Buyer beware an-1 Read online

  Buyer beware

  ( Alo Nudger - 1 )

  John Lutz

  John Lutz

  Buyer beware

  Caveat emptor quia ignorare non debuit quod jus alienum emit.

  Let the buyer beware because he should not be ignorant of the property that he is buying.

  1

  Summer was struggling hard at birth. Hail in artillery like salvos battered the metal roof and sides of my forty-foot house trailer, as it had, interspersed with heavy rain, for the past two hours.

  As time passes, hail striking the surface of a house trailer seems to take on more of a metallic ring. I was becoming slightly shell-shocked and vowed again to myself to move into an apartment as soon as possible.

  But even as I made my vow I knew I wouldn't move. Not many apartment managers let you run a business out of your place of residence, and I had written permission from Mel Hardin, owner of Trailer Haven, to combine home and office here. Not a prestigious address, maybe, but prestige doesn't cook into much of a meal.

  The pace of the hail picked up, and I rose from the sofa, went into the dollhouse bathroom and washed down two aspirin with a glass of tepid water. On my return from the bathroom I noticed an indistinct damp spot on the gold shag carpet where it met the south wall of the trailer. The damned thing leaked! I would tell Hardin about that tomorrow.

  Before sitting down again on the sofa, I reached out and turned up the volume on the portable TV so I could better understand the six o'clock news, that and sometimes the ten o'clock report being the only programs I watched on television besides an occasional sporting event. A wholesomely attractive girl was teasing viewers with the weather forecast just then, demonstrating with a pointer how a warm front moving in from the Southeast was causing all kinds of trouble. She seemed happy about it.

  Her explanation did account for the hail, but not for the determined rasping of my door buzzer. I rose again from the sofa, almost afraid to let in somebody who was crazy enough to be outside in this kind of weather. Through the south window I saw horizontal fingers of lightning rend the sky over perfectly aligned trailer roofs and TV antennas, like something out of an updated Frankenstein movie.

  The man standing beneath the metal awning that sheltered my trailer door fit right into the movie. He was moderately tall, hatless, dark-haired and full-bearded. His long black raincoat matched the black umbrella he held angled into the wind.

  "Hey," he said, spoiling the theatrical effect, "you Mr. Nudger?"

  I nodded, stepping back to let him inside, noticing the four- or five-year-old compact sedan he must have got out of parked near the rack of mailboxes that served this side of the graveled street.

  He was about six feet tall, a shade over my height, and now that he was inside and his face wasn't contorted to the violent weather, I saw that he had even, pleasant features and straight-ahead brown eyes. His umbrella was still in good shape after protecting him from the hail, and he folded it carefully and leaned it against the wall by the door.

  As I motioned him farther inside so he could sit down, I speculated on whether he was an insurance salesman, evangelist or client. He carried no briefcase, and he hadn't yet smiled. Could be a client. Maybe he was desperate, after trying all the other confidential investigators in the directory. Not much to choose from there. It's a precarious way to make a living. You need a specialty.

  "I'm Gordon Clark," he said, "and I'm here on business."

  Good. I liked the ones who got to the point. I took his wet raincoat and draped it over the wooden back of a chair. Beneath his coat he was wearing dark slacks and a light-tan leisure jacket, and there was a tight muscularity about the forward set of his shoulders. He sat down as if he'd been standing too long. He was troubled.

  "You are Mr. Nudger, of Nudger Investigations, aren't you?"

  "The same, Mr. Clark. Alo Nudger." I bent to shake hands with him and continued standing, slipping my hands into my pockets.

  "Alo?"

  "Short for Aloysious, long for Al, as I used to tell the ladies."

  "Sure. I want to hire you."

  "You must want to hire me badly to come out in this kind of weather."

  "I don't let the weather interfere with what I have to do, Mr. Nudger."

  I looked at him more closely. I had gauged him wrong. He was in his late twenties, and his dark beard, no longer matted with rivulets of rainwater, was precisely trimmed in the manner of a stylish up-and-comer rather than in the natural free-swinging style of youth. His jacket was slightly worn, but it appeared expensively tailored, though possibly for someone else.

  "Did you choose my name from the telephone directory?"

  He shook his head. "You were recommended by an acquaintance who was once involved in one of your cases-a Mrs. Gloria Fallering."

  I sat on the sofa opposite Clark's chair. "I remember her-a four-year-old son. She should hate my guts." "She does. That's what recommended you to me." I had to laugh. The hail had stopped suddenly, and the TV I'd forgotten was on was blaring an important message about irregularity. I reached over and switched it off.

  "You used to be Mr. Happy on television, didn't you?" Clark said.

  "That was me," I admitted. "The clown cop who introduced safety cartoons for the kiddies." "It must have paid good, being Mr. Happy." "But it wasn't police work. I like kids, but three years of Mr. Happy was enough." The real reason I was no longer Mr. Happy was none of his concern. "So that's how you got into kidnapping." "More or less. Is that why you want to hire me?" "Yes." Clark crossed his arms and leaned back, setting himself to do some talking. "My wife, Joan, and I were married eight years ago…" "Begin at the end," I told him. Clark smiled for the first time, though not a smile to light up the room. "A little over a year ago we got our divorce. Irreconcilable differences. They say some couples can be better friends, if not lovers, after a divorce. That wasn't true in our case. Looking back on it, though, I guess Melissa was the one thing we really fought about." "Melissa?"

