Clinton said, “I’m looking for Berry-berry Williams.”

“Not here,” the old man said, his eyes on a magazine.

“When does he generally get back?” The old man did not seem to hear this question. Clinton said, “Can I use his room to wait for him in? I’m his brother.”

The clerk looked at him quickly. “He ain’t got a room here n’more. He give it up.”

“Well, where’d he move to?”

The clerk shrugged his shoulders. Then he looked into a dime-store ledger that served as a register. “Left on Friday,” he said. “Just paid up and left.”

“You mean—town? He left town?”

“That’d be my guess. But I don’t know one way or the other.”

“Then why would that be your guess, that he left town?”

The clerk leaned over and took off a shoe. He put his hand inside of it, felt it with his fingers. ” ‘Cause if I’d been him, I woulda.”

“Why?”

The clerk, still exploring the inside of his shoe, glanced at Clinton through narrowed eyes. “You say you’re his brother?”

“I am his brother.” Clinton was ready to defend this point, if necessary.

“What you do,” asked the clerk, “come down here from up North?”

Clinton nodded. “Cleveland.”

“Just to see him?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothin’. ‘Cept he idden here. That’s all.”

“Look, it’s very important, I got to find him.”

The clerk placed the shoe on the floor in front of him. “I’d try the jail,” he said.

“The jail?” Clinton stood there for a moment, watching as the clerk tied his shoe. “So you think maybe he’s in jail, huh?”

“Tell you what you do, go to the fellow at the desk. Name’s Ramírez. He’s the lieutenant. You go to Ramírez and ask him where Berry-berry is.” The clerk enjoyed giving these directions. “Don’t even have to give his last name, just say Berry-berry. They all know him over there.”

The Key Bonita jail is on a short lane called Hawthorne Alley, two and a half blocks from the Tin Pot Arms Hotel. It is a one-story affair, made of stone, old, run-down, illuminated by fluorescent lights. Three young policemen, in short-sleeved summer uniforms open at the throat, lounged on benches inside the front door. A somewhat older man, swarthy and black-haired, with a thin, suave mustache, was seated at a desk in the far corner of the room.

When Clinton entered the place, the three younger men did not look at him, but he knew they were aware of him. He walked up to the desk, where the mustached officer was shouting into a telephone. The officer, as he continued his conversation, studied Clinton from head to foot, but his manner was impersonal. Then he hung up and went on looking at the boy, waiting for him to speak.

“I’m lookin’ for Berry-berry Williams,” Clinton said. “I’m his brother.”

The lieutenant spoke in a loud voice so that the other policemen would hear: “This kid’s lookin’ for his brother: Berry-berry Williams.”