Time Exposure (Alo Nudger)

by John Lutz

  What was wif—with this kid? “You mean a bayonet?”

  Nudger had struck on the right interpretation. James grinned maniacally and charged Nudger, jabbing at his stomach with the barrel of the plastic gun. Sore and not moving well, Nudger barely hobbled out of the way. Almost. Caught a glancing blow on the hipbone. James spun on his heel and took a run at Janet. She sneered and shoved him against the wall and he fell. Began to cry.

  Bonnie’s voice said, “Don’t pick on your brother!”

  Janet let her lower jaw drop, made an “Uh!” sound through her nose, then rolled her eyes straight up out of sight into her skull. She tucked her blouse in tighter and minced from the room in a huff. James wiped a camouflaged sleeve across his nose and mounted an attack against an imaginary enemy in the kitchen. Nudger could hear his heels clattering on the tile floor as the foe was met. Something metal dropped with a loud clang. Maybe a tank had been destroyed.

  Bonnie looked cuter than ever. She had on a denim skirt, plaid short-sleeved blouse with a western cut and pearl buttons, and blue Nikes with those socks with fuzzy balls on the heels. Her hair was mussed just so, her face was scrubbed and radiant, and her wide blue eyes shone. She looked ready to square dance all night.

  She sashayed over to Nudger in the Nikes, pecked him on the cheek, and sort of dosey-doed around him to the door. “Sorry about the inconvenience,” she said. “Tad tried to adjust something on the Chevy and can’t get it back together. You ready to go?”

  “Er, who’s gonna watch the young ones?”

  “Janet.”

  “She said she was going out.”

  Bonnie looked surprised. “She told you that?”

  “Thought she did. And she was taking a fling at fashion.”

  Bonnie set her jaw and squeezed a “‘Scuse me” through clenched teeth.

  She strode toward the back of the house with purpose, hips switching, skirt swaying, little fuzzy balls jiggling on her heels.

  A door slammed. Then something else slammed—maybe foot on the floor. The vibration carried through the house. Nudger heard loud female voices from another room as Bonnie and Janet went at it like a couple of pit bulls. Some of what they were saying drifted in: “. . . Always hated you! . . . Don’t care if you die!. . . Your responsibility! Like, God, I can’t stand it here!” Carlotta had reappeared in ghostly fashion and was smiling knowingly at Nudger, ageless and wise.

  Five minutes later, Bonnie glided deliberately back into the living room wearing a strained smile. “Janet’s decided to stay home after all,” she said. She drew a deep breath that made her ample breasts test the buttons on the plaid blouse. They held, but thread was stretched. “Shall we go?”

  “Sure.” Nudger moved to the door and opened it for her.

  Bonnie bent low and kissed Carlotta on the forehead, then with her usual pertness bounced out onto the porch.

  She was seated in the Granada by the time Nudger opened the driver-side door and scooted in behind the steering wheel.

  As he backed from the driveway, he saw Tad raise his head from beneath the hood of the Chevy and glare at him with raw hostility.

  Back at Denny’s, Nudger switched to tea.

  Bonnie had apparently worked up an appetite arguing with Janet and asked for a large order of French toast.

  When the waitress, a pimply, enthusiastic teenager who’d introduced herself as Stephanie, was gone, Bonnie grimaced and said, “Kids are a trial.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “Ever thought about being a parent?”

  “Not for long.” But he had, with Claudia.

  “It’s hard to see from the outside, but believe me, it has its rewards.”

  Nudger wondered.

  Still bubbling over the fact that they’d entered her life as customers, Stephanie returned with the food, placed it on the table, and assured them that if they needed anything else—anything at all—they should call for her. Her skinny body almost vibrated with her eagerness to please. Then she wedged the curved edge of the empty tray into her waist, spun lithely on her sandaled heel, and left them. Everybody should like their work so well.

  As she was pouring a quart of blueberry syrup over her plate, Bonnie said, “I delivered Gina Hiller’s Nora Dove order today and got her talking about her husband, just like we planned. Wasn’t hard to do at all. The poor woman needs somebody to talk to. I can tell you this, she really doesn’t think her hubby ran away with his secretary.”

  “She have a theory?”

  “Uh-uh. She’s totally confused about why he should leave her. And he lived like a king around the house. She said he mistreated her, but he had for years.”

