Thicker Than Blood (Alo Nudger Series)

by John Lutz

  So was a perpetual motion machine.

  He phoned the Third and asked for Hammersmith. The lieutenant picked up his phone on the first ring. Nudger told him about Aaron coming around.

  “I doubt he wants to kill you, Nudge, seeing as he walked right into the doughnut shop and let Danny see him.”

  Nudger quickly embraced that line of reasoning. “You’ve got a point.”

  “More terror tactics is all it is,” Hammersmith said jovially, “not to be taken seriously.”

  “You’re right, Jack. I know you’re right.”

  “What I called about was that guy whose wrists Aaron mighta slit.”

  Nudger’s stomach sped through roller-coaster maneuvers.

  “Nudge? Still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “His name was Clark Morris, and he was a small-time drug pusher. He sold to college kids, mostly.”

  “Did he have a connection with King Chambers?”

  “Wouldn’t be surprising if he did. Chambers is the guy to know in that line. Morris had a long list of prior convictions for possession and dealing.”

  “Jack, you think he was small-time enough to be dispensable? To use as an example?”

  “Him and his dog, Nudge. That’s how I see it, too. An object lesson for Dale Rand.”

  “But why?”

  “There could be a thousand reasons, but right now the official finding is that Morris’s death was a suicide. Nobody’s much interested when a guy like him leaves the world, Nudge. NHI, far as Narcotics is concerned.” Nudger knew what the letters stood for in police slang: No Humans Involved. It was sometimes used to describe crimes when the perpetrator and victim were both known criminals of the lowest sort. “Nobody wants another crime they can’t solve. I’d leave it a suicide if I were you, Nudge.”

  “That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Nudger said. “Believe me, I—”

  Click! Hammersmith had terminated the conversation.

  Nudger stayed at his desk and busied himself with paperwork, trying not to think about Aaron of the earring or King Chambers or Norva Beane. Dale Rand he thought about. And the stock market. He wondered if maybe he should get some graph paper and start charting his holdings.

  It was late afternoon before he remembered the recorder in the blue Chevy. Aaron hadn’t yet shown up near the Rand house, so driving out there wouldn’t be so risky. Besides, Nudger thought, what am I, a coward?

  Well, how much of a coward?

  Driving to Ladue seemed no less dangerous than sitting and waiting in his office. He decided he might as well pick up the tape, then leave the second recorder in the trunk for the bug man to retrieve along with the car and the rest of his equipment. Nudger would find out what he owed the bug man for his services, then figure what would be left after his payment from Norva Beane. And that would be it. End of investigation.

  Another day, another inadequate dollar.

  CHAPTER 17

  Nudger parked the Granada across the street from the blue Chevy and figured, why waste time?

  He peeled his sweat-soaked shirt away from the car’s vinyl upholstery and got out. The shirt was plastered to his back now. He reached around, pinched the material between thumb and forefinger, and stretched it out away from his flesh. That felt cool for about two seconds.

  Nothing seemed to be happening at the moment down at the little strip shopping center. There were a couple of cars parked there, but no one in sight. After looking up and down the deserted street, he jogged over to the Chevy, fishing in his pocket for the key the bug man had given him.

  He’d opened the Chevy’s trunk and was bent over staring at the recorder’s tiny red power light, when he paused. A subtle something kept his hand from switching off the recorder and removing the cassette.

  His mind was ahead of his hand. His stomach was ahead of his mind. It growled in worried protest. Rand would probably arrive home soon, so why not wait a few more hours? Maybe Horace Walling would phone him and stocks would be discussed. Nudger might very easily hear about another investment opportunity. This was probably the way fortunes were made, he thought. Inside information, overheard by someone bold enough to act. And if it was a crime, it was victimless. Nudger had always thought that was an oxymoron, “victimless crime.” And some of the worlds great fortunes had grown from injustices, legal and illegal, which were far from victimless. That was undeniably so.

