The Right To Sing the Blues (21 page)

They walked down another hall, this one lined with more paintings. These were unlike the traditional oils upstairs; they were modern, canvases splashed with indecipherable forms that were somehow ominous. Jackson Pollock possessed by Poe.

Frick stopped near a bend of the hall, stepped to the side, and motioned for Nudger to turn the corner first.

Nudger did, not without apprehension, and there was a small, dark-haired man sitting in one of half a dozen black leather chairs in a large, carpeted room.

Unlike upstairs, this room was comfortably sloppy. The walls were lined with shelves cluttered with various collectibles: glass curios, antique steel banks, some old cast-iron toys, several rows of antique jars. There was a big-screen TV in one corner, its viewing area a bored, opaque eye. In another corner a bar was set up. There were telephones sitting about like ashtrays; nobody would have to get up from any of the plushy upholstered black chairs in order to take a call. A well-fed yellow cat lounged on the arm of a black sofa, its head turned and drawn back tightly to stare at Nudger with calm disdain, as if on its list of things due respect, Nudger ranked far below litter box. New Orleans had no shortage of cats, and they all seemed to share the same low opinion of Nudger.

The dark-haired man saw Nudger and stood up. He was medium height, broad-shouldered yet very thin, youngerlooking than Nudger had anticipated, with an even-featured face that was handsome despite deep acne scars that mottled his cheeks. He looked at Nudger with rather large, clear brown eyes. His expression was the same as the cat’s. So was his complexion; his flesh had a yellowish tinge to it. He said, “Sit down, Mr. Nudger.” His voice carried just the hint of a lisp.

As he spoke, a tall, chestnut-haired woman, who’d been sitting outside Nudger’s range of vision, stood up.

“I’ll be back in a few hours, darling,” she said to the yellowish man and strutted from the room, regal and brassy as a showgirl. She appeared to have been crying, but it probably served to make her more beautiful, human as well as statuesque. Mrs. Collins?

As the door closed behind the woman, Frick placed a hand on Nudger’s shoulder and guided him to one of the black chairs. The chair hissed as Nudger settled into it; he felt oddly helpless, a prisoner of all that softness, which would inhibit any quick movement. Frick backed away to stand to the side and slightly behind Nudger. Frack took up position by the door, crossing his arms in a casual but vigilant they-shall-not-pass attitude.

“I’m David Collins,” the yellowish man said, walking over to stand in front of Nudger. He was wearing well-tailored dark-blue dress slacks, a silky blue-on-blue shirt, and crinkly leather gray shoes that looked suspiciously like house slippers. His clothes clashed with his complexion but his drink didn’t. In his right hand was an on-the-rocks glass with a pebbled clear bottom; the glass contained ice cubes and about a quarter of an inch of diluted amber liquid, probably Scotch. He said, in a very calm and conversational tone, so softly, “Who has my daughter, Mr. Nudger?”

“I don’t know.”

“What
do
you know?”

“That she’s gone. I was at Fat Jack’s when you called him. He couldn’t hide what the conversation was about.”

“Willy Hollister’s gone, too.”

“Is he?” Nudger decided to play ignorant on that one, for Fat Jack’s sake.

Collins grinned—no, grimaced toothily. When he did that he reminded Nudger of a young, sickly Richard Wid-mark. “His clothes are gone from his apartment. He didn’t give his landlord any notice. He didn’t leave a note or forwarding address. Just packed and left.” He took a very delicate sip of his drink; nibbled at it, really. “Just what do you make of it, Mr. Nudger?”

“Are Ineida’s clothes gone?”

Collins nodded slightly in vague admiration. “A sensible question. The answer to it is what disturbs me a great deal. Her clothes are there. All of her personal effects are there. Everything but Ineida. This is no joke that she’s playing along with.” A kind of slow anger seemed to be building in Collins, a modulated rage that sizzled with dangerous energy. Nudger understood why people feared him. “She’s been kidnapped; I received a ransom note.”

“Demanding how much?”

“Nothing specific yet. I’m supposed to be contacted again to let me know how much getting Ineida back will cost me, and where to deliver the money.” He took another dainty sip of his drink; the level of the liquid didn’t seem to have dropped at all when he lowered his glass. “Off this room there is a wine cellar, Mr. Nudger. I’m proud of it for the vintages it contains, but it also serves another purpose. It’s windowless, and completely soundproof. A person could scream like a Civil Defense siren in there and not be heard even here, where we are.” The large brown eyes didn’t blink, didn’t waver. “Why did Fat Jack hire you, Mr. Nudger? And don’t deny he’s your client.”

“Why deny what you already know is true?” Nudger said, reasonably and in the interest of self-preservation. “He hired me to find out about Willy Hollister. He was worried about Hollister’s relationship with Ineida, worried about what you might do if something happened to her because of her connection with the club. He knew he was supposed to be looking out for her, but there really was no way he could do that. The next best thing he could do was to find out where trouble might come from and try to head it off.”

“And what did you find out about Hollister and my daughter?”

“Ineida is a nice kid who can’t sing. And she’s in love and not thinking straight.”

“And Hollister?”

Nudger drew a deep breath and told Collins about Willy Hollister and Jacqui James and the other vanished women in various cities where Hollister had played blues as they had never been played before. The lines in Collins gaunt face deepened and his eyes darkened as he listened intently. This he did not like.

When Nudger was finished talking, Collins walked to a black steel file cabinet near the bar. He unlocked and slid open the top drawer all the way; it made a soft rolling sound on its tracks. Then he drew something out of it with his back to Nudger. He left the drawer open as he walked back over to stand in front of Nudger.

“Where did you get these?” he asked, holding out the stack of Ineida’s love letters for Nudger to see.

