'That Miss Doreen wants you to sign your statement,' she said to Nudger.
She stepped back out into the hall, as if she didn't want to be alone with Siberling. Maybe she was more observant than she seemed. Siberling followed her.
While she and Siberling watched, Nudger read over his statement and signed it. The witnesses' signatures were already affixed. Doreen was the notary public. She used a bulky silver seal to notarize the signatures, then signed her own name. There. All proper and official.
'I'd suggest we have a drink and talk,' Siberling said, tapping the edges of the papers in line, 'but I'm going to be working late on this tonight.' He touched Candy Ann's slender shoulder with a confident lightness and familiarity, as if she were rare and delicate and only he knew how to handle her. 'You just try not to worry, you hear?' Why, he was a little bit country himself, with his libido stirred by Candy Ann.
She nodded, absorbing the sympathy like a sponge with sex appeal. Doreen and Nudger looked silently at each other. Doreen wasn't the airhead Siberling thought, if he really did think that.
'Time for us to head for the barn,' Nudger said amiably, with just a trace of a drawl, and guided Candy Ann from the office.
As the door swung closed behind them, he heard Siber- ling say softly to Doreen, 'Barn?'
Nudger thought of going back and telling the little lawyer 'heading for the barn' was just an expression, country slang for going home. Then he decided to let Siberling live with his imagination.
It wasn't quite dark outside, and it was still hot. A sunset raged like low fire between the buildings to the west. To the east, dusk was settling over the city like lowering, heavy soot from thousands of chimneys. Traffic was thin on Central now, and about every other car had its lights on. The late workers were on their way home from their offices. When the stores closed in a few hours, Clayton would be almost deserted.
'Do you want that drink?' Nudger offered, when he and Candy Ann had gotten in the Volkswagen. 'Don't be ashamed if you need it. What you just did wasn't easy.'
She hesitated, then aimed those doll's blue eyes at him and nodded.
'I need it,' she said.
XXII
They'd stopped at the bar of a Hunan restaurant on Brentwood and each had two drinks. Nudger drank beer. Candy Ann sipped at tall Tom Collinses and finished them off with deceptive ease.
At first she'd been silent, pensive. But by the second drink she became talkative. She talked about Curtis Colt and nothing else. Nudger got tired of her trying to wheedle some sort of affirmation out of him that there really was a way to save Curtis from Saturday's appointment with high-voltage death. It hurt him to look into the blue agony of her wide eyes; he wished he could help her, help Curtis Colt, but he couldn't.
When he drove her home and was parked in front of her trailer, she asked if he wanted to come in for another drink. From a more worldly woman Nudger would have suspected the invitation was a come-on, but Candy Ann might only have served him lemonade, maybe with gin in it, and more talk about Curtis.
He declined politely, waited until she was safely inside with a light on, then put the VW into gear and drove down Tranquillity Lane and out of the trailer park.
The night was finally cool. He drove fast with the windows down, listening to the rhythmic boom of air pressure in the back of the car and to some B. B. King blues on the radio.
All that electric-guitar-backed energy blaring from the speaker made Nudger realize he was tired. Fifteen minutes after he'd let himself into his apartment on Sutton, the phone rang.
It was Harold Benedict. 'Nudger,' he said, 'I need to talk to you about that insurance job.'
'Calvin Smith? He of the bad back?'
'That's the one.'
'Weren't the photographs okay?'
'Oh, yeah, sure. It's something else. Something altogether different. There might be another hitch in denying the claim.'
Benedict sounded not quite himself. 'What do you mean?' Nudger asked. 'It seemed locked up to me. The guy did everything but an Olympic gymnastic routine right there in his driveway, and you've got it all in graphic detail, in living, incriminating color.'
'It isn't the photographs, Nudger. We need to meet and talk about this case. I'm near your place now.'
Nudger looked around his unkempt apartment. It needed vacuuming. Needed shoveling. Then he considered how the office looked. He said, 'Why don't you come on over?'
'No,' Benedict said hastily. 'Better if we meet somewhere. I'm at the Steak 'n' Shake restaurant on Manchester. The one in Maplewood. Can you meet me here?'
'In fifteen minutes,' Nudger said, and hung up.
Steak 'n' Shake had been on Manchester in Maplewood for as long as Nudger could remember. It was part of a chain that years ago had specialized in curb service to teenagers, a place where they could show off their cars while attractive waitresses in unisex black-and-white uniforms glided over with trays of hamburgers and french fries, then retreated to their station, full well knowing they were being inspected by the customers. Tradition had fallen, and now the restaurant catered to an older crowd and no longer offered curb service.
When Nudger entered through the glass double doors, he saw Benedict seated at a back booth. There were about a dozen other customers scattered around the place, most of them at the counter up front. It was a diverse bunch. There were two bearded bikers in leather jackets at the counter, a young couple with a baby in a front booth, two elderly well- dressed women in another booth, not far from three thirty- ish guys quaffing Cokes and wearing service-station shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Over in a corner some teenagers were chewing with their mouths open and giggling. Benedict, short, balding, wearing a white shirt and striped tie, rounded out the group nicely. Or did Nudger round it out, the fortyish guy in the rumpled sport jacket and a day's dusting of whiskers?
Benedict was having chili mac and a Coke. When he peered up at Nudger over the dark rims of his thick glasses, he stopped chewing, swallowed, and stood up halfway. His white paper napkin slid from his lap onto the floor, but he didn't seem to notice. A slight breeze caught it and wrapped it around his ankle, so lightly that he didn't feel it.
They shook hands and Nudger sat down across the table from him.
'This is good stuff,' Benedict commented, settling back down and motioning toward the chili mac. He took another generous forkful.
A waitress who walked as if she had an ingrown toenail limped over to the table, and Nudger ordered a vanilla milk shake.
Sore foot or not, it didn't take her long to fill his order. When the shake had arrived, Nudger ate the cherry off the top and asked Benedict what was the problem with the Calvin Smith insurance case.
'Nothing,' Benedict said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He took a sip of Coke. 'That's not really what I wanted to talk to you about.'
Nudger felt a vague uneasiness. He looked out the window, across the street, at a used-car lot that was closed and dark. The dull headlights of the front row of cars stared back dispassionately at him. A few of the chrome grilles were smiling.
'I didn't want to tell you the truth when I called,' Benedict said, 'because your phone might be tapped.'
'Why would anyone want to tap my phone?' Nudger asked, remembering some of his recent conversations with Claudia. Nobody's business, those. Then he remembered that Edna Fine's phone had been tapped.
'I've heard rumors that concern you,' Benedict told him, putting down his fork. 'You're trying to muck up the works in the Curtis Colt execution.'
'That's no rumor,' Nudger said. 'It's a fact, and no secret.'
Benedict waved a smooth hand. A diamond ring picked up the overhead fluorescent light and glinted. 'No, no. What I've heard-and don't repeat me-is that someone high in state government is displeased by your enthusiastic pursuit of clemency for Colt.'
Nudger sat back, his fingertips caressing the cold curve of the milk-shake glass. The coolness from the damp glass seemed to run up his arm and throughout his body.
