by John Lutz
She gazed out the window for a moment, then turned again to face him and nodded. "I've met Willy Hollister. Ineida brought him by my house to show him off one day. I didn't like him."
"Why not?"
"I grew up on the bayou, Mr. Nudger, then went to school in the East and got sophisticated and came back still a Southern girl and snagged the eligible David Collins for a husband. My father was a naturalist. He used to keep alligators from the time they were barely hatched to when they grew big and wild and something made them return to the swamp. They'd get a look in their eyes just before they disappeared into the bayou behind our house; something would enter their minds that they couldn't control and didn't want to. I hadn't seen that look since I was a tomboy bending saplings, until I met Willy Hollister."
"How did you find out Ineida's missing?" Nudger asked.
"She was supposed to meet me and didn't show up. I phoned, got no answer, and went by her apartment. It was obvious she hadn't been there for a while. I called David, demanded to know where she went. He was evasive. He also acted as if something was very wrong; he couldn't hide it. There's a rage boiling just under his skin, Mr. Nudger. He gets that way when he's helpless, frustrated, and a little scared."
"Willy Hollister's gone, too," Nudger said. "It appears that he and Ineida ran away together."
Marilyn Eeker gazed down at her delicate hands folded on the table, breathed out hard through her nose. "I was afraid of something like that." She looked up slowly. Her pale blue eyes were clouded. "Ineida's pregnant," she said.
Nudger lifted his glass of milk a few inches off the table, set it back down, and shoved it away, sloshing some of it onto his fingers. Cold.
"Christ!" he said. "How do you know?"
"She told me. She's known for almost two months. She's approximately three months pregnant."
"Your husband didn't mention that when we talked."
"He's my former husband. And he doesn't know. Ineida was afraid to tell him."
"I'm afraid to tell him, too," Nudger said. "Is she going to have the baby?"
"Yes, she won't have an abortion."
"She should," Nudger said.
"Maybe."
He sat quietly for a moment. It all made better sense this way. Maybe Ineida and Hollister actually had eloped; maybe the pregnancy forced them into it. The ransom note might not be genuine, might be the work of a crank.
But he knew that was highly unlikely. For Hollister, Ineida's pregnancy would only be an unwanted complication, a catalyst for more tragedy. Still, Nudger decided to keep quiet for now about the note.
"Have you considered phoning the police, Mrs. Eeker?"
"No," she said, "David would kill me." She said it calmly and reasonably. She wasn't exaggerating; it was an assessment.
"What are you going to do now?"
She shook her head, bit her lip. "I'm not sure."
"Go to Collins," Nudger told her. "Tell him you know about Ineida and Hollister running away together. Tell him you talked to me, and I confirmed what you suspected. Whether you tell him about the pregnancy is one for you to think over."
"He'll throw me out."
"He won't. He knows that if he does, you might go to the police. Threaten him with that if you have to. Ineida's your daughter; you have a right to know what's being done to get her back. Your husband will explain. Tell him if he doesn't, I will."
"He'll be furious with you."
"If he weren't already, I wouldn't be giving you this advice."
Nudger watched her wrestle with her dilemma. Then she apparently reached a decision; tension loosened its grip on her tight, squared shoulders.
She said, "Thank you, Mr. Nudger," and stood up. From her cheap vinyl purse she fished out a pair of crinkled dollar bills and laid them on the table. They were faded and finely worn, not unlike Marilyn Eeker herself.
Nudger picked up the bills and held them out for her. "I'll take care of the check," he said. "I'm on an expense account. Please. It's the American way."
"It's nice of you to offer," she said, smiling down at him. She had such a delicate, crystalline smile.
Then, ignoring the money extended toward her, she walked briskly away, prepared to face her former husband's contempt, and bring his anger with Nudger to a peak.
Nudger could understand why she and David Collins weren't compatible.
