John Lutz - Ride the lightning

"It is. But the guy was a pro; he did most of his work on my body. Very efficient work."

Hammersmith paused in lifting a piece of toast. Some of the strawberry jelly slipped off and dropped onto his plate near the eggs. "I noticed you were walking kinda stiff. Much damage?"

"A cracked rib maybe. And bruises inside and out."

"Know who the guy was?"

"No."

Hammersmith shook his head. "Even if you did, unless you had proof, witnesses, there wouldn't be much we could do. Have a word with the guy, maybe, throw a scare into him."

"He'd probably scare whoever you sent to talk to him," Nudger said, thinking that eyewitnesses or the lack of them were causing him a lot of trouble lately. "The real reason I wanted to tell you about this was because of who might have aimed him at me."

Nudger told Hammersmith about the big man trying to warn him off a case, about noticing Randy Gantner's truck near Edna Fine's apartment, about Danny seeing the oversized assailant with Gantner yesterday.

Hammersmith didn't like hearing any of it. He ate slowly while Nudger talked, as if he were chewing something that might contain a hidden sharp bone.

"It has to be the Curtis Colt case the strong-arm guy was warning me about," Nudger said.

"So it seems, Nudge."

Nudger reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the slip of paper Danny had given him. He smoothed it out and handed it across the table to Hammersmith. "Danny got the truck's license number when it was parked across the street from my office. I doubt if it will mean much, but it's worth running an owner check on it."

Hammersmith folded the scrap of paper carefully and slid it into his pocket. His usually smooth, evenly florid complexion was mottled, and there were white lines at the corners of his thin lips. "You want protection, Nudge?"

"Sure. Whatever can be spared." He knew that couldn't be much, and his office and apartment weren't actually within city limits.

"I'll call the Maplewood police; they'll have their cars keep an eye on your building, watch for an old pickup truck with this plate number. And a St. Louis Second District car can swing by there now and then; you're only a few blocks outside the Second. I'll pass the word."

The waitress brought Nudger's coffee, set it on the table, then carefully laid the check in a damp spot near Hammersmith.

"Who's trying to scare me away and why?" Nudger asked. "What are they worried about?"

Hammersmith put down his fork. "The Colt case is closed, Nudge. Finished business." But there wasn't much certainty in his voice. The acid of doubt had begun its work.

"I wish for you that were true," Nudger said.

"You talked to Colt in Jeff City," Hammersmith said. "What did you get out of him?"

"He said he was guilty. He seemed sincere."

"The little bastard," Hammersmith said. Nudger didn't know quite what he meant by that, didn't ask.

"Siberling thinks Colt's innocent," Nudger said.

"What would you expect? Siberling is his lawyer."

"And a game one. He's not just talking; he still believes in his client. Really believes."

Hammersmith sipped his coffee and stared out the window at heavy traffic on Big Bend. A tractor-trailer had turned the corner at the post office at a bad angle and was causing a backup at the Stop sign. A bald man in a shiny red Corvette convertible raced his engine. A driver up the block leaned on his horn. Two skinny teenage girls who'd been crossing the street giggled and pretended to direct traffic. Nothing moved.

Hammersmith said, "Christ!" about the traffic or about Curtis Colt.

"You're not eating," Nudger said.

Hammersmith didn't look at him. "I'm not hungry anymore."

Nudger reached over and got a strip of bacon from Hammersmith's plate, ate it, then lifted the check from the puddle of water.

"My treat," he said. He stood up.

Hammersmith nodded, still staring out at the sunbaked street beyond the comfortable dimness of the restaurant, wrestling with a doubt that came too late.

Nudger patted him on the shoulder and left.

Outside, reason had prevailed. Or maybe it had been the threat of imminent violence from harried drivers late for work. The truck that had caused all the traffic problems was half a block away.

Things were moving again. Too fast.

Nudger got into Danny's Plymouth, twisted the ignition key, and joined the traffic on Big Bend. He didn't feel like going to his office; better to give Hammersmith time to get to the Third and phone the Maple- wood police about protection. He made a right turn off Big Bend onto Shrewsbury, got onto Highway 44, and drove east into the still low, brilliant sun.

Even the lowered visor didn't do much to block the sunlight. Nudger squinted along for a few miles, then exited onto Eighteenth Street, made his way over to Grattan, and found a parking spot across the street from Malcolm Bliss Hospital.

Malcolm Bliss was a state mental hospital, the one where St. Louis police took the violently insane directly from crime scenes. He had taken a few people there himself years ago as a patrol-car cop. A tunnel connected this hospital with the larger state mental hospital on Arsenal, and if the violent needed confinement and treatment of long duration, they were taken through the tunnel to a world most of us only glimpse in dark imagination. During her marriage to Ralph, right after the death of their youngest child, Claudia had gone through that tunnel.

Nudger entered the hospital and went to the point of her departure and return, the office of Dr. Edwin Oliver.

A nurse had told Oliver Nudger was on his way. The office door was open and Oliver was standing up behind his desk when Nudger knocked perfunctorily on the doorjamb and stepped inside. On the desk were a telephone, some stacks of file folders, a coffee mug on a glass coaster, and a twisted- wire sculpture of a man and a woman dancing. The sculpture looked as if it had been fashioned from a coat hanger, and there was a desperate sort of abandon to it; Nudger wondered if it was the work of one of Oliver's patients.

"Good to see you again, Mr. Nudger." Oliver offered his hand to shake. He was fortyish, large and in good shape, with leprechaun features that suited neither his size nor his profession.

Nudger shook the strong dry hand and sat down in a chair in front of the desk. He noticed that Oliver's small, sparse office was painted exactly the same color as the room in which he'd talked with Colt at the state prison. Maybe the state had gotten an incredible buy on green paint. Or maybe Scott Scalla owned stock in a paint company.

"Is this about Claudia?" Oliver asked. He and Nudger had saved her life two years ago. They both had an interest in her, Oliver professional, Nudger personal.

"It is," Nudger said. "Has she been to see you lately?"

"Not for six months, since our regular sessions ended. Is she all right?"

"I think so," Nudger said, "but I'm not sure."

He told Oliver about Claudia and Biff Archway. Oliver listened patiently, his pointy features intense, like a sage creature from Irish folklore. Even his ears were pointed. Occasionally he absently touched a small scab on his smooth chin where he'd nicked himself shaving.

"Did you come here for Claudia or for yourself?" he asked, smiling faintly.

"Send me a bill and you'll find out," Nudger said. He was annoyed by the question. Oliver sensed it and stopped smiling, then put his serious expression back on. He'd urged Nudger to come to him whenever anything extraordinary was going on with Claudia, hadn't he?

He sat silently behind his desk for a while as if he were alone, looking thoughtful and inching this way and that in his swivel chair. Nudger had closed the door when he came in; on the other side of it now were shuffling footsteps in the hall, voices arguing, fading. Someone kept asking, "Why in the hell didn't you? Why didn't you?…"