The right to sing the blues

XXV

Nudger thought he'd feel stronger after breakfast.

Instead he was slightly nauseated and weaker.

Maybe his conversation with Hammersmith had done that to him; maybe the cigar had worked psychologically, even over the phone and all that distance.

When he stood up, a wave of dizziness almost forced him to sit back down. He managed to push the cart with the breakfast dishes outside into the hall, hang the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the doorknob, then lock himself in his room and walk to the bed.

Tired. He hadn't realized how tired he was. Everything that had happened recently seemed to be catching up, enveloping him now. Or was he seeking escape into sleep? Escape from this entire mad business. There were plenty of maybes that might apply. Nudger couldn't figure out exactly why he was suddenly exhausted, but he was; that he knew for sure. He half fell onto the bed and lay on his stomach.

He slept until early evening, then got up in the quiet dusk and staggered into the bathroom to switch on the light and lean over the toilet bowl. He noted with satisfaction that his urine wasn't quite so red. Gee, how could a guy see that and not feel that everything was right with the world?

Nudger knew how, even given as he was to baseless optimism. The pain was back, threatening to get really vicious, so he went back to the bed and lay down, went immediately to sleep again, and slept until nine-twenty the next morning. Time sure flew when you weren't having fun.

Deja vu seemed to play a prominent role in Nudger's life, he reflected, wondering if it was like that with everyone. This morning was a repeat of yesterday morning, only without Sandra Reckoner. The hot needle shower to ease aches and stiffness, the clean, unwrinkled clothes, the eggs, juice, and coffee served up by the gawky young bellhop who rolled the car in and looked around for Ineida, his protruding Adam's apple bobbing frantically like some kind of carnal radar.

"She's not here," Nudger said.

"Yes, sir," the bellhop answered, leaving the tray in front of the blue chair again. "I can see that." It was as if Nudger had diabolically dictated that Ineida disappear. The kid seemed to hold it against him, so Nudger tipped him a mere dollar and watched him sulk and disappear himself.

Plenty of appetite this morning, and nothing to spoil it. Nudger forked down the omelet, ate every crumb of the toast, and drained his orange juice glass. Then he sat and leisurely sipped two cups of coffee, realizing with hope and satisfaction that he felt tolerably well today. Some pain was still present, but he could tune it out enough to coexist with it. He could be Nudger again, and not merely a thing that lay motionless and ached.

Still moving stiffly, but not nearly as slowly as his creeping pace of yesterday, he gingerly labored into his sport jacket and straightened his open shirt collar. Then he left the hotel and walked through golden-molasses sunshine to Fat Jack's club. Fat Jack was in his office this morning, at his desk studying a folder full of sheet music with a sketchy and faded look to the notes. He had his suit coat off and was wearing a pristine white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms like fleshy hams.

"Hey, high tech," Fat Jack said. He gave a little offhand wave.

"Hi," Nudger said, somewhat confused. Had Fat Jack said "tech," or had he greeted him as "Tex"?

"Guy set me some blues numbers written by his computer," Fat Jack explained. Tech. "Wants me to have the band play them some night. Trouble is, the computer doesn't writ e like W. C. Handy, it writes like IBM. Can you believe it, one of the numbers here is called 'Dot Matrix Momma of Mine.' "

"Catchy."

"So's syphilis."

Nudger guessed Fat Jack didn't like the dot matrix number.

"Where you been?" Fat Jack asked.

"Slept late; I was beat."

"Not this morning. I mean yesterday."

"Yesterday morning's when Ineida came to my hotel to see me," Nudger said, turning away the thrust of Fat Jack's question like a seasoned politician on "Meet the Press." "She offered me twenty thousand dollars to leave her and Hollis- ter alone."

Fat Jack looked thoughtful and shifted his immense weight; the chair somewhere beneath him groaned for mercy.

"She said it was her money," Nudger said. "Do you think she could come up with that much on her own without her father knowing about it?"

"He might not know about it now," Fat Jack said, "but you can bet he will know about it, whether it's her money or his." He suddenly glanced sharply up at Nudger. "Hey, how come you turned down her offer?"

Nudger shrugged. "I'll make it up when I send you your bill."

Fat Jack was too lost in concern even to respond to that outrageous suggestion. He used his sausage-fingered left hand to worry the gold pinky ring on his right. "What did she say when you refused her offer, old sleuth?"

"She couldn't understand why she couldn't buy something she wanted that badly. She got mad."

"People like that," Fat Jack said, "they know the value of money. Hey, I mean the real value. Even at her age, been rich all her life. Folks like you and me, we think we understand, but we don't. Usually not till it's too late. You must have confused her for sure, a private cop without a price tag."

