Ride the Lightning (8 page)

He locked the office behind him, then left to treat himself to two White Castle hamburgers and a glass of milk before show-and-tell with Candy Ann Adams.

It was eleven-thirty by the time he topped the rise of the acceleration lane and drove fast with the windows open out the interstate toward Placid Grove Trailer Park. Static and soft blues were floating from the radio and whirling on the wind and he could still taste the hamburgers. Damned onions. Nudger belched. In the rearview mirror the lighted city sank like a luminous dream, drawing down with it the receding red taillights of cars that passed him going the opposite direction. The taillights looked like streamers of bright tracer bullets gracefully surrendering to gravity.

He glanced at his watch. He’d be early, but that was okay. There was something about an appointment at midnight that prompted punctuality.

I
X

t five minutes to midnight Nudger was sitting at the tiny table in Candy Ann’s kitchenette. Across from him sat a thin, nervous man who might have been in his twenties, dressed in a long-sleeved shirt despite the heat, and wearing sunglasses with silver mirror lenses. Nudger didn’t figure the glasses were to protect the man’s eyes from the sickly glare of the fluorescent light fixture set in the trailer’s ceiling.

Candy Ann introduced the man as “Tom, but that ain’t his real name,” and said he was Curtis Colt’s accomplice and the driver of the getaway car on the night of the murder. He had to wait until midnight to come so he’d be sure he wouldn’t be seen.

It was all enough to make Nudger perk up his ears. He sat quietly at the little table, looking into the mirrored glasses. He was aware of a thousand crickets screaming like tortured souls outside, Candy Ann’s deep and regular breath
ing inside. Then she moved back away from where she was standing close by his right shoulder, and he could hear his
own breathing as he waited to listen to what Tom had to say.

It was no surprise. “Me and Curtis was nowhere near the liquor store when them folks got shot!” Tom said vehe
mently, so forcefully that fine spittle flew across the table and coolly flecked Nudger’s forearm.

Obviously the sunglasses were so Nudger couldn’t effectively identify Tom if it came to a showdown in court. Tom had lank, dark brown hair that fell to below his shoulders, and when he moved his arm Nudger caught sight of something blue and red, like a faded nasty wound, on his briefly exposed wrist. But it wasn’t a wound; it was a tattoo. Which explained the long-sleeved shirt worn in the sultry throes of summer.

“You can understand why Tom couldn’t come forth and testify for Curtis in court,” Candy Ann said.

Nudger said he could understand that. Tom would have had to incriminate himself. No fool, Tom.

“We was up on Parker Road, way on the other side of town,” Tom said, “casing another service station, when that liquor-store killing went down. Heck, we never held up nothing but service stations. They was our specialty.”

Which was true, Nudger had to admit. Colt had done a prison stretch for armed robbery after sticking up service stations. And all the other robberies he’d been tied to this time around were of service stations. The liquor store was definitely a departure in his MO, one not noted as such in court during Curtis Colt’s rush to judgment.

“I’m looking at your hair,” Nudger said.

“Huh? What about my hair?” Tom leaned his thin body back away from the table.

“It’s in your favor. Your hair didn’t grow that long in the time since the liquor-store killing. The witnesses described the getaway-car driver as having shorter, curlier hair, like Colt’s, and a mustache.”

“Tell you the truth,” Tom said miserably, “me and Curtis was kinda the same type. So to confuse any witnesses, in case we got caught, I’d tuck up my long hair and wear a wig that looked like Curtis’ hair. Lots of people seen us like that. I burned the wig soon as Curtis got arrested. My mustache was real, like Curtis’. I shaved it off a month ago. We did look alike at a glance; sorta like brothers. So my long hair ain’t in my favor at all.”

Nudger bought that explanation; it wasn’t uncommon for a team of holdup men to play tricks to confuse witnesses and the police. Too many lawyers had gotten into the game. The robbers, like the cops, were taking the advice of their attorneys and thinking about a potential trial even before the crime was committed. Nudger wondered if, in this pragmatic society, crime would someday become respectable because of all the jobs it created.

Nudger looked at Tom. “Is there any way you can prove you were across town at the time of the murder?” he asked, staring at the two miniature Nudgers gazing back at him from the mirror lenses.

“There’s just my word,” Tom said, rather haughtily.

Nudger didn’t bother telling him what that was worth when it came to checking the momentum of the wheels of justice; why antagonize him?

“I just want you to believe Curtis is innocent,” Tom said with desperation. “Because he is! And so am I!”

And Nudger understood why Tom was here, taking the risk. If Colt was guilty of murder, Tom was guilty of being an accessory to the crime. Once Curtis Colt had ridden the lightning, Tom would have looming over him the possibility of an almost certain life sentence, and perhaps even his own ride, if he was ever caught. It wasn’t necessary actually to squeeze the trigger to be convicted of murder.

“I need for you to try extra hard to prove Curtis is innocent,” Tom said. “I’m asking you please not to give up on this case.” His thin lips quivered, as if current were already singing through them. He was near tears; he’d thought he was a big boy, but now he was scared. He might be only in his early twenties behind those disguising lenses, really just a frightened kid trapped by time and circumstance. Nudger felt sorry for him; he should have felt sorrier for the old man and woman who’d been shot, but Tom was here, in front of him and looking into the black abyss. Every crime created its multitude of victims.

“Are you giving Candy Ann the money to pay me?” Nudger asked.

