chair, but Nudger forced her to stand and helped her into the tiny bedroom. He was surprised to see that most of the room was taken up by a water bed. He guided her down onto the bed, then timed his actions with the waves so he could remove her sensible waitress shoes.
'Lightnin',' she muttered. 'Hit the old tree behind the house. Left it all black and charred. Lordy! Don't let it get me, hear? Hear?'
'I hear,' Nudger said. He patted her forehead and waited for her to be quiet, to sleep.
When she was breathing evenly, he left her alone.
He didn't think he should leave the trailer. He had nowhere important to go, anyway. He sat on the sofa in the living room and read dog-eared back issues of People magazine while Candy Ann slept.
After learning a lot about Johnny Carson's diet, Debra Winger's taste in men, Walter Cronkite's boat, and a history of show-business deals struck in hot tubs, Nudger fell asleep himself. Biff Archway was stripped to the waist, dressed like a pirate and struggling with the spoked wheel. Debra Winger was lounging on the deck in a bikini, pointing languidly toward land. Nudger was being interviewed for People by Walter Cronkite on Cronkite's boat.
'So they executed him,' Nudger was saying. 'Zap! Just like that. Well, not just like that. It took a little longer than they expected. In fact, a lot longer. His flesh sizzled like bacon.'
Johnny Carson peered down from the bridge and grinned. 'How dead is he?' he asked.
Cronkite laughed like an amiable grandfather. Archway winked at Debra Winger, who smiled. Lightning danced on the horizon.
'Thar she blows!' Archway yelled lustily. He waved his cutlass.
A woman's voice, not Debra Winger's, said, 'Mr. Nudger?'
The trailer was dim. Candy Ann was standing over Nudger. Or was he dreaming?
'Why does that bastard get to steer the boat?' he asked.
'Mr. Nudger, wake up.' She was shaking his shoulder.
His body jerked and he sat up on the sofa. He looked around, remembering. The boat was gone. So was the ocean.
'You okay?' he asked.
'Better,' Candy Ann said. 'You been dreaming?'
'I sure hope so.' Nudger wiped at his eyes and ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. His brain was still fogged from sleep. His side was aching from his uncomfortable position on the sofa. 'What time is it?'
'Almost nine-thirty,' she said. 'We both slept for a long spell.'
'I'm still tired,' Nudger mumbled, and struggled to his feet. A dull pain crept up his right side, reached his armpit, then retreated halfway. It leveled off and was bearable.
'Will you stay?' Candy Ann asked. 'Please!'
'Stay?'
'I need someone with me tonight. All night.' She'd moved closer and he smelled gin on her breath.
'You've been drinking.'
'Not much.'
'You can't mix booze with those pills. Dangerous.'
'I ain't had another pill.' She was walking now, into the bedroom, glancing back at him.
Nudger followed.
He stood next to her by the bed, thinking about Curtis Colt, not yet buried. He was repulsed by what he wanted so desperately to do. Life as opposed to death.
Candy Ann knew what was in his mind, sensed his desire and his revulsion.
'Not sex,' she said hastily. 'I need someone to hold me, is all. Tonight I'm alone more than I ever been.'
Her words released him. He nodded and lay down with her on the water bed, feeling the mattress undulate as she moved up against him, scooting on her elbows and knees.
She sighed, as if for the first time in hours she was finally relaxing. He held her tightly and she dug her chin sharply into his chest. Then a sudden looseness ran through her body as tension at last flowed from her.
Her immense weariness was contagious. Nudger realized he probably couldn't climb out of the comfortable bed even if he mustered all his willpower. He wasn't sure if that was because he was still tired from mental strain, or from not enough or too much sleep, or if he wanted to stay there as long as possible and clutch the fragile, bony form of Candy Ann to him. It was as if he could absorb her pain, and she his.
She seemed to drift into sleep again almost immediately.
It was past midnight before Nudger slept again, but he was content lying quietly awake until then.
XXVII
Nudger left Candy Ann asleep the next morning, making his way out of the trailer silently and driving home over empty early-Sunday streets. He'd realized what might happen if he stayed with her that day. And there was something else, something nibbling at the edges of his consciousness. It was more than the fact that her blind optimism had affected him, made him believe in life over death despite pronouncements of doom by the state and by Curtis Colt's own lawyer, and then left him saddened and disappointed. There was a frayed loose end somewhere, occasionally tickling the back of Nudger's neck.
After showering and changing clothes at his apartment, he read the account of Colt's execution in the morning Post- Dispatch. Colt reportedly had rejected the presence of a clergyman and had walked calmly to the execution chamber. He had been quiet and composed until just before the switch was to be thrown, then he'd panicked and struggled. But only for an instant. The high voltage had grabbed him, distorted his struggles into grotesque contortions. Three powerful surges. Flesh had burned, sparks had flown, smoke had risen. Witnesses had turned away. The Post had an editorial about the execution on the op-ed page. They hadn't liked it, didn't want it to happen again. Good for them. Too late for Curtis Colt, who had gone to meet his Maker fortified with a last meal of White Castle hamburgers and Pepsi.
Nudger turned to the sports page and found that the winning streak had also expired: the Cardinals had finally lost a ball game. 'Braves Bury Cards 10-0,' the headline read. There was no joy anywhere in the paper today.
At eleven o'clock, Nudger phoned Candy Ann. She'd been awake about an hour, she said, and wondered where he was. She didn't ask him why he'd left. She knew why. Her voice was thick from too much sleep and too much grief, but she seemed composed now and resigned to the fact that Curtis was gone. She was young, Siberling had said. Stronger than Nudger thought. She'd recover. Maybe Siber- ling knew about such things. Nudger hoped so.
'Send me your bill, Mr. Nudger,' she said, all business again. 'I'll pay it somehow. Maybe not right away, but someday. I promise you that.'
Nudger thought about the cramped trailer and her near- minimum-wage job at the Right Steer. Then he thought about her hill-country pride. 'I'll mail it,' he said. 'But there won't be a due date on it. I won't worry about it and I don't want you to.'
She was silent for a while before speaking. 'I do thank you, Mr. Nudger.' There was a weary finality in the way she said it. She'd gone up against the world for love and lost, and was settling into resignation.
Nudger told her to call him if she needed any more help of any kind, then hung up. An emotion he couldn't identify was lodged in his throat. He swallowed. That helped, but not much.
He sat for a long time staring at the phone.
It might be a good idea to call Harold Benedict tomorrow morning, he thought, find out if there was any work available. Life went on. So did expenses. Eileen would be calling. That was a sure bet. So would Union Electric and his landlord and the phone company. Everyone could form a line.
Nudger decided not to worry about that. Benedict would have something. And Nudger was still due to be paid for the Calvin Smith photographs. Anyway, it might be weeks before a steady diet of Danny's coffee and doughnuts could prove fatal. There was enough of that most precious commodity in this world, time. What the old woman in the liquor store and what Curtis Colt had run out of. Time. What whittled away at flesh and empires. What hurt and
