Time Exposure (Alo Nudger)

by John Lutz

  “No one knows where he is,” Adelaide reiterated.

  “That’s disappeared, all right.” Nudger longed for a nice dull divorce case, a punch in the nose from an irate adulterer. “You told the police all this?”

  “No. The night after he gave me the photographs, Dobbs came by my apartment again and cautioned me not to go to the police. So did Mr. Kyle. Finally it occurred to me to see someone like you. You’re not exactly the police.”

  Nudger’s stomach fluttered. Like pigeon wings. “Not Arnie Kyle the gambler?”

  “Why, yes,” Adelaide said. “You know him?”

  “Only well enough to avoid him like bubonic plague.”

  Adelaide nodded and brushed back an errant strand of blond hair that was still damp from the rain. She had the high, broad cheekbones of a movie star, but somehow there was a daintiness to her bone structure. Something about her said quality. Something else said stay away. She appealed like honey in a hive of bees. She said, “I can understand that, considering your profession. Kyle came to my apartment the second time Paul Dobbs was there, but he didn’t pay much attention to Dobbs. He demanded an envelope Mary had left with me for safekeeping. He was so insistent, so quietly menacing, that I was frightened. So was Dobbs. When I looked on the top shelf of my bedroom closet, where I’d put the envelope, it was gone.”

  “Is this another envelope?” Nudger asked. He wanted to keep things straight. “What envelope are we talking about now?”

  “Another envelope—not the one on your desk. Three weeks ago Mary came to me with the envelope. She was kind of shook up, though trying not to act it. She left it with me and made me swear I’d open it only if something happened to her. I tried to get her to explain, to tell me what that something might be, but she wouldn’t say. My sister’s high-strung, maybe even a little paranoid.”

  “And did you open the envelope when you found out she’d disappeared along with Hiller?”

  “No. I would have, but there wasn’t enough time. As it turns out, it wasn’t where I left it on the shelf anyway. And to tell you the truth, I only remembered the envelope when Kyle asked about it; Mary often gets upset over things that don’t amount to much. He was curious about whether I’d opened it.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That I hadn’t, of course. That’s the truth.”

  “He believed you?”

  “Of course. He had no reason not to believe me. At that time it wasn’t known for sure that Mary hadn’t simply gone to visit a friend for a few days, so I had no compelling reason to rush to the envelope and examine its contents. By the time it dawned on me that something was really wrong, and that Mary was somehow involved, it was too late.”

  “What do you think happened to the envelope?”

  She hunched her shoulders and shivered slightly. “I don’t know, but I’ve changed my apartment locks.”

  “When you accepted the envelope, you were sort of humoring your sister, weren’t you?”

  “Humoring? That’s too strong a word. I didn’t take her melodrama as seriously as I should have. I guess because, even though she seemed particularly upset, I’d seen her in that kind of mood before and it wasn’t based on reality.”

  Nudger said, “How did Kyle react when you told him there was no envelope?”

  “He got mad. Real mad. He warned me, and Dobbs, that his brief visit should be forgotten, especially in regard to the police. He seemed to know who Dobbs was, and Dobbs knew him. After Kyle left, Dobbs told me what kind of man he was. He advised me to do as Kyle had said, not to call the police.”

  “Then what did Dobbs do?”

  “Acted scared, even after Kyle was gone. He stayed for a while, then he said good-bye and left the apartment in a hurry.”

  “Think he really was scared?”

  “If I’m any judge, he was terrified.”

  “What exactly did you tell Arnie Kyle when you let him know the envelope was missing?”

  “I said I’d kept it on my closet’s top shelf, but it was gone. That he was welcome to look for himself if he didn’t believe me. He didn’t look. He got angry, like I said, but in a gentlemanly kind of way that was somehow more frightening than if he’d raved and shouted.”

  “He was only acting gentlemanly,” Nudger assured her. “He’s no more a gentleman than Genghis Khan and was probably mad enough to chew steel. Kyle’s the dominant force in bookmaking and prostitution in this city. Not a nice man. He’s had people roasted in their cars before breakfast, then had an extra piece of toast.”

  “That’s what Dobbs said, more or less.”

