John Lutz - The right to sing the blues

Fat Jack glided out from behind the desk, approached Sievers with his moist eyes clenched almost shut. With tremendous effort he raised his arm, pointed the gun, jerked the barrel back as he pulled the trigger.

The gun made very little noise; a flat, slapping sound.

Sievers was unaffected. Fat Jack had missed.

"Oh, Christ!" the fat man moaned. "Oh, Christ! Oh Christ!…"

He moved closer, fired again. Again. A small hole appeared near the base of Sievers' neck. He didn't bleed; there was no power left in him to pump blood. A little strawberry-colored froth built up in a corner of his mouth, like pink soap suds. Nudger's stomach lurched and he swallowed. This wasn't at all the way death by shooting appeared a million times a night on a million television screens; this death was soul-wrenching to watch.

Fat Jack was sitting on the floor now, his huge legs stuck straight out in front of him. His pants legs were twisted up on him; his ankles, clad in black nylon dress socks, were surprisingly thin. Great tears, as befitting such a huge man, were tracking down his face, dropping to spot his white shirtfront. He was clutching the gun tightly between his legs with both hands, as if he'd been kicked in the groin and it still hurt. He couldn't stop sobbing.

Sievers finally got finished dying and lay still.

Nudger continued to feel a subtle vibration. His heartbeat. He drew a deep breath and held it for a while, forcing himself to be calm. Then he took a step toward Fat Jack and looked down at him. "Get up."

Fat Jack couldn't make it by himself. Nudger had to grip one flabby, perspiration-slick wrist and heave backward as the big man floundered, almost fell, then struggled to his feet.

More composed now, Fat Jack wiped at his cheeks with his sausage-sized fingers. He dragged a forearm diagonally across his damp face. He didn't have to look at Sievers now; he couldn't look at him. He kept his gaze up, away from the floor. Nudger waited for the deep resilience to come into play.

After almost a minute had passed, Fat Jack straightened his mussed pants and shirt, ran his fingers through his thinning gingery hair, and looked at Nudger with the old light of pure reason back in his piggy little eyes.

"Same deal as before?" he asked.

Nudger didn't have any alternative. His primary consideration was getting Ineida back home alive and unharmed. Staying alive and unharmed himself. He nodded.

Fat Jack tossed the tiny spent revolver into a corner, moved to the desk, and began hurriedly stuffing his pockets with whatever he thought he might need and could carry. He knew the police were digging right now in Hollister's garden. Digging. Digging.

"I'm going to phone Collins' home in one hour," Nudger reminded him. "If Ineida's not there, my next call will be to the police."

"She'll be there. Hey, trust me. I trust you, Nudger."

"Neither of us has a choice," Nudger said.

"That's the way the world works, old sleuth. No choices. Not really. Not for anyone. Slide Marty's wallet out of his coat and hand it to me, will you?"

"No. You get it."

"I can't, Nudger. You know that. I gotta have some money! A man can't run far without the green stuff!"

"I told you before, I've got nothing to lend you."

Fat Jack tried again to look down at Sievers, but he couldn't make it. His head rotated slightly toward the body, but his eyes wouldn't follow; only the glistening whites were aimed at Sievers.

"All right, old sleuth," Fat Jack said resignedly. "I'm going on the cheap."

He tucked in his sweat-plastered shirt beneath his huge stomach, wrestled into his tent-sized suit coat, and without a backward glance at Nudger glided majestically from the room. Even the hell of what had happened here would soon be pushed to a far, dark corner of his mind; he'd have his old jaunty stride back in no time.

Nudger walked to the closed office door and locked it. Then he went to Fat Jack's desk and sat down. The soft sound of the blues filtering up from downstairs only made the office seem more quiet. He could barely see the toe of one of Sievers' kicked-off loafers lying next to a still, brown-stockinged foot. Death and silence had everything in common. Nudger would spend the next hour with these two, getting to know them better than he wanted.

He heard his rapid breathing gain a softer, steadier rhythm, and the pace of his heartbeat leveled off. The blues number he'd become involved in was played out now. Almost. Nudger settled back in Fat Jack's chair.

He sat with the man with the hole in his head and felt time crawl slowly over both of them.

When Nudger answered the knock on his hotel- room door the next morning, he wasn't really surprised to find Frick and Frack looming in the hall. They pushed into the room without being invited. There was a sneer on Frick's pockmarked face. Frack gave his boxer's nifty little shuffle and stood between Nudger and the door, smiling politely.

"We interrupt your sleep, my friend?" Frick asked in his buttery accent. He looked amused.

Their knocking had awakened Nudger. He'd made it out of bed, then slipped into his pants but not his shirt. He was bare-chested, bare-footed, digging his toes nervously into the rough carpet. He felt vulnerable, standing there without his shoes and socks on. His stomach, which a moment ago had yearned for breakfast, wasn't so sure about food now.

"Mr. Collins is of the opinion you saved his daughter's life," Frick said. "This came out very well for you, my friend."

"And for Ineida, considering."

"But Mr. Collins still isn't exactly fond of you," Frack said. "He don't like you personally, I guess."

Nudger ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth; he'd slept too long and his teeth felt fuzzy. He didn't like not being liked by David Collins. He wanted coffee. He wanted to brush his teeth.

"Mr. Collins thinks you're a guy who's habitually putting your nose where it doesn't belong," Frick said. "He's right, eh?"

"I don't put my nose anywhere," Nudger said. "I only follow it. He's afraid of where it might lead me."

Frick slowly shook his head. "Not afraid, my friend. Cautious." His eerie little smile took form as he said, "We brought you something from Mr. Collins." He reached into an inside pocket of his pale green sport jacket. At the moment, the coat just about matched Nudger's complexion.

All Frick brought out of the pocket, though, was an envelope. He held it out for Nudger, who accepted it and was surprised to see that his hands were steady as he opened it.

The envelope contained a single ticket for a coach seat on the 4:45 Amtrak City of New Orleans to St. Louis.

Frick said, "Mr. Collins wants you to take a train instead of a plane so you get the feeling of distance."

"I'll like that feeling," Nudger said.

Frick's smile broadened, lost its faraway, unsettling quality, and became genuinely friendly, even admiring. "You did okay, my friend. You did what was right for Ineida. Mr. Collins appreciates that."

"What about Fat Jack?" Nudger asked.

Frick's warm smile changed subtly, went cold. It became the dreamy, unpleasant sort of smile Nudger had seen before.

"Where Fat Jack is now," Frack said, "most of his friends are alligators."

"After Fat Jack talked to you," said Frick, "he went to Mr. Collins. He couldn't make himself walk out on all that possible money; some guys just have to play all their cards. He told Mr. Collins that for a certain amount of cash he would reveal Ineida's whereabouts, but it all had to be done in a hurry."

Nudger felt a coolness move over him, swirl around his bare feet. Marty Sievers had been persuasive enough last night to convince Fat Jack to try what he, Sievers, had been planning. But Fat Jack wasn't Sievers. Nobody was, anymore.