Time Exposure (Alo Nudger)

by John Lutz

  They had dinner at Stuart Anderson’s Steakhouse out on Olive Street Road. Not the most expensive eatery in town, but it had a solid upper franchise atmosphere, with tall upholstered booths to deaden sound. Two people could converse in the place without yowling infants or canned music making the silverware dance on the table. All this and the food was excellent.

  Bonnie had never been to the restaurant. She acted as if it were Tony’s down on Broadway, with its five-star Michelin Guide rating. She might have been right; the steak might be just as good here. Guy named Stuart figured to be a better chef than a Tony. Better at steaks and sauces, anyway.

  Over dessert, Bonnie abandoned coquettishness and said, “I guess you were at Gina Hiller’s house to ask about her missing husband.”

  “That’s it,” Nudger said, watching her fork cheesecake in between her perfect red lips, chomp it neatly with her precisely aligned little teeth. He was having coffee only; if he’d matched Bonnie in ordering dessert, he might not have enough money left for a tip. And he was way overextended on credit. In fact, MasterCard, Visa, and American Express had teamed up to get him, like the Axis powers.

  “Where do you think Virgil Hiller went with that secretary of his?” Bonnie asked.

  “I don’t know. Where do fugitive lovers run away to these days? Is the Love Boat still afloat?”

  “You can be a fugitive lover anywhere,” Bonnie said, licking her fork. Flirting?

  “Has Gina Hiller talked much to you about Virgil?”

  “Some.” Bonnie idly twirled her fork, sending bright reflections playing over the table, across her breasts. Cute breasts, Nudger would bet. “My impression is it’s—or it was—one of those old-fashioned marriages. He goes out and earns the money, she stays home and raises the kids. The way it used to be and maybe still oughta be.”

  Nudger said, “Would you guess they loved each other?” “Sure. But Gina guessed that, too, and she was wrong.”

  “Maybe.”

  Bonnie’s eyes shot cold sparks and she sat forward. Her voice was hushed and curious. “You don’t think he really did run away with his secretary?”

  “Don’t know,” Nudger said. “Trying to find out.” He carefully added more cream to his coffee and stirred. A waiter wandered by and topped his cup, messing up the mixture. Sort of smiled. Bastard do that on purpose?

  Bonnie finished her cheesecake, gave the lucky fork another lick, and dabbed at her lips with her napkin. Checked the napkin to make sure too much lipstick wasn’t smeared on it. “You have an interesting job,” she said, “finding out things.”

  “Sometimes it’s interesting.”

  “Sometimes scary?”

  “That, too.”

  She leaned back and sighed long and loud. Contentedly. As if she might pat her full belly and comment on the quality or quantity of the food. But she was silent and smiling. She smiled a lot.

  Nudger said, “You mentioned you were widowed.”

  She dragged her coffee cup over to her as if it weighed twenty pounds. Lifted and sipped. “Two years ago Gary died of a heart attack. He was only thirty-nine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I am, too, but those things happen. And it’s been long enough ago that most of the pain’s gone.”

  “Time’s a friend and enemy,” Nudger said.

  She gazed at him as if he’d just said something that made Socrates seem backward. “Why, that’s sure the truth.”

  “Kids?”

  “No thanks.” She laughed at her own joke. She sort of squeaked when she laughed, like a rubber squeeze toy. Nudger wasn’t surprised.

  “I’m divorced,” he said. “I pay alimony, but no child support. No children were caught up in the mess we made of our marriage.”

  “I didn’t think anyone paid straight alimony anymore.”

  “You haven’t met Eileen’s lawyer. I thought the bastard wore sharkskin shoes, but those were his feet.”

  Gasp, squeak! Nudger was not only wise, but some bunch of fun.

  “So,” he said, “luckily, no kids.”

  She dabbed again at her lips with the napkin, unnecessarily, and said, “This was a wonderful meal, really.” As if she was ready to leave.

  Okay. They’d been there long enough; Nudger’s buttocks felt welded to his chair. He signaled the waiter and paid the check. Left a tip of thirteen percent.

  Bonnie was ready to call it a meal, but not a night. Nudger drove north on Lindbergh, and they had a few drinks at the Marriott lounge out near the airport.

