The right to sing the blues an-3

by John Lutz

  He walked beside her across Bourbon Street, then west on Royal. "Why don't we go in somewhere, have a cup of coffee, where we can talk without getting winded?"

  "I don't want to miss the streetcar and have to stand and wait for another one."

  "I'm working for Fat Jack," Nudger said. "If I ask him, he'll instruct you to cooperate with me. But he doesn't know about this conversation and he doesn't have to." Her pace became more deliberate and she glared at him. Oh, he was a bad one, the glare said. He shrugged. "You did say you wanted me to level with you."

  She gave him something of a sneer and kept on walking. They were passing some nightspots now, jazz clubs. Music drifted out to them, mingling into a kind of discordant medley that was oddly pleasing to the ear. Nudger thought he picked up a few bars of "Satin Doll." He stayed silent and let Judy Villanova mull things over.

  "You don't want to know about me and Max?" she said.

  "No."

  "Then what do you want to know?"

  "About Max and Ineida Mann."

  "Know about them how?"

  "Man-and-woman stuff. Hanky-panky. Love in the afternoon, or at any hour."

  "I don't know for sure, but I don't think there's anything between them. Not that Max wouldn't want there to be."

  "How does Ineida feel about Max?"

  "She likes him as a friend, but that's all. She's told him that. At first Max thought she was coming on to him, putting on a dumb act and not discouraging him. Then he realized she really is a little slow on the uptake when it comes to the kind of practiced moves he has."

  "What was Max's reaction when she told him she wasn't interested in him?"

  "A smile and a shrug and a let's-be-friends, and a waiting attitude. It really was nothing to Max. Ineida is just one of many pretty baubles out there for the taking. Like exotic tropical fish in a private lake. He casts his line; if they take the bait, fine. If they don't, that's okay, too. There's always tomorrow."

  "You paint him as a shallow, easy-going kind of lothario."

  "He is. I know; I'm one of many authorities on Max Reckoner."

  "You don't seem the type to get involved with someone like that, Judy."

  "Listen, Nudger, Max is a charmer, an expert at exploiting weakness, and I was having trouble with my husband. I was vulnerable; most women are vulnerable at one time or another in their marriage."

  "I've heard that theory."

  "I'll just bet you have. You married?"

  "Divorced."

  "Uh-huh."

  What did she mean by that? Nudger wondered. None of his business, he decided. Not much about Judy Villanova was any of his business. He said, "Sorry, I promised not to pry into your personal life."

  "Gerald-that's my husband-never found out about me and Max. Not many people know about what happened between us. How did you find out?"

  "I can't tell you that."

  "Why not?"

  "I promised someone I wouldn't."

  "Maybe you could break that promise."

  "No. I'd sooner break the law."

  "Old-fashioned man of your word, huh?"

  "That's not the kind of thing that's affected by time or fashion."

  "No, I guess it isn't." She smiled up at him like the ethereal child she would be until she hit senility. The music trailing them, a sultry jazz number, didn't fit her image.

  "What about Sandra Reckoner?" Nudger asked. "What's her attitude toward Ineida?"

  "She knows her husband is hot to get into Ineida's unsoiled panties, but that doesn't put Ineida into any special category. My impression is that Sandra puts up with Max's swordsmanship because she has no choice. And she's smart enough not to blame the women Max gets involved with; she knows if it weren't his present lover, it would be another."

  "Who's he involved with now?"

  "I have no idea." She laughed. "Maybe he's resting; he must sometime."

  "Have you heard anything about Sandra Reckoner taking her own lovers while Max is busy?"

  Judy lifted her narrow shoulders in an elegant shrug. "I've heard stories about her. So what? If the stories are true, I don't blame her."

  "Ever hear of her being involved in kinky sex?" Nudger asked.

  "Why, Mr. Nudger, you're beginning to sound like a dirty old man."

  Old? Nudger winced. But he knew that to Judy, he was old. So much depended on perspective. It was what made his job difficult.

  "But no," Judy said, "I never heard anything like that about her. But then, maybe it's true and I just haven't heard about it."

