be playing here much longer before moving up the show-business ladder-not for what I'm paying him, and I'm paying him plenty.'
'How did you happen to hire him?'
'He came recommended by a club owner in Chicago. Seems he started out in Cleveland playing small rooms, then moved up to better things in Kansas City and your town, St. Louis, then Rush Street in Chicago. All I had to do was hear him play for five minutes to know I wanted to hire him. It's like catching a Ray Charles or a Garner on the way up. The man's an original.'
Nudger didn't remember Hollister ever playing St. Louis, but that wasn't surprising. Nudger hadn't listened to live jazz in years, and not much recorded jazz since his collection had been ravaged by incensed creditors. Diluted FM radio music had comprised most of his listening lately. The stuff of elevators.
'So what specifically is there about Hollister that bothers you?' Nudger asked. 'Why shouldn't he be seeing Ineida Collins?'
Fat Jack scrunched up his padded features, seeking the word that might convey the thought. 'His music is… uneven.'
'That's hardly a crime,' Nudger said, 'especially if he can play so well when he's right.'
'He ain't as right as I've heard him,' Fat Jack said. 'Believe me, Hollister can be even better than he is tonight. But it's not really his music that concerns me. Hollister acts weird sometimes, secretive. Sam Judman, the drummer, went by his apartment last week, found the door unlocked and let himself in to wait for Hollister to get home. So what happens? When Hollister discovers him there he beats up on Sam-with his fists. Can you imagine a piano player like Hollister using his hands for that?' Fat Jack looked as if he'd discovered a hair in his absinthe. 'He warned Judman never to snoop around his apartment again. I mean, talked hard to the man!'
'So he's obsessively secretive,' Nudger said. 'I still don't see why you need me.' What am I doing, he asked himself, trying to talk myself out of a job? What would Eileen think if she could hear me? What would her shark of a lawyer think? Blood in the water.
But Fat Jack said, 'Hey, believe me, I need you. Hollister has been troubled, jumpy, and unpredictable, for the last month. He's got problems, and he's seeing Ineida Collins, so I got problems. I figure it'd be wise to learn some more about Willy Hollister.'
'I understand,' Nudger said. 'The better to know if his intentions toward the lady are honorable, as they used to say.'
'And in some quarters still do,' Fat Jack pointed out. 'Only they don't fight duels over those matters around here anymore; in a duel both parties have a chance. What we see now are mostly one shot affairs, usually in somebody's back.'
Nudger felt a cold twinge of fear. He didn't like murder; he didn't even like talking about murder.
'Are you afraid David Collins might shoot you?' he asked.
Fat Jack lifted the massive shoulders inside his pale jacket. 'Naw, I guess not. What I'm afraid of is he'll see to it that I wanna shoot myself.'
Nudger wasn't totally reassured. Nobody could exude fear like a fat man, and fear seemed to live and feed inside Fat Jack like a malignant overmatched tapeworm.
'Who's Marty?' Nudger asked, looking around but not seeing the brown-suited man who'd so skillfully handled trouble earlier in the evening.
'Marty Sievers,' Fat Jack said. 'He's my floor manager.'
'You mean bouncer?'
'Naw. Marty's in charge when I'm not here. And we don't need a bouncer with him around. He's ex-Green Beret. Black belt, all that mean stuff. But he don't use it if he don't have to.'
'The ones who really have it usually are that way,' Nudger said.
'I guess. You know any martial arts? A guy in your business should.'
'I'm yellow belt,' Nudger said, 'only mine runs vertically, up the back.'
'Huh?'
'Never mind. Have you talked to Marty about Hollister?'
'Some. Not much. I asked him to keep an eye on the situation, keep me clued in on anything that happens between Ineida and Hollister that I should know about. Marty's too busy running the place to see much else, though. He's got enough of a job keeping watch on the liquor and seeing the help don't dip into the till.'
The lights did their three-time dimming routine again, the crowd quieted, and Willy Hollister was back at the piano. But this time the center of attention was the tall dark-haired girl leaning with one hand on the piano, her other hand delicately holding a microphone as if the heat from her fingertips might melt it. Inside her plain navy- blue dress was a trim figure. She had nice ankles, a nice smile, nice eyes. Nice was a word that might have been coined just for her. A stage name like Ineida Mann didn't fit her at all. She was prom queen and Girl Scouts and PTA and looked as if she'd blush fire-engine red at an off-color joke. But maybe all of that was simply a role; maybe she was playing for contrast. Showbiz types were good at that.
Fat Jack knew what Nudger was thinking. 'She's as straight and naive as she looks,' he said. 'But she'd like to be something else, to learn all about life and love in a few easy lessons. You know how some young rich girls are.'
Nudger knew. 'Is Hollister the guy to teach her?'
'You might think so, judging by his surface qualities, but I think he might be a phony. I think he might take her straight through to graduation, but no diploma. And that's what scares me enough to hire you.'
Someone in the backup band announced Ineida Mann. There was light applause, and she acknowledged it with a smile, slipped into the pensive mood of the music, and began to sing the plaintive lyrics of an old blues standard. She had control but no range. Nudger found himself listening to the backup music, which included a smooth clarinet.
The band liked Ineida and went all out to envelope her in good sound, but the audience at Fat Jack's was too smart for that. Ineida finished to more light applause, bowed prettily, and made her exit. Competent but nothing special, and looking as if she'd just wandered in from suburbia. But this was what she wanted and her rich father was getting it for her. Parental love could be as blind as the other kind. Sometimes it could cause just as much trouble.
The lights came on full brightness, and conversation and the sale of drinks stepped up in volume and activity. There apparently would be no more music for a while. Some of the customers began drifting toward the door, to continue roaming the night for more fun or blues or whatever else they needed. It was early yet; there was promise in the air.
'The crowd'll thin out soon,' Fat Jack said. 'It's Hollis- ter they came to hear.'
'They stuck around for Ineida's act.'
'Jazz folks are a polite audience. And like I told you, Ineida ain't all that bad. She's worth the cover price, once the customers are in. But it's people like Hollister that get them in.' Fat Jack took another delicate sip of his absinthe, diamond ring and gold bracelet flashing in the dimness. 'So how are you going to get started on this thing, Nudger? You want me to introduce you to Hollister and Ineida? Or are you gonna sneak around sleuth-style?'
'Usually I begin a case by discussing my fee and signing a contract,' Nudger said.
Fat Jack waved his immaculately manicured, jewel- adorned hand. 'Hey, don't worry about fee. Let's make it whatever you usually charge plus twenty percent plus expenses. Trust me on that.'
That sounded fine to Nudger, all except the trusting part. He reached into his inside coat pocket, withdrew his roll of antacid tablets, thumbed back the aluminum foil, and popped one of the white disks into his mouth, all in one practiced smooth motion.
'What's that stuff for?' Fat Jack asked.
'Nervous stomach.'
'You oughta try this,' Fat Jack said, nodding toward his absinthe. 'Eventually it eliminates the stomach altogether.'
Nudger winced, feeling his abdomen twitch. 'I want to talk with Ineida,' he said, 'but it would be best if we had our conversation away from the club. And without us having been introduced.'
Fat Jack pursed his lips thoughtfully and nodded. He said, 'I can give you her address. She doesn't live at home with her father; she's in a little apartment over on Beulah Street. It's all part of the making-it-on-her-own illusion. I can give you Hollister's address, too.'
