'When I left the service, I came here because it's my hometown. My wife and I lived here before our divorce, a long time ago. I was a construction foreman for a while, up around Lake Pontchartrain. Then the building industry went bust, and I started doing some serious investing in the stock market-gambling, really-with some of the army severance money I had left. Fat Jack and I were in the same investment club. We got to know each other, thought the same way about certain investments. When I heard he was going to open his own jazz club, I wanted in. We talked, and then made the arrangements.'
'What kind of investment club were you in?' Nudger asked.
'One of those deals where the members pool their funds to purchase large blocks of stock or real estate partnerships. It fell apart several years ago when the stock market went into a swoon.'
'You must know most of the backup musicians at the club,' Nudger said.
'Sure. I know them all.'
'What do they think of Willy Hollister?'
'As a talent, they think he's God. As a person they don't particularly like him, but that doesn't bother them much. Or him. They know they're staying put, and he's heading for Grammy awards, Mount Olympus, and the David Letterman show.'
'Has he had trouble with any of the other musicians?'
'No, only Judman.' Sievers' voice became serious. 'It's a good thing he didn't break any bones.'
'Judman seems okay.'
'I didn't mean Judman,' Sievers said, mildly surprised, 'I meant Willy Hollister. He used his fists. He might have fractured a knuckle and been unable to play piano.'
'And that would cost the club,' Nudger said.
'That's right. Hollister packs in the paying customers and helps fatten my bank account.'
'Heartless capitalist,' Nudger said, only half joking.
'I've got a heart,' Sievers said with a grin. 'It just happens to be stony and cold.' They'd reached an intersection. 'You going to the club?'
'No,' Nudger said, 'my hotel. It's the other way.'
'Okay,' Sievers said. 'I guess I'll see you at the club later.'
'You will,' Nudger told him, and watched him walk away. Sievers walked with a measured, smooth military erectness that, from a distance, made him appear much taller than he was. It was a walk that suggested control and efficiency. As he reached the next corner, the traffic light seemed to change just for him, and he crossed the intersection without breaking stride.
Probably, Nudger thought, he was humming any number of tunes, all of which were 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'
VI
You're no jazz-magazine writer,' Willy Hollister said to Nudger, in a small back room of Fat Jack's club. It wasn't exactly a dressing room, though at times it served as such. It was a sort of all-purpose place where quick costume changes were made and breaks were taken between sets. The room's pale green paint was faded and peeling, and a steam pipe jutted from floor to ceiling against one wall. Halfway up the pipe was a large paint-caked valve handle that looked as if it hadn't been turned in decades. Yellowed show posters featuring jazz greats were taped here and there on the walls behind the odd assortment of worn furniture. Duke Ellington, Bessie Smith, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong. The room was filled with the mingled scents of stale booze and tobacco smoke.
'But I am a jazz fan,' Nudger said. 'Enough of one to know how good you are, and that you play piano in a way that wasn't self-taught.' He smiled. 'I'll bet you can even read music.'
'You have to read music,' Hollister said haughtily, 'to graduate from the Juilliard School of Music.'
Impressive. Even Nudger knew that Juilliard graduates weren't slouches. You had to be able to whistle Beethoven's Fifth all the way through even to get into the place. 'So you have a classical-music background,' he said to Hollister.
Hollister shrugged. 'That's nothing rare; lots of jazz musicians have classical-music roots. You oughta know that, jazz man that you claim to be.'
Nudger studied Hollister as the pianist spoke. Offstage he appeared older. His blond hair was thinning on top and his features were losing their boyishness, becoming craggy. His complexion had an unhealthy nicotine-stain hue to it. Up close, there was a coarseness to Hollister that belied his elegant stage presence. He was a hunter, this boy was. Life's sad wisdom was in his eyes, resting on haunches and ready to spring.
The door opened and Marty Sievers poked his head in, glanced around as if looking for someone, then gave Nudger and Hollister a smile and a little half-salute and withdrew. Nudger wondered if Sievers had been listening outside and perhaps been forced by someone's presence to open the door and look in to avoid the appearance of eavesdropping.
'How well do you know Ineida Mann?' Nudger asked.
'Well enough to know you've been bothering her,' Hollister replied, with the bored yet wary expression of an animal sunning itself on a rock. 'We don't know what your angle is, but I suggest you stop pestering Ineida.' He seemed almost lulled by his own smug confidence. 'Don't bother trying to get any information out of me, either.'
'No angle,' Nudger said. 'I'm interested in jazz.'
'Among other things.'
'Sure; like most people, I have more than one interest.'
'Not like me, though,' Hollister said. 'My only interest is my music. You might call it my consuming passion.'
'What about Miss Mann?'
'I told you that's none of your business. You don't listen worth a damn.' Hollister stood up, neatly but ineffectively snubbed out the cigarette he'd been smoking, and seemed to relish leaving it to smolder to death slowly in the ashtray. 'I've got a number coming up in a few minutes.' He tucked in his Fat Jack's T-shirt and looked severe, squaring his shoulders. Obviously this was threat time. 'I don't particularly want to see you anymore, Nudger. Whoever, whatever you are, it doesn't mean burned grits to me as long as you leave Ineida alone.'
'You shouldn't joke about grits south of the Mason- Dixon line.'
'You're the only one taking it as a joke,' Hollister said, moving toward the door.
'Before you leave,' Nudger said, 'can I have your autograph?'
Incredibly, far from being insulted by this sarcasm, Hol- lister scrawled his signature on a nearby folded newspaper and tossed it to Nudger, as if it were of great value and might serve as a bribe to keep Nudger away from Ineida. Nudger took that as a measure of the man's artistic ego, and despite himself he was impressed. All the ingredients of greatness resided in Willy Hollister, along with something else.
Nudger stuck the folded newspaper in his sportcoat pocket and walked back out into the club. He peered through the throng of jazz lovers and saw Fat Jack at the bar. The crowd was lively tonight, lots of talk and laughter, and there seemed to be a larger than usual percentage of females. Maybe it was ladies' night.
Marty Sievers was leaning with his back against a wall near the stage, his gaze sliding back and forth over the crowd.
Sidling around a knot of revelers, Nudger made his way across the dim room toward the leviathan form of Fat Jack, so they could talk before Hollister's next set. Just then he spotted Ineida across the room. She was wearing a sequined green blouse that set off her dark hair and eyes and gave her a faintly Gypsy air. Nudger regretted that she couldn't sing as good as she looked. She glanced at him sloe-eyed, recognized him, and quickly turned away to listen to a graying, bearded man who was one of the party at her table. He seemed pleased and surprised by her sudden interest; he removed a curve-stemmed pipe from his mouth, and began to gesture knowingly with it as pipe smokers habitually do. Nudger wondered if his own IQ would rise if he took up smoking a pipe.
'Hey, Nudger,' Fat Jack said, when Nudger had reached the bar, 'you sure you know what you're doing, old sleuth? You ain't exactly pussyfooting. Ineida asked me about you, said you'd bothered her at home. Hollister asked me who you were. The precinct captain asked me the same question. I feel like I'm on 'The Joker's Wild' and you're