  "Our seven-year-old daughter. At first Joan didn't seem to resent me using my visitation rights to see her, but about six months ago her attitude changed. I think there was another man."

  "From before or after the divorce?" "After, I'm sure," Clark said without hesitation. "Do you know where your ex-wife and the child are now?" "I received reliable information that they're in Layton, Florida. Joan's near her father, Dale Carlon, president of Carlon Plastics."

  "A very big corporation."

  "Which is why I can't take the long and arduous route of retrieving Melissa through the courts. Carlon can hire top lawyers and pay off the right people so the matter is tangled up in litigation for years."

  "I take it Melissa was not to be removed from the state without the court's permission."

  Clark nodded.

  "I can't do anything unless you get a court order mandating custody of the child to you. That gives you legal custody even though it's subject to appeal. I don't work without proof that you do have legal custody."

  "Sure. I waited until my lawyer told me we had a court order before coming here. I understand the risks you'd be taking."

  "I want to be positive you do. The FBI and most states don't recognize that a parent can steal his own child, but if I snatch Melissa and you don't have legal custody, I might wind up in prison for kidnapping."

  "And with Carlon's lawyers on me, so might I." Clark's complexion paled and his dark beard appeared darker.

  "I charge twenty-five hundred dollars plus expenses," I said, "five hundred in advance."

  Clark agreed to that with a curt nod. A fusillade of hail swept his side of the trailer, but he didn't seem to hear. "There won't be any… trouble, will there?"

  "Not if I can prevent it," I said, and I meant
that. "Do you have Joan's address in Layton?"

  "Certainly."

  "And a photograph. Recent. And a photograph of Melissa."

  "I can supply those, too."

  "Then when you show up here with the court order, Mr. Clark, I go to work."

  Clark smiled for the second time, making it a bit better than the first.

  There was a lull in the storm as well as in our conversation and no reason not to take the opportunity to leave.

  Clark stood and slipped into his black rain gear. He would need the umbrella again. Though the hail had stopped, a perfectly vertical light rain fell with a gray, foreboding steadiness.

  "I should be back tomorrow or the day after with the court order," Clark said as he stepped down from the trailer's threshold and opened his umbrella.

  I motioned for him to wait, ducked back inside for a moment and gave him one of my cards. "Give me a call, make sure I'm here."

  "Good idea," he said, tucking the card into a side pocket of his raincoat. He turned and walked to his car with an unhurried pace, refusing to make any more concessions to mere rain.

  I closed the metal door, went back to the sofa and sat down. Already I could feel the heavy pulsing in my stomach that I felt every time I took a new case. Clark had asked if there might be trouble. There might always be trouble in the taking of a child from its natural mother. I didn't allow myself to dwell on the kinds of trouble that were possible.

  Once I accepted Clark's money, I was committed to deal with that trouble. And I needed Clark's money.

  2

  He was back the next day with his court order.

  I saw Clark's aging compact slow near my trailer, heard the crunch of tires on gravel and caught a glimpse of red glowing brake lights before the car passed out of my line of vision. I was doing my exercises on the concrete patio in what passes for my backyard. Having just finished my third set of deep knee bends, I was standing with my hands on my hips, waiting for my legs to stop trembling. It's not that I'm so much the physical culture type, but I'm at an age. Every day on the sports page I read about some athlete or other, washed up at thirty-six or -seven-even the great ones. That bothers me.

  Gordon Clark was wearing a tailored gray suit this time, with a vest and a blood-red tucked-in tie. He was carrying an attache case. I felt a bit shoddy in my T-shirt and sweat pants.

  He smiled at me, a superior smile that said he was the superior specimen. Not that I'd argue with him. I'm big enough, and not fat, but I'm not exactly whipcord muscle. I suspected that beneath the neat gray suit, Clark was. ‹ "You don't look so tough," he said.

  "Mr. Happy's not supposed to be tough."

  "I got the court order. I was near here so I thought I'd drop it by." He opened the attache case, an expensive model with chrome trim, and handed me a piece of paper with a familiar heading.

  "Okay," I said, "I'll have it copied and return it to you."

  He reached into the open attache* case again, like a magician reaching into his bag of tricks, and handed me out the next surprise. It was a check for five hundred dollars, closely followed by some photographs.

  I walked out of the shade of the trailer to study the color snapshots. The first was of a woman, Joan Clark, leaning against what looked like a colonial pillar on a porch. She had a nifty upturned nose, close-set but large dark eyes and a small, too-curvaceous-to-be-wiry figure, one of those women who would look young even in late middle age, until the looker got close enough to notice the touches of time. The next photo was of Joan Clark and her daughter standing on the bank of a very blue lake. The daughter, Melissa, looked much like her mother, except that she was blond. And the daughter had the same innate tininess about her, the same tilt to her nose. I wondered if her mother was really blond. The third snapshot was of Melissa seated on a corner of a sofa with that characteristic knees-together, legs-straight-out pose of a seven-year-old. She had her father's smile, but with more candlepower.

