Ride the Lightning (Alo Nudger)

by John Lutz

  “It would help if you gave us a better description of Tom,” Hammersmith said gruffly, as if Nudger were to blame for Curtis Colt's accomplice still walking around free.

  “I gave you what I could,” Nudger said. “Tom didn't give me much to pass on. He's streetwise and scared and knows what's at stake.”

  Hammersmith nodded, his fit of pique past. But the glint of weary frustration remained in his eyes. He inhaled deeply on the cigar, blew a noxious cloud of greenish smoke. Pollution personified.

  “You going to question Candy Ann?” Nudger asked.

  “Sure, but it won't do any good. She's probably telling you straight. Tom would figure we'd talk to her; he wouldn't let her know how to find him. And she wouldn't want to know where he was. If she's Curtis Colt's girl, she knows the rules and would probably drive a polygraph operator to distraction with nothing but the useless truth.”

  “You could stake out her trailer.”

  “Do you think Candy Ann and this Tom might be lovers?”

  “No.”

  Hammersmith gazed down at his smoldering cigar and shook his head. “Then they'll probably never see each other again. And if they do, it might not be for months, even years. Watching her trailer would be a complete waste of manpower, and that's a commodity the taxpayers have left me short of.”

  Nudger knew Hammersmith was right. The St. Louis Police Department, like the police of most major cities, had an oversupply of crime and an undersupply of men. “What can you tell me about Colt's lawyer?” he asked.

  “Charles Siberling. A young guy from Legal Aid. But don't get any ideas about Colt getting the shaft because of inadequate counsel. This Siberling is young, but he's smart and part shark, making a reputation in this town. Quite the cocky little bastard; he's even been known to show up his partners, who aren't regarded as fools.”

  “He's with a law firm?”

  “Uh-huh. Elbert and Stein, over in the Pennwright Building in lawyer-glutted Clayton. His Legal Aid work is done on the side; Elbert wants him to get courtroom experience before he does something really important like defend some big shot's tax writeoff.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Siberling,” Nudger said.

  Hammersmith deliberately blew smoke in Nudger's direction; Nudger thought he saw a mosquito go down. “He's the kind of lawyer who's going to be a pain in the ass for a long time. Shaw is the top criminal lawyer in this town now; Siberling figures to be the next in line. I feel confident in making that prediction, despite his youth and inexperience. He's got star quality and an instinct for sniffing out weakness.”

  “He wasn't much help to Curtis Colt.”

  “Which oughta tell you something, Nudge.”

  The smoke was getting to be too much to bear. Nudger knew his sport coat would reek of it until the dry cleaner down the street from his office gave out coupons again. He stood up to go.

  “What are you going to do now?” Hammersmith asked.

  “I'll talk to the witnesses again. I'll go see Siberling. I'll read the court transcript again. And I'd like to talk with Curtis Colt.”

  “They usually don't allow visitors on Death Row, Nudge, only temporary boarders.”

  “This case is an exception,” Nudger said. “Will you try to arrange it?”

  “Siberling would be the guy to do that; he's still Colt's lawyer.”

  “You were in charge of the investigation, and you have connections a young lawyer hasn't heard about. I'll ask Siberling, but I'd like to be able to tell him you're working on it, too.”

  Hammersmith chewed thoughtfully on his cigar, making the end of the thing a soggy greenish mess. Since he'd been the officer in charge of the investigation, he was the one who'd nailed Curtis Colt. That carried an obligation, a responsiblity. For a cop like Hammersmith, that responsibility could turn into a cross that would weigh him down for the rest of his career, that he might eventually bend under.

  Years ago, Hammersmith and Nudger had known a police lieutenant named Billy Abraham who had sent an innocent woman to prison. The woman had hanged herself a week before someone else confessed to her crime. She had left a sealed note to Abraham that only he had read. Two days later Abraham had eaten his gun—cop talk for placing the barrel of his Police Special in his mouth and blowing off the top of his head. A messy as well as sudden way to find peace.

  Nudger and Hammersmith looked at each other, thinking of Abraham.

