Nightlines by John Lutz

growled mightily, as if urging extreme caution.
    “You say something, Nudge?”
    Nudger shook his head and popped an antacid tablet.
    “Stomach acting up again?”
    “Never really quits.” Nudger swiveled and climbed down from the stool. “If Eileen calls or comes by here, trying to find me to talk about back alimony, tell her I’ve gone to meet Frank and Sandy.”
    “Sure. She know who they are?”
    “No. Tell her they’re bankers.”
    Danny nodded. He held up a large foam cup. “You want a coffee to go?”
    “No, thanks,” Nudger said, “I’m regular enough without it.”
    Danny’s sad eyes lowered in dejection. Was he becoming as sensitive about his coffee as about his doughnuts? Damned wimp.
    “On second thought,” Nudger said, “maybe about half full, with cream and sugar.”
    Carrying his coffee, he pushed out the door and stepped onto the sidewalk. There was no point in not leaving before tall, wide, and ugly reappeared. Waiting around for trouble was a lot like looking for it.
    Of course, there were times when someone plying Nudger’s uncertain trade earned his fee by waiting for trouble. Which was what Nudger was doing as he took up position near the fountain in Twin Oaks Mall.
    He was sitting on a bench outside Woolworth’s in the vast indoor mall, with seeming casualness observing the shoppers milling around the large, gently splashing fountain that was illuminated by recessed colored spotlights. There was a circular raised concrete ledge around the fountain, serving as a bench, and several bullet-shaped trash receptacles and some plastic potted plants were scattered about. Nudger, who appeared to be simply another patient husband waiting for his wife to finish browsing, sat and watched two old women with sore feet and huge shopping bags lounge on the bench and discuss a purchase. The women finally left and several preteen boys ambled up, leaned precariously over the ledge and spat toward the fountain. An exhausted obese woman lugging an irritated infant sighed and plopped down on the bench near them. An elderly man wearing a hearing aid sat not far from her and placidly smoked a pipe. The usual shopping-mall gang.
    Nudger checked his wristwatch, as if wondering how much longer he’d have to wait for his errant spouse who’d lost track of time among miles of Sears goodies. A stereo-typic but effective ruse. It was five minutes past two. Where was Frank? Was this lack of punctuality a wise way to begin a romance? Or a murder?
    Then Nudger saw a short, slender man wearing brown slacks and a yellow sweater tentatively approach the fountain. The sweater either was stained or had one of the currently popular tiny animals embossed on the left breast. The man stood for a minute near the circular concrete bench as if debating whether to sit, decided to stand, and moved off about fifty feet to the side to slouch self-consciously before a window display of jogging shoes. He was in his late fifties or early sixties, and what hair he had left was in a wispy white fringe above his ears.
    The man stood in the same position for about ten minutes, frequently glancing at his wristwatch. He lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, then crossed to a pedestal ashtray and ground it out as if it had all been a big mistake. Returning to his original position, he craned his neck to gaze about the sparsely occupied mall, then settled again into his slouched position, spine arched out like a cat’s and hands crammed in pockets. Frank, all right.
    Frank was game. He waited until almost two-thirty, then the look of perplexity on his flushed face changed to anger, and he lit another cigarette. This one he didn’t put out immediately. Puffing furiously and trailing smoke like a locomotive, he strode with a dejected yet springy stride down the mall, keeping well to one side near the display windows as if afraid something might fall on him if he ventured too far from a wall. There was a kind of wary resilience in his bearing that