Ride the lightning

XXXI

Nudger waited in the hot Volkswagen outside the Right Steer for almost an hour past Candy Ann's quitting time. She hadn't emerged from work, and the cab that usually materialized to drive her home never appeared. The sun was low now, burning in through the car's rear window and gaining intensity in a fishbowl effect, like a magnifying glass used to start a fire. Nudger was the tinder.

Rather than burst into flame, he wiped his sleeve over his forehead, got out of the car, and trudged across the parking lot to the restaurant's entrance. The lot's blacktop, still holding the maximum heat of the day, adhered to his shoes and made slight sucking noises with each step.

He pushed through the Wild West, louvered swinging doors, then shoved open the pneumatic double-pane glass door, and stood just inside the blissfully air-conditioned Right Steer. Two elderly women, one of them with a cane, edged around him, studied the large wooden menu pegged to the wall, then moved toward the serving counter, where a yellow-uniformed cowgirl waited to take their orders and shoo them along toward the cash register like doggies toward the corral.

Nudger gazed over a wood partition at the crowded restaurant and the waitresses bustling about delivering steaks, refilling glasses, or wiping down tables. He didn't see Candy Ann.

When a young blond waitress drifted near to refill coffee mugs, Nudger leaned over the partition.

"Jodi," he said, noticing her name branded onto her uniform blouse, "is Candy Ann Adams still here?"

Jodi stopped and smiled at him, as if she were about to tell him that she was his waitress and if he needed anything just let her know and she'd be glad to serve him. But she said, "Candy Ann? She left a couple of hours ago. Had to pick up her car before someplace closed. Leastways, that's what she said." He caught a tone of resentment in her voice, as if Candy Ann's absence might be the reason all the other waitresses had to hustle around at double speed.

Nudger thanked her and walked back outside to cross the sticky parking lot to the Volkswagen.

He drove to Placid Grove Trailer Park, watching the miles tick away on the odometer. Four and a half miles exactly.

He saw no sign of anyone's presence in Candy Ann's trailer, no car parked nearby; only a gray squirrel that scurried across the trailer roof, then did a precarious tightrope act on the telephone-service wire and made for a nearby tree.

Vehicles were parked so that there was no place Nudger could wait in his car inside the trailer park without possibly arousing suspicion, so he drove back to Watson Road. He found a spot in the shade of some tall sycamores, then pulled the Volkswagen onto the shoulder where he could see the park entrance. After switching off the engine, he reached over and opened the passenger-side door to reap a little more breeze. The car's interior was hot to the touch.

Then he did what he spent too much time doing in this odd occupation that had chosen him. What he did in hotel lobbies, parking lots, bars, empty apartments, phone booths, and places too varied to classify.

He waited. It was dark when she finally arrived. Nudger caught a glimpse of her gaunt profile as she turned her car in beneath the arched "Placid Grove" sign.

He started the Volkswagen and followed, keeping her car's bright red taillights in sight until they seemed to draw close together and disappeared as she made a right turn onto Tranquillity Lane in her final leg toward home.

He pulled to the side of the street and waited, giving her plenty of time to get inside, before he put the Volkswagen in gear and parked a short distance beyond her trailer.

As he walked up Tranquillity Lane in the dark, it seemed that the crickets were screaming with insane volume and intensity, the way they'd screamed the night he'd talked to Tom. Or maybe that was because the rest of the trailer park was so quiet; it was still too hot for anyone to be outside without good reason. Fireflies winked among the trailers, sending mysterious luminous signals, the only visible signs of life or motion.

Candy Ann's car, an old but glossy yellow Ford, was nosed in close to her trailer. On his way to the door, Nudger paused and scratched the hood with a key. Even in the dim light he could see that beneath the new yellow paint the car's color was dark green or black. He bent down and looked at the license plate. The number began with an L.

The crickets stopped screaming then, suddenly.

It took a few seconds for the silence to register with Nudger.

He was straightening up when one of the shadows in the corner of his vision suddenly gained substance and rushed at him.

Nudger started to yell in alarm, but he was hit hard in the side, momentarily knocking the breath from him and causing his injured rib to flare with pain.

He was on the ground. A large man loomed over him, leg drawn back to kick. Nudger rolled to his left, felt a shoe graze his hip. He scrambled to his feet, and a glancing blow scraped his neck and almost knocked him down.

The man rushed him again. This time Nudger sidestepped and drove a fist into the big man's stomach, heard a grunt more of irritation than of pain or breathlessness. Wow! The guy's midsection was hard enough to have hurt Nudger's fist. He was fit as a commando, wearing a dark long-sleeved shirt, with what looked like a knit ski mask pulled down to conceal his features.

Hot night for that, Nudger thought inanely, as the man grabbed the front of his shirt. Buttons shot like popped corn into the shadows.

Nudger tried to shove his assailant away, but the man barked a short half-grunt, half-scream and hacked down with the edge of his hand at Nudger's neck. The blow missed and glanced off his shoulder, struck the yellow hood of the car. Had to leave dents in both places.

Then the big man was up tight against him, using his weight, bending Nudger backward over the hood. He grabbed Nudger's hair and began beating his head on the smooth metal. More dents. It was making a hell of a racket, but probably not enough to arouse the neighbors and bring help. Or maybe it only seemed loud to Nudger. Pain exploded between his ears with each impact.

When the back of Nudger's head bounced particularly hard off the car, something must have jarred loose beneath the hood. The horn abruptly blared and kept howling.

The man straightened, glaring down like a specter through the ski mask's eyeholes, and Nudger recognized him.

He took a final swipe, breezing a fist past Nudger's face, then wheeled and ran into the darkness. He moved fast for his size.

Nudger heard his footsteps on the gravel road long after he lost sight of him.

Nudger stood up straight and gingerly traced the back of his head with his fingertips, then studied the fingers in the moonlight. There was no blood. Thank God the Ford didn't have a hood ornament.

He walked around to the driver's-side door and pulled the hood latch. Then he raised the hood, located the horn wires, and yanked them loose.

The blaring horn suddenly was silent.

"… Fucking quiet!" a man's voice yelled from the trailer across the street.

"It's okay now!" Nudger called back. "All fixed!" His head felt as if it were still bouncing off the hood. Only the cardboardlike thinness and pliability of the metal had saved him from serious injury. Thank you, Detroit.

He straightened his clothes, noticing that his pants were ripped at the knee. He knew he'd been lucky. The blaring horn had alerted the neighbors and saved him; his powerful attacker hadn't had time to inflict much damage.

"Who's out there?" a wavering voice called. "What's going on?"

Nudger turned and saw Candy Ann poised in the doorway of her trailer, her hand still on the knob so she could duck back inside and lock out the bogeyman if necessary.

"Me, Nudger," Nudger said, out of breath. "I'm what's going on." He waited for the ground to stop tilting, then moved into the light. A dull pain caromed around inside his skull.

"Then come on in," she said.