  “Tell Siberling nothing about me,” Hammersmith said. “But I'll see what I can do. For you, Nudge, not for that little prick Siberling.”

  “For Curtis Colt.”

  “No,” Hammersmith said. “Colt's guilty. And he's already got one foot in the next world; high voltage is going to goose him the rest of the way out of this one.”

  Nudger didn't argue with Hammersmith; the lieutenant was probably right. Needed to be right about Colt's guilt.

  “I'll phone you soon,” Hammersmith said, “let you know.”

  Nudger thanked Hammersmith, left the office, and walked down the hall into the clear, breathable air of the booking area. Ellis the desk sergeant let him use the wall phone usually reserved for suspects.

  Nudger stood wearily before the grimy wall's display of desperately scrawled phone numbers of lawyers, relatives, and bondsmen, the graffiti of fear.

  He used the dog-eared directory, dialed, and made an appointment to see Charles Siberling.

  11

  Mr. Siberling had an important court date that morning, a secretary at Elbert and Stein told Nudger. She had penciled Nudger in for an afternoon appointment but said she could make no promises; Mr. Siberling was running tight, schedule-wise. She actually said that, “schedule-wise.” Nudger told her there was a great deal of money at stake, not to mention the political destinies of famous people. She said she couldn't guarantee him an appointment promise-wise, but it was almost a certainty that Siberling or one of the other partners would see him. Nudger told her only Siberling would do, and she sighed and said okay, crisply commanded him to have a nice day, and hung up the phone. He was left with the impression that she might be making sport of him.

  After leaving the Third District station, Nudger drove west on Chouteau and stayed on it after it became Manchester and speared through the faltering heart of the near-suburb of Maplewood. He left the Volkswagen parked across the street by a broken meter, timed the flow of traffic, and jogged across sun-heated pavement toward his office, ignoring a few blaring horns and some imaginative cursing.

  Even that slight exertion left him breathing rapidly, reminding him he was middle-aged and ought to be in some business requiring little effort other than sitting up now and then to count money.

  He was about to enter the door to the stairs leading to his walk-up office when Danny rapped on the doughnut-shop window, just a few feet away. When he was sure he had Nudger's attention, Danny leaned forward over the window counter so he could see more clearly through the grease-spotted glass, then, with an urgent expression on his basset-hound features, he motioned for Nudger to come inside.

  Nudger stood with the doughnut-shop door half open. As usual, there were no customers in the place. Pastry was mum; Danny could talk freely.

  “A guy's upstairs waiting for you,” he said in a modulated voice, leaning back so he was half sitting on one of the red vinyl counter stools. His eyes darted momentarily upward; if the walls didn't have ears, the ceiling might. Danny nervously wiped his fingers on his grayish towel. “Heavyset guy wearing jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. Looks like the trouble type.”

  “How long has he been up there?” Nudger asked.

  “That's just it; I saw him go in and heard him take the stairs about an hour ago, and he hasn't come down.”

  Nudger was trying to remember if he'd locked his office door last night. His memory couldn't reconstruct his exit accurately enough for him to be sure if he'd keyed the dead bolt.

  “The guy looked like he was used to heavy work, or maybe lifted weights,” Danny said.<
br />
  “Did he have a stomach paunch?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Nudger relaxed. T-shirt and jeans, muscular and paunchy. Lester Colt, probably sitting on the landing outside the office door and waiting for Nudger with simple, tireless patience. “It's okay, Danny,” Nudger said, “I know who he is.”

  “In that case,” Danny said, “shut the door; you're lettin' the air-conditioning out.”

  The narrow stairwell was dim after the brightness of late morning. The bare, low-wattage fixture that burned twenty-four hours a day on the high ceiling above the landing glowed like a distant star that shed only inconsequential light in this galaxy. The landing itself was in deep shadow. Nudger waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust before he began climbing the stairs. A stale, perfumed scent wafted down to him, like the wake of cheap deodorant.

  Lester wasn't waiting on the shadowed landing; apparently Nudger had neglected to lock the office door. He often forgot about locking the door. He'd obtained some interesting clients that way.

