Time Exposure (Alo Nudger)

by John Lutz

  To add to Nudger’s bewilderment, Hiller had been seen by the city comptroller and the mayor the day after Dobbs had taken his photo, so presumably before he’d disappeared along with Mary. Four people disappearing, if you counted Dobbs and Monohan—and Nudger did. What it all meant was beyond Nudger, but it seemed that contact with the Lacy sisters was bringing real disruption in people’s lives. That was something to think about, all right.

  The car Nudger had watched Adelaide get into after she’d left his office, a tan Dodge sedan, was parked at the curb a few buildings down. As a helpless concession to crime, a yellow sign dangling in a back window said, THIS CAR DOESN’T HAVE A RADIO. The rear bumper wore a sticker that said, STAY HOME, READ A BOOK. Good advice, Nudger thought. Kept folks out of trouble.

  He tapped the Granada’s accelerator and drove back to Grand Avenue. Cranked down the window so he could breathe fresh night air as he cruised past the small shops lining both sides of the street. The shops were closed now, their windows dark and giving back the lighted reflection of his passing car, his own form sometimes visible behind the steering wheel, obscure and anonymous. He knew where he was going, where he’d been going from the time he’d driven away from Bonnie’s house.

  Claudia’s windows were dark, too. But at the end of the line of cars parked at the curb on Wilmington was Biff Archway’s red sports car.

  Looked like Archway’s car, anyway. Red Mustang with a black convertible top. Nudger studied the license plate but couldn’t remember the number on Archway’s car.

  Nudger told himself to ease up. Unreasonable jealousy had gotten him into trouble before, made him play the fool. How many red Mustang convertibles did Ford Motor make in a year? Couple of hundred thousand?

  How many were sold in the St. Louis area?

  Out of those, how many might find their way to Wilmington Avenue?

  To Claudia’s block?

  Other than Archway’s?

  He decided he didn’t like the odds.

  More awake than ever, Nudger headed for home.

  The car that followed him had its right headlight aimed way too low. Gave it the look of a half-closed yellow eye.

  Nudger thought immediately of Jack Palp. Then he told himself he had the jitters. Manchester was a major east-west thoroughfare; the car simply happened to be going his direction. The driver probably lived out in Chesterfield and was sneaking home from the girlfriend’s. Or boyfriend’s. Nudger had done plenty of divorce work in west county. It was prime area for real estate and adultery.

  But when he turned off Manchester and drove down Sutton, the droopy-eyed car stayed behind him.

  He parked in front of his building and the headlights stopped half a block behind. Gazed at him like the mismatched glowing eyes of a crouching cat.

  Staring into his rear-view mirror, Nudger was considering staying in his car and driving to police headquarters, when suddenly the headlights rose slightly as the car behind him accelerated and came straight at him. Rubber on pavement screeched like something enraged and tortured.

  His heart jump-started into a frantic beat. Automatically he reached forward and twisted the ignition key to turn over the Granada’s engine and get out of there. Realized too late he hadn’t turned off the engine. The starter engaged and howled noisily and his response was to twist the key too far in the opposite direction and kill the motor.

  His sweat-slick fingers slipped off the key as he tried again to start the car. He kept fumbling, not making any progress.

  The oncoming headlights illuminated the inside of the Granada, then swerved.

  A shout. A shriek.

  Tad’s old gray Plymouth shot past, then did a nosedive and skidded to a stop. Left a twin trail of rubber; tires might last a week that way. Looked as if a dozen teenage boys were crammed inside the Plymouth.

  Tad! Not Palp! Whew!

  Still shaking, Nudger climbed out of the Granada and stood in the street. Faced the Plymouth with his hands at his sides.

  High Noon in the dark.

  The Plymouth didn’t move. He could hear its old engine idling roughly, see clouds of oil fumes belching from beneath its rear bumper. A skinny male arm was draped out of one rear window, pressed against metal to swell the bicep.

