The Nudger Dilemmas

by John Lutz

  "Hollister is a killer—you said so yourself. I wouldn't want to get involved in any kind of scam with him."

  "He didn't know you were involved," Nudger explained. "When you'd used me to make it clear that Hollister was the natural suspect, you kidnapped Ineida and demanded the ransom, figuring Hollister's past and his disappearance would divert the law's attention away from you."

  Fat Jack's wide face was a study in agitation, but it was relatively calm compared to what must have been going on inside his head. His body was squirming uncontrollably, and the pain in his eyes was difficult to look into. He didn't want to ask the question, but he had to and he knew it. "If all this is true," he moaned, "where is Hollister?"

  "I did a little digging in his garden," Nudger said. "He's under his roses, where he thought Ineida was going to wind up, but where you had space for him reserved all along."

  Fat Jack's head dropped. His suit suddenly seemed to get two sizes too large. As his body trembled, tears joined the perspiration on his quivering cheeks. "When did you know?" he asked.

  "When I got back to my hotel and found the letters from Ineida to Hollister missing. You were the only one other than myself who knew about them." Nudger leaned over the desk to look Fat Jack in the eye. "Where is Ineida?" he asked.

  "She's still alive," was Fat Jack's only answer. Crushed as he was, he was still too wily to reveal his hole card. It was as if his fat were a kind of rubber, lending inexhaustible resilience to body and mind.

  "It's negotiation time," Nudger told him, "and we don't have very long to reach an agreement. While we're sitting here talking, the police are digging in the dirt I replaced in Hollister's garden."

  "You called them?"

  "I did. But right now, they expect to find Ineida. When they find Hollister, they'll put all the pieces together the way I did and get the same puzzle-picture of you."

  Fat Jack nodded sadly, seeing the truth in that prognosis. "So what's your proposition?"

  "You release Ineida, and I keep quiet until tomorrow morning. That'll give you a reasonable head start on the law. The police don't know who phoned them about the body in Hollister's garden, so I can stall them for at least that long without arousing suspicion."

  Fat Jack didn't deliberate for more than a few seconds. He nodded again, then stood up, supporting his ponderous weight with both hands on the desk. "What about money?" he whined. "I can't run far without money."

  "I've got nothing to lend you," Nudger said. "Not even the fee I'm not going to get from you."

  "All right," Fat Jack sighed.

  "I'm going to phone David Collins in one hour," Nudger told him. "If Ineida isn't there, I'll put down the receiver and dial the number of the New Orleans police department."

  "She'll be there," Fat Jack said. He tucked in his sweat-plastered shirt beneath his huge stomach paunch, buttoned his suit coat, and without a backward glance at Nudger glided majestically from the room. He would have his old jaunty stride back in no time.

  Nudger glanced at his watch. He sipped Fat Jack's best whiskey from the club's private stock while he waited for an hour to pass. Then he phoned David Collins, and from the tone of Collins's voice he guessed the answer to his question even before he asked it.

  Ineida was home.

  When Nudger answered the knock on his hotel room door early the next morning, he wasn't really surprised to find Frick and Frack looming in the hall. They pushed into the room without being invited. There was a sneer on Frick's pockmarked face. Frack gave his boxer's nifty little shuffle and stood between Nudger and the door, smiling politely.

  "We brought you something from Mr. Collins," Frick said, reaching into an inside pocket of his pale green sport jacket. It just about matched Nudger's complexion.

  All Frick brought out, though, was an envelope. Nudger was surprised to see that his hands were steady as he opened it.

  The envelope contained an airline ticket for a noon flight to St. Louis.

  "You did okay, my friend," Frick said. "You did what was right for Ineida. Mr. Collins appreciates that."

  "What about Fat Jack?" Nudger asked. Frack's polite smile changed subtly. It became a dreamy, unpleasant sort of smile.

  "Where Fat Jack is now," Frack said, "most of his friends are alligators."

  "After Fat Jack talked to you," said Frick, "he went to Mr. Collins. He couldn't make himself walk out on all that possible money; some guys just have to play all their cards. He told Mr. Collins that for a certain amount of cash he would reveal Ineida's whereabouts, but it all had to be done in a hurry." Now Frick also smiled. "He revealed her whereabouts in a hurry, all right, and for free. In fact, he kept talking till nobody was listening, till he couldn't talk anymore."