  As he opened the door he noticed the looseness of the knob. But he was a step inside before it registered: the lock had been forced. He turned and saw that the doorjamb was splintered at eye level where the dead-bolt lock had been whittled loose higher on the door than the latch lock.

  The door came alive in his hand and jumped closed.

  The man who'd been standing behind it was heavyset and muscular, but not what you'd call paunchy; he looked as if he lived on yogurt and raw meat. He was at least six foot three, with a fullback's muscles straining the fabric of his red T-shirt. He had arms the size of legs. He was lean-waisted and broad-shouldered and lantern-jawed and not Lester Colt. A different sort of animal entirely.

  Worst of all was the way he was smiling. It was the kind of smile you saw sometimes after hearing the dirtiest of dirty jokes. Like a crack in the curtains of a room where something basic and lewd was happening.

  Nudger started to back up a step, but a huge hand darted out in an oddly lazy fashion and caught him on the side of the neck, driving him farther into the office. He skidded, caught his balance, and something like a bowling ball with knuckles rammed him in the chest. Air exploded from him and he was aware of saliva dribbling down his chin. He felt two more hard blows to the lower ribs, and he sank slowly to his knees, like a horse he'd once seen shot in the head. He seemed a distant party to what was going on; there was no pain, only numbness. He tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't respond and he wound up merely windmilling his arms and looking silly, like something built for the ground but trying to fly.

  Vaguely he felt two more punches, this time to the head. The last one only grazed his ear and did bring a slice of hot pain. Each time the big man threw a punch he grunted loudly; it was more a grunt of animal pleasure than of effort. The ear continued to burn and Nudger somehow got his arms up over his head and started to roll into a protective ball.

  But the grunter had feet and knew how to use them. He was an Astaire of destruction. Nudger experienced the same merciful numbness, but he was sure he heard a rib crack as the toe of a hard leather boot found him where he was most vulnerable.

  Then he was yanked to his feet. The camera he'd used that morning was still strapped around his neck. His assailant grabbed it and laughed loudly, having a high old time. He twisted the strap about Nudger's neck, then began swinging him around like a bucket on a rope. Nudger heard himself gasp for breath as he stumbled in a circle, scrambling wildly to keep his balance. The revolving office began to fade into a deep and dizzying blackness pinpointed with beautiful, silent explosions of red, like hundreds of roses that kept blooming and blooming.

  The strap, or one of the brackets where it was attached to the camera, broke. Nudger flew like something discarded into a corner, slumped on the floor, and began a rasping struggle for oxygen. Through hazed and distorting eyes he saw the big man hurl the camera onto the desk, pick it up and slam it down again, grunting as it broke into pieces that slid onto the floor. The guy sure liked to break things.

  He walked over to Nudger, bent low, and gripped the front of Nudger's shirt, wadding it into a ball that tightened the fabric and made Nudger's head loll back. “Can you hear me?” he asked in a surprisingly soft voice. The words seemed muffled by distance.

  Nudger somehow managed a ludicrous nod.

  “A message from Western Union,” the man said, grinning. He was witty as well as muscular. His breath smelled as bad as his deodorant, only different. “Back off the case, asshole. You understand? Leave it alone. Com-fuckin'-pletely alone.”

  He stood up, seeming to float, and Nudger, with that odd numbness, felt the back of his head hit the floor and bounce.

  “You understand?” a voice asked from up near the ceiling.

  “Complete fuckly alone,” Nudger stammered, wondering if the hoarse, dutiful voice was his own.

  “No. com-fuckin'-pletely alone.” Trying to be patient.

  “Fuck … com … 'lone.”

  “Oh, well. You got the message.”

  A boot toe dug into Nudger's thigh; there was another low, primal grunt.

  After a moment Nudger heard the rear window scrape-squeak open. The big guy had figured it all out; he was parked in back and had known from the beginning he was going to use the fire escape to leave.

  Nudger listened to the faint ringing clatter of leather heels on the steel fire escape, the muted metallic scream of the drop ladder levering down to the alley. Then he heard nothing but a high-pitched buzzing that he knew was inside his head, and he sank into a cold and dark place that scared him.