  Nudger dropped his soggy teabag onto his saucer. Watched it form a brown puddle that would cause the bottom of his cup to drip when he lifted it. “Oh? Mistreated her how?”

  “Well, that’s what I asked. She was vague, but I got the idea Virgil was really more of a pitiless dictator than a king at home, even with his kids. One of those total control types, if you know what I mean. Like Ralph Kramden. But Gina says he loved all of them, and it looks to me like she loved Virgil back. You know how some women are.”

  Nudger did. Some women.

  Bonnie used her knife and fork daintily to saw off a generous piece of syrup-logged French toast, stuffed it into her mouth, and chewed. “Something else,” she said, almost choking as she swallowed. “Gina told me she got a phone call last night from Virgil.”

  Nudger’s turn to choke. He gagged and coughed. Kept his lips pressed together but came very close to letting his last sip of tea escape and dribble down his chin. It took him a few seconds to recover.

  Bonnie grinned. Her teeth were stained blue from the syrup, but somehow it didn’t look bad. “Not really Virgil, silly. At least Gina doesn’t think so.” She dabbed at her mouth with her napkin, then poured even more syrup on her French toast. Didn’t like the idea of it soaking in and disappearing.

  Nudger needed to get this straight. He interrupted her as she was about to raise another bite on her fork. “Hold on. You saying somebody called Gina Hiller and identified himself as her husband?”

  “That’s it. Didn’t fool her, though.”

  “What did this person say?”

  “That he was someplace where he was happy and not to expect him back home. And he apologized for any pain he’d caused the family, but he said some things just had to be because of fate.”

  “He mention Mary Lacy?”

  “Nope.”

  “How’d Mrs. Hiller reply?”

  “She didn’t say anything, she told me. She was so surprised she just listened. Then, when she realized it wasn’t her husband talking, only somebody claiming to be, she slammed down the receiver. The conversation lasted about half a minute, the way I get it.”

  Nudger took a sip of tea and felt a few drops spatter into his lap. Not hot. Tea from the saucer. “Some crackpot playing a practical joke,” he speculated out loud.

  “Maybe. He did call her Boobsers, she said.”

  “Boobsers?”

  “His nickname for her.” Bonnie smiled, looking a lot like a blond Linda Ronstadt in heat. “You know—pillow talk.”

  “So that narrows it down to a crackpot who knew Hiller or his wife. Knew them intimately enough to have received that kind of personal information, maybe over lunch or a few drinks too many.”

  “It could actually have been Virgil Hiller,” Bonnie said. “Maybe Gina just didn’t want it to be him. Didn’t want to hear what he was saying. Freud had a name for that kinda behavior. I read it in a magazine or someplace, but I can’t remember it. Maybe later I’ll go through the alphabet, and I’ll probably think what it is.”

  Nudger said, “Hmm.”

  Bonnie finished off her French toast, licked syrup from her lips. “You’re awful quiet tonight.”

  “Not feeling my best.” Nudger told her about his visit with Skip Monohan, and his subsequent run-in with Jack Palp. Unloading the burden of his day. Pretend
ing she was Claudia. It worked, up to a point.

  “Poor man,” she said, glancing down in the direction of his injured genitals as if the table were transparent. Claudia had never called him “poor man.” At times like these she leaned more toward mock sarcasm, and then gentleness. Bonnie said, quite seriously, “I’d like to kiss it and help make it all well.”

  Nudger couldn’t avoid staring at the cleavage visible above the top button of her blouse. He felt an overpowering urge to rest his head on the soft swell of breast. She’d stroke his hair. She’s smell like Nora Dove. Maybe Hot Shoulders. Probably got the stuff wholesale. The entire line. Every part of her probably smelled terrific.

  Kiss it and help make it all well . . .

  Suddenly Stephanie was standing over their table, hands on her narrow hips, smiling down benignly. “Everything all right?”

  Nudger said, “It will be.”

  19

  They drove to the Coral Court Motel on Watson Road, an art deco creation infamous as the scene of countless romantic trysts. The cabins were constructed of glossy tile and had rounded corners and reminded Nudger of public restrooms yanked inside out. The feature that had gained Coral Court its reputation was that each cabin had a garage with an overhead door, so no suspicious spouse or hired private detective could see a familiar vehicle parked out front. Complete privacy was assured. Once inside the motel, lovers were lost to the outside world. Lovers have always liked it that way, so the motel had thrived.