XXIX
Nudger decided not to tell Fat Jack about his unsettling conversations with David Collins and Marilyn Eeker. The big man had enough to worry about and would hardly be reassured by the fact that Ineida was pregnant, or that Nudger was being pressured hard by Collins to find her before any harm came to her. Fat Jack knew that as Nudger's search for Ineida went, so went his own chances for survival. And everyone knew the odds on any kidnap victim turning up alive. In such circumstances a massive client, as over-wrought as he was overweight, could be a liability.
"So what have you found out, old sleuth?" Fat Jack asked from where he stood by his office window. He was leaning far backward, as if to look down at a particular angle, his huge stomach straining at his gold belt buckle. Nudger wondered if he was contemplating squeezing through the window and letting two stories of height end his problems. But something told him Fat Jack wasn't the suicidal type; he'd thrived too long making music in an indifferent and demanding world to fall into the self- destruct category. His theme song was survival.
"I haven't found out anything new," Nudger said. "That's why I'm here. Did Hollister have a regular dressing room or locker where he kept a change of clothes or any personal items?"
Fat Jack turned to face Nudger. The light streaming through the window made his gingery hair appear sparse, his huge head more bloated with fat. He looked unhealthy these days. "Hey, I never thought of that! Yeah, he's got no private dressing room, but he does have a locker. Down in the hall near the green room."
Nudger assumed the green room was the all-purpose place of faded paint and yellowed posters. "Is it locked?"
"There are three lockers," Fat Jack said, "all with combination locks. The combination's two left, three right, one left."
"For which locker?"
"All of them. Nobody's supposed to keep anything valuable in them, and I can't give every new performer a fresh combination, so I keep it so I can remember the numbers."
"Which one's Hollister's?"
"The one closest to the green-room door."
The desk phone gave a shrill scream and Fat Jack jumped. Telephones were making him nervous lately. Nudger could understand why. They were nasty instruments that might convey the wrong message, that might at any moment spring up on their coiled wire and bite fatally.
"I'll let you know if I find anything interesting," Nudger said, drifting toward the door as Fat Jack moved reluctantly yet with ponderous grace toward the phone. Fat Jack was sweating again; his white collar was dark up near the top from perspiration. Nudger was depressed by being around such agony.
Fat Jack tucked the receiver into his neck folds and somehow nodded good-bye as Nudger shut the door. Nudger heard him say, "Hey!" in a relieved voice. This caller wasn't likely to bring bad news.
Downstairs, business was already beginning to build. Marty Sievers was behind the bar, studying a sheet of paper and talking earnestly with Mattingly the bartender. He glanced at Nudger but gave no sign that he'd seen him. Judy Villanova was serving some of the exotic pineapple-with- parasol drinks to a group of women at a corner table who looked as if they might be part of a tour group. When she moved away to return to the bar, she saw Nudger and smiled.
Sam Judman smiled too, nodding as Nudger walked past. Judman was on the stage with the backup band, getting his drums set up for this evening, back at his job. Not much time had been wasted in bringing back old blood after Hollister had left. Obviously, Fat Jack and Sievers didn't figure Hollister would return here to play piano.
Nudger found the lockers easily enough, lined along the wall just outside the door to the grimy green r
oom where he'd had his conversation with Hollister and been granted the great man's autograph. They looked like secondhand lockers from a high school gym; they were beige and defaced with indecipherable graffiti. Near the top of the middle unit it was proclaimed in a scratched message that someone named Gloria liked to do something, but Nudger couldn't make out what. It was more titillating that way.
Nudger worked the combination dial on the locker Fat Jack had said was Hollister's. It rotated stiffly, as if it needed oil, but at the end of the combination it clicked and Nudger could feel the tension of the dial relax in his hand. He twisted the handle and pulled the narrow steel door open.
Inside, a black Fat Jack's T-shirt hung on one of the hooks. A wrinkled and soiled tan sport jacket was draped over another. On the locker's floor lay a pair of run-down jogging shoes.