  Bonnie drank margaritas, possibly so she could lick the salt from the glass rim. Nudger sipped Budweiser, made small talk, and watched her through two drinks. She seemed unaffected by the liquor, while he was beginning to feel the glow. He’d only had the two beers since his before-dinner cocktail at the restaurant; still, maybe he shouldn’t drive.

  It crossed his mind that they were in a hotel, and there were hundreds of rooms with double beds in the place. But something kept him from sharing that thought with Bonnie.

  She indicated that she’d drunk her limit, so he had a cup of black coffee and took her home. It was 10:45. Still early.

  There was a twenty-year-old gray Plymouth parked in front of Bonnie’s house. It was spotted with rust and red primer paint and had a sticker on the trunk that read WE ARE THE PEOPLE OUR PARENTS WARNED US ABOUT.

  As soon as Nudger parked the Granada behind the Plymouth, a gangly teenage boy, who must have been lying out of sight on the front seat, got out and walked back on the sidewalk side. He leaned down so he was close to Bonnie. Nudger didn’t know what was going on; he was ready to put the car in reverse and get out of there.

  The kid had acne, mussed greasy black hair, and an oversized nose that made him look like Basil Rathbone after a late-night movie experiment gone wild. When he grew up and filled out he might appear normal, but not now. He had intense dark eyes aglow with bewildered hostility. Cops and high school teachers knew that look. It could make their jobs hell.

  Pointedly ignoring Nudger, he said, “Mom, Belinda’s got something stuck up her nose and can’t get it out. I think it might be the battery from your watch.”

  Bonnie moaned. “This is my son Tad, Nudger. Tad, Nudger.”

  Nudger said, “Hi, Tad.” Tad said nothing. Apparently he was protective of his mother and didn’t approve of her dating. Common enough in boys that age without a father. Looking at Bonnie, Nudger said, “Belinda the youngest?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and there’s Janet, Carlotta, and James between Tad and Belinda.”

  While Nudger was counting, she said, “You might as well come in and meet the rest of the family.”

  They followed the greyhound-thin, bounding form of Tad into the house that looked like all the other houses.

  In the glow of the pole lamp in the small living room, sullen Tad looked even more like a starving Basil Rathbone. Janet was fifteen and pretty like her mother, only she didn’t have a turned-up nose and she didn’t smile at Nudger. Carlotta was an adopted Mexican girl of ten who herself looked oddly like a dark, calm version of Bonnie and stared with open curiosity at Nudger. James was a four-year-old with wild, straw-colored hair and Huck Finn features. He had on what appeared to be small army-issue combat boots. He turned his face away when Nudger was introduced, then fixed him with the sideways stare of a boxer about to launch a sneak left hook. Janet gazed dispassionately at Nudger. Carlotta and Tad stood silently by, also staring.

  Belinda was in another room screaming while the introductions were made. Nudger seemed to be the only one who heard her.

  Finally Bonnie smiled hopelessly and said, “’Scuse me,” and left the room.

  That sure helped to put everyone at ease. James hesitated a tenth of a second, then threw a few windmill punches at an imaginary enemy and scampered after his mother.

  Nudger glanced around. The color television was rolling soundlessly, tuned to MTV. Mick Jagger was mugging at the camera, bugging his eyes and sticking out hi
s tongue. There were two potato chip bags crumpled on the coffee table. What looked like crackers were broken and ground into the carpet. A mountain of schoolbooks was stacked on a chair in a corner. A few of them had fallen onto the floor, one of them open to a page kinked in half diagonally. The house smelled like smoldering rubber; there was an incense burner, a little silver elephant, on top of the TV, sending up a tiny dark curl of smoke. Jagger stared insolently at Nudger, then leaped back, wiggled his ass, and stuck out his tongue again. Naughty lad pushing fifty.

  A phone in another part of the house jangled. Everyone except Nudger and Tad raced for it. James screamed. Janet laughed, squeaked like Bonnie, and called him a geek.

  Tad shuffled to the center of the living room, glared hostilely at Nudger, and said, “You like that Granada?”

  Nudger wasn’t quite sure how to deal with teenage boys. “It’s okay. Gets me where I need to go. Usually.”