  Nudger swallowed dryly. He forgot about breakfast. Fat Jack had been a bad businessman to the end, dealing in desperation instead of distance. Maybe he'd had too much of the easy life; maybe he couldn't picture going on without it. That was no problem for him now.

  When Nudger got home, he found a flat, padded package with a New Orleans postmark waiting for him. He placed it on his desk and cautiously opened it. The package contained two items: A check from David Collins made out to Nudger for more than twice the amount of Fat Jack's uncollectable fee. And an old jazz record in its original wrapper, a fifties rendition of "You Got the Reach but Not the Grasp."

  It featured Fat Jack McGee on clarinet.

  Before You Leap

  Nudger was being attacked by snakes. The telephone jangled, halfway waking him. He groped for it, got the cord tangled around his wrist. Huh? Help!

  He awoke all the way, trying to throttle the plastic receiver and keep it from sinking long fangs into him.

  When he realized the snake was a phone and he'd been dreaming, he pressed the receiver to his ear, still not completely comfortable about doing that. He'd just finished investigating the theft of some endangered species from the zoo, some sort of cute little rodent, and a snake not so cute. The guy who'd stolen them had returned the snake, but couldn't say what had happened to the rodent.

  "Nudge?" Hammersmith's voice. What was a police lieutenant doing calling him at—Nudger squinted at the luminous digital numbers of the clock—3:00 a.m.? Oh God, was it only 3:00 a.m.?

  "Nudge?"

  "You know what time it is?" Nudger mumbled thickly.

  "Sure. Temperature, too. But that's not what I called about."

  Hammersmith and his sadistic sense of humor. Still rising toward total wakefulness, Nudger realized he should maybe worry about the reason for this odd-hour call. "What did you call about?"

  "You know a guy name of Ernest Gate?"

  "Think not."

  "Well, he knows you. He's asking for you."

  A long pause. Hammersmith and his telephone games. "So put Ernest whatsisname on the line."

  "Can't. He's perched on a ledge of the Merrimont Hotel, threatening to walk out into the night thirty stories high."

  "Wait a minute. You got a jumper, and he's asking for me?"

  "You and no one else, Nudge. Demands to talk to you, in fact, and human life being held to be of high value, he's in a position to make demands. So the department figured I'd be the guy to call you, see if you might wanna chat with this Gate character."

  "Bates?"

  "Gate."

  "Well, I know nobody name of Gate. Bates, either."

  "Maybe by some other name."

  Nudger, his mind still clouded with night webs, couldn't deny it was possible. Three a.m. Whew!

  "You coming downtown to try and talk this guy in off the ledge?" Hammersmith asked.

  Nudger said, "That sounds like a scene from an old movie. There gonna be a priest there, and the demure Mrs. Gates, maybe?"

  "Just you," Hammersmith said. "He wants you and you alone."

  Nudger's nervous stomach kicked. He hated heights. But what was he supposed to do, let this Ernest Gates fly? "Nudge?"

  "The Merrimont you say?"

  "Right. On Pine Street
."

  Nudger said he knew where it was, but Hammersmith had already hung up. Hammersmith had a thing about hanging up first.

  Nudger struggled out of bed and got his legs working. He chewed two antacid tablets while he was getting dressed.

  After parking the Granada behind a blue unmarked Chevy that screamed POLICE! Nudger walked through the sultry night toward the department barricades. Typical July weather in St. Louis; the temperature was still over eighty degrees and the humidity was almost high enough to float ships. It was possible that if this Ernest Gate did jump, he'd sink slow enough not to break when he hit.

  The sweating and irritable uniform near the barricade must have been told Nudger was on his way. As soon as Nudger identified himself, he said, "See if you can make this guy go one way or the other, okay, Nudger?"

  "That's not exactly the idea."

  "It'd solve things short term for a lotta people," the uniform said.

  Nudger thought that was an odd concept of civic duty, but he let the remark pass and the uniform let him pass.