Nudger searched the jacket's pockets, then turned each shoe upside down and shook it. He didn't find what he was looking for, only a small brown spider that fell from the left shoe and scurried for cover.
Outside in the club, the band started in on a warm-up number. Nudger didn't recognize it, but it had a strong beat and Judman was going wild on the drums while the crowd, carefree people who knew nothing about kidnapping and murder, clapped in time. It was good to hear.
Nudger stood still for a few minutes in the warm hall, listening. Then he closed the locker door, twirled the combination lock, and left the club without going back upstairs to Fat Jack's office. "You want what I can't give you, Nudger," Livingston said.
He leaned back behind the desk, framed by the gloomy view out the dirty window of his office. A large bird, probably a pigeon, flapped near the glass as if confused; Nudger thought it was going to hit the window, but it veered at the last instant and swooped out of sight. Maybe the view through Livingston's window was as deceptive from outside as from within.
"Why can't you give me the key to Hollister's apartment?" Nudger asked.
Livingston peered around the ever-present vase of flowers; this time they were ugly things that looked like the kind of plants that ate flies and raw hamburger. They were in the right place. "That apartment's a crime scene," he explained.
"No crime has been reported," Nudger pointed out.
"Yet."
"True," Nudger said. "Maybe I'd better report a kidnapping and make it official that a crime has occurred."
Livingston didn't like that suggestion, didn't like Nudger for making it. There was pressure on Livingston from opposite ends and both men knew it. "Don't push that line, Nudger," Livingston said. The hard glint was back in his slanted, beady eyes. Tough little bastard, that glint said. Mean little bastard.
"As long as Collins hasn't requested police help," Nudger said, "you're under no obligation to regard the apartment as an evidence site. You really have no business possessing Hollister's door key."
"You're the one who said I had a key to Hollister's apartment."
"You didn't deny it."
Livingston smiled. "Think of the things you don't deny but aren't guilty of."
"This isn't a question of guilt," Nudger said. "You searched Hollister's apartment and found out his clothes are missing; I was told that by a reliable source. You're the type that touches all bases. I'm sure there was a spare key and you located it. Or if there wasn't, you have a copy of the landlord's passkey."
"I haven't admitted being in Hollister's apartment," Livingston said. Nudger interpreted that as a good sign; the captain might be starting to cover himself, which meant he might be considering allowing Nudger inside the apartment.
Nudger was sure that by now Livingston not only knew Ineida's disappearance was a kidnapping, he'd also be in possession of all available information. Collins obviously had notified him unofficially, given him the details. Maybe he'd even gotten a speech outside Collins' wine cellar, as Nudger had. After all, they were both in the same business, which sometimes entailed locating kidnap victims, and Livingston was familiar with the territory. Livingston had to play dumb, even though Nudger knew he was anything but that. A mutually protective charade was required here, and Livingston was good at charades. Practice, practice.
"We have the same interests here," Nudger told him.
"Sure we do. But I don't want you mucking up things."
"Speaking of muck," Nudger said, "consider the swamp."
Livingston grinned and shook his head knowingly. "I'm privy to certain facts that you don't know about, Nudger."
"Some things I do know. I know that people who know where too many bodies are buried sometimes join the group."
Livingston smoothed a lapel with one of his little pawlike hands and gave that some thought.
"Do you have any kids?" Nudger asked.
Livingston shook his head no.
"Then it's hard for you to understand the way a father feels about his only daughter, how he might react out of gut feeling rather than logic. Powerful instincts are at work there. Primal emotions. A bereaved father might do just about anything."
"Do you have any kids, Nudger?"
"No."
Livingston snorted, almost a sharp bark. He scooted his chair back a foot or so on its plastic carpet protector and bent down out of sight. Nudger heard a drawer slide open.
Within a few seconds Livingston resurfaced above desktop level. He was holding a shiny brass key. He tossed it lightly so that it landed flat, with a dull sound like a dropped coin that hasn't flipped, on the desk corner where Nudger could reach it.