  She turned her head suddenly. They had reached the streetcar stop on St. Charles just in time. With a loud clinking and metallic squeaking of springs, a top-heavy, large box with square windows was swaying around the corner two blocks down.

  "I would like for my husband not to know about this conversation, Mr. Nudger. I don't want old coals raked over."

  "Gerald won't know. Fat Jack won't know."

  "I hope your word really is good in all seasons."

  "Oh, it is." The streetcar had stopped for passengers down the block and now was gliding toward them, moving smoothly for such an awkward object. "Is there really one?" Nudger asked.

  "One what?"

  "A streetcar named Desire."

  "There was when Tennessee Williams made it famous. It's a bus route now, Mr. Nudger. Desire is a street." She dug into her white straw purse for change.

  "Some street," Nudger said.

  "Some street," she agreed.

  "I'd appreciate your word that you won't tell Ineida or Willy Hollister about this conversation," Nudger said.

  She smiled. "You have it. I won't tell Sandra Reckoner, either."

  "Sandra Reckoner?"

  "She's the one you really wanted to learn about, not Ineida."

  The streetcar swayed to a stop in front of her. It was dirty dark green trimmed in red. The folding front door hissed open.

  "Are you a student of psychology at Loyola," Nudger asked, "or do you teach it?"

  She nodded good-night to him as she climbed up into the streetcar. He watched through the lighted windows as she paid her fare and found a seat. She didn't look out at him as the streetcar pulled smoothly away and with a faint whine of metal on strained metal continued down St. Charles.

  Nudger watched it until it disappeared around a curve, orange sparks flaring from the overhead wire that gave it life.

  Desire is a street, all right, he thought.

  XX

  After talking with the too-perceptive Judy Villanova, Nudger returned to Fat Jack's club for his car, then drove the red subcompact back to the Hotel Majestueux. Some of the streets were rough cobblestone, original New Orleans; he considered clamping a wadded handkerchief in his teeth to keep from losing a filling.

  Apparently there was some sort of convention going on at the hotel; several people in identical green blazers were milling about on the sidewalk outside the entrance, and Nudger couldn't find a parking space within two blocks.

  He made sure he wasn't in a no-parking zone, locked the car, and started walking back to the hotel. Passing a man and woman who were also wearing green blazers, he saw that they had large plastic nameplates pinned to their lapels that identified them as real estate agents. The women's nameplate read, "Hi, friend, I'M MINDY." She smiled brightly at Nudger, then saw that his jacket was not green but brown, and looked away.

  Two paces past her, Nudger stopped and stood still. There was a large man standing alone in the light beneath the hotel's gold canopy. He was staring idly out toward the street as he touched a match to a stubby cigar clamped between his teeth.

  Nudger took a few tentative steps closer to make sure of the man's identity.

  He hadn't been mistaken; the big man was Dwayne Frick. And probably Frick was waiting for him; there were better places to smoke a cigar than out on the sidewalk surrounded by real estate salespeople in currency-green blazers.

  But wasn't real estate a safe investment? Among all those people, h
e could walk right past Frick without fear of physical harm or another unsettling conversation.

  On the other hand, Nudger didn't have to walk past Frick at all. Frick didn't even have to see him. The big man didn't figure to stand out in front of the hotel all evening. Nudger slipped an antacid tablet into his mouth; it might be a good idea to go someplace and get a bland late-night snack to help settle his stomach. Come to think of it, he was even a little hungry.

  He turned to walk to his car and bounced back several feet off the massive chest of Rocko Boudreau. Frack.

  "Nice that we should bump into each other, eh?" Frack said. He was witty tonight. He wasn't smiling; he had his right hand resting on Nudger's shoulder, ever so gently. But that could change instantly.

  Nudger quickly chewed and swallowed his antacid tablet, before Frack did anything that might make him choke on it.

  Frack bent slightly to sniff Nudger's minty breath. "Stomach tablets again? You must live on them things. Maybe me and Frick can arrange for you to see a doctor, get some real medicine." Now he smiled his creepy, shadowy smile at Nudger, and his grip on Nudger's shoulder tightened slightly. It felt like the first quarter turn of a vise. Obviously, Frack wanted Nudger to stay still and not give any sign that he was under duress. Nudger decided it would be easier to obey than not. Where did he have to go, anyway?