  Nudger grunted. “Before Dobbs disappeared.” He rubbed his hand down his face, as if trying to wipe away his features and acquire total anonymity. Disappearances, dead bodies, organized crime, politics. Hoo-boy!

  “Mr. Nudger. . .” Adelaide began tentatively.

  “Just Nudger, please.”

  “Fine. Nudger, I need to know what it all means. I need to find Mary, or at least learn what happened to her. I’m a librarian out at the county main library on Lindbergh. That means I’m not rich, but I can pay you. I’ve got money saved, and if I have to, I’ll use it all.”

  Nudger absently massaged his twisting stomach, rapped a knuckle on the desk. Ah, the corners life forced people into. The luck of the desperate; tainted and leaving so little choice. Luck that might be good or bad, depending on what you got for grabbing the brass ring. And what was the alternative but to grab? Going round and round and nowhere until the ride was over. “Why’d you come to me in particular, Adelaide?”

  “I didn’t know any private investigators,” she said candidly. “Picked you out of the yellow pages.”

  “The yellow pages is how most of my clients find me. One school of thought is that it’s apropos.”

  Adelaide stared at him without blinking. Her wide blue eyes seemed to mist and her lower lip quivered like a child’s. Then she brought herself under control.

  “It’s possible to read someone wrong,” Nudger said. “Even a sister. Mary might not approve of what you’re trying to do. Might not want to be found.”

  “You mean you think she did run away with Hiller? Steal the money?”

  “I mean I don’t know.”

  “I know she didn’t,” Adelaide said. Her certainty hadn’t wavered. “I have several thousand dollars in my savings account, and I can’t think of a better way to spend it than to hire a professional. That’s you, Nudger. Finding people is your business—at least part of it—and this is a business arrangement I’m suggesting.”

  Nudger chewed on the inside of his cheek and looked at her. Business. If she didn’t hire him, she’d hire someone else. Maybe someone more capable but less honest. There were plenty of those in his line of work.

  Her voice was steady but pleading. “I need help, and I’m sure Mary needs help.”

  Those eyes. Nudger gave in completely. He smiled at her. “And I need money. Let’s talk fee.”

  3

  Lt. Jack Hammersmith was in his office, Nudger was told by a cop in the Third District station house parking lot. Over a decade ago, Nudger and Hammersmith had been partners in a patrol car, and the bond still held. Nudger had almost killed Hammersmith one night, though Hammersmith looked on it differently. During a burglary-in-progress call at a downtown department store, Nudger had frantically sprayed bullets around in the dark, and one of them had wounded a man about to open fire on Hammersmith. The lieutenant had never forgotten. It was a debt he’d always owe and always keep paying. Sometimes Nudger kicked himself for taking advantage of that.

  The station house, a relatively new brick building on the corner of Chouteau and Lynch, was warm and full of movement and voices. Sergeant Ellis behind the desk, who was acquainted with Nudger, nodded to him and then went back to itemizing a suspect’s personal effects before the man was booked and escorted to the holdover cells. Wallet, change, comb, wristwatch were dropped into a standard yellow envelope that was sealed and dated. A
couple of blue uniforms swaggered past Nudger, barely glancing at him as they argued about baseball. Two plainclothes detectives standing near the bulletin board were sipping coffee from plastic mugs and carrying on a subdued conversation. One of them had his right foot propped up on a chair, and his suitcoat hung open to reveal a belt-holstered automatic with a checkered grip. Something obscene about that.

  Hammersmith looked up, saw who’d entered the office, and gave a kind of half smile, half sneer. He’d once been sleek and handsome as a Hollywood screen idol, but in his middle age he’d become a florid, portly man whose bulk strained the seams of his clothes. The sharp blue eyes were the same, but the hair was white and receded now, the firm jawline blurred by fat. Hammersmith’s image had finally caught up with the foul-smelling cigars he’d always smoked. The Thin Man had become Sidney Greenstreet.

  “What’s with Virgil Hiller?” Nudger asked, settling into the straight-backed wooden chair at the side of Hammersmith’s desk. It was a tough chair to settle into; Nudger and anyone else who sat in it felt an irresistible urge to stand up after about ten minutes and straighten out spinal kinks. The lieutenant had planned it that way. He was a workaholic and didn’t like visitors hanging around his office and distracting him. Took his crime fighting seriously.

