problems.
Eileen, for instance. Eileen was a problem and a wrong direction in Nudger's life. But she was hardly similar to Claudia.
Eileen was a problem from which he longed to escape, Claudia one he longed to solve. But he sensed that any solution was beyond him for now, and possibly forever. Maybe it had to be that way. Fate. Fate was always jerking around people who loved each other. Fate had a sense of humor that wasn't very nice.
Nudger chewed antacid tablets and drove around the city for a while, down South Grand with it's odd assortment of little shops and struggling businesses, along side streets lined with solid brick flats and houses lived in by solid German families, then west on Chippewa, past the array of cars and people at Ted Drewes' frozen custard stand, along Resurrection Cemetery with its neat rows of flower-decorated graves. Traffic was heavy despite the late hour, and some of the cars had their hoods unlatched the first few inches to prevent boiling radiators in the relentless heat. Summer in the Gateway City. Sizzle, sizzle.
Nudger listened to the Cardinals game on the car radio. The Cards were winning ten to nothing in the fourth inning. He was glad somebody was having a good night; he knew he wasn't. If only the Cardinals' luck would rub off on him and he could win five in a row of something. Anything.
Finally he decided to go to his office and examine his mail, see if he'd won the Publishers' Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.
Relieved to have a sense of direction, however brief and insignificant, he stepped down on the Volkswagen's accelerator and wished other drivers would get out of his way.
When he pulled to the curb in front of his office, a set of headlights swerved in behind him, then brightened as the car parked with its nose to the back bumper of the Volkswagen. Nudger looked in his rearview mirror. Too bright to see anything; like a damned Steven Spielberg movie. He winced from the glare. Whoever was back there didn't turn the car's headlights off, and left the engine running.
Nudger thought about driving away, but maybe there was no need for that. It could be that the car behind him was a police cruiser, and he was about to get a ticket for a burned-out taillight or a faulty muffler. The old Volkswagen provided a wide range of targets for a nit-picking cop.
Then a chill hit him. Maybe whoever was behind him wasn't a cop. Maybe it was-
'Hi, Nudge.'
Danny. Whew!
He had walked up beside Nudger on the street side. Now he moved over where Nudger could see him better, stooping slightly on creaky legs so Nudger wouldn't have to crane his neck to stare up at him.
'I seen you turn onto Manchester,' Danny said. 'I been trying to get in touch with you since late this afternoon. Called at Claudia's, but she said you'd left over an hour ago.'
Nudger got out of the car, leaned against the warm metal in the bright wash of the headlights, and listened to the idling engine in Danny's Plymouth tick-tick-tick. Heat was rolling out from beneath the Volkswagen, finding its way up Nudger's pant legs and making him uncomfortable. He shifted position but it didn't help.
'That guy that beat you up was back around here today,' Danny said. 'Him and somebody else.'
Nudger felt another thrust of fear. 'Did you see him go up to the office?'
'Nope. Both him and the other guy just sat in a rusty old red pickup truck across the street. The big guy was behind the wheel. They sat there for over an hour, talking and looking up at your office window now and then. Twice they drove away, then came back within half an hour or so and parked over there again.'
'You said there were two of them. What did the other one look like?'
Danny stepped closer to the car as a bus passed. The bus was moving slowly, heading for downtown, hissing and belching diesel fumes. A black woman in a window seat stared down at Nudger and Danny from behind the glass as if she were touring another world and they aroused her curiosity.
'The other guy was big, too,' Danny said. 'Hard to tell next to the driver, but I'd guess around six feet, and built plenty stocky. He had red hair and a real deep suntan. Oh, yeah, I can't be sure, but it looked like he was wearing an earring. He turned his head for a moment and the setting sun caught it, made it glint gold.'
Randy Gantner. Nudger knew what it meant if Gantner was connected with the strong-arm who'd beaten him. The beating had nothing to do with Cal Smith's phony insurance claim that Benedict wanted investigated. It was impossible now to doubt: Nudger had been methodically bruised in an attempt to persuade him to drop the Curtis Colt case.
Now someone seemed to have decided he needed another round of unfriendly persuasion.
'Something else, Nudge,' Danny said. 'I drove by your apartment about an hour ago to see if you were there. I didn't see your car parked where you usually leave it, so I knew you weren't home, but I did see the rusty pickup with the two guys in it. They were parked half a block up from your building where they could keep an eye on the entrance.'
Nudger's stomach moved; he swallowed a bitter taste that had formed under his tongue. So Gantner and the big man knew where he lived and were serious about finding him tonight. Showdown time. Nudger would make an equally serious effort to avoid that confrontation.
'Thanks, Danny,' he said. 'I'll sleep in the office tonight; they won't figure I'd come here this late.'
'Is there a reason you don't want to phone the law, Nudge?'
Nudger absently massaged his stomach. 'I don't know what the law could do. I can't prove anything I'd tell them about the beating. And it's legal to ride around and park here and there in a pickup truck.'
Danny dug into his right pants pocket and pulled out a crinkled piece of white paper, a scrap torn from a doughnut sack. He handed the sweat-damp, abused paper to Nudger. 'This is the truck's license-plate number.'
'Thanks,' Nudger said, doubting the worth of the number. The truck probably had stolen plates, or was itself stolen. Otherwise Gantner and the big man would have obscured the plate's numbers. 'I'll give it to Hammersmith in the morning.'
'You want me to hang around here with you?' Danny offered.
'I don't see any reason for that,' Nudger said. 'They probably won't come back here this late, and if they do, the light will be off in the office. Will you leave your car parked there and drive mine home tonight? We can switch again in the morning.'
'Sure. Good idea, Nudge. That way they'll figure you never showed up here.'
Nudger wished he shared Danny's certainty about that. About a lot of things.
'I got a thirty-eight revolver in the doughnut shop, Nudge. Want to borrow it?'
'No. If I used it, somebody might shoot back at me.'
Danny reached through the Plymouth's rolled-down window, switched off the engine and headlights, and they exchanged car keys.
Nudger watched the clattering Volkswagen bounce down Manchester and turn the corner, bucking like a one- man horse with a strange rider. Then he went upstairs to his office.
There was enough artificial light from outside for him to see well enough. He left the blinds raised as they had been since morning and tried to stay away from the window. He did switch the air conditioner on low; it protruded high over the narrow gangway, and he figured its hum wouldn't be loud enough to alert anyone down on the street.
After setting the new dead-bolt lock on the door, he crammed a chair under the knob at an angle. Then he picked up the cracked beer stein he kept pencils in and set it delicately on the chair. If anyone tried to get in, the stein would fall and wake Nudger, and maybe he'd have enough time to phone for help or get out the window and scamper down the fire escape.
He dragged the folding cot out of the closet, set it up, and stretched out on it in his underwear, his pants and shoes nearby where he could quickly wrestle into them. It wouldn't be the first time he'd gotten dressed in panic; he'd acquired a certain expertise at it.
An hour passed before he managed to fall asleep. Then he skimmed the surface of wakefulness, hearing faint sounds, thinking about too much too rapidly, caught between dreams and reality. Curtis Colt and Candy Ann and Gantner and his overgrown friend were caught there with him. Gantner was wearing a pirate outfit with a huge gold earring and was about to swat Nudger with a shovel. The big man stood in the background with his muscle-caked arms crossed, Mr. Clean fashion, grinning his wicked grin. A blond nurse was arguing with a doctor over whether some X rays showed a broken rib or a broken heart. Either way, it was serious. Claudia was there somewhere, too.
