by John Lutz
He had to admit that Marrivale had left him with solid parting advice.
Though plenty of interested parties had warned Nudger to stay away from Ineida Collins, everyone seemed to have neglected to tell him to give a wide berth to Willy Hollister. And after breakfast, it was Hollister who claimed Nudger's interest.
Hollister lived on St. Francois, within a few blocks of Ineida Collins's apartment. Their apartments were similar. Hollister's was the end unit of a low tan stucco building that sat almost flush with the sidewalk. What yard there was had to be in the rear. Through the low branches of a huge magnolia tree, Nudger saw some of the raw cedar fencing that sectioned the back premises into private courtyards.
Hollister might be home, sleeping after his late-night gig at Fat Jack's. But whether he was home or not, Nudger decided that his next move would be to knock on Hollister's door.
He rapped on the wooden door three times, casually leaned toward it and listened. He heard no sound from inside. No one in the street seemed to be paying much attention to him, so after a few minutes Nudger idly gave the doorknob a twist.
It rotated all the way, clicked. The door opened about six inches. Nudger pushed the door open farther and stepped quietly inside.
The apartment no doubt came furnished. The furniture was old but not too worn; some of it probably had antique value. The floor was dull hardwood where it showed around the borders of a faded blue carpet. From where he stood, Nudger could see into the bedroom. The bed was unmade but empty.
The living room was dim. The wooden shutters on its windows were closed, allowing slanted light to come in through narrow slits. Most of the illumination in the room came from the bedroom and a short hall that led to a bathroom, then to a small kitchen and sliding glass doors that opened to the courtyard.
To make sure he was alone, Nudger called, "Mr. Hollister? Avon lady!"
No answer. Fine.
Nudger looked around the living room for a few minutes, examining the contents of drawers, picking up some sealed mail that turned out to be an insurance pitch and a utility bill.
He had just entered the bedroom when he heard a sound from outside the curtained window, open about six inches. It was a dull thunking sound that Nudger thought he recognized. He went to the window, parted the breeze-swayed, gauzy white curtains, and bent low to peer outside.
The window looked out on the courtyard. What Nudger saw confirmed his guess about the sound. A shovel knifing into soft earth. Willy Hollister was in the courtyard garden, digging. Nudger crouched down so he could see better.
Hollister was planting rosebushes. They were young plants, but they already had red and white roses on them. Hollister had started on the left with the red roses and was alternating colors. He was planting half a dozen bushes and was working on the fifth plant, which lay with its roots wrapped in burlap beside the waiting, freshly dug hole.
Hollister was on both knees on the ground, using his hands to scoop some dirt back into the hole. He was forming a small dome over which to spread the rosebush's soon-to-be-exposed roots. He knew how to plant rosebushes, all right, and he was trying to ensure that these would live.
Nudger's stomach went into a series of spasms as Hollister stood and glanced at the apartment as if he had sensed someone's presence. He drew one of the rolled-up sleeves of his white dress shirt across his perspiring forehead. For a few seconds he seemed to debate about whether to return to the apartment. Then he turned, picked up the shovel, and began digging the sixth and final hole.
Letting out a long breath, Nudger drew back from the open window and stood up straight. He'd go out by the front door and then walk around to the courtyard and call Hollister's name, as if he'd just arrived. He wanted to get Hollister's own version of his past.
As Nudger was leaving the bedroom, he noticed a stack of pale blue envelopes on the dresser, beside a comb and brush set monogrammed with Hollister's initials. The envelopes were held together by a fat rubber band. Nudger saw Hollister's address, saw the Beulah Street return address penned neatly in black ink in a corner of the top envelope. He paused for just a few seconds, picked up the envelopes, and slipped them into his pocket. Then he left Hollister's apartment the same way he'd entered.
There was no point in talking to Hollister now. It would be foolish to place himself in the apartment at the approximate time of the disappearance of the stack of letters written by Ineida Collins.
Nudger walked up St. Francois for several blocks, then took a cab to his hotel. Though the morning hadn't yet heated up, the cab's air conditioner was on high and the interior was near freezing. The letters seemed to grow heavier and heavier in Nudger's jacket pocket, and to glow with a kind of warmth that gave no comfort.
Nudger had room service bring up a plain omelet and a glass of milk. He sat with his early lunch, his customary meal (it had a soothing effect on a nervous stomach), at the desk in his hotel room and ate slowly as he read Ineida Collins's letters to Hollister. He understood now why they had felt warm in his pocket. The love affair was, from Ineida's point of view at least, as soaring and serious as such an affair can get. Nudger felt cheapened by his crass invasion of Ineida's privacy. These were thoughts meant to be shared by no one but the two of them, thoughts not meant to be tramped through by a middle-aged detective not under the spell of love.
On the other hand, Nudger told himself, there was no way for him to know what the letters contained until he read them and determined that he shouldn't have. This was the sort of professional quandary he got himself into frequently but never got used to.
