The right to sing the blues

XIII

Sandra Reckoner's long legs were still striding in Nudger's imagination as he sat across from her in a booth near the back of The Instrumental, a lounge they'd entered at the end of the block. It was in a rehabbed and converted two-story frame row house. She acted as though she was familiar with the place, a narrow, dim room decorated with musical instruments mounted on the walls and suspended by thin wires from the ceiling. A carpeted spiral staircase led up to another room where there were more tables. Nudger could see the shoes and pants legs of diners near where the stairway wound into the second floor.

A husky blond barmaid without a waist, wearing a floor- length print skirt and a melancholy expression, came out from behind the long bar and took their orders. Nudger asked for Seven-Up over ice; Sandra Reckoner nodded to the barmaid as if she knew her and asked for Scotch on the rocks. The barmaid went back behind the bar and did something that caused soft sax music to drift out from speakers hidden around the place; considerate of her, since the morning was young and they were the only downstairs customers.

"Kind of early for me to be drinking high-proof stuff," Nudger said, when their drinks were placed before them on cork coasters featuring superimposed photos of well-known jazz musicians. He sipped his Seven-Up and set the glass down smack on the grinning face of poor Pete Fountain.

"The hour makes no difference to me," Sandra said. "People pay too much attention to clocks. I drink when I need a drink, which is often." Nudger doubted that she was telling him she was an alcoholic. She showed no signs of the disease; she glowed with that disturbingly good health that upsets male libidos. "Oh, I get drunk now and then," she said suddenly. "I enjoy it. Getting a little goosed once in a while makes my life more acceptable to me."

"What in your life do you find hard to accept?" Nudger asked, knowing the answer.

"What you were talking to my husband about: Ineida Mann. And so many others like her." She took a pull of Scotch. "Hell, they all look alike. Ever noticed how young girls nowadays seem sort of mass-produced?"

"I have. I thought that might be because I'm getting older. Is that why we're here? So you can ask me about Ineida and Max?"

Sandra sipped her drink daintily now, aimed her amused eyes at him over the glass rim. "Mostly, that's why we're here. My husband's infidelities are nothing new to me. I think he's a victim of male menopause. Like a number of middle-aged men, he likes younger women."

"He shouldn't," Nudger said candidly.

She picked up the sincerity in his voice and smiled. "Thanks, Mr. Nudger; that lifts me up more than this drink." She cocked her head to the side and stared at him, as if suddenly her undivided attention had been captured. "What's your first name?"

"Aloysius. But everyone just calls me Nudger."

"Lucky you." She leaned away and draped a long arm over the back of the booth; there was something sweeping and elegant in the gesture. Something grand. "Well?"

"I think the answer is no."

Sandra laughed deep in her throat, throwing back her head and exposing large, perfectly aligned teeth that were slightly stained. She had a way of glancing out of the corner of her eye when she did that, reminding Nudger of a spirited thoroughbred filly tossing back its head. He again reflected that she shouldn't have been as attractive as she was; her appeal puzzled and intrigued him.

"Your husband, as far as I know, has never slept with Ineida Mann."

"How far do you know, Nudger?"

"Almost to the horizon. Are you well acquainted with Ineida?"

"No, not really. She's just another young face and body of the type Max seems to gather around him. Sometimes they respond to his advances and sometimes they don't. Let's face it, Nudger, a wife has a right to be suspicious when her husband is spending time with a woman named Ineida Mann. I know you've been asking questions about the girl; I figured you could tell me something about her."

"She isn't what she seems," Nudger said. "And I don't think she's at all interested in Max. She's involved with someone else."

"Who? That piano player, Hollister? What does that prove? She might take on more than one man in one night, for all I know. What kind of background does she have? How the hell did she come up with that schmucky stage name? Who the fuck is she?"

"She comes from a nice family"-Nudger almost choked on his Seven-Up-"and she's more naive than she, and most of the people who see her perform, would like to believe. She's a blues singer; she wants to give the impression that she knows something about the hard knocks and pain she's describing in her lyrics."

"Are you telling me she's using all that heat just to try to sell a song?"

Nudger nodded.

"Her act's a good one, then," Sandra said. "She doesn't exactly come across the footlights as Polly Pure." She drained her Scotch, signaled with a crook of a long finger to the husky barmaid, who had her back turned to watch soundless TV but caught the signal in the backbar mirror. "You want another Seven-Up, Nudger? I'm buying."

"No, thanks. Too much carbonation this time of day will set off my stomach."

"What's the matter with your stomach?"

"Nerves."

"Then you're in the wrong business, aren't you?"

"You betcha." He watched as Sandra's drink was replaced by a fresh one. "Have I put your mind at ease?"

"Somewhat," she said. "But then, my mind is usually more or less at ease."

"It doesn't seem as if your situation warrants that enviable state of tranquillity," Nudger told her.

"Why not? Because the marital scales are out of balance? But they're not; I see to that. My response to Max's philandering is to enjoy my own infidelities, Nudger. I believe in vengeance through orgasm."

Nudger breathed in some carbonation bubbles through his nose, coughed, and lowered his glass. "That's a, er, fascinating philosophy."

She was smiling broadly now, toying, in control of the game. "Are you deeply involved with anyone, Nudger?"

"Very much so." He stared at the languid curve of her long arm, the play of bright flesh along her throat as she tilted back her head to sip her Scotch. "Well, fairly involved."

"Max doesn't know about my affairs. And he's not observant enough to suspect, much less find out; these days his thought processes occur well below the belt line. I like it that way; I do things for my satisfaction, not his dissatisfaction. That's the difference between my affairs and his. Nobody gets hurt my way. Everything's agreed on beforehand; no strings attached to either party. Freedom's an exhilarating experience."

"If there is such a thing."

"Oh, there is, Nudger." She worked on her drink some more, then suddenly set the glass down as if she'd lost interest in it. "So? Does my way of coping with my husband's infidelities interest you?"

"Do you mean interest me in a personal way?"

"Of course."

Nudger thought hard about Claudia. It was difficult to bring her features into sharp focus in his mind.

"There isn't necessarily anything wrong or cheap about lust, Nudger."

"Hm, that's something to think about."

Smiling, she stood up, picking up the bar check to pay on her way out. "Then think about it."

Nudger watched her settle with the blond barmaid and walk out without looking back at him. He knew she was aware that he was staring; he could tell that by the measured cadence of her long-legged stride.

He sipped his Seven-Up. It tasted flat, now that Sandra Reckoner had gone. Instead of finishing his drink, he sat silently in the cool lounge, rotating his glass on its damp coaster. Thinking. Thinking.