  Nudger checked in and paid in advance. Thought of signing the name “Smith.” He’d never registered at a motel as “Smith” or “Jones” and thought it might be a hoot. Signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Nudger. Then he parked the Granada in the cabin’s garage while Bonnie stood waiting, her shoulders hunched, her arms tightly folded, making herself smaller in an effort to achieve invisibility as she glanced uneasily at passing traffic on Watson Road.

  After lowering the squealing overhead garage door, he unlocked the door to the cabin. He had this vague idea that she expected him to hoist her high and carry her over the threshhold, as if his back wouldn’t crack out of joint. But she simply smiled up at him nervously and stepped inside.

  He switched on the light to reveal red shag carpet and the usual motel furniture: double bed, mass-produced dresser, vinyl chairs, matched reading lamps. In a corner squatted an old Philco console color TV.

  Bonnie said, “I haven’t done this since. . .”

  “I know,” Nudger said gently.

  He asked if she wanted him to go out for some ice and something to drink. She said no.

  “What then?” he asked, and she snaked an arm around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. Kissed him again, using her tongue. Getting over her shyness. The years “since” were falling away.

  Nudger undressed in a hurry, but Bonnie had already scooted into bed beneath the covers by the time he peeled off his socks. He switched off the lamp and turned on the TV without volume for a night light. An Australian football match. Even the players didn’t seem to understand the rules.

  She probably actually hadn’t since. Once ignited, her fire was volcanic. She was all warmth and softness and desperate motion. On top. On the bottom. Nudger listened to the headboard banging into a groove in the wall and that was the only sound in the world and Bonnie’s hot breath was the only air. He was surprised by how much he wanted her. The sharp and spiraling ecstasy that took him over. He heard her breath catching rhythmically in her throat—or was the sound coming from him? Didn’t matter.

  Over too soon.

  Nudger said, “Jesus!” and lay on his back trying to take in oxygen. A little scared by the burning in his lungs.

  Bonnie said, “You love me?” Then, when she saw him hesitate, she grinned and said, “Don’t answer that.”

  Good thing. He could only have croaked an answer she wouldn’t have understood.

  The next time was less frantic. Love was at least equal if not better the second time around, even at Coral Court. As he climaxed, Bonnie did, or pretended beautifully.

  A kind of peace settled over the quiet motel room that held the musky scent of their lovemaking. There was a lot to be said for dropping out of the world, even for one night.

  Lying on his back, Nudger ignored the rivulet of perspiration zigzagging over his bare ribs like an exploring beetle. He laced his hands behind his head and listened to the traffic hum by on old Route 66, which had become Watson Road after the legendary highway was rerouted. Time did that to things, even the seemingly unchangeable, altered their direction almost before anyone realized it while the world spun on.

  Beside him Bonnie lay silently staring at the ceiling and smoking a cigarette. He’d never seen her smoke before, but she’d had half a crumpled pack of Salems in her purse. He felt the warm pressure of her thigh against his, the slight brush of her upper arm whenever she raised the cigarette to her lips. She’d indeed kissed him where he hurt and made it better. He felt so much better he was totally relaxed, drowsy, his discomfort and confusion momentarily forgotten in the afterglow of passion. Bonnie was nothing if not therapeutic. Made him content, hidden away here, car inside the garage. His eyelids weighed ten pounds each and were impossible to keep open. Why keep them open? he asked himself. Couldn’t come up with an answer.

  Welcomed total darkness. . . the oblivion of sleep.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Bonnie said, and exhaled smoke in a drawn-out hiss. “You suppose Virgil Hiller really did phone his wife?”

  “Could be,” Nudger answered drowsily. A draft played over his stomach and chest. The room was warm and all he wanted to do was sleep. He was no twenty-five-year-old kid anymore. Didn’t want to be. Usually.

  Bonnie sucked noisily on her cigarette. Reminded Nudger of Hammersmith and his cigar. Theorizing the way Hammersmith did, too. Got Nudger’s sleepy, sated mind turning lazily. Maybe the man on the phone had actually been Virgil Hiller, and Gina didn’t want to admit it even to herself. Possible. Maybe Freud was right, even after all these years and in Psychology Today, or People, or wherever Bonnie had acquired her drugstore psychiatry. Didn’t have to be Vienna. He pictured Bonnie in Vienna, with a goatee and monocle. Crazy. Lounging in one of those gondolas—no, that was Venice. If she couldn’t cure her patients she could sell them cosmetics, send them away perfumed and happy. Happy for sure. He felt himself dropping into deep sleep. Fine. Where he wanted to go. The warm breeze again, the scent of sex. He was drifting on a canal in Venice-Vienna, drifting. . .

