Nightlines

and drove to his office. He didn't want to go there. The place was beginning to wear on him. It was becoming a den of depression.

He parked the car, then checked with Danny before going upstairs. Nobody had been by to see him on business, or to try to corrupt, coerce, or concuss him. Odd. But then, these things ran in cycles.

'Any sign of the monolithic Hugo Rumbo?' Nudger asked.

'Nope,' Danny said, absently flicking his towel at a fly. 'You miss him?'

'Like a fever blister.'

After persistently declining the offer of a brace of doughnuts for lunch, Nudger went up to his office and checked his mail and answering machine.

Nothing interesting in the mail except a special offer on a quickdraw holster. The manufacturer promised it would shave half a second off the time between slapping leather and squeezing the trigger. If Nudger had owned a gun, he would have been intrigued. It might be fun slapping leather and yelling at people to freeze, then commanding them to thaw.

There was nothing on the answering machine other than some adolescent giggling and a loud raspberry. It cheered Nudger considerably.

He phoned Hammersmith and asked him to check Records for a rundown on Roger Davidson, the new client's suspect lawyer. Hammersmith told Nudger he shouldn't make a habit of using the tax-funded police computer for private business, especially since he probably didn't earn enough to pay taxes, then said he'd get back to him by phone when he had something on Davidson.

The instant Nudger replaced the receiver, the phone jangled to vibrant life beneath his hand, startling him. He raised the receiver to his ear and said hello. He wished he hadn't.

'This is Agnes Boyington, Mr. Nudger.'

'This is a recording. Mr. Nudger isn't in the office. At the tone, please leave a message and he'll return your call.'

'I know that's you-'

Nudger whistled a high C into the phone and hung up.

The phone began ringing again almost immediately. He let it ring twelve times before picking up the receiver again. He didn't want his phone line tied up. He didn't want to leave. He didn't want a headache.

'What is it, Agnes?' he asked.

'It's Mrs. Boyington. I've been trying to get through to you all day, Nudger.' Her voice oozed annoyance.

'My answering machine was on. You could have left a message.'

'I don't choose to talk to a machine, then be ignored by you.'

'I don't choose to talk to you, then not be ignored by the police.'

'Let's call that a misunderstanding.'

'No.'

'All right. However you view the matter makes no difference to me. I called to demand a report on what progress you've made in tracking down my daughter's murderer.'

The lady had chutzpah in all its pronunciations. Nudger was awed, but it wore off fast. 'I'm working for Jeanette,' he reminded Agnes Boyington. 'Any information I obtain will be reported to her.'

'Any and all information, Nudger?'

'Of course, Boyington.'

'I've given more consideration to your proposal that I pay you to withdraw from the case without informing Jeanette,' Agnes Boyington said slowly and precisely, choosing her words with a care that suggested she thought the conversation might be bugged or recorded. 'I think five thousand dollars would be a reasonable sum.'

'It was you who offered to pay me to drop the case,' Nudger pointed out, also thinking the conversation might be bugged or recorded. Suspicion breeds suspicion.

Not differing with him now that they were both on record, if there was a record, she said, 'I know that five thousand dollars is a great deal of money to a man who lives your sort of life. Think about it, right now. It could mean a lot to you.'

Sitting there in his sparsely furnished office, gazing at shirt cuffs that would soon fall into the frayed category, Nudger couldn't disagree with her. He said nothing. He was afraid that if he did it might be yes.

'Are you considering my offer,' Agnes Boyington asked, 'or are you one of those increasingly rare Quixotic fools who won't put a price on client loyalty? On a dreamer's code of conduct that is nothing more than a vestige of youth. Or misplaced romanticism.'

'You forgot professional honor,' Nudger told her.

'There is no such thing in a dishonorable profession.'

'Be glad you're not a windmill,' Nudger said, and hung up.

He sat for a long time thinking about what he might have bought for five thousand dollars, not the least of which was escape from his creditors, and from troubled sleep fragmented by dreams of debt and destruction. Agnes knew how to negotiate, how to tempt. She hadn't offered him an astronomical amount of money, but when a man was treading shark-infested water, you might as well throw him a raft as a boat. He'd climb on. Usually. If he wasn't a Quixotic fool.

Then he considered the vulnerable position he'd be in if he accepted Agnes Boyington's offer. She would have him sealed like a bug in a jar, and she would remove the lid only to stick pins in him. He was sure that eventually he'd lose his livelihood as well as his self-respect. He told himself that, and not an antiquated code of honor, was why he'd hung up on her. It was an explanation he could live with and suffer no embarrassment.

As he sat staring at the phone, it occurred to him that he'd doubtless be seeing more of Hugo Rumbo. An unsettling notion. Almost as unsettling as being five thousand dollars poorer than he might have been.

Nudger looked around the office to make sure he wasn't leaving anything switched on and unnecessarily running up his electric bill, then locked the door behind him and descended the hollow-sounding steep wooden stairs to the street door.

He would accept Danny's offer of a two-doughnut lunch, then return to the neighborhood where he'd lost track of Kelly. If he didn't have persistence, what did he have?

Three days later he was wondering if persistence paid. He'd covered the side streets along Kingshighway again and again, jarring over potholed pavement in the cramped, clattering Volkswagen, probably doing irreparable harm to his and the car's insides.

Time was becoming a prime factor. Nudger had only so much of it to waste. He'd phoned his new client yesterday afternoon and reported that there were three Roger Davidsons practicing law in the state of Missouri. None of them had the office address of the client's Roger Davidson; none of them had ever heard of Nudger's client. The Bar Association pleaded ignorantia. The Roger Davidson in question wasn't even a lawyer. Case closed. A nice profit for Nudger for doing nothing but making phone calls, but not so much profit that it amounted to more than carrion for his creditors. If something didn't happen soon on the Jeanette Boyington case, or if Natalie Mallowan didn't pay him for finding Ringo, he'd have to contact some bona fide lawyers he knew who sometimes threw business his way at the end of ambulance chases.

Nudger bounced in his seat, almost bumping his head on the car roof, as the Volkswagen hit a high seam in the pavement. The little car's suspension was about ruined, and the engine was laboring as if overheated. He decided to give car and driver a rest by taking time out for a cheap lunch at the diner on the corner of Kingshighway and Kemper; the place was built of glass and white metal and looked clean.

There was a shady parking space not far from the corner. Nudger maneuvered the Volkswagen into it and listened to the tiny engine putt and clatter for several revolutions after he'd switched off the ignition. He thought it might be a good idea to pop the trunk a few inches on the rear-engine car so the tired old motor would cool faster.

He'd just gotten out of the car and was about to close the door when he saw Kelly emerge from the diner, clutching a white carryout bag beneath his arm like a football, and jog across Kingshighway.

Nudger caught his breath, then in one hurried motion climbed back into the Volkswagen, bumped his knee on the dashboard, and inserted and twisted the ignition key. The engine turned over but refused to start, grinding and popping as if protesting this fresh abuse at the hands of Nudger. He twisted the key again. Again. Heat-warped metal ticked and moaned. The overheated little car sputtered something guttural and nasty at Nudger and the battery went dead. If yet another war with Germany were in the offing, Nudger would be among the first to