trying to prove it against the clock was a job that needed to be done. It would be a particularly tough job, considering the political climate; the powers-that-be wanted to send someone out via high voltage, and Curtis Colt was all but strapped in the chair for the final ride.
'Okay,' Nudger said, 'I'll stay on the case.'
'Thanks,' Tom said. His narrow hand crept impulsively across the table and squeezed Nudger's arm in gratitude, like the tentative hand of a lover. Tom had the sallow look of an addict; Nudger wondered if the long- sleeved shirt was to hide needle tracks as well as the tattoo.
Tom pushed away from the table and stood up, bravado in his exaggerated actions. The play he was starring in was good for at least another act; he was the desperado man of action again. These guys were all alike. He stood poised like a macho movie star about to spring into action on the 'Late Show,' a young Burt Lancaster but without the muscles and in ill health.
'Stay here with Candy Ann for ten minutes while I make myself scarce,' he said. Not a bad line. Where was Denise Darcel? 'I gotta know I wasn't followed. You understand it ain't that I don't trust you; a man in my position has gotta be sure, is all.'
'I understand. Go.'
Tom gave a spooked smile, like a wary animal sprung from a trap, and slipped out the door. Nudger heard his running footfalls on the gravel outside the trailer. Nudger was forty-three years old and ten pounds overweight; lean and speedy Tom needed a ten-minute head start like Sinatra needed singing lessons.
After a few minutes, the crickets began screaming again outside, a shrill expression of everybody's desperation. Tom had gotten clear, but he would never really be free.
'Is Tom a user?' Nudger asked Candy Ann.
'Sometimes. But my Curtis never touched no dope.'
'You know I have to tell the police about this conversation, don't you?'
Candy Ann nodded. 'That's why we arranged it this way. They won't be any closer to Tom than before.'
'They might want to talk to you, Candy Ann.'
She shrugged her thin shoulders. 'It don't matter. I don't know where Tom is, nor even his real name nor how to get in touch with him. And he's got no reason to get in touch with me. He'll find out all he needs to know about Curtis by reading the papers.'
'Do you know that Lester Colt followed me when I left here earlier this evening?'
'Lester? Curtis' brother?'
'That's the Lester.'
'He's harmless, but he ain't quite right in the head. Ain't been since he was born, I been told. He's Curtis' big brother, but he's always been more like a little brother. What was he doing around here?'
'My impression is he's smitten with you and wanted to see you.'
'Me? Lester has a crush on me?' Her eyes opened so wide, the whites were visible all around the blue irises. She seemed astounded.
'And he has fierce loyalty for Curtis. He thinks you shouldn't see any other men while Curtis is alive, or until a respectable time has passed if they do execute Curtis.'
'Curtis took good care of Lester when they was kids,' Candy Ann said. 'Looked out for him. Lester ain't bright, but he's smart enough to remember that. Down deep, Curtis is a decent man, Mr. Nudger. The most decent I ever met.'
Nudger stood up. 'I thought you should know about Lester's feelings, and about the fact that the police might want some of your time.'
'I can handle both those problems, Mr. Nudger.' There was coy confidence in her little-girl smile. Undoubtedly she'd been the one who'd worked out the details of his conversation with Tom in such a way that Tom remained safe from the law. And her method was effective; there was no way to wring Tom's whereabouts out of her, or even prove the midnight conversation had taken place.
'You have a surprisingly devious mind,' Nudger told her, 'considering that you look like Barbie Doll's country kid cousin.'
Candy Ann smiled wider, surprised and pleased. Looking at her made Nudger think of misty pastures and buttermilk biscuits and fields of bright sunflowers. And even with that she managed to stir a raw carnal yearning. She was one of those rare women with a direct line to the male libido. Possibly it made little difference what she looked like; something in her sent out arousing vibrations.
'Do you think I'm attractive, Mr. Nudger?' She asked it as if she really didn't know the answer.
'Yeah. And painfully young.'
For just a moment Nudger almost thought of Curtis Colt as a lucky man. Then he looked at his watch, saw that his ten minutes were about up, and said good-bye. He felt old, old…
If the Barbie Doll had a kid cousin, the Ken Doll probably had one somewhere, too. And time was something you couldn't deny. Ask Curtis Colt.
X
Nudger was up early the next morning, sitting in the Volkswagen on Page Boulevard with his camera, a cup of lukewarm coffee, and breakfast. The camera was a 35-millimeter Minolta equipped with an 80-200-millimeter zoom lens. Breakfast was an Egg McMuffin.
From where he was parked, he could see the run-down neighborhood in the next block, the back and side of Calvin Smith's small, white-frame subdivision house. Smith was the warehouseman Benedict was sure was perpetrating an insurance fraud. There were some lawn chairs on a makeshift brick patio, a black kettle barbecue pit, and a rusty '68 Buick up on blocks in the backyard. In the carport sat Smith's ten-year-old Chevy. The guy looked almost as broke as Nudger; for a moment Nudger considered driving away and letting him collect his insurance settlement for his injured back. Even if he didn't have an injured back.
Nudger finished his Egg McMuffin, brushed butter and crumbs from his fingers, and sipped his coffee. Rush- hour motorists stared at him curiously as they drove past on their way to work. It was a matter of time before a cop would happen along, stop, and demand to know what Nudger was doing parked here. Long, dubiously accepted explanations would ensue, maybe a phone call to Benedict and Schill. It might take most of the morning to sort things out.
Even where Nudger sat, with all the traffic noise, he heard the door in the next block slam, like a gunshot signaling the start of an event. The Smith family was up and moving; the game had begun. He put down his coffee, spilling most of it on the rubber floor mat, and picked up the camera.
Just as Harold Benedict had predicted, Calvin Smith's wife was leaving for her job with a vending-machine company. Calvin, a big, tousle-haired man wearing work pants and a white T-shirt with somebody's photograph-it looked like Bruce Springsteen's-emblazoned on the chest, lumbered after her out onto the carport and bent to kiss her good-bye.
The side door slammed again, and a five-or six-year-old boy came bounding out of the house like a joyous puppy sensing space to romp. The wife, a heavyset woman in white slacks she should have known better than to wear, got into the car and started the engine.
Calvin seemed to move okay for a guy with a bad back; he walked around the car and leaned on the window frame, talking to his wife. Nudger got a shot of that, twisted the lens, and zoomed in tighter.
Calvin stepped away and the wife swiveled her head and began backing the car out of the driveway.
Just then the kid started to gallop around the rear of the moving car to return to the house. Calvin Smith took several catlike strides, stooped low, and scooped the boy up out of real or imagined harm. The camera clicked and the winder whirred three times, freezing the surprising suppleness and grace of the big man, recording the death of an insurance claim; poverty in motion.
After a sudden stop and some head-shaking, Mrs. Smith backed the rest of the way into the street and drove away. Calvin, carrying the boy easily under one arm, walked to the patio and tossed a clear plastic cover over the barbecue pit, slid some aluminum lawn chairs back against the house, then went inside. The camera followed him all the way, dooming his insurance claim for sure, maybe laying some legal problems on him if Benedict and Schill
