by John Lutz
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 nightstand, 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.
NINETEEN
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 and 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.
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 street car. 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.
TWENTY
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 woman'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, he 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.