"I'll get this back to you," Nudger said, picking up the key and slipping it into a shirt pocket.
"I never gave anything to you," Livingston told him. "But if I would happen to give you something, I'd make sure I had a duplicate so you wouldn't have to return it. So with luck I wouldn't have to see you again, even if what I didn't give you got you into trouble you couldn't get out of." He didn't so much as begin to smile as he said that.
"Confusing but protective," Nudger said, "like good legalese. I admire the way you cover your tracks, even if it's at someone else's expense."
Livingston smiled his narrow and nasty smile. "That's the secret of life, Nudger, someone else's expense."
Nudger had to agree. He'd paid enough to know it was true.
XXX
After leaving Livingston's lair, Nudger drove directly to Hollister's apartment on Rue St. Francois. He parked the red subcompact a block beyond the tan brick-and-stucco building and walked back along the narrow sidewalk. He wasn't sure there was a need for such caution, but he knew it might not be wise to have his car seen parked in front of Hollister's apartment. There were unfriendly players in this game.
As he walked toward the sunlit tan building, he adopted a casual air and glanced around. No one seemed to be watching the place, but that was hardly reassuring. It only meant that someone who knew how to conduct a stakeout might be watching. The few people Nudger passed on the sidewalk seemed genuinely uninterested in him, but since he had come to New Orleans, little had been as it seemed. As he approached Hollister's door, he stuck his hand into his pocket and withdrew the key. He didn't want to stand on the stoop wrestling with the lock any longer than was necessary.
The key slipped into the lock smoothly, with a well- oiled, soft ratchety sound; Livingston knew where to have good duplicates made. Efficient little bastard.
Nudger turned the key and was about to rotate the doorknob and enter when something slammed hard into the door near his left knee. He bounded to the side, whirling, a teenager again, weightless and agile. Scared.
"Sorry," she said, scooping up the red rubber ball that had struck the door and lodged in the bushes near the stoop. "Didn't mean to spook you."
She was about twelve, a scrawny black girl with immense pigtails that appeared to draw back the skin on the forehead and make her wide, wise eyes seem even larger. When she got older, if she put on some weight, she would be pretty, maybe beautiful.
Nudger managed to smile at her, mentally brushing her aside, and reached aga
in for the doorknob.
"He ain't home," the girl said. Blatantly curious, she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up at Nudger.
"How do you know he's not home?" Nudger asked.
"I knocked a little while ago. My ball bounced in his courtyard and I wanted to get permission to go get it. Nobody came to the door, so I went back and climbed the fence and got the ball anyways." She tossed the ball up behind and over her shoulder with her right hand, snatched it from the air at eye level with her left. Grinned. Nifty. "I'm Midge," she said. "I'm a neighbor. Who're you?"
"I'm Mr. Hollister's cousin. My name's Nudger. What does Midge stand for?"
"Just stands for Midge, is all. What's Nudger stand for?"
"Truth, justice, even the American way."
"Huh? Oh, that's a lot."
"Gets to be a burden sometimes. Thanks for the information, Midge. Bye."
"You goin' inside anyway?"
"Sure. Cousin Willy won't mind. I'm supposed to meet him here soon."
"I don't guess he's been back since last night," Midge said. She turned, bounced the ball off the sidewalk, and started across the street.
"Wait a minute!" Nudger said. Too sharply. He was concerned he'd frightened the girl. But she stepped back up onto the curb and then came over to him, looking up at him with those born-wise, unafraid eyes. No walkover, this kid. "Did you see Mr. Hollister here last night?" he asked.
"Yeah. Said I did."
"About what time?"
"I dunno. I was in bed. My dad came home and got in an argument with my mom over headaches or somethin'. Woke me up. When I wake up late at night I like to stay awake. I look out the window sometimes 'cause my bed's right by it. I seen Mr. Hollister go into his apartment."
"Was he alone?"
"Sure. It was late. He was probably goin' to bed."