  Bonnie said, “Ohmygosh, we better get outta here!”

  The gondola capsized. Nudger’s eyes flew open. “Huh?”

  She switched on the lamp and all of a sudden he felt as if he were in center field at Busch stadium in a night game.

  Her voice was frantic. “It’s almost midnight!”

  He sat up. “Yeah?” What was the deal here?

  “Janet’s watching the young ones. Nudger, I can’t stay out all night. God, Coral Court! This is bad enough!”

  Bad enough? He didn’t think so. Not bad at all. But Bonnie had a point about Janet. Set an example for the girl, get home at a reasonable hour. Made sense. Damned if it didn’t.

  “‘Kay,” he said sleepily, “see what you mean.” He sat up on the edge of the mattress and searched the floor for his socks. Found one. Pulled on it so it wasn’t wadded. A start.

  Bonnie was out of bed and striding toward the bathroom. For a moment he couldn’t look away from her compact, perfect body. All firm curves and softness. Large breasts jiggling slightly as she picked up her pace. In the bright light he noticed red marks on her buttocks where he’d gripped her. Except for that, the woman actually looked like a Playboy centerfold. Gravity-defying mammary development and a smooth, tucked-in tummy. Amazing! He’d have to check and see if she had a staple for a belly button.

  He heard the hiss and roar of the shower and decided to wait until he got home to wash away the evening. More important to get Bonnie back in her house on Pleasant Lane and settin
g a sterling example for the kids. Janet couldn’t bitch next time she was told to make curfew.

  Nudger wrestled into his pants. He decided Janet would probably bitch anyway. And come home whatever time she chose. He was learning about kids. It wasn’t like on “Brady Bunch” reruns.

  Where was that other sock?

  At ten minutes to one he steered the Granada into the greasea-nd-shadow-stained driveway on Pleasant Lane. The Nora Dove station wagon was parked straight in front of the garage now; maybe Tad had put right whatever it was he’d messed up under the hood.

  There was only a dim light glowing behind the drapes of the living room window. All the little Beals in bed?

  Nudger said, “Want me to come in?”

  Bonnie shook her head. Smiled. Doris Day by moonlight. “Better if you didn’t.”

  She was right, Nudger figured. The evening had run its course.

  “It looks like they might all be asleep in there,” he said.

  “Only if they exhausted themselves earlier.”

  Nudger didn’t ask her what she meant by that.

  She said, “I enjoyed tonight.”

  Well, sure. “So’d I.”

  She kissed him quickly on the cheek, got out of the car, and flounced up onto the porch. She still looked pert, even though her hair was less strategically mussed and her skirt and blouse were wrinkled. Coral Court would do that to you. Had been doing it to people for generations.

  He waited until Bonnie was inside, then backed the car out of the driveway and accelerated down Pleasant Lane.

  He wasn’t tired. Being awakened immediately after falling asleep always left him this way. Hyper. Restless. The way Mary Lacy must have felt the nights she popped pills delivered by Skip Monohan. The missing Skip Monohan.

  Nudger took Manchester Road east, but he didn’t turn onto Sutton, where his apartment and a warm bed waited. Instead he continued east until Manchester became Chouteau, then made a right turn on Grand.

  He drove to Oleatha Avenue and went by Adelaide Lacy’s apartment. The tidy brick building was illuminated by dusk-to-dawn outside lights and by a nearby streetlamp, but her windows were dark. Behind those windows Paul Dobbs had paid two visits, one to show Adelaide the photograph of Virgil Hiller, the other to warn her not to cross Arnie Kyle. And Arnie Kyle and his enforcer, Jack Palp, had dropped in to raise some hackles and blood pressure, and demand an envelope that was no longer where Adelaide had placed it. An envelope given to her by Mary for safekeeping. An envelope that might concern the disappearance of Hiller and Mary, but, considering Kyle’s business, possibly had to do with Mary’s penchant for illicit drugs and sex and her vulnerability to blackmail.