  “I thought somebody was playing racquetball upstairs,” Danny was saying next to Nudger. Nudger sat with his eyes closed, concentrating on not letting the pain make him vomit. He was in a soft seat that vibrated and rocked; there was a low humming sound. A car engine. He slowly opened his eyes.

  He was slumped low in the passenger seat of Danny's old blue Plymouth. So low that he couldn't see much out the windshield except the tops of trees and telephone poles zipping past.

  Danny glanced over, caught his eye, and smiled his sad hound smile. But there was concern in his watery brown eyes. And something else. Anger.

  “The guy had already got out the back way, Nudge,” Danny said. “I didn't call the police; I figured I oughta ask you about that first. I couldn't identify him anyway, didn't even get a look at his car. And I only got a glimpse of him earlier when I seen him go up to your office. He musta been driving away while I was running up the front steps to see what all the bumping and bouncing around upstairs was.”

  “It was me,” Nudger said. He raised his head to look around. A pain like a sharp slab of ice cut deep into his right side and made him suck in his breath.

  Danny's pale right hand patted him gently on the knee. “You okay, Nudge?”

  “My guess is that I'm not.” His head began pounding with slow-pulsing force, as if someone were hammering long nails into his temples. “Where are we?” Pound! Pound! Pound!

  “On the Inner Belt. I'm taking you to the County Hospital emergency room. You need some X rays. And they'll give you some pain pills.” Dr. Danny. “Guy did a job on your camera, Nudge. I cleaned up the pieces.”

  Nudger didn't answer. He settled deeper into the Plymouth's worn upholstery and closed his eyes again, trying to stay as detached as possible from his throbbing head, from the playfully malicious pain that moved around his body and seemed to take a bite here, a bite there.

  The message the human mountain had delivered to him was clear only up to a point. Had the man set out to smash Nudger's camera in order to expose the film? Or had he simply found himself holding the camera after the strap broke and in his orgy of destruction hurled it down on the desk? He might not know that Nudger had already dropped off the Smith shots at a film lab, that Nudger always reloaded his camera immediately after removing film, that the film in the camera was a fresh, unused roll.

  Nudger had to consider the man's emphatic
warning. “Hero” was a title he didn't particularly want. It was so often preceded by “dead.” But even if he wanted to back away from the case rather than face another beating, he couldn't do it.

  His problem was that he didn't know which case the big man had warned him about.

  If it was the Smith case, the man's visit had been too late. The photos of Calvin Smith scooping up his kid and carrying him around were probably developed and printed by now, and would soon be in the clever hands of Harry Benedict.

  Once Smith realized that, it would be pointless to have Nudger beaten again unless for the pure pleasure of revenge. And a pro like the bone crusher who'd plied his trade on Nudger didn't work cheap.

  Nudger hoped the case in question was the Smith matter; not only would he see no more of his violent caller, but Benedict and Schill would pay the portion of Nudger's medical expenses not covered by insurance.

  But if it was the Curtis Colt case he'd been warned to get out of, Nudger was probably still in danger. Because he wouldn't back away from that one.

  He swallowed, fighting down the nausea that was hitting him now in waves. Persistence was all he seemed to have left in this confusing world; it was his constant, his religion. It was what his half-assed occupation was about, and somehow it had become what he was about. The sick and wrong ones could crush and grind him until he had nothing left but the ability to breathe. He would be scaied and his stomach would turn on itself like coiled cable and he'd walk in where even fools feared to tread. Because he knew this about himself: if he couldn't make himself craw! back to the dotted line, he was nothing. Everything else had been taken away from him. His work was the albatross around his neck that sustained him.

  He was on the Curtis Colt case at least until Saturday, when there would be no more Curtis Colt.

  The car slowed, then rocked to a stop. Nudger opened his eyes and saw a sun-brightened brick wall with half a dozen fingers of grasping ivy growing up it, a bank of wide, green-tinted glass doors with gently sloping ramps leading to them. A brilliant monarch butterfly touched down for a second on the ivy, thought better of it, and fluttered away.