The right to sing the blues an-3

by John Lutz

  "I am," Nudger said seriously. "It's what my job is all about."

  "Judy Villanova," Sievers said. He motioned with a slight movement of his hand toward a frail blond waitress at the end of the bar who was loading her tray with drinks.

  Nudger watched as she carried the frosty mugs of beer to a table where four businessman types sat. She had a delicate pale face that wasn't large enough for her overly made-up blue eyes. Her dark-stockinged thighs, though curvaceous, didn't fill out the legs of her shorts, and her T- shirt might have been several sizes too large for her. She looked like a teenager playing grown-up.

  "How old is she?" Nudger asked.

  "Twenty-seven. She's married and has a daughter. She works here part-time while she's going for a psychology degree at Loyola University."

  "What time does she get off work tonight?"

  "Nine o'clock. This is her short night; she's got an early class tomorrow." Sievers was frowning; he was a closed- mouthed guy and loyal to his troops. He obviously didn't like telling Nudger about one of his waitresses. "Judy is a good girl-woman. Whatever went on between her and Max happened over a year ago."

  "I won't upset her any more than necessary," Nudger assured him.

  "I'm not sure her husband knows about her and Max," Sievers said. He really did seem concerned.

  The phone behind the bar rang, and the bartender answered it, then held the receiver out in a silent signal that meant the call was for Sievers.

  Carrying his drink with him, Sievers excused himself from Nudger's company and moved toward the swing-gate near the far end of the bar. Nudger watched him talk for a few minutes on the phone, then hang up and disappear in the direction of the kitchen.

  The bartender set another round of drinks on the stainless-steel section of bar near the taps, for Judy Villanova to load onto her tray. She sure did have a skinny, almost emaciated-looking body. She was so frail, almost ethereal. Nudger turned his attention to his drink. Max Reckoner was probably the kind of guy who liked to crush flowers. After an hour, the bartender, whose name Nudger had found out was Mattingly, began blatantly staring at him every once in a while. Slow time of the day or not, Nudger was occupying a bar stool and had an obligation.

  And maybe Mattingly was right; a certain protocol was necessary to preserve the world from chaos. Nudger was about to give in to the weighty responsibility of earning his place at the bar by ordering another drink he didn't want when Fat Jack appeared through the dimness like a light- footed obese spirit in a white vested suit.

  He saw Nudger, smiled his fat man's beaming smile, and veered toward him, diamond rings and gold jewelry flashing fire beneath pale coat sleeves, a large diamond stickpin in his biblike tie. Glint, glint. He was a vision of sartorial immensity.

  "We need to talk," Nudger told him.

  "That's easy enough," Fat Jack said. "My office, hey?" He led the way, making Nudger feel somewhat like a pilot fish trailing a whale. Fat Jack had some kind of expensive cologne on today that smelled faintly of lemon. For an instant it made Nudger think of the lemon-oil scent in Reckoner's antique shop.

  When they were settled in Fat Jack's office, Nudger said, "I came across some letters Ineida wrote to Hollister."

  "Came across?"

  Nudger shrugged. "She and Hollister plan to run away together, get married."

  Fat Jack raised his eyebrows so high Nudger was afraid they might become detached. "Hollister ain't the marrying kind, Nudger."

  "What kind is he?"

  "I don't want to answer that."

  "Maybe Ineida and Hollister will elope and live happily-"

  "Stop!" Fat Jack interrupted him. He leaned forward over his desk, wide forehead glistening. "When are they planning on leaving?"

  "I don't know. The letters didn't say."

  "You gotta find out, Nudger."

  "I could ask. But Captain Livingston wouldn't approve."

  "Livingston has talked with you?"

  "Twice. In my hotel room, and this morning in his office. Both times the thrust of the conversation was the same. He wants me to butt out. He assured me he had my best interests at heart."

  Fat Jack appeared thoughtful. He swiveled in his chair and switched on the auxiliary window air conditioner. Its breeze stirred the papers on the desk, ruffled his graying, gingery hair. "I'm sure Hollister doesn't know who Ineida really is," Fat Jack said. "I'm also sure he doesn't love her; it ain't in the way he looks at her."

