Nudger looked over to see Fat Jack still standing mountainous behind his desk. Almost lost in the big man's right hand was a tiny, small-caliber pistol that looked too toylike to cause real damage or have anything to do with the hole in Sievers' head.
Things weren't as they seemed; the gun had done its job. Something moved in the corner of Nudger's vision and there was a solid thump. Sievers' body dropping to the floor.
"He didn't leave me no choice," Fat Jack said in an oddly breathless voice. "He was gonna leave the friendly fat man for Collins. He went nuts. Shit, he might have even killed me after he was done with you."
Sievers wasn't quite dead. His body began to vibrate and flop around, his heels banging on the soft carpet with a speed and rhythm Sam Judman downstairs on the drums would have envied.
The sight horrified Fat Jack. He began to suck in air deeply, unable to stop staring at Sievers. "It was you or him," he said, still in his breathy voice. "I had to put my trust in one of you, old sleuth. You or him." He lowered the thousand-pound gun to his side; his arm hung straight, as if strained by the weight. "Hey, you're my only way out of this, Nudger."
Nudger wasn't sure about that, but he wasn't going to differ with Fat Jack. He looked down at Sievers. People shouldn't do this kind of thing to each other. It was all so damned unreal; hairless bipeds running around on a spinning globe of matter, whirling through an infinite universe, loving and hating and killing each other when they were all they had in the emptiness. What was going on here? Never had death by another's hand seemed so wrong to Nudger, even though his own life had been saved.
Sievers went into violent convulsions then, his arms flailing and his fingers trembling as if electrodes were attached to their tips. Nudger's stomach began to flop in time with the body on the floor.
"Hey, Jesus, make him stop, Nudger!"
"I can't," Nudger said simply, staring mesmerized with Fat Jack at Sievers and the small hole that didn't belong in his otherwise unmarred forehead.
"Ah, Nudger, you gotta make him quit shakin' like that!" Fat Jack's eyes were wide and he was pale and perspiring; the loose flesh draped over his collar jiggled with his effort to turn his head. But he couldn't look away. His bulk began to quiver almost like Sievers' convulsing near-corpse. He was weeping, sobbing in horror. Nudger felt the old pity for him. It wasn't surprising, since he shared Fat Jack's revulsion for what had been done here. Death was never an easy thing, but this was grotesque. The entire room seemed to vibrate with the force of Sievers' convulsions.
Fat Jack glided out from behind the desk, approached Sievers with his moist eyes clenched almost shut. With tremendous effort he raised his arm, pointed the gun, jerked the barrel back as he pulled the trigger.
The gun made very little noise; a flat, slapping sound.
Sievers was unaffected. Fat Jack had missed.
"Oh, Christ!" the fat man moaned. "Oh, Christ! Oh Christ!…"
He moved closer, fired again. Again. A small hole appeared near the base of Sievers' neck. He didn't bleed; there was no power left in him to pump blood. A little strawberry-colored froth built up in a corner of his mouth, like pink soap suds. Nudger's stomach lurched and he swallowed. This wasn't at all the way death by shooting appeared a million times a night on a million television screens; this death was soul-wrenching to watch.
Fat Jack was sitting on the floor now, his huge legs stuck straight out in front of him. His pants legs were twisted up on him; his ankles, clad in black nylon dress socks, were surprisingly thin. Great tears, as befitting such a huge man, were tracking down his face, dropping to spot his white shirtfront. He was clutching the gun tightly between his legs with both hands, as if he'd been kicked in the groin and it still hurt. He couldn't stop sobbing.
Sievers finally got finished dying and lay still.
Nudger continued to feel a subtle vibration. His heartbeat. He drew a deep breath and held it for a while, forcing himself to be calm. Then he took a step toward Fat Jack and looked down at him. "Get up."
Fat Jack couldn't make it by himself. Nudger had to grip one flabby, perspiration-slick wrist and heave backward as the big man floundered, almost fell, then struggled to his feet.
More composed now, Fat Jack wiped at his cheeks with his sausage-sized fingers. He dragged a forearm diagonally across his damp face. He didn't have to look at Sievers now; he couldn't look at him. He kept his gaze up, away from the floor. Nudger waited for the deep resilience to come into play.
After almost a minute had passed, Fat Jack straightened his mussed pants and shirt, ran his fingers through his thinning gingery hair, and looked at Nudger with the old light of pure reason back in his piggy little eyes.
"Same deal as before?" he asked.
Nudger didn't have any alternative. His primary consideration was getting Ineida back home alive and unharmed. Staying alive and unharmed himself. He nodded.
Fat Jack tossed the tiny spent revolver into a corner, moved to the desk, and began hurriedly stuffing his pockets with whatever he thought he might need and could carry. He knew the police were digging right now in Hollister's garden. Digging. Digging.
"I'm going to phone Collins' home in one hour," Nudger reminded him. "If Ineida's not there, my next call will be to the police."
"She'll be there. Hey, trust me. I trust you, Nudger."
"Neither of us has a choice," Nudger said.
"That's the way the world works, old sleuth. No choices. Not really. Not for anyone. Slide Marty's wallet out of his coat and hand it to me, will you?"
"No. You get it."
"I can't, Nudger. You know that. I gotta have some money! A man can't run far without the green stuff!"
"I told you before, I've got nothing to lend you."
Fat Jack tried again to look down at Sievers, but he couldn't make it. His head rotated slightly toward the body, but his eyes wouldn't follow; only the glistening whites were aimed at Sievers.
"All right, old sleuth," Fat Jack said resignedly. "I'm going on the cheap."
He tucked in his sweat-plastered shirt beneath his huge stomach, wrestled into his tent-sized suit coat, and without a backward glance at Nudger glided majestically from the room. Even the hell of what had happened here would soon be pushed to a far, dark corner of his mind; he'd have his old jaunty stride back in no time.
Nudger walked to the closed office door and locked it. Then he went to Fat Jack's desk and sat down. The soft sound of the blues filtering up from downstairs only made the office seem more quiet. He could barely see the toe of one of Sievers' kicked-off loafers lying next to a still, brown-stockinged foot. Death and silence had everything in common. Nudger would spend the next hour with these two, getting to know them better than he wanted.
He heard his rapid breathing gain a softer, steadier rhythm, and the pace of his heartbeat leveled off. The blues number he'd become involved in was played out now. Almost. Nudger settled back in Fat Jack's chair.
He sat with the man with the hole in his head and felt time crawl slowly over both of them.
XXXIII
When Nudger answered the knock on his hotel- room door the next morning, he wasn't really surprised to find Frick and Frack looming in the hall. They pushed into the room without being invited. There was a sneer on Frick's pockmarked face. Frack gave his boxer's nifty little shuffle and stood between Nudger and the door, smiling politely.
"We interrupt your sleep, my friend?" Frick asked in his buttery accent. He looked amused.