The right to sing the blues

XVI

Chambers ushered Nudger into Livingston's office, then withdrew without saying anything; Nudger heard the loud pop of gum on the other side of the door just after it closed.

The first thing he noticed about Livingston's office was that it was large. The wall behind the desk was mostly windows looking out over a depressed, gloomy section of New Orleans. Which puzzled Nudger for a moment, because it was a sunny day. Then he saw that the gloom was the result of a dirty film over the windows; it was all interior gloom.

The office was plush; there were two cream-colored velour chairs angled near the desk, police-uniform-blue carpet, and something that looked like a liquor cabinet in a far corner. The walls were paneled halfway up. Real paneling, not the plastic laminated stuff. Livingston sat behind his desk, the top of which was bare except for a green desk pad, some pencils, and a large clear glass vase that was crammed full of tall, bushy flowers of a kind that Nudger didn't recognize. He wondered if Livingston had a secretary, and if it was her job to supply fresh flowers for the vase every morning. He was the type.

"Sit down, Nudger," Livingston said brusquely.

"And good morning to you," Nudger told him, lowering himself into one of the creamy velour chairs. It was sneaky comfortable, the kind of chair that might not lull you into dozing, but that you'd find you didn't want to stand up out of when it was time to rise. He glanced around. "The New Orleans Police Department treats its captains royally."

Livingston peered at him around the bushy flowers, like a fox peeking out from deep cover. "Not really. You're just used to the low-rent ratholes private cops operate out of."

"I can see it was mostly tact that got you where you are."

"It was hard work," Livingston corrected. "And instinct. A talent for sniffing out trouble."

"And I smell like trouble?"

"You absolutely reek of it, Nudger."

"I'm sure you didn't call me down here just to get a whiff of me," Nudger said, shifting his weight in the soft chair so Livingston would have to crane his neck to continue watching him around the desk flora.

"It's been brought to my attention," Livingston said, "that just prior to our conversation in your hotel room, you were out of town for several days."

Nudger nodded. "Business."

"What kind of business?"

"The private kind, I'm afraid."

"Concerning the job you're doing here in New Orleans?"

"Partly."

"Then your business isn't so private that it isn't my business, too." Livingston rolled his chair to the side to get a better angle of vision across the desk, save himself from a stiff neck. "Tell me about it."

Nudger decided it was time to give something to Livingston; if he didn't, Livingston would take and keep on taking. It was the nature of the animal. "I'll tell you whatever I can," he said.

"Then it should be easy for you. I only want to know three things: Where did you go? Who did you see? What did you find out?"

"I went to Cleveland, Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis. I talked to people connected with the jazz scene."

"Talked to them about what?" Livingston asked, when Nudger didn't continue.

"Willy Hollister."

Livingston sat back and toyed with one of the sharp yellow pencils on the desk, adroitly holding its center still and rotating the ends, as if it were a compass needle that might point out the truth. "Hollister. The piano player over at Fat Jack's club?"

Nudger nodded.

"And what did you find out?"

"About Hollister?"

The pencil stopped being a compass; it became a gun, aimed at Nudger as if Livingston itched to fill him fatally with #2 lead. "Who else would I mean, Nudger?"

"Maybe David Collins. I found out some things about him."

"Let's stay with Hollister."

"Why not Collins?"

Livingston said nothing, looked uncomfortable, waited. There was a new hard glint in his slanted little eyes. It suggested that here was a man who, if pushed, would push back hard. He was a tough cop, even though he looked like a conniving little wimp. Nudger knew it was time to get cooperative.

"Hollister makes women disappear," he said.

Livingston was unimpressed by this vague revelation. "He does magic? I thought he was a musician." His voice had taken on the same sharp flintiness as his eyes.

"With a certain type of woman, he does magic," Nudger said. "They fall hard for him, have a passionate affair, then drop out of sight."

"You're saying Hollister has something to do with their disappearances?" Livingston asked. A coplike question, to the point and phrased to suggest the answer.

"There's nothing to indicate that," Nudger said. He decided to give Hollister the benefit of the doubt in this conversation with Livingston. After all, Nudger hadn't any real proof that the man had done anything the slightest bit illegal. "Maybe his women just get tired of being around all that ego," he said. "They might be surprised when they're caught in a love triangle: Hollister, the woman, and Hollister."

Livingston seemed to decide not to probe deeper. He leaned back, hiding for a moment behind his vase of foliage. Nudger could see his pointy little ears through the green stems. Livingston was gauging the situation; at this juncture, he might not want to know too much about Willy Hol- lister's love life. After all, there were people who might ask him questions.

"You're going to get your nose badly bent, poking it in the wrong places," Livingston said. "What were you doing in the Golden Oldens shop earlier today?"

Nudger shrugged. "I like old goodies."

"Goodies like Sandra Reckoner?"

"She's not so old," Nudger said. "Not a worm hole in her."

"Don't be so sure. I hear she gets turned on in the oddest ways by the oddest people." Livingston gave the sly, nasty smile of a pornographer or a censor.

"Why are you warning me again not to nose around?" Nudger asked. "Didn't we pretty much cover that subject in my hotel room?"

"Not completely. I want to make sure you understand something, Nudger. There are certain kinds of situations where I can't help you."

Nudger wasn't sure if he did understand. Was Livingston jerking strings for his own self-serving reasons, or was he actually at least obliquely concerned about Nudger's welfare? Was he the snide little bought cop he appeared to be, or was he something else, something harder to classify?

"Even strong swimmers drown now and then," Livingston said. "They do it by getting in over their heads when there's no lifeguard around."

Nudger wondered what was going on. Every cop he knew seemed to be speaking in metaphors all of a sudden. "You should meet my friend Hammersmith," he said.

"Who's he?"

"Oh, just a guy I know back in St. Louis."

"Back in St. Louis is where you oughta be."

"That seems to be the prevailing logic."

Livingston stood up; it wasn't easy to catch behind that big desk. "Keep yourself out of trouble, Nudger. My men have better things to do than tail you around the city."

Nudger got up out of the creamy velour chair, listening to his knees pop; he was getting old-like Billy Weep. No, he corrected himself, Billy wasn't getting older now. Nudger hadn't seen any point in telling Livingston about Weep's death. He looked out the window again at the world made gloomy by what went on inside Livingston's office, the way Livingston's world was clouded by what went on inside his head.

"What are you staring at?" Livingston asked.

"Nothing in particular," Nudger told him. "Nice suit. Wool?"

Livingston said nothing; Nudger left the office in silence, closing the door behind him softly. Wool, Nudger decided. A fox in sheep's clothing, that was Livingston. What was going on in his cunning little mind?

Out on the sidewalk, Nudger paused. His stomach was rumbling, threatening to make itself felt in ways unpleasant. He reached for his roll of spearmint-flavored antacid tablets.

An explosion behind him made him jump and whirl.

It was Chambers, popping his gum. The scent of Juicy Fruit wafted to Nudger.

The detective grinned at him, holding the pale wad of gum between his front teeth so it was visible when he smiled, like a kid proving to his mother that he hasn't swallowed it. "Give you a lift back to your hotel?" he offered, motioning with his head toward where the blue-gray sedan that had brought Nudger to the station house was parked across the street.

Nudger nodded. "Why not?"

Chambers winced. "That's a terrible philosophy. Better to ask yourself why." Then he shrugged. "On the other hand, people who ask themselves 'Why not?' keep me in a job." Pop! went the gum.

"They're both tough questions," Nudger said.

He broke the seal on a fresh role of antacid tablets and he and Chambers walked across the street side by side. Juicy Fruit and Spearmint.