“Some of it, yeah.” Tom sniffed and wiped his bony wrist across his nose, touched a finger up inside the mirror lenses as if scratching an itch. “From what Curtis and me stole. And I gave Curtis’ share to Candy Ann, too. Me and her are fifty-fifty on this.”

Dirty money, Nudger thought. Dirty job. Probably a hopeless job. Still, if Curtis Colt happened to be innocent, trying to prove it against the clock was a job that needed to be done. It would be a particularly tough job, considering the political climate; the powers-that-be wanted to send someone out via high voltage, and Curtis Colt was all but strapped in the chair for the final ride.

“Okay,” Nudger said, “I’ll stay on the case.”

“Thanks,” Tom said. His narrow hand crept impulsively across the table and squeezed Nudger’s arm in gratitude, like the tentative hand of a lover. Tom had the sallow look of an addict; Nudger wondered if the long-sleeved shirt was to hide needle tracks as well as the tattoo.

Tom pushed away from the table and stood up, bravado in his exaggerated actions. The play he was starring in was good for at least another act; he was the desperado man of action again. These guys were all alike. He stood poised like a macho movie star about to spring into action on the “Late Show,” a young Burt Lancaster but without the muscles and in ill health.

“Stay here with Candy Ann for ten minutes while I make myself scarce,” he said. Not a bad line. Where was Denise Darcel? “I gotta know I wasn’t followed. You understand it ain’t that I don’t trust you; a man in my position has gotta be sure, is all.”

“I understand. Go.”

Tom gave a spooked smile, like a wary animal sprung from a trap, and slipped out the door. Nudger heard his running footfalls on the gravel outside the trailer. Nudger was forty-three years old and ten pounds overweight; lean and speedy Tom needed a ten-minute head start like Sinatra needed singing lessons.

After a few minutes, the crickets began screaming again outside, a shrill expression of everybody’s desperation. Tom had gotten clear, but he would never really be free.

“Is Tom a user?” Nudger asked Candy Ann.

“Sometimes. But my Curtis never touched no dope.”

“You know I have to tell the police about this conversation, don’t you?”

Candy Ann nodded. “That’s why we arranged it this way. They won’t be any closer to Tom than before.”

“They might want to talk to you, Candy Ann.”

She shrugged her thin shoulders. “It don’t matter. I don’t know where Tom is, nor even his real name nor how to get in touch with him. And he’s got no reason to get in touch with me. He’ll find out all he needs to know about Curtis by reading the papers.”

“Do you know that Lester Colt followed me when I left here earlier this evening?”

“Lester? Curtis’ brother?”

“That’s the Lester.”

“He’s harmless, but he ain’t quite right in the head. Ain’t been since he was born, I been told. He’s Curtis’ big brother, but he’s always been more like a little brother. What was he doing around here?”

“My impression is he’s smitten with you and wanted to see you.”

“Me? Lester has a crush on me?” Her eyes opened so wide, the whites were visible all around the blue irises. She seemed astounded.

“And he has fierce loyalty for Curtis. He thinks you shouldn’t see any other men while Curtis is alive, or until a respectable time has passed if they do execute Curtis.”

“Curtis took good care of Lester when they was kids,” Candy Ann said. “Looked out for him. Lester ain’t bright, but he’s smart enough to remember that. Down deep, Curtis is a decent man, Mr. Nudger. The most decent I ever met.”

Nudger stood up. “I thought you should know about Lester’s feelings, and about the fact that the police might want some of your time.”

“I can handle both those problems, Mr. Nudger.” There was coy confidence in her little-girl smile. Undoubtedly she’d been the one who’d worked out the details of his conversation with Tom in such a way that Tom remained safe from the law. And her method was effective; there was no way to wring Tom’s whereabouts out of her, or even prove the midnight conversation had taken place.

“You have a surprisingly devious mind,” Nudger told her, “considering that you look like Barbie Doll’s country kid cousin.”

Candy Ann smiled wider, surprised and pleased. Looking at her made Nudger think of misty pastures and buttermilk biscuits and fields of bright sunflowers. And even with that she managed to stir a raw carnal yearning. She was one of those rare women with a direct line to the male libido. Possibly it made little difference what she looked like; something in her sent out arousing vibrations.

“Do you think I’m attractive, Mr. Nudger?” She asked it as if she really didn’t know the answer.

“Yeah. And painfully young.”

For just a moment Nudger almost thought of Curtis Colt as a lucky man. Then he looked at his watch, saw that his ten minutes were about up, and said good-bye. He felt old, old. . . .

If the Barbie Doll had a kid cousin, the Ken Doll probably had one somewhere, too. And time was something you couldn’t deny. Ask Curtis Colt.

X

udger was up early the next morning, sitting in the Volkswagen on Page Boulevard with his camera, a cup of lukewarm coffee, and breakfast. The camera was a 35-millimeter Minolta equipped with an 80-200-mil
limeter zoom lens. Breakfast was an Egg McMuffin.

From where he was parked, he could see the run-down neighborhood in the next block, the back and side of Calvin Smith’s small, white-frame subdivision house. Smith was the warehouseman Benedict was sure was perpetrating an insurance fraud. There were some lawn chairs on a makeshift brick patio, a black kettle barbecue pit, and a rusty ’68 Buick up on blocks in the backyard. In the carport sat Smith’s ten-year-old Chevy. The guy looked almost as broke as Nudger; for a moment Nudger considered driving away and letting him collect his insurance settlement for his injured back. Even if he didn’t have an injured back.