Читать онлайн «The right to sing the blues»

Nudger belched and said, " 'S'cuse me. "

"You want some more coffee, Nudge?"

Danny asked, pausing as he wiped down the stainless-steel counter with the grayish towel he usually kept tucked in his belt. He looked over at Nudger with his somber basset-hound eyes, concerned eyes. "Maybe it'd help to settle your stomach. "

Maybe it would eat a hole through my entire digestive tract, Nudger thought. But he said, "No, thanks, Danny," and thumbed back the foil on a roll of antacid tablets. He popped one of the chalky white disks into his mouth and gazed down at what was left of his Danny's Dunker Delite before him on the counter.

He was eating breakfast at Danny's Donuts because Danny would let him postpone payment indefinitely. For this Nudger was grateful. But he had braved a Dunker Delite four mornings in a row now, and he was afraid that if this culinary daring continued, he'd begin to look like one of the formidable specials served at Danny's Donuts; he might become as round and polysaturated as a Dunker Delite, and not nearly so hard.

He lifted his foam cup to take a sip of Danny's horrendous coffee and wished the private-investigation business would pick up. Didn't sultry blondes in distress wander into PIs' offices anymore? Then talk a while, pout a while, flirt a while, and pay a generous retainer?

Of course, he might never find out unless he went upstairs to his office. Not much business of any kind was transpiring here at Danny's counter.

Nudger didn't feel like trudging upstairs to his bare desk, inanity-loaded answering machine, dusty file cabinets, and silent phone. It all reminded him of the overdue rent.

Danny knew why Nudger was breakfasting at the doughnut shop. "Things'll get better, Nudge," he said, expertly snapping the towel to flick a stubborn crumb off the counter. There was no one else in the place, and hadn't been since the last secretary from the building across the street had left with her grease-spotted box of a dozen glazed to-go.

"Unless there's a noose at the end of the rope," Nudger said.

Danny ignored him and drew himself a large cup of coffee from the big steel urn. He had a frequent-user's immunity to the stuff. "Like last year, when our esteemed landlord was about to evict me," he said, leaning on the counter and testing the steaming coffee with his fingertip. "I really thought I was gonna have to toss in the towel, then along came the cream horns. "

Nudger looked up from his coffee. "Cream horns?"

"Yeah, a thousand of 'em. This little gal who worked at the K-Mart up the street used to come down here every day and buy one of my cream horns for her lunch. She loved the things. Then I didn't see her for a while, and I heard she got engaged to some rich lawyer out in Ladue. Well, she wanted my cream horns served at her wedding reception. She came in here the week before the wedding and placed an order for a thousand cream horns. Saved my business. "