was around here till at least six. Why?'
'Billy Weep was killed between those times.'
Fat Jack shook his head. 'It isn't likely Hollister could have killed Billy and made it back to town here in time for work. Possible, but it would take some tight planning and an airline that flew on time. I say he had nothing to do with Billy's death, which is some relief.'
Nudger had to agree with Fat Jack. Death and taxes were sure, but airline departures were something else.
'What now?' Fat Jack asked. 'A talk with Ineida?'
'I don't think that would change anything,' Nudger said. 'It just might hurry things along.'
Fat Jack sighed, tapped meaty knuckles on the desk. 'You're right, she wouldn't believe anything we told her about Hollister.'
'And we have no proof. Whatever we told her might not be true.'
'I'd heard you were an optimist,' Fat Jack said. Pat, pat, went his knuckles on the desk. Each time he moved his hand, his ring sent a bright spot of reflected light dancing across a wall, a live thing trapped in two dimensions.
'What about laying all this out for her father?' Nudger asked.
Fat Jack's eyes actually rolled in terror. 'No, no! He mustn't know she's gotten in this position working here at the club while I'm supposed to be looking out for her. Hey, there's no telling what Collins would do. To Hollister, to any of us.' He seemed to consider the possibilities for a moment, then rolled his eyes again and said, 'God, no, don't go to Collins.'
Nudger thought Fat Jack had made himself clear on that point. 'Do you have any other ideas?' he asked.
'Monitor the situation,' Fat Jack said. 'And I'll do the same while Hollister and Ineida are here at the club. Meanwhile, keep trying to find out more about Hollister; maybe if we get some dirt on him we can convince him to leave Ineida alone, do his gig, and then move on.'
'We're talking about murder here,' Nudger reminded him.
'And maybe murder-to-be,' Fat Jack said. 'We gotta look out for our own skins in this situation.'
Fat Jack had a persuasive argument there, thought potential victim-to-be Nudger.
'Hey, we got a right to live,' Fat Jack said with deep conviction.
'Everything alive has that,' Nudger told him. 'But look what happens.'
XVIII
Nudger returned to his hotel room after leaving Fat Jack's, where he sat on the edge of the bed, stared at the telephone, and listened to the resonant thrumming of elevator cables in an adjacent shaft. It was a hollow, forlorn sound, an echo of isolation. Distant train whistles had nothing on elevator cables when it came to loneliness.
He knew why he wanted to call Claudia. He missed her suddenly, achingly, and he realized that he hadn't been away from her for any appreciable length of time or distance since they'd met. But that wasn't the real reason he needed to talk with her.
He looked at his watch. Almost four o'clock. She might not be home from the school by now; calling her would be a gamble. She had a tangle of traffic to fight on Highway 40 in her long drive in from the county.
He decided not to wait, and pulled the phone over to his lap to punch out the switchboard number for direct long distance.
On the second ring, Claudia answered her phone.
'Is something wrong?' she asked, when she realized it was Nudger.
'There's always something wrong,' he said. 'That's what keeps me working at least sporadically.'
She caught something in his voice, paused. 'How come you called?' Wily woman.
'I love you. I miss you. I wanted to hear your voice and for you to hear mine.'
'It's just like you to get homesick, Nudger, but not at all like you to admit it.' The phone line sizzled and crackled in Nudger's ear. He waited. 'Are you becoming involved with Ineida Studd?'
'That's Ineida Mann and you know it. And no, I'm not getting involved with her in the way you suggest.' Nudger was surprised by her intuition; she was on target but off the mark. 'Ineida is a tragic, naive child poised on the edge of the abyss; not my idea of a sex object.'
'I'm sure your interest in her is strictly fatherly.'
'Grandfatherly,' Nudger said.
'Last time we talked you described it as avuncular.'
'So I did.'
He could hear Claudia breathing into the phone. Claudia and phones; he had met her over the phone, fallen in love with her via electronic impulse. 'I trust you, Nudger.' She didn't tell him that lightly, he knew.
Nudger thought it best not to say anything. He heard a hollow, rolling sound on the line. It took him a few seconds to identify it as thunder.
'It's going to storm in St. Louis,' Claudia said. 'It'll cool things off. Is it hot there?'
'Hot as the music; not a hint of relief. This is an unreal place, as exotic as Zanzibar. It's so swampy here they inter their dead aboveground. The cemeteries look like miniature cities without windows or traffic.'
'They buried your friend Billy Weep today. I saw it on the television news in the school lounge when I was at lunch. Benjamin Harrison Jefferson.'
'What?'
'That was Billy Weep's real name. Didn't you know that?'
'No. He told me it was something else, a long time ago.'
'They showed part of the service on the news. A man named Rush read a eulogy. And somebody played a blues number on the saxophone. It was sadder than a funeral march.'
'He wasn't laid out at the funeral parlor for very long,' Nudger said.
'I don't think he was laid out at all. He died indigent. The musicians' union paid for his burial.'
'Was there anything else on the news about him? Such as who might have killed him?'
'No.'
Nudger wasn't surprised. The living weren't particularly interested anymore in Billy Weep, probably hadn't been since he'd stopped making music that saddened them but reminded them they were alive. Nudger stared out the window at the soft, slanted early evening light. Painters and photographers lived for this time of day; it was too bad the world really wasn't the way it appeared in such a light.
'Billy Weep's death is connected with what's going on in New Orleans, isn't it?' Claudia said.
'I think so.'
'Are you… being careful?'
'More than is necessary.' He knew that she understood his caution was for both of them. She held her silence. Their wordless mutual understanding was more of a declaration of love than if either of them had professed love. Their relationship had evolved into this while neither of them was watching. That was the trap people fell into.
'Are you in any kind of imminent danger, Nudger?'
'Sure I am. And I'm scared. But that's the way of my half-assed occupation.'
'You're always honest, anyway.'
The dark worm of conscience writhed in Nudger.
'We're running up your phone bill,' Claudia said. 'Are you on an expense account?'
'I'm told that I am, but what I'm told and reality in this city seldom seem to match. It's been that way since I've been down here. Maybe it's something in the grits.'
'The rain's started here now; it's blowing in and getting the floor wet. I'd better go close the window.'
'Are you trying to get rid of me?'
'I'm trying not to need you so much. You and the mop.'
'I might call you again tomorrow around this time,' Nudger told her.
'Or you might not. Either way, I'll be here.'