  "The world is in too much of a hurry, the way I see it," Frack said. "Ain't no point in you adding to all that moving around." The eerie smile again. "World'd be better off if lots of folks just laid themselves down and stayed still forever."

  Nudger might have debated that point if fear hadn't welded his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He forgot about Frack's doctor remark; he knew what Frack meant by "still forever."

  A black Lincoln sedan pulled to the curb next to them and the driver reached over with a ham-sized hand and opened the passenger side door. Frick must have driven around the block. He glanced up at Nudger before straightening again behind the steering wheel. "Ah, hello, my friend," he said in his syrupy Cajun accent. His diamond- chip gray eyes picked up the dim green light of the dashboard and looked catlike. Nudger felt no warmth from the greeting as Frack shoved a hip into him to guide him into the passenger's seat.

  When Nudger was seated, Frack slammed the door, then got in back directly behind Nudger. Nudger wondered if Frack had a gun, then decided it hardly made a difference; that industrial-strength hand was back on his shoulder.

  There was a muffled, not-quite-synchronized series of clicks as Frick locked all the Lincoln's doors with the driver's controls, then he shifted his massive bulk beside Nudger to check the rearview mirror, and the car pulled away from the curb. The knots of green-jacketed people, engrossed in trading techniques for steering clients away from faulty furnaces and toward acceptable mortgage financing, gave no sign that anyone had noticed Nudger's skillfully contrived abduction.

  "I suppose you wonder where we're taking you," Frick said, making a smooth right turn onto a dark street.

  "Not until this very instant," Nudger told him. He was surprised by his flash of what he knew to be temporary bravado. It was obvious that nothing was going to happen to him until they reached their destination. That brief stretch of time looked long and luxurious to a man who thought his life might be at stake. Nudger could feel and appreciate the preciousness of each passing second, almost as if he could reach out and caress time. Einstein knew what he was talking about when he said time was relative and passed faster when you were with your best girl than when you sat down by mistake on a hot stove. That Einstein.

  "Your sense of humor will disappear, my friend," Frick said, "when we get where we are going."

  Frick knew his stuff as well as Einstein knew his. Even the dark humor of desperation evaporated when time was up against a brick wall. When the Lincoln slowed and turned into a dark alley between a closed office building and a seedy hotel, Nudger's stomach tried to get out of the car and run, growling for him to follow.

  But he couldn't move. He was sitting staring through the windshield, paralyzed with the realization of his impending death, memorizing every detail of the alley: the high dim light at the end, faintly illuminating the shadowed, iron- grilled windows; the hulking trash dumpster looming like a military tank halfway down the alley; the stack of dampness-distorted cardboard boxes with their plastic-wrapped refuse bursting from separated seams. This was how it would end. They'd find his body here tomorrow. Livingston would hear about it, tell someone that Nudger should have listened to him. Hammersmith would be notified, tell someone that Nudger should have listened to him. Hammersmith would tell Claudia; she would agree that he should have listened. Nudger agreed; he should have listened.

  "Can't you hear so good, my friend?" Frick was saying. He'd gotten out of the car and walked around. He was holding the car door open for Nudger. Frack had gotten out of the back and was standing next to Frick, smiling down at Nudger.

  That was when Nudger remembered the swamp. Maybe they were going to kill him here, put him in the car's trunk, and drive to where they could hide his body in the bayou. The idea of being under all that muck horrified Nudger; there would be nothing to breathe there, only ooze to suck into his lungs. Then he realized that how and what he breathed would hardly be a problem. He shivered, as if a faint, chill breeze had danced down the alley.

  "He don't listen for shit," Frack said. "He pays attention just for a while, and then he has to talk."

  "He's not talking now," Frick said.

