Nightlines

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.

Nudger didn't move. "I'm afraid of Hugo Rumbo," he said. "He might trip over his ankle and fall on me. I've been to the police about this, and if Rumbo slips his collar again and tries to attack me, they'll know you had something to do with it."

"But I thought I made it clear that I'm not responsible for Mr. Rumbo. And there's certainly no law against me talking to him as a friend and not an employer. If he finds out you've decided to reject my suggestion that you cease working for my daughter, it wouldn't surprise me if he decided to visit you on his own. He's a simple and dedicated man."

"He's a stupid and dangerous one," Nudger corrected. "Dangerous to me and to you."

She impatiently peeled back the top of one of her white gloves and glanced at a tiny square gold watch. "Mr. Nudger, I'm ready to leave."

Nudger nodded and walked past her out the door. As he stepped onto the porch, he heard a series of crisp snicking sounds coming from the side of the house. Almost like disapproving clucks of the tongue.

Agnes Boyington pointedly locked her door, then walked past him and through another door, leading into the attached garage. Nudger got into his Volkswagen and sat there until the garage's overhead door automatically opened. An old but mint-condition long gray Cadillac nosed out. As it emerged all the way, Nudger saw that it was even older than he'd thought, one of the models with fins. It looked like a long gray shark; it suited its owner.

The overhead door glided closed behind the car. Agnes Boyington let the Caddy coast down the driveway and made a left turn onto Lindell. She'd known that Nudger was still there but hadn't deigned to look at him.

Rumbo had filled her in on the day's activities, so Nudger's appearance at her door hadn't been unexpected. She'd known he'd talked to the police and she'd known he wasn't going to accept her check, but she'd acted out her scene with him without missing a beat or a cue, reciting her lines even when Nudger departed from the script. She was one of life's great troopers in her own long-running production, creating her own reality with the convincing force of her delusions.

Nudger found himself envying her. There had to be a warm security in being so unalterably correct in all matters. Possibly she was on her way to church, to interpret the sermon her way and sanctify her actions. There seemed to be an ugly outbreak of that kind of thing lately.

Snick! Snick! With the Volkswagen's windows rolled down, Nudger could hear the sound again clearly. Metal on metal. He got out of the car and walked across the spongy carpet of grass toward the corner of the garage.

Peering around a forsythia bush, he saw Hugo Rumbo in the side yard. He was shirtless and wearing blue bib overalls, standing about a hundred feet away and diligently trimming a squared-off privet hedge with a pair of long- bladed shears. As if sensing that a ring opponent was about to throw a sneak left hook at him, he raised a shoulder slightly, ducked his head and turned. He saw Nudger immediately and smiled his lopsided, unsettling little smile. Shifting the shears to his right hand, he took a step toward Nudger.

Nudger did what a hedge couldn't do. He backpedaled to the Volkswagen, clambered in, and had the engine started in a jiffy. As he backed the car all the way down the driveway to the street, he saw the overalled Hugo Rumbo round the corner of the garage, holding the long shears upright at his side, and stand staring at him in a kind of macho American- Gothic posture.

The little car's engine seemed to be clattering with fear as Nudger drove fast down Lindell Boulevard, as if agreeing with him that now wasn't a good time to talk with Hugo Rumbo.

Probably there was no good time.

In the glut of traffic on Kingshighway near the expressway, Nudger saw Agnes Boyington's gray Cadillac a block away, stopped for a red light. Maybe she wasn't going to church. Instead of turning west onto the expressway, he switched lanes and stayed on Kingshighway.

It might be worthwhile to follow Agnes Boyington. She could be on her way to meet someone else who wore white gloves.