The last letter, the one with the latest postmark, was the most revealing and made the tacky side of Nudger's profession seem worthwhile. Ineida Collins was planning to run away with Willy Hollister; he had told her he loved her and that they would be married. Then, after the fact, they would return to New Orleans and inform friends and relatives of the blessed reunion. It all seemed quaint, Nudger thought, and not very believable unless you happened to be twenty-three and love struck and had lived Ineida Collins's sheltered existence.
Ineida also referred in the last letter to something important she had to tell Hollister. Nudger could guess what that important bit of information was. That she was Ineida Collins and she was David Collins's daughter and she was rich, and that she was oh so glad that Hollister hadn't known about her until that moment. Because that meant he wanted her for her own true self alone. Ah, love! It made Nudger's business go round.
Nudger refolded the letter, replaced it in its envelope, and dropped it onto the desk. He tried to finish his omelet but couldn't. He wasn't really hungry, and his stomach had reached a tolerable level of comfort. He knew it was time to report to Fat Jack. After all, the man had hired him to uncover information, but not so Nudger would keep it to himself.
Nudger slid the rubber band back around the stack of letters, snapped it, and stood up. He considered having the letters placed in the hotel safe, but the security of any hotel safe was questionable. A paper napkin bearing the hotel logo lay next to his half-eaten omelet. He wrapped the envelopes in the napkin and dropped the bundle in the wastebasket by the desk. The maid wasn't due back in the room until tomorrow morning, and it wasn't likely that anyone would think Nudger would throw away such important letters. And the sort of person who would bother to search a wastebasket would search everywhere else and find the letters anyway.
He placed the tray with his dishes on it in the hail outside his door, hung the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the knob, and left to see Fat Jack McGee.
They told Nudger at the club that Fat Jack was out. Nobody was sure when he'd be back; he might not return until that evening when business started picking up, or he might have just strolled over to the Magnolia Blossom for a croissant and coffee and would be back any minute.
Nudger sat at the end of the bar, nursing a beer he didn't really want, and waited.
After an hour, the bartender began blatantly staring at him from time to time. Mid-afternoon or no
t, Nudger was occupying a bar stool and had an obligation. And maybe the man was right. 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. There was even a large diamond stickpin in his bib-like tie. 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.
When they were settled in Fat Jack's office, Nudger said, "I came across some letters that Ineida wrote to Hollister. 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, wide forehead glistening. "When are they planning on leaving?"
"I don't know. The letter didn't say."
"You gotta find out, Nudger!"
"I could ask. But Captain Marrivale wouldn't approve."
"Marrivale has talked with you?"
"In my hotel room. 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 Fat Jack's graying, gingery hair.
The telephone rang. Fat Jack picked it up, identified himself. His face went as white as his suit. "Yes, sir," he said. His jowls began to quiver; loose flesh beneath his left eye started to dance. Nudger was getting nervous just looking at him. "You can't mean it," Fat Jack said. "Hey, maybe it's a joke. Okay, it ain't a joke." He listened a while longer and then said, "Yes, sir," again and hung up. He didn't say anything else for a long time. Nudger didn't say anything either.
Fat Jack spoke first. "That was David Collins. Ineida's gone. Not home, bed hasn't been slept in."
"Then she and Hollister have left as they planned."
"You mean as Hollister planned. Collins got a note in the mail."
"Note?" Nudger asked. His stomach did a flip; it was way ahead of his brain, reacting to a suspicion not yet fully formed.
"A ransom note," Fat Jack confirmed. "Unsigned, in cutout newspaper words. Collins said Marrivale is on his way over here now to talk to me about Hollister. Hollister's disappeared, too. And his clothes are missing from his closet." Fat Jack's little pink eyes were bulging in his blanched face. "I better not tell Marrivale about the letters."
"Not unless he asks," Nudger said. "And he won't." He stood up.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm leaving," Nudger said, "before Marrivale gets here. There's no sense in making this easy for him."
"Or difficult for you."
"It works out that way, for a change."
Fat Jack nodded, his eyes unfocused yet thoughtful, already rehearsing in his mind the lines he would use on Marrivale. He wasn't a man to bow easily or gracefully to trouble, and he had seen plenty of trouble in his life. He knew a multitude of moves and would use them all.
He didn't seem to notice when Nudger left.
Hollister's apartment was shuttered, and the day's mail delivery sprouted like a white bouquet from the mailbox next to his door. Nudger doubted that David Collins had officially notified the police; his first, his safest, step would be to seek the personal help of Captain Marrivale, who was probably on the Collins payroll already. So it was unlikely that Hollister's apartment was under surveillance, unless by Frick and Frack, who, like Marrivale, probably knew about Ineida's disappearance.
Nudger walked unhesitatingly up to the front door and tried the knob. The door was locked this time. He walked around the corner, toward the back of the building, and unhitched the loop of rope that held shut the high wooden gate to the courtyard.
In the privacy of the fenced courtyard, Nudger quickly forced the sliding glass doors and entered Hollister's apartment.