  He started to yank Nudger from the car, but Nudger shoved his big hand away and got out himself and stood in the alley. For the first time since he'd seen Frick standing in front of the hotel, his stomach was calm, his mind strangely placid with resignation. Now he could accept what was about to happen. What, in fact, in all but the heart-ceasing details, had happened. But he wouldn't make it easy for them; he owed the old, once-alive Nudger that much.

  He backed a quick step, clenched his fist, and threw a straight right hand at Frack's chin, leaning into it to get all his weight behind the blow.

  "Jesus," Frack said almost sadly, slipping the punch and pushing Nudger into Frick. Frick drove the tips of his fingers into Nudger's stomach. The wind whooshed out of Nudger as he was spun half around and his hands were pinned behind his back in Frack's relentless grip.

  "This one is moderately game," Frick said, amused. He pressed a hand to the side of Nudger's neck and applied pressure. Almost immediately Nudger became dizzy, nauseated. He managed to free one arm and struck blindly at Frick, heard Frick say in his odd courtly manner, "Please, there will be less inconvenience for everyone, my friend, if you cooperate."

  For just an instant Nudger felt a pain near the small of his back, so sharp that it took away what ability he'd regained to breathe. Then he was staring up at the lane of black night sky between the tops of the buildings, and the hard paving bricks were pressing into his back.

  His left leg was bent under him at a sharp angle; he was sliding hard into third base after his sizzling line drive to left had been booted by Ackie, the Roans' left fielder. Then dynamite exploded behind his right ear; the cut-off man on the Roans had thrown low and hit him in the head with the baseball. He realized what had happened, even as he lost consciousness, even as the Roans' chubby third baseman- Ronny? Rolly?-tried to recover the ball, lost his footing, and fell on top of him.

  "Could be a concussion," somebody said. "Hell no, he wasn't safe!" somebody else said. His father was bending over him, large features wavering, speaking as if to someone else. "Little League baseball is rough," he told Nudger.

  "Rough," Nudger agreed. His voice was deep, hoarse. Strange. A man's voice. He wasn't lying on the ball diamond in Forest Park in St. Louis. He was miles and years away from there, in an alley in New Orleans.

  He tried to sit up and realized that Frick and Frack had treated him more brutally than the Roans' cut-off man. Those guys were sluggers, not shortstops. Pain erupted in Nudger like a nuclear reaction, spr
eading from his torso down each of his limbs. Bile rose like a solid, bitter column of fire in his throat. He tried to swallow it back down; instead he vomited.

  He lay still and tried to regulate his breathing. The pain abated somewhat. Slowly he raised his right hand and wiped his mouth, ran his fingertips over his face. It felt all right. Same familiar features. He used both hands to explore himself and the paving stones on which he lay. No cuts or abrasions. No blood. Nudger knew he'd been the victim of a very professional beating; one that induced pain but no outward evidence of physical violence. Nothing to show the law, to demonstrate with photographs in court. Real pros, were Frick and Frack; all of the damage they'd inflicted was within, like scrambling an egg inside its shell.

  The egg rolled over, moaned. Several people strolled past the mouth of the alley, but none of them glanced into its darkness.

  It was a full twenty minutes before Nudger managed to get to his feet. He leaned against a brick wall and probed his body for injuries. His ribs seemed okay. There were no mushy spots on his skull. His arms and legs worked, but stiffly and painfully. What the hell had they used on him, rubber hoses?

  With an intense effort of will, Nudger made his seemingly disconnected legs propel him jerkily from the alley out onto the sidewalk. It seemed to take several seconds for each signal from his brain to reach his muscles. It was as if he were slow-walking through a nightmare. And maybe he was.

  Then he was standing with one foot on the sidewalk, one foot off the curb. He wondered how he could alleviate that problem; it seemed he couldn't move the foot in the street. It was glued down firmly, part of the concrete. Half a dozen people walked past him; they didn't have any idea how to help him, or else they assumed he was drunk. One of them, a woman, even laughed.

  "Hey, my man, you sick or something?"

  A car was in front of him. For an instant Nudger felt terror. Then he saw the light on top of the car, the lettering on the door.

  The police?

  He squinted. No, a cab. The driver must have seen him standing half in the street and thought he was hailing a taxi.