  "You could be wrong about that."

  "Maybe, but I doubt it. Why do you suppose he wants to marry her?"

  "Maybe he found out how much she's worth."

  "Not a chance of that. Unless she told him."

  "She didn't tell him," Nudger said. "She's saving the big surprise for her wedding night."

  "Humph!" Fat Jack said. "What do you think happened to those other women?"

  "I think we both know," Nudger said.

  Fat Jack sat silently and perspired. He knew, all right, but he didn't want to talk about it. As if rendering it into words would move it out of the realm of speculation and into the world of cold facts.

  "Hollister likes to be in love," Nudger said, "and then he consciously denies himself the women he loves and possesses, feeding a loneliness and agony that surface in his music and lend it the stamp of blues greatness. It's a deliberate personal sacrifice for his art, the only way he can give his music the insane, tragic dimension that makes it his alone. The ultimate in the suffering artist. The problem is that the women he loves and leaves are never seen again."

  Fat Jack wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand, then examined his fingers as if checking for blood. After a while he said, "God help me, Nudger, I can understand that. Hey, I don't approve of it, but the musician-the artist in me, old sleuth-can understand it."

  Nudger knew what Fat Jack meant; the big man was a world-class musician who'd sacrificed bone-deep for his art. Sacrifice was part of the gig. The difference was that maybe Willy Hollister was sacrificing people, and Fat Jack was horrified that Ineida might join their growing number.

  "Where was Hollister between four and six o'clock two nights ago?" Nudger asked.

  Fat Jack rubbed his jowl where it flowed over his white collar. "At five he did his set here at the club, and he was around here till at least six. Why?"

  "Billy Weep was killed between those times."

  Fat Jack shook his head. "It isn't likely Hollister could have killed Billy and made it back to town here in time for work. Possible, but it would take some tight planning and an airline that flew on time. I say he had nothing to do with Billy's death, which is some relief."

  Nudger had to agree with Fat Jack. Death and taxes were sure, but airline departures were something else.

  "What now?" Fat Jack asked. "A talk with Ineida?"

  "I don't think that would change anything," Nudger said. "It just might hurry things along."

  Fat Jack sighed, tapped meaty knuckles on the desk. "You're right, she wouldn't believe anything we told her about Hollister."

  "And we have no proof. Whatever we told her might not be true."

  "I'd heard you were an optimist," Fat Jack said. Pat, pat, went his knuckles on the desk. Each time he moved his hand, his ring sent a bright spot of reflected light dancing across a wall, a live thing trapped in two dimensions.

  "What about laying all this out for her father?" Nudger asked.

  Fat Jack's eyes actually rolled in terror. "No, no! He mustn't know she's gotten in this position working here at the club while I'm supposed to be looking out for her. Hey, there's no telling what Collins would do. To Hollister, to any of us." He seemed to consider the possibilities for a moment, then rolled his eyes again and said, "God, no, don't go to Collins."

  Nudger thought Fat Jack had made himself clear on that point. "Do you have any other ideas?" he asked.

  "Monitor the situation," Fat Jack said. "And I'll do the same while Hollister and Ineida are here at the club. Meanwhile, keep trying to find out
more about Hollister; maybe if we get some dirt on him we can convince him to leave Ineida alone, do his gig, and then move on."

  "We're talking about murder here," Nudger reminded him.

  "And maybe murder-to-be," Fat Jack said. "We gotta look out for our own skins in this situation."

  Fat Jack had a persuasive argument there, thought potential victim-to-be Nudger.

  "Hey, we got a right to live," Fat Jack said with deep conviction.

  "Everything alive has that," Nudger told him. "But look what happens."

  XVIII

  Nudger returned to his hotel room after leaving Fat Jack's, where he sat on the edge of the bed, stared at the telephone, and listened to the resonant thrumming of elevator cables in an adjacent shaft. It was a hollow, forlorn sound, an echo of isolation. Distant train whistles had nothing on elevator cables when it came to loneliness.

