He remembered then: halfway up the aisle straight down from the "G" in DRUGSTORE. He found the Volkswagen hiding behind a fancy travel van, got in and rolled down the windows to allow some of the superheated air to escape, and then drove from the lot.
On Manchester Road, halfway back to the office, he became increasingly interested in the old Buick that had been lumbering along behind him for the past two miles. He made a few turns, a slight detour that brought him back to Manchester Road, traveling in the same direction.
The Buick remained behind him, its weary chrome face smiling a sad and implacable gape-grilled grin.
Nudger reached for his antacid tablets and thumbed back the aluminum foil. He made it a double, chewing the two tablets in time with the clattering tempo of the engine as he drove toward the Third District Police Station.
Periodic checks in the rearview mirror indicated that the Buick was steady on the pace, perhaps even closer, still grinning knowingly at him like a wily, patient predator. This must be what Satchel Paige had warned about. Nudger's stomach turned in on itself like one of the legendary black pitcher's hard curveballs.
He speeded up. The Buick gained speed as if attached by a string to the Volkswagen's rear bumper. The old car's windshield was tinted and Nudger couldn't get so much as a glimpse of the driver, but he had a firm idea of who might be behind the wheel.
Nudger took the sweeping cloverleaf onto the highway to downtown, gripping the steering wheel with both hands and holding his speed at a steady, legal fifty-five. The Buick stayed with him, hovering near like the angel of death. Those old cars sure had personalities.
The people in the cars passing Nudger didn't glance at him; they were totally unaware of their near-proximity to such acute fear. It gave Nudger a helpless, lonely feeling. The worst thing about any kind of real suffering was that it was a solitary exercise.
He didn't feel the grip of that fear begin to loosen until he exited on Twelfth Street, drove several blocks, and turned into the blacktop parking lot behind the Third District Station. He pulled the Volkswagen into a slot near the brick building, turned off the engine, and leaned back in his sticky vinyl seat in relief.
Then he glanced into the side mirror and fear lanced through his bowels like a shaft of ice, stunning him.
Incredible! Nudger had been followed before and successfully used this ploy to find sanctuary. But not this time. The hulking Buick had followed him right into the police department's parking lot.
It lurched to a stop close behind him and sat blocking the Volkswagen in its parking slot, its prehistoric giant engine rumbling with throaty, ominous power.
The rusty door on the driver's side swung open. A man got out and stood up straight. He was wearing a bright yellow, billed cap with CATERPILLAR lettered in black across the front. "Caterpillar" was a brand of bulldozers and other earth-moving and heavy equipment. The man looked like heavy equipment, himself. He was tall, wide, and ugly.
VIII
Nudger reluctantly got out of his car and stood waiting for the big man who had emerged like Prometheus from the Buick. There was no doubt that this was the man Danny had described, the man who had waited for Nudger across the street from the doughnut shop. He was several inches over six feet tall, with a bull neck that strained his shirt collar and merged with wide sloping shoulders. He had an often-broken nose, and a brow built up by scar tissue from inept cornermen who didn't know how to treat cuts. His lantern jaw suggested he'd been a boxer who could take a punch and absorb much punishment, and who had paid in blood for his dubious ability to continue standing. He bunched his shoulders and slowly advanced on Nudger with ponderous and obvious malevolence.
When he was about ten feet away, he smiled with bad teeth. Even with good teeth, it wouldn't have been a smile to thaw cold hearts.
"Nudger," he said, "you an' me are gonna have an unfriendly little chat."
Nudger glanced around desperately at the dozens of empty cars baking in the sun. This was the lot where most of the on-duty cops left their private cars. Near the far exit were a couple of parked cruisers, representing the only city vehicles. There wasn't a uniform in sight. Nudger's stomach felt as if it were searching for a way out as frantically as he was. It emitted a growl that sounded something like "Please!" He gulped back the bitter bile of fear as he saw the huge man's powerful gnarled fingers flexing and unflexing around a defenseless red rubber ball.
"They say that's great for strengthening the forearms," Nudger said, pointing to the tortured, misshapen ball. He thought that if a ball could scream, this one would be howling.
"What they say is true," the man said. His stained, crooked smile turned absolutely nasty.
Nudger's gaze fixed for a hopeful few seconds on the double doors of the building's rear exit. He prayed that a dozen blue uniforms would pour out on their way to lunch or anywhere else. Wasn't this about the time for a shift change? Maybe the entire day shift would suddenly emerge, streaming toward their cars. Maybe the cavalry would charge right onto the parking lot. Custer, Lieutenant Reno, the Johns Payne and Wayne. All of them, riding hell-for-leather, maybe singing.
It hadn't happened yet, except on screen. And Nudger knew he hadn't paid admission or tuned in the television Late Show. He was on his own.
"This is an odd place for our conversation," he croaked, stringing out time. "Right here in the police department parking lot."
The big man's wide jaw dropped a few notches. Doubt changed to slow comprehension in his eyes as he glanced around seeking repudiation of what Nudger had said.
Nudger managed to draw a breath. Was this possible? It had never occurred to him that the man might have followed him automatically, might not know where they were standing.
The shelflike brow knotted in a frown. Nudger saw the man's lips move as he read the black-and-white sign near the corner of the building, dread words mouthed silently: THIRD DISTRICT, SAINT LOUIS METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT.
Just then a uniformed cop appeared on the sidewalk bordering the lot, munching an apple as he walked toward one of the parked cruisers.
The big man saw him and reeled backward, stunned by total realization, and the rubber ball dropped from his uncurled fingers, bounced against the side of Nudger's car, and then rolled back toward the man's size "huge" wingtip shoes. Then under one of the shoes, as the man began hurrying back toward the Buick. He slipped, grunted in surprise as he flailed backward, and hit the blacktop as if a crane had dropped him from twenty feet up. Nudger winced at the melon-hollow sound of the massive head bouncing off the hard surface.
He started to yell to attract the cop's attention, then realized that the fallen giant was blocked from view by the parked cars and decided it would be wiser to remain silent. Besides, it seemed sinful to disturb a man enjoying an apple in the Eden of the inner city.
Nudger knelt and worked the prone man's wallet out from his hip pocket, flipped it open and found identification. The man groaned and started to sit up.
Nudger dropped the wallet, stood tall and shouted, "Hey!"
The uniform had been about to climb into the nearest parked cruiser. He stared at Nudger, then slammed the car door behind him as he started to walk across the lot. When he caught sight of the large wingtip shoes protruding from behind the Volkswagen, he tossed his apple core aside and his stride became more purposeful.