The right to sing the blues

XXIX

Nudger decided not to tell Fat Jack about his unsettling conversations with David Collins and Marilyn Eeker. The big man had enough to worry about and would hardly be reassured by the fact that Ineida was pregnant, or that Nudger was being pressured hard by Collins to find her before any harm came to her. Fat Jack knew that as Nudger's search for Ineida went, so went his own chances for survival. And everyone knew the odds on any kidnap victim turning up alive. In such circumstances a massive client, as over-wrought as he was overweight, could be a liability.

"So what have you found out, old sleuth?" Fat Jack asked from where he stood by his office window. He was leaning far backward, as if to look down at a particular angle, his huge stomach straining at his gold belt buckle. Nudger wondered if he was contemplating squeezing through the window and letting two stories of height end his problems. But something told him Fat Jack wasn't the suicidal type; he'd thrived too long making music in an indifferent and demanding world to fall into the self- destruct category. His theme song was survival.

"I haven't found out anything new," Nudger said. "That's why I'm here. Did Hollister have a regular dressing room or locker where he kept a change of clothes or any personal items?"

Fat Jack turned to face Nudger. The light streaming through the window made his gingery hair appear sparse, his huge head more bloated with fat. He looked unhealthy these days. "Hey, I never thought of that! Yeah, he's got no private dressing room, but he does have a locker. Down in the hall near the green room."

Nudger assumed the green room was the all-purpose place of faded paint and yellowed posters. "Is it locked?"

"There are three lockers," Fat Jack said, "all with combination locks. The combination's two left, three right, one left."

"For which locker?"

"All of them. Nobody's supposed to keep anything valuable in them, and I can't give every new performer a fresh combination, so I keep it so I can remember the numbers."

"Which one's Hollister's?"

"The one closest to the green-room door."

The desk phone gave a shrill scream and Fat Jack jumped. Telephones were making him nervous lately. Nudger could understand why. They were nasty instruments that might convey the wrong message, that might at any moment spring up on their coiled wire and bite fatally.

"I'll let you know if I find anything interesting," Nudger said, drifting toward the door as Fat Jack moved reluctantly yet with ponderous grace toward the phone. Fat Jack was sweating again; his white collar was dark up near the top from perspiration. Nudger was depressed by being around such agony.

Fat Jack tucked the receiver into his neck folds and somehow nodded good-bye as Nudger shut the door. Nudger heard him say, "Hey!" in a relieved voice. This caller wasn't likely to bring bad news.

Downstairs, business was already beginning to build. Marty Sievers was behind the bar, studying a sheet of paper and talking earnestly with Mattingly the bartender. He glanced at Nudger but gave no sign that he'd seen him. Judy Villanova was serving some of the exotic pineapple-with- parasol drinks to a group of women at a corner table who looked as if they might be part of a tour group. When she moved away to return to the bar, she saw Nudger and smiled.

Sam Judman smiled too, nodding as Nudger walked past. Judman was on the stage with the backup band, getting his drums set up for this evening, back at his job. Not much time had been wasted in bringing back old blood after Hollister had left. Obviously, Fat Jack and Sievers didn't figure Hollister would return here to play piano.

Nudger found the lockers easily enough, lined along the wall just outside the door to the grimy green room where he'd had his conversation with Hollister and been granted the great man's autograph. They looked like secondhand lockers from a high school gym; they were beige and defaced with indecipherable graffiti. Near the top of the middle unit it was proclaimed in a scratched message that someone named Gloria liked to do something, but Nudger couldn't make out what. It was more titillating that way.

Nudger worked the combination dial on the locker Fat Jack had said was Hollister's. It rotated stiffly, as if it needed oil, but at the end of the combination it clicked and Nudger could feel the tension of the dial relax in his hand. He twisted the handle and pulled the narrow steel door open.

Inside, a black Fat Jack's T-shirt hung on one of the hooks. A wrinkled and soiled tan sport jacket was draped over another. On the locker's floor lay a pair of run-down jogging shoes.

Nudger searched the jacket's pockets, then turned each shoe upside down and shook it. He didn't find what he was looking for, only a small brown spider that fell from the left shoe and scurried for cover.

Outside in the club, the band started in on a warm-up number. Nudger didn't recognize it, but it had a strong beat and Judman was going wild on the drums while the crowd, carefree people who knew nothing about kidnapping and murder, clapped in time. It was good to hear.

