Nudger felt the vague beginnings of heartburn. He thumbed back the wrapping on a roll of antacid tablets and tried to head off discomfort before it got a firm bite on him. He was aging alone in a hard world.
He had just popped a tablet into his mouth when she arrived. At least he assumed that the woman was Claudia.
Seen from across the street, she was indeed an average sort, medium height, dark-haired, wearing a plain but attractive blue or black dress that showed off a shapely figure somewhat on the thin side. She moved well, with a dancer's unconscious grace; Nudger noticed that about her immediately because her smooth, elegant walk was in contrast to her angled, gritty surroundings. She was clutching a straw purse beneath her arm, walking fast toward the apartment building from the direction of the bus stop.
Nudger had to move fast himself if he was going to intercept her. Chewing and swallowing the antacid tablet so hurriedly that it made him cough, he opened the car door, tugged the sweat-plastered back of his shirt away from the upholstery, and climbed stiffly out.
Claudia-if she was Claudia-noticed him approaching and broke stride ever so slightly. Fear registered in the sudden mechanical deliberation of her walk, the squared set of her shoulders.
She got prettier as Nudger got closer. Dark eyes, lean face, nose straight but too large, the perfectly turned calves and ankles of a shoe model. His eyes took it all in. He decided the nose gave her a look of nobility. Nudger hoped this was Claudia.
Time to find out. When he was a few yards from her, standing between her and the building entrance, he said, "Claudia?"
She seemed ill at ease, yet somehow relieved that he knew her name. He wasn't a complete stranger, out to snatch purse or virtue, an urban predator. On the other hand, he wasn't a handsome priest.
"You're Nudger," she said, in a voice he recognized from the nightlines.
He moved closer, trying not to loom. "Are you angry because I found you?"
"No. I'm angry because you searched for me. Now that you're here, it doesn't seem to matter much."
Nudger was trying to figure out just how to interpret that remark when she stepped around him and continued walking toward the doorway. What the hell? He followed her into the vestibule. She seemed to expect it. Or did she?
"We should talk," he said, trying to get their meeting on less confusing ground. On any kind of ground at all.
"I guess so." She started up the stairs and he trudged behind her, unable to stop watching the rhythmic sway of the dark dress about her legs. He could hear the soft rustle of its material against nylon. "I'm inviting you up so I can get in out of the heat," she said, turning her head slightly so she could lob the words back over her shoulder.
Nudger said nothing as they scaled the four flights of stairs to her apartment. He decided that the dress might be a cocktail-waitress uniform. She was wearing brown sandals that didn't go with the dress but were easy on the feet, and he had a hunch she was carrying highheeled shoes in her purse.
Without looking at him, she unlocked the door, pushed it open, and with a kind of shrug motioned for him to enter.
It was a small apartment, clean but in hectic disorder. Nudger could see into the kitchen. There were dishes, apparently washed and dried, stacked haphazardly on the sink counter. The living room, where he stood, was cluttered with paperback books, magazines, and newspapers. There was a threadbare green recliner in a corner, a sagging sofa, a coffee table marked with interlocking pale rings from damp glasses. On one end of the table sat an old Sylvania black-and-white portable TV, angled so it could be watched from the sofa. A print of water lilies, a Monet, hung on one of the pale-gray walls, and that was the only wall decoration. There were patches of gouged plaster and even a few nails protruding here and there, probably left by previous tenants. At the far end of the room was a closed door, no doubt leading to the bedroom. The telephone must be in the bedroom.
Claudia crossed the bare wood floor and switched on the window air conditioner. It rattled fiercely in protest, then settled into a steady hum and seemed resigned to doing the job.
"The place cools off fast," she said.
"Good," Nudger replied. He was still hot. His face felt greasy with perspiration. He wished he knew what to say to Claudia.
"Sit down, please," she invited.
He did, on the sofa. Its springs gave a metallic gurgle and it threatened to collapse. He watched Claudia. She watched him.
Crossing her arms tightly so that she was clutching her elbows, she said, "Now what? Gorilla jokes?"
"If you want to hear some."
"I don't."
"Downstairs on the sidewalk," Nudger said, "how did you know who I was?"
"Coreen phoned me at work and told me you'd been here."
"C. Davis's wife?"
"There is no C. Davis living downstairs other than Coreen. Single woman's subterfuge. It's necessary in this neighborhood."
Nudger stood up, paced to the window with his fingertips inserted in his back pockets, then turned to face Claudia. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have tracked you down against your wishes, but I couldn't resist. It's part of my line of work. I'm a private detective."
"Christ, is there still such a thing?"
"Only the best of us survive at the trade. We're primitives. Like iguanas and cockroaches, only not so ugly."
"As which?"
"Ah, I detect a healthy nastiness here."
She smiled. "Good old Nudger talk. It comforts."
"I'm glad it does. Genuinely glad."
"I suspect that genuineness is your talent and weakness. How did you locate me?"
Nudger explained it to her. She seemed not at all impressed by his cleverness.
"Can I get you something to drink?" she asked, as if suddenly not wanting to be remiss as a hostess. But she didn't apologize for the apartment's messiness. "I think there's beer."
"Water will do fine," Nudger said. He didn't like it that she'd immediately thought of him as the beer type. Which he was.
While she walked into the kitchen and he heard tap water running, Nudger glanced at the titles of the reading material scattered around the room. There was fiction, non- fiction, mystery, mainstream, everything.
"You read a lot," Nudger told her, when she returned and handed him a drinking glass full of water. There were three square ice cubes suspended in it, very clear ones, imprisoning muted reflected images.
"It's escape," she said. "I escape as often as I can."
"From what?"
Instead of answering, she turned, went back into the kitchen, and ran a glass of water for herself. When she returned she said, "Now what again?"
"When I was here earlier today there was a man knocking on your door. A skinny, annoyed little guy with dark hair. Looked like an ugly young Frank Sinatra. He wanted me to deliver a message to you. He and the kids will be out of town this weekend, so you can't see the kids. Who is he? Who are the kids?" That should give her plenty to chew on, Nudger thought.
Claudia raised her ice water to her lips and sipped, gazing calmly over the glass rim at Nudger, not answering.
"Another painful subject?"
She seemed to deliberate for a moment, then she said, "The man is Ralph Ferris, my former husband. The kids are Nora and Joan, our daughters."
And that gave Nudger plenty to chew on. "How old are Nora and Joan?"
"Twelve and ten."
Nudger glanced around the apartment; no sign of children. "Do the girls live with Ralph?"
Something seemed to draw Claudia into herself and cause discomfort. "Yes."
"I instinctively disliked Ralph," Nudger said. "Was I right?"
"Ralph's okay. The marriage would have worked out, only…"
Obviously she didn't want to finish such a revealing sentence. Not yet, anyway.
"Bettencourt's my maiden name," she said, changing the subject just enough. All of a sudden she seemed embarrassed. She placed her glass on the coffee table. "Nudger, I never met anyone else after talking to them on the lines. I mean, I don't use the lines for what you might be thinking."