Nudger thought about Collins’ wine cellar, but not the wine. His eyes flicked to a heavy plank door that probably led to it. He still felt cooperative. “I took them from Willy Hollister’s apartment,” he said.

“You shouldn’t be snooping around other people’s apartments,” Collins told him.

“Or hotel rooms.”

Collins appeared puzzled for a moment, then smiled his Richard Widmark death’s-head grin. “You got it wrong, Nudger, we didn’t get these out of your room. Someone gave them to us.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. They were mailed.”

Nudger decided not to press. He didn’t want Collins to press back harder, rock-against-Nudger-against-hard-place.

“How long have you had these?” Collins asked, hefting the stack of letters in his right hand as if he might decide to toss them away in disgust, out of sight, out of the equation of his life and his daughter’s life. But he hadn’t the power to do that, and it infuriated him.

“A few days.”

“Did you show them to Fat Jack?”

“No.” Nudger didn’t mention that he’d told Fat Jack about Ineida and Hollister’s impending elopement. He hoped Collins wouldn’t ask about that. It would be client-protection time, and Nudger didn’t know if he was up to it.

But Collins let the blame fall on the nearest target.

“Maybe Ineida wouldn’t be gone if you had let me know about these letters. Or if you hadn’t been hanging around asking questions, opening cans of worms.” His upper lip curled nastily, slurring his words. He looked as if he’d encountered a foul odor.

“Listen,” Nudger began to implore.

“You listen, you bastard! Somebody snatched my daughter. That means two things: First, I do everything and anything to get her back. Second, I do everything possible and then some to see that whoever took her lives long enough to regret it but not much longer.”

“Call the police,” Nudger said.

“Oh?” Collins began to pace back and forth. The yellow cat watched him without blinking, moving its head slowly left to right to left. “Is that an order, Nudger?”

“Advice. Despite what you read or see on TV, the best thing to do when someone is kidnapped is to get the police in on it. Then the FBI. They know their business.”

“I don’t want the law to know about this.”

“Livingston knows.”

Collins didn’t answer. He didn’t seem to think of Livingston as the law.

“I like your daughter,” Nudger said. “I want to see her home safe, too.”

“Good. That works out fine. It gives you double incentive.”

“Incentive to do what?” But Nudger knew what Collins had in mind.

“You’re a detective,” Collins said. “You find out things. You’re going to find out where Ineida is. You’re going to get her back home, safe.”

“That might not be something I can accomplish, no matter how hard I try.”

“You’ll wish it were. Because if, after a length of time I decide upon, Ineida isn’t back here with you, you’ll be back here by yourself. That will leave you with two stops to make: the wine cellar, and the bayou.” He glanced somberly at Frick and Frack. “You’ll look forward to the bayou, Nudger.”

“You might be asking the impossible,” Nudger said.

Black laser light glinted Collins’ eyes. “Nothing’s impossible where my daughter’s concerned.” The ice in his glass made a tiny clinking sound; his hand was trembling.

He abruptly held the glass in front of him cupped in both hands, and turned away.

Frick stood aside and Frack made a motion with his big arm, signaling Nudger to leave with them.

Nudger was ready. The chair hissed at him like a malevolent serpent as he stood up. Frick and Frack waited while he moved through the doorway ahead of them. He glanced back before their oversized forms blocked his view.

Collins was standing on the other side of the room, still half turned away from them, holding and stroking the yellow cat. Both of them wore expressions suggesting they were dreaming of mice.

XXVI
I

ise men purport to see a universality in all expe
rience, a kind of connective tissue that exists throughout the universe so that no occurrence is independent of any other; there is, so they say, a reason for everything, and if one scrutinizes carefully enough, it is the same reason. These are wise men. Nudger was the kind of guy who was always trying mentally to recreate the day so he could figure out where he’d misplaced his car key, only to walk where he needed to go and then later find the key still in the ignition, where he’d forgotten it the night before. He often reflected that he wasn’t cut out for his profession. But then how many people other than jockeys and bearded ladies were suited to their jobs?

And here he was, searching for the single connective reason in this universe of grits and graft that he’d stumbled into so willingly in order to pay next month’s rent. To be able to find out what he didn’t know, he needed to find out why he didn’t know it. And the easiest way to do that was to get someone to tell him.

He had phoned Sandra Reckoner at several places, and
finally located her where he should have looked to begin with, at her home number. She was just like ignition keys.

She agreed to meet him for lunch at The Instrumental, in the same block as her husband’s flagship antique shop, the lounge where they had talked about sex and ill-kept secrets.

Though the place was crowded, she’d been able to get the table they’d sat at before. The same husky waitress was gliding like a Roller Derby queen among the tables; the same musical instruments were suspended from the ceiling and mounted on the walls. The thing that was different was that there was a piano player now, and a young blond girl sitting on the piano with a drink and cigarette balanced in the same hand, singing Helen Morgan style. She wasn’t bad, Nudger decided, but she needed her own act. That could be said of so many people.

Sandra looked cool and faintly amused. Her makeup and the dim light took ten years off her elongated face, rob
bing it of character rather than improving her looks. She had on slacks and a brilliantly striped, loose-fitting silky blouse with black half-dollar-size buttons; only a tall woman could wear that outfit.

“Did you decide you owe me lunch?” she asked Nudger, as he sat down across the table from her. The glass before her was empty except for half-melted ice. She’d been there awhile waiting for him.

“I owe you more than that,” he told her. “Or maybe we’re more even than I’d thought.” The girl on the piano moaned softly about lost love.

Sandra didn’t ask him what he meant by that; she was a great believer in letting time do its work. Nudger would get around to what he wanted to say, and she’d still be there to listen.

The waitress suddenly hovered over their table, pencil poised. She was wearing perfume that smelled overpower