"She assumed somebody was paying me more for staying on the job than she was offering me to quit."

"Hey."

"She wants to know what's going on," Nudger said, "wants to know how she figures into it. I think maybe it's time we tell her, see how it all falls."

"No," Fat Jack said quickly. "No matter how it falls, it will all land on me."

"But think how much heavier it will be if David Collins finds out you had information that might have saved his daughter from Hollister and you kept silent."

Fat Jack was scooting one of the computer-composed numbers back and forth on the flat desktop with his fingertips, pondering Nudger's question. Nudger could read the piece's title, even though from his perspective it was upside down: "Floppy Disk Fanny." He liked that one. The desk phone rang.

Fat Jack picked up the receiver, pressed it above the jowl on the right side of his broad head, and identified himself. A few seconds passed, and his face went as white as his shirt.

"Yes, sir" he said. Both jowls began to quiver; loose flesh beneath his left eye started to dance. It was as if the thin man who's supposed to be inside every fat man was struggling to get out. Nudger was getting nervous just looking at him.

"You can't mean it," Fat Jack said. "Hey, maybe it's a joke, is all." Pause. "Okay, it ain't a joke." He listened a while longer and then said, "Yes, sir" again and hung up. He didn't say anything else for a long time. Nudger didn't say anything either. The air conditioner behind the desk hummed and gurgled; traffic outside on Conti swished by with the low, tense singing of rubber on hot pavement.

Fat Jack spoke first. He sounded out of breath. "That was David Collins. Ineida's gone. Not home. Not anywhere. Bed hasn't been slept in."

"Then she and Hollister left as they planned."

"You mean as Hollister planned. Collins got a note in the mail."

"Note?" Nudger asked. His stomach did a flip; it was way ahead of his brain, reacting to a suspicion not yet fully formed.

"A ransom note," Fat Jack confirmed. "Unsigned, in cutout newspaper words, just like in some cornball TV cop show." Fat Jack paused, perspiring. "Oh, Christ-cop! Collins said Livingston is on his way over here now to talk to me about Hollister."

"Why isn't he on his way to talk to Hollister? That would make more sense."

"No, it wouldn't. Hollister's disappeared, too. And his clothes are missing from his closet." Fat Jack's little pink eyes were bulging in his blanched face. He was suffering plenty; things he couldn't fathom were happening too fast. "We kept quiet too long about them letters you found. I better not tell Livingston about them."

"Not unless he asks," Nudger said. "And he won't."

"If he finds out about them and demands to have them, we're caught between having to withhold evidence or admitting something Collins won't be able to forgive. Some choice!"

"It's not one we'll have to make," Nudger said, "because the letters are gone."

"Huh? Gone where?"

"I don't know. They were stolen from my room."

A tremor ran through Fat Jack with this new source of worry. Its epicenter must have been his heart; he clutched his chest in a way that had Nudger concerned for a moment, then he seemed to calm down and dropped his hands to the desk. "Do you figure Collins might have got them?"

"I think we can rule it out," Nudger said. He knew that if Frick or Frack had been in his room and found the letters, they would have mentioned it to him during their encounter in the alley. Or they would have phoned David Collins for instructions and that encounter would have been far more serious.

"You got any idea who might have the letters?" Fat Jack asked.

"No," Nudger lied. "Have the police been officially contacted about Ineida's kidnapping?"

"Collins isn't the sort to trust the police on something like this," Fat Jack said. "He'll try taking care of it on his own, and in his own fashion."

Nudger thought about asking how Livingston knew about Ineida's disappearance, but he decided that would be naive.

Fat Jack suddenly grimaced, as if something inside his head had been reeled painfully tight. "Just what the hell am I going to say to Livingston?"

"Play it by ear," Nudger told him. "You've been doing that all your life and it's worked out fine." He stood up.

"Where you going?"

"I'm leaving," Nudger said, "before Livingston gets here. There's no sense in making this easy for him."

"Or difficult for you."

"It works out that way, for a change."

Fat Jack nodded, his eyes unfocused yet thoughtful, already rehearsing in his mind the lines he would use on Livingston. His survival instincts had been aroused. He wasn't a man to bow easily or gracefully to trouble, and he had seen plenty of trouble in his life. He knew a multitude of moves and would use them all.

"By the way," Nudger said, "do you know a woman named Marilyn Eeker?"

"Eeker?…" Fat Jack mumbled absently, his mind not on the question. "No, never heard of her."

"A petite blonde, about forty."

Still engrossed in his own worsening dilemma, Fat Jack didn't bother to answer. Maybe he hadn't heard.

He didn't seem to notice when Nudger left.