  "That last one of Melissa is the most recent I could find," Clark said. "It's about four months old."

  I set the photos, check and court order on the metal table by my webbed lawn chair, weighting them with the heavy glass holder that contained a yellow candle that was supposed to keep mosquitoes away in the evenings.

  "What's their address in Layton?" I said.

  "It's three fifty-five Star Lane, on the south side of Layton. They've been there about a month. Do you want me to write it down?"

  "I'll remember it, if I have to."

  Clark cocked his head to the left. "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean it would be best if you flew down to Layton with me. It's the way I usually operate if I can."

  He shook his head like a bull trying to shake loose a barb in the bullring. "I can't."

  "It would be easier for the child. We wait for the right time when she's alone and simply take her with us, as if the mother knows about us."

  "But I hired you so I wouldn't have to do this myself. You're supposed to be an expert…" Clark shrugged helplessly, pleading to be understood. "Look, I'd like to, really. But I just can't. My job… You understand. If it isn't absolutely necessary…"

  "As long as I have that court order and your signature on one of my contracts," I told him, "it's not necessary."

  "Then I'll have to pass."

  I nodded, went inside for a minute and got one of my standard contract forms and a pen. Clark read the short contract quickly and bent over the metal patio table to sign it.

  "Is there any way your ex-wife could find out you hired me?" I asked.

  "None at all. I haven't discussed this with anyone."

  "Follow that policy," I advised him. "Surprise is important. I'll leave for Layton tomorrow, unless you have some reason for suggesting a better time."

  "Tomorrow's all right with me. The sooner this thing's done, the better."

  "Where can you be reached?" I asked him. "I might need to contact you, and I'll have to know where to bring Melissa when we return."

  "I'm with Standard Implement." Clark reached into a gray pocket and held out an embossed white business card that proclaimed him to be a sales manager. Then he hastily drew the card back, took a pen from another pocket and scribbled his home address and phone number on the back of the card before handing it to me. His address was in a fairly expensive apartment development on the west side of the city, where expensive "executive" apartment developments were stacked on top of one another. Clark seemed to play his role as best he could with what he had.

  "Can you tell me anything about your ex-wife that might be helpful?" I asked. "Habits, favorite activities, that sort of thing."

  Clark ran his fingertips an eighth of an inch beyond the contours of his neat dark beard. "I can't think of any habits that might be helpful. Joan used to love to play tennis, though. Spent a lot of time on the court."

  "Any good?"

  "Good? No, but she wears down her opponents. Joan is competitive in almost everything. Aggressive. If she suspects what you're up to, your job won't be without problems."

  "I'll know how to handle the situation, Mr. Clark."

  He looked me up and down, as if trying to reassure himself that I could. When he turned to leave, he took two slow steps and turned back. "One thing I don't want, Nudger, is for Melissa to be hurt. Can you guarantee that she won't be?"

  "I can guarantee I'll do everything to prevent it. I consider it the most important part of my job."

  He stood still for a moment, then nodded, as if he'd decided I was a thorough enough professional. Then he walked toward his car.

  I felt sorry for him just then. He hadn't anticipated any of this when he'd walked down the aisle and uttered his vows.

  After a few more deep knee bends, I gathered up everything Clark had left with me and went inside. I phoned the airline reservation desk for space on a morning flight to Orlando. From there I would have to rent a car and drive the rest of the way to Layton.

  All that remained for me to d
o except pack was to drive over to the post office and use their pay copier to make duplicates of the court order and the photographs Clark had given me. The original court order I would return to Clark; one copy I would place in my safe-deposit box; one copy I would take to Florida, along with Clark's signature on a copy of my contract.

  In a way I was glad Clark had refused to accompany me. The father's presence didn't always make it easier on the child. Sometimes the mother put up a fuss, and the husband, out of habit or rekindled responsibility, sided with her. When that happened, I sometimes got my lumps from both of them; and usually I was re-hired to accomplish the same task, now made more difficult, a few days later. Or the woman might physically resist both of us, and she and the man would fight over the child, yanking it back and forth like so much merchandise. I had seen a few children injured seriously that way. Physically and otherwise.

  The trailer's air conditioner clicked on and began to hum. The sun was asserting itself outside. I got up from where I'd been sitting, by the phone, walked into the kitchen and mixed myself a bourbon and water. My stomach didn't suit my profession. It was fluttering again with precase jitters.

  I wasn't in my business because I had the nerves for it. After four years as a civilian employee of the city police department and three years as a patrolman, my superiors had come to that same unflattering conclusion. Thus began my three-year reign as local TV's Mister Happy-we dropped the "Officer" so the children would realize that policemen were much like everyone else when they weren't working-and I was the smiling cop who projected the image of Good Guy to the kids. I had always got on with the kids; just the duty for me, the higher-ups had decided. And they were right. It wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind when I joined the force, but even after three years I wasn't about to leave before I had to.

  Police work was what I was trained in, and I had my contacts; so when I left the department, my choice of occupation seemed logical. At the time, anyway.