you'd probably have his true age. Blond Kelly appeared to be a well-kept half a century and displayed a certain brand of West End or Ladue snobbery in every line and gesture. The veininess and stretch marks beneath the tan of her legs were like the creases in old folding money. These two people didn't seem to belong with each other; it was as if a computer dating service had decided to play a joke.
'I understand you're interested in the Curtis Colt case,' Siberling said. Something flared in the wise eyes, eager points of light, like sharp and brilliant objects glimmering in murky depths. Themselves like the eyes of something dangerous.
'That's right. I've been talking to the witnesses, doing some deeper digging.'
'Why?'
'I've been hired to try to establish enough doubt of Colt's guilt to have the execution stayed.'
Siberling laughed and shook his head. He had pudgy features and a halo of sandy, curly hair; no one looked less like a cutthroat lawyer. 'That's crazy. Colt's exhausted virtually all appeals. Nothing can save him.'
'Would the state execute him even if irrefutable proof were put forth that he was innocent?'
Siberling thought about that and laughed again, this time with a bit more humor. 'No. Politically it would be impossible, even though legally the execution should be carried out as scheduled. And the state doesn't want to kill an innocent man, Nudger. Especially one who might not stay in his grave.'
Nudger leaned back in his squealing chair. The motion brought a jolt of pain around his damaged rib. The pain angled all the way up to his armpit. He sat forward slowly. 'Eeeeasy,' the chair said, like a concerned old pal. Nudger said, 'It's possible Curtis Colt was in another part of town when the shooting occurred.'
Kelly looked bored, then whispered to Siberling, loud enough for Nudger to hear. 'We'd better get going if we're going to get a court.'
'Are you a lawyer, too?' Nudger asked her.
She wasn't one for puns. 'I mean tennis court,' she said seriously, almost angrily.
'You have to prove the possible in a court of law,' Siberling said. 'I already busted my gut trying to do that for Curtis Colt.'
Nudger wondered what a sharp and fiery young guy like Siberling was doing with Kelly. 'Love,' he muttered.
'That's a zero score in tennis,' Kelly observed. Maybe she was a punster.
'I can't prove it,' Nudger told Siberling.
Kelly looked confused. 'I'm going downstairs to wait,' she said. 'The doughnut shop's air-conditioned, anyway.'
'Oh, sorry,' Nudger said, and reached back and switched on the window unit behind the desk.
But even as it began its comforting hum, Kelly was heading for the door and a lower, cooler clime.
'Try a Dunker Delite,' Nudger advised her.
Siberling grinned. 'She's an odd piece. Married to a judge. I put up with her because she gives good head.'
'Reason enough, I guess,' Nudger said, trying to figure out Siberling, remembering what Hammersmith had said about the young lawyer being such an aggravation, about how he could sense and exploit weakness.
'You're thinking I'm an asshole, Nudger, and maybe you're right. In fact, you are right; I'm nasty. Maybe because of that I'm also a hell of a lawyer; I fight for my clients. And not just the clients who can pay. I fought hard for Curtis Colt, but there was nothing to use on a jury. The prosecution held every card, and Colt himself wouldn't cooperate. He sat there dummied up as if he hadn't a chance of getting convicted. The proceedings might have been happening on another planet, for all he seemed to care.'
'Why would he be like that?'
Siberling shrugged. 'It's not unusual. Maybe he was in mild shock; getting arrested and tried for murder is traumatic. I never really got close enough to him to find out what made him so goddamned stoic.' Pacing slowly, the young lawyer shook his head. 'Yet there was something about him. Maybe it was his stoicism I came to admire. The bastard had a kind of yokel nobility about him, as if he were above everything going on around him in court, people deciding minor matters such as whether he was going to die. You can't help but kind of admire somebody who spits in the law's eye with calm and quiet style.'
'I thought lawyers had respect for the law.'
'Hah! I respect people, Nudger. And after that I respect the coin of the realm.'
'You've got them in the right order,' Nudger said.
Siberling grinned. 'Yeah, but I get them mixed up sometimes.'
The dull pain in Nudger's side was causing his stomach to act up. He slid open the flat middle desk drawer and got out a roll of antacid tablets, popped two of the white disks into his mouth, and chewed.
'Bad stomach?' Siberling asked.
Nudger nodded. 'Tension makes it turn mean.' He put the tablets away and closed the drawer. 'I want to talk with Curtis Colt,' he said, 'as soon as possible.'
Siberling scratched his baby-fat, dimpled chin. 'I'm not sure-'
'That you can get me in to see him?' Nudger interrupted. 'Or that you will?'
'Ease up,' Siberling said. 'Chew another one of those white tablets. I'm Colt's lawyer. I can see him anytime he agrees to see me. And I can send you as my representative.'
'And will you?'
'I didn't say I wouldn't. But I don't want you to give Colt false hope. He's probably adjusted to the idea of the execution by now; he might cling to whatever you tell him and be worse off after your visit. He's been nailed tight for this one, Nudger; he's going to die and you shouldn't tell him otherwise.'
'I won't.'
'Who hired you?' Siberling asked.
'Colt's fiancee.'
He rolled his eyes. 'And she told you Colt was in bed balling her the night of the murder?'
'No, but she had someone who was with Colt at the time of the killing talk to me.'
'Who?'
'Colt's accomplice. They were miles away, in North County casing a service station, when the liquor-store holdup occurred.'
'So you've got the word of a fiancee, and the word of a felon. You call that promising? And where the fuck were these people during the trial? I could have used them-not that it would have helped much.'
'The accomplice is still at large,' Nudger said. 'I don't know where. He would have had to incriminate himself if he'd testified, risked the chair along with Curtis. And Curtis wouldn't let the fiancee testify, didn't want the police to know about her.'
Siberling made a spreading, helpless gesture with his manicured hands. A glittering gold pinky ring winked out the message that he didn't come cheap; this Legal Aid service was strictly temporary and Colt had been defended by one of the best. 'Colt might have had the right idea; the police would have bugged the shit out of her if they'd known about her. And I told you Colt was the noble type, just the sort to clam up to protect his lady love.' Siberling did some more pacing, theatrically, as if a jury might be watching. 'I'll try to get you an interview with Curtis,' he said.
Nudger thanked him, and Siberling started toward the door and Kelly and his tennis match. Probably indoor tennis, considering the heat.
'I got the impression you were a difficult man to see,' Nudger said. 'What made you take the time to come here?'
The nasty little man turned at the door and smiled an absolutely angelic smile. 'You want to hear me say it, don't you?'
'I need to hear somebody other than my client and a career holdup man say it,' Nudger told him.
'Okay,' Siberling said, 'I actually think Colt is innocent. Don't ask me for sound reasons; if I had any, I'd have brought them up in court. A good lawyer senses almost as much as he can prove, Nudger. When it comes to push and shove, life and death, instinct is king over reason. And all my instincts tell me Colt shot nobody.'
Nudger didn't say anything.
'Better get your locks fixed,' Siberling cautioned as he went out the door.
For a long time Nudger sat silently at his desk. He wasn't sure if he really liked what Siberling had just said
