'I see. What happened to your ear, Mr. Nudger?'
'An accident. I was listening to Tina Turner and the earphone on my Walkman exploded.'
Colt grunted and nodded. He knew when not to press. He walked across the plush carpet of the reception area to the window, then studied something down in the street. He was a tall man, but built wiry like his brother Curtis. There was a muscular bounce to his walk. He had hair like Curtis', too, dark and wavy, only his was styled shorter, razor- groomed, and receding and swept back in a way that lent him a dashing matinee-idol look that was almost caricature.
'I wondered why you weren't in on your brother's defense,' Nudger said, not very tactfully but to the point.
Colt turned and gave him a measured look that he had probably practiced before the mirror as a law student. Great eyebrow work. 'We do corporation work here, Mr. Nudger, not criminal law.' There was the barest trace of Ozark twang in his voice.
'Some might say that's a contradiction in terms.'
'Sometimes it is,' Colt said.
'Have you been in touch with Charles Siberling?'
'Curtis' attorney? No, I haven't.' He appeared uncomfortable, then leaned his weight far back on his heels and tucked the fingertips of both hands into the vest pockets of his three-piece, pinstripe lawyer's uniform. It was a portly old man's posture that didn't look right on a lean young man. 'Curtis…' he said thoughtfully. 'Crazy bastard wouldn't settle down. Couldn't.'
'Why not?'
Welborne Colt straightened up and removed his fingertips from his pockets, as if his stance were a pose he could affect only so long. He shrugged. It was one of the most elegant shrugs Nudger had ever seen; Welborne was young and limber inside his skin again. 'Who knows? We didn't come from a wealthy family, Mr. Nudger. My father sacrificed to send me to college at the state university, and he never let me forget it. Him and my momma, neither.'
The abrupt country dialect startled Nudger. It went like a black roach on a white rug.
'You were the oldest brother,' Nudger said. He didn't mention Lester. 'So Curtis never had the same opportunity. That's the way it is in some families.'
Welborne smiled and shook his head. 'The little shit had opportunity. Made straight As in high school when he wasn't jerking around with junk cars and becoming part of the drug scene. There's a college near Branson, Missouri, Mr. Nudger, The School of the Ozarks. It's self-sufficient; the students farm it and take care of the livestock while they study agriculture. It's a damned good school. Curtis had himself a scholarship to go there, but he didn't even bother taking them up on it. Didn't even bother showing up to graduate from high school.'
'Maybe he didn't want to ranch or raise corn.'
'Wanted to raise hell is what Curtis wanted. What he did. Especially after coming to the city.'
'Have you seen him since the trial?'
'No. I don't want to see him, and I don't think he'd want to see me. There's bad blood between us.'
'He's your brother,' Nudger said. 'They're going to execute him. That's a forever thing.'
'He did it to himself, Mr. Nudger. The way once a cue ball is stroked by the stick in a certain direction, everything is inevitable. It's going to bounce off a cushion, strike this ball at an angle and send it into that ball, and send that ball into another ball that will drop into a pocket. Curtis set his own direction and destiny early; what happened to him was in his future the way the pocket is in the future of a billiard ball.'
Nudger stood mystified, glad Welborne Colt wasn't defending him in court. 'Life isn't a pool table, Welborne.'
Colt smiled handsomely, sadly. 'Isn't it?'
'Do you believe Curtis is guilty of murder?'
'If a jury found him guilty, he killed that old woman.'
'Juries have been wrong a few times.'
'They're not wrong in Curtis' case. And if they'd found him not guilty, it would only have postponed the inevitable.'
Billiard balls again. 'Do you know Candy Ann Adams?'
'No. And I wouldn't know her if she's a friend of Curtis. We didn't have much to do with each other after I got out of southwest Missouri.'
'Are you ashamed of your hillbilly origins, Mr. Colt?'
Welborne glared at Nudger. 'You're a direct bastard, aren't you?' He rotated his wrist and glanced at the gold Rolex watch peeking out from beneath his white French cuff. 'Let's see you be even more direct. Why exactly did you come here?' No more Ozark twang now; he had it under control and sounded almost British upper class.
'I wanted to find out more about Curtis by discovering how he looked through your eyes.'
'Why?'
'I need to know the man whose life I'm trying to save.'
'You're years too late to save Curtis, Mr. Nudger.'
'Probably,' Nudger admitted. He liked admitting that less than ever now that he'd met Welborne.
The office receptionist, a tall mannequin-perfect brunette in a tailored brown business suit, swayed into the office, smiled with dazzling whiteness, and sat down behind her desk. Her back was straight and she had the clear, alert gaze of the very efficient. She looked as if she'd been manufactured by I.B.M. and trimmed with lace.
Nudger nodded to her and moved toward the door. 'Thanks for your time,' he said to Welborne.
Colt looked at him with curiously pained eyes. 'I'm sorry I couldn't help you much.' His glance shifted to the receptionist, then back to Nudger. 'The party in question and I just haven't had much contact.'
'You've helped,' Nudger assured him. 'Blood tells. Peas in a pod and all that.'
As he left the office, he heard Welborne in his businesslike pseudo-British accent crisply instructing the receptionist to check the files for this brief or that. Legalese, flowing fast and furious.
Nudger figured the receptionist was in for it today.
XIII
Nudger had forgotten about the broken lock on his office door. As soon as he entered he knew he wasn't alone; there's something about an occupied room, a slight rise in temperature maybe, or sounds that the conscious mind is unaware of but that register in the subconscious. But as soon as he looked to his left, all of those primal sensors were unnecessary.
A chubby little man wearing pleated slacks and a blue polo shirt was leaning with one arm on the file cabinet. Next to him stood the kind of abnormally skinny but shapely older woman usually glimpsed only in diet-food commercials. She had close-cropped, raggedy blond hair and was wearing an oversized sweatshirt with 'Nike' lettered on it, pink shorts, jogging shoes, and was clutching a small, crinkly Gucci purse. She smelled of perspiration and expensive perfume. Nouveau jock.
'The guy in the doughnut shop told us it was all right to wait here,' the man said. 'I'm Charles Siberling. This is my friend Kelly Cole.' He paused to kiss her on the cheek, as if that were his way of introducing her to people. 'We were on our way somewhere, but I thought I'd drop by to see you first.'
Nudger introduced himself, shook hands with both parties, and sat down behind his desk. The swivel chair squealed its hello. Nudger sighed too loudly, as if it felt good to be off his feet. Blond Kelly studied him, then carefully surveyed his humble environs. She returned her attention to Nudger.
'You've hurt your face,' she said. Somehow she made it sound like an insult, as if all ugliness were permanent, deserved, and excluded one from the better things in life.
Siberling ignored Nudger's face. 'Doreen told me you were trying to get in touch.'
'Doreen?' Nudger asked.
'The receptionist at Elbert and Stein. She's an airhead; don't judge the firm by Doreen.' He moved over and stood in the mottled stream of brightness from the dirt-streaked window.
Nudger was surprised by how young he looked. His face was sixteen, his eyes about fifty. Average it out and