  The Merrimont was bathed in spotlights, and high above the sidewalk a figure was outlined pressed against the stonework at a point precisely between two windows. Windows on either side of the man were open, and people were leaning out looking at him, probably talking to keep his mind off death. Lit up like it was, Nudger couldn't help noticing how beautiful it looked now that it had been bought and refurbished by one of the major chains. Downtown sure was coming back.

  The uniform who accompanied him up on the elevator was also appreciative. "They done a great job on this place, huh?" He caressed the oak-paneled wall above the control panel. "I tell you, some of the architecture in these old buildings—"

  He shut up as the elevator doors opened onto the thirtieth floor and he saw Hammersmith waiting in the hall like an impatient Buddha, puffing on one of his greenish and abominable cigars.

  "Glad to shee you, Nudge," he said around the cigar. "Maybe you can shove this guy an' we can all go home an' get shome shleep."

  "If you don't put out that cigar, I'm not gonna talk to him," Nudger said. "Even if he jumps, you and everybody near you might be dead before he is."

  "Shorry," Hammersmith said. He buried the cigar's glowing ember in the sand of a nearby pedestal ashtray. It died hard, emitting a green mushroom cloud that looked like a miniature nuclear mishap. "I forgot about your delicate stomach."

  "Fear bothers it, too," Nudger said.

  Hammersmith said, "I know. That's why you quit the department."

  "And I guess that's why you called me to help cope with this problem thirty stories high."

  "No choice in the matter." Hammersmith actually sounded apologetic. Graceful for such an obese man, he seemed to glide over the red-and-blue carpet as he led Nudger to a room near the end of the hall. The door was open, and Nudger could see a uniform and several plainclothes types milling around inside. Everyone stopped talking and looked at Nudger and Hammersmith when they stepped into the room. "You go in the bathroom, there's even a complimentary shower ca—" a plainclothesman was saying before he clamped his lips together. Even the guy leaning halfway out the window turned and stared.

  Hammersmith said, "Here he is at last."

  "Great!" said the guy on the windowsill. He immediately straightened up and moved back away from the window. Everyone looked relieved, as if Nudger had the strength of ten men and could fly and would wrap this thing up in a few minutes.

  Nudger said, "You got a net set up?"

  "Sure," Hammersmith said, "but I don't know how much good it'll do thirty stories down even if he hits it like a dart nails a bull's-eye. We're trying to set up something to snag him on the twenty-fifth floor, but it's a slow process 'cause we don't want him to see what's going on and jump before the device gets strung below him. Also, it's a new contraption still in the testing stage. Anyway, see how this guy knows you and maybe you can convince him to come back in and end this thing without anybody getting hurt."

  Nudger moved to the window and leaned outside, looked down, got dizzy. He clasped a hand on the window frame and swallowed a burned metal taste.

  "What's the matter, you don't like heights?" a voice asked from outside.

  Nudger leaned out a little farther and peered over at Ernest Gate.

  Gate was a small, moon-faced man about fifty. He had thinning hair combed straight back but mussed by the wind, a dark widow's peak, and old-fashioned-back-in-style round glasses. He was wearing baggy pants whose legs were whipping like sails in the high, warm breeze, a button-down white shirt with perspiration stains under the arms, a tightly knotted narrow red tie. He looked like an accountant gone mad, which for all Nudger knew he maybe was, because Nudger was sure he'd never seen Gate before.

  "Do we know each other?" Nudger asked.

  Gate laughed. Spat. They probably appreciated that down on twenty-five.

  "I don't get the joke," Nudger said.

  "You got your money, though, you bastard. And you caused what's about to happen here. So how's it feel?"

  "Listen, there's been some mistake. For God's sake, come in and let's talk about it." Nudger couldn't bear to think about what this average and pleasant-featured little man would become down on the sidewalk if he stepped off the ledge. "Nothing's worth what you're considering doing."

  "You figure I'll live to regret it?" Gate asked.

  "Well," Nudger said, "not for long." His stomach seemed to zoom out beyond the Merrimont's stone facade and plunge through the floodlit night. "Just come back in, please, and we'll iron this thing out." Iron. Flat. Oh Christ!

