John Lutz - The right to sing the blues

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.

After leaving Livingston's lair, Nudger drove directly to Hollister's apartment on Rue St. Francois. He parked the red subcompact a block beyond the tan brick-and-stucco building and walked back along the narrow sidewalk. He wasn't sure there was a need for such caution, but he knew it might not be wise to have his car seen parked in front of Hollister's apartment. There were unfriendly players in this game.

As he walked toward the sunlit tan building, he adopted a casual air and glanced around. No one seemed to be watching the place, but that was hardly reassuring. It only meant that someone who knew how to conduct a stakeout might be watching. The few people Nudger passed on the sidewalk seemed genuinely uninterested in him, but since he had come to New Orleans, little had been as it seemed. As he approached Hollister's door, he stuck his hand into his pocket and withdrew the key. He didn't want to stand on the stoop wrestling with the lock any longer than was necessary.

The key slipped into the lock smoothly, with a well- oiled, soft ratchety sound; Livingston knew where to have good duplicates made. Efficient little bastard.

Nudger turned the key and was about to rotate the doorknob and enter when something slammed hard into the door near his left knee. He bounded to the side, whirling, a teenager again, weightless and agile. Scared.

"Sorry," she said, scooping up the red rubber ball that had struck the door and lodged in the bushes near the stoop. "Didn't mean to spook you."

She was about twelve, a scrawny black girl with immense pigtails that appeared to draw back the skin on the forehead and make her wide, wise eyes seem even larger. When she got older, if she put on some weight, she would be pretty, maybe beautiful.

Nudger managed to smile at her, mentally brushing her aside, and reached again for the doorknob.

"He ain't home," the girl said. Blatantly curious, she was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up at Nudger.

"How do you know he's not home?" Nudger asked.

"I knocked a little while ago. My ball bounced in his courtyard and I wanted to get permission to go get it. Nobody came to the door, so I went back and climbed the fence and got the ball anyways." She tossed the ball up behind and over her shoulder with her right hand, snatched it from the air at eye level with her left. Grinned. Nifty. "I'm Midge," she said. "I'm a neighbor. Who're you?"