JOHN LUTZ “What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You.” Alo Nudger. First appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1982. PWA Winner for Best Short Story. Collected in The Nudger Dilemmas (Five Star, 2001). Reprinted in The Shamus Winners, Volume I: 1982-1995, edited by Robert J. Randisi (Perfect Crime Books, 2010).

   Alo Nudger is the St. Louis-based PI with the nervous stomach who appeared in ten novels and nine or more short stories, of which this is the fourth. One theme in all of his appearances is his constant use of antacids whenever the going gets tough, but you should also know that whenever that happens — and it always does — he never falters or turns aside. He always carries through, no matter how tough the going gets.

   In this short tale he awakens on the floor of his office after having been visited by a couple of goons who had worked him over, followed by a female nurse, linebacker-sized, who, when his answers prove unsatisfactory, doses him with truth serum.

   No matter. He didn’t reveal anything about his clients, because none of the cases he’s working on are worth that kind of questioning.

   It is a mystery, but after a visit to the doughnut shop downstairs beneath his office, he begins to have a glimmer of what’s going on. I could tell you more, but I’m reluctant to, because that’s really all the story’s about: his learning what it is that’s going on as well as helping out a friend who needs help.

   In many ways this in only a minor tale in Alo Nudger’s career, but in other ways, you can think of it as one that tells you what kind of man he is.