, but of course we can't be sure. Some of the other victims used other lines as well as the one Jenine talked on.'

'Do you have a key to your sister's apartment?' Nudger asked.

'Yes, and the police are finished there.'

Nudger stood up, slipped his roll of antacid tablets into his shirt pocket, and shrugged into his sport jacket and light raincoat. Jeanette sat watching him in her eerily unruffled and efficient manner.

'We'll take my car,' he said.

'The police have been all over Jenine's apartment,' she told him. 'They would have found the number if she'd written it somewhere there. I'm sure they would have.'

'The six-six-six prefix is unforgettable,' Nudger said, 'and unwise to include in writing if secrecy enters into it. The police see phone numbers as seven digits; we're looking for four.'

With another slow backward tilt of her head, Jeanette seemed to consider this and conclude that it made sense enough to act upon. She stood, glanced out the rain-distorted window, and buttoned her raincoat. 'We can share my umbrella,' she said, with a few degrees of warmth in her voice but not in her eyes.

Friends at last, Nudger told himself, and they left.

He was regretting his involvement with Jeanette Boyington, both consciously and on an instinctual level beyond consciousness. A subtle motion of events seemed to be stirring around him, like the hint of violent vortex movement a victim senses at the edges of a whirlpool in otherwise gentle water.

He swam on.

II

Jenine Boyington's apartment was still and drab, as if somberly reflecting its former occupant's death. The decor was neatly arranged hodgepodge. Over everything there was a thin film of dust that seemed to mute the light and give the furniture an odd waxy appearance. It reminded Nudger of the hue and texture of flesh after life had left it.

Jeanette shivered, then quickly tip-tapped across the room in her high heels and opened some drapes. The only effect was to admit more gloom from outside.

'Where do we start looking?' she asked, framed by gray sky beyond the window.

'Around the telephone,' Nudger said, seeing a standard push-button phone on a small wooden table in the hall. There was a low stool near the phone, and on the table legs' cross braces rested a fat telephone directory.

Nudger's knees popped like Rice Krispies as he stooped and hoisted the thick directory. He checked the covers and front and back pages. A few phone numbers were penned or penciled inside the front cover, but they usually were accompanied by a name and all were prefixed by familiar three-digit exchanges. Nudger let his fingers do the walking through the interior pages but found no more handwritten numbers.

He scanned the wall near the phone, then examined the table's underside. No number. He helped Jeanette rummage through her dead twin's desk and dresser drawers, also without results.

Feeling more and more as if they were wasting time, he began to search in unlikely places. Maybe the damned number was written in code.

It was painstaking, discouraging work, and forty-five minutes had passed before Nudger said, 'Gotcha!' and with a wide smile stood holding the telephone upside down and beckoning Jeanette.

'Jenine must have been given the number over the phone and didn't have a pen or pencil handy,' he said. He held out the upsidedown telephone for Jeanette to see, watched her lean close to it and squint somewhat myopically.

On the metal base of the phone was indented a long serial number. Four of the numerals-2,7,8,3-were traversed by deep scratches that might have been made by a pin or perhaps the tip of a key.

'The numbers aren't likely to be in the correct order,' Jeanette said.

Nudger held the phone out in brighter light that slanted through the window. There seemed to be no distinction between the scratches; they were all approximately the same length, about two inches, and even slashed at the same angle.

'There are only four digits,' he said. 'We'll try them in various sequences with the six-six-six prefix.'

Using a pen and paper from the desk to keep track of what sequences he'd tried, Nudger sat on the ridiculously small stool in the hall and began punching the phone's buttons.

What he got each time was a recording politely but acidly berating him for dialing incorrectly and suggesting that he please try again. He felt just like Beaver Cleaver being reprimanded by his TV series mother.