  After a few minutes an empty beer can flew from the Plymouth and bounced clanking across the pavement to stop, spinning, near Nudger’s feet. It was a paper-thin aluminum Coors can and hadn’t made much noise. Maybe not enough to wake the neighbors and further sully Nudger’s reputation. He didn’t need neighbor problems.

  A light winked on in a window across the street. An angry male voice yelled, “People tryin’ to sleep here, asshole!”

  The rear end of the Plymouth dipped so the bumper almost scraped, and it screeched down the street and turned the corner. Oil-laden exhaust fumes settled like soiled fog beneath the streetlight.

  “Keeps up, I’m gonna call the cops!” the nonsleeper shouted.

  “No need!” Nudger told him, probably not loud enough for the man to hear.

  Nudger thought the Plymouth might go around the block and reappear at the opposite corner, but he heard the growl of its motor fade.

  A sudden night breeze sent the beer can rolling, humming shrilly on concrete until it wedged with a faint clink! against the curb.

  The street remained dark. Quiet. The time for teenage menace was over.

  Nudger let himself relax. He wiped his hands on his pants legs and plodded upstairs to his apartment.

  Tad would never know how glad Nudger was to see him.

  20

  The next morning Nudger caught Hammersmith in the Third District station house parking lot. The lieutenant had just climbed out of his unmarked blue Pontiac when he saw Nudger approach. He stood next to his private parking space and waited, nodding to fellow officers on the way to or from their cars. Flashing the old Barney Miller smile.

  Today’s schizo weather was starting off warm, and the lieutenant had his dark blue uniform jacket neatly folded and draped over a huge arm. His powder blue shirt was flawlessly ironed, his smooth-shaven jowls spilling over the collar. Flat blue eyes took a trip over Nudger with the slightest spark of curiosity.

  Nudger said, “I was on my way in to see you.”

  “Pleasant morning, Nudge, we can talk out here.”

  It was a pleasant morning, except for the yeasty smell from the nearby Anheuser-Busch Brewery.

  Irritated, Nudger said, “Afraid to talk about Virgil Hiller inside? Think your office might be bugged?”

  “Maybe.”

  Nudger was startled. Hammersmith seemed serious.

  “I told you, Nudge, there’s pressure from above not to push a nose or anything else too far into the Hiller disappearance. Pressure from immediately above in the department, and then from above that.”

  “All that pressure from above and above. Sounds like you’re at the bottom of the sea.”

  “I’d agree with you, only it’s still possible to sink.”

  “I know. Politics. But hasn’t it occurred to anyone that Hiller’s supposed to have run away with half a million dollars of taxpayer money? I mean, even if you see it the official way—that he bolted with his secretary and the money—isn’t there some political gain to be made by at least getting back the loot?”

  Hammersmith stared down at the blacktop and frowned. A small moth flitted sluggishly around his head and then circled away into the slanted morning sunlight. September already. The moth didn’t have much longer; the temperature might plunge below freezing any hour. “It’s more complicated than that, Nudge.”

  “In what way?”

  “In a way I’m not sure of myself. But I can sense the complication.”

  “Haven’t you always told me I could afford hunches and you couldn’t?”

  “Sure. Because you’re a private cop and I’m not.”

  “Then how come you’re paying attention to what you sense this time? Why not just act on the facts?”

  “Let
’s be fair, Nudge. I’ve also said you don’t have a gnat’s navel idea of what politics is about, and that’s why you never would have risen much beyond patrolman. Even if you’d stayed in the department, with your stomach wound tight as the inside of a golf ball.”

  “Being a good cop goes beyond politics.”

  “Only if you wanna be a good cop who spends all his time walking a beat or giving out parking tickets.” Hammersmith put on a mildly pained expression. “Christ, haven’t you at least learned that much after all these years? By politics, Nudge, I’m not talking about kissing ass—though that’s part of it sometimes. I mean knowing what matters and what doesn’t. Adapting to the lay of the land. Knowing how and when to compromise.”

  “And this Hiller thing is one you compromise on? Tune out the facts and look the other way?”

