know.
Legwork time. Nudger could still see Kelly walking along Kingshighway with his carryout order. He wouldn't be going far if he was planning on a hot lunch. Slamming the car door hard behind him, as if that might cause well- deserved pain in the carburetor, Nudger followed.
Kelly didn't appear worried about being watched. He never glanced back as he crossed Kingshighway at the traffic light and began walking east on Arsenal. Nudger stayed well behind him, watching his easy, powerful stride. Kelly looked as if he were merely sauntering, but Nudger had to walk fast to maintain the same distance between them.
When Kelly turned right on Morganford and was out of sight, Nudger broke into a casual jog to close distance, then paused at the corner and saw Kelly crossing the street to walk east on Hartford. Nudger walked swiftly to the corner and peered down Hartford. Kelly was half a block away, climbing some steps with a black curlicued wrought- iron railing. He took the steps two at a time, effortlessly.
Nudger waited a few minutes, then approached the spot where Kelly had gone up the steps.
The steps led to a small brick house with green metal awnings, almost exactly like the houses on either side. Without pausing, Nudger memorized the address as he walked past.
When he reached the corner and was out of sight of the house, he jogged back to his car. He was getting tired, getting old.
The Volkswagen was still miffed at him. Its engine had cooled, but the battery hadn't built up enough of a charge to turn it over. Nudger talked two summer-school students from the high school across the street into pushing the car down Kingshighway. They thought it was great fun, as they held their half-eaten hamburgers from the diner in their mouths like dogs with bones, and leaned into the task with strong backs and young legs. At fifteen miles per hour, Nudger popped the clutch and the engine thunked and clattered to life.
With a grateful beep of the horn to the two scholarly stalwarts, he drove for his office. In the rearview mirror a hamburger hit the pavement.
The three-year-old reverse directory Nudger kept in his filing cabinet listed the occupant of the Hartford address as Luther Kell. He looked up 'Kell' in the phone directory, ran his finger down the page, and found a Luther Kell at the same address. So far so good. Unless Luther Kell had moved recently and the blond man was someone else.
There was an easy way to confirm his identity. Maybe. Nudger dragged the phone over to himself and punched out Kell's listed number.
'Hello,' said a monotonous deep male voice.
'Mr. Luther Kell?' Nudger asked, trying to sound like Monty Hall.
'Yeah.'
'This is Mike at J, T, and L Insulation and Remodeling. We understand you own your home on Hartford. We're running our summer special on insulation-'
'The house is warm enough,' Kell said. 'It don't need any more insulation.' A slight drawl now, distorted by the phone.
'What about siding? We're having a sale on our never- paint white vinyl siding.'
'It's a brick house. It don't need any siding. Anyway, I rent.'
'If you could give me the name of the house's owner…'
'Hey, get screwed, Mike! You friggin' pest!'
'You'll like our summer rebate offer.'
But Kell had hung up. No tolerance.
Nudger sat back in his swivel chair, satisfied. He'd found Kell and knew where he lived. Damned if he couldn't do some mighty smooth sleuthing on occasion. The squeal of the chair's unoiled mechanism was like a trill of congratulation.
He reached again for the phone, to call Jeanette Boying- ton.
She didn't answer. It wasn't yet five o'clock. She was probably working somewhere on one of her Personnel Pool journeywoman secretarial jobs. He replaced the receiver and leaned back once more in his chair. Greeeat! it shrilly proclaimed again. It was a fan, all right.
But Nudger's mood was more somber. There was danger here in getting carried away, 'full of himself,' as his old grandmother used to say. It was just as well that he hadn't contacted Jeanette. Sure, he'd found out where Kell lived, but where did that leave him? Kell had used the nightlines to make a date with Jeanette, and he fit the very general physical description of the killer, including the oversized hands, but it was a long leap in logic to assume his guilt on that evidence.
It was a leap the vengeful Jeanette might make with room to spare.
Nudger decided that it might be better if Jeanette didn't know Kell's address immediately. That way Nudger could observe the man for a while without having to worry about Jeanette ringing the doorbell on Hartford on a mission of sisterly revenge, and confronting and possibly harming or killing an unsuspecting man whose compulsions were only the usual and understandable urges of the flesh. After all, sex and food were the only things Nudger had seen Kell pursue. Who could cast stones at anyone for that?
Nudger picked up the phone again, but instead of calling Jeanette he called Hammersmith at the Third District.
Hammersmith wasn't on duty yet. Nudger punched out another number and reached the lieutenant at his home in Webster Groves.
'I need another rundown from Records,' Nudger said. 'On a Luther Kell. Spelled like 'bell' but with a K as in 'kite.' ' He gave Hammersmith the Hartford address.
'This Kell another crooked lawyer?' Hammersmith asked.
'No, it has to do with the Jenine Boyington case.' Nudger explained why he wanted the information on Kell. He could have predicted Hammersmith's reaction.
'Something might be there, Nudge, but it's vague. I'd never get Massey to act on it.'
'I'm not asking you to,' Nudger said. 'But the ground rules are different for me. It's a hunch I have to follow up on for my client.'
'Jeanette Boyington? Professional surviving twin?'
'The same.'
'No need to caution you to tippy-toe.'
'No need.'
'Seen anything more of the mother shark?'
'Agnes? She phoned and wanted to up the ante,' Nudger said, 'or at least define the terms.'
'Which are?'
'Five thousand dollars. For not working. I declined.'
Hammersmith didn't ask Nudger why. Nudger appreciated that.
'Which means,' Nudger said, 'I'll probably be saying hello again to Hugo Rumbo.'
'You want protection, Nudge?'
'Tough guy like me? Naw, I can handle cheap gunsels.'
'Good. I don't have anyone we can spare to assign to you anyway. You'll just have to rely on your gut. Where can I reach you with the information on Kell?'
'At my office,' Nudger said. 'Or at this number.' He gave Hammersmith the phone number of Claudia's apartment.
'Sometime this evening okay?' Hammersmith asked.
'Fine. Thanks, Jack.'
'Forget it,' Hammersmith said. 'Everybody in Records thinks you're on the payroll.' He hung up to phone Records, then return to whatever he'd been doing at home. Probably sorting through the collection of old baseball cards that Nudger knew he kept. Hammersmith figured a 1954 Stan Musial was better than a triple-A bond.
Nudger looked outside and saw that a wind was swirling and light rain was falling at crazy angles, whipping across the face of the building on the other side of the street in graceful, breeze-flung patterns. St. Louis, making good on its reputation for unpredictable, instantly changeable weather. This staid and schizophrenic city was a meteorologist's nightmare and a sociologist's sweet dream. So wave- less and conservative. So fractioned and fermented. So few meaningful changes on the surface; so many changes below that seldom reached the surface, or
