When Nudger got back to his office, he checked the answering machine and heard Claudia's voice tell him she was tired of trying to reach him and they could talk tonight in the usual way at the usual time. She sounded somewhat bemused that she would want to talk with him, maybe even slightly irritated. It was as if the recorder's tone had sounded before she could hang up, signaling go, and she'd had little choice but to be polite and postpone the conversation rather than cancel it. One of life's little electronic traps.
Quite an invention, the telephone. Nudger wondered if Alexander Graham Bell had ever suspected that someday the thing would speak back of its own accord, that it would bring so much heartache as well as convenience. He might have. Maybe he'd mentioned it. Nudger tried to remember the Don Ameche film but couldn't.
He got the phone directory from the desk's bottom left drawer and leafed through its dogeared thin pages, squinting at its headache-inducing fine print until he found a listing for A. Boyington. There was no Agnes Boyington listed. A. Boyington's address was in the city's fashionable central west end.
Nudger slid the phone over to him and began to punch out the number, then he hesitated and replaced the receiver. He decided not to use the phone.
The A. Boyington in the directory might not be Agnes, but the chance that it was made it worth Nudger's time to drive to the address to try to take her by surprise, so she'd be unprepared for their conversation.
Nudger thought it might be fun to catch her in her old clothes painting the porch glider. Or cleaning up after the dog or masturbating or watching "Family Feud" on TV.
If Agnes Boyington did such things.
XII
The A. Boyington address belonged to a large, squarish two-story house on Lindell Boulevard, a wide four- lane street bordering Forest Park. Though Lindell was heavily traveled, especially during morning and evening rush hours, the houses were divorced from the traffic, set well back on meticulously tended artificial-looking green lawns, and were expensive and luxurious. This house was of white brick, with a red tile roof, black shutters, and a colonial porch that boasted tall fluted white columns supporting a peaked roof with its own tiny cupola.
Nudger looked the place over with some envy and an inevitable subtle feeling of inferiority, as if he had no business being here in his down-at-the-heels shoes and clattering little car. His very presence was an affront. Agnes Boyington was a woman of at least moderate wealth; Nudger was no stranger to the cluttered aisles of K-mart.
He drove up the hedge-bordered, smooth blacktop driveway and parked by the porch. As he climbed from the car he noticed that shade trees-oaks and fast-growing maples-had been strategically planted so that the street was barely visible despite its relative nearness. The occasional swishing of passing cars was a mere suggestion of Lindell Boulevard's presence. From the rise on which the house sat, he could see the park across the street, a leafy expanse of green.
On the porch was a push button for a doorbell, as well as a fancy brass knocker at eye level on the door. Nudger ignored the button. He'd rattled the round brass knocker only once before Agnes Boyington opened the door.
Cool air from the house drifted out. Or was Agnes Boyington emitting that coolness?
"So, Mr. Nudger," she said, as if not at all surprised to find him standing on her porch. She was dressed up, wearing a dark blue dress, navy-blue high heels, an expensive- looking double-looped pearl necklace. She was also wearing white gloves that extended most of the way up her forearms. Nudger didn't think anyone wore white gloves anymore except to keep their hands warm. Yet here it was a hot summer evening and Agnes Boyington had on spotless soft white gloves. Nudger supposed that was class. He could think of no other explanation.
"We have matters to discuss," Nudger said.
"I have an appointment in half an hour," she told him, "but I suppose I have time to write your check." She turned and went back inside, leaving the tall door open as an invitation to Nudger. Or maybe he was expected to wait on the porch. He walked inside.
He was standing in a hall with white walls and a ter- razzo floor of many subdued colors. There were no wall hangings and only a few pieces of furniture: a complexly constructed brass coatrack that looked like a metallic tree without leaves, an oval mahogany table on which sat a fancy fat lamp with a Tiffany glass shade. Agnes Boyington was leaning over the table, opening her purse to get out her checkbook.
"I didn't come for a check," Nudger told her.
She turned to face him, cocking her head back and to the side in the distinctive Boyington manner. "Oh? Then just why are you here?"
"To ask about Hugo Rumbo."
She gazed with icy appraisal at Nudger, as if trying to see right through the front of his skull into the machinations of his mind. She was an accomplished player on the board of life. She knew how to compete in whatever game he might initiate. "I know Mr. Rumbo," she said. "Why are you inquiring about him? Do you need the services of a handyman?"
"I sift my own swimming pool," Nudger told her. "I'm inquiring to see if it was you who arranged an unpleasant encounter between Hugo Rumbo and me."
"Encounter?" She was amused.
"Yes, yesterday. It seemed to me that Rumbo was in a destructive frame of mind."
"He threatened you?" Nicely feigned disbelief.
"I think he intended to go beyond threats." Nudger mentally gagged himself. Why should he carry on this conversation on Agnes Boyington's genteel terms, using innuendos and euphemisms? He said, "He was determined to beat the shit out of me."
She raised her eyebrows, not from a shocked sense of propriety, but in mock concern. "Then he implied violence."
"He implied it strongly. There's no room for doubt; he was going to work me over."
"He struck you?"
"He would have hit me several times, I'm sure, only he was interrupted."
Agnes Boyington smiled and shook her head. "You're mistaken, I'm certain. Oh, I can understand how it might happen. Mr. Rumbo has an assertive nature."
"So does an MX missile."
She zipped her purse closed. No check for Nudger now, even if he changed his mind. That was what happened to bad boys who balked, who had nasty tongues. "Mr. Rumbo also has a loyal and helpful nature. He's eager to please. It could be that he knew of my dealings with you and decided on his own to talk with you in a firm manner that might persuade you to see reason."
"You hired him to rough me up," Nudger told her, "so I'd accept your check and drop the case without telling Jeanette."
"I hire Mr. Rumbo for odd jobs," Agnes Boyington said, "not to commit mayhem. What he does on his own time, away from my property, is his business." Again the cold, sweet Boyington smile. "Of course I pay him very well."
Nudger saw that it was pointless to argue with Agnes Boyington. He'd learned what he came to find out. She'd had Hugo Rumbo follow him for the purpose of intimidation, as insurance that Nudger would accept her offer and, in effect, work for her instead of for Jeanette. He'd learned also the extent to which Agnes Boyington could deceive herself. It was probable that she habitually thought in the self-serving, convoluted fashion in which she'd just described her employment of Rumbo. Some people could rationalize anything. Nudger wouldn't be surprised if she and Rumbo really believed Rumbo had acted entirely on his own; they were both the type that drove polygraph operators to distraction.
"I do have to leave now, Mr. Nudger," Agnes said. She tugged at her white gloves to tighten them around her fingers. "I have an appointment that must be kept." Stepping adroitly around him, so as not to soil herself with physical contact, she reached, stretching, and opened the door for him.