  An hour. He’d give Rand precisely one hour after he went in the house, then he’d get the cassette from the Chevy’s trunk, and the clock would stop running on what he would owe the bug man. And that way he wouldn’t have wasted the drive out here. He could park down the street where he could see the Rand property, risking for the final time another run-in with Aaron of the earring, then when he had the cassette he’d play it on his office recorder, see if there was any valuable investment information on it. That would be the finish to this mess. It wouldn’t take much time for Aaron to learn that Nudger was no longer a player or a problem. Word got around, and always to people like Aaron. They had a network the police envied.

  He closed the trunk, glanced around, and crossed the street to climb back in the Granada.

  Bracing himself to endure apprehension for the next hour, he found a shady spot to park near the corner of the Rand property and settled back in the car. The heat settled in with him. His shirt quickly molded to the vinyl upholstery again. He kept looking around, periodically checking the rearview mirror. The car’s windows were down, and the mosquitoes that had feasted on him out near Latimer Lane must have somehow contacted the Ladue mosquitoes. They found their way into the car and gave him the option of cranking up the windows and sitting in a sauna or being devoured by mini-vampires.

  Nudger was determined to stick to his plan of waiting one hour. It was a test now, the machismo thing, a determination of his worth as a man. Biff Archway would never make it through the next—he looked at his watch—oh, God, forty minutes!

  He pressed the watch to his ear, noticing that moisture was beaded beneath its crystal. But it was ticking lustily, and it was a cheap windup model, so it couldn’t have a weak battery. Well, thirty-nine minutes to go now. Only.

  After twenty minutes had passed like eons, fear, or maybe loss of blood, got the better of him and he leaned forward to start the engine. He was going to drive fast away from where he was parked, letting the rush of wind flush the pesky little insects, and his trepidation, from the car’s interior. Then he’d get the final cassette from the Chevy and be gone and done with everything except cashing in on his investments when the time was right.

  But as his fingers touched the ignition key, something on the Rand property caught his eye. Movement in the bushes near the back corner of the house, next to the garage. He was sure of it. His stomach bucked and groaned. It had endured more than enough and was letting him know it wanted no more strain.

  But there was the movement again. Unmistakable.

  And Nudger, sitting very quietly now and ignoring the heat and mosquitoes, saw what it was.

  Norva Beane.

  Cradling a long object in her arms.

  A rifle or shotgun!

  His stomach didn’t like that at all. It was in a race with his heart to see which part of his torso could be made to pulsate fastest.

  Both organs went into overdrive when Nudger saw Dale Rand’s black Cadillac turn the corner and glide sedately down the street toward the driveway, as if already practicing for the funeral procession.

  He looked back at Norva and saw her settle down into shooting position, seated on the ground at an angle, with the rifle barrel leveled and an elbow resting on her knee for support. The way she was set up made it clear she’d handled plenty of guns.

  She obviously intended to open fire on Dale Rand, and he’d soon be a target no one from a place called Possum Run could miss even in a dream.

  CHAPTER 18

  Nudger hated the sight of blood, hated what he knew was about to occur. He was out of the car
and running without thinking about it, realizing what was happening only when he felt the spring of grassy earth beneath his soles and sensed the scenery flying past. Instinctively, he’d stayed on the grass so Norva wouldn’t hear him approaching.

  Blurred in the corner of his vision, the long black form of Rand’s Cadillac was slowing to make its turn into the driveway, affording an easy shot through the windshield.

  Somehow Nudger ran even faster, stretching his stride so he felt it in his groin. He was aware of weight around his middle jiggling with each step. The Dunker Delites he’d had to eat and the MunchaBunches he couldn’t resist had burdened him with a spare tire in a remarkably short time. He was gasping for oxygen now and his knees felt rubbery. Sharp pain stitched his right side.

  Norva’s body shifted slightly and he knew she sensed his approach. Yet she ignored him, her concentration beamed along the rifle barrel, the imagined trajectory of the bullet.

  The rifle made a loud smacking sound, like a hand slapping hard on a flat surface.

  No, no, no! . . .

  Norva was sighting down the barrel for a second shot.