  "So you're begging me, huh?" Gate said, sneering. "You afraid of your conscience or something? I've gotta say I'm surprised. Pleased, though. This is better'n I hoped for. I knew you'd never agree to holding my hand when I stepped off."

  "Why me?" Nudger asked. "Why did you ask to talk to me? I'd at least like to understand what this is all about."

  "Why you, huh? It's because you're responsible for everything. You're the reason I'm standing here. The reason I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, my friend." Gate's eyes were glowing feverishly behind the round lenses now; he seemed to be working up to something, all right.

  "If you were to calm down and come in here," Nudger said, trying not to look down again, "I bet we could straighten out this misunderstanding in no time at all."

  "Sure, I'll be right in," Gate said. "I'll take a shortcut, Nubber."

  Nubber? "Hey, wait a minute!"

  But Gate had casually stepped off into space.

  He seemed to be suspended by wires there for just an instant, then he plunged into the haze of light.

  Nudger groaned and leaned out, saw Gate change his mind and begin to flap his arms wildly, heard him scream as he passed twenty-five and the horrified faces of the uniforms setting up an awkward arrangement of metal arms and netting that didn't look as if it would stop a pillow.

  Gate frantically beat his arms like wings all the way down. Nudger watched the rescue workers with the round net, far, far below, desperately maneuvering to meet him at street level.

  They succeeded.

  Gate rocketed through the net as if it were made of paper.

  Ten minutes later, down on the sidewalk, Hammersmith said, "That's okay, Nudge, you tried. They go whacko, sometimes there's nothing anybody can do to stop them."

  They were standing about twenty feet from where Gate's body lay covered with a dark blanket. Fluids were soaking through the blanket. After the first glance, Nudger couldn't look at it again.

  "You wanna take another peek at what's left of his face?" Hammersmith asked. "Make sure beyond any doubt you don't know him?"

  "I don't know him," Nudger said, gulping down bile. "And I don't think he knew me."

  "Really? Why not?"

  "He called me Nubber."

  "Oh? You sure about that? It mighta been the wind distorting his words."

  "I'm sure. Nubber."

  "People mispronounce names under st
ress sometimes. Or hear them wrong."

  "Nubber, Nubber, Nubber!"

  "Okay, okay." Hammersmith raised a bloated hand in a halt signal. "The wallet we got from the body says he checked in under his real name, Ernest Gate. Address is out in Chesterfield. The doorman says he thinks he arrived in a cab, and there's no driver's license, only forty-two dollars in cash, a Visa card, and one of those ID forms that come with wallets. Looks like a fairly new wallet, though it's hard to say for sure 'cause it got a little messy."

  Nudger's stomach took off again. He swallowed, willing his abdomen to stop twitching against his belt buckle. "Let me know what else you find out, all right?"

  Hammersmith fondled an unlit cigar and looked puzzled. "Else? Find out?"

  "When you investigate."

  "Nothing to investigate," Hammersmith said. "The guy's dead 'cause you couldn't talk him in off the ledge. We notify the next of kin and it's case closed."

  "But he obviously had me mixed up with somebody else."

  "That was his problem, not ours. Hey, there's an all-out war on drugs! We only got time and manpower for so much other'n that, you know?"

  Nudger knew.

  Hammersmith laid sausage-like fingers gently on his shoulder. "Why don't you go back to your apartment and see if you can get some sleep. It's not even"—he rotated his thick wrist and glanced at his watch—"four o'clock."

  Nudger nodded, then turned and walked away.

  He drove home chomping antacid tablets and knowing his sleep was finished for the night. For the next several hours he'd slump on the sofa in front of the TV and watch gold chains being sold on the home shopping network. He was afraid even to doze off, not knowing what terrors his dreams might hold.

  The next morning, Nudger sat in his office above Danny's Donuts, nibbling on a greasy and weighty Dunker Delite and sipping a foam cup of Danny's acidic coffee. A breakfast like that could hurt you, but it tended to keep you awake. "Nooooo," his stomach seemed to growl, so he shoved the Dunker Delite, lying like a lumpy corpse on its white paper napkin, off the side of the desk and listened to it thunk! into the metal wastebasket. A nutritionist would cheer.