  “I don’t think they’re worth shit,” Tad said. “They got bad carburetors and they’re always needing exhaust work.”

  I’ll be damned! “You’re right,” Nudger said. “I’ve had both those things repaired.”

  Tad snorted with contempt. “I got a slant six engine in that Plymouth of mine. Best engine Detroit ever made. Be running long after that Granada of yours is wheels up in a junkyard.”

  “That could be true.”

  “Fuckin’ right it’s true. How fast you think that pile of crap of yours’ll go?”

  Nudger was getting tired of this. “Just under two hundred. What are you, Tad, about seventeen?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Belinda had stopped crying. Bonnie came back into the living room carrying her perched on an outthrust hip. She was a two-year-old who looked as if her photo belonged on a cereal box. Could give even her mother lessons in cute. “It was only an ordinary bean stuck in her nose,” Bonnie said. “God knows where she got it.”

  Tad said, “She was crawling around in the kitchen, but she had your watch, too.”

  Nudger figured the watch story had been a lie to get Bonnie out of the car in a hurry and into the house, away from the lustful groping hands of Nudger the Ripper.

  “You and Nudger been talking man talk?” Bonnie asked.

  Tad looked uncomfortable. “We been talking about cars.”

  “That’s just about all Tad talks about these days,” Bonnie said, pasting on a smile. It slipped a little crooked, but it stuck.

  “Listen,” Nudger said, not feeling charitable toward Tad, “maybe Tad and Janet can watch the younger kids and we can go out for a drive.”

  “Wouldn’t get far in your pile of junk,” Tad said, staring fiercely at Nudger. “Besides, I can’t hang around this place. Gotta go meet somebody.”

  “I’ll be running along, too, then,” Nudger said. He edged toward the door. “Mind if I call you tomorrow?” He wasn’t sure if he asked because he wanted to, or because it was expected. He knew it was expected, but only if all this domesticity hadn’t discouraged him.

  Now Bonnie’s smile was genuine. It lit up the dingy, cluttered living room. “I’d like that. I’m doing temporary office work at a data processing company, but I get home about five.”

  They touched hands tentatively and parted.

  Tad walked out of the house less than a foot behind Nudger, as if to lend intimidation and make sure he was really leaving. If they hadn’t been in step, Tad would have kicked Nudger with each stride. Nudger thought they must look like a stray contingent of a military drill team.

  When they were halfway down the walk, Tad danced to the side and said, “Nudger, you lay a hand on my mom, I promise you me and my friends’ll make sure you’re sorry. I fuckin’ mean that!”

  Nudger said, “Tad, you got a battery cable loose in your head.”

  Tad said, “Fuck you,” and climbed into his dented Plymouth and slammed the door. Made the tires screech as he tore away from the curb.

  He was right; the old Plymouth could up and move. Nudger watched its horizontal-slash taillights disappear around the corner. The Plymouth almost ran into a big black Lincoln parked there.

  Nudger wondered, Was Tad normal? Was this what Beaver Cleaver had become just a few short years after the TV series?

  Then he told himself to go easy on the boy. Only eighteen. Make allowances. Tad’s father had died not all that long ago. The kid must still feel the loss. Feel lost himself.

  Nudger felt ashamed for having been critical of Tad. Insensitive adult confirms teen’s paranoid delusions. Puts another chip on an already overburdened young shoulder.

  He got in the Granada and drove away, slower than Tad, wondering what it might be like, really, to be a father.

  7

  “I dunno, Nudge,” Danny said over the doughnut shop counter the next morning. “Teenage kids, who can figure ‘em?”

  “I know who can’t.”

  “Adolescence, it’s a kind of temporary insanity.”

  “Hmm.”

  “My cousin Ray’s boy, sixteen years old, he went to take the test to get his driver’s license when he was stoned on something. Ran over the foot of the state trooper who was gonna ride along and grade him. Poor cop hadn’t even got in the car; he was checking to make sure the headlights worked, when Ray’s boy accidentally stepped on the accelerator. Car hit the trooper, then hit the side of the State License Bureau building. Lotta damage all the way around. Ray’s car.”

  “I didn’t know Ray had a son.”

