Free The Right To Sing the Blues by John Lutz Page A

all about David Collins in New Orleans?”
    “There are people who are connected in every major city,” Hammersmith said. “Upper-echelon cops everywhere know who they are, or at least should know, because crime is an interstate business.”
    Nudger’s stomach lurched into fiery contortions, almost doubling him over in his chair. “ ‘Connected,’ you said? ‘Business,’ you said?”
    Hammersmith nodded. “I said.” He carefully angled the cigar in the glass ashtray so it wouldn’t go out, then squinted through the smoke, trying to gauge the effect of his words on Nudger.
    “You mean the Mafia?” Nudger asked.
    Hammersmith shrugged. “Who can say for sure? But whatever or whoever runs things in a big way has an umbrella over Collins. Don’t try to rain on him, Nudge.”
    “I’m not,” Nudger said. “Well, not exactly. Maybe just a fine mist.”
    Hammersmith grunted dubiously, picked up his cigar, and resumed his smokestack act, leaving Nudger to his own dire thoughts.
    A few minutes later there was a respectful light knock on the door and a pimply-faced young civilian clerk entered the office and placed a yellow file folder on Hammersmith’s desk. He withdrew quickly, almost genuflecting, and Hammersmith opened the folder and read for several minutes before speaking again to Nudger. Nudger noticed that his old partner was leaning back from the material on his desk and wondered if Hammersmith had reached the age where he needed glasses.
    Still without looking up, Hammersmith scratched a jowly, smooth-shaven cheek and said, “Jacqueline Jamison,
    a.k.a. Jacqui James, was reported missing January twenty-fourth, four years ago. Female Caucasian, twenty-six years old then, average height and weight, auburn hair and green eyes, no distinguishing marks, last seen wearing a white cotton blouse, blue cotton skirt, blah, blah, blah.”
    “Who reported her missing?” Nudger asked, trying to envision a cotton blah, blah, blah.
    “Says here the apartment manager where she lived, a Miss Irma Gorman, address over on Alabama Avenue. Jacqui James hadn’t paid her rent or been seen for a while, so Irma Gorman took legal steps to get her possessions out of the apartment so she could rent it to another tenant.”
    “What did the investigation turn up?” Nudger asked.
    “Ah, here we get to Jacqui James close up and personal. A show-biz type on the fringes. She worked around town as a singer, had no close family, and drug paraphernalia was found in her apartment. Also, she had an arrest record. Two controlled-substance charges and one misdemeanor— shoplifting under a hundred dollars. Suspended sentences, never served time for anything. Minor stuff, Nudge.”
    “What kind of singer?”
    “I never caught her act,” Hammersmith said. “I’m no judge of talent anyway. But the report says she sang opera and blues. Humph!”
    “Is there a photograph in the file?” Nudger asked. Hammersmith nodded, turning the open file folder on the desk so Nudger could see inside. Jacqui James looked young and fresh except for her
    eyes, which harbored a subtle sadness. Her black-and-white snapshot was slightly out of focus, and she stared out of the file folder at Nudger through a kind of haze, maybe the sun in the camera lens. There were trees and a small lake in the background. She was an ordinary-looking young woman, with a pretty, oval face. If she wasn’t the Ineida Collins type, she was far from the opposite.
    “Was she ever reported seen anywhere after the landlady said she was missing?” Nudger asked.
    Hammersmith closed the file folder and shook his head. “No, this MP report is the last of Jacqui James in St. Louis as far as the police are concerned. And frankly, Nudge, she’s not the sort of MP who’s searched for around every corner. She was a known user and worked irregularly as an entertainer. Those people tend to be transient. Night people. It’s not unusual for them to disappear with the morning light. Maybe