  “More or less.”

  “’Scuse me if I don’t buy it.”

  Hammersmith appeared about ready to spit on the ground. A blue vein pulsated in his temple so fast it seemed to writhe. “Facts, huh? There’s a word you toss around kinda carelessly, Nudge. Guy disappears with his secretary and a bundle of money. That’s fact. Just what have you shown me beyond that?”

  “The photograph Dobbs took.”

  “Photograph, huh? Don’t photographs prove a lot? I’ve seen photos of flying saucers, Nudge. Look so real you’d think you could board them and fly to willy-nilly land just like that. I could even scare you up some folks’d claim they made the trip.”

  “What about Arnie Kyle’s involvement? And Palp working me over.”

  “Kyle’s involvement’s with the secretary’s sister and some envelope nobody’s seen. That’s if you take the sister’s word that any of it ever happened. As for Palp playing rough with you, where are your witnesses?”

  “Think I’m lying?”

  Hammersmith shook his head and let out a long breath. “No, Nudge. I’m just saying that if you wanna break through and make Hiller’s disappearance other than what it appears, you need something more. Gimme half a break, hey? I mean, you’re talking to the only guy on the department hasn’t slammed the door on all doubt. I told you, I think you might be onto something—emphasize might—but officially I have to see it differently.”

  Nudger knew Hammersmith was right. In the context of his position, anyway. He had little choice other than to tell Nudger what he was saying—that you bucked the higher-ups when you had the ammunition, but not before. A basic rule of survival in any bureaucratic jungle.

  Hammersmith said, “Notice I’m the only cop talking to you at all about this? Officially or un?”

  “I’ve noticed,” Nudger said.

  “Which brings me to the thanks I deserve for sticking my professional neck out and ordering a search of the Scullin Steel site.”

  “You’ve got my thanks,” Nudger told him. “You know that.”

  “Guess I do.”

  “So what did you find at Scullin?”

  “What anybody’d expect. A field littered with the debris of a closed and partly razed foundry. Mostly chunks of building material and industrial crap. Stuff I couldn’t even tell you what it was. Pieces of this and that, but no pieces of Skip Monohan.”

  “Then Palp must have taken him somewhere else. I’m sure Monohan knew something and had to be shut up.”

  Hammersmith said, “Monohan’s probably sleeping in a fleabag hotel where you don’t sign the register. It might have been you talking to him that made him go to ground.”

  “Might have. But Palp had to see me leave after I talked to Monohan; I can’t imagine him not crossing the street and finding out about the conversation.”

  “Could be that’s what he did. But that doesn’t mean murder, Nudge.”

  “You’d think it might, if you’d chatted heart to heart with Palp the way I did.”

  Hammersmith paced a few steps, dragged a fingertip over his unmarked Pontiac, then faced Nudger with a no-nonsense expression. There was a long clean streak in the dust on the car’s fender. “Here’s what we got: Jack Palp, an Arnie Kyle henchman who doesn’t mind killing.”

  “Likes it,” Nudger said, remembering Palp’s eyes.

  “Okay, likes it. Scary guy. Then we got Skip Monohan, a small-time drug mule with no mailing address since the state penitentiary, and whose business is to be invisible. You say Palp scared you, and you can’t find Monohan. So what would you have me do now, Nudge? What?”

  Nudger watched half a dozen uniforms take the steps and disappear inside the station house. Several of the night shift officers were maneuvering their cars out of the lot, on the way home to breakfast. Thinking things other than cop thoughts.

  “I dunno,” Nudger said. “I really figured you might find Monohan at Scullin.”

  “We tried.”

  “I know you did, Jack. Thanks.”

  “You already thanked me; don’t get sickening. Listen, Nudge, I better get inside. Some things to go over at muster. Hiller’s not the only crime needs attention.”

  True for Hammersmith, but not for Nudger.

  He said good-bye to Hammersmith and watched the obese lieutenant glide with his peculiar fat man’s grace into the shade of the low brick building. In through the glass double doors. Wavering and fading out of sight beyond them. Like strolling into another dimension.

