John Lutz - Ride the lightning

"Okay, Mr. Nudger. It's number Two-twenty."

"You told me that."

"Yeah, I did, didn't I."

"I'll check in with you from time to time today to make sure you're all right," he said.

She thanked him, staying on the line and forcing him to hang up first. He wondered if Scott Scalla knew there was a woman who'd gladly sit on Curtis Colt's lap in the electric chair. Would the governor understand that? He wasn't sure he understood it himself.

The media began showing up intermittently at Nudger's office. He no-commented a feature writer from the Post, and did the same to a reporter who phoned from the Globe. When the West County Journal called, Nudger knew the media might not give up for a while. He sympathized with the news folks. They had their job to do; he just didn't like being their job.

To assuage his conscience, he phoned Ron Elz, a columnist at the Globe, and gave him the story, but on the condition it wouldn't appear until the Sunday column. He could trust Elz, who had a high regard for the truth and would print it straight. He was somebody Scalla couldn't get to, if the governor's office actually was involved in trying to intimidate Nudger.

When the St. Louis Voyeur, a local tabloid scandal sheet, called, Nudger decided it was time to get out of the office and away from leading questions.

He accomplished this by driving around town and trying to talk to the witnesses again, really making a pest of himself.

Edna Fine was still afraid and grieving over the death of Matilda; Nudger saw that talking to her was hopeless and painful and left her alone. Sanders wasn't home, and according to his boss at Recap City, he was off work and away on vacation. No one else was available to talk with Nudger. He even tried Randy Gantner's apartment at the Fox and Hounds, but he was told by an emaciated blonde at the pool that Gantner hadn't been home for several days and was probably out of town.

Finally Nudger had a late lunch and drove to the Ramada Inn to see how Candy Ann was holding up.

She was alone in 220, looking as if she might have been crying, yet she seemed calm. The room was one of the cheaper ones, but she thought it was palatial. And the soda machine was right down the hall. Free ice and everything.

Nudger brought her some hamburgers from a nearby Hardee's. She devoured them as if she hadn't eaten for years and had just been reminded there was such a thing as food. Then they sat and drank Classic Cokes from the machine. She laced her Cokes with gin. Nudger thought that was a good idea. He listened while she talked about Curtis Colt, and how life had been where she was raised in northwestern Arkansas: rough, nothing like the Waltons' life in reruns on TV. "Rocks," she said. "Arkansas soil don't grow no crop better than rocks. It's a hardscrabble way to live, Mr. Nudger." A way to live that Curtis Colt had rescued her from, and now she was trying to rescue him in return and not doing so well.

It was almost evening when she sat back in her chair and started to doze off. She snored softly and delicately; even that generated sex appeal. He shook her gently and told her he was going.

"There isn't anything more we can do now," he said. "You might as well rest here."

She nodded, staring up at him with wide but sleepy blue eyes. Doll's eyes. A doll in trouble in real life.

"You want me to stay longer?" he asked.

"No," she murmured, "Mr. Siberling's coming here this evening to hope with me."

He would be, Nudger thought. But Candy Ann would be okay. Siberling would lie to her far more plausibly than Nudger could.

Nudger left her sleeping in the chair. Walking quietly, he locked the door carefully behind him.

Watching Candy Ann eat had made him hungry. He stopped for an early supper of Chicken McNuggets and french fries, then drove by his apartment to make sure no one from the news media was lurking about with pen and pad or recorder.

There was no one in sight. Once he managed to get inside, he closed the draperies, opened a can of beer, and settled back to watch a televised Cardinals-Mets game.

By the third inning the score was six to nothing, Cardinals, on their way to winning their seventh game in a row, and Nudger couldn't sit still any longer. His mind was on too many things other than the ball game. He was with Candy Ann in that tiny room at the Ramada Inn. He was with frightened Tom wherever Tom was. And he was with Curtis Colt in his cell on Death Row, waiting for morning and nine o'clock and high voltage.

Nudger knew whom he wanted to be with in reality. He switched off the TV and phoned Claudia.

When she answered, he didn't speak. He was afraid that if he did she'd find some reason for him not to come to her apartment.

He needed her presence, to see and touch her; he'd had enough of disembodied voices on the phone and people half removed from the world or distracted by grief. He didn't want to be alone tonight. Not through the dark hours of waiting. Siberling had told him there wouldn't be an outcome to the final appeal for Curtis Colt's life until morning. After a long, long night for a lot of people.

He hung up the phone and chewed a couple of antacid tablets, even though his stomach felt okay at the moment. Nights had always provided the toughest hours of Nudger's life, both professionally and personally. Crimes of madness and impulse were committed during the long summer days, but here in the simmering city on the Big Muddy, the calculating and the deadly waited for the comparative coolness of nightfall.

His stomach growled softly, as if to say thanks for the precaution. He flicked the rolled-up tinfoil from the antacid tablets into the wastebasket, then he hurried downstairs to where his car was parked behind the building.

Claudia's south St. Louis neighbors were passing the summer evening in their usual fashion. The men were outside mowing already mowed lawns or cleaning their cars, while the wives were inside cleaning ovens or going around baseboards with knife points to get all the dirt out. Scrubby Dutch, the predominantly German Catholics and Lutherans in this part of town were often called. It was a traditional, conservative area, maybe the character and backbone of the city, where everyone got along with everyone else as long as nobody marched out of step.

An old gray-haired guy wearing shorts and a sleeveless white undershirt leaned down to buff his Buick's hubcaps and glanced over at Nudger, then looked away. Somebody had the ball game tuned too loud on his radio. Jack Buck and Mike Shannon, the sports announcers whose voices permeated St. Louis summers, were shouting about a great play while the crowd roared.

As Nudger entered the building and climbed the stairs to Claudia's apartment, the nattering of the radio outside faded from his consciousness.

At Claudia's door, he cocked his head to the side and stood still, listening.

A violent thumping sound was coming from inside the apartment, and there were faint voices. And music. Something heavy was striking the floor regularly, hard enough for Nudger to pick up vibrations out in the hall.

He slowly rotated the doorknob and pushed in on the door. There was no give; it was locked. He fished his key from his pocket, inserted it in the lock, and twisted. Then he quietly opened the door a few inches and peered inside.

The first thing he saw was a husky, perspiring man standing with his fists on his hips. He was wearing only sweat-stained red jogging shorts, and he was staring down at the floor, at something out of Nudger's line of sight, grinning with handsome animal savagery. Nudger edged the door open an inch wider and saw the bare feet and legs of a woman lying on the carpet.

He threw the door full open and stepped inside, hearing the knob crack a chunk of plaster out of the wall.