The New Edgar Winners (1990) The Mystery Writers of America Anthology by Martin H. Greenberg

Author:Martin H. Greenberg [Greenberg, Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

JOHN LUTZ

Ride the Lightning

1985

A slanted sheet of rain swept like a scythe across Placid Cove Trailer Park. For an instant, an intricate web of lightning illumined the park. The rows of mobile homes loomed square and still and pale against the night, reminding Nudger of tombs with awnings and TV antennas. He held his umbrella at a sharp angle to the wind as he walked, putting a hand in his pocket to pull out a scrap of paper and double-check the address he was trying to find in the maze of trailers. Finally, at the end of Tranquility Lane, he found Number 307 and knocked on its metal door.

“I’m Nudger,” he said when the door opened.

For several seconds the woman in the doorway stood staring out at him, rain blowing in beneath the metal awning to spot her cornflower-colored dress and ruffle her straw blond hair. She was tall but very thin, fragile-looking, and appeared at first glance to be about twelve years old. Second glance revealed her to be in her mid-twenties. She had slight crow’s feet at the corners of her luminous blue eyes when she winced as a raindrop struck her face, a knowing cast to her oversized, girlish, full-lipped mouth, and slightly buck teeth. Her looks were hers alone. There was no one who could look much like her, no middle ground with her; men would consider her scrawny and homely, or they would see her as uniquely sensuous. Nudger liked coltish girl-women; he catalogued her as attractive.

“Whoeee!” she said at last, as if seeing for the first time beyond Nudger. “Ain’t it raining something terrible?”

“It is,” Nudger agreed. “And on me.”

Her entire thin body gave a quick, nervous kind of jerk as she smiled apologetically. “I’m Holly Ann Adams, Mr. Nudger. And you are getting wet, all right. Come on in.”

She moved aside and Nudger stepped up into the trailer. He expected it to be surprisingly spacious; he’d once lived in a trailer and remembered them as such. This one was cramped and confining. The furniture was cheap and its upholstery was threadbare; a portable black-and-white TV on a tiny table near the Scotch-plaid sofa was blaring shouts of ecstasy emitted by “The Price is Right” contestants. The air was thick with the smell of something greasy that had been fried too long.

Holly Ann cleared a stack of People magazines from a vinyl chair and motioned for Nudger to sit down. He folded his umbrella, left it by the door, and sat. Holly Ann started to say something, then jerked her body in that peculiar way of hers, almost a twitch, as if she’d just remembered something not only with her mind but with her blood and muscle, and walked over and switched off the noisy television. In the abrupt silence, the rain seemed to beat on the metal roof with added fury. “Now we can talk,” Holly Ann proclaimed, sitting opposite Nudger on the undersized sofa. “You a sure-enough private investigator?”

“I’m that,” Nudger said. “Did someone recommend me to you, Miss Adams?”

“Gotcha out of the Yellow Pages.

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