his body and seemed to take a bite here, a bite there.
The message the human mountain had delivered to him was clear only up to a point. Had the man set out to smash Nudger's camera in order to expose the film? Or had he simply found himself holding the camera after the strap broke and in his orgy of destruction hurled it down on the desk? He might not know that Nudger had already dropped off the Smith shots at a film lab, that Nudger always reloaded his camera immediately after removing film, that the film in the camera was a fresh, unused roll.
Nudger had to consider the man's emphatic warning. 'Hero' was a title he didn't particularly want. It was so often preceded by 'dead.' But even if he wanted to back away from the case rather than face another beating, he couldn't do it.
His problem was that he didn't know which case the big man had warned him about.
If it was the Smith case, the man's visit had been too late. The photos of Calvin Smith scooping up his kid and carrying him around were probably developed and printed by now, and would soon be in the clever hands of Harry Benedict.
Once Smith realized that, it would be pointless to have Nudger beaten again unless for the pure pleasure of revenge. And a pro like the bone crusher who'd plied his trade on Nudger didn't work cheap.
Nudger hoped the case in question was the Smith matter; not only would he see no more of his violent caller, but Benedict and Schill would pay the portion of Nudger's medical expenses not covered by insurance.
But if it was the Curtis Colt case he'd been warned to get out of, Nudger was probably still in danger. Because he wouldn't back away from that one.
He swallowed, fighting down the nausea that was hitting him now in waves. Persistence was all he seemed to have left in this confusing world; it was his constant, his religion. It was what his half-assed occupation was about, and somehow it had become what he was about. The sick and wrong ones could crush and grind him until he had nothing left but the ability to breathe. He would be scared and his stomach would turn on itself like coiled cable and he'd walk in where even fools feared to tread. Because he knew this about himself: if he couldn't make himself crawl back to the dotted line, he was nothing. Everything else had been taken away from him. His work was the albatross around his neck that sustained him.
He was on the Curtis Colt case at least until Saturday, when there would be no more Curtis Colt.
The car slowed, then rocked to a stop. Nudger opened his eyes and saw a sun-brightened brick wall with half a dozen fingers of grasping ivy growing up it, a bank of wide, green-tinted glass doors with gently sloping ramps leading to them. A brilliant monarch butterfly touched down for a second on the ivy, thought better of it, and fluttered away.
'We're here, Nudge,' Danny said. 'I'll come around and help you out.'
But Nudger had already opened the passenger-side door and was sitting straddling a yellow line in the parking lot.
XII
A Filipino doctor and a husky blond nurse argued about Nudger's X rays. Nudger and another emergency patient, a calm man with a fishhook in his arm, watched as the nurse kept trying to poke at the X rays with her finger while the doctor waved them around. Finally they decided that one of Nudger's lower ribs might be cracked. They also thought he might have suffered a concussion.
The guy who'd beat him up had been very professional. He could have hurt Nudger much more seriously. Nudger's face was unmarked except for a long red scratch, probably from a thumbnail, leading to his mangled and swollen right ear. There were fast-developing, huge bruises on his sides and on his right leg, where he'd been kicked. He was colorful.
County Hospital decided to keep him overnight for observation. They asked him if there was anyone he wanted notified of his whereabouts, but he said no. Claudia didn't have to know about this. A cheerful nurse woke him three times during the night, probably to assure him that he really was being observed.
When they released him in the morning, Danny was there to help him ease his stiffened body into the old Plymouth. Then they drove to Nudger's apartment on Sutton.
'Want me to help you get situated, Nudge?' Danny asked, after assisting him up the stairs and opening the door. It had been a long climb; they were both breathing hard and perspiring.
'I can make it okay, Danny. Thanks for all your trouble.'
Concerned and embarrassed, Danny mumbled something about what friends were for and started to back away.
'How about coming in for some coffee?' Nudger asked, leaning on the door to take weight off his aching leg. 'You can have some breakfast if you want, but I'm not up to it.'
'Thanks,' Danny said, 'but I gotta go. Dunker Delite sale. I put a coupon in the local newspaper. Buy one, get one free.'
Nudger nodded and watched him go back downstairs to the vestibule, then push out into the morning heat to walk to his car parked illegally in front of the building. He wondered if Danny knew that most customers wouldn't dream of eating a second Dunker Delite. Probably he didn't, and Nudger would be the last to tell him.
It was hot in the apartment, too. And the air was still and stale. Nudger limped to the thermostat and adjusted it so the air-conditioning clicked on, then he made his way into the kitchen and got Mr. Coffee going. Things were bustling, all right. The pain in his side started to catch up with him as he lurched into the bathroom.
He got undressed slowly, with a great deal of agony, then stood in front of the mirror and gingerly untaped his ribs. Moving like a man made of glass, he bent over the tub and turned on the shower. When the water was plenty hot, he supported himself with a hand on the porcelain towel rack, maneuvered his way into the tub, and stood in the blast of hot water and rising steam.
After adjusting the angle of his body so the needle stings of water didn't beat on his injured rib, he began to relax.
He stayed in the shower for almost half an hour, until the water began to turn cool. Then he stepped out of the tub, switched on the exhaust fan to clear the bathroom of steam, and carefully rewrapped his torso. He wanted to lie down for the remainder of the day, and knew that he probably should, but he couldn't rest until after Saturday. Then he and Curtis Colt could rest uninterrupted for a long time.
Nudger stayed in his white terry-cloth bathrobe and sat barefoot in the kitchen while he ate toast with strawberry jam on it and drank three cups of strong black coffee. He listened to some FM jazz for a while on the radio, then tuned to KMOX and caught the hourly news. The Cardinals had won yet another ball game. Other than that, things were grim all over the map. It cheered Nudger perversely to realize that there were millions of people in the world worse off than he was.
He felt better and was moving more easily, if still slowly, as he went into the living room to use the phone.
Siberling's secretary was mad. Nudger had missed his appointment, actually stood up the prestigious firm of Elbert and Stein. It must have been like a slap in the face. No, Mr. Siberling wouldn't be in anymore today. Nudger tried honesty and explained to her that he wanted to talk to Siberling about Curtis Colt, and time was fleeting. She was unimpressed but said she would leave a message for Mr. Siber- ling. Nudger got the impression that, like Curtis Colt, he'd have to murder someone to get to see Siberling. He had a victim in mind.
After hanging up the phone, he sat for a few minutes, then lifted the receiver again.
If one lawyer wouldn't do, he'd try another. Welborne Colt was easier to see than Charles Siberling. There was no one else in his office in the Belmont Building on South Central in Clayton. His partners, the 'Edmundsen and Keane' lettered above 'Colt' on the frosted glass door, were at lunch, Colt explained. As were the secretary and paralegal who usually sat at the semicircular desk in the reception area. The building was full of lawyers' offices; at first Colt thought Nudger had wandered in by mistake, someone else's client. When Nudger mentioned Curtis' name, Colt's gaunt, strong features darkened and his body tensed, but he smiled.
'Who hired you to hash over my brother's case?' he asked.
'A woman who cares about him,' Nudger said. You had to play your cards tight with these legal types.
