John Lutz - The right to sing the blues

"When I found out the letters were missing, I suspected Collins' alter egos Frick and Frack, but that didn't make sense in light of further developments. Then I suspected Sandra Reckoner, but she didn't take the letters. Nobody else I knew of could have been in my hotel room. Nobody even knew the letters were there. Nobody but you. You stole them and had them delivered to David Collins to further implicate Hollister by making it appear that he and Ineida left New Orleans together. Then there's the fact that Ineida's three months pregnant."

"Huh? Pregnant?"

"If Hollister had taken her, he'd know about the pregnancy and would have used it for leverage. But it was never mentioned in the kidnapper's ransom demands."

"Ineida's got one in the oven? You sure?"

"One in the oven," Nudger confirmed. He'd never liked that expression. "Her mother told me. Collins' former wife. Marilyn Eeker."

Fat Jack said nothing for a long time. Then he said, in a very low voice, "Okay, I guess all that leaves me in deep shit."

"The deepest."

He raised his head slowly. His question was a plea for mercy: "What now, old sleuth?"

Nudger stepped forward and leaned down over the desk so he could look Fat Jack in the eye. "Where is Ineida?" he asked.

"She's still alive" was Fat Jack's only answer. Crushed as he was, he was still too wily to reveal his hole card. It was as if his fat were a kind of rubber, lending inexhaustible resilience to body and mind. Nudger couldn't help it; he found himself admiring such stamina in the face of relentless pressure.

"It's negotiation time," Nudger told him, "and we don't have very long to reach an agreement. I not only did a little digging in Hollister's garden, I did some refilling. It's a busy place, that garden. While we're sitting here talking, the police are digging in the dirt I replaced."

"You called the police?"

"I did. But right now, they expect to find Ineida. When they find Hollister, Livingston will begin to fit all the pieces together the way I did and get the same puzzle picture of you. It might take him a while, since he has less than I did to work with, but he'll do it."

Fat Jack nodded sadly, seeing the truth in that prognosis. Livingston was, if nothing else, a smart cop. "So what's your proposition?" Fat Jack asked.

"We both have a stake in Ineida getting back to home base safely," Nudger said. "You release her, and I keep quiet until tomorrow morning. That'll give you the advantage of a head start on the law. The police don't know who phoned them about the body in Hollister's garden, so I can stall them for at least that long without arousing suspicion."

Fat Jack didn't deliberate for more than a few seconds. He saw the only way out of the maze and intended taking it.

He nodded again, then stood up, supporting his ponderous weight with both hands on the desk. "What about money?" he whined. "Hey, I can't run far without money." He added with supreme logic, "That's what all this was about."

"I've got nothing to lend you," Nudger said. "Not even the fee I'm not going to get from you."

"All right," Fat Jack sighed. He was pure resignation now, whipped like a tub of butter. Despite himself, Nudger kept feeling some semblance of pity for him. Something so buoyant and enormous, both physically and in talent and accomplishment, was an awesome and pathetic spectacle crashed.

"I'm going to phone David Collins in one hour," Nudger told him. "If Ineida isn't there, I'll put down the receiver, pick it up again, and dial the number of the New Orleans Police Department."

"She'll be there," Fat Jack said. "Hey, I promise." He buttoned his suit coat, gathered momentum, and headed toward the door. He had some moves left; that was all he needed, some.

He was within a step of the office door when it opened.

Fat Jack reversed direction, as if he'd run to the end of his string and rebounded, taking two steps backward without turning.

Marty Sievers walked into the office. He nodded blandly to Fat Jack and Nudger, looking as if he had no idea that anything unusual was going on here. Nudger knew better. The cards were all up now; bluff time was over. Sievers must have been outside the door for a long time, eavesdropping.

"No one's leaving here for a while," Sievers said. He said it softly, but it was an unmistakable order to be unfailingly obeyed. A threat. It was effective, even though he wasn't carrying a weapon. He didn't need a weapon. He knew it. Fat Jack and Nudger knew it. That was enough.

"I guess I don't have anyplace to go right now," Nudger said.

Sievers smiled a handsome, glittering smile. Leading- man charm. Dazzling. Nudger had never seen him smile like that. It was unnerving.

"You might have someplace to go you never thought of," Sievers said, still in that same soft voice. "And in a hurry."

You turn back from our objective too easily," Sievers said to Fat Jack. "It's still obtainable." His tone was clipped, as if he were talking about a military operation.

Fat Jack wasn't swayed by Sievers' concise confidence. "Christ, Marty, this thing is blown. I mean, hey, let's face it and get out while we can. I mean-"

"Shut up," Sievers interrupted. "Stay shut up." Patton meets blues man, Nudger thought. New commander. Battlefield commission. "I was outside the door. I heard everything you and Nudger said. This operation isn't scratched; we simply have to tighten the time frame."

"Tighten what… how?" Fat Jack said, sounding vague and confused. Obviously not Green Beret material.

Sievers was looking directly at Fat Jack, but at an unnatural angle that kept Nudger fixed firmly in his peripheral vision. Nudger had never seen anyone do that before. It made the flesh on the back of his neck creep. "We get in touch with Collins as soon as possible," Sievers said. "We collect what money we can within the next hour, before Collins learns about Hollister's body being found and figures there's murder in the game and maybe his daughter's dead. He'll be more likely to balk at paying then and call in the law."

"Why is the money so important now?" Nudger asked. "Alive is better than rich, when you're staring at a homicide charge and the death penalty."

Sievers swiveled his head slightly to look at Nudger, keeping Fat Jack in sight to the side in that peculiar way of his. It was easier with Fat Jack because of his bulk, but the odd intensity stayed in Sievers' eyes. It was sheer concentration and calculation; his juices were flowing as they probably hadn't since Vietnam.

"The money's important because of who we owe it to," he said. "Fat Jack and I borrowed a lot of money to cover unwise investments made with the club's profits. We not only dipped into David Collins' till, we took out loans from people who administer their own death penalty to debtors who can't pay. And without that ransom money, Fat Jack and I can't pay."

"I ain't worried about that now!" Fat Jack said. "We can run from those guys easier than from the law. You get a murder rap on you, and kidnapping Collins' daughter to boot, and you got no place to hide, Marty. No place. Hey, don't you understand?"

"I understand that we're going to finish what we started," Sievers said. "We're ramrodding this through."

"Collins won't even know you're involved," Fat Jack said. "But what about me? He'll come straight for me. And we hang around here and get nailed by the law while we're trying to collect a ransom and everybody in Louisiana will want to witness our executions just for the entertainment value. You're underestimating Collins' influence."

"I don't care what happens to you," Sievers said flatly. "The operation is what's important."

"Certain soldiers are expendable," Nudger said. "Every good military man knows that. And this one's back in Vietnam; he'll take his objective even if it kills all his men."