The place seemed almost exactly as Nudger had left it earlier that day. The matched comb and brush set was still on the dresser, though in a different position. Nudger checked the dresser drawers. They held only a few pairs of undershorts, a wadded dirty shirt, and some socks with holes in the toes. He crossed the bedroom and opened the closet door. The closet's blank back wall stared out at him. Empty. The apartment's kitchen was only lightly stocked with food; the refrigerator held a stick of butter, half a gallon of milk, various half-used condiments, and three cans of beer. It was dirty and needed defrosting. Hollister had been a lousy housekeeper.
The rest of the apartment seemed oddly quiet and in vague disorder, as if getting used to its new state of vacancy. There was definitely a deserted air about the place that suggested its occupant had shunned it and left in a hurry.
Nudger decided that there was nothing to learn here. No matchbooks with messages written inside them, no hastily scrawled, forgotten addresses or revealing ticket stubs. He never got the help that fictional detectives got—well, almost never—though it was always worth seeking.
As he was about to open the courtyard gate and step back into the street, Nudger paused. He stood still, feeling a cold stab of apprehension, of dread knowledge, in the pit of his stomach.
He was staring at the rosebushes that Hollister had planted that morning. At the end of the garden were two newly planted bushes bearing red rosebuds. Hollister hadn't planted them that way. He had alternated the bushes by color, one red one white. Their order now was white, red, white, white, red, red.
Which meant that the bushes had been dug up. Replanted.
Nudger walked to the row of rosebushes. The earth around them was loose, as it had been earlier, but now it seemed more sloppily spread about, and one of the bushes was leaning at an angle. Not the work of a methodical gardener; more the work of someone in a hurry.
As he backed away from the freshly turned soil, Nudger's legs came in contact with a small wrought iron bench. He sat down. He thought for a while, oblivious of the warm sunshine, the colorful geraniums and bougainvillea. He became aware of the frantic chirping of birds on their lifelong hunt for sustenance, of the soft yet vibrant buzzing of insects. Sounds of life, sounds of death. He stood up and got out of there fast, his stomach churning.
When he returned to his hotel room, Nudger found on the floor by the desk the napkin that had been wadded in the bottom of the wastebasket. He checked the wastebasket, but it was only a gesture to confirm what he already knew. The letters that Ineida Collins had written to Willy Hollister were gone.
Fat Jack was in his office. Marrivale had come and gone hours ago. Nudger sat down across the desk from Fat Jack and looked appraisingly at the harried club owner. Fat Jack appeared wrung out by worry. The Marrivale visit had taken a lot out of him. Or maybe he'd had another conversation with David Collins. Whatever his problems, Nudger knew that, to paraphrase the great Al Jolyon, Fat Jack hadn't seen nothin' yet.
"David Collins just phoned," Fat Jack said. He was visibly uncomfortable, a veritable Niagara of nervous perspiration. "He got a call from the kidnappers. They want half a million in cash by tomorrow night, or Ineida starts being delivered in the mail piece by piece."
Nudger wasn't surprised. He knew where the phone call had originated.
"When I was looking into Hollister's past," he said to Fat Jack, "I happened to discover something that seemed ordinary enough then, but now has gotten kind of interesting." He watched the perspiration flow down Fat Jack's wide forehead.
"So I'm interested," Fat Jack said irritably. He reached behind him and slapped at the air conditioner, as if to co
ax more cold air despite the frigid thermostat setting.
"There's something about being a fat man, a man as large as you. After a while he takes his size for granted, accepts it as a normal fact of his life. But other people don't. A really fat man is more memorable than he realizes, especially if he's called Fat Jack."
Fat Jack drew his head back into fleshy folds and shot a tortured, wary look at Nudger. "Hey, what are you talking toward, old sleuth?"
"You had a series of failed clubs in the cities where Willy Hollister played his music, and you were there at the times when Hollister's women disappeared."
"That ain't unusual, Nudger. Jazz is a tight little world."
"I said people remember you," Nudger told him. "And they remember you knowing Willy Hollister. But you told me you saw him for the first time when he came here to play in your club. And when I went to see Ineida for the first time, she knew my name. She bought the idea that I was a magazine writer; it fell right into place and it took her a while to get uncooperative. Then she assumed I was working for her father—as you knew she would."
Fat Jack stood halfway up, then decided he hadn't the energy for the total effort and sat back down in his groaning chair. "You missed a beat, Nudger. Are you saying I'm in on this kidnapping with Hollister? If that's true, why would I have hired you?"
"You needed someone like me to substantiate Hollister's involvement with Ineida, to find out about Hollister's missing women. It would help you to set him up. You knew him better than you pretended. You knew that he murdered those three women to add some insane, tragic dimension to his music—the sound that made him great. You knew what he had planned for Ineida."
"He didn't even know who she really was!" Fat Jack sputtered.
"But you knew from the time you hired her that she was David Collins's daughter. You schemed from the beginning to use Hollister as the fall guy in your kidnapping plan."