The Right To Sing the Blues (27 page)
Read The Right To Sing the Blues Online
Authors: John Lutz
He showered, dressed quickly, and began to pack.
Two days after Nudger got home, he found a flat, padded package with a New Orleans postmark in his mail. He placed it on his desk and cautiously opened it.
The package contained two items: a check from David Collins made out to Nudger for more than twice the amount of Fat Jack’s uncollectible fee; and an old blues record in its original wrapper, a fifties rendition of “You Got the Reach but Not the Grasp.”
It featured Fat Jack McGee on clarinet.
THE RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES:
by John Lutz
rom the beginning I thought my home town of St. Louis was the perfect city for a detective like Nudger. It’s a major city with a small town inferiority com
plex—not so much now, but certainly at the time this novel was written. St. Louisans, when traveling, felt a pang of hesitation before answering the question “Where are you from?” We feared the commiseration of those from Chi-town or L.A. or San Fran, or vacation spots like Miami or Las Vegas, or Eden-like places such as San Diego, where there is no bad weather; but most of all from NEW YORK CITY.
Not that St. Louis wasn’t and isn’t a great city to live in. In fact, it now enjoys a pretty good tourist trade with folks who’ve discovered its treasures and think it’s a fine place to vacation. But it’s long had the reputation of being a place not to be. Tennessee Williams liked it not at all and got out. As did T.S. Eliot. Three of Hemingway’s wives were
from
St. Louis. If they could visit it now, I suspect they would feel differently.
But I thought it might be a good idea for Nudger to get out of St. Louis for a while, to do a little traveling. And where better for a hapless struggler of a P.I. than New Orleans, the city of the blues? Nudger is, after all, a guy who lives the blues. We all now and then have one of those days, but Nudger is having one of those lives. Besides, I had always liked New Orleans myself, so I figured it would be a cinch that Nudger would.
So,
The Right to Sing the Blues
explores the connections between people in both those cities on the Mississippi, people with problems and secrets. Most of both relate to a piano player whose music is on the side of the angels but whose life away from the keyboard runs more toward deviltry; and a beautiful young singer who doesn’t notice the distinction.
I hope in this novel I’ve captured some of the tradition and flavor, and some of the commonalties, in these two intriguing cities. The past is very much alive in both, and haunts the mood and the people.
People who live the blues.
Nudger’s people.
Nudger.
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