  He said, “Thing I like about you, Nudge, is you get to the point.” He laid down the short yellow pencil he’d been using to mark in the margin of a report, then scooted back slightly in his chair. From outside the office the metallic voice of the dispatcher drifted in, directing cars here and there, plugging the dike against trouble in the big city, usually too late. “Guess you mean Hiller the wayward assistant comptroller.”

  “The one,” Nudger confirmed. He saw two greenish cigars protruding like curious vipers from Hammersmith’s shirt pocket and hoped they’d both stay unlighted for a while. Nudger noticed that the cigars were a darker green than the institutional-green walls of the office. He was sure the walls had been gray and the cigar smoke had turned them green.

  Hammersmith laced his fingers behind his smooth reddish neck; there were dark crescents of perspiration beneath the arms of his pale blue shirt, though the office was cool. “Tell you, Nudge, Hiller fell victim to two of man’s greatest temptations : money and a woman.”

  “Don’t give me wisdom,” Nudger said, “give me facts.”

  “Same thing, Nudge.”

  “I wish.”

  “Yeah, facts are easier to come by, aren’t they? Well, the facts are, as far as we know, it was indeed money and a woman in this case. The two temptations seem to run together often, have you noticed? Goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve and the apple, I guess, there not being any actual currency in those days.”

  Nudger said, “Have you found religion?”

  “I find it, lose it. Anyway, money and a woman. Hiller saw his chance to get his hands on both on a more or less permanent basis, tucked one under each arm, and fled the city for parts unknown.”

  “Anything in his background to suggest he’d do that?” Nudger asked.

  “Nope. There doesn’t have to be. We’re talking about opportunity seized. Just think about it. Half a million dollars and the woman he no doubt loves, or thinks he does. Even thee and me, Nudge.”

  “Me, maybe,” Nudger said, “not thee. What about the secretary, Mary Lacy?”

  “Her? Thirty-six, straight, hard-working, and kind of homely. But Virgil Hiller was never offered leading roles in the movies either.” Hammersmith did it. Fired up one of his abominable cigars, puffing and wheezing like a blacksmith bellows. He squinted at Nudger through the greenish smoke. “You hired to find Hiller?”

  “The secretary,” Nudger said.

  “Same thing. They’re a set. You want a cigar?”

  “No thanks, I love life. Did a photographer named Paul Dobbs come to see you?”

  “Oh, him, sure. With his time-exposure photo that showed Hiller sitting at his desk, maybe asleep.”

  “Or dead. How do you explain it?”

  Hammersmith observed the glowing ember of his cigar closely, as if something minute had appeared there that gripped his interest. He said, “Question is, how do you explain it to a grand jury? The date of the photograph can’t be firmly substantiated. Even Mayor Faherty says he saw Hiller after Dobbs claimed the photo was taken. And who understands all that photographic technical jargon? I know I don’t. Depth of field. Light sensitivity. Apertures. Damned confusing, you ask me. I mean, I wish I had six months to learn about F-stops and sort it all out—”

  “But you’ve got a caseload up to here,” Nudger finished, holding his hand rigid across his neck. He’d heard this story before from the police. He understood their point of view, too. They were undermanned and struggling to cope with a backlog of cases they at least might solve. This one didn’t warrant much time or effort, because it had about it the whiff of lost causes. Dobbs’s story was too vague and arcane to prompt department action. And Hiller and Mary Lacy were probably thousands of miles away, basking on foreign sands, standing up and brushing themselves off every once in a while to go spend some city money.

  “I’m trying to remember,” Nudger said. “Didn’t the papers mention Hiller was married?”

  “Is married,” Hammersmith corrected. “Though at the moment the prospects of him spending his old age with his wife are dim.”

  “Got an address on the wife?”

  Hammersmith sighed, then sat forward abruptly in such a way that momentum helped to lift his bulk from his chair. Moving with incredible grace for such a fat man, he glided over to a file cabinet, slid open a drawer, and studied the contents of a file without removing the folder.

