The Right to Sing the Blues (Alo Nudger Book 3)

by John Lutz

  The clerk scratched his gray head and began to struggle with a miniature calculator. Nudger left him in the hands of science and went up to his room.

  The New Orleans phone directory listed only one Eeker. Joseph Eeker. Nudger phoned his number, asked to speak to him, and was immediately connected. It was all so easy Nudger knew it wouldn't bear fruit.

  He was right. Joseph Eeker was seventy-nine years old and had never heard of Marilyn Eeker and didn't want to hear of her again. Nudger apologized for being such a bother and hung up. He would have to wait for Marilyn Eeker to come to him. He hoped she didn't represent someone he owed.

  His conversation with Livingston, and his time cooped up in the car with Chambers and his ominously silent partner, had made Nudger perspire. He washed his face with cold water, then put on a fresh shirt and went back downstairs and outside.

  He drove the red subcompact in the direction of Fat Jack's club, wondering why Livingston hadn't mentioned his entering and leaving Hollister's apartment. It could be that police surveillance had already been called off at that time and Livingston simply didn't know about Nudger's being at Hollister's. Livingston was speaking the truth when he'd said his men had better things to do than trail Nudger. The New Orleans police force was as overworked as any other police department. Or it could be that Livingston knew about Nudger's going to Hollister's and deliberately hadn't mentioned it, playing his cards close to his little fox vest. Another possibility was that Livingston's man had seen Nudger at Hollister's and assumed a conversation had occurred, and Livingston hadn't thought the visit worth mentioning.

  Nudger decided to quit worrying about Livingston. Trying to analyze the motives of a cop like that was the sort of thing that ate holes in stomachs. He didn't need that.

  He parked the car, then pushed in through the door of Fat Jack's, leaving the heat and brightness of outside for the cool dimness of the club.

  The bartender—not the young unflappable one, but an elderly gray guy with a polka-dot bow tie—told Nudger that Fat Jack was out. Nobody knew for sure when he'd be back; he might not return until the 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. He watched the bartender, who had the air of a natty dresser despite the wrinkled white apron tied around his waist, get things ready behind the bar for the night. It was almost as if the long bar were a barricade, and he was making sure there was plenty of ammunition to deal with an imminent siege. He arranged bottles on the backbar so he could reach them easily, counted gleaming upside-down glasses as if they were artillery shells. It looked to Nudger like a boring job, nothing like sitting awake in a parked car all night waiting for a client's errant spouse to leave a motel room.

  Marty Sievers walked in from the back room. He stood for a while watching some of the early customers wander in and be shown to tables. He was wearing the same conservative brown suit he'd had on the first time Nudger saw him. Mr. Average; if they built an Everyman robot, it would look like Sievers. When he caught sight of Nudger, he walked over and stood next to him at the bar.

  “Looks like it's going to be a busy night,” Nudger said.

  “It will be. Hollister makes for busy nights. In fact, we've had a busy month.” The bartender brought him over a glass of what looked like pure club soda over ice. Maybe Perrier water. Sievers raised the glass in an amiable toast, smiling at Nudger, and sipped.

  “Do you happen to know Max Reckoner?” Nudger asked.

  “Sure, the guy who owns the antique shops. He's a regular. So's his wife Sandra, but she doesn't come in as often as Max.”

  “I've heard Max does his hunting in here,” Nudger said.

  “Hunting?”

  “Yeah. Max and Cupid.”

  Sievers gave him a level look. “I don't talk about the customers, Nudger. It's bad business.”

  “I could get my information from Fat Jack if you don't want to tell me.”

  “Maybe you should do that.”

  “It has to do with the welfare of the club.”

  The cash-register bell sounded behind the bar. Or was it Sievers' heart?

  “There can't be any business, good or bad, if there's no business at all,” Sievers said with perfect logic. If he hadn't been Green Beret, he'd have been Junior Achievement. “It's true that Max likes the young ones.”

  “How does Sandra react to that?”

  Sievers took another sip of his unblemished drink and shrugged. “She knows about it, but what can she do if she doesn't want to leave the guy? My impression is she's just waiting around for him to get through middle-aged madness and settle back down.”

  Middle-aged madness. Nudger wondered if he might be suffering from that. “Does Sandra have affairs of her own, to compensate? he asked.

  “I don't know,” Sievers said, a bit sharply. Nudger wondered if there had ever been any relationship between him and Sandra Reckoner. He decided not to ask Sievers about that; he wouldn't get an answer that meant anything, and Sievers would probably stop talking altogether.

  A busty redheaded waitress wearing a Fat Jack's T-shirt bounced by carrying an empty tray. Inspiration. “Has Max scored with any of the help here?” Nudger asked.

  “I agreed to tell you about the customers, not the employees,” Sievers said.

  “You're going to make me travel the long route to the same destination,” Nudger told him. “It could cost you a lot.”

  “Maybe.”

  “If you tell me, nobody will know where I got the information.”

  Sievers ran his finger along the rim of his glass, listening to the high-pitched, faint whining sound, and thought about that. “Okay,” he said finally. “You're supposed to be a confidential investigator.”

  “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 signed, 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.”

  EIGHTEEN

  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.”

&
nbsp; “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.”