  Something brushed Nudger’s arm and arced away to light for a moment on Hammersmith’s car. The September moth again, flitting around doomed and not knowing it. Reminded Nudger of someone.

  He shivered in the bright sunlight and then walked toward his car parked in the captain’s reserved slot.

  What was it Palp had said? Hiller and his secretary ran away with the money and were someplace fucking their brains out under a palm tree. Maybe Palp believed that and maybe not.

  So many people were trying so hard to believe it that Nudger found believing impossible.

  21

  Hammersmith was only part of the reason why Nudger had struggled out of bed so early. Braved the perils of morning traffic while the sun, hovering low over the Mississippi, blasted through the windshield and made his eyes ache.

  After leaving the Third District station, he drove to Claudia’s apartment, parking half in shade, half in sunlight in front of the old U-shaped, brick building just past seven-thirty.

  As he got out of the Granada, he glanced up the street. The red Mustang convertible was gone from where it had been parked last night. A white work van was there now.

  Nudger sidestepped a rusty tricycle with a shiny new bell attached to its handlebars, pushed open the door to the vestibule, and began climbing the steps to the second floor. An old gray-haired guy he’d seen in the building before edged past him on the landing, smiling and nodding a good morning. Alert for his age. Neighbor of Claudia’s. One who could probably tell him a few things about Claudia and Biff Archway, Nudger thought. Maybe someday he’d ask. The detective in him.

  He knocked on her door, waited a while. Then he heard a faint sound and thought he felt the subtle vibration of her approaching footsteps.

  She was nyloned-barefoot when she opened the door, wearing a plain green dress with a white collar. Her uncombed hair was a dark, wild bramble, as if she’d spent the night tossing her head from side to side. Nudger thought about the red convertible again. Biff Archway. Oh, the bastard!

  Claudia smiled at him and contorted her arms to reach behind her and button the back of the dress. The effort made her small pointed breasts jut beneath the green material. She said, “C’mon in, Nudger.”

  the did, and she finished with the dress and raked her fingers through her tangle of hair. Mussed it more. Made it look better, though. He didn’t say anything while he tried not to let his gaze roam around in an attempt to find some sign, some residue of the contemptible Archway’s presence.

  “You’re an early bird today,” Claudia said.

  “Thought I might catch you before you left for work.”

  “You regard me as a worm?”

&nb
sp; “Huh?”

  “That’s what the early bird catches: the early worm.”

  “I don’t see you as a worm,” Nudger said. He did glance around. “You alone?”

  She frowned, then she padded over to where her black high-heeled shoes were lying near the sofa, pointed in opposite directions. Sat down and slipped the shoes on, bending forward gracefully. “What kind of question is that?”

  “I dunno. How about that worm question? Don’t be touchy.”

  She stood up, much taller now. Goddamn queenly. “Why are you here, Nudger?”

  “To see you, is all.”

  “This is the first time you’ve been in the neighborhood and casually dropped by at seven-thirty in the morning.”

  “Is it?”

  She said, “Let’s go into the bedroom.” Said it brusquely so he’d know what she meant. Not what he wanted.

  He followed her, watching the sway of her lean hips wearing out the green dress from the inside. She had on just the right amount of rose-scented perfume or cologne. He remembered that scent in bed. Other memories kicked in.

  Bed. The first thing he looked at when he stepped into the room. Far as he could tell, only one person had slept in the double bed. One pillow wrinkled and fluffed up, the other smooth. Blankets turned back only at one corner.

  Claudia said, “I need to get ready for work and get out of here. I harp enough at my students for being tardy. Don’t want to give them any openings.” She sat on the stool at her vanity, in front of the oval mirror, and began brushing the tangles from her dark hair. Watching her mesmerized Nudger and gave him an oddly restful feeling. The hairbrush made a sound like water rushing as she pulled it through with each stroke. The strokes got longer as the tangles were worked out.