  He knew why he wanted to call Claudia. He missed her suddenly, achingly, and he realized that he hadn't been away from her for any appreciable length of time or distance since they'd met. But that wasn't the real reason he needed to talk with her.

  He looked at his watch. Almost four o'clock. She might not be home from the school by now; calling her would be a gamble. She had a tangle of traffic to fight on Highway 40 in her long drive in from the county.

  He decided not to wait, and pulled the phone over to his lap to punch out the switchboard number for direct long distance.

  On the second ring, Claudia answered her phone.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked, when she realized it was Nudger.

  "There's always something wrong," he said. "That's what keeps me working at least sporadically."

  She caught something in his voice, paused. "How come you called?" Wily woman.

  "I love you. I miss you. I wanted to hear your voice and for you to hear mine."

  "It's just like you to get homesick, Nudger, but not at all like you to admit it." The phone line sizzled and crackled in Nudger's ear. He waited. "Are you becoming involved with Ineida Studd?"

  "That's Ineida Mann and you know it. And no, I'm not getting involved with her in the way you suggest." Nudger was surprised by her intuition; she was on target but off the mark. "Ineida is a tragic, naive child poised on the edge of the abyss; not my idea of a sex object."

  "I'm sure your interest in her is strictly fatherly."

  "Grandfatherly," Nudger said.

  "Last time we talked you described it as avuncular."

  "So I did."

  He could hear Claudia breathing into the phone. Claudia and phones; he had met her over the phone, fallen in love with her via electronic impulse. "I trust you, Nudger." She didn't tell him that lightly, he knew.

  Nudger thought it best not to say anything. He heard a hollow, rolling sound on the line. It took him a few seconds to identify it as thunder.

  "It's going to storm in St. Louis," Claudia said. "It'll cool things off. Is it hot there?"

  "Hot as the music; not a hint of relief. This is an unreal place, as exotic as Zanzibar. It's so swampy here they inter their dead aboveground. The cemeteries look like miniature cities without windows or traffic."

  "They buried your friend Billy Weep today. I saw it on the television news in the school lounge when I was at lunch. Benjamin Harrison Jefferson."

  "What?"

  "That was Billy Weep's real name. Didn't you know that?"

  "No. He told me it was something else, a long time ago."

  "They showed part of the service on the news. A man named Rush read a eulogy. And somebody played a blues number on the saxophone. It was sadder than a funeral march."

  "He wasn't laid out at the funeral parlor for very long," Nudger said.

  "I don't think he was laid out at all. He died indigent. The musicians' union paid for his burial."

  "Was there anything else on the news about him? Such as who might have killed him?"

  "No."

  Nudger wasn't surprised. The living weren't particularly interested anymore in Billy Weep, probably hadn't been since he'd stopped making music that saddened them but reminded them they were alive. Nudger stared out the window at the soft, slanted early evening light. Painters and photographers lived for this time of day; it was too bad the world really wasn't the way it appeared in such a light.

  "Billy Weep's death is connected with what's going on in New Orleans, isn't it?" Claudia said.

  "I think so."

  "Are you… being careful?"

  "More than is necessary." He knew that she understood his caution was for both of them. She held her silence. Their wordless mutual understanding was more of a declaration of love than if either of them had professed love. Their relationship had evolved into this while neither of them was watching. That was the trap people fell into.

  "Are you in any kind of imminent danger, Nudger?"

  "Sure I am. And I'm scared. But that's the way of my half-assed occupation."

  "You're always honest, anyway."

  The dark worm of conscience writhed in Nudger.

  "We're running up your phone bill," Claudia said. "Are you on an expense account?"

  "I'm told that I am, but what I'm told and reality in this city seldom seem to match. It's been that way since I've been down here. Maybe it's something in the grits."

  "The rain's started here now; it's blowing in and getting the floor wet. I'd better go close the window."

  "Are you trying to get rid of me?"

  "I'm trying not to need you so much. You and the mop."

  "I might call you again tomorrow around this time," Nudger told her.