  Nudger closed his eyes as he launched himself at her.

  Pain jolted through his left shoulder. He struck her leg, he thought, as he hit the hard grassy ground and skidded on his side. He could feel his shirt and pants scraping and catching on small things in the earth, twisting and wadding against his flesh.

  He sat up in the bushes. He’d knocked Norva back about six feet. She looked angry and she was scrambling to her feet, still gripping the rifle. Nudger grabbed a thick, leafy branch and levered himself to standing position. He staggered out away from the shrubbery at the corner of the garage. He could hear himself rasping, sucking air deep into his lungs with each desperate heave of his chest. Someone seemed to have set his left shoulder on fire.

  Norva said, “Darn it, Mr. Nudger,” and hopped to the side so she could have a clear shot around him.

  He ducked and turned away as she aimed the rifle down the driveway. This time the blast of the gun made his ears ring, and he was sure he’d heard the bullet snap past him like the crack of a whip. A sound within a sound; the reverberation of death.

  “Oh, fudge!” Norva said.

  She was pointing the rifle at Nudger now. His legs began to tremble.

  “Norva, no! . . . ”

  Sirens were warbling in the warm evening air, and not very far away.

  “Don’t you move even a gnat’s inch now, Mr. Nudger,” Norva said. Still with the rifle leveled at him, she backed away. She scissor-stepped over a low hedge into neighboring property, backpedaled facing him until she was several hundred feet away, then turned and ran hard and fast, holding the rifle out to the side, well away from her body.

  Nudger stood numbly and watched as she disappeared among some graceful willow trees.

  His heart slam-dancing with his ribs, he slowly turned around and looked down the driveway.

  Dale Rand was sitting on the concrete next to the Cadillac. The car’s windshield had turned milky and there was a huge hole in it, high and to the left of center. Apparently Nudger’s approach had thrown off Norva’s aim just enough to make her miss her mark.

  Nudger hoped.

  He didn’t see any blood on Rand, who was staring at him with a shocked, stupid expression on his long, usually composed face. Not with any look of pain, though. His hair was mussed, and one leg of his dark, chalk-striped suit had worked its way up and was wadded around his knee, which was scraped in the manner of a child’s who’d fallen at play.

  Nudger took a few steps toward him. “You okay?”

  “Think so,” Rand said shakily, starting to stand as he leaned on the side of the car. His pants leg had straightened out, and he looked down to see a long rip in it. “Oh, damn!” he said, as if being shot through the head might have been preferable to a ruined suit.

  Nudger realized he’d be smart to make his exit, so he stepped off the driveway and started across the lawn toward where the Granada was parked down the street.

  But the warbling police siren grew louder and changed pitch as it rounded the corner. A cruiser with winking red and blue roofbar lights braked hard and angled leaning toward the curb. The driver was enthusiastic. The cruiser skidded and one front tire hopped up onto the sidewalk as its doors flapped open and two uniforms piled out and crouched low with guns drawn.

  Rand had turned and was slumped against the Caddy, staring at them. “It’s okay!” he shouted. “She’s gone. He scared her away.” He pointed at Nudger the hero.

  Oh, no! This was no way to conduct an unobtrusive stakeout.

  “It’s safe now!” Rand yelled. He sounded desperate to convince them and probably himself.

  One of the uniforms had begun moving up the driveway, his head swiveling, his face pale. His eyes seemed huge. His partner stayed half-concealed behind an open car door, ready to return hostile fire. They weren’t completely buying Rand’s assessment of the situation.

  “We had reports of gunfire,” the uniform in the driveway said, when he got near Rand. He caught sight of the Cadillac’s shattered windshield. “Brace yourself with both hands on the car, legs spread.”

  “I live here!” Rand replied. “I was the target, damnit! Look at my car, if you don’t believe me. You think I shot the windshield out from the inside? You don’t frisk me, goddamnit, I’m a taxpayer. You work for me!”

  The uniform didn’t reply, but his hard, frightened gaze, and the gun in his hand, were now trained on Nudger. “Over here, you!”