  “Oh, yeah. From his first marriage. That’s one reason Ray don’t like to be employed. Says most of his salary’d go for child support payments. Soon as the kid hits twenty-one, Ray’s gonna go to work down at the truck docks on Hall Street.”

  “I’ll bet.” Nudger knew Ray. Incredibly lazy Ray, who lived down Manchester in the St. James apartments on a Section 8 government subsidy program and even resented having to go pick up his food stamps. Wanted them mailed to him.

  Danny laid a Dunker Delite on a napkin in front of Nudger. It made a weighty, clunking sound that made Nudger’s insides draw up. He reminded himself he was having breakfast on Danny’s friendship and generosity, as he watched Danny hold a foam cup beneath the spigot at the base of the big steel coffee urn that looked like some sort of launchable space exploration device. The coffee looked much better than it tasted.

  Danny placed the full, steaming cup of acidic brown stuff next to the Dunker Delite on the counter and said, “Ask me, you should appreciate what you got in Claudia.” He was a real Claudia Bettencourt fan. Thought she was too good for Nudger. Maybe she thought so, too, Nudger reflected. Maybe they were both right.

  He said, “I’m following Claudia’s advice. Doing what she’s doing. Seeing somebody else. Nothing unfair about that. Maybe it’ll get me self-actualized.”

  “Or living into old age by yourself in a crummy furnished room. Like yours truly here.”

  Danny had a point, but Nudger didn’t like to think about the future. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t told Danny about the recent past. Last night with Bonnie and her brood. Five kids, some of them hostile troops. That was sure something Nudger hadn’t figured on.

  “What’s this cosmetic woman got that Claudia ain’t, Nudge? I mean, besides all them offspring?”

  “Well, she’s cute.”

  “Claudia ain’t dog meat. And she’s got class besides.”

  Nudger agreed. That was the problem. Still, there was something about Bonnie. Several things, actually.

  “You had to choose between the two, who would you pick?” Danny asked, wiping his hands on the gray towel tucked in his belt.

  Hell of a question. Blunt, ill-timed, and from the heart. A Danny question. Nudger didn’t reply.

  Danny’s sad, basset-hound face creased into a grin. He said, “Never mind. You and me both know the answer to that one.”

  “You don’t know Bonnie. Never even seen her.”

  “Know Claudia. Know you, too.”

  One of the secretarie
s from the office building across the street came into the shop. Judy was her name, a tiny, middle-aged attractive woman who was one of Danny’s few regular customers. She was wearing a no-nonsense gray business suit. Her short dark hair was engineered in a stiff, tightly coiled hairdo that looked as if it might shatter if she tripped and fell. The door clattered shut behind her and she stalked across the tile floor in noisy, choppy strides in her black high heels, a tight swivel to her hips. As if with each step she were stomping and grinding something into the floor until dead.

  Danny’s red-rimmed eyes lit up. He liked Judy. Possibly fantasized about her. “Some beautiful morning out there,” he said.

  “Give me the regular,” she snapped. She was mad about something, as usual.

  Nudger knew what was bothering her—what was always bothering her—and thought he’d goad her, make himself feel better. Perverse. “When’s that boss of yours gonna wise up to the fact it’s a new world and come out and buy his own doughnuts?”

  Judy aimed her flashing brown eyes at him. “You wanna go back across the street with me and ask him? He can’t fire you.”

  “Not my fight,” Nudger said.

  “Not your business, either.”

  She was a fireball, all right. Nudger bit into his Dunker Delite, chewed laboriously for a while, then sipped some coffee. Danny, stuffing a dozen glazed-to-go into a greased-stained white box, was grinning. He got a kick out of Judy.

  He handed her the box, took her money, then gave her change in such a way that his hand lingered, touching hers. Said, “It’ll be a better society all around when men like your boss finally realize the sexes are equal.”

  Judy wasn’t fooled by this for a moment. She knew Danny. Knew he was mired in male chauvinism. Exasperated, she thanked him politely and left.

  Watching her cross the street, Danny said, “Sure is one snazzy little broad.”

  Snazzy, Nudger thought. You didn’t often hear a woman described that way these days. Might that be good or bad?

  Danny stopped staring after Judy and said, “Being your friend, I gotta tell you, Nudge, I don’t approve of you stepping out on Claudia.”