  "Or you might not. Either way, I'll be here."

  Nudger hung up the phone, replaced it on the night- stand, and sat gazing at it. There was something undeniably maudlin in such interdependence, he thought. He had never felt that way even in the early days of his marriage with Eileen. But then he had divorced Eileen.

  His digestive tract let it be known that he'd thought about Eileen. She and it had never gotten along well. Their relationship had been conducive to ulcers, not Eileen's.

  If he was going to mull over women who disturbed, he might as well check on the latest addition. He picked up the receiver again and punched out the number for the desk.

  "Are there any messages for Nudger, Room three-oh- four?" he asked.

  The desk clerk mumbled in a way that suggested that there were never any messages for anyone, but said that he would check. The phone downstairs clattered as he set it down.

  Nudger waited.

  "Yes, sir," a somewhat surprised voice said after a few minutes. "A phone message marked three o'clock. From a Miss Marilyn Eeker."

  Nudger gripped the receiver tighter and pressed it hard to his ear. "Well, what does it say?"

  "It says she's sorry she missed you again and will call or come by whenever she can."

  Nudger relaxed his grip on the receiver. He wished now he hadn't called the desk. He was right where he'd been before the call, only more puzzled and anxious.

  "Anything else, sir?" There was alertness and respect in the clerk's voice now. A guest who got messages at the Majestueux commanded that.

  "No. And thanks." Nudger hung up, and unglued his fingers the rest of the way from the phone.

  He chewed a couple of antacid tablets and lay on his back on the bed, one hand toying with the phone cord and the other absently massaging his uneasy stomach, and thought about it raining in St. Louis. At least it had waited until after the funeral.

  Jesus, he thought, Benjamin Harrison Jefferson.

  XIX

  Nudger was standing patiently outside the club, in the red glare of the neon Fat Jack above the sidewalk, when Judy Villanova pushed through the door on her way home from work. It was nine forty-five; she had taken time to change out of her waitress uniform. She was wearing Levi's and a plain white blouse. Despite the red glare, she appeared pale, and even younger than she had inside the club.

  Nudger stepped away from the building a
nd moved in front of her, putting on the old sweet smile. "Judy," he said, as if they were longtime friends.

  She was on to that approach. As soon as she realized she didn't know Nudger, she stepped nimbly around him and walked fast toward the corner.

  Nudger skipped a few steps, then kept pace next to her. "My name is Nudger, Mrs. Villanova. We need to talk. I'm not trying to pick you up; this is business."

  She didn't slow down. Didn't so much as glance in his direction. She was a speedy walker for such a small woman; Nudger knew he'd soon be short of breath.

  "Please," he said.

  The magic word. She dropped back to a pace he could keep up with, looked over at Nudger, studying him, then stopped and stood still near the corner.

  "What is it we need to talk about?" she asked.

  "Max Reckoner."

  She began walking again, but slowly, strolling through the thick, warm evening. Night moths circling the streetlight above cast dappled, flitting shadows over her. Nudger fell into step beside her. She gave him a slow sideways glance. "Why ask me about Max?"

  "I was told that you know him."

  "I did. I don't anymore."

  She began to step down off the curb to cross the street. Nudger stopped her, gripping her gently by the elbow. She was so daintily boned, so breakable. "Look, Judy, I don't want to pry into your private life."

  "Then why do it?'

  "It's part of my job, but only as far as Max Reckoner is concerned. I'm interested in him, not in you. I'm not even interested in your past relationship with him."

  "Just what is your job, Mr. Nudger?"

  "You might call me a journalist."

  "I might, but I won't. You've been sniffing around Ineida Mann, asking the kind of questions a journalist wouldn't ask."

  "Sniffing around?" Nudger said. He didn't like it expressed quite that way; it made him sound like some sort of sex-starved carnivore.

  She smiled angelically at him and removed his hand from her elbow. Her pale, slender fingers were surprisingly strong. Possibly she was surprisingly strong in a lot of ways. And wiser than her youthful appearance suggested. "Level with me, Mr. Nudger," she said.