  “He saved my life,” Rand said. “I saw who shot at me. It was a woman. This man tackled her and knocked her down, frightened her away.”

  “That right?” the uniform asked, staring with skepticism and with a touch of awe at Nudger.

  “More or less,” Nudger said.

  “Uh-huh. Get a good look at her?”

  “Not really.”

  “I did,” Rand said. “Won’t ever forget her. She was a skinny redhead, wearing Levi’s and I think a black T-shirt. Had a rifle, and she meant business.”

  “Looks like it,” the uniform said, glancing again at the windshield. He told Nudger and Rand to stay where they were, then he hurried back to the patrol car and said something to his partner, who immediately got on the radio. The police of Ladue and neighboring municipalities were on the hunt for Norva Beane.

  The uniform had his gun holstered and was armed with a leather-bound notepad as he trudged back up the driveway and confronted Nudger and Rand. Sydney had emerged from the house and was standing close to Rand. Nudger hadn’t seen her up close. She was slender, the skin of her face stretched tight over a prominent nose and cheekbones, as if she’d had recent cosmetic surgery that had been overdone. Her eyes had an unnaturally wide, startled look to them. They would wear that expression all the time, Nudger thought, not just now because someone had shot at her husband. She was still attractive but taking on a haggard look, a hardness despite the startled ingenue eyes. Alcohol, working on the inside against whatever beauty fought hard to survive on the outside.

  In a low voice, Rand was explaining to her what had happened. She replied unintelligibly in an equally soft voice. Her brittle gaze fixed on Nudger for a moment, and he might have caught a whiff of gin. Rand straightened up and was silent.

  The uniform had his black notepad flipped open, a pen in his hand, and Nudger waited for the question he knew he’d have to answer. There was no choice now. He was in the middle of an attempted murder in tranquil and moneyed Ladue.

  “Anybody recognize the woman?” the uniform asked.

  “Of course not,” Rand said. “She was a total stranger. A crazy woman.”

  Sydney said, “I never even saw her.” More gin fumes. Unmistakable.

  Nudger sighed and said, “I know who she is.”

  Everyone turned toward him and stared.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Ladue police interrogated Nudger for three hard hours. A lieutenant from the
county department sat in, along with a representative from the Major Case Squad, the team of city and municipality cops assigned to particularly serious crimes so that various departments in the quiltwork of the metropolitan area could be coordinated in a single effort. The right hand being able to trust the left. To an extent.

  The St. Louis County and Major Case Squad guys were only acting as observers. Mere attempted murder wasn’t enough to activate all forces. But this incident had occurred in Ladue. That someone had disturbed the peace by firing a rifle was bad enough; that she had actually aimed the weapon at someone of substance and standing was intolerable.

  A captain named Massinger did most of the asking, politely, insistently, laying subtle conversational traps. He was a portly little man with mint-scented cologne, squarish eyes, and a slow smile that revealed overlapping stained teeth. Nudger admired his skill. He told Massinger almost everything. He did not tell him about seeing the dead man on Latimer Lane, or about Rand’s bugged house, or about secret investment knowledge and the imminent return of the feather boa.

  When finally he walked out into the syrupy warm night, he was reasonably sure he’d acted within the law and his livelihood wasn’t threatened. In fact, he was still being regarded as something of a hero. That was a new and not unpleasant sensation.

  As he approached the parked Granada, he was surprised to see the corpulent figure of Hammersmith leaning against a back fender. Hammersmith was dressed casually in an untucked silky gray shirt, billowing out over bluejeans he’d somehow found in his size. He was puffing on one of his horrific greenish cigars, and smoke was suspended over him in a noxious pall, as if there’d been an explosion at a poison gas factory.

  When Nudger was a few feet away, Hammersmith removed the cigar from his mouth and balanced it delicately on his fingertips as if it were a dart he was about to toss. “I got a call about you at home, Nudge. All about the exciting goings on here in Ladue.”

  “I’ve been talking about that with the Ladue law for the last three hours.”