Nudger stood still for a few minutes in the warm hall, listening. Then he closed the locker door, twirled the combination lock, and left the club without going back upstairs to Fat Jack's office. "You want what I can't give you, Nudger," Livingston said.

He leaned back behind the desk, framed by the gloomy view out the dirty window of his office. A large bird, probably a pigeon, flapped near the glass as if confused; Nudger thought it was going to hit the window, but it veered at the last instant and swooped out of sight. Maybe the view through Livingston's window was as deceptive from outside as from within.

"Why can't you give me the key to Hollister's apartment?" Nudger asked.

Livingston peered around the ever-present vase of flowers; this time they were ugly things that looked like the kind of plants that ate flies and raw hamburger. They were in the right place. "That apartment's a crime scene," he explained.

"No crime has been reported," Nudger pointed out.

"Yet."

"True," Nudger said. "Maybe I'd better report a kidnapping and make it official that a crime has occurred."

Livingston didn't like that suggestion, didn't like Nudger for making it. There was pressure on Livingston from opposite ends and both men knew it. "Don't push that line, Nudger," Livingston said. The hard glint was back in his slanted, beady eyes. Tough little bastard, that glint said. Mean little bastard.

"As long as Collins hasn't requested police help," Nudger said, "you're under no obligation to regard the apartment as an evidence site. You really have no business possessing Hollister's door key."

"You're the one who said I had a key to Hollister's apartment."

"You didn't deny it."

Livingston smiled. "Think of the things you don't deny but aren't guilty of."

"This isn't a question of guilt," Nudger said. "You searched Hollister's apartment and found out his clothes are missing; I was told that by a reliable source. You're the type that touches all bases. I'm sure there was a spare key and you located it. Or if there wasn't, you have a copy of the landlord's passkey."

"I haven't admitted being in Hollister's apartment," Livingston said. Nudger interpreted that as a good sign; the captain might be starting to cover himself, which meant he might be considering allowing Nudger inside the apartment.

Nudger was sure that by now Livingston not only knew Ineida's disappearance was a kidnapping, he'd also be in possession of all available information. Collins obviously had notified him unofficially, given him the details. Maybe he'd even gotten a speech outside Collins' wine cellar, as Nudger had. After all, they were both in the same business, which sometimes entailed locating kidnap victims, and Livingston was familiar with the territory. Livingston had to play dumb, even though Nudger knew he was anything but that. A mutually protective charade was required here, and Livingston was good at charades. Practice, practice.

"We have the same interests here," Nudger told him.

"Sure we do. But I don't want you mucking up things."

"Speaking of muck," Nudger said, "consider the swamp."

Livingston grinned and shook his head knowingly. "I'm privy to certain facts that you don't know about, Nudger."

"Some things I do know. I know that people who know where too many bodies are buried sometimes join the group."

Livingston smoothed a lapel with one of his little pawlike hands and gave that some thought.

"Do you have any kids?" Nudger asked.

Livingston shook his head no.

"Then it's hard for you to understand the way a father feels about his only daughter, how he might react out of gut feeling rather than logic. Powerful instincts are at work there. Primal emotions. A bereaved father might do just about anything."

"Do you have any kids, Nudger?"

"No."

Livingston snorted, almost a sharp bark. He scooted his chair back a foot or so on its plastic carpet protector and bent down out of sight. Nudger heard a drawer slide open.

Within a few seconds Livingston resurfaced above desktop level. He was holding a shiny brass key. He tossed it lightly so that it landed flat, with a dull sound like a dropped coin that hasn't flipped, on the desk corner where Nudger could reach it.

"I'll get this back to you," Nudger said, picking up the key and slipping it into a shirt pocket.

"I never gave anything to you," Livingston told him. "But if I would happen to give you something, I'd make sure I had a duplicate so you wouldn't have to return it. So with luck I wouldn't have to see you again, even if what I didn't give you got you into trouble you couldn't get out of." He didn't so much as begin to smile as he said that.

"Confusing but protective," Nudger said, "like good legalese. I admire the way you cover your tracks, even if it's at someone else's expense."

Livingston smiled his narrow and nasty smile. "That's the secret of life, Nudger, someone else's expense."

Nudger had to agree. He'd paid enough to know it was true.