"Who's he involved with now?"
"I have no idea." She laughed. "Maybe he's resting; he must sometime."
"Have you heard anything about Sandra Reckoner taking her own lovers while Max is busy?"
Judy lifted her narrow shoulders in an elegant shrug. "I've heard stories about her. So what? If the stories are true, I don't blame her."
"Ever hear of her being involved in kinky sex?" Nudger asked.
"Why, Mr. Nudger, you're beginning to sound like a dirty old man."
Old? Nudger winced. But he knew that to Judy, he was old. So much depended on perspective. It was what made his job difficult.
"But no," Judy said, "I never heard anything like that about her. But then, maybe it's true and I just haven't heard about it."
She turned her head suddenly. They had reached the streetcar stop on St. Charles just in time. With a loud clinking and metallic squeaking of springs, a top-heavy, large box with square windows was swaying around the corner two blocks down.
"I would like for my husband not to know about this conversation, Mr. Nudger. I don't want old coals raked over."
"Gerald won't know. Fat Jack won't know."
"I hope your word really is good in all seasons."
"Oh, it is." The streetcar had stopped for passengers down the block and now was gliding toward them, moving smoothly for such an awkward object. "Is there really one?" Nudger asked.
"One what?"
"A streetcar named Desire."
"There was when Tennessee Williams made it famous. It's a bus route now, Mr. Nudger. Desire is a street." She dug into her white straw purse for change.
"Some street," Nudger said.
"Some street," she agreed.
"I'd appreciate your word that you won't tell Ineida or Willy Hollister about this conversation," Nudger said.
She smiled. "You have it. I won't tell Sandra Reckoner, either."
"Sandra Reckoner?"
"She's the one you really wanted to learn about, not Ineida."
The streetcar swayed to a stop in front of her. It was dirty dark green trimmed in red. The folding front door hissed open.
"Are you a student of psychology at Loyola," Nudger asked, "or do you teach it?"
She nodded good-night to him as she climbed up into the streetcar. He watched through the lighted windows as she paid her fare and found a seat. She didn't look out at him as the streetcar pulled smoothly away and with a faint whine of metal on strained metal continued down St. Charles.
Nudger watched it until it disappeared around a curve, orange sparks flaring from the overhead wire that gave it life.
Desire is a street, all right, he thought.
XX
After talking with the too-perceptive Judy Villanova, Nudger returned to Fat Jack's club for his car, then drove the red subcompact back to the Hotel Majestueux. Some of the streets were rough cobblestone, original New Orleans; he considered clamping a wadded handkerchief in his teeth to keep from losing a filling.
Apparently there was some sort of convention going on at the hotel; several people in identical green blazers were milling about on the sidewalk outside the entrance, and Nudger couldn't find a parking space within two blocks.
He made sure he wasn't in a no-parking zone, locked the car, and started walking back to the hotel. Passing a man and woman who were also wearing green blazers, he saw that they had large plastic nameplates pinned to their lapels that identified them as real estate agents. The women's nameplate read, "Hi, friend, I'M MINDY." She smiled brightly at Nudger, then saw that his jacket was not green but brown, and looked away.
Two paces past her, Nudger stopped and stood still. There was a large man standing alone in the light beneath the hotel's gold canopy. He was staring idly out toward the street as he touched a match to a stubby cigar clamped between his teeth.
Nudger took a few tentative steps closer to make sure of the man's identity.
He hadn't been mistaken; the big man was Dwayne Frick. And probably Frick was waiting for him; there were better places to smoke a cigar than out on the sidewalk surrounded by real estate salespeople in currency-green blazers.
But wasn't real estate a safe investment? Among all those people, he could walk right past Frick without fear of physical harm or another unsettling conversation.
On the other hand, Nudger didn't have to walk past Frick at all. Frick didn't even have to see him. The big man didn't figure to stand out in front of the hotel all evening. Nudger slipped an antacid tablet into his mouth; it might be a good idea to go someplace and get a bland late-night snack to help settle his stomach. Come to think of it, he was even a little hungry.
He turned to walk to his car and bounced back several feet off the massive chest of Rocko Boudreau. Frack.
"Nice that we should bump into each other, eh?" Frack said. He was witty tonight. He wasn't smiling; he had his right hand resting on Nudger's shoulder, ever so gently. But that could change instantly.
Nudger quickly chewed and swallowed his antacid tablet, before Frack did anything that might make him choke on it.
Frack bent slightly to sniff Nudger's minty breath. "Stomach tablets again? You must live on them things. Maybe me and Frick can arrange for you to see a doctor, get some real medicine." Now he smiled his creepy, shadowy smile at Nudger, and his grip on Nudger's shoulder tightened slightly. It felt like the first quarter turn of a vise. Obviously, Frack wanted Nudger to stay still and not give any sign that he was under duress. Nudger decided it would be easier to obey than not. Where did he have to go, anyway?
"The world is in too much of a hurry, the way I see it," Frack said. "Ain't no point in you adding to all that moving around." The eerie smile again. "World'd be better off if lots of folks just laid themselves down and stayed still forever."
Nudger might have debated that point if fear hadn't welded his tongue to the roof of his mouth. He forgot about Frack's doctor remark; he knew what Frack meant by "still forever."
A black Lincoln sedan pulled to the curb next to them and the driver reached over with a ham-sized hand and opened the passenger side door. Frick must have driven around the block. He glanced up at Nudger before straightening again behind the steering wheel. "Ah, hello, my friend," he said in his syrupy Cajun accent. His diamond- chip gray eyes picked up the dim green light of the dashboard and looked catlike. Nudger felt no warmth from the greeting as Frack shoved a hip into him to guide him into the passenger's seat.
When Nudger was seated, Frack slammed the door, then got in back directly behind Nudger. Nudger wondered if Frack had a gun, then decided it hardly made a difference; that industrial-strength hand was back on his shoulder.
There was a muffled, not-quite-synchronized series of clicks as Frick locked all the Lincoln's doors with the driver's controls, then he shifted his massive bulk beside Nudger to check the rearview mirror, and the car pulled away from the curb. The knots of green-jacketed people, engrossed in trading techniques for steering clients away from faulty furnaces and toward acceptable mortgage financing, gave no sign that anyone had noticed Nudger's skillfully contrived abduction.
"I suppose you wonder where we're taking you," Frick said, making a smooth right turn onto a dark street.
"Not until this very instant," Nudger told him. He was surprised by his flash of what he knew to be temporary bravado. It was obvious that nothing was going to happen to him until they reached their destination. That brief stretch of time looked long and luxurious to a man who thought his life might be at stake. Nudger could feel and appreciate the preciousness of each passing second, almost as if he could reach out and caress time. Einstein knew what he was talking about when he said time was relative and passed faster when you were with your best girl than when you sat down by mistake on a hot stove. That Einstein.