“I was thinking more about a redhead,” I said.

“I guess he could use a few of them too.” Her eyes, it seemed to me, were not so vague now. “I don’t call to mind. Any special redhead?”

“Yes. A girl named Velma. I don’t know what last name she used except that it wouldn’t be her real one. I’m trying to trace her for her folks. Your place on Central is a colored place now, although they haven’t changed the name, and of course the people there never heard of her. So I thought of you.”

“Her folks taken their time getting around to it — looking for her,” the woman said thoughtfully.

“There’s a little money involved. Not much. I guess they have to get her in order to touch it. Money sharpens the memory.”

“So does liquor,” the woman said. “Kind of hot today, ain’t it? You said you was a copper though.” Cunning eyes, steady attentive face. The feet in the man’s slippers didn’t move.

I held up the dead soldier and shook it. Then I threw it to one side and reached back on my hip for the pint of bond bourbon the Negro hotel clerk and I had barely tapped. I held it out on my knee. The woman’s eyes became fixed in an incredulous stare. Then suspicion climbed all over her face, like a kitten, but not so playfully.

“You ain’t no copper,” she said softly. “No copper ever bought a drink of that stuff. What’s the gag, mister?”

She blew her nose again, on one of the dirtiest handkerchiefs I ever saw. Her eyes stayed on the bottle. Suspicion fought with thirst, and thirst was winning. It always does.

“This Velma was an entertainer, a singer. You wouldn’t know her? I don’t suppose you went there much.”

Seaweed colored eyes stayed on the bottle. A coated tongue coiled on her lips.

“Man, that’s liquor,” she sighed. “I don’t give a damn who you are. Just hold it careful, mister. This ain’t no time to drop anything.”

She got up and waddled out of the room and come back with two thick smeared glasses.