John Lutz - Ride the lightning

When he drove her home and was parked in front of her trailer, she asked if he wanted to come in for another drink. From a more worldly woman Nudger would have suspected the invitation was a come-on, but Candy Ann might only have served him lemonade, maybe with gin in it, and more talk about Curtis.

He declined politely, waited until she was safely inside with a light on, then put the VW into gear and drove down Tranquillity Lane and out of the trailer park.

The night was finally cool. He drove fast with the windows down, listening to the rhythmic boom of air pressure in the back of the car and to some B. B. King blues on the radio.

All that electric-guitar-backed energy blaring from the speaker made Nudger realize he was tired. Fifteen minutes after he'd let himself into his apartment on Sutton, the phone rang.

It was Harold Benedict. "Nudger," he said, "I need to talk to you about that insurance job."

"Calvin Smith? He of the bad back?"

"That's the one."

"Weren't the photographs okay?"

"Oh, yeah, sure. It's something else. Something altogether different. There might be another hitch in denying the claim."

Benedict sounded not quite himself. "What do you mean?" Nudger asked. "It seemed locked up to me. The guy did everything but an Olympic gymnastic routine right there in his driveway, and you've got it all in graphic detail, in living, incriminating color."

"It isn't the photographs, Nudger. We need to meet and talk about this case. I'm near your place now."

Nudger looked around his unkempt apartment. It needed vacuuming. Needed shoveling. Then he considered how the office looked. He said, "Why don't you come on over?"

"No," Benedict said hastily. "Better if we meet somewhere. I'm at the Steak 'n' Shake restaurant on Manchester. The one in Maplewood. Can you meet me here?"

"In fifteen minutes," Nudger said, and hung up.

Steak 'n' Shake had been on Manchester in Maplewood for as long as Nudger could remember. It was part of a chain that years ago had specialized in curb service to teenagers, a place where they could show off their cars while attractive waitresses in unisex black-and-white uniforms glided over with trays of hamburgers and french fries, then retreated to their station, full well knowing they were being inspected by the customers. Tradition had fallen, and now the restaurant catered to an older crowd and no longer offered curb service.

When Nudger entered through the glass double doors, he saw Benedict seated at a back booth. There were about a dozen other customers scattered around the place, most of them at the counter up front. It was a diverse bunch. There were two bearded bikers in leather jackets at the counter, a young couple with a baby in a front booth, two elderly well- dressed women in another booth, not far from three thirty- ish guys quaffing Cokes and wearing service-station shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Over in a corner some teenagers were chewing with their mouths open and giggling. Benedict, short, balding, wearing a white shirt and striped tie, rounded out the group nicely. Or did Nudger round it out, the fortyish guy in the rumpled sport jacket and a day's dusting of whiskers?

Benedict was having chili mac and a Coke. When he peered up at Nudger over the dark rims of his thick glasses, he stopped chewing, swallowed, and stood up halfway. His white paper napkin slid from his lap onto the floor, but he didn't seem to notice. A slight breeze caught it and wrapped it around his ankle, so lightly that he didn't feel it.

They shook hands and Nudger sat down across the table from him.

"This is good stuff," Benedict commented, settling back down and motioning toward the chili mac. He took another generous forkful.

A waitress who walked as if she had an ingrown toenail limped over to the table, and Nudger ordered a vanilla milk shake.

Sore foot or not, it didn't take her long to fill his order. When the shake had arrived, Nudger ate the cherry off the top and asked Benedict what was the problem with the Calvin Smith insurance case.

"Nothing," Benedict said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He took a sip of Coke. "That's not really what I wanted to talk to you about."

Nudger felt a vague uneasiness. He looked out the window, across the street, at a used-car lot that was closed and dark. The dull headlights of the front row of cars stared back dispassionately at him. A few of the chrome grilles were smiling.

"I didn't want to tell you the truth when I called," Benedict said, "because your phone might be tapped."

"Why would anyone want to tap my phone?" Nudger asked, remembering some of his recent conversations with Claudia. Nobody's business, those. Then he remembered that Edna Fine's phone had been tapped.

"I've heard rumors that concern you," Benedict told him, putting down his fork. "You're trying to muck up the works in the Curtis Colt execution."

"That's no rumor," Nudger said. "It's a fact, and no secret."

Benedict waved a smooth hand. A diamond ring picked up the overhead fluorescent light and glinted. "No, no. What I've heard-and don't repeat me-is that someone high in state government is displeased by your enthusiastic pursuit of clemency for Colt."

Nudger sat back, his fingertips caressing the cold curve of the milk-shake glass. The coolness from the damp glass seemed to run up his arm and throughout his body.

"Scott Scalla?" he said.

Benedict shrugged. "I don't know. More likely someone in his administration whose political wagon is hitched to Scalla's rising star." He forked in more chili mac. "Politics, Nudger, make more difference in people's lives than they imagine."

"Someone's been trying to warn me off the case in very physical terms," Nudger said, "completely ignoring Roberts' Rules of Order."

Benedict nodded. "I know."

"The governor," Nudger said, shaking his head, "the governor of Missouri wouldn't hire muscle."

"Probably not," Benedict said wryly, "considering he has the Highway Patrol at his disposal. The thing is, if you do manage to come up with something that delays the execution, that will look bad for Scalla, because Curtis Colt is his project. And if they do go ahead and execute Colt on schedule, and then it turns out you've found evidence of his innocence, that's catastrophic for Scalla. He will have personally railroaded an innocent man to his death in order to get elected. There aren't a lot of repeat votes in that."

"But what if Colt really is innocent?"

"At this point," Benedict said, "that's almost irrelevant to any one other than Colt."

"And my client," Nudger pointed out.

"Yes," Benedict agreed sadly, "your client."

Nudger sucked milk shake up through his straw and thought about what Benedict had told him. If it was true, Nudger had gone beyond stirring up hornet nests and had antagonized a den of bears. That was scary. On the other hand, some pieces here didn't quite fit.

"I think one or more of the witnesses is trying to scare me off the case," he said. "One of them, a guy named Gant- ner, was seen with the strong-arm type who kicked me around my office."

"Isn't Gantner the witness who works for Kalas Construction?"

Nudger nodded.

"Kalas Construction does a lot of state highway work, Nudger." Benedict raised his eyebrows above the dark frames of his glasses.

So there it was, a possible connection between Scalla and Gantner. Possible.

"I want to stress," Benedict said, "that what I've told you is only rumor. A friend of a friend in Jefferson City passed it on. Maybe it's the sort of story that would naturally grow out of the fact that Scalla is so eager to see Colt burn. I don't know. I thought you should be told, though. It might put things in a different light for you." He wielded his fork quickly and nimbly and finished off his chili mac.