  He slid the metal drawer shut and said, “Her name’s Gina. Lives over off Chippewa with their three kids.” He sat back down at his desk, scribbled the address on a piece of paper, folded the paper in half, and handed it to Nudger.

  After folding the paper neatly into quarters, Nudger stuck it in his shirt pocket. He noticed the shirt was damp with perspiration and hoped it wouldn’t obscure the writing. “Hiller left his kids, too?”

  “Sure, Nudge. You don’t often take the kids when you run away with the other woman. ‘Less you’re all going to Disney World, someplace like that.”

  “What if I told you Mary Lacy hated Hiller?”

  Hammersmith smiled around his fat cigar and said something that sounded like “Heehumph!”

  A cloud of smoke had been emitted with Hammersmith’s reply. Nudger felt his stomach do a few tight turns and loops. God, the office was foul! Why hadn’t Hammersmith died of lung cancer years ago? Why hadn’t the entire Third District? Nudger opened his mouth slightly in an effort to breathe in more air and less smoke. Didn’t work very well.

  Hammersmith misinterpreted the gesture. Thought Nudger was preparing to speak. He removed the cigar, propped it just so in an ashtray so that smoke curled up from it like a writhing snake, and said, “I know what you’re gonna ask next: What about Dobbs’s disappearance?”

  “I was getting around to it,” Nudger said. “I’d like to get an answer before one of your lungs collapses.”

  “If I don’t smoke these,” Hammersmith said, “I put on weight.”

  “What about Dobbs’s disappearance?” Nudger said, still betting on lung failure.

  “Well, officially Dobbs hasn’t disappeared, despite a phone call we got from a certain young lady named Adelaide Lacy. We checked, Nudge, and Dobbs has dropped out of sight off and on over the last ten years. The kind of work he’s in, it’s not unusual for him to be gone months at a time. He’s probably in Fiji photographing natives for National Geographic, or maybe doing some porno work to turn a fast dollar. He’s done both those things in his varied career.”

  “You really believe that? This guy stuffed his camera in a suitcase on short notice and caught a plane to Fiji?”

  Hammersmith jammed the cigar back into his mouth, then talked around it in cigarese. “He’sh a proffeshional
photographer for Chrishakes, Nudge.” Down went the cigar, back into the ashtray. A cloud like a green nuclear mushroom rose toward the ceiling, spreading rapidly. Nudger held his breath. “Yeah, I believe it,” Hammersmith went on. “It’s his job to jump out of bed when the phone rings and dash off someplace and get salable photos. How a guy like Dobbs lives. Kinda romantic, don’t you think. You remember looking at pictures in Life magazine when you were a kid?”

  “Now and then. Who called Dobbs? Who gave him the assignment?”

  “Guy’s a free-lance, Nudge. It’d take a year and a half to track down everyone who might have given him an assignment but didn’t, and then finally find the person who might have and did.”

  While Nudger was trying to sort that out, Hammersmith blew more acrid green smoke.

  . “Hiller ever have any connection with Dobbs?” Nudger asked.

  “Not as I know of, Nudge.”

  Nudger’s back was beginning to ache. His ten minutes in hell chair were almost up. “How’s Arnie Kyle fit in with Hiller?” he asked.

  Hammersmith wiggled the cigar clamped in his mouth, then balanced it on the edge of the ashtray once more. “I didn’t know he did. But I’m not surprised. Kyle’s the sort that likes to be seen with any politician. Makes him feel respectable, though I can’t imagine why.”

  There were footsteps outside in the hall. Voices. Nudger recognized the peculiar broken rhythm of the footsteps, the occasional scuffing sound. A prisoner, probably handcuffed, being escorted to the holdover cells in the back of the building. A high-pitched man’s voice said, “Not so fast. Take it fuckin’ easy!” Two other voices, cops’ voices, bantered back and forth good-naturedly, as if the prisoner hadn’t spoken. The noise faded down the hall. The sounds of police work would always be familiar, always be a part of Nudger.

  He stood up to leave, stretching his cramped back muscles. “Thanks, Jack.”

  “Nothing, Nudge. Hey, maybe you can tell me where Kyle fits in with Hiller,” Hammersmith suggested, aiming the cigar at Nudger as if it were a smoking gun.